That slight touch of the girls hand upon the smooth surface of that perfectly round orb was just enough to set it listing to one side. It did so, rolling perhaps an inch or two before coming to a stop against the chains surrounding it.
Suddenly, it rolled in the opposite direction, defying physics as it did so, moving of its own volition. It struck the segment of chain and immediately bounced in another direction, picking up speed as it bounced again.
Soon, the sound of glass on metal was constant, louder and louder as each blow became more forceful than the last. Then, a straining sound as the glass cracked. Still it bounced, almost impossible to see.
And then it shattered, and the only sounds to be heard were the tinkling of glass shards upon the stone floor, followed shortly after by the sound of liquid splashing upon the floor. The girls would be rapists stopped at the sound.
Above, previously unseen by the girl below, as well as her aggressors, a skeleton leered. Suspended as it was by the chains encircling it, it hung loosley, barely held together by ancient withered ligaments and rotting cartilage. Suddenly, though, the empty eye sockets of this long-dead Guardian filled with a blue light.
The black, oily liquid upon the floor suddenly pooled in a single spot, an inky tendril rising up into the air, seemly solid now. As it rose, it twisted about, as if searching for something, perhaps scenting the air. This way and that it jerked, before pointing straight up to the silent, dead spectator anchored by its prison of chains.
The tendril of blackness, now fully off of the floor, gathered in the dead skulls slackened, loosely hanging jaw, sliding down the ancient bone and covering it in an oily film. Gradually, as the men below gaped up at the spectacle, each and every bone was awashed with this sinister substance, turning darker with each passing second until each dusty frame was colored a pitch black.
All was still silent through these events, until the chains began to rattle as the weight upon them lifted - the blackened frame of the ancient corpse liquified, the same black substance that had started all of this falling to the floor at first in drops, then on short gushes, until the entire thing was gone, lying there upon the floor in a large puddle.
Gradually, the puddle began to rise again, forming a vaguely humanoid shape. This shape appeared almost to be comprised of a multitude of small, black tendrils like the first, one great writhing mass. Upon what passed for the things face were two pinpricks of bright blue light, placed as though they were eyes. The lower half of the head split wide, as though a mouth. A loud, gutteral roar, unintelligible and primal, issued forth from this orifice, echoing throughout the shrine.
The men turned and fled, and the thing seemed to feed on their fear. From its chest, a single long tendril, black as the night, shot forward. The closest man was pierced through the middle, a great gout of blood signalling it's exitting from his chest. Still the tendril continued forward, speeding up now as if strengthened by the blood it had spilled. A second man was pierced through the back of the neck - a second later, with a grinding, bone crunching sound, the side of his skull exploded outwards, gray matter splattering the wall and the man running next to him.
This man experienced a fate that was quite painless - the tendril shot forward, passing him to double back and plunge into his eye, the extreme speed it now had instantly liquifying his brain and exiting the skull.
The fourth man was spared, running screaming with boots slapping upon the stone.
The three men whom shared three gristly deaths were pulled together, slamming into each other with a splash of gore, held aloft by that sinister black tendril. Slowly, the three corpses were drawn in to the tendrils source.
The humanoid monster with the blue eyes seemed to explode, as if a large stone were thrown into a pond. The parts of its mass that were blown outward suddenly closed over the three entangled corpses, pulling them in like a giant maw.
And the ensuing change was immediate. Writhing tendrils ceased their movements, drawing within to form a smoother surface. The blackness lightened to a flesh color, slightly pale and waxy as if light had not touched it in quite some time. A thin, handsome face emerged from the monstrous head, intense blue eyes showing forth. Arms and legs, bare to the open air, touched upon the ground as it fell to hands and knees. Shaggy brown hair fell to cover its face and eyes, and a thin but fairly well muscled chest heaved in its first breaths.
With blue eyes unblinking, the male creature came to stand, and with balanced, sure-footed steps moved down the few steps to move around the central pedestal. It stood over the girl, her clothing torn and bloodied, intense eyes looking her over with a hard glare.
Idly, the creature remembered this girl as one of its targets. The very first target. It wondered why it was unable to kill and consume her - even now, it wanted to, but it couldn't. Even now, it was trying, but it's body wouldn't respond to its commands.
The creature looked down at its body for the first time to see the black mass of writhing substance where it's heart would be, if it had one, and wondered what happened to it. Then, it's eyes flicked back to the girl.
"....why..." it said, in a soft voice that was vastly different from the gutteral roar it had made before it had a body.
"...why can I not....kill you....?"