Chapter 1: Rejoice
Monday, November 13th 2023
6:25 am
As the door closed, Gray thought to himself,
Why did my sister even tell me to go out to buy milk at this hour, I didn't sleep at all…
The orange light almost blinded the boy, making him squint to shield his eyes from the orange glow of the sun, while the cold, morning breeze made his long, jet-black hair ruffle in the air.
The icy wind blew at him like a coiled snake, reaching every limb of his body, making him shiver incessantly.
He checked his watch and yawned.
"It's early… I could have slept for over thirty minutes. It's also too cold. I should have really listened to my sister and worn my coat..."
He stared at his clothes: A grey hoodie paired with some blue jeans he had found around his floor riddled with clothes, and a pair of black gloves to protect his hands from the cold.
Just as soon as he stopped berating himself for being too dumb, he started walking.
…
While strolling, he saw the group of workers that were working on building an house next to his, gazing and pointing at the sky.
The house was in its latter stages after many years of construction. It was a beautiful villa with two floors, a pool and a large garden, perfect for a family with many kids. It was also surrounded by a perfectly trimmed trail of trees going over their neighborhood.
It still needed to be painted and to get the rebars removed, however. Nonetheless, even though the house was still unfinished, it had many pros but only one con.
It was expensive!
"Did you never see the sun or what?" Gray asked jokingly.
He knew the workers well since they had worked on that particular house for over five years.
The workers didn't mind him. In fact, they actually enjoyed the presence of the young man.
When they came to his city, Gray had used to bring snacks or the food his sister made in the summer days where the sun was too hot to bear, gaining their approval.
After some moments, a middle-aged worker looked down and said to Gray,
"Something strange is going on, you should go back home with your sister," his voice was hoarse and full of seriousness, but that was quite normal for him.
"Huh? Casanova, what do you mean?" the boy replied.
Mario Casanova was the construction manager and the one with the most experience amongst the people working in that house.
He was a middle aged man with snow white short hair and a trimmed beard of the same color. His eyes were a profound green, as if he was looking inside the soul of everything he looked at.
Even though Gray had known him for half a decade, he never felt comfortable enough to call him by his first name.
"The Sun rose in the wrong direction," Casanova said abruptly.
Gray was about to ask him to explain more clearly, when suddenly, one of the workers started to mumble incoherently under his breath, his voice slurred.
"How is this possible? The other signs didn't appear yet…" the worker seemed very distressed, seemingly at the edge of clawing his own face off.
"Zakaria, calm down and tell us whats going on," Casanova turned his gaze towards him and said.
"I've read about this! I've read it even though always believed it wasn't true! The Quran was right! It was written that the Sun would rise from the west at the end times!"
The man in his late twenties with tanned skin and brown eyes, wearing a yellow shirt, cargo pants and steel-toed boots like his colleagues started sobbing as he kept talking,
"I'm not ready for the end times… I'm not ready yet! I didn't even marry the girl I love… I beg of you, give me more time!" he cried out in the sky.
As the man started sobbing, his words kept on being drowned by the river of his sadness.
Gray didn't try to cheer him up. Even though he had worked in that house for many years, they weren't close enough to talk about each other personal matters.
"Just go home." Casanova repeated.
The young man nodded at him. However, he decided to go to the store first.
…
Gray, who still walking, took out his phone and felt a strong heat coming from the battery. Since it was something normal for his old phone, he brushed it off, deciding to search about the peculiar situation of the sun.
Click!
Just as he unlocked it, he noticed many text bubbles popping on the top of his screen. They belonged to his sister, his classmates and even of people he was unwilling to remember.
Even though the messages were all from different people, they all said the same ominous phrase.
"DON'T OPEN IT."
Did I get hacked?
When Gray tried to call his sister, wanting to tell her about the eerie words Casanova and Zakaria had said, the heat of his phone caused him to drop it on the floor.
"Shit!" he couldn't help but curse.
His heart rate suddenly spiked up in fear of seeing his phone broken. Stuck from the anxiety, he choose to count down to prepare himself for the worst possible scenario.
"Three, Two, One!"
He flipped his phone, and luckily, he saw no issues with it, making him sigh with relief.
That day, Gray was able to avoid being killed by his sister!
He then unlocked his phone, noticing again
the unchanging presence of the continuously appearing bubbles of texts.
Annoyed, he tried to call his sister when suddenly, he heard a tremendously loud trumpet playing by seemingly nowhere.
The abrubt and booming noise almost caused his phone to fall from his hands.
Just as he was wondering what was going on, he heard a blood curdling scream coming from an unspecified place, hidden within the many stars of the universe.
In sixteen years of his brief life, he had never heard someone seeming so desperate, so horrified.
After that soul shaking shriek, a choir started to sing from seemingly nowhere once more.
Their song was utterly terrifying.
Even if he couldn't understand anything, their so-called words—more similar to chaotic and a disorganized cacophony of shrieks —sounded like a blasphemy against the world that hoisted them, and again the same creation that birthed them.
The sound was akin to someone scraping their awfully long nails over a chalkboard, with every single 'word' feeling like a violation to the ears of the ones cursed to experience their ancient song.
Abruptly, a tree next to him ignited in flames!
Then another one did!
Every single tree in his vision inexplicably engulfed in bright, orange flames.
Gray felt pure terror as he walked backwards, stumbling on the sidewalk while hurting his head in the fall.
He rapidly rose up and ran in the middle of the road, away from every material prone to ignition.
Trembling uncontrollably, he watched the overwhelming inferno eat throughout the city like a ravaging beast.
The choir sang more loudly, their hideous voices gripping his stomach, turning it inside out. The terrifying voices from the sky broke out in a repulsive laughter, as if they were mocking Gray and the universe itself.
He couldn't help but focus on what they were saying.
"Therimpare…"
"Shawashalah…"
"Queribae Qhchulun…"
"Daemonium Chrajnthuchtun…"
They roared.
Even though his head started to throb painfully, Gray kept on listening.
"Quierium Kawalaeh…"
"Quierium Kawalaeh…"
"Quierium Kawalaeh…"
The choir kept on repeating and repeating the maddening phrase.
Once they ended their chant, Gray could feel that something followed it. It was as if the last content of their song was filled by a dense haze clouding his mind.
He quickly noticed that every time they repeated that hellish phrase, he could hear more of the last 'word.'
"Quierium Kawalaeh S…"
"Quierium Kawalaeh Sh…"
"Quierium Kawalaeh Sha…"
Amidst the crackling of the blazing inferno he heard something dripping from below.
Confused, he slowly looked down, seeing a puddle of bright, red blood.
Huh…?
He instinctively wiped his nose, the thick liquid starting to trickle down his hand and arm.
Is it the choir…?
Seeing the correlation, Gray used all of his willpower to stop listening to the last word of the choir, as it made his nose bleed profusely.
Feeling his head about to burst, he stopped to reflect on what was happening to avoid paying attention at their hellish wailing.
I heard that a trumpet was going to be heard at the end of the world but who the hell is this choir for?
Recalling the novels of Lovecraft, his jaw suddenly dropped as he connected the dots.
Their ritualistic choir, their chanting, their continuing uttering of a word he wasn't able to understand…
What he wasn't able to comprehend without his head bursting wasn't a curse nor a chant…it was a name. Their continuing wailing all pointed to someone—or "something."
And that 'being' was the one they were trying to invoke.