Lyrics
The next morning, Darien and Clarissa awoke to the unthinkable. The cathedral had been broken into and the original manuscript to “The Catching Away Suite” had been stolen. This would change everything as undoubtedly the thief would leak the score to the entire world. It was no telling what would now become of the original manuscript. Darien fully intended to honor all scheduled performances, but expected that attendance would wane once the score was leaked. Of course, since the preservation society held the publishing rights, they could pursue legal recourse to prevent anyone from performing or recording the suite without their express permission. But would this serve Darien's sense of mission for the true purpose of what the suite was about? As they prepared for the evenings performance and the audience filled the hall, Sabothian’s concert also got underway. During the intermission, Sabothian announced that there would be a guest conductor for “The Pentagram Waltz” because he had another concert to attend as he held up a ticket to “The Catching Away Suite”. As the opening strains of “The Pentagram Waltz” filled the air, a freakish sinister turn took place as a crowd of dancers broke into pairs and began waltzing around the grounds of the cathedral, their dance steps falling in line with shape of the five point star. Sabothian was elated as this would allow him to discreetly disguise himself to gain entrance into the church without being singled out.
The concert had already started by the time he had taken his seat. He witnessed as a fly on the wall the audience as they became incredibly moved by the performance. He became enraged as the audience became more reverent. During the final bow when Darien proclaimed that there was only One who was worthy to receive such overwhelming applause, the One whom Mozart proclaimed as “The Lamb Of God who takes away the sins of the world”, the applause reached a fervor as everyone fell to their knees. All at once, all eyes were drawn to a cloaked figure standing by the cross. At first glance, Darien thought it was the cloaked messenger, then as the hood came off, revealed none other than Sabothian Wolfe. Eyeing Clarissa up and down, Sabothian sneered “Clarissa, you look smoldering in that dress. We could certainly heat things up if you were to accept my offer for the position of first chair in my personal chamber orchestra should you ever want to flirt with the dark side.” Clarissa, feeling emotionally violated and enraged, responded by throwing her bow at him and there was dead silence as Sabothian batted it aside with only the click of it glancing off the wooden floor before coming to rest by the foot of the cross. “And feisty too.... I like them feisty" Sabothian fiendishly oozed.
Darien, maintaining his composure, turned to the audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears that ‘the Big Bad Wolfe’ has dropped by for an impromptu cameo appearance. Sabothian… don’t you have your own orchestra to conduct tonight.” inquired Darien? Sabothian replied” My orchestra was left in the capable hands of Ramon, my understudy. I have a more urgent matter to attend to right here.” And what might that be Mr. Wolfe” Darien asked? Sabothian sneered, “Darien does the name Antonio Salieri ring a bell?" “He was Mozart’s rival who some have speculated to have poisoned Mozart” Darien replied. “Master Salieri, Darien, is a part of my ancestry. He did not poison Mozart as it has been rumored… at least not as one might expect. Antonio brilliantly planted that propaganda into Mozart’s mind and Mozart’s fear and paranoia became his own poison”. Those same tactics have been preserved and passed along throughout my lineage and have even evolved along with the advances in technology. That’s why there is a large gathering of protestors outside your door tonight and why this cathedral is quickly gaining a reputation as a religious cult compound that has used the musical heritage of Mozart to brainwash hundreds of people into believing a fairy tale that God is going to cause his faithful sheep to fly off into the heavens to be with him”, mused Sabothian. “I’ve come here tonight to once and for all dispel that myth”. He then reached into his robe and pulled out a scroll. It was the stolen manuscript of The Catching Away Suite. Flicking a lighter, Sabothian then proclaimed, “Tonight you have taken your final bow as all proof of authenticity pertaining to a so called work of Mozart is about to go up in flames”.
Sabothian then set fire to the manuscript as Darien leapt towards him in an attempt to intervene, but alas, Sabothian tossed the flaming manuscript up into the rafters. No sooner had the force of Darien’s body knocked Sabothian off balance that there suddenly arose from the horn section of the orchestra, the cloaked messenger. As he placed a trumpet to his lips he was suddenly transformed into a large angelic being and with a blast of his trumpet that seemed to echo to the four corners of the world, everyone vanished. Sabothian, still stumbling backwards fell into the foot of the cross causing it to fall on him, knocking him unconscious and pinning him to the floor as the fire quickly spread. The crowd outside gasped as the cathedral went up in flames, the smoke causing the moon to turn blood red. All at once the building collapsed sending a fireball into the night sky that rained down burning embers onto the crowd as they tried to flee.
In the early morning light, firefighters began to search through lingering smoke and the rubble. To their surprise, only one body was found… the body of Sabothian Wolfe, still pinned beneath the cross which somehow miraculously, had not been consumed by the fire. What astounded them even more were the vast amount of open graves in the memorial garden. All were empty. As the news of this spread, other reports of people having vanished from around the globe began to filter in. For those who remained, the “The Catching Away Suite” was gone, never to be heard again. The Requiem for Planet Earth was now starting to play. For Darien, Clarissa, and believers the world over and from ages past, they had been caught upward in spiral of sound to a place that no earthly translation or song can describe and brought face to face with the Lamb Of God who took away the sins of the world. The Catching Away Suite, for them, was merely a prelude.
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God: the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." 1 Thessalonians 3:11.