THE HAUNTED KINGDOM(Charles E.J. Moulton) THE HAUNTED KINGDOM

- a short story version of the copyrighted trilogy

I worked on the trilogy from 1998 to 2007. The short story version is from 2010

Once upon a time there was a kingdom.
It lay in what to us would be an alternate reality, one where Rome had not fallen. Technically speaking Rome did fall, but the circumstances that reshaped the empire in ways that never seemed possible created a new world. This world took care of its’ infrastructure and the social, political and technical accomplishments.
The Roman Emperor Flavius Theodosius died on January 17th 395 A.D. His two sons Arcadius and Honorius did not, as originally had been decided by the very influential senate, divide Rome into the two parts East and West Rome after his death.
Instead, the two sons managed to convince the very sceptical council that the empire was worth a spectacular rescue. They managed this bold move in spite of their young age. It took them two years of hard labour to convince the stern bureaucrats that letting them go ahead with their plans was a good idea.
Honorius’ two advisors Rufinus and Eutropius, who otherwise had dominated the brothers, were replaced early by a new advisor: Flavius Flaccila. This man is credited with the actual saving of the Roman Empire. He was a strong man, who supported the sons’ endeavours and never took credit himself for his accomplishments. It was only later Wandiffian historians, among others the eminent archaeologist Musar Jansonius – author of books such as “As Rome became Wandiffia”, that found out what his role in this rescue had been.
Accordingly, he and the sons took a hold of most of the problems arising in the empire. The problems had been, among others, the death rate of the wealthy due to bad lead pipes. Now the water was purified to a larger extent and as a result Caesar Honorius, the prime emperor of the new dynasty, could in 408 Anno Domini see a country that had not only a higher life expectancy, but also higher moral values. The 32 000 prostitutes of Rome were now reduced to an amazingly minimal 1500. Gladiator games were deemed illegal and instead Honorius introduced the Caesarean Competitions: a version of the Greek Olympic Games.
The farming estates labelled Latifundia were still owned by the wealthy men, but now not completely controlled by them. When slavery was abolished in 409 A.D., the former slaves could now decide themselves what was to be done. This had the effect that the rich farmers still were happy, whilst the slaves, now called Servants of Caesar, had reached a new social level. As a result, inflation soon became a thing of the past and the up until this point very problematically arising unemployment sank.
Rome turned into Wandiffia. This ancient realm received a very prominent place in the newer empire, one where the provinces reached autonomy in a way that no one had ever expected. The infrastructure was intact, the roads were kept in shape, the running water and the thermal baths were undamaged. By the time that this alternate reality had reached the end of the 14th century Medatlantia, the alternate reality’s Europe, was looking at a society with early-rococo influence. It wouldn’t take long before somebody invented the combustion engine. This society was at least two hundred years ahead of ours.
There was a problem, however. The empire had its’ Achilles’ Heel. This threshold guardian had been founded by one Wandiffian king’s problematic brother, the founder of a dynasty of crooks named the Johnathans, a race of bastard sons. This is how the land came to be.
The Wandiffian Empire had become the leading monarch in what was called Medatlantia in the 12th century. A man named Simon was king and he ruled the land with a soft, but iron fist. He had decided to grant the rest of the continent free autonomy and so 11 nations ruled the continent in a peaceful trust.
John was Simon’s brother and he had never trusted his sibling. In fact, his jealousy had always gotten the better of him. In every way and at every moment, John would try to backstab his brother and try to find a way to trip and trap him.
Then one day he did trip him in a way no one had expected.
It was a political convention that was the setting of Prosperania’s and Nocturania’s birth. It wanted to determine the borders of states and Simon claimed that the states should receive complete individuality and that Wandiffia should only be a big brother to the other states.
John agreed that giving up dictatorship would, in fact, weaken Wandiffia. In a fit of rage, John stormed out of the conference hall and threatened to return only once he had gathered an army that could crush the country and turn it into the country he had envisioned.
Simon was devastated, but being the benevolent king he always had been, he went on about his business as usual and, despite his pain, ignored his better judgement. He gathered that his brother had left Medatlantia or was living a life of misery or luck in some deserted town in a far away town. So he claimed.
