Yodel awoke slowly.
He found himself floating as a strange consciousness in the void, seeing his own body hanging on a rope, growing still, feeling nine companions of the same form floating around him, and hearing Langeler's lament beside him.
"What a pity... You didn't resist the ritual either."
"Have we all become ghosts because of the Waltz of the Dress...?" Yodel asked, stunned.
"Guess again."
Langeler's tone was relaxed, as if he hadn't died.
But if they had become ghosts, in a way they were still "alive"...
At that moment, a strange change suddenly occurred around them, the scene melted like an oil painting into another image: they were walking in the Ruins of Old Belfast.
Then fog surrounded them, a cold lullaby quietly flowed.
"Ten apprentice exorcists, went running for food; one choked and could not be saved, nine now stood."
Langeler clutched his swelling throat and collapsed, gasping.
