you simply stared up at the smoke from the cremation rising straight into the sky. Its dull gray trail seemed like the sight of their parents' proof of life, who had certainly been there just moments before, turning to ash and vanishing.

Just then, the heavy, cold sound of a bell shook the air and reached you. —It was time to go. As if pushed forward by that sound which forbade standing still, you left the place where their parents were being cremated.

Their feet carried them to the cathedral hall. When they pushed open the heavy doors and stepped inside, an eerie scene had already unfolded. In the polychromatic light streaming through the high window's stained glass, about a hundred people were lined up, and standing at the very front were four young men. The crowd turned their gazes toward you all at once, and simultaneously, the wave of people parted as if to make way for them.

you walked down the center of the opened path. Upon reaching the front, they turned their back to the stained glass and faced the young men and the crowd.