Chapter Text
The stage is set. Every prop in its place, every costume on a rack. The beacons of light shine upon the undrawn curtains. The audience is hush with anticipation.
But the director, a man with a limp and long, salt and pepper hair, seems displeased. Only too late has he realized that the leads have been miscast. He sighs. The show must go on, he thinks. The curtains lift upon the stage, and the play begins.
It is early autumn. In the capital, one Artemy Burakh has received a letter from his father, tempting him home with promises of an interview with one Simon Kain. The man purports to be immortal, but for all of the younger Burakhs life, he never shared how. When Artemy was 16, he left his small town to discover the secrets of immortality for himself, no longer waiting on the old man to reveal himself.
The man founded a laboratory, which he called the Thanatica. He and his fellow Thanatologists made many key discoveries, though his methods led to persecution by the Powers That Be. With little time left to save his laboratory, he comes back home.
On the outskirts of town, an orphaned girl named Clara returns after spending the day gathering herbs. The town welcomes her home with cruelty. Three men awaited her return with sharp knives and crude words. By some miracle, she survived. Two of the men died, while the other fled. She is steadily bleeding out.
In the town’s graveyard, a preacher of a new religion crawls out of a grave. He has no memories of how he got here - only a name (Father Dankovsky) and the sense that something is incredibly wrong. The gravekeeper, a girl of around 15, and one of the town's leaders speak not far from where he was buried. In his delirious state, he crawls toward the two.
With the prologue over, the director's nerves settle. The actors seem to be comfortable on the stage - well, as comfortable as one can be with a show such as this. He chuckles to himself, the noise reverberating in the empty theater.