Purification Ritual

The cold winter-wind was dragging loose snow all over the gravel-road leading to a tall old building
in the edge of the village. Several horsemen had already arrived at the church and most were still on the road.
Every family within the seven villages around the church had received one of many obligatory invitations to another "Purification ritual". The people sent only the men although the note had mentioned that children are highly desirable.

Half of the ritual hall was already filled with whispering peasants staring down at the hole that descended
at least 5 feet into the floor and seemed like a weird gladiator pit. In the middle of the sand-covered lower-floor, in a circle of large rocks, there was a pillory standing on a pile of hay and logs. The farmers were nervous as they knew what the ritual was all about. One of them whispered to another in a deep scottish accent: "Last time they had less people watching... they stoned her to death after pouring hot silver down her throat..." The other man was short and was twisting his already torn up hat: "They're gonna purify Katherine tonight. I thought she was a healer, I even got help from her now and then. Who knew she was a bloody witch? They say she dressed in the skins of wolves at night and killed all old Rothner's sheep ... monstrous." The other man, knew that the woman had been taken by the church inquisition for questioning, but he looked baffled: "The whole herd? Well I guess she's getting what she deserves... Hold on, didn't she have a daughter? Yes, little Madeline... what's gonna happen to the poor girl?" The man put his hat in his pocket, while sighing and stared at his feet: "They'll kill her... and I guess it's for the best... spawn of the devil... to hell with them all."


The hall was almost completely filled with people and the ritual began. The monks on the other side of the inquisition-pit started chanting silently in latin as the high-priest walked to the altar covered in candles and lit three of them.
"Dear peasants..." He said with a dark grin. "...once again you have encountered a problem of the darkest kind and once again the church is happy to help you." The priest waved at a man with a black mask standing in a small iron doorway in the brightly lit executioner's pit in the middle of the church. The executioner entered the room under the floor as the air was deathly still and the only thing that cut the low mumbling of the monks was the sound of shackles creeping out from the metal doorway. Soon the fat man with a black mask returned while dragging a young woman behind him. He attached Katherine's swollen wrists into the pillory and locked the contraption tightly. 


The clergyman looked down at the woman and smiled: "It is rather unsettling to think that this woman, Katherine Barnes, has been a part of our community for years and all this time... a servant of the devil. Today we can all rejoice, for this woman's soul shall be cleansed. As some of you might know she used witchcraft to turn herself into a wolf so she could feast on your cattle. For the sake of the villagers the witch must be burned!"


Long disheveled hair covered the young woman's face, wet from tears, as she was silently weeping. Her clothes were ripped and covered in dirt. Katherine raised her head and looked at the farmers, who had gathered in the church. "Please... I am not a witch...I.." She tried to talk, but her mouth was too dry. She teared up again as she saw that on the edge of the pit stood Madeline, looking down at her mother with tears rolling down her cheeks. Katherine wanted to shout, but she was tired and powerless. The executioner set fire to the hay in the edges of the stack of logs in the middle of which stood the scared woman. The fire got closer and Katherine felt the hot flames dancing around her.


The heavy doors of the church flew open and from it entered a strong mistral that roughed up the villagers as it passed and ascended onto the flames. The candles on the altar and in the chandelier under the ceiling went out. Katherine stared at the frozen hay and logs around her and the thin layer of snow that covered the floor. The fat executioner quickly grabbed his axe and took a swing at the woman in the pillory. The axe fell on the ground- Between Katherine and the fat man in a black mask had appeared a figure in a hooded cloak, with eyes that burned bright and blue. The executioner fell on his knees, and stared into the hooded woman's eyes. His chest started emitting faint tendrils of light and the woman caught them in a small crystal vial.
"This woman has done nothing wrong, the ones eating your sheep and cows are right under your noses..."
Every candle in the large hall burst in blue flames and the high-priest shouted out in anger: "Prohibere eius!"
The demons in red cloaks leapt through the air and landed around the blue-eyed woman in a perfect circle. She looked around and clenched her hands into fists from which grew out two short glowing daggers.


