"Here it comes again, like always, when there's a full moon."
Renata leaned on the iron door of the confinement room, peering out, trembling—not from fear, but with eager anticipation.
The corridor stretched endlessly, bathed in the silvery glow of moonlight flowing like mercury across the floor. From the darkness came a heavy clapping sound, as if someone were striking iron castanets. The clapping grew louder, faster, until the entire building quaked under the thunderous noise. All the children stood in front of the locked iron doors, clapping along to the rhythm, their expressions vacant.
The walls were cracking, the supporting pillars tilting. In the distance, the stone cross atop the chapel broke at its base, carrying the statue of Jesus down into the icy sea, shattering upon impact. It felt as though the entire world was collapsing… To welcome its arrival.
As the metallic concert reached its peak, a gust of wind swept through the corridor, flowing arrogantly like a black river. It was a giant serpent, a black serpent, its massive body filling the entire corridor. Its rigid form scraped against the walls and ceiling, leaving deep scars on the chalky surfaces. Tens of thousands of iron scales opened and closed, creating a deafening roar. It was playing a song of destruction in the darkness.
As the black serpent passed the confinement room, it flicked its tail against the door, its frame shattered. Renata, holding her small white cotton nightgown, ran out. The black serpent was already gliding towards the far end of the corridor. Renata hopped barefoot across the cold terrazzo floor, her thin, pale body glowing almost translucent in the moonlight. She screamed and laughed wildly, as if trying to wake everyone to join her. But the other children simply watched her dance through the iron bars, their cold golden eyes reflecting dozens, even hundreds of dancing Renatas.
Renata grew tired and lay on the ground, gazing at the white full moon through the cracks in the roof. The black serpent slithered across the roof, its enormous body occasionally blocking the moonlight, its golden, candle-like eyes sometimes gazing down at Renata. Its gaze was so haughty, so majestic, like that of a king. Renata opened her arms towards the sky, wanting to embrace it.
The black serpent ignored her and continued its journey. Renata pushed open the window and saw it coiling up the outer wall of the chapel. The chapel was the highest point of the building complex. Where the cross once stood, the black serpent raised its body, gazing towards the shimmering icy sea in the distance, where whales broke through the ice and spouted water into the sky. The black serpent roared silently, exhaling a ghostly blue breath into the void.
"When the thousand years are up, Satan will be let loose from his cell, and will launch again his old work of deceiving the nations, searching out victims in every nook and cranny of earth, even Gog and Magog! He'll talk them into going to war and will gather a huge army, millions strong. They are as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea." someone softly chanted below.
Renata looked down and saw arctic poppies blooming and swaying in the wind.