This letter of the arch-priest was aimed at students and young novices. Even though there is much more to say about its decisions and situation, this short letter remains the best account of the turning point of his life.

When we think about the lives of great men we imaged great birth and childhoods;

yet as it’s most often the case the lives of great men appear completely normal and ordinary up to a certain point.

When I think about this I often think about, and I had to look it up to write it correctly, Zdzisław Beksiński, whom before painting eldrich fantasies and surreal visions was helping to construct buildings as an architect. Or of Walter Whitman who before becoming a well know poet was an unknown carpenter who sold a self-printed, self reviewed, book door to door hoping that someone would notice him.

The young disciple sees the master ability as something superhuman and he constructs all sort of myths around his birth and childhood.

“I have heard that he was born in a without moon, the result of a most profane ritual, born covered in the blood of a white bull. Rumours said that the first thing that he did after leaving the uterus was killing the cultists with his bare strength, tentacles and mutations. I tell you! He is the son of a God!”

I heard this from a student about his teacher. An advocate that joined the cult at twenty-four nearly by error and who struggle much through his first years as an apprendist.

I have heard a lot worse about myself, from the typical “Antichrist” all the way to more fantastic and inspiring stories.

“The stars had aligned, the moon was dark, the Gods watched as their herald was born!”

The moon was dark? What does that even mean exactly?

So where to start this tale?

My mother worked as a barmaid when she had me. She hadn’t finished high school and hated it and everything it stood for and was on a daily basis overworked and sleep-deprived.

My father was a construction site builder. He too overworked and sleep-deprived.

As a grown man I would find out that he had much higher ambitions as a young, he even managed to laureate but luck didn’t smile on him. When his first few businesses failed he found himself jobless and penniless. I think that more than a question of money for him was a question of will, maybe one morning he woke up in the homeless shelter and decided that this type of life so strenuous and insecure wasn’t for him; maybe his desire didn’t burn bright enough; maybe lady luck didn’t smile on him.

Whatever the reason, he did his best to raise a family and give his children’s a bright future.

During my childhood, I had ups and downs. Sometimes things would be nice and year after year would flow by without ever feeling in danger. Other times we struggle to arrive at the end of the month.

It was maybe for this reason that we were semi-nomadic, we passed from one place to the next. Sometimes we would be there for years, other times for weeks. This was a habit that stuck with us for a long time.

“How much for the rent?”

“Rent?” she said confused “Rent! You don’t rent this home, you buy it. It’s really cheap with everything happening right now.”

I looked at my brother, he rolled his eyes.

“10.000”

“10.000? Oh no, this place is worth much more! 20.000, at least”

The negotiations went on for a long time in the usual try and catch that are those deals.

“300 for a month, that is my last offer.”

“Fine.” she said exhausted by the long deal “come here tomorrow so we can sign the papers.”

I and my brother were always very closed, as time went on we decided to divide rents and live together, and, sometimes, work together. That house, an old military prefabricated turned house was in a place called, and I am not kidding “Camp Feffy.” It was half and hour from the nearby city and close to where we needed to work.

We passed the night in our old car. An old Ford that had seen far more than us, and now he showed clear signs of ageing.

“Buying a house, what an absurd thing to propose. The world moves, work moves, what sense has buying a home Steven?” said my brother Eric to me while I tried to sleep.

“20k at least! What an absurdity… Ehmmm, but one day I wish to have a place to call mine.”

“A place to call mine?”

“Yes… you know with a garden and a woman… and you know; all the rest…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I already heard this discourse. Then people would say stuff about finding “a secure job and stable job” and before you know BAAAM, you are crushed by your job and family.”

“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean something more like a vocation, you know something that I like to do…”

“Uhhh, do you feel sentimental again or what? We don’t have the money to do that. Besides what you want to do?”

“... I don’t know…”

“And so! Let’s continue doing our jobs until… something, retirement.”

“You are right.” I went to bed after that.

The truth is that I had twenty-eight years and felt like I had forty. A new place, a new job. Replaced by a new place and a new job. I did nothing but that. Finding a job and moving always, like I had a distaste for stability or possessions.

I didn’t care about what was going on in the world, all those strange things happening. Many people saw the arrival of those “superpowers” as the birth of superheroes. And the government was all for it. Look at how this manage manages to save fifty persons thanks to his super strength! But I was cynical about them. Too many powers appeared contorted, evil, maddening. I was happy, happy not to have one.

The next day we met again at the house, this time there was another person, a lady far younger than the previous. The owner daughter from what we found out talking. Eric went outside to smoke while I finish the deal.

Everything was going well until a car didn’t drift, it was not a normal drift; it was a fast one. Like the one of a speed car. It was quickly followed by some shouting and shoots. Instinctively I turned and close doors and windows. The lady was much confused by this.

A car running at full speed stopped nearby by. Two men exited from it, both were drunk, both were armed. I dashed and close the main door and the windows that I could.

“Thank god that this is a military prefabricate, they shouldn’t be able to broke through the windows,” I thought.

I looked around and felt panicked. Eric

I run toward the back door, the two men had approached him, he started running. One of the men grabbed a pistol and shoot. For a moment my heart and breath stopped. Eric was hit at the leg. He still walked but the men were coming at him. I didn’t know what to do, Eric was so close and yet… yet if I helped him we could be both dead. I ran at one of them and hit him in the face. Eric thanks to this managed to enter the house. The other picked the pistol and shot twice and missed; the pistol was now empty. Thanks alcool fumes. I sprint toward him and grabbed the pistol with both of my hands using my mouth to bite his nose.

The other gave me a kick in the legs, I started running from the two of them. Running somewhere…

At a certain point, I felt strange, I was close to these three massive water towers. Towers too big and numerous for such a small city I would realize later. I had a headache, my arms trembled, I was sweating like a dog.

The two men came for me I turned around and give one of them a punch in the teeth. The other replied for his comrade. I fell to the ground, all the sudden I felt angry, very angry. I stood up gave a good kick in the leg knocks and grabbed the other. I never felt so angry in my entire life. I punched his face, his eyes became dark, he moved less and less, his skin became more and more morbid, I shock his head repeatedly against a rock. He didn’t move. I looked at the other, he was terrorized.

Something was calling me, something… in a flesh, I saw the inside of the towers, a strange sign and a hidden elevator who lead to a deep underground prison, there in his cell I saw him. A beast, a wolf from my worst nightmare with tentacles and eyes running all through his body. He was helping me, he gave me his blessing.

The other man started screaming, his head exploded.

I looked around and in a moment of lucidity, I realize that two men had died by my hands. I had to get out of there. I begin running, but not like a human, like a leopard catching his prey. I jumped and was suddenly up in the air, flying like an eagle. It was beautiful, it was liberatory.

When I returned home my brother looked at me perplexed.

“Steven… are you fine?”

“Yes, Eric why?”

“Where are the men?”

“Gonne. You would never hear of them.”

I would find only many, many years latter, as a renowned scholar and student of the occult, what was that I saw there. Even though nothing happened for a long time afterwards, the corpses were not found, and I was declared innocent, I mark this event as the real beginning of my life.

The end.