The first snow was falling. Gray sky, black earth. When Alba had finished his business in Agernox, he headed for the southern part of the city beyond the walls. Light white fluff accompanied him all the way, softly falling on the hood and shoulders of his black cloak and turning into water and soaking the fibers. Local residents were in their own homes, no one dared to go out on the streets yet, deaf and uninhabited. In some shopping areas, the sound of hammers and drills could be heard. The city was asleep, not in a hurry to get out of the dream world.

The temperature dropped below zero degrees Celsius, but the sticky mud covering the ground had not hardened yet and the traces of the wandering inquisitor were immediately covered. Crows flew in circles in the air, making their hollow croaks. From their trajectory, one could determine the curvature of the planet and the effects of the darkness that had engulfed every molecule of this corner of the world. The blue, cold rays of the sun shone through the thick clouds. The water channel, which runs in a curved line through the entire city, was covered with a thin layer of ice, on which the wind swept the snow.

Alba left the city and walked along the wide avenue of the park, which was lined with trees with whitewashed trunks. Dead nothingness, dank stillness. He crossed several bridges built high above the cliffs and connecting the high hills, turned right and came out on another abandoned road. He moved forward, wilting in the mud, passing a guard house with a dim candle in the windows, and several abandoned tents where, until recently, ice cream and cold drinks were sold.

Beyond the park was a vast plain filled with gray, dead plants. The road was made up of rotten, creaking planks, and at the very end of it was a wooden temple with golden domes and a small booth that was empty. Directly behind it was the entrance to the cemetery. Part of the road turned white, covered with a thin layer of snow. And on a brown bench in twilight sat a woman, her hands clasped in a prayer pose. Like a fallen and godless angel.

Alba stopped and looked to the west, where the endless, dark forest began, with a perfectly straight line of dark green crowns, behind which the last glimmer of light disappeared. Somewhere in the distance of this realm, isolated from civilization, with its own rules and atmosphere, a lamplighter lit lanterns, moving with the languid steps of a dead man from one post to another and dragging a wooden ladder on his back.

Alba headed forward, past hundreds of thousands of poor graves with a small pyramid of stones laid on the surface of the ground. There was no way to find out whose body was lying under them, and there was no need to. The further away Alba went, the richer the view became: there were places fenced with iron gates and tombstones, on which, in ancient language, as tradition dictated, the last epitaph was visible, scratched by relatives’ hand.

Alba stood in front of a cross-shaped intersection, in the center of which was a monument of a man, with a blindfold, a sword in his right hand and a flower in his left. He bent down in a bow, as if greeting those who were lost in this kingdom of death grieving people. Next to it was a small wooden sign made of three half-rotted planks nailed together with a pair of studs.

To the right was the cemetery of soldiers and priests, to the front was the cemetery of people who had died alone, and which cemetery was on the left was impossible to read. But that's where Alba headed, passing through juniper bushes and weeds. And all this with the sounds of quietness and peacefulness, accompanied by a light falling snow. Alba turned onto a narrow path that led to a small woodland edge, along which were dilapidated memorial plaques, blackened and entwined with lichen.

Alba had been in this place for several hours and it was pitch dark. The snowfall increased. He went back and got lost on a stretch of road overgrown with hogweed. Half an hour later, he found himself at the exit, where the same woman switched her location and knelt and hunched over the unmarked grave in the semi-darkness under a lighted lantern.

"Lass," said Alba, "I apologize for interrupting you."

Woman opened her eyes and, from under the light hood, her blue eyes appeared, reflecting the light of the lanterns, like majestic portals to heaven. Her face was pale and wrinkled. She stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to finally tell her why she was distracted, and he continued:

"Where can I find a gravedigger? Or someone who knows where to find him?"

"There's no one else here."

"Then who's in charge of the dead?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Lord God."

Alba paused, and the woman was clearly waiting for further questions.

"What did you want, mister?" she asked.

"I don't know. Nothing. Who are you praying for?"

"I pray for those who are lost in the world of oblivion and cannot find a place for themselves after death. But I do not pray for anyone in particular, I let the Lord decide who the prayer is addressed to later."

"The world is shit, isn't it?"

The woman fell silent, it seemed that she clearly did not like the question, but she answered without a hint of contempt, quietly:

"Is only for those who cannot accept it as it is."

