The world was dying. In desperation, powerful leaders had turned to the military to find some way of fixing this broken world. We, an infantry troop numbering two-hundred souls, were a part of such an exploratory mission. We had ventured north.
Thirty days’ march beyond the final signs of human settlement we found it.
Yet we had been given a special task. Ours was not to find a cure to remedy the failings of our world, but a way to leave it before the inevitable Cataclysm befell us. Our sensitives had begun to feel it first, but after four leagues’ further march none were in doubt. We had reached it. We had discovered that place where the ether thinned, the firmament bucked, and two parallel planes came impossibly close to overlapping.
We strained our senses as we journeyed further. Some began to speak of a peculiar sensation, believing that three unidentifiable forces were observing us with malevolent interest. Three otherworldly forces, watching us greedily, thirstily, enviously. But we persevered. We had no choice.
It did not take long until even the dullest of our company felt an alien discomfort; to some degree at least. Our unease manifested in short tempers that snapped and furtive glances cast at shadows. The constant, increasing regard of these unknown, unkind eyes was jading and we wearied quickly. Some of us stumbled, legs dragging in the inexorable march onward.
And then the air crackled. A lance of scarlet light shattered the gloom around us, piercing the sky directly above. Transfixed and half blinded we staggered as the lance became a point, an orb of crimson glowing and growing overhead. Then it began to rotate and flatten. It was sickening, dizzying to behold and yet we could not avert our gaze. The red circle swelled and swirled, unceasingly folding and re-folding in convoluted capitulations that rent the sky asunder. Absolute black yawned within its centre, a contrast so powerful many of us vomited and fell to our knees. The vortex descended, engulfing us all in a pressure that burst eardrums and flattened every single one of us to the ground. A roaring welled from within, our skulls reverberating as hearts pounded frantically; chests heaved in futile attempts to take in air where there was none. Our vision swam as unconsciousness threatened, but not before an agony ripped through our bodies as we descended, or perhaps we ascended, through the Rift.
Ineffable torment ensued, accompanied by an hysteric laughter, as though three entities revelled in our plight. Yet through it all, we saw her. Beneath a pale star there stood a goddess of green. A queen, power radiating in her eyes, her hands weaving the magic pulsing through the myriad fibres of our being. She was beauty incarnate, love unconditional, joy immeasurable.
She was utterly bewitching.
released May 1, 2021
Rift Giant
Matthew Pither - Guitars, Bass, Vocals
Thomas Ramkilde - Drums
Mixing - Patrick Fragtrup at Wolf Rider Sound Production
Mastering - Lasse Ballade at Ballade Studios, Copenhagen
