CreepCast - The Church In The Woods | CreepCast

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

After an IT guy is called out to a church in the woods, he learns a lot more about himself through a series of weird dreams and an odd Christmas revelation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrills.ca. Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we are diving into a creepy pasta legend straight from creepypasta.com called The Church in the Woods. It's a five parter written by Vingle W, which I think is just Angel W, the a's upside down. Yes. I believe it's angel W this person has written a ton of stories on creepypasta.com. All of them were like multi-part. So they have Fox's don't ask questions. The great

Occam Cobb, which looks like it's about a magician, the dry ad woods and insula. So very prolific insula is 15 parts. So they're writing like novel length works. I am man I've got, okay. I'm going to have to do something. I have this stupid earpiece in my ear now because my audio messed up in the last one. So I have to listen to myself talk. So every time I say something, it echoes in my ear and I'm about to lose my light or is it just, you can hear yourself and you don't like it. Yes. It's delayed a little bit because the recordings delayed a little bit by a half second. So it's awful. Everything I say, I echo. It feels like I'm going mad. Anyway, angel, angel w the church in the woods has been recommended a lot. It is a five part

story. It's been recommended a lot with along with ones like accounts from a lonely broadcast station, which is something else we'll probably get to before too long. But I've wanted to check this one out. Obviously it has all the tales that I like in a story, weird religion and woods. So, you know, I'm already here. I'm locked in. I'm excited too. It's also a nice, nice to be back in the creepypasta realm. Also just want to say thank you guys for,

we have had so many submissions on our sub Reddit that it feels like it's a nice, it feels nice to see so many people coming out and writing shit. It's just awesome. So if you want to write something and have people read it, I've been seeing a lot of people upvoting stuff and commenting on stuff, so that's sick.

So go there and check it out if you wanna be a part of that community of people writing short stories, it's fucking sick. Also just wanna give a shout out to our patrons. Thank you patrons, we appreciate you so much and hope you enjoy all that juicy extra content over on the Patreon. If you're interested in that, check it out in the bio. And as always check us out on Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you

prefer listening to this on the audio side, give us a nice rating there. It does help Isaiah. Let's run part one on this shit. The church of the woods, part one, the tree, the church in the woods. Thank you guys so much for everything. It's especially funny to talk about everyone submitting stuff to the subreddit and then not having an episode about the subreddit. It would be very funny if we never do it again. Like we've known everyone to come on. It was too fun the first time I think we're, but it's going to be something where it needs to be a nice balance where we read some stuff, some classics and all that jazz of stuff that was written a long time ago and that has a nice place in people's hearts.

And then we come back and then we keep touching on it until inevitably the show just becomes reading fan stories because we've covered every other story under the sun. Right, we eventually read everything that has ever been written online except us in the only place that new stuff is being created. That's a great idea. So how old will we be then? Like 140. All right. Without further

ado, let's get into it. The church in the woods. I also went before I went, I also legitimately thought that we have read this story six times. It's because we've done spire in the woods, the spire in the woods camp or like oak oak wood. There's been a lot of stuff of like buildings in woods, deep woods, deep woods. Yeah. A lot of stuff like that. And if there's a, any kind of AC DC reference in this, then I will know that there's actually all the same story. Just reef reskinned. Okay. Okay. All right. The church in the woods. Part one. I had a weird dream last night. It wasn't like your normal everyday dream. It was very disturbing to me. I wouldn't consider it a nightmare, but I know I'll never forget it. It still brings a shiver just thinking

about it. Before the dream, everything was normal. Saturday had arrived after a long, tiring week of work. I was an IT technician. It was the kind of job where we would assist customers, varying from software issues to networking ones. Occasionally, the job would require us to meet them on their turf to provide on-site service. Unfortunately for me, I wore multiple hats which meant I had to tackle most on-site visits. Some would think of me as a versatile, irreplaceable employee, and you wouldn't be wrong.

I, however, couldn't look past the glaring fact that the company was just being too cheap to hire others, opting to milk every ounce they could get from us, their understaffed employees. You can see why I would spend most of my weekdays only sleeping or watching television. Basically, anything that required the least amount of work or movement. Unfortunately, these tactics made them fly by faster than usual. There's nothing worse than expediting your rest days to your work ones. This weekend, I decided to mix it up a bit. Instead of my usual lazy days around my apartment, I decided to venture out and visit my parents. I had been home in two years and I couldn't remember

the last phone call I made to them, so I figured I was overdue for a visit. Home was around fifty miles away, but that didn't seem too bad compared to most people I knew. I had plenty of friends who were clear across the country from their folks, so I knew I had no room to complain. To be honest, I was looking forward to the drive. The ones in the morning were the best, watching the sun gradually rise, feeling the cool breeze while coasting the near empty streets absent of a river of traffic. Was there a better time to travel? I couldn't wait to see my dad or my stepmom either. I could already picture the two of them ambushing

me with hugs while releasing a barrage of questions about how everything was going in my life, and I haven't even gotten to the best part, home cooked meals. Energized by these thoughts, I quickly packed up a few things, toothbrush, clothes for one night, towels, and anything else I thought I might need. For a second. I thought about giving them a quick heads up call to let them know I was coming but refrained thinking it would be better if my visit was unannounced by the way, how do you live 15 miles away from your parents and you haven't seen them in two years? I'll tell you what that's that's optimization is what that is. I honestly have never I have not had more respect for a character to, to, because

that is, I don't know how you do that. Even just like there's, you don't bump into them at all. Not once it's kind of, it's kind of impressive. If I'm being completely honest, I was like something like 50 miles. God, two years. Holy hell. All right. Like you can go see them after work if you wanted to. No, no Christmases. No birthday years. You haven't even like bumped into him at a grocery store or like at a gas station. I mean like 50. I mean you never know. I mean I don't know. It's just impressive. That's a conscious effort. A hundred percent at some point. Yeah. After my car was loaded, I pulled out my apartment area.

I pulled out of my apartment area and began to drive. As expected, the sun had barely peaked beyond the horizon. Drive itself was smooth and fluent with barely any other cars on the road. It's the way I liked it. As early as it might've seemed to some people, my parents were early birds that got up at the crack of dawn to maximize their day, taking care of small things throughout it. Cutting grass, morning runs, errands, etc. It didn't take long before I reached my old hometown.

I was met with the familiar setting, rendering old memories. Almost at every angle, I could recall some event from my life while growing up. It wasn't until I looked in the rear mirror that I noticed I had a smile pressed on my face. There's this guy's a psychopath. I was happy to be home. It's got to read like that. Right? You live 15 miles from your parents. He looks at the mirror and he's unconsciously smiling. Oh God. I'm just so happy. I didn't know what this feeling was. Yeah. What was this feeling? Happiness? Is that what this is? Could this be what that means? So foreign to me happiness. It's like

Patrick Bayman driving. I am a shell. You may touch flesh, but there is no one there. Eventually I reached my neighborhood, turning onto the street where my parents lived from the distance. I could see their house at the far end to the right. I drove down the street glancing left and right attempting to see if old neighbors were still present at their homes. Just from a glance I could recognize what houses had new people and which ones had familiar faces. Only a few were actually up and outside. One person in particular was Mr. Harris. He was infamous for always attending this yard. He was mainly seen cutting his grass and did so in a full

jumpsuit regardless of how hot or cold the weather shifted. It vaguely resembled the ones prisoners would wear except it was navy blue instead of a bright orange. I reached my parents house and parked next to the mailbox. The driveway had my dad's car in it. My stepmother's car was usually kept inside the garage since it was a newer vehicle. The house itself was fairly big. It was two stories with all white siding that made up its exterior. It had burgundy shutters to accompany each window and a decent sized porch with a bench on it. After parking my car and walking up to the door, I could already see the screen door closed to allow the cool air to run through your own of bacon and what the fuck is

so funny. The fuck are you? What the fuck you giggling about? After my car parked. because it's been so detailed, every layer of it. And when it started mentioning mr. Harris in a jumpsuit, I'm like, Oh, is that guy like, I wonder if that guy's going to show up later as a killer or something. So then as I'm reading like the description of the house and bacon, I just started thinking how funny it would be if Mr. Harris just sprinted down the street, just beat him to death in the middle.

It kicks the narrator. Completely normal day. Even you saying that makes you think of that fucking scene and get out where the guy's like running straight at him in the woods or whatever. Yes. That's exactly what he's just sprinting full speed. Yeah. He's just like, oh, the room of bacon, the beautiful old says he gets eggs in his hand. He has a cast. He has a cast or a skill to bacon and eggs.

Breakfast! Like like the day raiders just like, oh, I'm happy to see mom again. And you just hear the sidewalk. Anyway. Yeah. I had to get that out. The more ideal like the scene gets, the funnier the bit got in my head, the aroma of bacon and eggs filtered out work with the sounds of talking and moving around despite, despite still. I'm sorry. I've I need to get this giggle fit out of my system. Despite still having a key to the place. I rang the doorbell instant instantly. I heard just take a fucking minute to laugh. Just take one fucking discount to 60 and laugh. Listen, listen, when I read, I heard my, I saw the word footsteps in the next line. So

now it's like, maybe he is about to come sprinting down the street. Look, I'm going to be honest man, but the AC in my office isn't working. It's like 85 degrees in here. I'm hot. I'm spreading down the street. Look, I'm going to be honest, man, but the AC in my office isn't working. It's like 85 degrees in here. I'm hot. I'm dehydrated. I am losing my mind. Get a wet, get a wet fucking towel, a cold wet towel and a glass of water and call the fuck down. Cause you are fucking insane. Like you're freaking me out. If anything, the real creepypasta today is like being on a discord call with somebody that has a little giggle fit. And even you saying giggle fit, I was like, what in the hell I gotta, I gotta get this giggle fit out of here. Okay. Do I sound like Hank? Like bill Dottriev to me, Hank bill bill Dottriev

bill Dottriev bill Dottrieff. Oh, but his buddy. His buddy on King of the Hill. That's right. Sorry Hank, I got the giggle. I got the giggle fits. Also, it would have been funny if you said giggle shits. You ever laugh really hard while you're shitting and then you fart and it goes in rhythm with your laugh? Well, thank you for saying that. I immediately got rid of anything I found funny. Well, I had diarrhea one time and that happened and it was like literally like a water fight with my ass. Here we go. Okay. All right. Is that it? Is that mercifully short? Yes. I heard my dad's voice grumpily question out loud. Who would be visiting at this hour? It hears

footsteps walking over until he merged into the entrance hallway. I could see his eyes widened and a smile grow in his face. He called out for my stepmother to come over to him. When she did, I was met with a loud cry of joy as she raced over to the door, opening it, pulling me into a vice grip hug. And I wish I had one of those. I haven't, I haven't had one of those happen in a long time. Someone scream out of enjoyment that you're like showing up to their house and only happened like it's happened like maybe twice in my life. And it was great every time that was such a sad forlorn statement. Okay. In hindsight, I do agree. It was pretty sad,

but more so I just mean in my mind, I was thinking about the last time someone actually looked man, they do. Oh, and they come over when they hug you. I have it twice. I think both, I think, I think literally both times too. There was never my family. So it was like a friend. You're making it so much worse. The fact that you're just randomly out of the blue, like, man, I miss that. I miss when someone loved me like that that, but hug me that way. No, I was just joking around. It happens all the time. Okay. Anyway, after about a 10 minute moment of hugs and greetings, I was finally able to settle in, but all my stuff into my old room, which was in the basement.

Basement, of course, was finished and had a big television in front of a couch along with the washer and dryer down there. It was almost like a second living room, perfect for having guests over or even a tenant for renting. The day went by fairly quick. I spent most of it talking to them

about my job, politics in the world, and other recent events. It wasn't until the evening arrived when my dad announced that in his spare time he had managed to convert all of the old homemade movie tapes onto DVDs. My dad was always the type to keep busy. He worked hard throughout the week and even on the weekends because he was unable to cope with the downtime. He was in these times that he would keep himself busy with small side projects. These projects varied from big ones like

installing new floorboards to small ones like planting fresh flowers outside. Apparently this time his project had been converting the old tapes before they became too bad to view. We decided to spend that evening watching the old movies to gawk and laugh at the old days in our lives. He popped in the first disc and left temporarily to use the bathroom. The video appeared to be during Christmas time. The footage was very grainy, producing a few white streaking lines across the screen. The time stamp in the corner read, December 25, 1991.

In the video, we could see a big tree in the background, heavily decorated with tinsel and ornaments. Below it, a multitude of presents covered the floor, varying in size. Off to the side was my mother, my real mother, very young in appearance. She must have been at least in her mid-twenties at the time. I didn't get a chance to know her. My father had informed me she had died when I was too young to remember only recognize her from photos. I'd seen lying around. It wasn't until I was old enough that my father explained her death was in fact a murder. Some crazy loon had broken into their apartment, shot her. Yeah. So I forgot to, I forgot to

tell you though. Hey, your mom got shot in her apartment a while back. That's why you didn't know her anyways. Yeah. Christmas this year was crazy. This Christmas was crazy. There's your mother before she was shot to death by some madman by some freak that broke broken her house and killed her. It's no big deal. So I actually, I totally blanked on that. I don't know why I didn't tell you. I feel like I haven't heard the word lunatic or sorry, loon. I haven't heard some crazy loon. Like instead of a twenties comic, I just can't believe that this guy hasn't told his son that his mom was shot in the face. Well, he did you later when he was older. He didn't explain it to a five-year-old.

Yeah. But I think even like what, how old do you have to be? I mean, I don't know how, gosh, how old you be when you tell your son that his mom was shot. I don't know. 10, 10 to 12 fair. I mean, maybe he told him a twin. He just said he said that he, it wasn't until I was old enough that my father, okay. Sorry. I thought he was just saying it right now. Like the first time my bad. I misread that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. He's saying that when he was a little kid, his mom just said, his dad just said, Oh, she died when he was young. And then when he got old enough, he explained it. Yeah. Okay. I misread for a second. I thought he was just like, yeah, I don't know what happened

to your mom. And then now on this visit, he's just like, by the way, she got shot in the face. Her head exploded. Your mom got shot at the face. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be really funny if like, what if I had some trauma like that? And I just never told you, I wouldn't give a shit. Not my place. Yeah. Well that's kind of sad. Like, you know, we're friends and stuff. I thought maybe you care. I mean, if you told me, I'd be like, that's crazy. But at the same time, if, if, if you never indulge that your mom was, if her head got blown up by a bullet, I'd be like, I'd be like, well, I know that's that's for it. That's for him. You know, that's fine. Or wait, are you saying that you're the one who shot the woman? Did you shoot your mom?

Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying, I'm saying if I had like some trouble like that and you just didn't know, I don't know. I mean, I would, I wouldn't care. You wouldn't care. That's what you're saying. You're saying you wouldn't care that you went care. I want to take a quick moment to thank today's sponsor. Summer time is here and there's so much to do. So why would you want to spend the hours while the sun is up inside around a hot kitchen? And when you're trying to eat fast, it can be hard to also eat healthy. Thankfully today's sponsor factor has you covered factor powers your day from sunup to sundown with nutritious breakfasts, on-the-go lunches,

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feelings. Never pressed him more about it. The camera in the movie set fixated without shaking giving the assumption that it was on a stand. Soon after my father appeared from behind the camera to join her on the ground. He too was young in appearance. It was strange to see them this way, and brought about a small amount of laughter for me. Both seemed to have their eyes fixated on something. It wasn't until my dad adjusted the camera that I could see that something was me. There I was, a younger version of myself. Checking the timestamp on the screen confirmed that I was one year old.

I watched in awe as my younger self hobbled around curiously, grabbing small things around the apartment. Occasionally, he would render a smile to my parents whenever they called out my name in a soft tone. The moment was nice until the screen went to complete static. The sound was a little distorted, but it was clear the video was not over. I can make out what sounded like a knock at the door from the audio. I wasn't sure entirely. My dad returned just as this happened and went over the television cursing at it. Finally ejected the DVD and popped in a new one informing us that the rest of the tape

must have been too bad for the full record. Yet, we didn't let that hinder the moment and prepared ourselves as the nest disc loaded up. After a long evening of laughing and admiring our younger images on the home movies, we decided to call it a night. We set our good nights with my stepmother promising to cook us all a big breakfast tomorrow. I made my way back downstairs and changed into my pajamas, eventually laying on my old bed. I lay there for a couple of minutes, just smiling to myself, still thinking about the videos and other times I had while growing up. Without realizing it, I found myself asleep. Now, this is when it all happened. This is when I had the dream.

In this dream, I found myself back in that old apartment I had viewed with my parents earlier in the home movie. It was odd though. Unlike the angle the camera appeared in the video, I was standing off set of it. It was an angle that did not appear in the video and yet somehow I could see more of the apartment with greater detail, from the kitchen in the back, its sink full of dishes, to the pictures hanging on the wall. I wasn't sure how this amount of detail was applied because clearly I was just a child at the time and remembering this would be impossible. There was a possibility that my brain was just filling the gaps of the apartment with places I had seen and been to. But deep down I thought otherwise. It felt like everything being presented was exactly how it was at

the time. That's really cool. That is cool. Having a dream about the house he was in as a child. Around the apartment, it was clearly Christmas time like in the video. I continued to look around noticing my dad standing behind the camera exactly like in the video and my mother sitting on the floor in view of it. As if on cue, he walked from behind the camera and sat next to my mother. It was literally like being present in the footage scene for scene. I attempted to grab

my parents attention. I tried calling out to them, waving and even touching them, but it was like I didn't exist. They couldn't see or hear me and my hands went through them almost as if I was a ghost. My dad then shifted the camera to where I could hear my younger self cooing and hobbling around on my side. I watched as the younger me began playing with a book, curiously trying to figure out the subject. Suddenly, I came a loud banging at the door. The noise startled me, my parents included.

I watched as my dad rose and went back to check the door. The door itself had a small peek hole. I recalled that I remember hearing what sounded like a knock on a door from the distorted video. I heard my dad mumble something in a confusing tone. It was something around the grounds if the peek hole was either being covered or that someone was standing really close to it. At this moment I got an uneasy sensation in my stomach.

For whatever reason, I got the feeling that opening that door would be a mistake. However, before I could react, my dad unbolted the locks and opened the door. He was immediately struck with the barrel of a gun. I watched in horror as he grabbed his now bleeding head in pain. The assailant kicked my father back, causing him to fall over next to my mother. My mother let out an ear-splitting scream in fear. The assailant came through the door, shutting it softly behind and locking the bolt across. Afterwards, the assailant gave off a hissing shush sound to my parents,

hearing the voice confirm that it was a man. I stood silent, pointing the long-barreled gun at my frightened parents. I too was frozen in fear, even knowing I couldn't be seen. The man wore a long black cloak over his body with a hood draped over his head. A few chains looped from his waist connecting his hip. When I looked closer, there were several faint gray inverted crosses on the side of his hood and on the back of his cloak. This guy part of some twisted religion. Kind of reminds you of like the zodiac killer a bit. Carefully made. Like that vibe.

Carefully made my way around him. He remained in the same position appearing to not show any indication of my presence. Yet I still wasn't taking any chances. When I finally reached a good angle to see his face, my heart dropped. He was wearing a pale white mask over his face. The mask was glossy. The eye holes were wide open along with the mouth. Both completely veiled in black. It gave off an eerie chill. It was as if the

mask itself was frozen in a fear, emitting an ear-splitting scream for its life. We all just remained still for what felt like an hour. Finally, my dad managed to mutter a question of the man, asking him why he was doing this. The man, of course, remained silent, ignoring the question. My mother was still whimpering to herself while my dad kept his head low, applying pressure to the wound on his head. He repeated his question with more anger in his tone. The man finally made a move, taking out a second pistol from within his robes with his other hand.

He raised and pointed it in my direction. My heart began rapidly pounding against my chest more than it had before. Could the man finally see me? Had he always been able to? I raised my hands up in a surrendering pose while backing up a little. When I did, I realized the angle of the gun was slightly off. He was pointing it in my direction, but not at me exactly. I turned my head to see that he was in fact pointing the gun at me, the younger me though. My mother let out another loud shriek when the man had the gun in the direction of my one year old

self. Of course, being one year old, I didn't seem bothered by the gun. In fact, I was still playing around with the book from earlier, oblivious to the whole situation. What was the man planning? Why did he break in to begin with? He clearly did not want anything from my parents. They didn't have anything expensive at the time. More importantly, why was he pointing a gun at a one-year-old child? My heart dropped even further when I heard him cock the gun.

What reason would he have for doing this? What would it accomplish? The mother attempted to move towards me, but the man refocused his other gun on her, cocking the weapon as well. I looked back at my younger self who in turn looked up at the man, giving a blank innocent stare. The man appeared unfazed, solid in his stance. I could see his finger slowly squeezing the back of the trigger, heart still racing. I quickly moved in the path of the gun, hoping to obscure his view. Realizing it wouldn't make a difference, I decided to grab the gun, but my hand passed through it like before. I couldn't touch him.

His finger gradually continued to squeeze back on the trigger. It was like viewing the moment in slow motion, taking forever to occur. Unexpectedly found my mind being flooded with images. They were just people. They looked to be people I knew throughout my life, almost like a photo album. Endless images and moments of faces flashed by. I saw my mother, my father, friends I had known, girlfriends I had relations with, everyone. They continued appearing one after the other and as they did, I felt a pulsating pain grow in my head. I couldn't take all the images at once.

It was too much, and yet they persisted. I found myself on my knees as the images began appearing at a faster rate. I was now gripping my head, almost shaking uncontrollably, until they ceased without warning. The air felt cold. The warm colors around transitioned literally to a grayscale color. I looked up slowly and when I did, I saw the flash of the barrel go off, followed by the sound of a loud

bang. I turned around to find the lifeless body of my younger self lying on his back. A pool of blood quickly formed around him. The air was silent, my parents were speechless, frozen in disbelief. The man lowered his gun eventually, letting it drop to the ground. frozen in disbelief. The man lowered his gun eventually, letting it drop to the ground. We all remained silent and completely still. He proceeded to lift his hand, removing his hood. Afterwards, he slowly removed the mask from his face. My eyes could not comprehend what they viewed. This man, the murdering psychopath, religious, nutcase's face, was...my face. He had the same face as me, the current age me. Tears formed in my eyes and slowly made their way down his face. Tears formed in his eyes and slowly made

their way down his face. He turned to my parents. A small smile formed across his face. It wasn't a twisted evil smile or a satisfied one. No, his smile and his eyes. A deep sense of sympathy. With it, he spoke with quivering words. Without warning, a blinding white light appeared out of nowhere, completely engulfing me. I could see a face appearing amidst the white. Before I could make it out, I immediately jolted awake by the alarm on my cell phone. Set up quickly, the dream was still burning in my mind with every excruciating detail. When I looked down

at my hands, I found them trembling. I put them to my sweaty chest to feel my heart knocking around uncontrollably to no end. What the hell kind of a dream was that? After the dream, I couldn't fall back asleep again, or actually I didn't want to. It was just so disturbing and, more importantly, too realistic. Lucky for me, it hadn't been too early in the morning. Soon, my parents would wake up as well. This thought comforted me a little, for I didn't want to be alone. As expected, I could soon hear my stepmother adhering to her promise cooking the large breakfast upstairs. Before heading up, I made sure to compass myself in the best manner I could. I didn't want them questioning me about the ordeal, even if it was just a

dream. I wanted to prevent any reason to recall it, at least not at that moment. It was too soon. I ascended the stairs and made my way to the kitchen where I was greeted happily. I of course lied about how I slept. We ate breakfast silently for the most part. Luckily, they were deeply involved with the Sunday paper or they were on their tablets. After eating, I thanked them for the meal and promised I'd visit more often. I wanted to leave as quickly as possible so I told them I had to leave early to prepare for work the next day. Packed up my things and said my goodbyes before entering my car. Meditating on that incident really helped me wrap my mind around it.

