A disordered din filled the air, a heart-rending mixture of piercing screams and stifled sobs. The earth seemed to vibrate under the impact of this frenzy, as if it itself were reacting to the distress of the crowd. Above, the sky, indifferent, remained a pure blue, without the slightest trace of clouds, like an immaculate painting where the sun reigned supreme. Its light descended on the stage like a cruel blessing, revealing every crease, every shadow on the marked faces of thousands of spectators.

Tears dug wet furrows on dusty cheeks. Trembling lips murmured unintelligible prayers, while others, twisted into grotesque grins, let out discordant laughter. A smell of disturbed earth, mixed with acrid sweat and fear, floated in the air. It permeated every breath, clung to throats, and gripped hearts.

They were all turned in the same direction. All eyes, without exception, were fixed on the sky. A common, almost irrepressible obsession bound them in a strange harmony: up there, suspended in the air, "HE" stood.

The being was impossible to ignore. A humanoid silhouette of such dazzling whiteness that it seemed to absorb all the color around it, leaving the world dull and dull in comparison. But this whiteness was not natural. It pulsed gently, like a silent breath, a living light that seemed to breathe and envelop the air itself. The gaze was lost in this unreal hue, unable to discern any texture or precise outline.

The absence of a face on this figure accentuated the unease. This smooth, perfect void offered no hold to the human mind, no point of reference to understand or reassure itself. Yet it was not neutral. This emptiness projected a presence, a weight that seemed to insinuate itself into the soul of each one, revealing their most secret thoughts, their deepest flaws.

The cross on which the being was suspended seemed timeless. Its long beams were of dried-up, cracked wood, streaked with dark marks like dead veins. The wind passed through its cracks, producing a light but continuous groan, a noise that added to the ambient tension. A smell of rotten wood floated, mixed with a fetid scent of ancient earth, of stagnant decay. The cross seemed incapable of supporting the weight of the being, and yet, it held, defying logic.

Frayed ropes, worn by time, encircled the arms of the figure. They had the appearance of dead, dried-up snakes, their rough surface rubbing against the wood with each slight movement caused by the wind. Below, a few broken splinters littered the dusty ground, like fragments of a forgotten past.

In the crowd, emotions clashed and intertwined.

A woman, weeping, fell to her knees, her hands clasped so tightly that they trembled. Her prayers burst from her throat, hoarse, desperate, while her gaze remained fixed on the divine figure. Her heart beat so hard that she could almost hear it resonating in her ears, like a raging drum. She repeated the same words, over and over again, as if their monotony could soothe her soul.

Beside her, a man, his face hardened by years of struggle, remained frozen. His eyes, dry, were wide, his fists clenched. But in his gaze, an invisible tremor betrayed his fear. He had known war, famine, death. Nothing had broken him. But here, facing this being, he felt small, tiny, like a grain of sand lost in an infinite ocean. A silent voice echoed in his mind, a question he dared not formulate:

Why me? Why now?

A child clutched his mother's dress, shaking in every limb. His dirty fingers dug into the fabric, seeking impossible comfort. He didn't understand what he was seeing, but a primal, visceral terror had taken hold of him. His legs felt like stone, unable to move, while his hot tears traced sinuous lines on his dusty face.

The crowd's cries grew louder, more desperate.

"Look!" a woman with wild hair screamed, her hands stretched skyward, her fingers clenched as if she were trying to grasp something unreachable.

A man, on his knees, sobbed silently, his face buried in his hands, his body shaking under the weight of a prayer he couldn't formulate. Beside him, an old man whispered, in a hoarse voice, a word repeated over and over:

"Why? Why?" Why? »

But others, more numerous, remained silent. They stood still, mesmerized by the vision, as if waiting for something.

Someone in the crowd fell to his knees with a stifled cry, pointing at the Being:

"He's moving… Look! He's moving!"

All eyes were fixed more on the cross.

The Being, though motionless until that moment, seemed to shudder slightly. A collective murmur rose from the crowd, a mixture of adoration and terror.

A woman, her voice torn, cried out:

"It's a miracle! He's alive!"

But others remained silent, their faces marked by a primordial fear.

And then, there was a sound.

A sound of such utter purity that it seemed not to belong to this world. It resonated in the air like a celestial vibration, a single, infinite note, as if a thousand harps had been plucked in a single instant by divine hands. But it was not just a sound. It was a presence, a wave that infiltrated bodies, crossing skin, muscles and bones to settle deep in the minds.

And the sound remained.

It did not fade, but changed in nature. It no longer came from outside, but from inside. Woman, man, old man, child: they all heard it in their heads, an infinite echo that bounced in the cavities of their skulls. It was like a divine murmur that had become obsessive, a song that could not be forgotten, an endless loop engraved in their souls.

Some fell to their knees, hands on their temples, as if to crush this melody that had become unbearable. But it was useless. The sound was everywhere, in the air, in their blood, in their thoughts.

Then the visions began.

They arose without warning, imposed, brutal. A woman saw an infinite expanse of gardens, a sea of ​​flowers in colors too bright to be natural. Each petal seemed to pulse with a soft and moving light. A crystal clear river snaked between the trees, its waters singing a melody that mingled with the sound she already heard. A strange peace could have been born from this scene, but instead it brought a visceral terror. For this garden, as magnificent as it was, was not a refuge. It was too perfect, too pure.

Others saw immense golden thrones overlooking endless skies. A brilliant light, impossible to look at, emanated from an invisible figure, the Almighty, the Omega. His presence was not a consolation, but an overwhelming truth. They understood without explanation that they were being seen, judged, dissected down to their smallest thoughts.

Each vision carried a burst of unbearable beauty, but also a dull violence. These fragments of paradise, far from soothing, brought an inexplicable pain, a psychic agony that surpassed any known physical suffering.

