Transylvania, 1414
Early fall had settled over Brasov, Romania and a bitter cold rain had begun to fall over the city. Beyond the main hustle of urban life, built on rich fertile land was and exquisitely structured monastery called DomolPrivelişte, or Holy Vision Monastery. Carvings of angels and saints framed the building adding to the sacred aura of the building and the land it sat on.
The monastery served as a place for the monks, Jermaine, Bastian, Alexander and Jerard, to search out the meanings to their dreams and to better seek out the signs God had given them everyday. They believed that God spoke to all of His children only most of them were too concerned with the occurrences of the world to seek His presence.
The Brethren of DomolPrivelişte sought to change this. They all kept their own journals of their thoughts, dreams, or signs they believed God had given them. A couple of times a month they gathered in the Chapter House, or meeting room and talked about what they had experienced. They had met the previous night and everything had gone well. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened and any dreams or signs they saw were quite calming and only reassured them they were doing what God had wanted them to do. Yet, there were no signs to warn them what was about to come and even if there were they would not have been prepared.
As the cold rain descended upon the monastery, Jermaine, Bastian, and Alexander were scurrying around the herb and vegetable gardens trying to make sure they had picked up all of the gardening instruments.
Jerard was inside working in the scriptorium. He didn’t fancy getting all dirty and most always had his mind trapped in books, or writing. He left the other three to tend to the dirty work.
“Bastian, hurry up before you get soaked,” yelled Jermaine as he saw his youngest Brother lingering far behind in the vegetable patch near the corn.
“Go on. I will meet you inside,” said Bastian, quickly looking at Jermaine and then back at his basket full of corn that he had almost forgotten. He made a dash for the corn; the dirt under his feet rapidly becoming mud from the pouring rain. A few feet away he stumbled over a fallen corn stalk and fell face first into the cold mud.
Oh, wonderful, Bastian, he said to himself. Could you be any clumsier?
He put his hands under him to push himself up when he heard the clink, clink sound of water hitting metal. The sound was so close but he did not know where it could be coming from. There wasn’t any metal in the garden that he knew of. He shook his head as if to ward off the sound and pushed himself up to his knees.
“Help me,” came a soft, desperate whisper somewhere to his left.
Bastian was getting scared. What was going on? First there was that strange sound and then a whisper…Was he losing his mind? He didn’t think so.
Bastian picked up his basket of corn and stood up. He put the water-on-metal sound and the whisper behind him and started back toward the monastery. Thunder roared and shook the sky; lightning streaked a few hundred yards from him and was so close it sounded like it was sizzling. Bastian squatted down too scared to move another inch. Storms always made him jumpy and unable to focus.
“Help me, please,” came the whisper again just barely audible under the fading rumble of thunder.
Bastian looked in the direction of the whisper and said, “Is someone there?”
There was no answer except for another flash of lightning and it was with that flash that the monk saw the glint of light reflecting off metal. Shaky, he drew closer and closer on his hands and knees through the corn stalks until he came upon a humped figure. He looked at the figure in horror as before him was a young woman soaked, muddy, and covered in blood. Her dress was ripped and held the faint hue of the vibrant colors it used to have. Around the woman’s wrists many bracelets and around her neck hung necklaces of different symbols, no doubt resembling her beliefs.