It helped me realize that it was just that, a dream. No deeper meaning to it other than my mind conjuring up a freakish set of images based off what I'd seen prior to. As time went on, the images began acting more like a dream. I said I would never forget it, and yet, like the typical one, it slowly was slipping away from me. I was ready to head back. Before I could turn my car on, my phone went off.

On the other end was my boss. He asked me how I was doing it if I was willing to do an extended on-site service for a client, possibly for a week or two depending on the number of computers. The project involved establishing networks and accounts and mentioning that the client would provide room and meals. Seeing nothing wrong with getting out of the office for a while, I agreed and asked who the client was. He told me this would be a service provided for an independent church. That is end of part one of the Church in the Woods. I'm always a sucker for,

and I like that they kind of did this weird, you know, usually I think the dream trope thing can be kind of overplayed, but what I enjoyed about this was how detailed and kind of like haunting, just like a home invasion is, you know? Now, I mean, obviously there's like the murder stuff, but just the idea of like breaking into somebody's house

and this kind of thing, and being just a like an ethereal fly on the wall and watching not only yourself get killed, but like your parents and then it Unveiling to be you is sick, but I do think it sets it up to like, you know Is he gonna get indoctrinated by this like church? Is there because there's a little bit of religious symbolism with like the upside down cross stuff on this guy's like cloak or whatever, but kind of cool. I'm hoping that this goes into, and I think I'm, you know, I love me a Colt. Give me a Colt. If I had to guess, it seems like he has been eyed by the Colt and now they're coming for him in some way. Right? So maybe

since he was a baby, maybe that's what, maybe this is like what would have happened if his mother didn't like get in the way of the gun or sacrifice her life to save him. Maybe the Colts wanted him dead for a while or something. Who knows? I will say the story saved itself for me because I was about, I kept reading and sure enough it correct. It got better. I thought what it was implying is that he was having a vision in that dream of what actually happened that night. And then when he pulls off the mask and it's himself and like his younger self get shot, that was better because I thought it was saying that, that Christmas night in 1991 is when his mom died and his dad was going to show the family, the recording of it. Oh yeah. No, no. You. It's kind of weird too. As the Christmas aesthetic stuff can

be so creepy. What was that one story we read about a house that it's Christmas forever? That was one of a legatis, right? Yes. Was it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was a great story about how like it's the grandmother with eternal Christmas. Yeah. It's like a dimension you go to. Yeah. That was very surreal. But I agree. Yes. There's something. So it's like just the colors and stuff. It's like a vomit of green and red and stuff. And everything's just like overly lit. A lot of like weird imagery of like Jesus in the nativity scene. And there's just a lot of like interesting visuals that are like very happy. It's like whenever something's like uncannily happy around you, like everything's smiling and it's just a very like, like over overstimulating

like a, I don't know, like family happiness, vomit of just shit. You know what I mean? I have like these memories when I was a kid because my dad would always like do the nativity scenes and the Christmas slides at Christmas. So I've all these memories of being a little kid and like the woods around the house painted in these reds and greens and like it's a very different time right? It's a unique time. I think you get a lot of interesting stuff out of it. Well, should we move on to part two? Part two, the congregation room. I was particularly excited about this on-site job. Later on that evening, my boss called again and filled me in on more details about the request. He told me that traveling to the church would be quite a drive and that its location was in the countryside secluded from most towns, gave me strict instruction

to abide by their basic rules and to not offend them by any means. Apparently they had paid handsomely for the service, and he wanted to be sure our company kept every dime. He did note that I only had to respect their rules and not necessarily buy into any of their religious activities or anything. He told me to stop by the office in the morning for the necessary equipment. He promised that the company would reimburse me with the cost of travel and reminded me to call daily with any updates. I wasn't a big fan of religion, but I wasn't going to complain if they were providing food and a room for sleeping.

Again, it was a change to get out of the office for a few days. That night I quickly packed up enough items for two weeks into two big suitcases. After preloading my car I set my alarm early, knowing that I would need to compensate for the drive. It was strange. My night was dreamless and it was quick. I felt as if I had closed my eyes for a second before I heard my alarm go off for the next day. What struck me even odder was the fact that I could not recall what had stirred me up the night before. I had a disturbing dream when visiting my parents, that much I knew, but of what specifically evaded my memory. I dismissed the thought believing it to be for the best. Despite being tired from the early rise, I was up without a struggle and ready to embark. The outside air was cooler than I usually preferred. The sky was starless, almost

like a dark veil was across it. I hopped in my car and kept the windows up this time with the heat at full blast. There were a few times where my eyes rolled back from the tiredness, but the radio helped keep the temptation at bay. I made the quick stop by the office together with all the necessary equipment needed for the job. My boss already had it packed and ready to be loaded upon my arrival. He wasn't there himself, but with the help from the third shift crew, I was able to load everything into my trunk. Afterwards, they provided me a set of GPS directions provided by my boss. Once I thanked the crew for helping, I made my way on the road. boss. Once I thanked the crew for helping, I made my way on the road. The further I drove, the more scarce the streetlights and other cars became. Before long, the sun

had fully emerged, giving sight to the endless oceans of green pastures and cornfields. Eventually, though, even the pastures came to an end and soon I found myself swallowed by the dense patch of trees. My car barely managed to remain on the thin, rough patch. Below I could hear the rocks and twigs crunching under the wheels. I held my breath a few times, slowing my vehicle down hoping to not incur a flat tire, which was the last thing I needed. After what felt like ages, I finally came across a fairly large building ahead. The building itself was an old structure, standing tall and stretched far back into the woods. Its appearance was withered, made of old wood, pale, and decayed.

It swayed a few times as the course of the wind let off a most disturbing groan as if suffering, wishing to be put out of its misery. Truly, it was amazing that such a building had already collapsed. Continuing to approach, I could make out more of its structure. The building appeared to be two stories. Its front was rather plain aside from the monotonous row of windows. A row of three that ran across the second floor, the windows themselves were elongated, running along the sides of the building as well. I was thrown off by the side of the structure. I was sure my boss had informed me that this

was to be a church. I wasn't much of a church goer, but the building before me looked more like an old warehouse or boarding home rather than a place of worship. The rugged path led up its entrance. In the front of a set of double doors, I could see a lone figure standing, waiting for my approach. It was an elderly man in his mid-50s in a gray suit and black tie. He immediately made his way to me when I parked. His walk was hobbled but elegant and poise. Little hesitant, I gradually let down my window, greeted by his big toothy smile. Afternoon, son.

Said in a strong country accent. You are technician we've been waiting for. I was taken back by his overpowering cologne. It smelled like a poor concoction of baby powder and sunflower seeds. He was balding towards the top of his head while his snowy white hair grew around the edge like a crescent. Team peringles were pressed across his face and seemed to grow in number with a smile. Slightly stuttering, I answered, Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you. He gave off an old man's chuckle, still housing his toothy bread. He said extending out a hand.

Nervously, I shook it. something for you and I hope you didn't get too lost on your way over. For some reason I couldn't find my voice and only shook my head. That's good. Look here. Why don't you swing your car right around to the other side and I'll get one of my people to help you get your stuff settled in. You don't have to lift a finger understand? The gesture to the right hand side of the building. I nodded and drove around as instructed and parked. Or I could even vacate the car. I nodded and drove around as instructed part or I could even vacate the car. I jumped when stared ahead or I jumped when stared ahead. What is that? Oh, oh, when I stared ahead. Okay. There. Okay. There's some random like a grammatical errors in here. I'm just going to put in like this sentence says they're a man standing in front. I imagine it means to say there was a man standing in front. There was a man standing in front. I hadn't even seen him approach. Couldn't lie. He was

much younger than the reverend but clearly older than me. He had slick black hair combed over to the side of more dark vest resting over a white button top with grey dress pants. He gave a slight wave while approaching my car. I exited and was greeted with a firm handshake. Parents crow! His accent wasn't as strong as the reverence. Welcome to Peach Hill! I could tell that his smile was forced. Even his eyes looked annoyed, but I thanked him. Yeah, have any luggage on you?

Yeah, it's in the back. I unlocked the door. Before I could turn around, the man quickly swooped over to the passenger door, opened it and pulled out both suitcases. He began making his way towards the front, gesturing me with his head. You'll have to forgive my impatience. I was in the middle of something important before the reverend had me pulled to assist you. That's all right. I know the feeling. You'd be surprised how often my boss does that to me. I sometimes wonder if he actually wants me to get the job done." I joked, hoping to lighten the mood. He didn't laugh. I could hear his grunts as he struggled

to carry the weight of my suitcases, occasionally swaying to the side. I felt guilty for letting him do so, but didn't want to impede on their hospitality. He led me around to the front through the double doors. I have expected to find the Reverend waiting for us with his grin, but he was nowhere to be seen. Inside, we came into what looked like a lobby area. It was much nicer than I expected, completely different from the outside appearance. Inside, the air was cold, borderline comfortable. Perhaps it was the hint of honey and sunflowers in the midst that made it bearable. The lobby was a simple room. Everything around held a calm pearl white. It was filled with a few tables and chairs up against the wall. A golden chandelier hung from the ceiling giving the bland room a more elegant

feel. A red carpet led from the entrance to a set of closed double doors ahead. Two other doors sat at the left and right walls, both closed. The man led me inside, setting down the suitcases, took out a handkerchief from his vest pocket to wipe away the sweat from his brow. This here's the lobby. He finally said, tugging the handkerchief back into his pocket, chuckled to myself as if that wasn't obvious. Through the left door, you'll find a hallway leading to the dining area, and to the right

is a staircase leading to the living quarters. Y'all be staying in room six. If you give me a minute, I'll fetch your keys. What about those? I asked just reading to the main double doors ahead. Where do those lead to? Blame towards the doors as if now realizing their presence. Those lead to the congregation room where we conduct our services.

Y'all find we conduct those on a daily basis. Daily? That's a bit much. Whatever happened to once a week? Again, he didn't laugh. His face turned insolent. Mr. Pale, Marcus Pale, sorry. I never did introduce myself.

Right. Mr. Pale, this is a church. I'm sure where you're coming from, once a week will suffice, but here it is our life. He paused, peering into my eyes. You do attend church, right? My eyes must have truly given it away. He smiled, shaking his head. You're not much of a religious man now, are you, Mr. Pail?

Some of his voice match his face I shrug slightly taking off beat at the question. No, I I guess not I see Please forgive me when I say this then but maybe you should just keep your mind on your job then That is the reason why you're here understand Yeah, sure good. I'll be back with your keys. I just stood there. The nervous feeling I had earlier had subsided. Now what I felt was awkwardness. What was the guy's problem? There's no need for his rudeness. The pity

I felt for him earlier was no longer present. And I shook it off remembering that my boss said not to offend these people by any means. Five minutes went by and I still found myself standing there. What was taking so long? Made it sound like the keys were right behind the door. My eyes began wandering, bouncing from one side of the room to the next until finally settling on the double doors. It had a symbol.

An emblem of some kind imprinted down the middle of them. Curious, I walked over to them to get a better look. The emblem on the white doors was golden, almost like an imperial-like. It resembled a face. No, maybe it was a flower? It was surrounded with what appeared to be a wavering cloak of some kind. Did it have to do with their religion? Still curious, I glanced over the door where the man had disappeared behind. a wavering cloak of some kind. Did it have to do with their religion?

Still curious, I glanced over the door where the man had disappeared behind. Finally, I returned my eyes back to the double doors. They had fairly large bar handles acting as the knobs. I was hesitant, but I slowly reached out to one of them. When my hand made contact with it, I felt a hint of warmness. This was peculiar because the room was cold so how was this likely? The handle felt as if some had held it just recently, perhaps minutes ago. I jerked back on it but the door didn't budge. I tried a few more times but was unsuccessful. It was locked. I looked around it to see if

there was a keyhole. Maybe I could peek inside. Instead I found a small indent next to the handle, and it was no bigger than a quarter maybe. This be the lock? I looked closer to see it had a similar design as the emblem engraved on the inside. Feeling defeated, I made my way over to one of the chairs and sat. Hopefully the man wouldn't be any longer. It was probably for the best that I didn't open though. My first day for the best that I didn't open, though. My first day on the job and I was already snooping around. I was actually glad the man didn't catch me attempting to break in like that. That stunt could have had my ass sent

home, especially since he already seemed to be an uptight jerk. If that had happened, my boss would have had a field day on me for blowing such a high-paying opportunity. The man eventually returned from the back with a large ring of keys in his hand. He hastily ushered me to follow, grabbing my luggage and proceeded to the door on the right. This is he had mentioned, there was a staircase on the other side. This area appeared more on par with the outside appearance of the building looking pale and decayed. Every step we took was followed by a long winded creek. I was sure that at any moment they would give out on either of us, but they never did.

We reached the top and came to a long dimly lit hallway with another red carpet, except this was long enough to run to the end. The doors in the hallway appeared adjacent and parallel to each other. Electric candles illuminated the area from the walls in between the doors. The man led me half way down before halting at the door on the right. This your room? He said, unlocking the door. The door produced a loud creak as he opened, braced myself expecting to find a poorly conditioned room, but was met an agreeable sight instead. It was similar

appearance to the lobby, plain with pearly white walls, large king sized beds set neatly near the window. Blanket and sheets and even a pillow were already provided. In the corner sat a sturdy wooden desk with a brass lamp on it's stead. A tall bookshelf leaned against the wall, empty of books with a small dresser to its side. The room looked very comfortable. The thought of staying in it for a few days was very appealing. I may have placed my luggage near the dresser. You can put your clothes up in

here. Breakfast is at eight. Lunch at 12 and dinner at six sharp. You're welcome to wear whatever pleases you to the meals. Just make sure you're not late. We don't start eating until everyone is present. Eight, 12 and six. Got it. By the way, Mr. Pale, I'm interested to know how you propose to conduct your work without any of your supplies. Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot to mention all my equipment is in the trunk of my car. He gave an unsettling glare and held out his hand. Your car keys, please. I returned him an unassured look quickly handed them over when I saw his glare. Titan. I will return your keys once I have acquired everything that you'll need from your car. The reverend for me that you will not have to conduct any work until

tomorrow. So please enjoy the rest of your evening. I will move your supplies into the office downstairs. You can find the office after heading through the door on the left. It's on the way to the dining area. See you at dinner. He said shutting the door behind him with that. I was left alone once again. The quietness of my room left me with a dull, numbing sense. For a second, I was lost in its trance until the moan of the building from the wind awakened me. Once out of it, I turned my attention back to my room. Clearly, it must have been recently refurbished, and my fingers along the surface of the desk.

Just from sight alone, I could tell its history dated back with the building. Even so, it felt like it truly belonged despite its age. I made my way over to the window, looking below. I could see my car, but no sight of the man. I shrugged it off. It could take as long as he wanted, as long as he didn't break anything, I thought. I smirked at this and returned my attention back inside. My eyes fell on the bookshelf. Although it was empty, several imprints from books could be seen in between the dust. The size of the imprints indicated they must have been fairly large books. Near the edge of the shelf, I could see dragging marks as if someone had removed all the books, maybe in anger, perhaps in a hurry.

That was probably done on purpose. Couldn't blame them. These people here seem like the secretive type. They probably didn't want me looking through any of their text. My eyes floated over to the bed. It looked very tempting. I wanted to just crash on it, but I knew I had to call my boss first. I promised him that I would inform him of any updates. Even though I hadn't started yet, I could at least inform him that I had arrived on time. I pulled up my phone and checked the signal bar strength. It was hovering between one bar and none. This wasn't a surprise considering where I was. I played around with its positioning first raising it higher and then side to side. I had no luck though. I even tried holding

it close to the window but still was unsuccessful. It was possible that it was just the room blocking the signal, so I made my way out into the hallway keeping my phone stretched out. With my eyes fixated on it, I moved around the hallway aimlessly still changing its position. Eventually I realized how pointless it was. I decided to see if I had better luck outside. I went downstairs and into the lobby checking my phone along the way. Feeling the frustration build up, I aimlessly swung it around threatening to just toss the useless junk. Without warning, I was thrown off by a loud scream.

Following it came a voice that yelled out, Hey, watch it! I was stunned, almost jumping out of my skin. The voice belonged to a young woman. Quite attractive one to say the least. The green eyes flared at me in anger. She had Auburn hair that curled around her face and over her eyes. She wore what appeared to be a black and green Victorian style dress. The most eye-catching part about her was that she was pregnant. She had to be at least eight months by how much her stomach extended through her gown. I'm sorry. I didn't mean

to. I was trying to find a signal and I was getting a glare softened in a small form. She eventually let out a light giggle at my attempt to explain myself. Okay. Okay. It's fine. You're forgiven already. Her voice. She had a British accent. I wasn't sure why. God damn it. What? I fucked that up. Oh, the voice. I thought you were saying that that ruins it. Oh yeah. It does too disgusting. Okay. Yeah. You're like an attractive woman, but she's British. Oh, get it out of here. How they don't exist. They don't make them. I wasn't sure why considering everyone seemed to have a country one. You must be the technician. I've been hearing about. Yeah. You've been hearing about me. Well, of course they've been talking about

you for weeks. Reverend Gary's especially excited. I'm Victoria ruin. Victoria ruin. The Victorian characters name is Victoria ruin a Victorian dress and my name's Victoria rain inside the eye of your mind. How'd you know you're my fine. I bet a place to play. Okay. It's funny because now I'm imagining that she just started singing that. Yeah, she is. That's exactly what happened to today. It's going to be the day that they're going to throw it back to you by now. You should have done how realize what I got to do or don't believe She said holding out her hand for me to shake. I couldn't stop my blushing. Even when my hand met hers, it was smooth and felt frail to the touch. Aren't you going to tell me your name? Oh yeah, of course.

It's Marcus. Marcus Pail. Well Marcus Pail, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'll have you know that the cellular reception is very poor in these woods. You can however use our telly. It uses a landline connection that shouldn't give you any issues at all. I could take you to you if you'd like. Yeah, sure.

I'd appreciate it. I replied finally collecting myself. She began making her way to the hallway beckoning me to follow with one hand. I caught sight of a beautiful large silver ring on her ring finger. I guess she was married. Of course she was woman that beautiful ought to be married. I thought he's down bad for this, for this British woman. He's either down bad or my psychopath theory is like correct. Like the, him just being completely to you may think you have an idea of what Marcus

pale is. You may look at me, kick in his feet and he's like blushing and shit. She's like, Hey, how you doing? I'm Victoria. He's like, you've been talking about me. She's like, well, I mean, they said that you were showing up today. Okay. It's like Marcus, you, you kind of, you can fucking suck, dude. And she's pregnant with a ring on at church and he's like, Oh, she's Mary. I was clawing at her intestines and her gutty works. Oh, Oh gosh. Yeah. That's what guys think about pregnant women. They're like, yeah, yeah. Let my little raccoon, let my raccoon dig for some trash. That's what I say. Gross. Okay. Whatever. I'm sorry. Everyone. I can't, I'm not responsible for him. She led me through the door on the left where I originally saw the man retrieve the keys led to a long hallway. Similar to the one

upstairs. This hallway was narrower housing fewer doors all shut tight. So tell me Marcus, where are you from? From Arlington. And where is that? Sorry, it's Northern Virginia. Sorry. He's like, he's blushing. He's being a fucking lame piece of shit. Why did you read it that way? He says, err sorry. He's blushing.

He's being a fucking lame piece of shit. Errr sorry. It's Northern Virginia. It's quite alright. I've never been up north before. You're lucky to be able to travel around. All my life I've been here. Stuck here.

That is, I've always wanted to venture out. But what? No, it's it's nothing. Oh, read, read that. Nice. Yeah. She said, oh, flirtatious Victoria. Hey, she wants her to, I mean, she's probably a prisoner or stuck here. And she wants him also to I've been here forever. And I'm like, you have a fucking British accent. Liar. And her name's Victoria Ruin. Once again, we need to remember this. It's true. I'd also be like, I'm also Dr. Mustard. If we're playing make pretend that I'm Ruthess Mustard. PhD is what I would say. I thought you were making a clue joke. Colonel master. Yeah, probably. That's probably the connection was my head. I'm going to kill

you under the stairs. Who helps with your bag under the stickers with a rope. She's like, Hey, you're talking about the game, right? He's like, sure. Sure. Whatever you say, Scarlet, just don't go in your room. Cause I have a candlestick in there and I'll beat the hell out of you with it. No, whatever you do, don't go to the observatory. There's definitely not an eye for that. Where with professor, we're having fun, right? Oh yes, Victoria. Oh yes. I'm the it guy. She's like, okay. Yes, Victoria, there's nothing wrong. Do you want to follow me alone to this room? I don't have a gun. I want to be that child. Hello. Pregnant woman. I just met. Do you want to come alone with me over here? I'm blushing. I'm smiling and I can't

tell again. I'll look in the mirror and realize I'm smiling. I could, I hope you didn't notice that I was smiling and drooling, looking at your pregnant belly. I definitely don't want to eat your child. It was clawing away at your gutty works. You're pregnant. Yeah. Great bummer. I thought you were just fat. She's like, Hey Marcus, you started to scare me. Marcus. He's like, no, don't be afraid. I'm just the IT guy. Do you like being pregnant? I love see I'm, I'm on ironically.