The night all hell broke loose was a quiet one with a full moon shining over the capital of Clurafar. Simon lay in his bed with his wife Gwedolyne snoring. They had just made love and the open balcony door revealed a hot summer night. His children Agatha, George, Martin and Theodore were all asleep.
Simon heard the noise first and the tremor made him jump. It was the noise of someone blowing a horn. What then followed was like a scene from the vilest of horror stories. The army that entered the castle of eternal youth, Simon’s own design of Iuventus Sacrum, consisted of the most brutal criminals of the land.
Somehow, John had spent the time he had been away recruiting a militia that was so vicious that even the most feared robbers were loving in comparison. The royal family was ripped away from their rooms and dragged half-asleep across the wilderness and finally tied to poles in the centre of town. While the men of the kin watched, Gwendolyne and Agatha were viciously raped and mutilated. There was nothing but blood and intestines left on the main square that day. Simon died screaming.
Somehow, and it was never revealed how, Simon’s oldest 16 year old son George escaped. He spent days hiding from the secret militia, while Wandiffia was a carnage of bloodbaths of never seen measure.
Carina, the loved one, had been a maid at the royal castle. George and she had had an affair for years now. By sheer luck, Fortuna had arranged a meeting between them in the forests outside Clurafar. Now, the two lawless heroes became accomplices.
They grabbed a carriage that stood unwatched at the main square and began heading for the border. However, they were stopped and George was imprisoned. Carina spent a year taking care of him in his cell and being whipped at night.
The kingdom had now been renamed Nocturania and was in a terrible state. Anarchy and dissidence ruled the land. Simon’s old castle of eternal youth, Iuventus Sacrum, was now the headquarters of lust and hatred.
It was never known what made John change his mind, but one day he released George and Carina and locked them inside his summer house. She was now going to become the mother of bastard sons. George could keep his girl, but John would come once every month to copulate with her and through the years she would create new children that would found a realm of grandeur.
Five years of gluttonous life followed. This life was full of good food eaten while the soldiers made fun of them and performed perversities before their eyes. By the time George and Carina had become obese, Carina was the mother of four bastard sons. Twenty other children roamed about the capital by now. John was becoming insane. He had at least fifty mistresses and was obsessed with creating an empire based on bastard sons just to spite Simon’s good memory.
Carina was the first to realize that they were dying. If they did not escape now, there would be not much left of them. She mapped out a plan to leave the country. The only nation in Medatlantia untouched by John’s hands was Olandus, a country called Sweden in our reality. It was therefore a refuge for many enemies of Nocturania.
A plan was laid out and late one night it was also carried out. John found nothing but dusty trails after the wagon load that midnight. He never found out where they had gone until years later.
It was not only her dying day that Carina made her son Joseph promise to return to Wandiffia’s old capital of Clurafar to avenge his grandfather. George had then long since been dead and so, being a good son, he spent the remainder of his life planning a continent wide attack on Nocturania.
John was now a very old man and very bitter.
The country was ravaged by wildfires and the soldiers spent most of their time beating citizens to their senses. It was therefore very easy to start a revolution.
What followed was a three year long war that involved eleven nations. In the end, Nocturania was given a land of its’ own and excluded from all political affairs.
Wandiffia was renamed Prosperania, the blossoming land, and Simon’s castle Iuventus Sacrum was rebuilt to its’ former glory.
So it came to be that two nations ruled Medatlantia. Two lands that had been founded by two brothers and two lands that would stand face to face and fist to fist soon enough in the shapes of two siblings.
The evil act was replayed in form of King Alexander and his sister Lucinda. It was Simon and John again, only worse.
A channel between Danalus and Prosperania was dug and that was the beginning of hell. Pirate ships started raiding the harbours.
Alexander III was a fine man with the heart of a lion and the power of a bear. Lucinda practiced black magic in her room down the hall and invited servants to copulate with her over open fire. She invited her sibling twins to join and forced them to watch while she dissected squirrels and pinned them to the ceiling.
One day she tripped Alex and made him fall down the marble staircase. This was an accident whose effects would follow him for the rest of his life. He would always feel his bad knee when he thought of Lucinda.
That was the point of no return for Alexander. He dragged Lucinda away from her royal chamber and locked her up in the very same summer house where George and Carina had spent their years as bastard parents.
Lucinda was now in the attic of that very house and she was chanting day and night about summoning evil over Prosperania.