The woman seemed strange to Alba. He did not understand this forgotten tradition, carried away by the ancient cosmic dust, any more than he understood why the God would address her prayers to those who had perished in the bloody maelstrom of life. If someone can't be saved in life, why should anything change after?

Alba decided to return to the city, this time near the temple in a small booth, he saw an elderly old man - the keeper, who until that time was not at his workplace, he was dozing, wrapped in a snow blanket, with a long cane in his hands. Alba took him by the shoulder and gently nudged him. The old man opened his colorless, gray eyes and stared ahead, saying:

"What do you want, young man?"

"I want to find a friend."

"Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you looking for him?"

"To see the truth I seek."

The old man turned his head at Alba's heavy voice, but said nothing. He didn't see the man in front of him, but another dead man with a huge black hole in his soul, rotten and fallen, as if it were his own reflection.

"So, for you, the truth is in death?" the old man asked.

"Apparently."

"How did your friend die?"

"He was murdered."

"It's sad. You never know how our lives will turn out, do you?"

"I prefer to know."

"I think that the world itself cannot know how its fate will turn out, and sometimes it is surprised by what is happening around it, perhaps even our Creator is surprised."

"I just want to see a friend."

"In the pursuit of the dead, you will not notice how you will become like them."

Alba bent down to the old man, bared his hand, which was only a white bone. He touched the old man's face and said:

"I am death itself."

The old man was not afraid and said:

"If you are death, why do you have such desire to live?"

Alba smiled.

"You're good at feeling and talking, old man, with the only caveat that none of this makes any sense. The universe itself does not want to see philosophical sayings, to understand ideologies, religions, who is right and who is guilty. The world is a chaos filled with many types of wars. The people of our planet can be either spirits forgotten in time, or archons; where the latter dictate the rules, and the former fulfill them. That is why from the very creation of time, only two things are valued – your actions and their consequences. Ask yourself old man - Who are you in this world, hmm?"

The old man didn't answer. Alba, without even thinking, turned his back on him and went to look for his friend's grave in the endless dark bowels of the womb of outer darkness, while the forgotten guardian, like an evaporating pneuma, looked after him without moving his head, then scratched his shoulder, on which the numbers 4 and 5 were located. A bright white light lit up in his palm – the only thing he could see with his blind eyes. And the old man said to no one, in the voice of a dying and hopeless hermit:

"There is too much darkness in this world. Oh, yeah, too much. And what will the world oppose to this?"

The light went out a minute later, and the old man fell asleep again, disappearing into the rising night fog.

Half an hour later, Alba returned to the edge of the forest and went to each tombstone and felt the ground around it, hard and cold. It was late in the morning, but everything was still coal-black. And Alba did not notice how a dark figure approached him and asked in a man's voice what he was looking for? Alba said the same thing he said to the old man.

"Come, I'll show you the grave of the one you're looking for."

"I didn't say his name."

"I don't need it, I know everything."

Alba shrugged and followed the dark figure. They skirted the edge of the forest, walking through the dead, untrimmed grass that bent beneath the snow. A white greyhound came running out of nowhere and walked beside them. No one chased her away. Alba glanced to the north, where for a small fraction of a second there was a yellow light, or so it seemed to him, maybe it was lightning in these deep ebony clouds. The precipitation was over, there was no wind, and the cold was getting worse. In this chthonic world, he saw several burning pillars stuck in the ground, around fresh soil without plants.

"Your friend's grave," the dark figure said.

Alba stood in the center of the excavated ground, like the only surviving commander after a battle, then he began to examine the loose soil, found a small hole, smiled, and turned to the figure:

"You must feel uncomfortable being here, don't you?"

"It's quiet here."

"Not like on the frontlines."

"Are you going to the front again?"

"This afternoon. And you? Will you stay in Agernox?"

"You know I won't."

"You won't even check how's Egon doing?"

"No. Not now."

"I heard that the ones you're looking for have returned to the ruins and settled near the altar of the light. The one we thought was dead has returned. If you find him, you'll find «the wandering Gennox»."

"Good luck," the dark figure said, and then disappeared into the blackness.

"You'll need it more," Alba said, and walked back to Agernox, breathing in the cold, oxygenated air, hoping for another, if only brief, snowfall before leaving.