I'm going to ask that to a pregnant woman sometime. What's it feel like to be pregnant? Do you like it? I don't know. It's okay. Can you feel him crawling around in there? You know, in your gutty works, who did that to you? That's another gun. Hey, who did that? And point at it. Can I see, I bet if you lifted up your shirt and you showed me your belly, it would look like a bald man's head. I'm the it guy. I help run it. I'm happy. You're pregnant. I'm happy. You're pregnant. This is a good one too. A man fully blushed. I'm the guy blushed, sweating profusely, rolling his hand, like his fingers around his hands, like clenched

hands. I love you. This is, I love that you're pregnant. I love your pregnant belly. You're pregnant and I'm the it guy. I'm going to go fix a phone. Do you have a phone? You're pregnant. I can't wait to send. I'm the it guy set up a server rack. No, it's nothing. Hold on. What? What? Oh, that you're back in the store. I didn't realize if you're still doing the better. I've been staring at the camera. Just saying, Oh, there's going to be, there's going to be a lot of love for that. He looked right at me and said that he loved my pregnant belly, my little preggers belly. I'm glad that you're pregnant. You know, I, I'm the IT guy say to a pregnant woman is I can't wait to boop your snoot. I can't wait

to touch what's inside of you. My God. That is creepy. Huh? Good Lord you're, you're pregnant. Can I see? Yeah. Cough twice. Okay. I could, I mean, if we stay here, I'm going to keep going to just do the line. It's nothing. He said biting her lip. She came to a door on the left and opened it. Here we are. You can use this phone. I thanked her and entered. The room was tiny, just an upgrade from being considered a pantry. Inside it was a small wooden table cramped back with an old phone. A single door set on the side of a small window, strong collection of breads coated the air, making the cramped setting feel even more stuffy. A collection of breads coated the air, making the cramp setting feel even more stuffy. A collection of breads. I was legitimately wondering if it was like, is he like literally

saying that it's like there's a bunch of rye white and sourdough bread around him. That's what that's what it sounds like to me, right? I don't know. Breads being used as something else. I want that to be what it is. Do you like bread and being pregnant? You shouldn't eat that way. You're pregnant. Oh, you're pregnant as a man. It's my job. It's like, that's for me as a man. It's my job to tell you what you should and shouldn't put inside your body as a pregnant woman. And trust me, marble rye bread, sweetheart, isn't the thing to put in your body. Preach King. I love walking up to pregnant women that I see on the street and being like, I wouldn't know that.

Maybe not that. Do that. And they try, they try to act like they try to maybe not hear me. And I say, Hey sweetheart, not that or like, if I'm at like lunch or something, there's a pregnant woman like setting it like a table across to me. Every time she like orders something else on the menu, I'm very loudly like, well, I'm gagging for the first five minutes I'm there. That's gross. Well, I I'm sorry for that guy inside of you or girl, whatever it is inside of you. I'm sorry for that person inside of you. They have to put up with that. Yeah. I'm just loudly like, I need a basket. Actually that's not even, I need a basket. That's not even related to food

or anything like that. That's just like seeing a pregnant woman. Yeah. A single door set to the side of small windows, strong collection of breads. I quickly dialed up my boss and informed him of the situation. He was glad to hear that I arrived all right. And went into a speech about ensuring that I represented the company in the best manner possible. Afterwards he told me to keep up the good work and to call him tomorrow. After hanging up I was surprised to find Victoria still waiting for me in the hallway. You didn't have to wait for me. Well honestly I have nothing better to do. I've been cooped up in my room for the longest time because of this bloody baby. Oh I can't think of any response to this. You don't talk much.

Do you? I shrug sheepishly. What can I say? Quiet guy. Didn't that just feel appropriate? I did. I didn't like every X. What can I say? No, that, that is perfect. But every extra noise made me uncomfortable. It says this. Let me read it. Say I shrug sheepishly again. Okay. I shrug sheepishly. Okay. Well let's try that again. Cause you did. Okay. I didn't mush that one. My bad. I shrug sheepishly. What can I say? I'm a quiet guy. I like that. I feel like then when he went, I'm a quiet guy. He like squatted down and said it to the baby. He put his lips under belly button and talk that way. It's a change for sure. You're different from all the men around here.

All they do is talk and lecture. Just looking down at him kissing her stomach like, well, it's a change. Well, this is a change for sure. You're different from all the other men around here. All they do is talk and lecture. Expect all the women to just listen. It's quite maddening at times. Are all men of the North like you?

I blushed at this. Are you the only woman here? I asked, attempting to change the subject. She scoffed. Of course not! I don't know what I'd do if I was. There are two others. My Aunt Margaret and cousin Sophia. You'll meet them later at dinner. You are coming, of course, yes? Her emerald eyes gleamed into my own. I could feel my heart rate slowly increase. My face must have been bright red. Yeah. Yeah, of course I will.

Her smile widened. I've been bored for the past few days. You want to go on a little adventure. Adventure. Yes, I could give you a tour of the place. I'm sure you're wondering where everything is at. Can I get a tour of the baby? I, uh, do you think it's the pheromones? Is it pheromones that women exude from their honeycomb? That's making this man be a ravenous bee. I don't like anything. You just thought it was kind of, I thought it was kind of creative. That was rough. That was right there. Honey. Yeah. What? I really hadn't thought about that place

as a whole. The only area that vaguely interested me was the room behind the double doors, but I didn't feel comfortable asking her about that place as a whole, but figured it'll work. Sorry. Sorry. That was terrible. I hate myself. You have a line. Thank you. But I didn't feel comfortable. I asked you. You already said that. No, then you say surely. Why not? I got hung up on the whole thing. Sure. Why not? Or sorry, sure, why not? Okay, good. Thank God. Good. Took long enough. She said, wrapping her arm around mine. What do you want to go first?

Her perfume engulfed me, smelling of sweet berries and honey. Smell that was perfect for her. You want me to decide? Yes, of course. I don't want to bore you. I'm showing you every nook and cranny. I don't like some of the wording here. She's getting all horned up. I don't I don't like it. I could tell she was reading my face because

she added come on. I know there's a pleasure dying to explore. See dude. Come on. She's fucking stop. So I don't like this. I don't like she's a pregnant lady. She's a married woman. This is, would you like to take a look at me? Beaver? What more mime? You make it worse. Everything that you say becomes worse to explore. She's basically he says, wow. Okay. Even if that's where we're getting into everything's like, Oh, you're dying to explore every nook and cranny. Like there's still like, like sexual like tension to it or something to just be like the beaver that kind of kills any nuance or all have it shaved. It looks like a, okay. See what I mean. You're doing it. You're doing it right now. Well, yes. Just spill it already. I did kind of want to see what was behind those doors in the

lobby or applied rubbing my neck and shame doors. it already. I did kind of want to see what was behind those doors in the lobby. I replied rubbing my neck in shame. Doors? You mean the congregation room? If it can, I understand. I knew nonsense. Let's go. She said, yanking my arm, pulling me until we reached the lobby again. Victoria? I asked her, she made her way to the doors. Yeah.

The symbol on the doors. What is it? She glanced over at the doors. Yeah. The symbol on the doors. What is it? She glanced over at the doors. That is the symbol of our religion. Well, their religion anyway. I've grown tired of all the prayers and the sermons. It's all rubbish really. Rubbish?

If you don't care for it then why are you here? No, you're right. I don't. I never was into it. Ever since I was a little girl my father forced me to be a part of it All I've ever known has been Herb Peach County. Well apart from brief stay in the UK I'm sure you can tell I don't exactly sound like I'm from around here Yeah, I noticed I said rubbing my neck. You have my aunt to thank for that. Anyways, I've grown really tired of all of it

Look, I said earlier. I want to venture out and see the rest of the world. At least my home country. I can't remember anymore. So your aunt brought you here? What about your mother? What did she have to say about all this? Juggled soft. I heard you giggling in a British accent. Sorry. That's not actually got me pretty good. I have no memory of my mother. My father told me she died after I was conceived. I was mainly raised by my aunt. Oh, I was all right. I know the feeling. My mother died. This story hasn't jumped the shark or anything. It's still fine. Like the tension's still,

it's still okay. And I'm sorry, you have ran it. I'm also a little tired, which is why I think I had the giggle fit earlier about the guy running up the sidewalk. But I don't, let me, let me read. I don't think the story applies. And she starts giggling that far. No, no, no, no, no. She, I don't want you to read it. No, I'm going to keep bothering you. She's just now. No, no, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, okay. Now that that's clips unusable, we're going to do. We went quiet for a minute. Why don't you just leave? I suggested breaking the silence. You're not a little girl anymore. You don't have to stay here now. It's a little much emotion. I think, but you're not directed to say, I got to read it. However I want. I'm directing it now because you have, you have taken this under your own range. You don't have to stay

here now. He didn't just explode into that level of emotions. Why don't you just leave? I suggested breaking the silence. You're not a little girl anymore. You have to stay here. Now we have to keep the previous lines too. So everyone can see what you're trying to do to this story. That is completely it's not earned that yet. You're acting like they've played AC DC or something. I'm just reading it. She smiled. If only that simple Marcus I'd love to leave, but some things are not that simple. She said looking down rubbing her belly. Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to. I felt like a complete idiot. I tell him I'm making awkward moments worse was starting to emerge. I was bad at this kind of thing and even worse at comforting someone is mainly the reason why I remain quiet. Come on. Let's not ruin your tour with my story. She interrupted making her way over the door. Yeah. I said still feeling guilty. Not even thinking I asked how do we even get in. It's locked right. Smile returned to her face. She turned to me giving off a jokingly suspicious expression. How did you know it was long? He's fucking with you. See you're doing it. You're doing it. Jokingly suspicious expression. How did you know it was long? No, that's like a, how

did you know it was? How did you know it was locked? Sure. I shrugged pathetically giving off a sheepish grin. I don't know. Aren't most doors in this place locked? It's a poor excuse. I knew it. Oh, you're more audacious than you make yourself Marcus pale. She said placing her ring into the small indent. She twisted her wrist to the right, which prompted a soft click. Your ring is a key. I asked it as what does the North not have keys like these. Come on. I followed her behind the door inside the room was huge. Sweet aroma from the lobby seemed to fall flat sucking out when the door shut. Instead, singe of smoke in Nashville the air lighting was very poor. What little light was present came from the cracks of the doors behind us. The room had long queues for seating lined

in rows. The rows made their way to the front of the room where they stopped before an altar. From there a small set of stairs ran up to a large podium. Behind it was a flat table with an altar. The table itself was covered in a white cloth. Near the walls stood tall columns of rigged rocks as if crudely carved, connected to the ceiling. In between them stood small marble pillars, each housing a brass bowl. What was this place? I must have spoken the question out loud because Victoria answered me. It's the congregation room, silly. Is something burning in here.

Yes, it's from the candles. It's what we use doing our services due to the poor lighting. Why not just install lights? Well, candles are also an important part of our service. She said almost as if I was supposed to know this already. I dismissed it though and went further in. I climbed up the stairs of the altar noticing a figure standing behind the podium. It's hard to make out in the shadows.

It wasn't for the strands of light behind us. I wouldn't have even noticed it. I took out my phone and held it up to the figure using its backlight. What I saw almost caused me to tumble down the stairs. In front of me, I saw a tall white statue depicting a strange figure well over my height. Its upper body was of a very fit man, bearing a strong chest and arms. The arms of the statue hung low, sweeping near its ankles. It only had three fingers. The legs appeared inverted. Its knees caved inwards like a goat's legs.

The more disturbing was the head of the statue. It was a hard sight to bear. The head looked like a sick crossbreed between a dog and a man. Wasn't like the typical depiction seen like in Egypt. No, this head was like a dog and a man simultaneously. Had a long narrow snout that seemed to morph into the mouth of a man. Other parts of its face appeared human-like, while in others, indescribable. The eyes were small and beady, staring firmly off into the distance.

It held a third eye larger in comparison to the other two in the middle of its forehead. Long, wild hair ran down its face, ending at its shoulder, with horns protruding from its back. The statue as a whole stood in a confident pose, as if knowing its presence was significant. Victoria? I felt my voice squeak. I could feel an eerie chill fall down my spine, unable to tear my eyes from the horrid view. What the hell is that? Walking to me, her eyes carried over to the figure. She seemed unfazed and calmly stated that is our God Lanius

Though I I have time that is the end of part two excellent nice Sick, I'm in I'm so in We just need a like our Jamaican guy and like a like an Armenian dude, what are you doing? Jamaican guy and like a, like an Armenian dude, I'm just saying they have like one British person there. So I think to even it out, you need to make an opinion specifically. They're just different accents. Could be a Spanish accent for all I care. Oh, is ladyus a God in any culture. I'm not aware. It's the name of the guy from fallout, new Vegas. I don't think, I mean, obviously the imagery is very demonic. Like, you know, like pagan God, half human, half man. But I don't see anything about there

being a Lanius God dressing. Okay. Anyway, with that, Oh, hello. My wife's at the door. Hello. Yes. With Hunter. Hey, wait, wait, while you're here. Kayla says, hi Hunter. Hey, he says, Hey, can you, can you be a doll and get me something to do something to dweek? Call her toots. So it's toots. Can you get me a Like a perhaps a dr. Pepper Coke may have she didn't like the use of toots that did not go to my favor Say you should you say you look so much prettier when she comes back with the drink in a second I will hit her with that

I'll be real. I just say you just say you know honestly you walk around the house like this It would just be something you'd just be so much prettier if you smile. Yeah, and lost the shorts right I Should have been or just you know just like makeup. It's a friend to everyone something like that That one would get me in a dog house. I'll do the first one, but that's where I draw the line. Can I just say something? Yeah. Just like while we're waiting to get into part three, I think this might be like my favorite story we've read. What I think this might be my favorite story. We've read this one. Yeah. Okay. So you're messing with me.

But he said, no, I'm serious. No, you're not. This isn't really like how you seriously describe things. No, I seriously, I fucking love this story. Don't dude stop laughing. I, I serious. I fucking love the story. No, I do stop. I really do. This is my fear. I'm putting it down right now This is my fit. You would be so much prettier if you smiled She did not like that hunter. That was a bad move. That was the bad full just slammed the door Won't play it well, all right. Well, part three, it's called the book part three here. And I just want to say, this is my favorite fucking, whatever part three of the book. I think it's fine. I I'm vibing with it. It needs to, I mean, you're talking to me like

that. This is my favorite story we've ever fucking read. It needs to pick up a bit. Like I kind of liked the direction with Laney us and stuff like that. I feel like it's been a little slow on the setup, but I need to see it go a bit more. But yeah, I like it so far. It's got potential for my review so far. No complaints, nothing. What's this attitude you're approaching this with? I just, I don't know, man. Like you're throwing, he needs to pick up like who, what the fuck are you talking about? Just read. What's wrong, Marcus?

Victoria asked. You absolutely pale. Are you frightened? Light from the cell phone I dropped reflected back into my face. Even with this light in my eyes, I could still make out the horrid figure looming before me. Did you say your God you worship that thing? The looney tunes lead in was unnecessary. What man? That's how it's read. No, it's not.

That's not in there anywhere. That's how I be. If I saw a giant satanic statue, I'd say, I do. Oh my God. And I'd run off, but I'd run in place for three seconds. And I'd run off. It's what would happen. This story is not that bad. How actually how much better would it be if it was seriously like Jesus Christ. He'd be a pretty good read. Honestly. All right. So. Go ahead. Flawless. Love it. What's up. Hunter. It doesn't deserve it yet. I, I will unerotic. They say this is my favorite story. So I shook it. Whatever. I took a few steps back, losing my balance in the process. Instantly. I fell back, slammed it into the seating pews behind me. Sharp pain erupted from my back as I could feel the rush of air painfully forced its

way out of my mouth. I guess we don't do that. Gosh. I guess it was true that the wind could literally be knocked out of you. I remained steel filling the pain surge from my back. Marcus, are you all right? Victoria asked rushing to my side. Oh, you hurt instantly. There was a loud slam from the door behind us flooding the room with bright light. What the hell is going on in here. Doria popped up. Nothing. We're doing a little towing when Marcus had a tumble. She said addressing the voice Marcus the voice responded in surprise. You brought an outside into our area of warship. I could hear the voices footsteps

moving at high pace until they halted next to me. My eyes hadn't completely adjusted to the light yet. So all I could see was partially lit figure a man at least that matter who it was though. It sounded angry regardless. This could be the moment I was going to be sent home. He fell. I'm not sure if he's injured himself or not. The man side. He does look pretty banged up. Hey, can you at least move? Yes. Looking down at me. I had tried yet, but I attempted to move my arms and then my legs despite the stop moaning. Despite the lingering pain from my back. Nothing appeared to be broken I

Think I'll be alright. I slowly began to stand feeling the man helped me up. Are you sure you're right Marcus? He'll be alright man said helping me towards the light of the door when my eyes eventually Adjusted I could finally make out as okay. Here's what I'm gonna do So there's long sections that I can read. So if I go into discord and I mute him, I'll stop by. I'm just trying to do a thing. If he was, I'll stop doing it. But he was supposed to, I was just supposed to be like, he's hurting. He's like, so now that he's muted, I'm going to read until it comes to a quote. And then, so I can't hear them until I get to a point where there's a quote then I'll unmute him. When my eyes eventually adjusted I could finally make out his face. It was Terrence after reaching the exit. He shut the door to the room behind us. It felt good

to be out of there and back in the coolness of the lobby. Apparently I've been sweating because I could see the large spots across my face. I came back and unmuted to cause it's your turn. And it was very distorted over the microphone, but it sounded, it sounded like the noise would like step on a dog toy really hard, but like sweet. The entire time you're reading, I was just like, now look here. I know y'all guessing all, but I'm going to need you to end your little explore. I need you to explore. And he cannot, we can not read this late in the day. I'm telling you that right now. The only other time we've read after like 4pm was the Dynia house, which became me like a buck. So historically our track record for doing stuff later in the day, not great. Oh, and like, and like introducing a pregnant woman to us after this time, bad idea. We're immediately going to make the guy weird. He's going to have a lot of weird

bits. He said to me before turning his attention over to Victoria, as for you, y'all know better. Matter of fact, you should be resting. We're lucky that didn't happen to you now with that baby. No more exploring. Now things like this happen. It felt like we were both being scolded as if we were his children. Just remember you're here for a job said returning to me. So if you just stick to that, you'll be fine. Now you best go wash up. Dinner will be ready soon. Athens at the end of the hall on the left. Just make sure you knock before you enter gone. I nodded weakly, catching Victoria's apologetic eyes as I turned to leave. I wasn't mad at her for what had happened. How

could I be? It was my own fault for clumsily falling like I did. I made my way back upstairs cleaned up. But the time I finished time was 603pm. I knew Terrence told me not to be up late. But I didn't want to be the first one to show up either. I'd cut it too close though and hastily made my way back down and in through the door on the left in the lobby. forcing through the hallway. I caught the hint of food in the air. The smell gradually increased the closer I drew to the other side. By the time I had reached the end, my stomach was beginning

to growl in protest. Even my mouth began to water. I approached a pair of double doors and could see light coming out through its cracks. Behind them, I could make out murmuring voices. This was it, I thought. I took a deep breath and pushed open the doors. The dining room on the other side was big, like fancy big. The vibe I felt reminded me of the formality back in the old days, early 1900s maybe. Several antique cabinets stood up against the walls. They had glass doors with the insides filled with priceless looking treasures. Portraits ran along the walls, portraying the faces of people, possibly ancestors of the

sort, their eyes firmly staring down as if a silent audience to the event. In the center of the room, large tables set filled bountifully of plates with mountains of food and drinks. The other residents of this church could be seen standing around the table chatting amongst themselves. However, their chatting ceased when the door shut behind me. L gazed at me silently. My nerves were through the roof. So I just stood there like a deer caught in the headlights. What now? I thought finally one of the women spoke out to me. Ah, you must be Marcus. Welcome my dear. She had a British accent like Victoria's and I

quickly assumed this had to be her aunt. She was most British accent like Victoria's and I quickly assumed this had to be her aunt. She was most likely in her mid 40s with a face slightly stained in wrinkles. She had dark hair tied neatly in a bun or dress similar to Victoria's but with more red in it. I'm Margaret pleased to meet you said walking up to me after shaking my hand she guided me over to the others around the table. There were four others. One was a woman she introduced to be Sophia. Apparently the cousin Victoria had mentioned.

I was surprised to hear she didn't exhibit the same accent as either of the two, instead having the same country one as the Reverend. She was much younger than Margaret and probably a few years older than me. The next person was Terrence who I'd already met from him was another man about the same age as him named Jesse Lastly she showed me Victoria. I couldn't hold back my smile when I saw her she returned one as well Margaret caught sight of this. I've taken you already met my niece. He stated with teasing smile Well, I started beginning to blush. "...Yes.

I was showing Marcus around earlier, trying to get him familiar with everything from when he starts to work." "...Oh, I see. Well, come now, dear. You sit over here." She led me to an empty chair near the end of the table next to her. Everyone else made their way behind their respective chairs too. Toria stood behind the chair across from my own. I was ready to pull out the chair and sit when I caught sight of her eyes beckoning not to do so. I quickly corrected myself realizing

that everyone was still standing as well. When the Reverend arrives, we can begin eating soon. Please excuse him. He can run a little late sometimes." I chuckled a little to myself, thinking of Terrence's words from before. However, it wasn't long until everyone's attention turned to the door opposite the end of the table. I hadn't realized it was there. I was curious to where it led, possibly to the Reverend's quarters? The door opened and the Reverend came walking through. He still had his hobbled walk from earlier, his face still pressed with the same toothy grin. When he came through, quarters door opened and the Reverend came walking through still had his hobbled walk from earlier. His face still pressed with the same toothy grand when he came through

everyone spoke in unison. Evening Reverend smile grew wider at which he replied even and everyone pulled out his chair and sat down gesturing everyone to join him. They all followed suit food before us was truly a sight. There was many dishes flooded gracefully with food. Rice dishes, freshly looked vegetables like corn and baked potatoes, sliced breads, and even three roasted meats. A large silver plate sat before everyone, along with rows of forks and knives around it. I noticed the many wine bottles spaced along the table. Food looked simply amazing. I couldn't wait to eat, but was hesitant to make a move unsure of their manner of etiquette. I decided to follow any and all actions of Victoria. That's probably the reason why she sat across from

me. Let us bow our heads for prayer. My eyes shifted over to Victoria. She bowed her head with one eye open, pressing a finger to her lips while looking at me. Then she placed her hands together. I nodded and did so too. From then the air was silent. I wasn't sure how much time had elapsed, but it felt long. At least five minutes.

I opened one eye to check to see if everyone was still praying. Everyone including the reverend still had their eyes shut. I could see all of them mouthing something silently to themselves. Margaret I could see was holding tightly to a charm from her necklace up to her forehead. I could only make out partial amounts of it, but I was sure it was the same emblem as the congregation room. I also noticed that everyone had a similar ring like Victoria all on their ring finger. The rings each withheld the same emblem engraved within it.

This made sense, since apparently they were the keys to the room itself. I noticed Terrence didn't have a ring on his finger. Instead, I saw it hanging from a necklace. I looked at the Reverend and I saw he had two rings. One was the same as the others, but the second one was different. I could tell the symbol wasn't the same, but the way his hands were positioned made it so I couldn't distinctly make it out. Amen. On command, everyone's eyes opened.