Alexander maybe was tempting fate, but he decided to throw a party in that very house one day just to spite Lucinda. It was at the height of that feast when Lucinda broke out of her cage and started attacking the guests. One man, Walter von Ochsenskiöld, lost three fingers due to one attack by the witch.
Soon, Alexander’s parents and three other siblings, the twins and one brother, were dead and the summer house was in flames. After a mansion wide search of the grounds, Lucinda was found hiding in the wine cellar munching on dead servants’ ear.
Alexander threw the sister into a carriage and told the coachman to take her to Nocturania and abandon her in the forest by the border. She swore to return: “I shall come to haunt you one day, old man!”
After living on roots and berries for years, Lucinda teamed up with the Nocturanian King Adnicul and started a life there that would lead her to become the most horrible witch in history. King Adnicul was a mystery man. He had been the son of Nomad raiders in Africa and quickly rose to become king with Lucinda’s help. The last of the remaining Johnathans was killed by Lucinda’s hand in 1397 and now Lucinda and Adnicul ruled Nocturania with gluttonous power.
All the while, Alexander fled into infidelity.
Alexander’s wife Queen Sieglinde of Prosperania found out that her normally so kind husband was copulating and drinking with a countess named Madeleine. She left him and returned to her homeland of Margetania.
Alexander was desperate. He now understood what he had done. He rode to Margetania and swore on his knees never to be unfaithful again. When Sieglinde returned, things were different and if they weren’t the relationship would be over. Alexander was calm and faithful and brooding. He turned into a worrying father, scared of his son Patrick’s temper tantrums and his daughter Morgana’s constant disobedience. He was constantly watching out for their older sister Maria not to fall and not to climb stairs alone. He kept apologizing for everything and every other person’s mistake.
Sieglinde was ruling the country. Alexander ruled the house.
When Belinda was born in 1401, everything changed.
Alexander fell in love. Soon enough, Maria agreed to give over her crown to Belinda and not even the two later children Patricia and Eleonora could rival Belinda. She was the apple of his eye.
Belinda was smarter than the rest and prettier, but also haughtier.
It was Belinda’s eleventh birthday. The court composer Bantrard Silvermoon had been playing music all day and Belinda had been dancing with her friend Tom Barnes.
Belinda suddenly grew tired of dancing, as was her custom, and told the court that she needed time to herself. The king ordered the girl to bring Tom along. She agreed, but somewhere along the way she told Tom to leave her alone.
He did and he never forgave himself again.
Belinda was walking the sunflower field when she saw the woman striding the hills above the flowers.
Tom only too late discovered the carriage taking off with Lucinda and Belinda inside. Soon, a militia was on its’ way to keep the carriage from entering Nocturania.
The search party spent months lost in the Nocturanian wilderness while Belinda was tortured in the bowels of Rigor Mortis, the Nocturanian royal palace.
It came to pass that the first floor of the castle Rigor Mortis in Nocturania was in flames that day, just like another castle had been almost two decades prior. Outside an army of forty men waited transfixed by some power that prevented them from attacking the palace. Forty soldiers pointed their swords at Lucinda and Adnicul and no one struck them down. Stains on the floor were drops of Belinda’s blood. The young girl had been crying and the bruises from the chains upon her wrists were still so deep that Alexander believed that he could see his daughter’s bones under the wound. His daughter’s words haunted him.
“Who is Nina Ray?” She asked.
There was no question that his sister had physically and spiritually tortured his daughter. What amazed the king was how calm the two culprits responsible seemed to be. Nineteen years years ago his sister had swung from lamps, rode on banisters, burned down staircases. She was exiled as a murderer and vandilizer. Now she had tried it again. The king’s daughter was making Uncle Zedrick’s left shoulderpad wet with her tears. No more than the king had power over the wind or the sea had he power over the witch. He could not stop her from trying this again. Neither could Alex. All he could do was clutch his daughter, stroke her hair and hope that the stormy sea named Lucinda Winsletenna would not decide to flood his kingdom. With that in mind, Zedrick Ronkenshire, a robust man with thick black hair, took the small girl into his arms and led her out toward the carriage, having negotiated to let the girl go. This didn’t help. The girl screamed for her father. “Father, I don’t want to leave you.”
He replied, “We won’t be here long, Sweetheart, but it is safer for you to leave.”
