The show was conducted in a huge blue tent, the two stepped inside with snacks in hand and quickly snatched a couple of seats in front.

The performers were nowhere in sight, only a row of candles with some black papers lying next to them. As the tent filled up, a woman walked in from the performer's side. She was wearing a vibrant, seamless garment that wrapped all around her figure, the fabric boasted a blend of colours and patterns with detailing on the edges, and one end of the cloth draped over her shoulder. She raised her hand and brought the crowd to silence.

“Welcome fellow travellers” she announced, with a powerful and confident smile on her face. “We are born to live, we are born to die. We know what it means to live, to be a life. But we have no idea why!”

“Today you will hear a story of humanity's crime. It is a story you will have never heard before. We cannot tell you where we heard it, for you would not believe us.”

A large curtain fell to reveal a troupe of actors, an old man walked up to the candles and held out his hand. He masterfully moved his fingers in front of the candle, casting a shadow on the wall of the tent. He practised moving around, and the shadows bent to his will. The organizers shut out every other source of light, musicians positioned at all corners of the tent began a suspenseful score, and the show began.

----

“At first, we were one.” said the lady, as the old man made the shadows clump into a single ball.

“But there were many”, she continued, as the shadow produced 5 smaller orbs. “But the child is never the same as the parent” The shadows each grew into their own shapes and figures with odd protrusions ejecting from their bodies. One had a long wavy protrusion of hair coming from its behind, and the other had these flaps and seemed to go to the sky!

Ervinos and Aikaterine stared in amazement, as the shadow beasts seemed to somehow radiate with light, manifesting the images clearly.

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“We were given a test, to live in peace. But there is never enough for us all. The strongest win, and the weakest die.”

The shadows began to race against each other in a scramble for the bits of food spread out around the tent. The faster ones reached the food first, and gave rise to more children, while the slower ones faded into the light.

“And so this struggle continues, for years, for a hundred years, for hundreds of thousands of years.”

The old man flipped through the cards at incredible speed, the shadows continued to reach first and multiply or die.

Beasts of all sorts flashed across the screen. Eventually, it settled on a small fuzzy thing hanging on a tree branch. They show a few cotton balls sitting alongside them. The background dancers came in to show a peaceful scene, in a cool forest.

The creatures danced together in harmony. The old shadow master channelled the light to make a bright, happy scene.

The crowd visibly reacted, with multiple spectators expressing their amazement.

Then all of a sudden, the lights collapsed in, and a giant human-like figure came out of the shadows. It was an odd human, hunched over with hair all over his body and a long flailing hair broom. The creature attacked the other beasts and knocked out one of the fluffy ones. It fell to the ground, as the others scrambled away behind bushes. The humanoid beast moved towards the downed cotton ball beast and seemed to open its mouth wide. In a mildly uncomfortable way, a wide smile appeared on the humanoid's face as it consumed the white ball.

“We murdered in God's Kingdom. We continued to kill, and kill, and kill until none was left but us”

The monsters all ran, but the humanoid downed them all, constructing axes of stone and killing them as they ran away from them. The shadows morphed smoothly as the humans straitened their backs, lost their hair and began to move in groups around a slow-moving beast in the middle.

“We are all the children of murderers, our lonely existence is the proof that our ancestors were sinners. The vanquished had no word in the matter.”

The shadows converged on the poor beast, it screamed as the humans clubbed and stepped on it. The shadows then all collected and headed into the centre, before spreading out to now show the Southern Continental map that was so famous in schools.

Ervin knew it well. Katerine traced the familiar paths, she saw the land split into two halves, with the Tian Mahajanapada taking up just the top margin, after which the Grand Mol River flowed. The audience knew the unending mountain range, going all the way from the bottom of the Empire to the top of the Tian Mahajanapada in the Northern Continent. Nearly covering the map was the Diafthoreat Empire, with its leftmost side towards the mountain ranges lit up mysteriously. The little spot on the North West frontier of the Empire was past the Desert of Ruin and was the only part shining.

“We have failed the test. We are a fallen people. Repent for your sins now, or humanity will be destroyed by God.”

Suddenly, a puff of black smoke appeared in the middle of the actors. When the smoke faded, the entire cast was gone.