Let us eat now. Said, raising his hands out. Everyone began grabbing at a bowl or plate, passing it around, feeling their plate at their leisure. I was glad it was finally time to eat. I don't think my stomach could have taken another minute. I could feel my mouth watering even more, but I sat patiently, occasionally glancing over to Victoria for guidance. So Marcus, parents told me he had quite a tumble

today. Hearing his voice gave me a little jolt, snapped me out of whatever hunker trance I was in. Yes, sir. Oh dear. Are you all right? You didn't hurt yourself too bad. Did you? No, I'm I'm fine. A little sore, but I'll be alright. That's good to hear. Where was this? Wouldn't want anyone else to do the same now. I swallowed a little, not wanting to explain I'd been somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Somehow my eyes guided over to where Terrence sat.

The glare from them felt unsettling as if his look alone was punishing me. He was in the congregation room. He said sternly without removing his gaze upon me. Say what now? How did he manage to get in there? He was helped by Victoria. Parents answer without hesitation. The way he said it though, felt like he was dying to get it off his chest. It's like he was reporting a crime or something expecting a reward. My eyes fell to plate, unable to meet anyone else's. I was unsure what would happen next at this point. Oh dear, did you not have a candle on you, hon?

Wickler looked up, surprised at her response. Victoria, you took him in there with no proper lighting? It's no wonder he banged himself up. I couldn't believe it. Here, I thought I was going to hear a mouthful about invading their sanctuary and instead they brushed it off like it was nothing. Placed over Terrence who appeared to be just as surprised by his reaction. Steady grumpily turned his attention to his plate unable to look at me and feet. Looked over at the reverend and he too seemed unfazed still smiling. No, I wasn't thinking when I did. However, we were doing fine without a candle.

It was more from the statue that startled Marcus. Margaret and the others laughed at this. Oh, I was dreadfully frightened too when I first saw that thing as a child. It is quite a sight at first, Marcus, but I assure you when you learn about Lanius, you could have truly understand him and what he is swallowed a little more at this and what is he I asked leaning in a bit now Margaret the Reverend interrupted Chuckling a bit we didn't bring the young man all the way up here to teach him a sermon give the young man a chance to eat oh Oh, of course. Eat up Marcus. We don't want to waste

anything around here. She said passing a bowl of potatoes, but my stomach growled again at the side of them. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten about my hunger. I think you're an editor to my plate. Planned so far at Victoria who gave me a slight non of approval. Small then began receiving the other dishes being passed around. I will say, I like that. I like the Reverend like keeping the demeanor up. And when she starts to say something about Laney, he's like, Oh, well let the boy eat like a casual way to keep it quiet for now. Yeah. There's like these slow manipulations happening. Right. Rest of the mill went by smoothly. There was chatter amongst everyone. I listened as they went on about their everyday occurrences. It's funny to hear them bicker

at each other a few times too. Occasionally one of them would ask me a question or two about where I was from or what I did. Then though I didn't feel nervous anymore. After dinner the Reverend dismissed everyone on the way to my room, Victoria caught up with me. Marcus, I just wanted to apologize. For what? For how Terrence acted in there. It's fine. I was just happy everyone else didn't feel the same way. Yes, well, Terrence has always been that way.

I just saw he tried to call you out like that. I'm fine. Said, blushing a little little trying to brush it off. He did the same to you too. I went back upstairs stopping we arrived at my door. Well good night Marcus. Today was truly a pleasure. Good night.

Washer continued down the hallway stopping the door on the left three away. She lands my way. She saw that I was staring immediately. I snuck my head towards my door, locking it and closing it behind me side. I smiled to myself. He smiles to himself quite a bit. And also I don't like his implication. They is keeping track of what room she's in. We got our Marcus here is already like, maybe I can be the dad that stepped up. Maybe that'll be me. That's Marcus pale for you. It it's Marcus pale. Every night I dream about killing

my family and myself as a kid. That's just me. Marcus pale. Do you like being pregnant? I like that. My mom's dead. Is your mom dead? Did you do it? I wish my mom would have shot me in the womb as a baby when she was pregnant. You know, when this kid's born, if I kill you, then your kid will be like me, a ghost. You'll be dead. I'm Marcus pale. You'll be dead and he'll be like me. He'll be like me dead and beautiful. Is it a girl? Does she look like my dead mom? She can. I quickly got dressed down into some shorts and a tee and sat on my bed. I decided to look for any new messages on my phone. Screen lit up revealing a surprising no signal message. Of course, I thought sarcastically, how could I forget?

This place was a damn dead zone. Fell back lying completely on the bed. Before I knew it, I was out. I woke suddenly blinded by light. Apparently I'd forgotten to turn off the lamp on the bed. Before I knew it, I was out. I woke suddenly blinded by light. Apparently, I'd forgotten to turn off the lamp on the desk. Last thing I needed was them to complain about wasting their electricity slumped over to my feet to turn it off. After doing so I caught sight of something outside. Below, I could make out my car in the moonlight. I could see that a clump of leaves had been blown over a lot on its roof. However, that's not what caught my attention. I could see a figure standing next to my car. Even

with the moonlight, I could not make out who it was. It did appear as if the figure was trying to enter my car. I tried to focus my eyes better, but it still didn't help. I wanted to blame it on my tiredness, but my mind instantly thought about Terrence. Perhaps that jerk was still sore about dinner. Could have been trying to sabotage my car or something. Ran for my door, ripping it open and bracing down the hall to the stairs. When I reached the lobby, I stopped. The entire lobby was dark.

In the air, I could smell a hint of something burning like candles. I noticed a thin line of light coming from the congregation room's double doors. Completely forgetting about my car, I made my way to the doors. I could hear the slight murmur of voices from inside the closer I got. I pressed my ear against the door to get a better listen, but I still couldn't make out what the voices were saying. I could hear one voice speak out loud. When it did, the other voices would speak in unison, same rhythm. It was clear they were repeating the message of the lead one. The tone and manner they spoke sent a chill down my spine.

It was clear that this was the church conducting their worship upon whatever the horrid image was I had seen earlier. I didn't understand how they could worship such a thing, but then I didn't know how any religion could worship anything as they did. I decided to let them be and made my way back upstairs. They didn't seem like bad people, so how could I judge them based on what their belief? Victoria was a prime example of someone good from it. When I entered my room, I glanced out the window one last time expecting to still see something below. However, nothing was there.

Trunked it off, it's possible that there never was. Slipped back into my bed, fell asleep. The next day, I was awoken by knocking at my door. I was surprised to find Terrence on the other side. He apparently was ready for me to begin my work as soon as possible. I checked my phone, the time read 6.30am. This was a real dick move by him. I didn't even wake up this early for my job back at home.

Collectively, I bit my tongue and told him I'd be ready in 10 minutes. After getting ready, he led me to the room where he had placed all my equipment. The room had several old computers inside, like late 90s old. I hoped they didn't expect the best performance on these dinosaurs. Nonetheless, I had a job to do. I immediately began setting up my equipment. I was even lucky to have company the whole time. My parents thought of that. Seriously, what was this guy's problem? Eventually though, the time went by and even he got bored and left me. I was too happy when this happened. Today went by fairly quick once I really got into my work. Of course when real time came around I attended them a few times out of the day Victoria came by

to check on me. She would force me to take a break by walking around with her which I didn't mind at all. Days continue to pass as I worked each one becoming more routine, which by the way, for getting a Victoria, uh, we, and you are, if the opinion, right, that she's pregnant by some means within the Colt, like she, it's not a husband or anything. And the kids probably going to be a sacrifice or whatever. It's a monster, maybe for sure. 100% making sure we're on the same page throughout these days. I found myself spending more time with Victoria. I always looked forward to those break times I had with her. We'd walk around just talking Okay, making sure we did, that was better. There was something that bothered me though. Every time we were together, it felt as if someone or something was watching us.

I couldn't shake the feeling, even when I looked around only to find nothing. I wanted to think nothing of it until one particular evening after dinner, came back to my room to find that someone had gone through my stuff. I had to transport any of my clothes from my bags to the dresser, feeling too lazy to do so. One of my bags had a Velcro strap to accompany the zipper for reinforcement. I knew I always kept the Velcro fastened. I was rather OCD about it. However, the Velcro was clearly unfastened and hanging loose. The first thought that ran through my mind was Terrence's doing, but I had no proof.

It was possible that I was just looking for someone to blame. I never did confirm who it was by my car if there really was someone, so I couldn't prove that it had been Terrence at all. I decided to look through the bag to be sure nothing was missing. I went through to find that everything appeared to be there. I could tell my things were moved around a bit, but other than that, nothing clearly, whatever the culprit was looking for, they didn't find it. Does this feel oddly? The beats feel so familiar to me. The story beats like the, yeah, I don't know which one, cause I'm bad at remembering the stories, but literally it was the guy

who was at like a summer camp camp Oakwood. I think it was camp Oakwood, the one where it's like hard ass guy, like like some like hard ass roommate or like camp guard and people start going through a shit. There's also like, I think like a love interest in that as well. It just like the beats feel so familiar. Don't they? Yeah. I don't think there was a love interest in camp Oakwood. He had his roommate. He liked that turned out to be a part of the cult, but there was like the hard ass camp counselors assistant guy. That's really mad. But then like, if I had to, if I had a guess at this, Terrence is going to be like, end up being a good guy or something or, or, or something like that. But then also I, I sense this feeling. I mean, like also started derail as I just had to say it while it was on my

mind. Also the idea of like his, the, the, the, the baby is his somehow. And that he, like, I have been here before, but I never remembered or something weird. They have kind of painted that idea with the dream of the person who shot his younger self being him. Yeah. So it could be his, could be his kid. Also the person that killed his mom was probably somebody from the court, et cetera. I think so. Also that part about the dream where he's sorry. He always feels like someone's watching him while he's with Victoria could be referenced to while he was in a stream. He was in that place, but no one could see him. Could be similar like him from the future seeing himself or something like that. I couldn't lie. I was angry that someone had gone through

my things. Was it really Terrence is doing? Did he really have something against me that much that he'd do all of this? Maybe I should confront him. Thought. No, the last thing I wanted to do was start accusing people, which never looked good. I decided to let it slide just this once. I got into shorts and collapsed onto the bed. When I did so, I felt my head hit something hard. I felt it round the pillow and instead of the usual fluffiness, I felt a hard texture. Someone had stuffed something. I reached inside and pulled out the object. It was a thick old leathery book. Brought over to the lamp on the desk to see it better. The cover looked hand-stitched to the spine. In the light, I could see a symbol engraved across it in gold. It was the same one I had been

seeing everywhere. Hands began to tremble at the sight of this. How did the book get there? Who put it there? Why? I was hesitant, but I slowly opened it. Gave off a peculiar scent, smelling of wet leaves and old tree bark. Pages were old and rather fragile. They were filled with text written in black ink. I couldn't comprehend the words. They were written in some strange language. I didn't even look like a language that should have existed. I continued to turn the pages though, seeing the text flood each one. A few pages in, I came across a picture.

It was hand drawn with limited details. The picture depicted what looked to be a star. Around the stars stood several figures looking like people, one appearing slightly bigger than the others. Turn the page to find more text. Continue turning until finally I came across another picture. This one showed one of the human-like figures standing on what looked like a pedestal. Another human-like being stood around the main one. Again, I flipped it till I came across the next picture. This picture showed the star from before. It looked bigger, but with squiggly marks shooting away from it.

Human-like beings appeared to be cowering in fear, kneeling down at the star. Even the big one from before. Picture after, pictures of human-like beings falling from the sky, faces drawn in fear. When I turned to after, showing them drawn in a dark place, their faces twisted in despair. It then showed the human-like figures began to change into hideous, deformed-like creatures. They had teeth and horns protruding out different parts of their body. Biggest one, even worse than the rest, with eyes drawn angrily with sparks coming from its fang-filled mouth. Despite appearing like the drawing of an eighth grader, the images were

really disturbing. Something about them made the hairs on my neck rise. I wanted to stop, but my hands kept turning the pages despite my mind's wishes. The next one showed one of the hideous beings stray from the others. Similar compared to them. The creature came across a man and the next one. It appeared to reveal a swirling looking symbol to the man. The man appeared to walk through the swirl. When he did, the creature followed. The small child stood in front of the man and the next one. It to look similar. Somehow creature appeared to possess the child's body and it did. The man fell to the ground, presumably dead. Now the child's body child grew up.

As did it show the creature leave the man's body to picking it underground, possibly sleeping. The man was seen surrounded by many people with others joining. Visually like before, it showed the creature awakening next to the man, showing him another swirl. Again, the man walked through the swirl, the creature following, appearing in front of a child. Once again, it possessed the child and the man died. The image is repeated. Each time as they did, I noticed the creature's size growing bigger. Finally, I skipped further into the book to see where they led. The images revealed something different this time. Now it showed the man with the woman. The creature standing behind

her. When I flipped where the next image would appear, I found its page stuck tightly together to another. I tried to part them, but a tear began to form, threatening to ruin both pages altogether. Decided to skip it, move on to the next image. Heart drops when I did. This time, the image showed the woman pregnant among a group of people from before. Images later, when she showed the woman in labor,

giving birth, the man appeared to have delivered the baby. However, it looked like no ordinary child depicted to have large black eyes with long teeth horns poked out in many directions of the child with its legs and arms disproportionate to each other man was holding the child in the air almost like he was glorifying it at that moment I couldn't take any more and slam the book shut pasta to the other side of the room. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, my arms and face sweaty. I shook my head in disbelief.

There's no way I thought, what the hell was all of that even about? After seeing those images, I couldn't sleep for most of the night. All I could see was the horrid inked images of that creature. I thought if the woman depicted of being pregnant, I couldn't help but think of Victoria. There's no way it could have been her. I didn't a lot of women can be pregnant. It was just a coincidence had to be. So the that stuff from the book, some of that imagery is like seems explicitly religious, like all of the people things, like one of them puts themselves on a pedestal and then it shows all of the people things like one of them puts themselves on a pedestal and then it shows all of them falling to earth and then like one of that they become deformed and

monstrous and then they go to man. That's like the biblical account of the angels rebelling against God. The angel, the fallen angels fall to earth, become demons. That's all like Christianity lore, right? The star thing could be in reference to wormwood unless it's, I mean, it could also say a star, like just a pentagram, like the pentagram fused, but in the book of revelation, there's talk of a star called the wormwood that falls to the earth during the end times. So maybe then if we're going off of in time stuff, this cult is trying to bring about

the antichrist. And it seems that the way they do that is this demon Linus or Linus or ladies, whatever its name was. Yeah. Lanius, it approaches man and it shows them a swirl and they travel back and then they become themselves. So it sounds like Marcus is in a time loop where he keeps going back with Lanius and he possesses his younger self. He lives for years, possesses his younger self. And then each time the demon gets stronger, eventually allowing the demon to insert his child, maybe literally maybe, maybe spiritually into a woman that brings about a child that might be the anti-Christ or the equivalent thereof.

Yeah. I think maybe who knows. Yeah. I mean, definitely Victoria got banged by the demon and now the demon is going to come back and, and bear the child. What I'm wondering is, is our boy Marcus pale Linus? He could be, he certainly could be, or at least he's the man that is, um, making Lenny is more powerful by continuing the cycle. What we might be reading about now is Marcus near the end of his cycle, right before he has to make that decision again to go back to his younger self, perhaps the next day I worked sluggishly from the lack of sleep at breakfast. I made no eye contact with Victoria, nor did I talk to anyone else. They asked, I simply blamed it on a headache or tiredness. While working,

I pleaded to myself, hoping Victoria would not come by as she usually did. That despite my eternal pleads, she came. Marcus, are you feeling any better? She asked, entering the room. Didn't respond. I didn't even look up. Marcus, are you alright? My silence caused her to press on. What's wrong? Why are you annoying me?

She asked, I could hear a hint of annoyance in her voice. Still, I gave her no answer. What could I say? All I could think about was... Fine! She yelled and proceeded to leave the room. That child... I asked her without looking up.

Tear footsteps come to a halt. What? Who's the father of your child? Is that what this is all about? Set up finally facing her. It was direct but I had to know. My face along with my solids was to set it all for her. I see the look of confusion in her eyes. Why does it matter? I need to know.

I wanted it to be from her boyfriend or even her deadbeat husband. Any of these were better than what I was thinking. Yet the entire time I had been here, I had not seen him nor had there been any mention of him. She just stared at me with her mouth open as if trying to find the words to speak. Tears formed in her eyes. She gazed at me angrily and was saddened simultaneously. She shook her head softly, never taking her eyes from me. Finally she spoke.

You stay away from me, Marcus. Never come near me or speak to me again or I'll have you sitting home. She swarmed out, leaving me dumbfounded. My plan had backfired. I wanted to call out to her to stop her and apologize. But again, I was at a loss for words. Like an idiot, I just stood there and let my head fall down in grief.

As the day continued on, Victoria never returned to see me while I worked. In the old times, she never made eye contact with me either, keeping her eyes focused on her plate. Felt horrible for what I did. I had no right to put her on the spot like that. I cursed at myself. After dinner, I attempted to talk to her as she was leaving her room.

She ignored me though when I did. I don't know why I thought knocking on her door would be any better. All I received upon it opening was having it immediately slammed in my face. Besides, truly feeling utter regret, I made my way back to my room. When I did, sat on my bed staring off into space. I wished I had never found that damn book. Then everything between her and I would have been normal. I miss seeing her already. Her smile, hearing her laugh, just being around her. I let my hand slide to my pillow to check for the book, only to find it missing. Stunned, I poured out the pillow's contents, finding only feathers and cotton.

I was sure I'd put it back after I left each time. Was somebody messing with me? I angrily began searching for the book. Checked my suitcases, tossing clothes around as I did. I checked the dressers, under the bed, and even behind the desk. Where was it? My eyes met the window when I cameers under the bed and even behind the desk. Where was it? My eyes met the window when I came from under the desk and I looked down. I saw the same figure from all those days before standing next to my car.

This time it appeared to be looking up at me. Anger filled me. I assumed it was Terrence again. This was a bad time for him to be messing with me. I raced out of my room and downstairs. I ran around to the side of the building to where my car was. Moonlight was stronger than ever, illuminating my way as I did. I reached my car.

No one was in sight. I'd finally reached my boiling point. You picked the wrong day to fuck with me. Come on out now. If not, leave me the hell alone. My voice echoed in the air before dying in the wind. Building gave off one of its unsettling moans. The leaves from the trees in the distance shook, rattling against their branches in the wind.

There's no one out here. Feeling my mind grow at ease and realizing how much of a fool I looked, I started to make my way back. However, my nerves froze when I heard the snapping of a twig behind me. My heart began beating fast. Slowly turned around to see a figure gradually rising from behind my car. Figure was wearing a cloak with the hood over its head. In the light I could see pieces of twigs and leaves sticking out of its cloak. Up of my mouth to scream, the figure quickly darted over to me, covering my mouth with its hand.

It shushed me softly. The voice was clearly of a woman. She slowly removed her head from my mouth and made her way to the back of the building. Before disappearing behind it, she gestured me to follow her. I didn't want to, but my legs began to move on their own in her direction. When I reached the other side, I saw her remove the hood from her head. The moonlight lit her face. She was an elderly looking woman, possibly in her early fifties.

She had ragged black hair mixed with gray strands that ran untamed. Her face was pressed with wrinkles with dry patches of dirt. Scent from her was rank but familiar. It smelled like wet leaves and old tree bark did you see it he whispered her voice was cracking and raspy you saw the book right you have to help me you have to help me save my daughter interesting does it seem does it seem like that might be Marcus's mom that's the thought I had but then unless the dad is in on it, which I don't get the vibe he is, I don't think it is. I think she was in the same position. Her daughter is maybe like

they killed Marcus's mom for whatever reason, maybe because the attempt to kidnap him was unsuccessful and now Victoria is an example of like a successful kidnapping where they did kidnap someone, bringing them into the Colt and like, what was that line randomly? Like, Oh, they're cousins, but they don't have the same accent or whatever. Yeah. I'm applying that. Like they're not actually related, not actually a family. I w I was thinking it would be freaky if it was his mom. Could you, I, with the time travel stuff, I had the thoughts to myself. What a Victoria's his mother. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm trying to find it because it's setting up all these different things. And I think that it's like

obviously first time reading. So you don't know, but it's, it's definitely trying to set up like signals, the signs of just trying to tell you what's up. But I do think that either at this point in the story, I think it's either a sister or I think it's the person that I think that Marcus still might be the, the person that may be impregnated her or something like, I don't know. I just, just something lends itself to that, but I don't know. Or because of time travel, walkiness that is him inside of her. He is the baby. I think that's like his mom potentially one that'd be messed up if I know this is a real thing. People have one that'd be messed

up if like you never knew what your mother looked like. I mean, I guess most people have pictures of their mother, even if she passed away when they were young. Right. Um, and Marcus does too, like he saw the home video earlier, one that just be messed up. All right. The church of the woods Woods the ritual part four Who the hell are you I asked backing up from the woman, please Begged me grabbing at my arm smell from her was more unbearable up close get off me old hag I yelled pulling myself free She shushed me loudly her eyes eyes appeared wide, scanning the area with paranoia.

You want them to hear? Who will hear? What are you talking about? And it had only been a few minutes with her and I was already beginning to become irritated. Damn! I could see the wides of her eyes gleam in the moonlight at her weak attempt to scare me. I shook my head unmoved.

I don't have time for this. I'm really tired and I gotta get up early. Honestly, I don't care what you do out here. Just stay away from my car. I don't want to catch you near it again or else I'll report you. No! Please don't! She begged ready to grab at me again. However, I was able to avoid her Klein hands this time. Fine. Just don't touch me again. I'm leaving now. As I turned to leave, I could see the woman's head sulk to the ground.

Normally, this would have been the part where I felt sorry, but right now I didn't care. I was too tired with my mind, overwhelmed with the events that had transpired throughout the day. Besides, she was clearly deranged in the head, possibly homeless, or maybe one of those people who lived off the land. I started to walk away when it hit me. I thought about what she had said earlier. I looked back to still see her eye in the ground, almost appearing in a trance. I was reluctant to go back, but I had to know.

What did you mean your daughter? But how did you know about the book? I asked, approaching her. Without looking up, she answered. My daughter. I need your help to save her. Your daughter? Who's your daughter? You already know of her. Why do you ask me? He replied, looking up at me. Her eyes relayed a look of solemn. I need to hear it from you. I was sure I knew the answer as she mentioned, but something inside me wanted to hear those words come from her.

I wanted to be absolutely sure. Say her name. Why, it's Victoria, of course. Shook my head in disbelief. But how? I wanted to be absolutely sure. Say her name. Why, it's Victoria, of course. Shook my head in disbelief. But how? You're her mother, but... You're supposed to be...

