[hider=Sanath Marko]
Sanath Marko ingested his fifth dose of Kalma for the day, at 5:30pm, just like every other day. Nobody really knew why he did so, but then again nobody really spoke with him either. Only Sanath knew why he took chems, and he had no interest in sharing. He took them to stop the voices. They would creep into his mind, slowly at first, with barely a whisper between them. Then they would begin to speak. The first to speak was always the most relaxed, but its voice was like that of a plague-infested drunkard. It would drone on and on about how perfect Sanath was, how he should never change, never bathe, never move. As it spoke, Sanath would often find himself drifting off into a slumber, no matter the time of day. He had learned that smoking a lho-stick would please it enough to leave for the day. Then came the next voice. It shouted at him with the cry of a fierce hound, bellowing all the reasons why he should murder his neighbor, his brother, his father. Anyone and everyone he knew was brought up, with each reason more sensible and inviting than the last. Eventually this voice too with die down, in favor of one far more sinister and mysterious. This one contradicted the first, inviting him to change every aspect of himself, from dying his matte-brown hair to a bright shade of orange, and growing it out into a twisted knot, to giving up chems and joining the Guard. Each idea and suggestion grew more elaborate, twisted, and chaotic, until the voice faded into maniacal laughter and grew distant. The last voice was the worst. Vaguely feminine, but with enough masculinity to keep any potential gender ambiguous. It would howl and moan at him lustfully, taunting him with the names of chems, and inviting him to indulge in some of the most horrific pleasures imaginable. Only the chems, Kalma, lho-sticks, and others, would keep the voices pleased and relaxed. This would allow him to drift off into a dark sleep by about 8pm. This is when the nightmares would begin.

In his night terrors, he would see massive, bloated corpses lumbering towards him and attempting to pull him into a grotesque embrace. These would disappear, leaving him feeling ill and disgusted with himself, just in time for the next phantoms. He would be charged at by a horde of men armed with blades and axes, who would maim and beat each other, drinking and bathing in the spilled blood. These too would fade, leaving him covered in scars and gore, piles of viscera left around him. Next he would always find himself in a library, with shelves taller than even the tallest of the hive towers, the names on the spines written in a language long lost to mortal men like him. The books would then come flying off of their shelves, circling above his head, and chanting their arcane knowledge. This would continue until he found himself driven mad from the tomes’ cacophonous noise. As he lay in the darkness, a gibbering wreck of a man, he would hear the lustful cries of those embraced in intimacy, and of those ingesting chems of all varieties. They would invite him, call out to him by name, and even grasp at him to drag him into their world of unreachable pleasure. At the end of it all, he would see himself standing in an empty hall, the black stone floor embedded with an emblem lost to the ages. A single bronze eight-pointed star, with a circle encompassing it. Eventually he would wake the next morning, physically rested, but mentally horrified. Normally upon the morning, he would invite his lips in a short prayer to the God-Emperor, but for the past few months, he had been unable to find the words.

Dressing himself in the clothes of the Hive’s corrupt low-class citizens, arming himself with his slugthrower pistol and knife, and stuffing a pack full of various chems, he would set out for his job. Living in the slums of the slums, his only real employment was working as a package and message runner for one of the crime bosses. It paid rather generously for the company it invited, but Sanath spent most of it on chems to feed his various addictions, keeping enough to keep him barely fed, basically-clothed, and relatively safe, left over. This made him a thin, scrawny man, standing at only five feet seven inches, with a measly one hundred and fifty-three pounds of meat. He was, however, an expert at shooting, hiding, and running. This had saved him from more than a few close-calls, as the messages he delivered weren’t always pleasant. Today, he had been hired to deliver a warning to a bookstore that had refused the “protection” of his boss. Entering the store, Sanath Marko found it completely unoccupied. Seeing no harm in lingering about, he would eventually come across a book marred with a familiar symbol.

The book had no title, but upon the cover lied the same eight-pointed star, etched with black thread. Cautiously reaching out to the book, Sanath heard the same voices as before, calling out to him in an odd unison, as though each voice was trying to drown out the other three. [i]Heed the Call, follow the Path.[/i] they recited, growing louder the closer his hand drew to the book. When he seized it by the spine, he heard the voices cry out almost joyfully, then grow silent. He hurriedly stuffed the book into his bag, shoving it against the myriad of chems stored within, then fled back to his dwelling, both scared and eager to see what awaited him.
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