A new beginning (epilogue)

There is a storm in the sky above you. Dark clouds, almost black, roll into one another and flow into a single, slow cyclone cloud so vast that it defies your comprehension. Red veins like fire pulse within the storm and flashes of lightning are accompanied by the ominous growl of distant thunder. You realize that you are lying on your back and you sit up. A crust of grit spills from your arms and breasts and patters in a sandy mess down onto your naked legs. Your entire body is agonizingly sore.

You rub the dirt from your eyes and take in your surroundings again. What you understood to be a storm cloud you now see is a plume of fire and smoke rising miles into a starless night sky from the rumbling cone of a distant volcano. You have never seen such a thing and, yet, you have a feeling you have seen it before. A hundred times. Perhaps a thousand.

Fire flashes within the cloud and you see a rain of burning meteors cast out by the volcano. They land in the distant plains with bursts of earth. When the dust has cleared from their impact, you see that each stone takes the rough shape of a human figure. You look behind you and see that such a stone has broken open and spilled its contents - you - out onto the sand. Is this how you came to be in this strange place? Launched form a volcano?

A new ripple of fire and a new volley of meteors launched from the volcano sends several crashing only a mile or so distant from you. There could be men and women trapped inside them!

Looking out across the rocky plain in another direction you see the remains of what seems like a farm or a small village. Perhaps there are other survivors in this grim place. Or perhaps it is only ruins.

Behind you, not far from where your hollow meteor broke open, you see a wide lake of glassy black. Its surface reflects the fires of the volcano. Beyond it, almost too distant to see in the night, are the looming shapes of mountains. You have a sense that strange ships travel across this lake, but you do not know how you know this.

"The abyss," you say, finally recognizing this terrible landscape. "I have been damned."

There is no sword of St. Magdalena to arm you. No Burning Rose to call out to for help. Your sins and your demise have doomed you to this tormented pit of smoke and fire. You do not have even a scrap of clothing. You have your sanity, but in a land of madness, that may turn out to be the most terrible curse of all.