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The Chapel

 There’s a chapel. 


That’s what the locals call it, out of town over the barren hills and sunken into mountain shadows like something crawling away into darkness to hide, to die. 


It’s all black rock, dark masonry seamless and perfect. Every corner is sharp as a blade. Cuts the sunlight that dares penetrate looming clouds into shards, scattered pieces thrown haphazard over broken ground. It’s huge pillars are overseers of the wasteland. Untouched by erosion, unerring in their ominous majesty. 


Even harsh desert plants and hardy volcanic growths that have claimed this place a thousand times over do not stray too close. Just bleached, yellow- crusted ground surrounds this hallowed ground. 


Wind blows. A mountain with an angry bleeding heart of superheated rock rumbles in discomfort. 


The air is painfully still. 


There is a doorway in the chapel. It cannot be opened. Not by dynamite, not by prying hands, not by even a locomotive-turned-battering ram acquired solely to enter this alien place. Not so much as a scratch, not a chip or flake— nothing. 


The chapel is waiting.

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