She said you died when she was just a child. Is that what she told you? It'd be like Gary to tell her such a lie. What? Yeah. He took her from me. When I didn't want to submit to his religion he banished me this couldn't be possible Tori's mother was dead right, but how would I know otherwise? I did notice when I listen closely I could hear her accent hidden behind a raspy voice

wait This man you're talking about I started it couldn't have been the same person This man you're talking about. I started. It couldn't have been the same person. Do you mean... do you mean the Reverend? She didn't answer me immediately. Instead, her eyes wandered off into the trees beyond, but eventually her head gave a soft nod. Look. You said you wanted to help your daughter, and that the Reverend took her. Why didn't you just go to the police or something?

She chuckled to herself lightly, turning her eyes to mine. You don't know these people. I don't know anything, because you're not telling me everything. She juggled to herself lightly, turning her eyes to mine. My impatience had elevated to annoyance. They made her a part of their revolting ritual. I should have never brought her here. I was so weak-minded back then. Damn them. I didn't know what to do. But then, that I saw you arrive, at first I was unsure what to think of you. Yet, while watching you with Victoria, I knew it would be you who would help me.

To do what I couldn't and take her away from all this Okay, so It's not gone as bad yet But much in the tone of Camp Oakwood This is becoming the scene where a character since unrevealed to us in the fourth act of the story Gives a needlessly long explanation of everything I don't think it's gonna be anything I said then if that ever happens to you while writing don't I I don't think it's going to be the same thing I said then if that ever happens to you while writing, don't I, I don't think it will be as obnoxious. Long story short kind of meme for sure. But I don't know what it is so far about like people who write basically camp ask like basically ex location in woods where it's place in the woods. Yeah, Sanji neon given

Evangelion character is like thrust it away by like women who desperately want to have sex with him and then opposing forces in the forest is like the template. It feels like for these stories. I don't know why I it actually reads a lot better if you go. I don't know anything because you're not telling me everything. Cause you're not telling me everything. But we're not there yet. No, no, no. It's not yet. No, no, no. But you, I get the feeling I could smell it. I can, the meat is on the grill, Isaiah and it's, it's getting to the point where I'm like, you should probably turn the meat. You should probably take it off the grill. You're burning

it. I'm like, I'm in the next room over. I've been to a few barbecues in my time. I know what burnt meat smells like. What the hell? Yeah, exactly. So I'm just, I'm just calling it now. And like the story had some great stuff in the setup again, similar to camp Oakwood. It had some great stuff in the setup with like a, him having the dream of his younger self and you know, the pregnant lady being part of the ritual. That was all really cool. I also liked the aesthetic of like a demonic cult that has the exact same aesthetic of like a Southern church. Wait, he also had a dream about himself. No, no,

no, no, no, no. I'm saying similar to camp Oakwood. There's cool stuff in the beginning. Yeah. I really enjoyed. Yeah. I'm just, and I'm just calling it now that I'm getting a little, get a little scared. This is a lot of real horror begins last night when we ended, we ended cause I was like, look, I can't take this seriously. I'm going to make jokes about, we now have this character to narrate a lot of the uns unforeseen stuff because there wasn't a better way to show that. But now I realized that that wasn't just me being tired and hypercritical. That may actually

be where the story that just me may be our death sentence. That might be the inevitable. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It all started to come together. All those times it felt like something or someone was watching me have been here yet. I was still confused. Janet really answered my question and only contributed to the pile of others. It's a lot to believe, the pile of others. He asked, ignoring my question. What? I blurted it out, I could feel my cheeks reddening. I was thrown off again. I couldn't believe she was behind the placement of the book as well.

Wait a second! I don't even know what I saw in the book. I couldn't even read the words. You don't need the words. You saw the pictures, didn't you? What you saw has been done. Okay. All right. All right. All right. So here we go. We figured out she was the one who placed the book, book those in his room that showed him. And we already saw visual symbols of stuff that was, if anything, too much explained what was on the fair. I did think it was Terrence that left the book. So my, my, my bear trap is disarmed, but now we know, now we know that the book was left by her, someone trying to help him. And we already got descriptions of images that I theorized about earlier. And theory is all you need for a story to understand enough

to move forward. Right? Questions are a good thing. So if the neck, I see a bunch of, I'm not reading them. I see a bunch of paragraphs underneath this. If she goes on to just explain what those drawings are, we already had described the story has crashed out for me and I will start doing the Shinji voice. That's fair. Like, okay. I didn't know what to think. The images on those pages were indeed horrific. I wanted to believe, but another part didn't want to accept it. You mean to tell me that's what's growing in Victoria. What can you expect from me then? It seems a bit too late now. There's one thing we can do I

Can dispel the ritual stop it before it is ever completed and that evil is born Why haven't you done it already? because I Need to access the room of worship and last I check I lost my key He held up her hand for me to see I can make it a small stump where a ring finger used to be What the hell? The rings are more than show. We're sure you know that by now. They are keys, but there's a darker secret behind them. They're also a symbol to show your... you're the allegiance, okay. They're also the symbol to show your allegiance to the faith by permanently clamping onto the wearer's finger. The only way to remove it is by removing the finger entirely.

And they banished me. I was so torn that I bit off my own finger. I didn't want anything on me that was associated with them. That's crazy. Are you pregnant too? I noticed your belly is kind of rump as well. Can I see me thinks me heard a kick. Is that a pregnancy? Yeah.

Your belly sounds like a war drum. Please. Do you like that? I want to play donkey conga on your belly. I get it. I couldn't fathom someone wanting to risk their finger. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. I love the Wii! It's my favorite! I love the Wii! I love Nintendo! Yay! I can't wait for another Le Donkey Kong game to come out.

Can I get pregnant with Nintendo? I would like that. Mr. Nintendo, impregn pregnant me. Can I be pregnant too? I want him to put his power glove in me. All right. Well, we didn't need to get, we were like alluding to something nefarious. We didn't need to go into detail with like you just said. They were talking about things going into people. That's not what I wanted. That's not really popular. I don't know his name, but that guy, he's like the American guy. Yeah. He was the CEO of American Nintendo and he was a people liked him. I want him to make love to me.

These names, red, red. Okay. Okay. Okay. I made a mistake bringing the pregnant. I should have known that was a hot zone for you. Fill me with your chum. See, there we go. There we go. I'm a chum bucket. Okay. Okay. That's enough. I think chum bucket. Where do you get a fish thing? Also it's where plankton wants to steal the crabby Patty. That was a good impression. Thank you, crabs. I couldn't fathom someone wanting to risk their finger or any part of their body on the basis of their faith or anything. I've heard of tattoos. This was way beyond that.

I couldn't help but picture the woman clamping down on her finger until it snapped and spitting it out. The very thought made my stomach churn. Yes, but it was only after so that I wish I hadn't. I could have ended this nightmare years ago, yet I let my anger cloud my judgment. But you're here now, which means there's hope again. Me? I don't have a ring either though.

I know. But the others do. Do you know Terrence? Gritted my teeth. How could I not? I'm going to be honest. Like seriously the chest has been open. The chest has been opened in the fedora and scarf have come out. Yeah. That that like it was bad enough him earlier being like, I noticed I was smiling and we kind of made jokes or whatever, but now like this whole fucking time has been beat red this whole time between. And he's also like, there's been, I haven't called it out, but like similar to the boat in the

middle of the ocean one, there's a lot of fit, whatever that one was called. There's a lot of screaming and almost screaming and a lot of holding in screams. Yeah. I, I've been trying to be a good sport and not, I have to, but it's, it's getting a little rough cause like he goes from like, huh? What? And then once in it's later, I gridded my teeth. How could I not like, how could I not? How could I not the prick? How could I not the prick? Make love to me Reggie. No. Terrence is a lapdog when it comes to the Reverend and the faith, but he's too much of a pansy to wear the ring like the others. He keeps his on a necklace. He wears. I've seen it. I replied recalling the times at dinner. How am I supposed to get it? If it's on them,

two things, one, the less important one. Do you remember the beginning of the story? There was that guy I was cracking up about cause I'm like, he's going to come sprinting down the street and kill him. Yes. Yeah. I remember the get out guy. Yeah. The get out guy in hindsight, the description and sentences that were given to that character related to absolutely nothing. There's no way that guy comes back into the story. Correct. I'm by morning. I'm morning. Okay. The second point, haven't we had multiple pair like sentences to himself where he says he doesn't believe in religion. He doesn't believe in faith. He doesn't know how any religious group could

worship a God. And then this lady comes up to him and says, the woman that you know is going to birth the antichrist. And he's like, what do we do to stop it? There's not even like a what immediately buys into the super natural. One of the other parts, he needs to have had a confrontation with this person and like been skeptical to like remain true to like, like what he has said in the story, which is like, Oh, I don't really buy into the religious thing. I mean, even like to Victoria's like, this is kind of, he hasn't really said it outright, but I think like there should have been more of him being like, I don't know. And then there should have been some kind of evoking instant that happened that like reveals that he's like, Oh shit, like his skepticism starts coming out and

he starts being like, well, fuck, well, maybe this is real. Yeah. So, but right now it's just like, it's very easy. Feel like you could just go to this guy and be like, give me your bank information. Okay. Okay. Okay. Six to eight. One for. Okay, okay Six to eight. Yeah one four Need anything else stranger do you like being pregnant?

Do you want to be this is where you come in perfectly? Probably don't see much of everyone throughout the day. That's because there are chores be done to keep the place up and running Terrence is a working man. He normally chops up wood or fetches game for the meals when he bates afterwards I bet my lip thinking on it. I don't know. It seems a bit risky. If I get caught, I'm finished, and... He'll have me sent me home instantly. Then don't get caught.

You're the only one who can walk around easily. If I could do it, I would. But they'd see me on first sight. I was barely able to place the book in your room. Please. You have to do this for Victoria. Also just want to say if, if, if you were fucking able to place a book in a room, you're able to grab a ring. You can get the necklace that is apparently always unlocked. It's always unlocked. He always takes it off. And then also it's like, you, she also already said, well, people will be doing chores and no one's going to be around. So it's true. It's like, well, why don't you fucking do it? Then you'll bird a damn. Yeah. What do you mean? He, he goes out and hunts game for

the meal. That's why you want like a, that's what I mean too. I was like, you're telling me those motherfuckers don't have just like frozen stakes or whatever. Like, are you like, they have like, they have an IT guy there running computers. Yeah. The fiber internet is a guy who's like hooking up fiber and stacking computer racks. And you're telling me the guy's just like, well, yeah, I don't know. The, the, the deer just wore to Rome in today. It's like, what are you talking about? Why don't you door dash some fucking red Robin or something like that. You're close enough. What the fuck they were like every time he goes hunting, he reliably gets food for like 40 people. Yeah. Every time. God damn. Yeah. Good, good fucking Lord. I may, you know what

it is. Maybe he tells people he's hunting game, but really he's just going to like a Walmart and he's getting that. That would be funny. He comes back and they're like, you're truly the Nimrod of these woods. And he's like, yeah. And you can see like the great value sticker on it. Yeah. Don't I put that there myself. I'm getting into graphic design already cleaned and stripped the meat on all these. Don't look for where I did it. This is trustworthy. I gave off another long side before conceding with that, a smile formed wider than it ever had on her face. I could see the many crooked rows were blackened in yellow teeth.

He said leaning close to me. He explained I not in. Once I get it, how will I contact, how will I contact at you? Where will I find you? She paused for a moment before answering. Your lamp. If you're able to get the ring,

then turn your lamp on and leave it on. I'm always watching so I'll see it. Then what? Then bring the ring down to me, and I'll conduct my ceremony in the room. At that time, I want you to get Victoria out of here. Wait, what about you? I'll be fine.

I've survived this long, so don't worry about me. You should go now. We don't want anyone catching wind of you out here. Also, you've been out there for how long? Just talking in the wide open, doesn't matter. Yeah, right. There's one more thing I need you to do. What is it?

I need you to promise I'd never mention this meeting to Victoria. She must never know you've seen me. What? Victoria would be thrilled to know that you're alive. I know she would, which is why she cannot know that I am or else she will not want to leave. Now.

Can you do that for me? It's a really dumb reasoning, but sure. Whatever. Cause if she's not leaving like the country, she's just leaving the building that the church is also inside of also they banish this woman and she's just living in the woods adjacent to the property. I want to say that one years, you know, they didn't even cut off her finger. She bit off her own finger. Yeah, that one. I was kind of like, all right, but now you need a ring

really bad. So why not just, well, it's just like a, it's one of those, even if you want to cut off the finger, why did you throw away the ring with the rest of the finger? If you needed the ring later, why did you not take off the ring? Like I, it's this thing. If she's just like, well, they said it's permanently attached to them. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So to get it off, you had to cut your finger off, but even if you're like, I'm so disgusted, I want to cut it off. That's fine. But keep the ring if you need it for a ritual. Yeah, I would have kept the finger in the ring for sure. I heard her voice quiver off. Her eyes became glossy in the moonlight. I swallowed hard and nodded. He returned a grateful nod and faded into like no longer see her among the shadows. Shivered

a little. The chill of the wind was finally getting to me. So quickly ran back inside and back up to my room. The following day I started the day as usual for my work. Throughout it I thought about the plan. Regardless of how I felt I knew I had to make it work. I also knew I had to stall the overall progress of my work. So I made sure to inform Terrence that I would need a few extra days to complete it. My boss didn't pick up when I called so I left in the message. I made up a BS excuse about needing more time to set up and ensure the system was functioning correctly. This is really funny how he just without informing us or any real change. A woman just told him

the supernatural exists and he has to stop this. So now he's changing his entire plan. How long he's out there and stuff like that to stop the devil. Yeah. After lunch I proceeded to say Victoria is the woman of his dreams. Of course. Of course. The pregnant woman he fell in love with immediately after lunch. I proceeded to head to my room to take a nap. Normally I would have spent this time with Victoria when I unlocked my door. I heard a grunting sound. The noise was subtle at first and appeared to be coming from the end of the hallway. I paused for a moment, unsure if I'd actually heard something. I was ready to shrug it off until I heard it again.

It was a little louder. Curious, I made my way down the hallway, listening as I did. Stopped at the door I presumed it came from and pressed my ear up against it. I heard it again. Took my ear away. So was Victoria's door. Hesitant, I knocked on it lightly. Hey, are you all right in there? There's no answer. Victoria. It's me Marcus.

I could hear rapid breathing from inside sounding almost like hyperventilating. That sound good. Granted got knocked on the door with a little more force. Victoria. Are you all right? What's going on in there? Can you let me in please? I heard her say I mean does this sound like she's like a sexual situation To see I didn't like that I was trying to be subtle

of like a sexual situation to see. I didn't like that. I was trying to be subtle to make it like that. I mean, that's just, it is what it is. Sounds like some eyes. I said, no, no, no, no. Don't you know what? I side pressing my no, no, no. I would have, if he should have market, should have pressed his ear, press his ear against the door and all he like that was in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lions leaves tonight. And, that'd be sick. That was good. That was actually a better direction. You took that. Whatever I thought you were going to do. I side pressing my head softly up against the door. Look, I understand. You don't want to talk to me and I don't blame you. I had no right to. I was a jerk. I was a jerk back there and I shouldn't have been prying as I did. In truth. I don't care about the baby or who the father is. I never did. I just wanted you to know that I the words again

failed me. I could see them in my mind, but I couldn't push them out. I'm sorry. Okay. So she giving birth. Is that what's happening? Is that what the hyperventilating is? No, I legitimately think that she's getting, she's getting fucking no Mike Tyson punch. I don't, I don't think so. I wanted to tell her something else about how I felt about her, about everything, but the timing didn't feel right. I turned to leave, but stopped when I heard the door open behind me. He had added half-cock to allow her face to peer through. She stared at me for a moment as if analyzing my eyes for truth. Finally she opened it fully, walking back into her room. I followed her, closing the door behind. Her room was nice. Unlike mine, which was bland

and almost empty, her room was more cozy. She had a desk filled with books, some open journals, others maybe novels. Her mini-dresser was complimented with a vase filled with several flowers clearly well cared for. The scent of her perfume lingered in the air. I embraced its smell, scent I longed missed. What was that noise I heard earlier? I thought something was wrong. She walked over to the bed and sat making a painful face as she did. I'm fine. It's just this bloody baby is all. Joined her on the bed. I meant when I said out there I don't care about it. You don't have to tell me about

it all either. She kept her gaze away from me, but I could see tears forming in her eyes. Just shut up, Marcus. She said with a quivering lip, She broke down in tears, cupping her face with her hands. I was bad at handling these kind of moments. They always left me feeling awkward, but I gradually reached over to her shoulder to comfort her. She immediately threw herself on me, bawling her eyes out on my chest. After a good solid five minutes, she had finally stopped.

Her eyes were reddened and her nose slightly runny. You said your mother died when you were young? How did she die? She was killed. I answered after a long pause. Some guy broke into their apartment and shot her. I got to read that. She was killed. Some guy broke into their apartment and some guy broke into their apartment and he shot her. Marcus. I'm so sorry. That must've been devastating for you. Yeah. Well, I don't remember when it happened. Like I said, I was too young. There you go. There he is.

I could feel her sob a little more of my chest. This is also by the way, like the, like the, the level of like, Oh, there's a beautiful woman at this cult. She's immediately in love with me. She forgives me instantly. And now she lets out all of her womanly emotions on my chest. Exactly. That's what average it experience. I suppose. Yeah. Another score for the it department. Yeah. Take average experience. I stopped the world from being killed by the devil and get with the pregnant woman. And I got a total awesome hug. One day we're good. This isn't it. But one day we're going to step into a story. That's just fetish content. You think so statistically it has to happen in a way. These are all, it may have already happened. These are all kind of daydreamy fetish content in a way

is what it feels. I wouldn't say all of them almost the moth one. Yes, absolutely. I could feel her sob a little more on my chest. It was my father Finally said leaning on my shoulder little inbred baby father Yes He did this to me She said looking down at her stomach eyes widened as I pulled away Your father did this who is he? Who do you think? He said heartily wiping her eyes. I thought about it for a second and immediately my eyes flashed Father did this? Who is he? Who do you think?

She said, harshly wiping her eyes. I thought about it for a second and immediately my eyes flashed. The Reverend? Wait, the Reverend is your father? I couldn't believe it. Her mother said he took Victoria from her but mentioned nothing of him being the father as well.

Victoria nodded but then shook her head. Well, he's my stepfather. My mother met him after my real father died. If he did this, why didn't you tell anyone? Because I could not prove it. He drugged me or something. Okay, first off, is that funny? Is that funny to you?

You tell me there's no way there's a DNA sample. Also, it's like he's just like, I don't know. You drug me. I don't know what happened because I could not prove it. He drug me something. I don't know. At first, I did not want to say anything, but when I started showing signs of the baby, we went on to tell everyone that it was a miracle, that it was a gift from Lanius and like aimless sheep, they questioned nothing, taking in his poison words. But I knew the truth because he was the only one else there. More tears fell down her cheek. I bit my lip when she said, God stops biting his lip all the time. It's so fucking annoying. Also imagine a girl telling you

that shit or her father impregnated her and you're just like, well yeah. Cause I bit biting your lip is like what? Like you're like almost like seductive or something. Right. Doesn't it mean like it can, but it can also be nervousness. Like, Oh, I don't know. You know? Yeah. If anything, I think it should have been something more like my lips curled or something where you're like, Holy shit. You know, while he describes lips quivering a lot, he uses that word. Why aren't we reusing that instead of biting lips? Jeez. It should have been, I had, I didn't know it, but I had a giant smile on my face. Why are you smiling? Oh, sorry.

I didn't know. Or he describes like I put my hands out equal on either side and I lifted my shoulders and gave a sarcastic smug gesture and went, well, what are you going to do? He's your dad. Oopsie. Oopsie. You're pregnant from your dad. I'm sorry. Oh, do you like being pregnant.

Even though the whole thing this part sounded all too familiar. I thought about the book and the image of the man standing with a woman that hoard figure behind her. Was it all true though. She had no memory of the event. Was it possible that this sick action was all just the reverence doing regardless of which Victoria's mother was right. These people were monsters. Not that ignorant. Is he saying that? Is he saying that he is like question? He's like, well, did the reverend really do it? Well, this is every time in the story, he learned something else. He's like, could it really be? And then he just does it. So I think he's like, could it really be that the

reverend did this? And then I just thought it was going to be fucked up if he was like, I don't know if the reverend could have done that. But he immediately believed that the homeless woman outside was like, he got to save my little baby. I left a book under your mattress or whatever the fuck. And he's like, okay, I I'm part of your plan now. I just didn't know. Got it. Yeah. At this point I wanted to cheer her up. I thought about telling her everything about her mother, but remembered the promise I made said I lifted her chin up so that her eyes were looking into my own. Oh, we move up a wing. Mo, we move up a wing. Mo up. I can take you away from, Oh my God. This is so gay. I could take you away from all of this. All we have to do is jump in my car and leave.

You'll never have to see this place again. Now, now this is becoming like a guy. Well, I don't know about that. I'm not really, but you know, middle school day words. Yeah. Yeah. It's lame. It's it's becoming lame and it's like, I don't know, man. It's, it feels, it's weirdly going to like a white night. Like, Oh, this poor pregnant woman needs my help and I can stop the devil. It's fantasy stuff. When did I read this kind of stuff? I always like, I can just picture, I can picture the author like smiling and like they're, they're living out their own fantasy, but this whole thing of like I even all the smiles of I didn't realize that a smile. That's the that's the person writing this.

The person writing this is like, oh, my God, my cheeks hurt. Well, yeah, you like those roommates like, yeah, you've been smiling for four and a half hours. I've been writing. Have I? I didn't know. I could see a mixture between happiness and fear in her eyes. How would we go? You can stay with me. I have my own place. It's safe. Trust me. Marcus spoke softly smile gradually formed on her lips. Yes. Let's do it. Said rendering me a tight hug. We should leave tonight. Tonight? Yes. After dinner.

Any earlier and they'll become suspicious. They always hold their sermons late at night which gives us enough time between them. We can leave then. I looked away trying to find a way to convey my thoughts. I didn't want to reveal the plan or her mother. What's wrong Marcus? How about tomorrow night? Tomorrow? Why? Why do we have to stay here another day?

Let's just leave tonight. No, it has to be tomorrow night. Shot back without thinking. Marcus, I don't understand this. Is this something you're not telling me? I place my hands on her shoulders firmly looking at her in the eyes. Look, you have to trust me. I have a plan with a friend. They're willing to help, but it has to be tomorrow. Okay. Do you like being pregnant?