Alexander had spent the last six months since the kidnapping trying to find a place that seemed to be off the map. It had vanished. Then, by some sheer stroke of luck, it appeared again. A messenger that had been sent shortly after Alexander had left Nocturania for the second time in September and then an army of forty arrived at the Nocturanian palace.
There was nothing at all to be done. The army was transfixed and the culprits refused to say anything about anything. They simply stood there answering no questions. To all of the entire Prosperanian delegation it seemed as if it had been planned for them to find and bring the princess back to Clurafar. They didn’t protest at all. The princess was traumatized and that maybe had been the point.
Belinda was in his arms all the way home from hell and yet in his dreams he shivered in cold sweat. Alexander knew that somewhere peace could be found, even if he had to go back to hell to find it. The winter of 1411 was a season filled with nightmares. He had seen a dark army riding down an avenue in his dreams. They were on the way home to his palace, eradicating innocent victims. That year the king returned to his palace garden, where he had dropped a golden coin into a deep well as a child, and with his daughter he sat and watched the sunset. It was an ambivalent experience. He had seen his exiled sister again. She had told him that she would return to his capital, Clurafar. He vowed that never again would his daughter’s blood be spilled. The king daydreamed of rivers and lakes and mountains. He heard his child sleeping in his arms, her small snore vibrating against his heart.
He cried, whispering: “My girl, I will protect you!”
And he dreamed of a world without Lucinda Winsletenna. It seemed he had known her forever.
In 1422, Nina Ray really appeared. It soon became clear that she was a prominent figure among a Nocturanian forest tribe that worked intimately with Lucinda and Adnicul to weaken the Prosperanian crown. Nina Ray was questioned and it was discovered that she was a part of a plan to wane the monarchy. King Adnicul reacted to this capture by torturing his servants, a couple named Eric and Rebecca, who he eventually would murder after a long chase through the forest.
Belinda was attacked by a lake near the royal palace and soon the evil plan could commence.
During Belinda’s nuptial festivities with her mate Steven Lucinda appeared again and cursed the kingdom with three plagues that would come to trouble the land. The ten-headed being Kerberos, the hound of misery, was her companion.
At first, nothing horrific happened. Belinda returned heavy with child from the married couple’s honeymoon. Alfred was born and the little boy was everybody’s pride and joy.
An experienced man for all seasons appeared out of nowhere one day and his given name was Nomed Snekawa. He claimed to be a travelling medicine gentleman of sorts and could carry out everything from plays to enchanting tricks. An plague struck the stronghold during a majestic banquet where dignitaries from eleven nations visited the castle and, of course, Nomed had the cure.
After having seduced Belinda, the liquid remedy was given to over three hundred diplomats on September 23rd 1425. The company awoke the next morning healthy, but Nomed was gone.
The three plagues soon began shaking the realm. War struck the soil, the harbours were attacked and the terra firma was severely devastated. When Prosperania was almost rock bottom, scandal hit the terrain and created hookers and thieves of all the offspring. The third plague was bereavement and soon Alexander was left unaccompanied in the haunted kingdom. The last one to go was Belinda. Alexander was a desolate chap.
In the bastion, Alexander was chased by demons and haunted by illusions of Hades. One day Belinda returned from the deceased. She appeared in the chapel and told him that he was living in a daydream. They were not really departed, just sound asleep. It was in fact the 23rd of September 1425 and Lucinda sought him to set off to combat her in order to settle on who would win veracity. Adnicul was actually a reincarnation of Lucifer’s first sub angel and had been recruited only to tutor Lucinda to take over the world.
Belinda revealed more:
Two kingdoms had been created here by two angels in heaven and the manifestations of their creation would be reshaped on Earth. Michael and Lucifer, who once upon a time had been on shining stars, were founders. Nevertheless, Lucifer’s envy had ruined his once pure spirit and turned him into a monster. He had picked a seed from the forbidden tree and created a sub angel along with his other allowed assistants and thereby created his own dark army.
Michael encaged Lucifer in his own cave in the Callenian Cave, a refuge with a gate to heaven. Lucifer escaped the cave, corrupted mankind and created another entrance here: a gate to hell.
God split the realities in order to protect mankind from Lucifer, but Lucifer created an evil brother in Eden: John. John begat hatred, hatred begat envy and envy begat corruption and so the legend began.
