Along the way through this journey we call life, humanity ever growing and evolving started losing faith in god, in goodness, in what it meant to be human. As new generations were born their minds rationalized everything, forgot how to see the miracles and chose the material world. No matter what religion it was, it started dying, disappearing with humans preferring to choose greedy over generous, prideful over humble, cruel over kind, evil over good. In the end, that was what religion was always meant to teach people, to instill in them what it meant to be human.
Humanity took the wrong path, it decided to reach the dead end instead of the happy end and the world could not overlook that, God in its many forms, present in all religions yet divided into different beings by humans, could not accept that. The world would be cleansed but humanity was to be punished before that. Because a child must be shown what he did wrong and must understand the consequences of his actions. And so it was decided, the punishment would precede the understanding, understanding would come through pain.
Let's move to the current time, it's currently 2012 nearly Christmas Eve, exactly 7 days left. Everywhere you could just feel the holiday vibe, the city looked simply magical covered in snow, the Christmas decorations sparkled on every street, every building. Trees were decorated and the faint sound of holiday carols leaked in the streets. That did not seem as weird for the citizens as it should have seemed. People had already somewhat abandoned religious traditions in the years before yet this time, people felt compelled to embrace the holiday feeling, not by faith, but by the desire to escape the mundane ways their days had become, or so they thought.
Nobody realized though that the carols, they did not originate anywhere, they did not have a source, they were simply everywhere and nowhere, nowhere because they were in every human's brain and not really in the world, the carols were simply a manifestation of their brain, a pathogen that infiltrated their bodies and sung of happiness while it slowly corrupted them.
The day was a normal one, a few days before the great turning, a young man going about his life, he was pretty weird all in all, never had he been faithful but he neither rejected god, he stood in the middle watching both sides, he didn't judge but didn't care either, going about his days, waiting for a miracle to bring something different in his life, he did not heed the warning be careful what you wish for. Going to and from work, he kept to himself, having no friends, pretending not to care, simply drudged through his life. Only he noticed the carols, the sweet whispering songs that bore their way into the humans brains. It was weird, the carols always had the same volume, everyday it was getting just bit higher, even after trying to find a source, nothing was found. His thoughts went from simply "no, not possible" to "this can't be real" as the songs kept teasing him.
As more time passed the volume of the carols heightened, each day louder and louder and that brought a feeling of dread in humans, people started wondering where did the carols come from. He felt that something was about to happen, his wish would be granted.
It was near midnight on Christmas eve, the soft melody of cheerful holiday carols were drowning even the buzz of a busy day, as soft and mellow as they were they instilled feelings of dread into every human that heard them. even their own thoughts were drowned by the carols.
The world would never be the same again, midnight had come and suddenly the carols disappeared and that brought a new sense of uneasiness.
Our hero, walking back from his job that took his entire day, grumbling at the unfairness of life suddenly felt a chill, his entire body shivered, his face turned pale as he heard a loud church bell, the overwhelmingly powerful noise filled his ears. The first toll made his skin crawled, at the second toll the sound sent ripples of dread into every person that lived in that town, the third toll felt like it was ripping their eardrums, he too felt sick, his stomach turned, almost throwing up, his body was shaking and he felt something wasn't right. At the forth toll, sickness overcame every human around, short voiceless gasps escaped their mouths, he too chocked trying to keep the contents of his stomach inside, the fifth toll rang, the church bell was getting louder, its sounds felt like needles forcefully striking the human's brains.
Far, in another realm, voices were becoming excited, it was starting, the reckoning, the judgement, the punishment, it was starting, an era of war, a fight to decide faith, the faith of humans, the faith of demons, the faith of angels. A war, between two factions and a victim.
At the sixth toll, sudden intense physical pain overtook the humans, their body wrecked by invisible forces, they felt torn apart, but not all of them, for some, the melody stopped, a feeling of haziness took over them, unable to understand what had happened, they stared blackly at their surroundings.
The seventh toll, those that still heard the bell felt their bodies turning into grotesque forms, unique disgusting inhuman shapes, some grew different appendages , covered in blemishes and warts, twisted and deformed, some changed to a distressing animal like form, some grew disgustingly shaped wings, every human was turning into a horrid creature. The eight bell toll, he had managed to keep a somewhat human like appearance, his skin turned slightly red, blood red cracks appeared along his arm, his fingernails turned bright blue, his hair grue to hip length taking a red color, turning blue at the ends. By the ninth toll, almost every human not spared at the seventh toll had undergone an almost complete transformation, they were not human anymore, confused an bewildered they did not understand what had happened, and neither did our hero.
At the time the tenth bell toll, the world had been split in two, humans that were still humans, and humans that were now something different, twisted, deformed forms and nearly all of them had grown a horn, two, some even more yet the world had still not plunged into chaos yet, sanity still reined over them.
In another realm, otherworldly beings were relishing in excitement, the transformation was nearly complete, soon almost every human would drown in their basic prime instincts. They would drown in sin, depravity, decay. A vision that was just delightful for some residents of this realm.
The moment the eleventh toll rang, a wave of insanity spread, every human now turned into something unholy began hearing a beautiful tune, promises of salvation, of power and in their haziness something else began controlling them. But he kept struggling, trying to keep his mind intact, assaulted on all sides by voices that whispered of power, voices that desired carnage, voices that promised happiness but he endured, he had no desires so he could resist.
By the twelfth toll, humans were a minority, madness had overtaken nearly every person that had turned, blood lust seeped into their minds, the voices demanded a price to be payed and now, as the strident melody of that distressing bell was dying down, the world would start to fall in chaos and crumble.
To be continued.