Prologue
At a dark corner in an old church ruins, a young boy reluctantly stepped in and took a right turn. With only a rustic lamp which gave off a pale orange glow on his hand, he took a deep breath and walked further into the belly of the darkness. His shadow, which was stretched out before him created a bizarre image of his body; made him more frightened of his surroundings.
His heart was pounding loudly that it was the only noise he could hear drowning the sounds of chirping of crickets from a nearby rice fields outside. His sweat have rolled down rapidly from his forehead and have all settled down on his brows. He was clutching on the old lamp as if it was the only thread of life that could save him as the darkness continued to devour him
Further steps in, the smell of the damp earth mixed with foul scent of the decaying ruins greeted him; putrid and offensive. In this hellish corner, where the mud were more severe, staining more his tiny feet which pierced easily into the earth. The mud was sucking his feet further into the liquefied soils which must have eaten mosses, leaves, or even dead animals before his young feet stepped into them.
At the end of the long ruined corridor, the boy hushed, extended his arm which had been holding the rustic lamp, as if to illuminate the hall before him. Once the light from his lamp reached the end of the corridor, the boy gasped and took deeper breaths;
Before him he found a figure, of another boy, coiled into the ground covered in thick mud. He was stickingout his tiny hand into the air and onto the boy holding the lamp, like he was begging for him to drag him out of the dark. The boy covered in mud struggled to catch his breath still reaching his hand to the other boy as he uttered;
“The Maranhig!”