Simon was Michael’s counterpart and had ruled the kingdom of Prosperania with a just integrity that exceeded selflessness. His love for his countrymen was renowned. His brother John was Lucifer’s counterpart in creation and therefore envious and ill willed.
As this was an illusion, Alexander soon discovered that he not only could grow younger, but also could summon Belinda from her cage in hell for a time. His family was now in hell and his job was to find and duel Lucinda in the cave of original sin, where Lucifer once had been caged, and then go through the seven levels of hell and save his kin.
First, Alexander was tempted by evil. He rode off a younger, stronger man with nothing but extra clothing, drink, food and a dagger with him, leaving the empty royal place Iuventus Sacrum behind. The dark forest he soon entered left no clues as to what might wait for him. The night was chilly and the ghouls left their trouncing places.
The night saw him facing werewolves that made him observe himself eating his own spawn. In the morning after this horrid dream from hell he faced a sacred predicament. Luckily, his daughter Belinda appeared yet again. She had been able to escape the pangs of hell for just enough time to soothe her father. She gave him hope and left him standing by the seashore, telling him that he would have to do without her from now on. She could not leave Hades unless he came to rescue her. Alexander was alone again.
Three angels appeared on that very seashore and told him that in order to see his daughter again he would have to find Lucinda. The only way to his daughter was through the dark forest. The angels did soothe Alexander and told him their names would be his greatest console in tough times. Their names were Raphael, Michael and Gabriel and upon telling him their names they showed Alexander his own shoreline, the inner place that he went to when everything went wrong. This place could bestow him with peace and solitude. Drinking and eating with Alexander by a campfire, the angels gave him warnings not to speak with the demons he was facing and have the guts to stick it out.
He was about to face an extensive journey occupied with bizarre beings who wanted only one thing: scare him back into oblivion.
Odd they were. He entered a woodland so chock-full of demons that it made him quaver. They were all screaming at him to turn around. They turned his stallion Mercutio into a dancing devil and Alexander into an uneasy wreck.
Soon enough, Alexander was out of the forest and turned toward unconsciousness. He had faced fear. Now he was facing the absolute unknown. For over a half year he travelled one extensive trail that never seemed to end. He constantly reminded himself that this was an illusion. Accordingly, food was always provided. By whom he did not know, only that Lucinda probably wanted him to arrive at his destination in order to battle her.
The duel would be won by the person whose reality would determine everything. If Alexander won, he and his court would, after saving the family from their cages in hell, eventually wake up to the world of the 23rd of September 1425. If Lucinda won, Lucinda’s reality would become true and Lucifer would rule the world.
Alexander faced scores of situations during these months on the endless path. He met his wife and family again, knowing they were but shadows. He saw the soul collector that summoned the souls to hell and he held endless philosophical discussions with the angels.
Then one day, the pathway ended and he was introduced to the twelve archangels. They accompanied him as he rode the wasteland of lost majesties, a desert of sorts where he saw poor souls travelling toward hell and witnessed shadows from times gone by as Michael fought Lucifer in the dawn of time.
Meanwhile, Adnicul’s now dead servant Eric appeared before Adnicul and told him that he had been used and was only a tool to tutor Lucinda. He had been a seed from the forbidden tree in Eden and his mission was to turn to the good side and go with Michael to meet Alexander, whom he would help conquer Lucinda. Then he would find his peace as he returned to the tree in heaven.
Alexander soon after that fell asleep on his horse and awoke next to a river on a field of green. He wondered how he had arrived here and there was no clue as to where his companions had gone.
He rode off into the undiscovered land and thought about wanting to become what he once been, but never would be. His wishes came true sooner than he thought. Standing next to a farm, he saw himself as a younger man. His younger self reprimanded him that he had become pitifully scared once he had been discovered as unfaithful. The bottom line was that Alexander was ashamed of himself, but that his reaction had been normal. His younger self had summoned him in order to understand that he had been a better man once. Once he drove away Lucinda he had become a witch hunter. He had become what he had fought and forgot to live in the moment.
Alexander then rode into a deserted city, where a new meal was waiting for him. Here, Lucinda waited for him and paved the way for a meeting with a range of forest gypsies, a band of bohemians that were to train him to become an angelic warrior. He was confused, as he did not know if these people were his friends or his foes. It became obvious soon enough that the angels had only taken the shape of enemies only to tell him that everything wasn’t what it seemed. There were many tests like that one ahead.
