Mass day was the biggest event of the week in the Papal States.

  On Mass days, all work stopped. The entire population gathered in the streets, murmuring Caesar's name as they watched the procession pass by. It was the realm's greatest spectacle, the moment when divine grace supposedly touched everyone.

  But a weekly Mass schedule took a serious toll on productivity. And with the Church's endless rules—break one and you could lose everything or end up burned at the stake—ordinary people lived in a nightmare. Poverty was the only constant.

  The Papal States called themselves God's territory, so they had to showcase His greatness and purity. The previous Pope had decreed no beggers allowed anywhere in the realm. So instead of beggars, they had "the poor."

  Other countries weren't any better. Kings and nobles didn't give a damn about the people under them. They just kept squeezing. No policies to help anyone.

  Compared to the actual monsters in this world, human society was the real horror show.

  ---

  St. Peter's City. Holy capital of the Papal States. Where humanity was born and God had supposedly died.

  The streets were a riot of flowers. They bloomed everywhere—on walls, rooftops, patches of bare dirt. Any surface you could find.

  The muddy roads were still full of shit, churned into the muck underfoot. Emaciated commoners in rags, bare feet caked with mud and worse, clutched armfuls of blooms to decorate the stinking city.

  Church knights in gleaming white armor stood with massive swords, holding the crowds back from the main road. The people were half-dead from hunger, skin stretched over bone, clothes barely covering anything. But they still clutched those flowers.

  The road itself had been buried under petals. All that filth and mud, hidden beneath a carpet of blooms. A riot of color hiding the rot.

  Mass was sacred. It demanded spectacle. You had to welcome God properly.

  To keep St. Peter's City supplied with fresh flowers every week, they'd plowed under the grain fields and forced everyone to grow flowers instead. Other towns weren't so strict about it. Only here and in the Vatican City did religion run that deep. Only here did the oppression cut that sharp.

  Bong. Bong. Bong.

  The church bells rang. The blessed Mass was beginning.

  Mwwaaaaah.

  Heavy horns blared from the cathedral, rolling across the city. Deep and solemn. Sacred and solemn. Like echoes from some ancient past, descending on the mortal world again.

  Then the chanting started. Thousands of voices buzzing like flies across the whole city.

  Everyone—commoners and knights alike—began murmuring. Murmuring the Bible. Praying for God's arrival.

  The great doors of St. Peter's Cathedral swung open.

  Father Mia led the procession of missionaries out into the light, their pure white robes glowing against the flower-strewn road. They walked toward the Sanctuary while the masses chanted around them. Like true disciples of God.

  White robes, pure and spotless under the sun. The procession looked like Caesar's own lambs. Holiness and mystery wrapped in cloth.

  The sweet smell of flowers mixed with the city's ancient stench. Beauty and rot, tangled together.

  The clean white priests walked past the filthy masses. Heaven and hell, side by side.

  Norton walked at the very back, holding a basket of breadcrumbs. Head down, hood up, seeing the world only in glimpses from the corners of his eyes.

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  Yep. Definitely the Middle Ages. And the Papal States' grip is tighter than hell.

  Norton stared at the crumbling shacks lining the streets and felt his hopes dying.

  The Papal States in the Middle Ages? Let's put it this way: the missionary life he could barely tolerate now would be heaven to these people. They'd never known a full belly, warm clothes, or safety.

  Running wasn't even an option anymore. Get caught, and it's the stake. Or worse.

  And even if he did run, where would he go? No way to survive out there.

  But this cage they kept him in—this crushing of every human feeling, this forced emptiness—it was driving him insane, killing whatever made him him.

  If he'd been born here, raised here, never known anything different, he could've done it. Lived his whole life inside these walls. But he'd had freedom once. Known what it felt like. And you can't lock that up and expect it to just die.

  The excitement Norton had felt about seeing the outside world evaporated the moment he saw what that world really looked like.

  Those starving, half-naked people lining the streets? That was his future.

  He stumbled along at the back of the line, mechanically throwing breadcrumbs from his basket into the crowd.

  The richer poor—the ones who got a little food sometimes—they'd grab what they could and move on. But the ones who were basically skeletons in human skin? They fought like dogs over every crumb. Bodies tangled together. Biting when they had no strength left. Licking filthy water off the ground for a taste of bread.

  The church knights in their shining armor stood like walls. Impassable. The people fighting in the streets could trample each other to death, and they'd never cross that line.

  Norton watched and felt cold inside. You couldn't understand the Middle Ages until you saw it with your own eyes. Saw what this era really was. It ate people alive.

  And the missionaries—God's messengers, bearers of holiness and purity—they watched it all like it was entertainment. Standing above it all, enjoying the show.

  The holy procession kept moving, boots silent on the petals.

  After a few hundred yards, they split into eight groups.

