Post by account_disabled on Dec 20, 2023 4:33:31 GMT
For the first round of the Highlander literary competition , organized by the La Tela Nera forum, I wrote a story about witchcraft - with an attached essay - which won me first place. A result that I never expect from races like this. I decided to publish the story on the Scripta Volant forum, for the USAM competition, one story a month, which has moved house for the third time. The 36,000-character story can be read there and will be judged by the participants. Selma Metastasis . That's what they called it.
That plague had spread throughout the Special Data region. At first an immature apparition, which remained hidden from the eyes of the Church, then expanded, strengthening its ranks and spreading like an unstoppable disease. A gangrene, which was affecting all the villages and reached the city. In Rome. It was the Holy City that had called him. A task that had to remain secret, so that it would not be known that the Pontiff was using someone like him to ferret out evil. One about whom strange rumors had circulated, which the clergy had dismissed as gossip, but which he knew contained a kernel of truth. Of those that cannot be accepted and confirmed publicly. And there, in the countryside around Rome, especially in Sabina, there had been signs .
Which needed to be interpreted. Signs of the presence of witches . For ordinary people, witchcraft had never existed. In the city it was hard to believe, but in the small villages it was different. There were those there who understood and believed. And who still practiced. Usually these were small episodes of witchcraft, the Old Religion, which did not worry the Church. But for some years the ancient rites seemed to have returned. And from Rome they had called Fosco. The replaced .
That plague had spread throughout the Special Data region. At first an immature apparition, which remained hidden from the eyes of the Church, then expanded, strengthening its ranks and spreading like an unstoppable disease. A gangrene, which was affecting all the villages and reached the city. In Rome. It was the Holy City that had called him. A task that had to remain secret, so that it would not be known that the Pontiff was using someone like him to ferret out evil. One about whom strange rumors had circulated, which the clergy had dismissed as gossip, but which he knew contained a kernel of truth. Of those that cannot be accepted and confirmed publicly. And there, in the countryside around Rome, especially in Sabina, there had been signs .
Which needed to be interpreted. Signs of the presence of witches . For ordinary people, witchcraft had never existed. In the city it was hard to believe, but in the small villages it was different. There were those there who understood and believed. And who still practiced. Usually these were small episodes of witchcraft, the Old Religion, which did not worry the Church. But for some years the ancient rites seemed to have returned. And from Rome they had called Fosco. The replaced .