Scapegoat

Azazel looked out of her classroom window, watching the birds and the skylines. It

was before class started but after the warning bell rang. Students slowly started to

stream in, like tired fish who had nowhere else to go.

Azazel’s classroom was the best-lit in the school’s section. That wasn’t because of

the hanging lamps, of course not. It was because the windows faced directly where the

sun rose. She was sketching in her notebook, trying to draw her mind away from the

complexities of oceanography. No matter how many times she tried, her squiggles and

lines all looked like the delicate formations of complex waves she was reluctant to study.

So dedicated she was to her distraction that she overlooked Jaala until her head was

tilted upwards.

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

Jaala’s usual smile was replaced with a constant watchfulness around herself.

“Did you open that valve last week? The one we all evacuated over?”

Azazel scrunched her face. “Pardon?”

“You know the one I’m talking about. The one on the third deck.”

Azazel shook her head.

“…You should take responsibility for it anyway,” Jaala glanced around.

“Why should I? I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.”

Jaala didn’t make a noise, watching something beyond the classroom’s cabin. She

eventually patted Azazel’s shoulder, her mind elsewhere.

“Just take responsibility. You said it was your life’s purpose.”

Azazel scoffed, tapping her fingers against her notebook idly as Jaala left the

classroom. She sat up straighter, looking through the window once more and to the sea

below that rocked the ship.

She wasn’t one to get seasick or see hallucinations… yet, through the window’s

reflection, she swore she saw more than two eyes peering back at her. She didn’t dare

turn around. She kept staring at the reflections, waiting for them to look away.

“Hey! It’s the ship-masters!”

Azazel found herself following the herd toward the classroom’s door, peeking out

with the rest. She could see other students peeking out from their rooms, all staring at

the scene at the end of the hallway.

Indeed, the ship-masters were there, draped in their usual light yellow and blue

cloaks and accompanied by two chief-mates. They were silent; they always were, and in

their grasp was Jaala, but that didn’t make sense. It was March, not June. And, even if it

was June, why would they be picking a high-schooler?

“The sea rejects the young ichor.”

So, why was Jaala going? Feeling emboldened, Azazel started to approach the group.

“We know it’s one of the goats,” one of the chief-mates mumbled, “they just all look

alike. Can’t tell them apart.”

“Does it matter?” The other chimed in. “They’ve all got that nasty ichor. Why’d

Caspian agree to save them from their sinking boat anyway?”

“Goats have that sacrificial energy.”

They laughed, and Azazel had noticed her mistake. She tried hiding her horns with

her school’s uniform, but the ship-masters were already staring, Jaala limp in their

arms, bleeding from her missing horns.

Azazel had nightmares about the sight, staring right at the lifeless rectangles of

Jaala’s pupils. She often woke up curled, her hands instinctively covering her horns,

watching, waiting for the shadows to stare back at her like Jaala did. And, when they

didn’t, she got up, put on her uniform, and went to school on the second deck. As the

days progressed, she felt as if breathing was a struggle, and she was on the constant urge

of hurling, the rocking boat only worsening her case.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to come back,” Azazel whispered to her fellow goats.

“Then, maybe you should take responsibility,” Acestes insisted, “it’d be easier that

way.”

“There’s nothing to take responsibility for.”

“It doesn’t matter, you’re Azazel. Take after your namesake. Weren’t you so proud of

it at the naming ceremony?”

“That boat doesn’t exist anymore. Traditions like that died with it.”

“We still exist,” Nyala mentioned, “and Jaala still does. Her sins still linger. Who’s

gonna take them to sea? And the remaining sins that linger after the boat sank?”

“Azazels do,” Capella added.

Azazel stood up abruptly. “You’re all crazy!”

“They took Amalthea this morning,” Acestes mentioned.

“Shut up!”

“It’s the truth. Took her right out of her dorm. They said they got the wrong goat

with the letter A.” He scoffed and stood up, fixing his uniform. “I don’t feel like dying

because you refuse to fulfill Leviticus 16.”

He approached Azazel and placed his hands on her head, pressing downward.

“Take my sins.”

“Let go of me…”

“Can’t you do one thing right in your life?”

“I can’t breathe already, Acestes!”

“Jaala must’ve been a grave sinner, then. Who would’ve thought? Don’t worry, I’m

no grave sinner.”

“Might as well take ours too,” Nyala chimed in. “It’s not like you’re going to make it

for much longer.”

The group all took their turn pressing down on Azazel’s head, giving their sins to

her forcefully. She grew sick, on the verge of throwing up, and begged them to stop, but

they didn’t seem to care. Her horns grew bigger until there was no way she could hide

them. She went home, wept, and skipped the rest of the week.

When she came back, there was nobody there for her anymore. Her friends’ horns

were practically invisible, being hidden by their hair. Hers? Everybody could see them,

and every one did. They all stared, whispered, mocked. How could they not? They were

big and curled, and they just kept growing as the days progressed.

The worst stares were from the chief-mates. There seemed to be a sudden

abundance of them around the school. All watching, waiting, discussing, tracking. They

followed her to school, out of school, to the store, to her job, and they watched from the

windows.

She still tried to hide them, bringing her hands to her horns, trying to push them

back into her skull. She tried trimming them down, but got cold feet whenever she tried.

She was stuck with them, whether she liked it or not.

The rest of her days were miserable. People around her stopped talking and

acknowledging her. She didn’t exist anymore in their eyes, and when she did, they called

her a terrorist, saying they wished all her people were drowned during the sinking.

Perhaps, if they all died, they wouldn’t be inconvenienced.

Inconvenienced by what? She never knew.

When she returned to her dorm one day and found the ship-masters waiting for

her, she felt a strange sense of elation. They didn’t need to grab her. She followed them

up to the Bridge willingly.

She entered, and a chief-mate immediately approached her, knocking against her

horn.

“Caspian was right, you’ve got a bunch of ichor in there. Maybe you goats are worth

something after all.”

He went away and returned, dragging a grotesque creature by the horn.

“Here, a Capricorn. It’s a gift from Caspian.”

Azazel grabbed the creature from its horn. It was barely alive, a young kid crudely

attached to a fish. It bleated pathetically, seeking a release from its miserable existence.

“All praise to Caspian…,” Azazel whispered.

“All praise,” the room responded. The ship-masters bowed and led her to the aft-

deck.

Azazel couldn’t remember the last time she was exposed to the sea water. She was

only a child when her ship sank, and the smell of the sea was a fleeting memory. It was

salty, and faintly smelled like the Capricorn in her arms.

The sea was also beautiful from this angle. It continued far beyond her eyes, with

other ships sprinkled about. She wondered where they were all headed. If there was any

destination the ships hoped to reach.

She was so enraptured with the sea that she didn’t notice her horns had been

removed until the blood started to obscure her eyesight. She thought it would hurt, but

it didn’t feel like anything. It felt like… the thoughts in her head were slowly leaving her

brain.

Azazel looked at the Capricorn in her hands, and it looked back at her. She smiled

and was plunged into the darkness of the sea.