It was a hot day of summer, the sun shone high in the sky.
Far away a procession of trucks and people were advancing throughout the empty planes.
They could have been easily mistaken for a military expedition if one didn’t know what they were.
The helicopter dropped me not far from there, I had to catch a kilometre with my legs and feet throughout the harsh terrain. I knew that this wouldn’t have been an easy job.
Once I got close enough one person greeted me with his hand. That was my contact.
“Hello myster Joseph, I hope that the walk wasn’t too much of a problem for you.” He said to me
“Not at all, I am glad that I was granted permission to document this event.”
“Don’t know what you did or said to the head priest but you must have made a hell of an impression to have been granted permission. Non-Members are not welcome kindly in this rite.”
“I know Joose, I will behave myself correctly.”
“Good, otherwise they wouldn’t be another person documenting this rite for another 300 hundred years.”
We both laughed and catch up with the rest.
If he only knew what I DIDN’T have to do. How much money, favours and permissions I had to spend only to get in contact with the priest. How many years I had spent networking and researching to talk to him. How, only by chance, I happened to be the key man that the priest needed at a crucial moment, and for how long I had to bargain and show myself “worthy” of seeing such a thing to him! Certains cults leaders get crazy with power.
I hope that all this effort will be worth all the effort.
The procession was silent, they have been for 5 days drinking and eating very little.
I was a little bit sad when they said that I couldn’t see the start of the procession from the holy city. For the head priest that was too big of a profanity. But I ended up accepting anyway.
After many hours the head priest stopped on the top of a little hill, soon the camion and the people stopped too.
The priest began talking “Men here die, here are reborn.”
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That would be the place where the rite would take place.
They begin preparing tends and equipment. The rite would have taken a long time. They worked tirelessly and silently, preparing the terrain for the plantation. I was not exempted from work. At the end of the day I hadn’t the strength to undress or clean myself, yet many continued to work.
On the second day, they begin watering the ground, making it adaptable for plants.
On the third the trucks were unloaded, hundreds upon hundreds of [barre] were put into place. The priest benedict the workers and the [barre] and commanded they be open. The corpses were put on the ground and each one of them medicates with the greatest of cures like one does for a living.
People touch the dead and composing corpse of their dead relatives and they kissed them, treated them, scented them, they stitched up the missing organs or arts, washing their bones and flesh with holy water and dressing them with their clothes.
Oh, if only I had my photo camera what photos I could take!
From then on the work became lighter, days where spend between working the ground, medicating the corpses and pray. Pray to things which I didn’t understand. Usually, a religion shares many things with nearby religions, not this one. This one appeared alien, no it was not the dead language nor the “bizarre” traditions, it was their diety, or in better words, the lack of it.
They believed in…. hmm…. something roughly translated as Kryosh, this Kyrosh was a kind of entity/energy who lived inside each one of us that made us see beyond the veil. It united time and space, freed their spirit, cleanse the mind from futile endeavours and attachments and mixed the living with the dead.
It was a cult were priests were kings and believers where little more than slaves. Were people were brainwashed. Were members were not allowed to leave or abandon the cult. And, no matter how much they tried to hide or deny it, with a far darker side, not allowed to know but to the highest of members.
Still, it was not my job to denounce the cult. People across the globe thought that this was a huge waste of precious resources from an insane cult. But the government permitted it to be carried on, “we are not tyrannical” they say. But the real reason is that the cult has too many hands and deals in the government to be simply removed. It was in this way that they survived for all those years.
After many days the plants began to grow, we buried the corpses into the ground, near the plants. After that, we were freed from work. The priest appeared to be very happy with the ritual.
The morning after we removed tends and equipment and gather not far from there. I didn’t know what to expect. The priest then spoke again “Now it’s time to cleanse the mind from attachment, remembering what the ultimate fate is, freeing the mind from illusion.”
All the sudden men with flamethrowers appeared and burn anything. Soon after many men picked up their shovels, unburied the corpses and... No. No!
I don’t care how much they give me, or much they tried to persuade me, I will not describe or relive what happened next.
That cult worships an insane deity who wanted only pain and suffering for its worshippers. The priests are mad, the entire cult is mad and should be declared outlaw!
What kind of persons do such things and still themself humans! What kind of persons believe such things and call themself theologist and philosophers!
I think that I blacked out before the ritual completion. Joose, my contact offered to escort me back to my helicopter. I politely refused and walked there myself still traumatized from what I had seen.
Monsters, MONSTERS! This what they are! May the heavens strike down them! May their temples and homes ruin and root! May their wall fall and flesh tear! May their priest die blind and poor! Those cultists deserve no mercy!