The Colors of Alemeth - Vol. 1
Page 21
***
Alem finished dinner and left through the wooden doors of the monastery toward the Gloque, keeping some distance from the edge of the scary forest.
Sister Ada had asked him to fetch a bucket of lake stones to put in one of the gardens in the central tower of the monastery. Sister Ada asked the students to do many things.
The sun had already set, but one could still notice the light of its rays. There on the lake, where there was no artificial light, sharp shadows began to disappear, giving way to other shapeless shadows hiding here and there.
Alem threw a stone into the water and saw the successive waves running to the shore.
That was when he heard what seemed like a cry, coming from the right, from inside the forest. A cry of pain.
He looked back to the main monastery building in the distance and then looked back at the forest. He walked there, trying not to drown out the sounds that could come from the trees. Another scream sounded.
Strangely, he wasn’t afraid, he just had the feeling he shouldn’t go in there. Still, he entered.
Amidst the trees, shadows fanned with the wind. The screams intensified, some louder than others, brought from various sides.
Through a tangle of trunks, he saw people. He got closer and stopped, his heart beating so fast.
There were seven naked bodies on the floor tangled together, moving sometimes smooth, sometimes with force. Their faces were covered with masks of a red smiling devil, and their naked bodies were dirty with what could be blood. There, sunlight was no longer visible.
They all groaned and screamed, some more than others. Perversion, said Bishop Zalmon Costa inside Alem’s head, fornicators, devil.
In the center of the cluster of bodies was a cross the size of a man, upside down. Another rule that was being broken. All of it was wrong.
The flame of a candle lighted up by itself in front of the cross, and went out immediately after. The figures stirred up more anxiously. It lit up again, now stronger, and didn’t move.
One of the men stood up and stopped, his naked and obscene body facing Alem. The mask was covering his eyes, but Alem knew they were fixed on him. He whispered something to the others, and one by one, all those evil smiles turned to Alem.
He awoke from the shock, turned and ran like the wind toward the edge of the forest. He never looked back but could hear the footsteps of his pursuers behind him. He left the forest and accelerated through the meadows toward the main monastery building and rested only when he found himself at the back stairs. Then he stopped, panting, and looked back. From the forest, there in the background, came no color or whisper.