The monks hissed at the mage and ran at her, but she was too fast. The daggers sliced swiftly through the throats of four monks, who spewed black blood that smelled like sulfur. In a blink the woman had burnt two others, but she seemed to have missed one, who stood his ground behind her. Through the ceiling fell a large sledgehammer that  crushed the demon, who had stayed unnoticed. The hammer was followed by a muscular man dressed in black leather and wearing a mask sewn together from pieces of burlap sacks, bearing an ominous smile embroidered into the material. He picked up his weapon from the demon's chest cavity and looked around.


"Heed our warning, villagers! The church is not what it seems... and the Guild of Assiah will not tolerate killing innocent people!"

The Ominous World II

     Last night a caucasian male in his early 20s walked inside BRED Banque Populaire, grabbed a stack of 20 euro banknotes, walked out and disappeared in the nightlife of Paris. He didn't pick any locks, he didn't open any doors and yet the security cameras show the skinny man, with a black goatee dressed in a steampunky leather costume complete with a silver cane, move in and out of the bank freely. How?
     Every human has a forcefield around them, an aura as some call them... you might even call it a soul. Individuals, who can see the life-energy around us and predict our moods or even thoughts, are not uncommon, but there is another kind of use for that field- Keeping a person from falling apart. There are some humans with skilled control over their physical body. They can loosen the connections between every particle in them, while still maintaining the connections and staying intact- this allows them to move through seemingly solid surfaces. Although these people are in control of their body, their minds are usually as unstabile as their particles. 


   Victor Grigoriev, 21, short black hair, goatee, severe bipolar disorder. The skinny russian had been kept in  an asylum since he was 11 years old and in there, during a sucide-attempt, he found the amazing gift that allowed him to simply leave the high-security building. Although Victor was mentally unstabile, he wasn'tstupid and managed to keep the police off his tracks easily. He didn't knew what he was looking for, but before he had been locked into the asylum, he had been to Egypt with his mother and that trip had always been his happiest memory, so why not do it again?

If you could go anywhere without being asked any unnecessary questions, where would you go?

The Ominous World I

     Have you heard that your whole life runs past your eyes right before you die? It's true, but it isn't some poetic/pathetic reminder of all the good deeds you've done or every kind word you've said, it is merely a savepoint. Everything you've felt and everything you've seen will be saved as a cluster of memories that represents a person. "Why?" you ask.

    Many mortals have wasted their lives in order to find the cure for death, but they never knew that we all hold the key, we all have the patential to live forever. The human brain was designed for immortality- Although man as a whole ages and fades, the mind is infinite. The reason of this "emergency back-up data" is simple... to cheat death and live once again, but everything good has a bad side.

     The streets of Dublin were clogged with people, running up and down the streets, but he felt that it was peaceful somehow... reminded him of London and the days he spent in his grandfather's house.

Howard Baker, 28 years of age, perfectly shaved head, rough face-lines, menobilist. Three years ago his grandfather had died. Usually mind-movers or menobilists get killed, because people, who have enough money to buy a new life, have dark secrets that need to stay hidden. Howard's grandfather had been cautious enough to live a rich life and also train an apprentice- It took the bald man a year to get the very basics down, but as grandfather had said: "One must never stop learning."

     Howard straightened his old leather jacket and stepped onto a bus. The mind-moving jobs had become rare, since many of the menobilists had been killed by organised crime leaders or rich high-rollers, but he had saved some money from earlier jobs and this kind of work had brought in a decent sum. His last job had been transferring an elderly woman's mind into a young asian girl. There used to be some conflicted feelings about ending someone's life like that, but business is business and the rich people will win most of the time. The man had sat down in a basement and placed one hand on each of the woman's foreheads. Every menobilist had their own way of picturing the minds- Howard imagined a simple holographic interface with two folders, but his grandfather had seen two books on an old writing table. After doing his job he got his money and left... as simple as that. 

     Howard wasn't afraid of death, but living as someone else had crossed his mind several times. Receiving a new life would usually be tricky, because there would be a need for an apprentice, but then again two menobilists could keep a perfect cycle of immortality... 

Howard Baker's phone started playing the theme-song of Doctor Who, on the LCD display was blinking a writing: "Grandfather"- on the man's face appeared a warm smile.