At the end of that year, Alexander was a very skilled warrior with acrobatic flying skills, tactical and spiritual battle techniques.
One day, he found all his tutors gone. They had left him a gift: St. Michael’s Sword. With the help of the weapon he was transported to another part of Nocturania. With the change came another topsy-turvy world that changed everything he had believed in before. People he thought were honest turned dishonest and former foes become friends.
He took refuge in an old man’s hut, who told him he was the first of the evangelists, disguised angels who would give him something to use in his final trip in order to face Lucinda.
Matthew gave him humanity. His emblem was the son of man. Down the road in a castle on a hill, Mark gave him benevolence. His symbol was the lion. Luke gave him the strength of an ox. That led him past a field and through a pasture, down a canyon. With these gifts he soared toward the eagle John, who gave him a flying soul.
St. Michael soon came to him and introduced him to a former enemy, who had been fooled himself and wanted nothing more than to redeem himself. Alexander at first wanted nothing to do with Adnicul, but after a while the two kings and former enemies rode off together in order to find and track down Lucinda. Adnicul needed his soul back and Alexander needed his family.
They did nothing but fight, but somewhere along the way it became obvious that Adnicul remembered Eden and knew how ridiculed he had become. Now they had grown closer.
They took refuge in a cave, where they decided to sleep for the night. Unfortunately, the cave was the home to a large beast that held them captive. Alexander escaped only by the hair of his neck. Adnicul didn’t. He was imprisoned by the beast. Alexander was forced to move on without him.
Soon enough, Alexander entered the darkest part of the land where the trees that grew had sprung up from the seeds from the original forbidden tree, the one that had created Adnicul. This was where the beasts lured and where Lucifer had battled his brothers, where he had been encaged and where his cave lay. This was the place the duel would take place.
Alexander rode down the path and soon arrived at the cave of original sin. The underground lake revealed Lucifer pure soul that had been taken away from him when he begat vanity.
Lucinda met him here and the duel that commenced was fought with sarcasm and hatred as weapons. She tempted him with visions of wealth. Alexander was shown Rome and given the opportunity to become an emperor. He declined and then returned to the cave, where nightmares of future hatred caught his ocular wealth.
Meanwhile, Adnicul had escaped the claws of the beast and was riding toward the cave to help his friend.
At the crossroads between heaven and hell at the gates of the underground river Alexander conquered Lucinda and found Adnicul again. Having conquered the witch, they also knew that the hardest part was yet to come: saving the family.
The seven levels of hell were to be travelled.
The first level was the entrance, where the souls were mortared into walls and forced to labour for eternity. The second level was a haunted no-man’s-land where spirits spent all their time lost in space. The third level was a place of endless and useless work, labyrinths and seas of people screaming for help. The fourth level was complete solitude, where everyone spent their existence completely cut off from all communication. The fifth level was an arena of ultimate torture, where millions of people crowded, stepping on each other and desperately trying to keep breathing, eating each other in order to live and beating each other up in order to stay alive. The sixth level was the garbage disposal of human souls.
The seventh level was simply a dreadfully cavernous crack at whose base sizzled red fire. Above the blaze they found thirty six cages. These were all replicas of the grand hall of the Prosperanian royal palace Iuventus Sacrum, where Lucinda had cursed the thirty six dignitaries from the eleven leading nations of the continent.
By jumping into each cage and waking up the inhabitants one by one, they saved each and every individual of the family unit and crawled out lively from anguish. Adnicul returned to his tree in Eden and soon enough the family woke up in their castle on the 24th of September 1425. Daylight streamed in through the windows into the grand hall and gave the assembly a sense of joy.
Lucifer fell into the fire and vanished.
It did not take a long time for Nocturania to sign a peace treaty with Alexander’s empire.
The king and queen, the princes and princess and the sons and daughters were all in high spirits that they had been granted to live in a prosperous kingdom.
Steven’s and Belinda’s son Alfred went on to discover America and in this actuality a serene property was founded. This was a terrain where the American Indians could reside side by side with the white gentleman.
Alexander transcended into heaven a happy man, knowing that his imperial house was sheltered and Belinda was becoming a remarkable queen.

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