I found the journal of a Church pastor from the 1200s. The Pied Piper is real.

Bungelosenstrasse

The stories we hear as children, the ones that cross ethnic and geographical boundaries, that jump ship and swim to the nearest lands searching for vivid imagination to survive on - are the ones that stay with us. They scratch and claw and batter their way to the top, reigning unforgettable in some oft irrelevant corner of our minds. The story of Alice lost in Wonderland, of Pinocchio and his wooden nose, of the Pied Piper and his entrancing melodies.

But there is truth to absurdity, a single kernel awaiting a jolt of curiosity-fed flames to burst open; to throw away its pale veneer of fiction, and bask in the sodden sunlight of reality.

And so it was with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. That strange, motley-donned figure that traipsed up to the country of plague-stricken Germany and rid an entire village of its rats. When his payment was refused, he lifted his magic flute and played a tune that enchanted the minds of the children of the town - and lead them to their end. A fitting story that tells of the perils of reneging on a promise.

But the Pied Piper was real. It was no man, nor friendly magician that brought HamelIn to its knees, and there were no friendly tunes played on flutes past gabled tithe houses and cattle barns. What it was, I can only assume, and I hope that no man tries more than that.

What I am about to tell you is information I only know through happenstance. Studying history at grade school had given me access to the Archaeological Museum in my city, which just so happened to have a cultural exchange with one of the largest centres of Religious conservation in the world- based out of Berlin. An internship there had brought me in touch with the book I am about to quote to you from - a journal maintained by a man of faith in the Church of St.John's, in what used to be lower Saxony in 1284 AD. It was a mouldy, near-illegible mess of rot and flaky parchment. The once vivid emerald green linen that covered the pages was now a dirty, withering rag, with a single word sewn into it in flowery script.

Bungelosenstrasse.

The Street Without Drums.

It was this that caught my attention, a storybook-like title inscribed onto the cover of a church pastor's journal. I decided to make transcriptions of the text, translate it, and look into it further. If there was ever a mistake I had made in academia before, it paled before this one.

I will now write down what I read there, skipping over the numerous dronings on virtue, sin and hope. Father Adam, as he signed the journal, was a true devout - a man of religious passion tempered with what seemed to be innate human understanding. I am only apologetic for what he had to endure. Faith will save many from a lot, but what is faith in the jaws of that which eludes human comprehension and law? That exists notwithstanding every edict of science and religion?

There is none that can stand the terror of that which is beyond the realm of mortal comprehension.