[ 002 - Videostream ]
[When the camera is turned on, what first comes into focus is the visage of a headless angel, hands clasped piously together before its bust.
Directly beyond, a blighted sanctuary sits atop a hill of crushed flagstones. The Mist, undulating like something that is alive, curls and spins around the stone colonnades of the front portico. A two-tier marble staircase-an aberrant gray like the heavy sky in the background-leads from a winding gravel path, ridden with depressions and plentiful in small pools of murky water, toward a double-arched doorway that has seen better days.
Much of the roof, once covered with interlocking white clay tiles, has caved in. In several places the skeletal structure of the building juts skyward like bony fingers reaching out from the earth. Although there are numerous windows, several are boarded up or black, the interior within too unlit to see.
And, for a moment, that is all there is to behold... until the figure of a small Native girl enters onscreen from the left. An uncertain glance from her round face is cast over her shoulder and toward the camera, but then the child turns back toward the crumbling chapel. Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, and nervous steps forward then follow.]
"...Mama? Mama!? Are you in there?"
[The little girl receives no answer but the howl of the wind. She casts another hesitant glance behind her and, for a moment, a black-gloved hand appears on screen and motions the girl forward.
Nervously clasping one of her brown pigtails and tugging, she nods and then begins to climb the old, ramshackle staircase. The heavy, double-arched doors are tugged open one at a time, and as she calls for her mother again, she is swallowed by the shadows within the building.
A soft chuckle is heard dangerously close to the camera. Then the camera begins to move, slowly down the walkway, past the headless angel, and toward the staircase.]
"I promised I would help you find Mother..."
[-And it is there that the video suddenly cuts out.]
Directly beyond, a blighted sanctuary sits atop a hill of crushed flagstones. The Mist, undulating like something that is alive, curls and spins around the stone colonnades of the front portico. A two-tier marble staircase-an aberrant gray like the heavy sky in the background-leads from a winding gravel path, ridden with depressions and plentiful in small pools of murky water, toward a double-arched doorway that has seen better days.
Much of the roof, once covered with interlocking white clay tiles, has caved in. In several places the skeletal structure of the building juts skyward like bony fingers reaching out from the earth. Although there are numerous windows, several are boarded up or black, the interior within too unlit to see.
And, for a moment, that is all there is to behold... until the figure of a small Native girl enters onscreen from the left. An uncertain glance from her round face is cast over her shoulder and toward the camera, but then the child turns back toward the crumbling chapel. Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, and nervous steps forward then follow.]
"...Mama? Mama!? Are you in there?"
[The little girl receives no answer but the howl of the wind. She casts another hesitant glance behind her and, for a moment, a black-gloved hand appears on screen and motions the girl forward.
Nervously clasping one of her brown pigtails and tugging, she nods and then begins to climb the old, ramshackle staircase. The heavy, double-arched doors are tugged open one at a time, and as she calls for her mother again, she is swallowed by the shadows within the building.
A soft chuckle is heard dangerously close to the camera. Then the camera begins to move, slowly down the walkway, past the headless angel, and toward the staircase.]
"I promised I would help you find Mother..."
[-And it is there that the video suddenly cuts out.]