I keep making like the hands on the shoulders thing. You're pregnant. God. I'm an L. I hate this. I'm not. No, actually, you know what? No. Thinking, thinking about it, this is actually my, my favorite story. Good. There you go. Thank you. That's the attitude. Her eyes were full of so much confusion. I knew she thirsted for answers, but luckily she simply nodded. Okay. I I trust you. For a second, we began to lean in for a kiss. We were both startled by an abrupt knocking at the door. I answered it to discover Sophia on the other side. Mr. pale. We were beginning to worry about you when we didn't find you in your

workspace. Her eyes shifted their gaze between me and Victoria. I trust I wasn't interrupting anything. No, said trying to maintain my composure. I was just checking on Victoria turned back to give her a wave and slip past Sophia. And down I glanced down the hall to still see her in Victoria's doorway. I didn't want to raise suspicion. So I continued on back to the room I was working in for one.

Victoria has no reason to trust him also. So what I said earlier still stands. I like the idea of like a demonic cult or like, you know, pagan cult that has the aesthetics of like a Southern Christian church. That's cool. But why would they like if your whole thing's like say or not sadism a hedonism, like doing whatever you want as in line with a lot of satanic stuff, why would you be like, I trust nothing was going on or everyone being so prim and proper. Like they should be having weird orgy rituals and stuff like that. That would be more in line. Like that would be way cool. They wouldn't, they wouldn't have the same morality. Like maybe the aesthetics

are fine, but they wouldn't have the same morality. Like maybe the aesthetics are fine, but they wouldn't have the morality of like Southern Baptist church. Yeah. Well, there's no reason to put on, I guess, like this front facing thing all the time, whatever. I don't know. Yeah. You'd expect once they get inside, like the, the mask would slip, but it doesn't, they just act like that for some reason, maybe where he's an IT guy, maybe they don't want the outsiders know it. So they're doing it around him. Maybe we'll see this is what this story would redeem itself. If like everything was a lie and Victoria was in on it and the mother was in on it and like, you know, a rage from the start kind

of thing. That would be cool, but I don't think it's going there. I think it's going, we're going to save the, we're going to save the princess and get out and she's going to love me forever. And we're going to have five kids. I think that's where it's going. Yeah. It's a pregnant fetish fantasy stuff. Yes. Yeah.

I was glad I had patched things up with Victoria. The feeling helped ease my thoughts on the plan. I wondered if we could really pull it off. Leaving the place was one thing, but stealing the ring from that jerk was another. Something broke this mood, though. I was heading back to continue my work when I caught sight of Terrence walking outside with an axe over his shoulder. That was strange. There was probably nothing to worry about. The old woman said he chopped every two days. He would still need to do it tomorrow. He probably needed it for something else, I assured myself. Though

the thought wasn't that very reassuring. I decided to keep my eye on him while I worked just in case. I looked towards the trees, hoping to maybe catch sight of the old woman, but didn't see anything. I didn't actually believe I would, since she had been able to keep herself invisible for years. I was sure, though, that she, too, was watching everything. I continued working until Sophia came to me. She informed me that my boss had called and was waiting on the phone. Great. Perfect timing, as always, I thought grumpily. What did he want, anyway? She led me back to the phone where I found it sitting off the hook on its side. Apparently, he was following up on the message I left and wanted to ensure I was making progress.

I told him that I would have everything up soon, hoping to end the phone call quickly. I noticed a small window in that room and peered out of it, stretching the phone line as I did. I gazed out into my horror, I saw Terrence making his way back. His shirt was fully soaked in sweat while he was pushing a wheelbarrow full of chopped logs. After dumping the logs off, he made his way around to the front. I felt my heart leap into my throat. In my ear, I could hear my boss go Alan into another one of his speeches about representing the company. Screw the company right now, I thought. I had a small window of opportunity and I was

about to miss it. We were completely wrong. I could already hear Terrence slam the front door and proceed to the stairs. I quickly thought of a way to let my boss allow me to hang up, a line that one of the clients had asked for my help. Once over, I raced out of the room, nearly smacking into Margaret on the way. Margaret's voice. Goodness me! Your running is as if a fire spurned. I apologize frantically, my eyes looking down the hallway behind her.

Is everything alright, dear? She asked with a puzzled look. Yeah, I just need to use the bathroom really bad. Oh my, I shouldn't keep you then. She replied, holding a hand up to her mouth. I banked her and raced towards the stairs, stopped immediately before reaching the top. I cautiously peeked down the hallway. No one was in sight.

Where was he? Was he still in his room, or did he already enter the bathroom? I crept up the last remaining steps slowly, eventually making my way down the hall. I could hear the sound of water running into the background. Yes, he was in the shower. For how long? Knowing I didn't have much time, I sped up my pace until I reached his door. Opened it quickly, checking it behind me.

Surprisingly, his room was a lot like mine. There wasn't much in it. It was bland and almost empty. Anything he did have, like books, were nicely organized in its place. I began looking around, making sure to return anything I moved back to its original place. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Every sound I heard, whether creak or thump, I associated it with being Terrence. It felt like my senses had amplified. I found myself constantly looking towards the door

in paranoia, thinking he could barge through at any minute. I looked through his dresser and all around his bookcase, but found nothing. I started searching the desk, pulling open drawers to see inside. When I opened the last drawer, I froze. Inside, I could make out a familiar object. A gun. It was a revolver. I didn't know the specifics, but it had a very long barrel. I could see the dust that had formed over it. Clearly, it hadn't been touched in a while. I shut the drawer and continued searching around. In the end, I couldn't believe it. The ring wasn't here. How could that be? I wanted to check over everything again, but a feeling inside urged me to leave.

I listened to it and left the room, gently closing it behind me. I started to head back to my room until I heard a voice call out. OI! I heard, freezing my nerves. Almost shouted in complete terror out of shock, I turned to see a half-robed tarrant dripping in the hallway. A towel was wrapped around his waist, soaking up with little water dripping from his wet body.

His sweaty clothes were tightly gripped and a ball in one hand while the other held his shoes. What you doing down here? My heart was now knocking against my chest as if wanting to burst out. I just needed to use the bathroom. I didn't realize someone was in it until I got down the hall. Terrence squinted hard at me as if trying to figure me out, but finally gestured to the bathroom with his head.

Well, it's free now. I thanked him and made my way past him. I pushed open the door to the small bathroom and immediately my eyes lit up. There, sitting on the sink, was the necklace with the ring attached. He had it with him all along. I was close to reaching for it until I heard someone behind me. There's the blasted thing. Taron said, moving past me and grabbing it.

It's all yours for real now. I couldn't believe it. The plan had failed. I wanted to punch a wall or something, even scream out loud. Yet when I really thought about it, there was no chance of getting away with it freely. Even if he had left it in his room,

he would have immediately noticed. There wouldn't have been enough time to give it to the old woman and leave with Victoria, especially if we planned to leave in the evening. I sighed and began my long walk of defeat back. What could I tell the old woman now? We didn't have an alternate plan. I continued heading downstairs and decided to get back to work. Maybe I could think of something while I did so.

Dinner eventually came by and still I had no idea what to do. I was sure the old woman had seen my lamp was still off to relay the failure of the plan. I wondered if she would possibly come up with a solution of her own. Marcus, how far along are you with your work? Margaret inquired, pulling me from my thoughts. I heard there were minor delays. Well, I should have everything up and running by tomorrow.

Oh, that's a dreadful thought. We're going to miss having you around. You're almost like a member of the family now. She said giving off an unsettling giggle. I've actually been meaning to ask why you needed the service anyway. Doesn't seem like you really need it. Oh, on the contrary, my boy. Our faith is a rare breed. But that doesn't mean that there aren't any other inspiring souls out there. We want to be able to reach any and all potential followers with your help. We can do that and upload our Simmons for all to see. Oh, okay. So, okay. I, when we did it at our church and like clicked up the cameras and mics and all that. So we

could record videos and post them to YouTube. It took maybe two hours. Okay. Well, why is he there? Was the it technician obsessed with the pregnant woman who he was getting? I hope, I hope not. I hope not. I don't even know why the work would have been this thing. Yeah. But it's literally just like set up a camera and a mic. No, why is this a multi-week job where he doesn't have to go into the actual congregation room? He's just in a back office. He's just downloading OBS to one computer. That's a week's hanging out with Victoria, whatever. Okay. The mere thought of them uploading footage of them worshiping made me feel uneasy. Plus, it brought you to us Marcus. Having a young lad such as yourself has truly been a pleasure.

I smiled sheepishly and glanced over to Victoria. She appeared to be squinting in pain. Are you all right, my dear? Margaret asked when she caught sight of this too. Dory appeared to be suppressing the pain. Yes. I think I just need to lie down for the evening. Do you need, do you need any help?

No, I'll be fine. Please, there's no need to worry about me. She said, excusing herself from the table. I just need to rest. I could see her gripping her stomach as she did. I wanted to leave the table as well, but my legs remained frozen, numb to the commands from my brain. I just sat there watching her leave.

For some reason, I could not shake the feeling of discomfort. After dinner, I made my way back to my room. In the hallway, I glanced down towards Victoria's door. What were we going to now? The plan had failed, and tomorrow was the day I promised would be our last year. I entered my room almost slamming it shut. I could feel tears of anger growing in my eyes. Why did it all have to go to hell? Why did the bastard have to ruin everything? Why? Why did I have to screw it up so badly? I must have eventually passed out from my rage fit because

I just imagine him like pacing around the room like, Oh, passed out from my rage fit because I just imagine him like pacing around the room like, oh, oh, passed out from my rage fit because I was soon awakened by the sound of voices and footsteps. The footsteps sounded urgent rushing from one end of the hallway to the next. That warning a blood curdling well filled the air grew so loud that I had to put my hands over my ears. it sounded like a woman's voice. Victorious. I raced to my door to rip it open, but immediately I stopped myself. I could hear a sound worse than her well. It was so eerie and frightening that it sent an icy chill down my spine. What I heard was the low chanting of voices.

I spoke in unison, reciting words I couldn't comprehend. I could see a dim light flicker across the door's bottom crack. While it did, I could hear Victoria's moans of pain. The voices grew louder, passing by my door eventually fading into the distance. I cracked open my door to look out which led out at Signature Creek. I was sure it would alert them, and halted in at mid-swing. I could see the hallway was still quiet. I opened the door fully, taking a step outside. It was dark and absent of light. Under my shoe, I felt something wet. I took out my phone and used the backlight to get a better view.

It was some kind of liquid. Maybe water? I was ready to believe this saw until I accidentally dropped my phone in it. I quickly grabbed it in a panic, wiping it off, but the liquid seemed to only smear. I took my phone back into my room to see if the better light. It wasn't water, it was blood. My heart skipped at the realization of this. I went back in the hallway, using my phone's light again over the liquid. I could make out more of it leading to the stairs. The other end of the hallway showed the trail, led back to Victoria's room, which had its

light on. I swallowed hard and walked towards it, trying to mentally prepare myself for the worst. I reached it and slowly etched my way back in. There was blood everywhere. The trail of it ran from the door up to her bed. The sheets were completely doused in red. I could smell her perfume mixed with smoke and the metallic smell of blood. I felt my stomach give in at the site. Immediately I vomited all that I'd eaten. I felt my... a woman's giving birth and you just walk into the room and throw up. Same brother. I felt my knees weaken and give away as well, falling to the ground and dropping my phone in the process. I must have blacked out for a few seconds before regaining awareness. When I regained consciousness, I noticed my phone's backlight

about to turn black. I quickly got up, horrified that I had been laying next to blood. What had happened in here? I grabbed my phone and glanced at the bed. A puddle of red soaked the lower half of the sheets. However, I noticed there was another spot, much smaller, for me near her pillow. I slowly reached for it, unsure what I was about to see. I couldn't imagine anything worse, but I was wrong. To my dismay, I found a finger. It was clearly cut off with the tip of its bone sticking out of the red-covered flesh. It appeared to be victorious, but it had to have been.

Next to the finger was a small knife with its tip covered in blood. Why did she cut it off? I observed the finger closer and realized the ring. She had cut off her finger so that I would have it, the key to the congregation room. She must have done so out of desperation. I thought about the pain she had shown from her contractions at dinner. She must have felt it was time for the child. Those sick bastards were going through with their ritual. They didn't care about Victoria, the

old woman was right. I had to do something. I promised her that I would get her out of here and I was going to keep it. I hesitantly picked up the finger. It was still warm. I cringed as I placed it in my pocket with care. Afterwards I raced out of the room, halting when I remembered the gun kept by Terrence. It was something I was probably going to need. His door was locked when I tried to open it, but I didn't care. Didn't have time to waste. Just like kicked at it until the handle kicked in. I pushed it open, running to the desk drawer where I had last seen the gun. I opened it and smiled. It was still there. I grabbed it, feeling its weight fall into my hand. With my thumb, I popped its wheel open to reveal six bullets lined in their chambers. Perfect, I thought. I tucked it in the back of my pants and then ran out of the room.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and noticed that the lobby was dark. The sense of candles in the air. The trail of blood from earlier could have been leading to the congregation room. I pressed my ear up against the double doors to listen. It was silent, no voices or wails from Victoria. Something wasn't right. I tried the handle only to find it locked as always. I reached in my pocket, pulling out the finger. I checked for the small indent on the door, placed it up against it, and twisted it to the right the way I remembered Victoria doing so. Instantly, there was a soft click from the door. I pulled out the handle again and could feel the door move. This was it. I placed the finger back in my pocket and peeked through

the small crack. All I could see was darkness. I opened the door wider and was met with a warm breeze to my face. With it open, I could see a dim light flickering from the sides. I poked my head in first before completely entering. The light was coming from the candles mounted on columns near the walls. With it, I could make out the room even more than I had the first time. The entire area looked older in the light. The walls appeared worn out and decayed, almost blackened as if burned. The columns appeared ancient in nature, broiled with cracks and fungus throughout. A deep scent of ash and moisture filled the air. I could now see the

seeding hues were carved from stone similar to the columns. A few were split in areas almost falling apart. The place looked like it had been there for centuries. The building must have been built around it. In the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a dark figure off to the side. The candlelight flickered across it, producing a vague outline of it. I swallowed hard, peering towards the thing with frightened eyes. Something was there, and it was watching me. Hello?

I called out softly to it, and I feel every hair standing up on my neck. Hello? I said again, my voice quivering. The figure gave no answer in return. I slowly walked to it, watching as the light flickered across it. With the distance closing between us, I could see its pale face in the light. My heart plummeted. Empty black holes were present where its eyes were supposed to be.

The mouth of it was gaped wide open, almost like it was screaming in terror, but no noise came out. So I imagine that's the mask or the same kind of face he saw in himself in the dream at the beginning. That's what I'm thinking. I was ready to bolt out of there until I noticed that it did nothing. It didn't even move. Cautiously I approached the figure with my hand stretched out.

I eased cautiously, half expected it to lash out at me at any moment. Finally, I touched its surface. When I did, I took a deep sigh of relief. It was only a mask. I picked it up, revealing its disturbing features even more up close. I looked back at the wall to see the figure was in fact a black cloak of some kind. Pulled it off, releasing it from the hook, brought both objects into the light. It was a cloak and mask alright, thank goodness. Was this what they wore for their ceremonies? I looked back at the wall to see several other empty hooks lined up. Lancing back at the cloak, I noticed a faded image running across it. It was a symbol, but not like the one on the door. I recognize this one though.

It was an inverted cross. It had chains attached as well, hanging from its waistline. It must have been victorious. Without warning, I was startled by the faint echo of a woman's wail. It was coming from further back in the room. I followed the noise which brought me up to the altar. At the top, I could make out a familiar sight behind the podium. It was a statue from before, still horrid to the eyes as ever. As I climbed the stairs, the image of the statue became more apparent. It still brought an eerie feeling to me, right down to my bones. I couldn't stay on the side of it and looked away as I passed. Behind it, I saw the mouth of a cave. Reaching it, I could see it stretch deep into the darkness. It was dimly lit by a few candles mounted

on its walls. Stone steps descended with it. A little warm breeze flowing from it, like the breath of a large beast. Every so often a whale would echo from its depths, sending my heart into its own with it. This was crazy. How could all of this be in here? It was clear that this, that all of it, was way over my head. I wanted to turn around, God knows I wanted to, but with each well I thought of Victoria. I couldn't leave her to suffer. I glanced down at my hands to discover that I was still holding the cloak and the mask. It was a long shot, but I thought if I wore, it would help me blend in. Even

if it bought me only a few minutes, I could use whatever edge I could get. Throw on the cloak and place the mask over my face. I took one last breath and began making my descent. That is the end of part four. Part five. Last part. Part five. Part five, the white eyes. So predictions for this.

The demon's gonna like send him back in time and he is going to be the one that shoots his younger self to save Victoria or something like that. That's a dreamy saw or something. Yeah. So then along those tracks. Yeah. The stairs felt like they would never end. I pressed onward though, passing by one of the mounted candles ever so often in between them.

I was left in utter darkness at the whim of my own footing. I took my time walking down them, adding to the anxiety to reach the bottom. Voices began to echo from the abyss below, bouncing off the walls. Once again, I could hear their monotone words being spoken in unison, still incomprehensible to me. In the darkness, the words were even more nerve-wracking. It almost didn't sound human. The last of the stairs brought me to a large chasm. A few candles were mounted on these walls as well, but they weren't of much help. I could see their

light reveal a set of different tunnels pointing in diverse directions. From here it looked like I had to choose a path, but which one was right? If I chose wrong, I knew it would be nearly impossible to retrace my steps, especially in this darkness. The voices from earlier began to echo once again. Among the cave walls, they bounced all around, amplified by the acoustics. I focused on the sound, trying to pinpoint their origin. Finally, after several minutes, I was able to determine that they were coming from the tunnel on the left.

So I headed in that direction. The tunnel was completely dark, absent of candles. Few times I tripped on the rocky surface, but using the walls helped maintain my balance. It continued to stretch onward. All I could see was an endless void in front of me. As I walked, I felt the urge to stop, feeling as if I would smack into a wall or something.

All the while, the voices continued there, chanting, growing louder the more I pushed forward. Finally I reached an opening. It was glowing all the while, producing a wave of heat. I came to a rocky perch on the side I could see another set of stone stairs curved down to the area below. I didn't need to take them because the best gave a good overview of everything below. I crouched and moved closer to get a better view. What I saw would forever be burned in my mind. Below I could see four individuals standing in a square formation, each facing inward.

Four bowls containing an intense fire was set in between each of the individuals forming together some sort of diamond. There were markings in red producing an arrangement of symbols and designs behind each of the figures. I noticed how all of them donned the same cloak and mask I was wearing. Each of them was slowly bobbing their heads, their hands clasped as if in prayer except one. The one was holding up a camcorder to film it all.

Standing in the center, I saw a fifth person. This one was holding up a camcorder to film it all. Stated in the center, I saw a fifth person. This one wore a different cloak. It was pale white and more loosely fit than the others. The mask worn was black instead of white, almost as dark as the tunnel itself. If not for the light from the balls, it would have looked like a faceless being. It had to be the Reverend. Each time he spoke out that strange language, the others would repeat it in unison. My eyes widened when I saw what was behind the Reverend. There was a stone table covered with a white sheet, and on it I saw Victoria, clenching her stomach in pain. Every so often she would let out an intense wail to feel the air. The white sheet underneath was half soaked in blood. Now what? I didn't know what to do now that

I was here without warning. I was pulled from my thoughts when I felt something touch my shoulder spun around almost screaming out loud. However, my eyes recognized the figure crashing behind me. It was the old woman for his mother. How did she get in here? I don't know. She had followed. She had followed me down here. Oh, okay. Well, I guess there's some explanation, whatever. She held up a finger to relapse and slowly crept past me to look below. We must stop this before it's too late. She whispered over her shoulder. How can we do? We can't just rush down there without some sort of plan. She nodded in agreement. I know. We need to sprinkle this within their inner circle.

She said, pulling out a small glass of aisle. It was filled with a clear liquid. At this stage she's in now. Victoria will need some of this on her as well. That's it? That's the plan? Yes. She replied, returning her gaze below. Once this is sprinkled, I will need to recite my own incantation to cancel out the effects of the ritual. Only then will Victoria be saved and the rest of the world. I shivered a little. The world? You never did mention that. What would happen if that child was born? Nothing good. I assure you, but that will not happen listen I have a plan I was all ears to hearing it and leaned close we need to draw them away from here so that I can conduct

the incantation how are we going to do that a distraction of course your applied producing a twisted smile will need their undivided attention. I need to conduct the ceremony. So for that we have to lead them away. Wouldn't it be the opposite of an incantation because an incantation is a summoning ritual. Yeah. So wouldn't it be like an anti incantation? Right. Is that correct? I think any cantation is just a spell. I could be wrong. An incantation intended to evoke a magical or supernatural effect. Okay. So it could be an incantation. I was wrong. Nevermind. I sighed deeply. I really didn't like this plan already, but it seemed like the only other option. After taking a few breaths, I stood up to announce my presence.

Hey, I yelled out. it was all I could think to say. Immediately they went silent below staring up at me. I bounced off the faces of their twisted masks. Not one said a word until the reverend spoke out. Ah, Marcus, is that you? What a surprise it is to see you down here. What the hell is going on here? What are you fucks doing with Victoria? You bastards better let her go or I'll get the police involved. Reverend chuckled his mask bouncing a little. Marcus, he said softly, almost in a joking manner.

When you first arrived, admit I thought I understood everything about you. Just when my first conversation and at the time you look like you were nothing more but stammering piglet that had gone astray. You couldn't even get your words right. I could see the other slowly moving away from their spots edging their way to the stairs. But then you surprised me with your bold antics. You sneaked into our congregation room, attempted to steal one of my member's rings? Yes, I know about that. My eyes lit up. How could he have known?

You even warmed up to Victoria. You're convincing her to leave all this and her family behind. Now that, my boy, is something. Tell me. I know you're sick of seeing everyone suffer, like your grandfather or even your mother that passed away from when you were young I was dumbstruck. How did he know all this couldn't have all those people out there in the world as well suffering Doing so unnecessarily if for what reason for what he wants

He said pointing upward With Lenny as though we can reshape this world Or shape everything in his image and erase all that pain and that's suffering Everything will be set right the way it should be Why not be willing to join him in his transformation? so This isn't as bad So this isn't as bad, but this is very similar to camp Oakwood. Them trying to bring back the reincarnation of that guy or whatever, because he would bring about world peace because

when he died, archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. Yeah, this is better to be clear, but it's very like world peace. We just have to kill first. I could see the other members drawing closer up the stairs. Think about it Marcus. We're really that bad a people look at yourself. What have you really believed in that you could hold on to join us down here. Be a part of the new world. New direction. You already halfway there. You got you what you need on right now. So why not come on down the path fully? He said lifting up his hands. Victoria suffering right now. When it's all over, she won't anymore.

