The New World

Communion

"And God saw that humans had forgotten their mission on this planet: to carry out the Creator's plan. Their wickedness was great and all their thoughts were turned to evil."

The projection of the cantor stepped forward beneath the choir. He was a man with a round, impassive face, dressed in an alb with a stole emblazoned with the Cross-Network. He was reading the Wyclif's Codex. The large scroll unfurled before him and, with a small scepter, he followed the verses that he was chanting in a deep bass voice.

Sitting on a pale wooden bench, Clara looked up, as did most of her neighbors.

On this cold winter's day, the walls of the Great Nave had lost all their luster and blended into the uniform milky-white sky. Birds alighting or fluttering on the Basilica's transparent roof signalled a distant reality. The faithful, who had come physically or virtually to the reserved spaces on the mezzanine floor, gazed up at the iconostasis of pious holograms separating the nave from the sanctuary.

The community's dead were not forgotten. Relatives who so wished had asked the temple to connect the implants deposited in the Pyramids, and the minds of the deceased would soon be able to take part in the communion.

It was for this reason that Clara found herself among the peaceful assembly of worshippers. She had come alone. Her mother had made it clear that she no longer wished to attend services. She'd never been much of a churchgoer, but in the six months they'd been living in Bay, her religious streak had melted like snow in the sun. Clara's main reason for coming was communion, so that she could be reunited with her father. The rest didn't matter to her, and even annoyed her a little.

"So God said: this race is evil. They only think to do evil, so I will destroy them by removing their mind."

"But Noakhit found favor in the eyes of the Creator. Noakhit was righteous and upright among his contemporaries."

"God called him and said: The human race has filled the earth with violence. I am going to destroy evil humans by what they have sinned: with their minds. But I have decided to spare you and those I choose. They will come to you, guided by a sign that I will show them and that only they will recognize. You will teach them how to save themselves."

"God showed him the symbol of the Sacred Refuge and taught him how to materialize it in an earthly substance. And He taught him how to transfer his mind into it to protect it from Devouration."

"And God said to him: all that I have taught you, you in turn will pass on to those who come to you, guided by the sign. Go now with your people; in forty days I will unleash the Great Holocaust."

"So Noakhit and his people set off, guided by the sign, to the desert place known as the Navel of the World. The other chosen ones joined him. Noakhit taught them what he had learned from God."

"Forty days later, God sent the Mind Devourers who, brought from the farthest reaches of the universe by the colonists, invaded our Earth. They pounced on sinners, devouring their minds, which are food for them, and thus taking their lives."

"Noakhit and those who had joined him at the Navel of the World were saved. Forty years passed, during which time desolation spread across the world, with the Mind Devourers multiplying, hungry and merciless to those who had not been Chosen. Many humans perished."

During the reading, the iconostasis of holograms rose and came to life to underline the text.

At first, one could see crowds of people indulging in crime and debauchery. Amid this chaos, Noakhit and his family walked towards the Great Desert, guided by a blue star with a twinkling glow. Then, taking refuge in the sacred canyon of the Navel of the World, Noakhit taught the good word to ever-growing numbers of followers. But the skies darkened, and the hated species of Mind Devourers, with their triple enshrined head - eagle, snake, man - brought to Earth by the colonists, descended upon the world and transformed humans of all ages into agonizing zombies. Far from this nightmare, the community of the chosen ones prospered peacefully under the leadership of Noakhit.