We Are Hex...

Torches... Their light trembles against the night... Outside, voices rise and fall in waves... Fear moving through the crowd like a living thing... Breathing becomes difficult... Reason becomes fragile... Panic discovers purpose... Time itself appears to slow... The boundary between good and evil grows... Distorted slowly by smoke... By rumor... By the fear... Outside they gather... Flames reflected in frightened eyes... Waiting for judgment... Waiting for confession... Waiting for someone to burn... But inside... The old house remains silent... Ancient wood creaks softly beneath the weight of centuries... A sewing machine rests beside the wall... Motionless... Yet somehow still carrying the memory... of careful hands... Bundles of herbs all around... Drying... Waiting... Their fragrance lingering in the air like forgotten knowledge... Symbols mark the walls... Old protections... Old beliefs... The kind that survive long after their creators have turned to dust... And there... Written across fading timber... A warning... Or perhaps a promise... REPENT OR PERISH 1663... The numbers remain... Long after the voices have vanished... Long after the judges have become bones beneath the earth... How fear always believes itself righteous... And how history so often remembers the condemned more clearly than their accusers... Outside... The torches continue to burn... Inside... The silence continues to watch... And from somewhere deep within the old house... A truth whispers through the darkness... Not with shame... Not with fear... But with certainty... We are Hex...