You can even be with her in the new world. It's what you want, isn't it?" My eyes glanced over at Victoria, still gasping in pain. Her eyes clenched painfully shut. I listened as she let out her horrific wail. I see could an impression of something moving around in her, pressing upward against her skin. My voice was lost. I was unable to say anything. This bastard was crazy. They all were. However, if that was truly the case, why was I so hesitant? Is there a part of me that wanted this? That believed in this? Immediately, the old woman stood up to reveal herself too. Poisonous words never fail to excrete from your mouth, you sniveling snake. Who is that up there with you Marcus? Who do you think you fell bastard? Carolina?

I must admit I'm a bit shocked to see you still living. I must have asked how you managed to escape the gaze of Lanius. Hmph. Wouldn't you like to know? You're not the only one who can conjure up a spell or two. Oh god. Right. Yeah. Always were an unpredictable one Carolina. I truly was heartbroken when I learned you weren't fully on board with us. So Marcus, what will it be? I glanced over to see the old woman's eyes gleaming

at me from the shadows. She shook her head in disy, mouthing something softly. I couldn't hear the words, but I could make out the last word escaping her lips lies. No, come again. I said no. You satanic fucks. It always gets to this point. It always gets, it always gets, it always gets to the point where they'll have like an interesting thing or stuff, but they, they always write these like world ending supernatural cult or whatever. As like, I hate that they're all snappy reddit voices. Yeah. It's yeah. It's never just like a Marvel. It's like a Marvel movie. Yeah. It's like, how can you ever, it's like the worst thing ever that could happen in like this one person who's like a nobody has to solve it. Yeah. It's yeah. It's up to me now. Yeah. Like it's, it's so cringe and they

always talk like both sides, the evil and the good always talk like Saturday morning cartoon villains. Yeah. Or I would say just extremely extra very like it's very theatrical, like very big, like very, very big, but not, not super realistic, but just like big, almost like it's a stage play, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's always, everyone's very dramatic. Oh, everyone always says their stuff out loud. There's never nuance or stuff like that. We are reading stories people made when they were young for free on the internet. So for sure. That's why, that's why they're the best. Give us some context. Give us some perspective.

And the one time that we read a published like fancy author on this channel people got really upset at that. So I guess this is what they want. So is it he sighed dropping his arms as to a bad son. He gestured with his head to the others. We immediately spring up the stairs. Move it. The old woman yelled bolting down the tunnel we had entered from. I was surprised she was even able to move at such speed, without wasting time I quickly hurried behind her. I could hear their footsteps echoing following us. I didn't know where I was going.

There was nothing but endless void before me. I felt my feet trip again a few times as I went. My lungs were burning, begging me to stop, but the adrenaline pumping through me must have kept me going. Eventually we reached the original chasm with all the tunnels. We just split them up. Try to lose them in the best manner you can. I was half out of breath myself barely catching what she said. Without hesitation she ran off to the tunnel on the left. I took the hint and darted down the nearest one to my right on. They're doing like a Scooby Doo hallway chase like on the the inside I hoped that I had not chosen the one with the dead end

Donald itself was very tight I felt the sharp edges of the wall scrape against my arms a few times, but I pressed onward Thinking quickly I pulled out my phone until it's light to help guide the way Added me my eyes made out what I dreaded would happen. I'd reached a dead end Shit, there's no way I could turn around, not if they were following me. However, I was surprised to find that the wall wasn't like the tunnel's uneven texture. Looking closer, it appeared to be a type of door. Still made of stone, but it was smooth and had markings engraved on it. Couldn't make them out, but the phone in my light revealed a familiar

sight. I could see a small indent with the symbol etched within. It was similar to the one from the congregation room stores doors. The finger! I thought out loud. I reached in my pocket trying to find it. Behind me I could hear the clapping of footsteps gaining on me. I struggled to pull the damn thing out. When I did I pressed it up against the indent and twisted. At first nothing happened, but soon the door began to move. A loud moan was produced from it as it slowly lifted upwards. I could hear the footsteps getting closer, but the door was still at my ankles. I yelled and cursed at the damn thing to hurry until, at last, it was up to my chest. It was good enough for me. I was

ready to bolt through the opening when suddenly I was tackled from behind. Force from the tackle sent me forward along with my attacker. We both rolled into the room sliding away from each other. I landed crudely, banging my knee and elbow in the process. It wasn't until I looked up that I caught the scent of something putrid in the air. The room we had entered was colder than the other areas and seemed to be darker. My impaired vision had been amplified, and my sense of smell because I had completely appalled by it. It was as if something had been decaying or rather many things had. Under my hand I felt something hard poke me. I couldn't see the object clearly,

but I felt how smooth it was, almost too perfect. Or added I felt other objects with the same feeling. I wanted to use my cell phone but I couldn't find it, clearly dropped in the fall. I did, however, hear a man grunting, apparently my attacker. The voice sounded like Terrence. I could hear him standing up. His breathing was still rapid from the chase. My heart leapt to my throat. I tried to be extra careful when I rose to my feet hoping to not draw his attention. If he was like me, then it was impossible to see anything of the darkness. If quiet enough, I could probably sneak past him. I started moving forward, taking small steps while I listened for him.

The Reverend told me about the ring. He thought you were slick about it all, huh? Yelled out, his voice echoed. You see, the Reverend knows all and sees all. I could hear his footsteps pacing around. The acoustics of the room made it hard to pinpoint his exact position. Then you stole one of our tomes, but I found it. I was glad you did though.

You get to see what's coming to that bitch. Hope you enjoyed every last of it. I didn't know what came over me after that. After hearing those disgusting words, I somehow managed to find and pounce on Terrence in any minutes. Right? Like a poomer. Call her.

Don't call her that. I'm going to change my plan from seeking to I'm going to kill you with my hands. I because I'm so emotional over this woman. I love I didn't hesitate and swung where I thought his head was striking a hard surface. He just punched a wall out in pain. It was his mass that I'd struck. Oh, okay. He laughed rendering a strong blow into my stomach. Felt the wind painfully rip its way from my mouth. Afterwards, he pushed me away, which sent me falling on my back. I felt the sting from something hard press itself beneath me. I reached behind for the object and my eyes lit up. Immediately after his hands grabbed at my legs to pull me close. Still in pain, I kicked at him,

pulled out the object from below. I cocked it, aimed in his direction, and pulled the trigger. A flash of light lit up the entire area for a split second, followed by a loud bang. The noise echoed throughout the chasm and beyond. The flash of light was enough for me to locate my phone. I grabbed at it, pushed a button, and aimed it in front of me. I could see Terrence in the illumination, gripping his arm in pain. The blood from his wound dripped to the ground. You little... He started, but croaked in pain. The gun shook in my hand. This was the first time I'd ever shot one before, let alone at a person.

I didn't get... Oh, this is also where he gets the gun to go back and shoot himself when he was younger. I see. Gotcha. Or I think he's gonna have to shoot... I think he's gonna have to shoot the baby. I think he's gonna have to shoot Victoria and the baby or whatever. Yeah. And that's like what it meant by himself or whatever. The I'll also say that they use, like we've joked about it with like the smiling or the biting the lip, but they also, he keeps using the same things to describe the same actions.

Like earlier in the story, when he sees the dream and he sees him show self in the mask, shoot his baby self. It's like the bullet, there was a loud flash and then the sound followed and it's like, well, I mean by milliseconds, but they're, you know, if you're at the same distance, it's perceivably at the same time. That's a weird way to describe it. And then sure enough here, it says there was a loud flash followed by a sound. It's like, okay, those are really at the same time. That's a weird way to describe it. And then sure enough here, it says there was a loud flash followed by a sound. It's like, okay, those are really at the same time. If you're there, like unless you're using like a super high speed camera audio device, they're the same thing. Like he's just using the same like things to describe

stuff. It gets a little repetitive, but the gun shook in my hand. This was the first time I ever shot one before, let alone in person. I didn't get time to decide what to do next. There was a deep growl that filled the air and echoed all around us. The ground almost felt like it was trembling. Further back in the room, I could hear something twisting around us. Its movements were crackly and heavy. The odor from earlier grew stronger, flooding my nose even more than before. Shit! It's awake! I heard Terrence scream out. He turned to leave, yet before I could even blink, I felt a large rush of wind race past me.

The smell of its odor lingered behind it. Whatever it was, it was fast and it was huge. The next thing I heard was it pounding on Terrence. I could hear it ripping into him and tearing pieces apart. His screams flooded the air, a blood-curdling trill so intense that it brought tears down my eyes. I could hear the thing continue to tear at him, cracking bones as it did. Somehow I managed to find the feeling in my legs and bolted out of the room.

Behind me I heard the thing let out a frightening roar. It didn't stop running though, pushing as hard as I could through the tight walls. I could hear its heavy footsteps pounding behind me. Sorrows from its breathing grew closer in my ear. It was gaining quickly. Without thinking, I aimed the gun behind me and fired off a few rounds. It wasn't until after the third round that I heard another loud roar. The footsteps behind immediately came to a halt. I continued running until I reached the open area once again. I was out of breath, but I knew I couldn't stop. That thing was sure to continue its pursuit soon, so I couldn't waste any time. Before I could fully gain my composure, I heard footsteps heading in my direction.

I went from the tunnel behind me, but ahead. I quickly readied my gun, ready to fire again. Three figures emerged from the darkness racing frantically. It was the other church members. I'd already fired four bullets, which meant I only had two left. Wait, when did he fire? Did he just fire three more? He fired one and then he blankly fired three behind him. Okay. So he shot Terrence and then yeah he knew how to like get the cylinder open on the revol- whatever.

There were three of them, so I would have to decide carefully who I wanted to shoot. They came to a halt in front of me. Hello, Marcus. I heard Margaret's voice speak out from the three. Have you finally stopped running? Back the fuck up! I yelled, the gun still pointing at them. If I have to, I will kill you crazy

bastards. I heard one of them giggle. Must've been Sophia. He slowly began edging their way towards me. I backed up a little keeping the gun trained on them. I started to shift the side open to align the next tunnel to my back. It was clear. This gun was doing nothing for me. Yeah. Cause you keep firing it. And the one time you used it correctly, it hit kill Terrence effectively. That was a good shot. Now you're okay. I just think it's going to be cause at the beginning in his dream also, by the way, his dad was shot on the ground being like, I think that that reminds me of Terrence getting shot being like, Oh, and I think he's not going to shoot the gun here. I think that it's going to be

saved for Victoria and the baby or the Reverend and the baby maybe. I'm thinking it's that I probably would only have enough time to shoot one before the others rushed in. I would need to be quick so I can make a run for it. Come now Marcus. Have you realized it yet? You really think we invite you all the way out here just to install some silly computers? I was stunned when I heard this what the hell are you talking about why else would I be here we need a legitimate reason to get you out here and here you are you don't even know who I am she was clearly talking nonsense so what you think I'm surprised none of this appears familiar to you. You have, after all, been down this path before. My hand slowly lowered the gun. I don't know why, but a small portion of me believed, even if it did sound ludicrous.

What do you mean? It's Lanius. He's always had a fascination with you. Something about you, he... She started to say, but trailed her words. "...What about me?" Before she could answer a large figure bolted from the shadows, pouncing on Margaret. It was that horde creature from earlier. It had caught up. Now among the dim candlelight I can make out more of its features, I really wish those candles weren't there. Through the poor lighting I could see its thin elongated arms with sharp talons for fingers, massive horns extended from its back. Its loose, wild hair fell across

its crude, senile face. Its blood-colored eyes glowed, piercing the darkness. I watched as it began tearing into Margaret as it had tearing. With each new sound of splitting flesh came a loud shrill from her. Her loud cries bounced off the walls, extending through the tunnels. The others attempted to flee, but they didn't get far. The creature was merciless, pouncing on them and tearing into them in the same manner. Suddenly I felt a harsh tug of my arm pulling me down the tunnel behind. It was the old woman. I didn't know where she came from, but I didn't question her. The tormenting screams of the others continued to resonate in the air. The burning pain in my lungs returned as we turned and ran. The old woman yelled back not to stop. I

could hear the struggle in her voice as well to maintain the pace. There seemed to be no end to the tunnel. It felt like we were running in place, making no progress. In the midst of my exhaustion, I felt my foot drag, causing me to lose my balance. Fell hard, slamming onto my already injured knee. Get up! Get up now! I tried, but struggled to do so. Caught in the blend of pain and exhaustion, I tried to pull myself up using the wall. Behind me, I could hear the rapid thumping of large footsteps once again.

I could feel the old woman help me up. She threw my arm over her shoulder and began assisting me forward. However, it was too late. We could feel the gaze emanating from the creature behind us. Our eyes must have fully adjusted in the dark because I could clearly make out its past massive form. Its hot breath blew across our faces. The smell of fresh blood lingered in it. The old woman pushed me away. Run, now! What? No, we have to stick together. No, you must go. I will hold it off.

But, go! Her voice startled me. Quickly turned and began hobbling away. Behind me, I could still hear her. You've failed, demon. You think you've won? He turns around and she like in a single swipe just gets vaporized just like straight into the cave ceiling. The creature read a harsh snarl in return. I could hear her begin to

recite strange words in another language. The creature sounded affected screaming loud roars of pain. Whatever she was saying, it was clearly working. I paused to look back, just making out their faint outlines in the dark. I wondered if what she was doing was actually going to stop it. However, I saw the creature swing one of its long arms to her. Her body flew against the wall, producing a loud crack. Her words instantly died. No, wait, I was right.

It just swung an arm and she just like straight against the wall. Instantly just like I'll hold it off. Not long after I could do the thing ripping away at her. The blow must have been enough to kill her because she didn't heal in pain. I went from hopping aggressively on one foot to a full-fledged run. I ignored the pain from my knee, feeling fear and adrenaline engulfing me. Up ahead I could see a light from the end. I knew I didn't have much time until that thing would continue its pursuit for me. I reached the opening, revealing the original ritual area I had first come across. I was hesitant in approaching the perch, but I did so looking down. Victoria was still down there. Based on her increased

wells, it wouldn't be long before she gave birth. I saw no trace of the Reverend. I made my way down the stairs, approaching the symbols surrounding Victoria. Up close I could tell they were made from blood. Bulls were still blazing. The heat from them was intense, forcing sweat down my face. When I approached Victoria, her eyes fell upon me. I could see the fear returning in them. Stay the fuck away from me! She yelled, struggling with words. I was taken back at this, but then I remembered I was still wearing the mask.

Clickly removed it and was relieved to see her eyes light up upon seeing my face. Marcus! Yeah, I'm here, Victoria. Tears formed in her eyes. Marcus, please. She stopped in mid-cidence, rendering another well. She continued screaming. I could hear her vocals become rasped from strain.

I didn't know what to do. A massive lump moved around her stomach uncontrollably, pressing up against her skin. I didn't think it was possible, but her screams were even louder. Felt completely useless right now. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I heard a familiar roar from above. The creature from earlier had returned. I could see its burning red eyes beaming down from the perch. It leapt from the top, landing with a thud. Its disturbing form was hunched over, breathing a rapid rhythm, exalting a snarl in between. Now fully in the perch, it leapt from the top, landing with a thud. Its disturbing form was hunched over, breathing a rapid rhythm, exalting a snarl in between. Now fully in the light, I felt my stomach tighten at its appearance. The thought of the statue came to my mind. This thing was

almost a spitting image of it, but only worse. Its face was more disturbing in person with its blackened human dog features. The nose atop its snout appeared caved in, flaring with its breathing. Its eyes were beady, completely dyed a crimson red. Atop its forehead it held a large, closed eye. I stood in between Victoria and the beast. It wasn't going to let this thing do anything to her. I raised the gun up, ready to fire, waiting for it to make a move. Yet that was it. It did nothing. Just stood there, breathing. Come on! I yelled, trying to provoke it. Do it! Come at me, you sick fuck!

It did nothing still. Instead, the edge of its lips crawled up into a twisted smile. I felt a shiver roll down my spine. The damn thing was smiling at me. I was ready to fire the gun, but then I noticed the bullet holes on it from where it had been previously hit. Two of the bullets had managed to hit it, but they stuck out of it, its wounds barely penetrating it. It was useless, the gun did nothing to it. Realizing this, I lowered it, eventually letting it drop to the ground. When I did, its smile grew wider. What the hell are you?

That, my boy. I heard the Reverend's voice answer out loud is Lanius the wide eye of time I could hear behind me, but I didn't dare break my eyes away from the creature He will become this world's new master. Oh Speechless you will witness his rebirth into this world Marcus. He will reshape into his image. Now witness it." As if on cue, the creature began to roar into the air. I could see the rows of its blood-covered teeth extend deep back into its throat.

It felt as if the whole room was rumbling. Suddenly it collapsed onto the ground, lying motionless. I was confused. Did it just die? If it did, what killed it? Victoria broke the silence screaming at a level a human shouldn't have possibly reached. The form within her moved around vigorously, eventually tearing its way free. Blood flew in all directions, some splattering across me. I started to see a blood soaked creature wallowing around in

the remains of Victoria. It looked to be the size of a dog. I could see the sharp talons from one of its lanky arms cling to the side of the table, curling horns protruded from its head, entangled in the wild strands of its hair. It sniffed the air for a while before turning its attention to me. I felt tears forming in my eyes. Immediately, I felt my stomach give in. Curling to the side, it hurt because, I had already done so earlier, there was nothing left to give. Leaning over the mess I produced, I could only think of one thing.

Victoria. I whispered. In the end, I couldn't do anything but watch her suffer. She trusted me to save her, and I failed her. Preacher looked like a miniature version of its previous self, however its third eye was open this time. It was completely white, void of pupil, blinking asynchronously to its smaller ones. Despite having no pupil, I could feel its white eye gazing upon me. My head began buzzing and starting as a simple vibration, the vibration escalating to an

immense outpour of pain. See images in my head. They were images of places in the world, of people. People were screaming for their lives. The sky above them was black, streets littered with thousands of bodies lying lifeless and torn to pieces. Fires were brewing over damaged cars with half-burnt corpses sitting in their seats. Faces of horrendous beings, too atrocious to describe, were seen everywhere, tearing

away at those unable to escape. They were just in my head. As at the mercy of them, as the pain increased the more they appeared, tears fell endlessly from my eyes. Why was I being shown these horrible things? Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, they stopped. I slumped over, still feeling my head throb, I could still see their faces, hear their screams. Did you see it, Marcus? Did you see the dream he reduced in your mind? The Reverend asked. He walked from the shadows into the light, slowly removed the mask from his face.

What the hell was that? I could still feel lingering amounts of the pain. It took many years to prepare this revelation. First he had to get stronger and do so he needed a vessel to use. I too was frightened when I first laid eyes upon him, but he showed me his intentions. From then I was enlightened. He speaks to me with his wide eye. That's how I knew every everything about you back there. I'm sure he gave you a glimpse of the paradise to be. Paradise? Is that what the fuck you're calling it? Yes. Lanius will reshape this world into his image.

Imagine sweet blue skies, in this green pastures with trees flowing abundantly with scrumptious fruit. Gumbel pain, no more suffering. A true renewed Eden. I know it's hard to conceive all this. Could we in this current world we live in? His power is beyond our understanding, but he can open the ripples of time. He can alter what he likes, insert what he likes.

With it, he can return to the past, the vessel he chooses. Each time, he can return to the past of the vessel he chooses. Each time, he possesses the younger self, grown with them until they become of age, doing it repeatedly making him stronger. When he finally reaches fruition, he needs to be born of human flesh. Victoria? Correct. Now is that time, Marcus. Once he does it again, this will be the last.

He will permanently be infused with the new vessel." He answered, revealing his twisted toothy smile. You? I asked, still feeling the throb in my head. Come now, Marcus. I've merely been a humble servant, ensuring everything was arranged properly for his rebirth. Lanius has always been interested in you. You recall the pages of the tome, yes?

Who do you think that was with, Lanius? I shook my head in disbelief. It didn't make sense. There's no way it could have been me. You're lying. That's impossible. If so, why me? Well, you see, Marcus, Lanius sees all aspects of time, all possibilities. Out of everyone, he saw you to be the best candidate to lead into the outcome he desired.

You should be honored. I don't understand. You said he's always been using me, but I don't recall any of those times at all." I said, "...Of course you don't, Marcus. Each time, Lenus removed your memory after transmitting to your younger body. Believe it or not, we've already had this conversation before. I only recall because he allows me to. You see, I'm the one ensuring everything goes as planned accordingly. It'll go back as if you've done before, but this time it'll be for good. I'm sorry to say though, what is left of Marcus pale will

be no more. Do you remember how I have, this is everything I said in part two, right? Yep. I said, he's probably in a time loop and that's what the swirling is. And he keeps going back to the timely. Okay. The story conveyed all of that to us with pictures. And if I was a little off, that's fine. I can be a little off this. You remember how earlier I was like, we're, we're getting dangerously close to explaining what the pictures are in detail. This is, this is the pictures being to explain to me in detail. Yeah. Well, I wrote down some thoughts while you were reading as well that I want to say at the end when it's done. Okay. All right. We're close. We'll just keep doing this. I'm going to continue to set at

the bottom of my chair like this in the bottom of the frame. I found myself shaking my head again. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. Please Marcus, each time we go through this little charade, I tried to give you a little chance to let you willingly come forward. But as always, you fight it. How about switching it up for a chance and give in is inevitable regardless. What will it be? Marcus actually hold on. Come to think of it. I just had this thought. So the, and what made me think of it is some stories, there'll be exposition that I read because it's the character internally figuring it out or putting it together. But there's other exposition that you read because

the characters within the story are telling each other. But why would you, if it is a story where a revelation is being made, why would you write it to where the characters have to explain it to each other, especially when one of the characters like the Reverend already knows all of this. He knows the religion. You could just have Marcus figure this out internally. So it's almost like it's not just exposition for the sake of getting the story across. It's exposition that the characters are speaking because normally when you watch TV or movies, that's how expositions delivered. They have to do it in movies and TV because it's a visual

format but it's almost like just taking monologuing from movies and stuff and throwing it into a story. I think that the argument can be made here that since this is like an ongoing charade with Marcus and the Reverend that I feel like he might be saying this in an attempt that instead of fighting this time that Marcus will just willingly give himself over like he's trying to present the information in this way. But I mean, maybe it is an outlet to exposition dumps to make sure that readers understand what's going on. But I mean, maybe it is an outlet to exposition dumps to make sure that readers understand what's going on. But I think that's like the argument you could be.

You could make. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I suppose. I remained in silence trying to absorb everything. It was too much. How could it all possibly be true? There's no way of telling otherwise. Seemed like a lose lose situation. I think you're full of shit. Oh God. Oh God. Jesus fucking Christ, man. Good Lord. This is some anime levels of bullshit, bro. I said rendering a light smirk here. You I'm gonna render I'm gonna render a light smirk and then I want you to look at right the camera blank stare and then render a light smirk here. You I'm going to render. I'm going to render a light smirk.

