The Tomb, the most sacred place in The Forest of Religion. Every being in The Religion wishes to pilgrimage to The Tomb. Every being wishes to perish here in The Tomb. Every being wishes to see Lady Namazu before the departure. The deepest desire for every being in The Religion is death and The Tomb is the perfect facade for adding a holy touch to the process. It is said that every being who dies at The Tomb will have their souls sent to a mystical place which is neither land nor sea, called The Heavenly Shrine, where the blood tastes like honey and the water is thicker than blood. And as an added bonus, every being who dies at The Tomb gets their own headstone. Headstones are just crocodile bones with an engravement of the names of the departed which are erected on the hills that surrounded The Tomb. It is just a guise to deceive the departed in believing they will never be forgotten. The beings related to the departed should visit these bones every twelfth full moon and shed a few tears, this ritual is called 'Shedding of the crocodile tears'. 'Shedding of the crocodile tears' is believed to give the performer a good spot at The Heavenly Shrine.
May and Kaos reached the only entrance to The Tomb amidst the towering hills. The entrance was covered in vines. Vines of grape on the left side and vines of balsam pear on the right, symbolized the happiness and harshness of life. May in an exhausted tone said, " We here, we here, I can feel the goddess's aura surging through me ". The entrance was guarded by two Lemmings with glowing golden fur, emanating piousness. Upon hearing May, one of them started pointing to a curvy path and in a very deep echoing voice said " Welcome to The Tomb, follow the pavement to reach the Judas Kiss, Lady Namazu is waiting for you". May and Kaos got excited and tried to run inside together. The other Lemming let out a screech and jumped in front of Kaos and said, " Young one, you are not ready for Lady Namazu yet. You're still raw and chewy, you have to grow older to wish death ". Puzzled at what the Lemming just said Kaos and May stared blankly at each other. Kaos was prepared for this. He knew he would be stopped at the gates.
The queen of Volcano gave one parting gift to Kaos before banishing him. The thing which made the queen very powerful. She gave him the Royal Jelly. Upon consuming the royal jelly during the larval stage, female ants could grow wings, become a queen, and inherit all of the royal traits. For a male ant of the age of Kaos, this means he would inherit the wizardry of the queens. Yes, this included the brain cleansarabra. The royal jelly is usually restricted for the consumption of male ants because of its one major side effect. This side effect, also considered as a stigma in Religion, is believed to disrupt an entire colony's working principle. But since Kaos is no longer part of that colony, the queen didn't care much. The royal jelly supposedly makes the male consumer homosexual which reduces the chances of the Queen's fertilization. But the biggest issue in Religion towards consuming the jelly was not natality, but homophobia itself. Nevertheless, Kaos had only one goal, Heartshine, he never cared about the society, so he indeed consumed the jelly.
Kaos said to the lemming, " Oh the dear lemmings, the carriers of the contagious disease, the lemming effect, never have you ever done the things the way you wanted, the only followers of the crowd. The stories of the mass suicides of your kind are heard everywhere in Religion, the reason? The reason is the blind following. Forgotten did you the ways to think for yourself? Follow your own desires for once and not another soul's. Run towards the cliff and bring worth to your kind ". And as easy as that, the Lemmings started running south, towards the cliff.
Kaos took it as a success of the first attempt of the wizardry. Kaos let out a loud "Hurrah!" and turned back to give a smirk at May. But May was on the floor. Unconscious? Dead? From henceforth all the bad stars aligned for Kaos.
Comments (0)
See all