In
the night Old Midwich's founders work, a body still alive but cut like
the dead. He looks in her eyes, "I am so sorry, my sweetest sacrifice.
But the evil must be contained."
She can only stare numb into nothingness, body convulsing in only response to his work.
Voiced
over, a girl's voice ~ "They say in the end of all things, after all
gods have fallen and after all the possible battles have been fought
until there are no more, there will be but one survivor."
He
continues while the view moves over the sacrificial chamber, in fact an
operating theater. A circular room with the table in the core
surrounded by raised seats as an amphitheater.
Yet protective
glass as though a hockey arena, cracks in it showing its reason. In the
center around the table, the sigil from Ameth. A circle, seven points,
a circle, five points within, three within a circle withing that.
The
sound and clatter of the town-folk coming for him, he turns to a
banging on the theater door. Then back to see the sacrifice sitting
upright, her hand bolts to his throat.
Sacrifice - "You will fail."
Unable
to feel, her grip is strong. She pulls him over herself onto the table
and wrests the knife from his hand while choking him out, stabbing
randomly around his chest with the banging on the door.
And that
sigil fades to view the streets modern Midwich following its lines. As
small island with one bridge only for in and out, if one would notice
its care to direct over the street which makes the sigil's border.
An
abandoned port town, now no one left but the descendants of people with
something to do, but all of that gone with them. What ports there now
seems moved only in ships with their lights blacked out in the night.
And
in the warehouse district just off the dock, a lone church standing at
the center of a weed grown cemetery, thick vines showing the people's
discontent, where the dead are forgotten.
The church now converted to a nightclub, the sign over head, 'The Canon Club.' it's clock tower bells chiming Midnight.
View
follows the excited goers going, into the door as the main music hits
by the band playing inside. It's enough of a town that are more clubs,
but this is the one they talk about, for good reason.
If leather
and lace were a scent it's what the dancers sweat, if money was a crown
here everyone's king. For a town near desertion it's clear, somebody
found a way to pay the bills here.
Where the young fashionistas
mingle with crooked backed business men in pinstripes as though playing
prohibition. Cigars and cigarettes, those laws forgot, the needles stab
into tables when emptied.
In the center of it all the dancers
dancing the floor, through which the bouncer with a book under his arm
drags a very unhappy man. He kicks and he fights, he's got that ghost
but it isn't enough.
The bouncer reminds him why with a fist to
the gut followed by three punches to the face til that ghost is gone,
dragging his slump there on. As he turn back to it by the lights of the
stage, the glint of his eyes show something's not right.
He
throws him to the two guards waiting in the elevator, they turn him to
face the bouncer, he guts him again as the doors close.
They open
again in the main office, the clock's top half looming behind the desk,
arrow slit windows on either side of it and surrounding the room. At
the one to the right of the desk is a man looking over the city streets, at it a well dressed woman.
The man is thrown to the floor before her well tenderized, he flops. The book slammed on the desk.
Eresh - Sitting at the desk, she picks up the tome. "Honorius ... really. You saucy little thing. So. You've stolen from us. Yes ?"
The man says no words in his hard breath, a brief attempt to shake his head before it's punched hard again. Then again.
Bouncer - "Answers follow questions." Pulls his head back by the hair, a knife to the throat.
Eresh - "You did. Yes you did. So what have you got to pay pipers with ?"
...
A light slice with the knife up the face trailing a bleed.
Bouncer - Smiles into him, "Questions precede answers."
Man - Whimpering, "Everything I have. Anything. I only wanted to leave this place, they said it was a way out ! Banish me, please. Take everything. My money. My wife my ... " a tear, " ... my own child you can take it all. None of it is real here. Please. Please God let me leave this place ... "
...
Eresh - Smiles, "We already have those things." She watches in love as Nergal circles behind him. "Sold with your soul, they're just downstairs." Smiles, "So what else ya got ?"
Man - Calms even more deeply defeated ... "I ... I don't ... "
...
Eresh - A laugh. "Careful what you wish for."
She
glances to the Nergal he slits the throat and heaves him
for the window to toss and holds him over the street while the crowd
looks up in anticipation. He pulls back the head to shower them and
then lets the body drop.
Nergal - "Right. Well I suppose that's me off to inspect the bounty then."
Eresh - As her attention loses itself into the pages ... "Save me some." Peering into that sigil and over the streets it lays.
~ Asylum ~
And
get we to the nunnery, this convent overseen by them as an orphanage.
One can imagine the orphaned numbers in a place like this, these nuns
here either as punishment or to spit in the devil's face directly.
They all have their secrets, and it's not just the secret of this town.
The
students well kept and uniformed, these nuns carefully watch over their
play before the class bell rings, and all shuffle to class with the
outside teachers. As well here punished by their union for being
unplaceable, or for reasons their own.
________________
Student two - Clearly good friends with One, "I heard they fled persecution in Europe like the Baptists."
One - Now to Two, "But why do you think they they burned the founders ?"
Two - "Did they burn the founder ?"
They stare at the teacher waiting for an answer.
Teacher - "I ... am new here. They gave me a textbook."
One - "We know that, that's why you're not the other guy."
Two - "Committed suicide you know."
One - "We found the body." To student two. Do you think he was a witch ?"
Two - "I think he was a perv." To the teacher, "Hey did you even read the textbook yet ?"
Teacher - "Did you ?"
Two - As though casually filling the teacher in on the side, "No history teacher teacher since has lasted long since."
One - "Mm. Suicide. Car wreck took out that other one's whole family."
Two - "I heard one was locked in the rare book vault with a Book of Abramelin. That told his friends no matter what they heard, not to open the door. And when the screaming stopped and when they finally opened it, the walls were painted in his blood, but no body was found.
One - "Did they check the blood ?"
Two - "Hm. Good question probably not."
Back of the class - "That was Aleister Crowley. Except he actually died face down in the book with a needle in his arm."
Teacher - "Maybe that's what he saw. But this is exceeding topic. What are we even talking about here ? Focus. What is it you want to know ?"
One - "Well did you read the text book ?"
Teacher - "No. I was summoned here just last week. But apparently the dead guy said you should over summer so ... did you ?"
...
Two - To student one, "But it doesn't make any sense ! Why would the witches burn the other witches for being witches !?"
Back of the class - "Two houses at war, and each one served a different beast, while the townsfolk watched them all burn, cheering whomever held the match that day."
...
One - "You're creepy." To student two, "But that does actually make a lot of sense." Gets hit in the back of the head with a wad of paper. "Hey !"
Two - Glaring at the kid in the back, "Is it true you got into The Canon Club ?"
One - "How did you even get in ?"
Kid in the back - "Never tell."
Two - Turns back to front in a huff with One, "Fucking whore."
Teacher - "Hey !"
One - Mocking, " 'Hey !'."
Two - "Hey !"
Teacher - "Detention."
The bell rings.
One - "See ya round, 'teach'."
Two - As they get up to leave, "And please do your homework ... "
One - "How long do you think that one will last."
Two - "Not very."