  Mass was supposed to bless the whole city. Everyone needed to feel God's grace. So the groups peeled off, each taking a different route through the main streets.

  Norton stayed with his group, still at the back. Head down, throwing bread, following wherever they led.

  One by one, the missionaries ahead of him branched off into side streets.

  Until finally, Norton was alone. Walking through petals into the last street on the route.

  By the time he reached this final stretch, the church knights stationed along the road had grown sparse.

  Full plate armor was expensive. Even the Church couldn't afford much of it. St. Peter's Cathedral only had about three hundred knights.

  Half of them lined the main road at the start, putting on a show. The rest were scattered everywhere else. One per intersection, if you were lucky.

  Which meant Norton had to walk this long narrow street alone. He wouldn't see another missionary until the next crossroads, where they'd all regroup before entering the Sanctuary.

  He walked between rows of emaciated bodies, barely recognizable as men or women. And they were all staring at him. Hunger in their eyes. Want.

  It was pressure. Heavy pressure.

  How do you describe what these medieval people looked like?

  Starving? In rags?

  Those words are too kind.

  They were skeletons wrapped in loose skin. Cheeks so hollow their eyes bulged out. Big-headed ghosts, unsettling to look at.

  And "in rags" doesn't cover it, because most of them weren't wearing anything. The lucky ones had a loincloth. The rest? Nothing. Women used bark or leaves to cover themselves, their breasts flat and empty. Men walked around with half their ass hanging out.

  Father Mia had explained this once.

  The Church, he said, was fighting vampires. So they starved the poor. Made them anemic. Made their blood thin. If vampires had nothing to eat, they'd starve too. Problem solved.

  Genius-level thinking. Exactly what you'd expect from people raised in isolation for twenty years.

  Norton had grown up normal once. Had parents. An education. He looked at these starving people and felt pity. Normal human reaction.

  But pity changed nothing. He couldn't save anyone. Could barely save himself.

  Unless—

  Unless someone overthrew this goddamn Papal States—

  Norton's thoughts stopped.

  What if he could save them? What if he could lead them? A revolution. Red ideals. A people's leader—

  No.

  That was a fantasy. You don't jump into the past and liberate the slaves. That's childish. Stupid. Wrong for the time.

  And Norton was useless. Twenty years locked up. What did he know?

  He drifted again. The twenty years of isolation had broken something in him. Made it easy to slip away into his own head.

  But his body kept moving. Kept throwing bread. Muscle memory.

  "God, give us food!"

  "Bless us, Lord!"

  The crowd chanted. Fought. Followed him like mad things.

  Until his basket went empty.

  Huh?

  Norton blinked, surfacing from whatever world he'd been building in his mind. He looked down. Empty basket. Looked up. End of the street.

  "Already?"

  He shook his head, annoyed at himself. This habit was getting worse. He'd slip away and not even notice. Like something was wrong with his brain.

  This is bad. Really bad. I'm losing it.

  Focus.

  "Please, Father! A little bread! My son is dying!"

  A woman's voice cut through.

  Norton blinked again, lifted his hood just enough to see.

  The crowd was gone now. No reason to follow someone with no bread. But this woman was still there, kneeling by the road.

  Skin and bone. No shirt. Her chest was just empty flesh hanging loose. Mud and fresh wounds on her face—she'd been fighting for scraps. In her arms, something that might've been a child. A monkey, maybe. Skin over bone. Breathing, barely.

  She looked up at him. Eyes red-rimmed and desperate in that skeletal face. Her child couldn't even lift its head.

  Norton's hands trembled. He reached into his basket. Found nothing.

  Empty.

  He stopped. Just for a second. Then his legs started moving again.

  Mass rules: no stopping. No talking to the people. This was sacred time. You didn't dirty it with the common folk.

  If he stopped, the knights would cut him down.

  If the people stepped on the petals, God would punish them.

  Norton hated himself. Hated that he'd drifted off. Hated that he hadn't paid attention to how much bread was left. Hated that he had nothing to give.

  One handful. That's all. He could've thrown her one handful.

  He started walking.

  The hope in her eyes died.

  Her child convulsed. Hunger spasms. And that broke something in her.

  She crawled onto the petals on her knees. Mud from her legs staining the flowers. Staining God's holiness.

  "Father! Please! I'm begging you—"

  Shink.

  A blade across her neck.

  Thump.

  Her head rolled onto the petals. Red splashed across the colors.

  Norton's foot paused in mid-step. Then he stepped carefully around the head. Walked on. Didn't look back.

  The knight stood behind the headless body, sword in hand. Eyes like blades, cutting into Norton's back.

  The woman's head lay on the petals. The one place she'd never been allowed to step in life. Her eyes flickered. Then went dark.

  Shink.

  Another blade. Another thump.

  A child's head rolled next to its mother's. Small. Unseeing. In its eyes, a last reflection: Norton's back, walking away.