Chorea Macchabaeorum
- Put your hands up and reach for the sky. Cry for absolution! - Viciously said brother Isidorus to everyone. - Absolution for your sins. For the judgment day has come and all your debts must be faced before God. Your earthly days are over and your desolate life lies wasted before your eyes. Remind yourselves always of the fragility of your lives, and how vain are the glories of this world.
Queen Isabella mindfully listened to his words as he spoke, holding the relic close to her heart. Mother Mary was leaning over the ground doing the same with her breasts against it. One could hear the whispers of other people distant from the group small enough not to be heard. Jacob conferred with the other participants, Dante and Joan among them:
- We must find a way to leave this place. I have a brother somewhere outside and I am willing to find him.
- You would never know whether he is alive. He may not be. Look at those horrors outside. It's impossible. We barely escape ourselves - Dante replied.
- He has exhausted his chances of getting killed… He couldn’t die even if he tried it really hard haha…
- What do you mean? - asked the cardinal
- He is a thief. - Jacob said with gloomy eyes. - He has stolen from the rich all his life. He could even have pilfered something of yours, brother!
- This is outrageous! Such a perfidious creature, that’s it. He is with his peers then.
- Hold your tongue cardinal. You might end up losing it. Remember that there is no more church to grant you your privileges. I wouldn’t bother in ripping more things off from you. Moreover, we don't have any food, as I am not considering spending my last days feeding myself with this meaningless round bread.
- Heretic… Listen to brother Isidorus and what awaits you. I will laugh! - said the cardinal, biting the words.
- The cathedral has catacombs, filled with old ‘holy’ bodies… I buried many of them myself. The halls are pretty long. Who knows where it might lead. It is our only choice.
- Let’s do it - said the executioner, using the best of his vast vocabulary.
- What could be hiding there… - Joan was wondering, afraid.
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This was the exact second that a bang of broken glass was heard by everyone.
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“Dies iræ, dies illa, Solvet sæclum in favilla: Teste David cum Sibylla.
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Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Iudex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus!
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Pie Iesu Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen.”
Ghosts - Such spirits were said to be appearing before dying people and mocking what they believed was a good life spent. Apparently, learning how to die well didn’t represent any assurance of an eternity in the heavens.
Twisted Cardinals - Princes of the Church couldn’t expect anything different from what they could see for their own. Even trying to escape, many have fallen, and many more have come back to help populate the new grounds covered in dust.
Vanitas - Deceased loved ones holding huge books of accounts were present in many places to remind people of their life debts. If there is no peace in life, it's safe to assume that even less should be found in death…
Decayed Friars - Taken by an act of desperation, many took their own lives when ‘the horrors’, as they are commonly known, appeared for the first time, leading by a hope that they wouldn't have to be victims of fate…
Cambrions - Those are the disastrous cubs from the sexual touch between disguised demons and human beings. One is at risk of being touched by one of them… to face the eternal doom of darkness.
Hellions - Little imps were among the first creatures to be found inside palaces, houses, shacks in the fields and even monastery buildings, evilly playing with what they could find. Some of them ended up making their own toys.
Fortune Tellers - For those who tried seeking ways to foresee people´s lives there was a specific penitence to be suffered. Returning with their head rotated backwards seems a good way to keep them always looking back, away from the future…
False Martyrs -Leaders of prominent religious orders, the great Fathers arose from old monasteries’ dust to rejoin their brothers on Earth. Precociously opening the curtains on Judgment Day, they will represent a dark light to be followed.
Revenant Childrens - The human losses by the Great Plague were uncountable. Tragically enough, many kids' corpses that were not burnt due to extremely high numbers were seen wandering around… and feeding for themselves…
Desecrator Of Souls - Capable of fiercely violating a person's soul by one quick sight, the bodies of lovers that have become bonded together plague the earth in an eternal and obscene act of excitement.
Night Imps - No one is free from the horrors of the wicked Earth, even during their sleeping nights secured in their rich chambers. Kings and queens used to consider themselves above any earthly evil… what a failed promise to believe in.
Marigolds – There are no husbands in a decayed land for those who have an eternal affair to attend to in the skies. Brides of the Lord were seen coming back from shallow graves to spread its love fruits in sacred soils.
Witches - The highly persecuted covens of witches were finally free to break through the skies far away from the flames, for there certainly was much to be enjoyed. All the rituals and sacrifices were now to be consummated.
Fallen Angels - Those creatures were always among us. They were invisible to human eyes, but after the curtain of the skies opened and everything became as it is, they were seen crawling as an example of the worst there is in existence...
Non-Baptized Corpses – Rising again were those revenants coming from shallow graves outside consecrated grounds. Many believed that ripping their heads off before the burial would be a way to keep them there forever…
Gut Eaters - There were some monstrous creatures devouring all the insides of people and making them empty as dried flesh bags. Apparently, the more it eats, the bigger will be their bodies and their hunger…
Leper Querubs - Even the smallest of the creatures could not escape the effect of the open skies. Such poor creatures, once flying in the celestial dome, now infamously diseased and trying to escape their fates as best as they can.
Bicorpus - Once separated in life by coin amounts, now grounded together in the doomed eternity. After the Earthquake of the First Day, many were those who found themselves attached to each other in a slow dance of permanency…
Dance Macabre - Emperor, your sword won't help you out, and your sceptre and crown are worthless here. It has taken you by the hand for you must come to its macabre dance… The dance of death which will take you all.