The Invisible Whisper
Man in Black Dress

The flames blazed high, lighting up the darkness of the night. They color the world orange-yellow and cast a large shadow on the ground. His fire fangs bit like the jaws of a huge dragon.

The jaw was looking for something that had not been destroyed by its unstoppable power. I heard wood creaking, jugs cracking here and there, and I smelled the smell of charred flesh as the flames grew increasingly in the wind.

Then I saw the remains of the hut that once stood here. It was just a pile of what was left after being engulfed in flames. I heard screams, screams of terror that pierced my bones and gave my skin goosebumps.

I ran to where the sound came from. When I got there I became stiff. It was impossible to move as I watched the scene unfolding under the dim light of the burning village.

Two men held a woman to the ground by forcibly holding her arms and legs. He wriggled like an eel while the third took off his clothes and slapped his face. He spit. A large ball of green-yellow mucus dripped from his eye sockets past his nose and past his lips.

He screamed in pain, but when he opened his mouth to shout, that gurgling sound went into his mouth and he choked. Then he shouted even louder than before, in the orange light I saw the third man had now penetrated through him.

He calmed himself down, looking at him sharply: "Now you feel like a real man, a hero. A hero with a chicken so small that I don't even feel it."

The man is now pushing more aggressively than in the first few times. The woman laughed in a disdainful tone, getting louder, almost hysterical.

I saw the man pick up a knife with a short, sickle-shaped blade. With a quick movement of his hand, he slit the woman's throat. He pushed twice more, then took a deep breath. He placed his index finger on the woman's lips and said "Sssst," as blood flowed from her neck surrounded her head.

"Who wants it now?" he yelled. The young man holding his leg staggered away from sight, but I heard he shared his entrails with plants and animals in a dark place.

I'm still stuck on the ground. His arm was raised and his blade flickered under the light of the flame, gilded with a red luster. I saw the arm go down and raise my hand in self-defense, the burning pain radiated to my raised hand and everything went black.

I shook my head and opened my eyes. I smelled a burning smell, then I felt pain in the hand that had just been hit by a knife. I looked at my hand that was on top of a half-burned candle. Large black stains, burn scars, and residual blisters around the wound are reddish-red.

My stomach went limp for a moment, but I controlled myself, then filled a bowl of water with my healthy hands. I let my battered hand rest in it before I tied it with a mixture of herbs and oils.

The horror of the dream numbed the pain, while tending to his wound I barely felt it. Moreover, I was fed up with the events I had just witnessed. The dream realism is so real and oppressive. I can't get that picture out of my mind. I slowly remembered the previous images that were similar, lacking in detail, but completely related to the dream I had just experienced.

As my mind searched, I dug deeper and found what I was looking for. The thought had been replaced by the fact that this was Master Enoch's last day, the picture of meditation completely escaped my attention. Now they come back to me, a burning village, a fire several meters high, screams. Running people, trying to escape the carnage that is going on. The massacre was carried out by the man in black clothes and the high-legged creature.

Is this my imagination, my desire to find clues? There, in the blaze, I saw a rug covering the horses. It was black, but clearly decorated with gold. I tried to see the riders' faces behind their dark hoods, but something told me that wasn't what I was looking for.

My eyes wandered from the hood down. His chest is protected by a plate, on his arm the same black plate and there is a relief on the plate. Then my eyes caught a flash of light, an emblem on the right shoulder of one of the men, a golden flower on top of it with a dark circle.

Black gold, I've seen that combination before. But by acting as a teacher and knight in Aruna's dream, I did not think of that terrible image or Master Enoch's last words.