The Witch's Sabbath [2027]

The moon hung like a jagged bone over the Harz Mountains as Elspeth applied the foul-smelling ointment—a mixture of grease and "nasty ingredients"—to her skin. The world shifted, the air thick with the scent of pine and something ancient. With a sudden, sickening jolt of weightlessness, she felt herself ascending above the treetops.

: They feasted and danced with "joyful abandon," a dark inversion of the somber church rites they had fled. The Witch's Sabbath

Below, the village of Brocken was a mere smudge of orange light. She was not alone in the sky; shadowy figures mounted on goats and broomsticks streaked across the dark hemisphere, all drawn toward the same remote peak far from civilization. The moon hung like a jagged bone over

As she landed on the windswept summit, the was already in full, chaotic swing: : They feasted and danced with "joyful abandon,"

Elspeth joined the dance, her feet barely touching the earth. In this "fell hour," time seemed to lose its meaning. But as the first hint of gray touched the eastern horizon, the ecstasy began to curdle into a nightmare. The Great Goat stood, his single eye glowing, and with a deafening screech that sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell, the gathering vanished into the mist. Witches' Sabbath - Nightmare Magazine

: Small cauldrons bubbled with pseudo-runes etched into their sides, while black cats and frogs flitted through the shadows. The air vibrated with a dissonant music—a "Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath"—where screeching laughter replaced melody.

: A crowd of thousands—some say as many as 10,000—milled about in the firelight. Contorted faces, more possessed than human, expressed a terrifying joy.