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INT. TOOZIE’S DORMITORY ROOM – NIGHT

Toozie is back on her bed, surfing for porn on her laptop again.

At the top of the screen are the words “Browsing via anonymized proxy server.” She types into the URL bar VOREKINGDOM.SITE

More flipping through vore images until she stops on one in particular.

Toozie’s face is one of intent concentration.

On the screen is a high-resolution photograph. It is a reverse angle of the moment when SWAT Officer #2 muttered “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” at the scene of the terrorist attack.

SWAT Officer #2 is visible in the background of the photo, as are the legs of the Sacrifice vanishing into the feeding siphon of the Gynophage.

Toozie downloads the photograph, opens a terminal window on her computer and types in “search photo metadata.”

A time and a set of GPS coordinates appear on the screen.

Toozie types in “locate coordinates.”

A map appears on the screen. In the center of the map is a building labeled OIKOS GALENOU.

TOOZIE

(to herself)

Great Cthulhu.

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INT. A TABLE IN THE COLLEGE LIBRARY – DAY

Toozie is watching the Mediatrix’s news conference on her phone, listening in on earbuds. She replays the last exchange between the Mediatrix and Reporter #3, then writes something in a notebook.

Toozie looks something up in an old English-Greek lexicon, then writes more on her notebook page.

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INT. A TABLE IN THE COLLEGE LIBRARY – DAY

Toozie is watching the Mediatrix’s news conference on her phone, listening in on earbuds. She replays the last exchange between the Mediatrix and Reporter #3, then writes something in a notebook.

Toozie looks something up in an old English-Greek lexicon, then writes more on her notebook page.

On the page, there are various notes on “theme of sacrifice,” a sketch of a tentacle monster, and then the end of Toozie’s phrase completing the words “house of Galen” = οἶκος Γαληνόυ = oikos galenou.

Toozie stares at the notebook for a moment.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

Toozie’s honors thesis defense.

Toozie sits at a desk faces Professors Lee, MAZZINI, and ROSENBLUM at a table. Bound copies of Toozie’s honors thesis are on her desk and the professors’ table. All of Toozie and the three professors are quite formally dressed.

Arrayed behind Toozie are various friends and curious lookers-on. They include Chad, Miranda, and Sherman as well as other students. They are rather less formally dressed.

PROFESSOR LEE

Well, Miss Chen, we have certainly come a long way together.

(smiles)

Now clearly for a thesis of this quality there’s little doubt but that you will be taking away highest honors, but obviously it would scarcely be fair if my colleagues and I didn’t get at least one last volley at you before you go on to greater things.

There is a round of light laughter from the audience.

PROFESSOR LEE

I believe that Professor Mazzini has the first question here.

PROFESSOR MAZZINI

Thank you, Professor Lee. Miss Chen, I was wondering if you could expand a bit on your claim in Chapter Three that there are direct parallels between the trope of human sacrifice in classical civilization and that in twentieth-century America.

TOOZIE

Certainly, Professor Mazzini. I think it is important to note that when we speak of “the Greeks” especially we are talking about the civilization of fourth and fifth century Athens. This is a civilization that was sophisticated, wealthy, urban, culturally and intellectually advanced. Much like ours. And much like ours, it did not make an explicit practice of human sacrifice. But they were clearly very interested in human sacrifice as a cultural trope.

PROFESSOR MAZZINI

Iphigenia, for instance.

TOOZIE

Iphigenia is probably the best known example. Another well-known one was the youths and maidens of Athens sent as sacrifices to the Minotaur. Other sacrifices, such as the sacrifice of the daughters of Leos are less well-known but very much on point and of significance to the Athenians: Demosthenes, for example, prominently mentions the sacrifice of the daughters of Leos in his Funeral Oration.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

A STUDENT in the audience raises her hand. Professor Lee recognizes her.

PROFESSOR LEE

There is a question, yes?

STUDENT

Excuse me, but could fill me in on who the daughters of Leos were?

TOOZIE

Their names were Praxithea, Theopoe, and Eubule.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

A SACRED GROVE IN ANCIENT GREECE WITH AN ALTAR

TOOZIE (V.O.)

They obeyed an utterance from the oracle at Delphi to allow themselves to be sacrificed to save Athens from a plague. Demosthenes would compare their bravery to that of soldiers who had died fighting for their city.

A nude PRAXITHEA lies face down across a gore-spattered altar. THEOPE removes her chiton and kneels nude on the altar while her sister Eubule stands in the background, her head bowed, waiting her turn.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

LEOS, an older man, places a curved-bladed bronze knife across Theope’s throat so that its point hooks behind her left ear. Theope bows her head and closes her eyes.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

Leos yanks the blade across Theope’s throat, severing the major blood vessels of her neck. Theope collapses in a spray of arterial blood.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

BACK TO SCENE

TOOZIE

The point is, they are very much like us in a significant way, these Greeks, both in the kind of civilizations we both have and in our interest in human sacrifice, although in our society this interest evolves not through myths but through popular culture: in the weird menace fiction of the 1930s, in a muted form in the monster-chasing-girl science fiction of the 1950s, and back again in a more potent form in the slasher movies of the 1970s and 1980s.

PROFESSOR ROSENBLUM

But why this fascination?

TOOZIE

I must speculate.

PROFESSOR ROSENBLUM

Please.

TOOZIE

In archaic times human sacrifices, if they took place at all, were made to Gods. In contemporary times, we have practices we shy away from calling human sacrifices, but in reality what has really changed is that in the place of gods who had names — Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and so on — we have abstractions: Progress, Economic Development, National Security and so on, and we make our sacrifices to them. We sacrifice men by calling them up for military service in war, or by chaining them to machines some of which will kill them. Fritz Lang was an artist who intuited this: do you remember the “Moloch” scene in Metropolis?

The Professor nods.

TOOZIE

Women, by the way, are sacrificed in childbirth or in caring for others. However you want to add it up, civilization is founded on shed blood. The Greeks understood this explicitly. We don’t — most of the time. We like to go around saying things like “people have human rights” and “every individual is equally and infinitely precious.” But sentiments like these are really just our civilization’s public relations work on itself. They aren’t true, and at some level we know they aren’t true. Our own literature or paraliterature of sacrifice reconnects us with the fundamental and awful truth about our world and as such provide us with the thrill of forbidden knowledge, which is surely one reason why we find it all so entertaining.

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INT. A COLLEGE EXAMINATION ROOM – DAY

The professors applaud, followed by the audience. Toozie takes a sip of water and smiles.

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