And then the pain became flesh.

It began softly, like a pinch in the lower back, a diffuse heat in the chest. Then it grew. Bodies arched, muscles tensed under an invisible pressure. The heat became fire, crawling under the skin, burning every fiber, every nerve. Moans turned to screams; cries became heart-rending howls. The smell of heated flesh rose, acrid and suffocating, filling the air.

The crowd, a compact, trembling mass, was now a sea of ​​white flames. These flames, almost unbearably pure, were unnatural. They emitted neither smoke nor shadow, but their brilliance seemed to consume everything it touched.

For some, it was the end. Their flesh liquefied under the intensity of the divine heat, melting into a black and viscous fluid, a disgusting substance that slowly evaporated, as if absorbed by the ground. These bodies disappeared entirely, leaving only dark stains, burnt memories.

For others, the torture was even stranger. Their skin burst, gushing forth the same black liquid, but without destroying them entirely. As the flames licked their limbs, their flesh seemed to recompose, to reshape itself into another form. Fingernails became claws, eyes widened into luminous slits, bones bent and lengthened in a supernatural metamorphosis.

The air was saturated with noise: screams, groans, the cracking of bones as they deformed. But behind it all, the celestial sound, that haunting melody, continued, relentless, drowning out everything.

The boy lay on the ground, his small limbs trembling under the onslaught of uncontrollable spasms. His skin, once smooth and brown, was marked with dark streaks where the flames had left their mark. His right hand, clenched with pain, dug deep furrows into the dry earth, kicking up plumes of dust that fell slowly, like ashes after a storm. The heat that consumed his torso seemed to want to burst his heart, each beat reverberating in his skull like a drum.

He screamed. A pure, heart-rending scream that split the air and pierced the eardrums of those who were still conscious. But that scream, intense as lightning, died quickly, stifled by another sensation. A cold, implacable force spread through him, like an icy torrent hurtling down his inflamed veins. It swept away the pain, replacing it with an oppressive rigidity, a paralysis that numbed his limbs but made his mind vibrate with unspeakable terror.

His fingers, twisted like dead branches, began to lengthen. The nails cracked and transformed into shiny, sharp claws that instinctively scratched the earth. His eyes, once brown and innocent, flared with an incandescent white glow, shining like two stars emerging in a child's eye socket. What was left of him hung on a thin thread, a last trace of human consciousness.

That was when he saw it.

The black liquid. A viscous material, perfectly opaque, moved on the ground, crawling and voracious. It slithered like a snake, each ripple evoking a life of its own, an unfathomable hunger. The boy, frozen by the coldness that invaded him, watched it approach with wide eyes. But he could do nothing. The substance was too fast, too determined.

It swallowed him.

He was plunged into total darkness, a darkness so dense that it seemed to cling to his skin. He opened his mouth to scream, but the liquid rushed in, invading his throat, filling his lungs. He was not suffocating, but he felt his breath disappear, replaced by this substance that did not burn but suffocated everything.

In this liquid abyss, faces appeared. Distorted, grotesque, their distorted features reflected an infinite terror. Their mouths gaped in silent screams, and their eyes, empty and full of suffering, stared at him. These faces seemed alive, but prisoners, condemned to wander in this endless fluid.

The boy, barely ten years old, understood that he could do nothing. His thoughts were swallowed up by voices. They were human but inhuman, full of an unbearable fanaticism, repeating indistinct phrases that vibrated in his mind like a blasphemous cacophony. Each word was engraved in him like a burning brand, each whisper pushing him further from what he had been.

Outside, the black liquid was stirring.

It flowed quickly, converging towards a single point, a moving mass that formed in the center of the clearing. Those who had survived the flames watched in horror as this material absorbed the transformed bodies. Each drop joined the mass, and soon, a huge black cocoon rose up in the middle of the chaos. The surface of the cocoon was covered with strange movements, as if something was struggling inside. Distorted faces appeared on the surface, pressed against this black membrane, frozen in expressions of pure terror.

The cocoon began to pulse.

Like a giant heart, it beat slowly, each pulse making the ground tremble. The air became heavy, saturated with an acrid smell, a mixture of sulfur and burnt flesh. The spectators, exhausted, backed away, but their gazes remained fixed on this impossible spectacle.

Then the cocoon stopped.

A funereal silence settled. The beating stopped, replaced by a dull crack. A crack appeared on the black surface, thin at first, then widening rapidly. A black, sticky liquid began to ooze out, flowing to the ground like a river of darkness. The cocoon shuddered one last time before giving in to the pressure.

It collapsed in on itself, spilling a wave of the black fluid onto the earth, finally revealing what it contained.

A creature emerged.

It was a small dragon, but not an ordinary dragon. Its body glowed with a brilliant blackness, each scale seeming to absorb the light around it. It had three heads, each wearing a golden crown of an unearthly glow. The crowns glittered, their gold so pure it seemed alive.

Two of the heads had their eyes closed, their lids forming a thick, impenetrable barrier. But the middle head opened its eyes.

They were a celestial blue, so clear they seemed made of crystal, but deeply alive. In their eyes danced stars, tiny points of light that pulsed with a mysterious energy. A reptilian pupil split this perfect blue, betraying a sharp, perverse conscience.

The dragon turned its three heads, its central gaze settling on the being suspended from the cross. It remained motionless for a moment, as if sizing it up. Then, slowly, the central head sketched a smile. It was not an innocent smile, but a sadistic rictus, filled with arrogance.

And then, it roared.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR!

The roar was a sonic hurricane, a primal scream that shook the earth and cracked the sky. Those who heard it fell to their knees, their hands clasped over their ears, but there was no escape. The sound penetrated directly into their souls, breaking through the barriers of their minds.