Lost Lamb

It hurts.

The cave floor was cool under your feet, made even colder by the fresh snow that had fallen earlier. Even so far in, you could feel winter's chill trying to creep into your body, saved off only by the heat burning in your guts from the hole that wasn't supposed to be there. Your skin, unnaturally white, was stained red with your blood as your hand tried in vain to close the wound that was inflicted. Your hair, similarly colorless, was wet with melted snow and sweat, falling messily over your sickly pink eyes. Your vision was already blurred enough from blood loss, but with your bangs in the way you had an even harder time seeing your way through the barely-illuminated cave.

It hurts.

Your robes were a mess, sticking to your body and limiting your movement as you stumbled along. Every step felt like an entire days worth of effort, and every breath felt like an achievement against an impossible odd. But you had to keep going. The last time you tried to leave, you got a sword to your gut and a push back in. Your purpose, in spite of years of living at the temple, was clear; you were a sacrifice. You were meant to go into the cave, where a horrible tyrant of a dragon lived, and die to appease it. Where normally your village sacrificed sheep, perhaps the dragon desired more meat. Perhaps it wanted something to cruelly play with instead of a mindless beast. Maybe your village decided to take one last jab at your aberrant appearance, saying that your white curls were close enough that the dragon wouldn't notice.

Either way you had no choice but to keep going.
No matter how much easier it would have been to die there.

You weren't sure how much time had passed, or how far you had gone. Eventually the light from outside faded completely and the only guide you had left was your hand on the walls. Walls that, you noticed, slowly shifted from rough stone to carved brick to intricate carvings you couldn't comprehend. Your fingers caught on something that felt like a torch, but clearly wasn't lit. Feeling forward, you found the passage came to an end, in a massive wall of even more ornate-feeling design.

But, as your fingers slid across this new surface, you realized that it wasn't stone. This was wooden. This was a door! Massive and misplaced, but a door nonetheless!!
Perhaps you had found an alternate way out! Maybe you could still be saved from whatever draconian punishment your village had betrayed you for!
Perhaps...

...darkness took you. And in the back of your mind, you felt both disappointment and relief.

You had a dream of drifting down a field of wheat. The long stalks brushing against your backs as the setting sun lazily drifted past the horizon. A warm breeze, likely the last vestige of summer's heat, brushed over your body and tempted you to go back to sleep. To stare as the dusk took the sky and clouds rolled in. You nearly did, until you noticed something among the shapes forming. Something impossibly large flew among the clouds, blocking the stars in its path until it robbed you of your view of the moon. That shape, massive and winged and baleful, seemed to see you fully, turning before diving straight at you. That shadow crashed into you with a titanic force, and you raised your arms to try to futilely block the-

You were awake.
You were in pain, soaked in sweat, and screaming at phantasmal horrors, but you were awake.

You weren't sure where you were, but a single torch stood near the mass of furs you found yourself on. It's illumination did nothing to fully light up what must have been a massive space, but its meager light did give you some clues. The first being that you were naked as the day you were born, and that wherever you were was warm enough for you to have not immediately notice. Your skin was free of blood, meaning that you must have been cleaned at some point while you slept. Likely after whomever had saved you tore your bloodied robes free from you. The third, and most concerning, was the shining pendant lodged in your stomach. It was golden, with a single ruby set in the center. In the dim light of the torch it appeared like some sort of stylized eye staring back at you. The edges of that eye had long claws that seemed to dig into your skin. Any attempt to move it resulted in an ungodly amount of pain and several moments of trying to recover from the shock of that pain. And you realized that whatever that pendant was, it rested securely above the wound that had been inflicted earlier. It likely saved your life or at least has kept you alive long enough to wake up again.

You needed to see your savior. To thank them for whatever magic they preformed to extend your quickly shortening life. You called out, voice almost unfamiliar to you for how little you used it. It echoed around the room, and you called again, introducing yourself to the darkness. Your voice echoed again but, to your surprise and horror, the darkness answered this time.

"I hear you, Boy. Stop your shouting."

The voice was deep, and booming, and seemed to come from right in front of you before echoing back from all sides. You recoiled, before the pain in your gut reminded you to stay still by forcing you to curl up into a ball. Still you kept your eye on the direction that voice had initially come from. You strained your vision, praying that the torch would flare for a moment and give even the slightest bit of extra light to show you what was there. However, you didn't need the fortunate flare, as the voice's owner made itself known.

It started as a slight glimmer of something catching the faintest bits of light. As if stars were blinking into life before your very eyes. More and more pinpoints of light came from the darkness, moving in tandem to reveal more and more of the shape in front of you. They moved with a fluidity that seemed like the sky reflected on a pond, before moving closer. And closer. And closer until you could see a massive amber eye looking down on you. A long vertical pupil contracted as it regarded your prone, paralyzed form. A tense pause followed. And you made a realization: those weren't stars, they were scales. Countless fine scales that gleamed with enough luster to catch even that modest torch's light. The ones around the eye formed a very distinct shape. One that sent a fresh shock of fear up your back and leaked out of your mouth as a pitiful whimper.

You weren't saved at all.
The sacrifice had wandered onto the altar all on its own.