And then I want you to look at right at the camera blank stare and then render a light smirk. There you go. I mean, just like, yeah, it's the end of the world. I'm part of a time loop and stuff I think you're full of shit. As I seem to twitch with dissatisfaction how very disappointing he said turning his back I could see his hand move into his cloak he turned around producing a gun in his hand fired the weapon missing me quickly threw myself to the ground grabbing my own gun I pointed and shot off around just as he did. His shot grazed my side, only piercing my cloak. My shot, however, had hit him in the leg.

He fell to the ground immediately. He proceeds to lift his gun, struggling to aim it at me. I walked over to him, keeping my own pointed at him. Standing over him, I held it to his face. He smiled at me before dropping his own at feet. him, I held it to his face. He smiled at me before dropping his own at feet. You think this hasn't already happened, Marcus? It's inevitable. The smile grew wider on his face. I didn't answer and simply pulled back on the trigger. His body immediately went limp. I remained over him with the gun still pointed at it. I never thought about killing someone would be so satisfying, but I didn't like like this thought though. There was something about this place, whatever it was, I was ready to leave it. Unexpectedly, I felt the same painful pulse from early flood my head. I fell to my knees gripping my head. When I turned,

I could see the creature crawl from the table, dragging its deformed legs. It snarled at me moving close in speed. I held the gun in my hand and pulled the trigger, but it only clicked. I repeated the action only to rec- YOU KNOW THERE WERE SIX ROUNDS! I repeated the action only to receive the same result, it was empty. Quickly I reached over with my other hand and grabbed the reverence gun. Yet it was too late. The thing pounced on me. Its slimy hands gripped my neck. I could feel its hot, putrid breath on my face and see pieces of flesh clung to its jagged teeth. I wanted to throw the damn

thing off, but I could feel the pain in my head amplify. It's hard to describe, but I could feel its presence within my mind. It was like it was searching for something. It wasn't until the last minute that I could visually see what I had found immediately. We both were engulfed to a blinding light out of nowhere. Okay. So it's, they're going to be back in, they're going to be back in his apartment Christmas day, right? In 91. I also just realized so earlier in the story, Victoria's like, Oh, well I lived in the UK for a brief while. That's where I got the accent. And I thought that would come into play like, Oh, maybe in the UK, she like became a part of the cult. But now with this much left in the story where

we're at, I realized that she only was in the UK for a while because the author wanted a pregnant British woman in the story. Nothing like a nice, like I said, it's, it's, it's a pregnancy fetish content. And then she explodes. The demon comes out of her and she just dies. It's just cannon fodder, but to call it fetish contents, a little rude to the author. I feel like he thought it would be more interesting to make her British. So that detail was thrown in, but it feels like it's, it seems like a cheap way to, to subvert people of like, it doesn't really tie in. So then your mind is kind of like, Oh, well, I wonder,

wonder what hat, like maybe she, like it makes you go down a, like a false road, you know, to only amount to nothing. So yeah. Like why is she British? That's interesting. That doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. When the the light cleared I found myself lying in something cold when I stood to my feet I realized that it was snow there was snow everywhere where was I I looked seeing cars covered in snow as well several buildings loomed around me all was something in common decorations they all had wreaths and lights either on their doors or around the buildings Christmas how could that be it July. Something about this area was familiar, but I didn't know why. The building before me was fairly tall, maybe four stories. Something about it drew me towards it. Through the glass,

I could see my reflection. I could see that horrifying mask over my face. How did it get back on my face? I also noticed both of the guns still in my hands. I can't describe it, but I felt lightheaded. I could hardly recall what I had been doing prior to arriving here. In fact, I didn't even remember where I got this cloak from. I felt the urge to enter the building. I took the guns away and entered inside. I noticed several closed doors along with a staircase to the side. This must have been an apartment building. I couldn't wait. He's going to shoot his mom. Okay, hold on. Yeah, I know that I know that he's back. I'll kill his mom or whatever, but wait, he's going to shoot his mom. Okay. Hold on. Yeah. I know that. I know that he's back. I'll kill his mom or whatever, but wait, do you remember how earlier I'm like, okay, I

like that. The dream was representative and symbolism because that makes it make more sense as to why his dad would show the Christmas tape. But if this is literally what happened, it's a literal time loop that he goes back in and kills himself. That means his, his dad just has a VHS video of his wife getting shot in the face and decided to play that in front of his step in front of his wife and son. So and, and just by chance, he's like, Oh, the tape was busted. It must've not recorded. He was just going to play his wife's execution video. He just has that. I guess, because if it's all literal, then he was, you could hear the knock on the door. That was the killer

about to come shooter. Wasn't there like a static bit like other, are they trying to say like, Oh, we don't see the shooting. Cause he's like, Oh, I got to turn it off before it gets to this one part. No, no, no, no, no. Remember? That's all it said. Cause it said that they're watching it and then the screen goes staticky and you hear a door knock and the dad gets frustrated and says, Oh, it must've like gotten corrupted. It must have not have copied over. So until that moment, the dad thought he had a video of his wife getting shot in the face for a home video and was just showing that on disc would be a pretty cool home video though, to be fair. That's a, oh, let's sit around and watch your mom get shot. That's such a cool, Oh my gosh. Cause it made sense when

it was like, Oh, well he's having a dream where he's back in that scenario and it's representative of him being there and like blah, blah, blah, whatever. But no, it's all literal. He literally went back in time and show himself and his dad had a recording of it for some reason, whatever. Also, my wife just texted me, who were you yelling at? So that's how that's how I'm taking it. I could hardly recall what I've been doing prior to arriving here. In fact, I didn't remember where I got this cloak from. I felt the urge to enter the building. I took the guns away and entered inside. I noticed several closed doors along with the staircase to the side. This must

have been an apartment building. I couldn't pull myself from this feeling, letting it take me to the stairs. I began climbing, passing more doors on each floor each time with their own set of Reeves or anything Christmas related with each floor. I began climbing, passing more doors on each floor, each time with their own set of wreaths or anything Christmas related. With each floor I tried searching for some hint of why I was here. I continued upward until reaching the third floor. I was led to a door on the left, mark 3A. Why was I brought here? I felt my hand lift as if it had a mind of its own. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't gain control over it. It banged on the door. Inside I could hear someone moving towards the entrance. Next I felt my hand reach back into my cloak, pulling out the revolver. Fear filled my eyes. Was I grabbing the gun? Yeah, this is because it says that

the demon possesses him every time in this cycle, whatever. I wanted to warn the person inside not to open the door, but my mouth wouldn't obey either. To my horror, I listened as the bolt unlocked and the door opened. My eyes could not comprehend the sight before me. The person in front of me was my father. He looked very young, I listened as the bolt unlocked and the door opened. My eyes could not comprehend the sight before me. The person in front of me was my father. He looked very young, more so than the last time I saw him, but it was him. How is this possible? Without warning, my hand struck him across the face.

Next my leg kicked him back. The woman inside gave out an ear-splitting scream in shock. It was the young face of my real mother. She was alive, but how? Oh my gosh, catch up. The apartment was heavily decorated to suit the Christmas atmosphere. It was a tree nicely decorated with presents piled underneath. I couldn't help but felt a sense of familiarity to what was transpiring before me. Again, my hand moved without command, shutting the door and locking the bolt. It

pointed the gun at my parents, fear engulfing their eyes. Why are you doing this? Father asked, gripping his head. What do you want? I wanted to answer, but could not. To my side, I heard a soft voice. I looked over and saw a young child playing with a book. It was me. I was actually in the presence of my younger self. I felt a strong force vibrating through my head, feeling it filter out. It was odd, but it looked almost like the fumes of gasoline flowing towards my younger self. It suddenly hit me. I felt a partial memory return. I recalled the words of the Reverend. This was

happening to me because of that thing. Lanius. It was inside me controlling my actions. It needed to take over my younger self for its vessel. I could feel its presence vacating my book. Do what? Just unnecessary to say. it's like college. Yeah, it's like we get it. We put I put I said I think I said all this back in part two like the drawings were enough. It's now been explained three times. I could feel its presence vacating my body watching it flooded to my younger self. My parents probably couldn't see it only me. I couldn't let this happen. I was not about to become one of this thing for the rest of my life. Concentrating I attempted to move my hand.

The one with the gun was solid and unmovable. Finger that hand began moving in its own accord. I could feel it tighten on the trigger. The gun was still aimed at my mother. Why was it doing this? Why was it trying to kill my mother in the process? I made every attempt to stop my hand but it wouldn't listen. I was ready to give in until my mind had another lapse in memory. I recalled having a dream. It was

similar to what was happening now, but slightly different, though. I tried to focus, attempting to recall more of the dream. For some reason, it was hard to do so. I didn't know why, but I felt it necessary to remember it. More pieces began to come together. In the dream, I saw myself fire the gun, but it wasn't at my mother, no, I shot myself, the younger me. It's puzzling that I was dead this. Another piece of the dream came to me. There was a bright light and in the light was a face. I could recall the face this time. It was the smiling face of my mother. She was completely encased in the light as if the source of it. At that moment, I understood everything. I knew what I needed to do. I attempted to concentrate on my other hand, focusing on the image of it moving onto my command,

hoping the thought would render it. I could gradually feel my control returning. Somehow, the more the creature left me, the more I gained feeling in my body. I concentrated on moving my arm, feeling its mobility. With it, I reached down into my cloak and felt around until I recognized the object. Pulled out the second gun, aiming it at my younger self. My mother, before me, let out a loud shriek when she saw this. I

could feel parts of my arm waiting to drop the gun, but I fought against it, aiming at the child. The creature must have picked up on my plan because it started to flood images through my head again. This time they were of people that I had known or would come to know. My friends, my loved ones, everyone. It was like it was trying to get me to understand the consequences if I continued my action. I could see its fumes attempting to pump faster into my younger body. Finally, I saw the last of them completely enter my younger self. My one-year-old self stared at me innocently. This moment had made sense now. I could picture the dream that

brought me into all this. The foul creature had controlled me for the last time. All this time. It had been me who had been the executioner of my own mother. I was the monster. The crazy loon that had broken in all those years ago. No, he made me that crazy loon. He altered time. I was the closest person to help him realize his plan. However, the creature probably saw in all the infinite possibilities of time that my mother was the only threat to its plans. I laughed to myself. It was why it was ironic that even in death she found a way to warn me providing an escape route Laney's his own tearing through time and space and had backfired and its own attempt to fill

its ambition. It ended up creating its own demise. Couldn't stop the human spirit. It was powerless to love my it's my mother's interference was like what the reverend had said verbatim inevitable. I smiled to myself squeezing back on the trigger. The bullet pierced through the child's skull instantly drop it. That's a crazy sentence. It's like dropping him dead. I could feel the control of my body returned. It was as if a heavy or of weight lifted for me sign deeply. I dropped the gun to the ground. Slowly I removed the mask from my face looking over at my parents. They were silent with eyes still fixated on their dead child. Finally shot of infinite in the head. Finally my mother

turned her gaze to me. I smiled at her watching her eyes. Watching her eyes grow wide at seeing my face with tears forming in my eyes. I could feel a hint of pain growing across my forehead. Something warm began to run down my nose. My eyes looked deep into my mother's as I spoke several words. I'm sorry. I had to. I did you a favor. Forgive me. Story ends. So here's, I'm just gonna go into this while it's fresh my brain. One, this is not by, you know,

this has the bones of a pretty fun idea. Grants, and I will say, out of all the stuff that we read, I do think that like earth ending demon satanic monster that comes alive and kill stuff is becoming a bit repetitive and old, which you're going to find whatever doesn't mean that like I like the ideas and themes of like, you know, those religious kind of weird ideas. I just wish it was approached differently. The biggest thing through the story that I seriously feel like it would have helped a lot is there's a cardinal sin, well not cardinal sin, but there's a thing that a lot of authors do in these stories that I think is important to, if you're wanting to like write something

or like make something feel more cohesive is Marcus's job should have had something to do with like, like his job shouldn't have been IT. IT is completely irrelevant. And that's like a huge negative. There's nothing about his, him being an IT that helps him in any way versus the whole time I was thinking, I was like, if he was a nurse, or if he would had something to do with like being able to like check up on a baby and like maybe he's like a part of a hospital unit that goes to people that don't want to come to the hospital and he like checks on a child or whatever. Him being able to do that and find this revelation and like his actual practices or like, you know, maybe even in his character arc, maybe he's a doc, maybe he's this kind of doctor

because he realizes he can't have kids of his own or he's afraid of the thought of having children, whatever that kind of thing. And it haunts them and it plagues them. That could have been more cohesive and tied in also by doing so and being more a part of Victoria's like pregnancy. Also don't make her British, just make her normal. Like, like she can exist in the area normal, you know, like British people are, I mean, more so than correct. It makes her the right way. It makes it just make it seem like she can, it's not like just such a weird out of pocket thing. Like giving her a fucking Rastafarian accent or something that makes

no, it doesn't make any sense. Just make her a local or whatever. But that way, if he's able to like check on her, they can form a bond that way. And he can like, maybe she can show him the the like the beauties of having a child and ease his fears and they grow romantic that way. But like, as it stands, it's like he sees her and because she's beautiful, he's immediately drawn to her. And that's just like not satisfying. There's not an emotional level there at all. It's just him being like, okay,

this is a hot pregnant chick. I think I want to fuck her. And then that's like his connection to her. And I just think that like having something where what he does in life connects even into like the parallels of like, you know, it's like these haunting, like he keeps like kind of being reborn and stuff. And like that's like a base level fear that is also based around the career that he has chosen for himself or whatever. And I just think like that was like the one thing that I was thinking the whole time through that last act. I was like, I just feel like him being an IT guy, it just does absolutely nothing. And there's other things too, like just the British thing, unless we just missed it, but it just felt like the British, it just wasn't any there was no connection besides like, I guess, like

the family got bought in by a cult for the Reverend or whatever that maybe they they met overseas or something like that, but they just felt unnecessary. It felt unnecessary and convoluted and you know, you go through and you get all these things of like repeating yourself like the another thing that the story I think was doing poorly was not trusting that the viewer understands what's happening, that like the information they're laying out isn't sufficient enough. You see that a lot in like movies and stuff like that.

Sometimes too, where it's like, they really beat something over the head and you kind of like roll your eyes because you're like, dude, I've seen I've seen this before so those are just two of like the largest things that I just wanted to make sure and say at the end but like I Don't think that this story is particularly bad I think it's bloated and I think that like the ideas there's some cool ideas there of like basically Your life is predetermined for you. And you've been like basically

reborn again and again, to be the to be the sacrifice or the shell for this like greater being. And like not and having no control over that is pretty interesting. But it just goes about in a way that is a bit too formulaic, a bit too predictable. And like by the end of it, we've gone through four hours of basically reiterating things that we already know. You know what I mean? Versus I feel like if this was like an hour, hour and a half, this could have been a very strong, like, just punchy thing of like guy shows up to help

pregnant woman. He's kind of weirded out. He's not a religious guy. But I think like, you know, cutting the mom of being like, you have to save my daughter. And she's like, you're not the only person that can cast spells and shit. So get rid of that too much. There's too much little things that don't amount to anything. And like, even our character Marcus just completely buying in to

This person he talks to her one time and he buy he just completely bought into what she's saying It's just like strip all these characters out and if anything you could have had it even if it wasn't a church It could have been like a house in the middle of the woods and it's just one family And then you can have that weird thing where it's like wait what? There's like an incest thing going on of like my father did this and you think it's incest but really it's like You know a fucking devil's growing inside of her. It's not like he actually had sex with her or something I think they just you strip all that down Like in a way kind of like what stolen tongues did stolen tugs very minimal cast of characters But you're able to do a lot with that, you know

We're focused on one thing and we're on a very straight ahead road Versus this thing's kind of like pigeon pigeoning around all these different ideas. And there's like a thing in writing. I don't know if it's how popular it is, but it's a thing called like kill your babies is what's called where it's like, you might really love an idea. Yeah. Yeah. Also called kill your dar darlings. Yeah. And it's like, you might really love an idea, but it just does not fit in the story. And you have to be able to remove it from your story to make the story better and just like pocket. It doesn't mean you can never use the idea, but it's just like remove it from the story, even though

you're like, oh, I love this idea, though. Sometimes it's better to just like take out that extra fat, even if it's cool to just make it be to make it make more sense. And this is just a case of that where I think there was too many. There was too many extra darlings in there that I think could have been removed. But all in all, like I said, I mean, like, you know, I appreciate the attempt of I or I just appreciate the kind of like creativity that went into the story. But I just think like the dialogue tends to be. I think that that's like one thing that I'm finding more and more

that people have a hard time writing natural dialogue, like writing an actual conversation and like reactions and stuff that doesn't go too theatrical and too big. Yeah. So that's, those are my final thoughts, but all in all, definitely not the worst thing we've ever read. I'll say that. I, I talked about most of my issues. It mostly comes down to like the way information was given was annoying. I feel like this feels like the first draft of a story down to like the grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes in some parts. It needed to cut a lot of the fat needed to be shorter, needed to get rid of some of the details. I thought it would have been really interesting. Like it could have saved a lot of itself if the author was lied to at any point, but despite

being within a cult, he did not understand every bit of information that was provided to him was accurate. Everything that Victoria said was true. Everything the old woman said was true. Everything the reverend said. So all it is, is as the plot happens, the people within the story explained to him and therefore the reader, what is happening and there's no twists. There's no like new information turns anything like that. It is like, well, no, no, there's new information turns, but it does nothing to disregard the last thing that we learned. Exactly. It's just like development. Yeah. Yeah. Everything. Everything's just like, Oh, well we're doing this now and there's

no reason to doubt it. We're doing this. No, there's no reason. And I kept being like, well, maybe it'll be interesting if you know, he's being lied to or there's a twist or the old woman has it out for him, but none of that came true. So it was just like things being explained as they were happening. There was never like a development or something. So because of that, I was just kind of flat. I feel like there needed to be a lot of fat cut. There needed to be like, I think it'd be interesting if the old woman was a part of the call. And also at the end, like all that, that there was a bunch of stuff that didn't go anywhere that sure was red herrings, but it got to a absurd point, like stuff like the British woman or whatever.

But then like at the end, when the old woman's like, Oh, if I can get this clear liquid on the ritual, I can stop the incantation. And then she just dies. So that doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. So, and I, I don't know. Like I really liked part one with the home invasion thing, cause that was just, that was cool. We haven't done a home invasion thing really before. So it was cool. Cause that's just, that's just such a fucking horrifying concept of someone breaking in and just invasion of privacy and you feel defenseless and all this kind of stuff. And I think that the ending of this story even of having go back and you kind of reiterate of like, yeah, I remember that dream.

This was the dream. I kind of wish it, like in my own opinion, like subjective thought or whatever it would have been like, just don't even go back to it. And then like let people when they reread it be like, oh shit, this is fucking him. You know, like I don't think you have to go back and show all those things. I think that like you already get the cloak and everything. And all that stuff. I think like. I think allowing your viewers to piece some of these things together and like give them just enough information to Like have fun with it and run free with it. I think is where the story could have shined a lot more

So yeah, I mean, you know Church in the Woods This is a fucking like heavily requested episode to or like a story So I'm glad that we at least we got to read it and you know I'm I have a feeling it's gonna be one of those stories to where our audience is like, Oh yeah, I remember reading this way back in the day. Cause it's almost a decade old at this point. So what, why, why? I just had another thought not to keep harping on it, but if, if all of this happened because it's a time loop and that's why they need him. Cause there was a time loop created with Laneyus. So I understand why after Lanius possesses his younger self, they have to keep getting

the it guy back, even if it's a time loop. So it's technically only happened once, but for him, it happens multiple times, whatever. If that's the reason he's important because he was picked, then why did they pick a random it guy the first time? Why not? One of the people in the cult? Why not? Why anyone? Okay. Whatever, whatever. It doesn't matter. We read the story. You read it. Let us know what you think in the comments as always. It's always nice kind of seeing what you guys have to say about the story as well. Just want to be sure to thank all the audio listeners right now on Spotify and Apple podcasts who gave us a chance there. And as always wanted

to give a good shout out to our patrons as well. Thank you so much for support. Hold on. Okay. Let me, let me say this because I need to clarify. I was reading a little bit about the author and he was really into creepy pauses when he first saw them. He's probably around our age. This story was made eight or nine years ago, which means he probably wrote this when he was in high school or just out of it. So this seems like something he was passionate about one of his first stories. And since then he's wrote a lot of other stuff. And I have to say, if I wrote a story in high school, which I did, they were not as good as this. They were not as well put together as well thought out as certainly not as long able to keep

cohesive characters and stuff. So, I mean, I don't think that we, I don't think we have to lie. I mean, the story, I mean, we just had critiques on the story that isn't to say to with anything that we say or do. I mean, like we might meme and do that kind of stuff and joke. But at the same time, we appreciate people writing these stories and like they're just criticism and thoughts. These are also all subjective, you know, like, you know, people can also listen to what we say and completely disagree or people could be like, this is fucking great. So just know that, like I like, I guess because I see some people to, guess, just to hop on that is they're like, well, I'm afraid that

people aren't going to like it. They're just going to have to deal with that. That's just like people when you make something, you should make it for yourself. And for, you know, it's just like an expression of what you think is cool. And if people, there's going to be people that like it, and there's going to be people that fucking hate it. And that's just like, fuck them. You know, it is what it is. At the same time, this is a story that's online, we read it, we gave our thoughts about it, and it's just, it's, I love that it has become in the collection of our episodes so then years down the road it's just gonna be rediscovered again even if like this show doesn't exist anymore, you know? So in my opinion it's just a way of bolstering and bringing stories, even if

they aren't perfect, because no story is perfect, but at least it creates discussion for people who are writing, even myself writing stuff as well. It's nice just reading stuff and being like, okay, that's good to know to maybe not do this or to be inspired and be like, that was awesome. I like how they weave this together. So, you know, I don't think we're ever shitting on someone. I'm being like, give up. Cause that's not the case. Of course. Yeah. I'm just saying this seems like early on in author's career and they had, they had fuel there. There was stuff to work with. So I would be interested in covering one of their more recent stories, seeing how they've got along in the last decade. This isn't indicative of the author as a whole.

Just this one story needed a few more drafts, I think. Yeah. And also, I mean, as, as always we'll leave a link to their profile so you can see more of their other stories and be sure to check those out as well. One story doesn't isn't indicative of an entire person's catalog. You know, someone can also write a banger story and then they write absolute dog shit after that, too. That happens as well. It is what it is. But as I was saying before, too, just want to give a giant shout out to our patrons. Thank you so much for the support there and I hope you enjoy the extra episode this week that's going up. So thank you so much guys. This has been church in the woods. We appreciate you watching and we'll see you next week. Bye bye. Don't

go looking for pregnant British women at a coal compound, I guess, unless you really want to or something. I don't know, man. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. And then, get outta here! In the jungle, the mighty jungle... Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee e I'm out.