Flammisca, a once reclusive and isolated village, seemed to have been touched by something that transcended the ordinary. The wind brought with it the echo of voices, as though the land itself were responding to an invisible call.
The screams were fragmented, urgent, mixed with a muffled sound that spread across the horizon. Domine rose, feeling a pressure on his chest, as though the response was drawing near in an inevitable way. The field before him, usually calm and peaceful, now seemed to vibrate with an unsettling energy.
Suddenly, a column of black smoke rose in the distance, like a curtain darkening the sky. The smell of burning arrived, heavy and suffocating, and the hazy vision of the smoke filling the air made clear what was happening. The fire was spreading across the field, relentless, like a wave of destruction that respected no boundaries. The echo of the screams now mingled with the crackling sound of the flames, which advanced quickly, consuming everything in their path. The village, once silent, was now in panic. Something terrible was happening, and Domine knew there was no more time to lose. The fire was not just a natural disaster; it was the manifestation of something deeper, a force that seemed to have been awakened by the letter, an irreversible transition, perhaps, from what he once knew.
The fire spread, its tall, dancing flames like the fingers of an enraged giant, touching the sky with the heat of an endless summer. The field, once serene and pastoral, was now becoming a scene of destruction, with thick smoke rising like a curtain covering the horizons. The fire advanced mercilessly, and the sound of burning wood crackled through the air. It was the same type of cataclysm the ancients had described, as though the very sky was bowing to the earth, and with its lethal blow, brought with it the wrath of unknown forces. The lightning that touched the earth, as if touching life and death, naming those open, relentless fields, was now a reality before Domine's eyes.
He remembered his time in the south, working alongside his father as a shepherd. The south of Montanum, with its rolling landscapes and vast fields, had always been his home. The gentle hills, adorned with sparse vegetation and small clearings, gave way to a land that seemed to overflow with life. Unlike the north and east, where dense forests and tall mountains seemed to swallow the sunlight, the south lived under a vast, clear sky, like a cloak covering everything with constant and reverent warmth.
But the south also had its traps. The summer afternoons were accompanied by distant thunder, and it was not uncommon for lightning to strike the field, igniting the dry vegetation and spreading fire with a terrifying speed. The land, hot and arid, seemed to await the moment it would yield to the fury of the sky, which, while bringing the unrelenting sunlight, also revealed its destructive face. The fire that spread was an inevitable presence, like a reaction to the very heat of the soil, consuming everything it touched, with no distinction between what was fragile and what had already surrendered to oblivion. It was a fire that purified, but with the force of a desire that tolerates nothing, taking not only what was ready to be consumed, but also what resisted change.
Domine watched the horizon where the fire was now spreading, and the letter he held, like an invisible hand, pulled him westward. The west, the point where light disappeared, where the world retreated into darkness, where the last breath of light dissolved into the advancing shadows. The letter called him to transition, to a point beyond the clarity of the present. He questioned himself. The same flame that now devoured the field could be the reflection of that transition, where certainties dissolve in the play between light and darkness. The letter called him west, to the end of the day, to transition... The west was a step towards what remains hidden, to that which does not reveal itself easily, where the thin line between the end and a new beginning is lost in the mist.
Yet, his spirit, as if drawn by an invisible thread, could not stray far from the south. The south, with its oppressive heat, seemed to pulse at a frequency that touched something deep in his soul. It was not a place of passivity, but of a living, intense energy, almost palpable. The land, still marked by the scorching heat and the lightning that, when striking the field, brought both destruction and renewed vigour, seemed to be in a constant dance of creation and destruction. But it was not a dance of shadows. It was an open flame, radiating not only to consume, but to illuminate with an intensity that could not be ignored. The south, in its strength, brought with it the direct touch of truth, in its most vibrant and, at the same time, most challenging form.
While the east of Montanum, with its dense forests and wet lands, seemed to swallow the light, creating an atmosphere of contemplative waiting, the south displayed the open and unrestricted surrender to the sun. The east, where dawn took its time to arrive, seemed to suppress the light in a silent expectation, as if guarding the secret of truth that, still immersed in shadows, awaited the moment of its revelation. The east was a place of origin, where the beginning hid in the twilight, like dew that has just begun to touch the earth, but has not yet revealed its full essence. The future, there, had not yet manifested; it only hinted at itself, waiting for the right moment to become clear. It was a land of omens, where the spirit, still trapped in its initial form, could not yet reveal itself in its fullness, and the light, no matter how it tried to pierce the mist of the trees, barely became visible, as if it were waiting to be unveiled by a search that had not yet begun.
However, the west, by contrast, was where the sun retreated, where light finally gave way to darkness, not as an end, but as the point through which that which could no longer be clearly seen slowly became only that which could be felt. The west was the place of concealment, where reason gave way to shadow, to the moment when vision blurred and the mind found itself before the transition. It was not the end of light, but the end of a cycle, where clarity dissolved and gave way to the experience of the unanswered search, where the spirit, in its incapacity to understand, was guided beyond what the eyes could perceive. The west brought with it the dissolution of certainties, the moment when understanding became fragmented, and the mystery of the night took the place of what had been clear and defined. The light of the west did not disappear; it transformed, transfigured, taking on forms that could no longer be apprehended with the same clarity as the light of dawn, but only with the sensibility.
The sight of the flames, now distorted by the penumbra, was no longer mere remnants of a disaster. Hidden behind the thick curtain of black clouds, the flames continued to consume the field, yet something about them seemed different. It was as though, beneath the darkness, they were marking the end of something, though Domine could not yet fully comprehend what was to come. The feeling of transition, of something imminent, took hold of him, and with an impulse that seemed to rise from within, he crossed the threshold of the house. There, he stood, eyes fixed on the horizon, feeling that the search for his father was now the only thing that truly mattered. The letter, the fire, everything seemed connected to this search, an urgency that could no longer be ignored. As if propelled by an invisible call, the search for his father appeared to be the only path to follow, even amidst the storm that unfolded before his eyes.
That apocalyptic vision of fire, consuming and transforming, filled him with a sense of inevitability. There was no more room for doubt: the cycle of destruction was underway. What would come next was unknown. But the certainty that the old was fading to make way for the new lingered in the air, like an omen that could not be ignored.
Domine, now immersed in this awareness, felt a sudden and urgent impulse to search for his father. The figure who had been his anchor, his reference of stability, seemed to have vanished, as though he too were on a journey of his own, lost in the same storm of fire and darkness that consumed everything around him. The thought of his father, now shrouded in a fog of uncertainties, was the last link remaining between the past and what was to come. He could no longer remain still. It was time to move, to seek what remained familiar amidst the chaos.
The fire continued to grow, still relentless, but Domine now understood that, as the letter had suggested, it was necessary to face the abyss, to cross the penumbra, and perhaps, finally, to find what had been lost in the darkness that was swallowing the world around him.