Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S5 Ep232: Episode 232: Church Horror

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Today’s phenomenal opening story is ‘Bloody Church’, an original work by Thomas Miller, kindly shared with me via email for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all. Tonight’s next terrifying tale of Scottish forest insanity is ‘On a Hill’, by Michael Whitehouse, kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta Wiki and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license.  https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/On_a_Hill Today’s third tale of the weird and macabre is ‘The Catholic Church knows the truth about Hell, but the documents are buried deep within the Vatican Secret Archive’, an original work by The Vatican Archivist, narrated here for you all with the author’s express permission:  https://www.r-ddit.com/user/TheVaticanArchivist/ Our final tale, ‘The Parish Depths’ is an original story by Cameron Campbell, kindly shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all.  https://www.reddit.com/user/Swelldritch

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Church hover stories are especially terrifying because they twist the placement of a sanctuary faith and divine protection into something sinister and corrupted. The contrast between holiness and horror creates an unsettling atmosphere where the very symbols of comfort, stained glass windows, flickering candles and solemn hymns become eerie and menacing. There's also the fear of the unknown, the possibility that forces beyond human understanding

are at work, lurking in the shadows of sacred horns. Whether it's whispers in an empty cathedral, haunted relics, or the presence of something unholy, church horror stories prey on our deepest fears of faith turned against us, as we shall see in tonight's selection of stories. Now as ever before we begin, a word of caution, tonight's tales may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. And let's begin. Our first out tonight is bloody church by Thomas Miller. I wake slowly to the gentle pitter patter of rain and to pale moonlight flooding through my window. I don't have anything to do with some. I just stay in bed and relax for a while long.

Rolling over I noticed that my husband's already out of bed, though that isn't unusual at all, especially given how distant he's been late. It's always been somewhat distant, but lately he seems to have gone all about me. Most of all I hardly see him anymore since he always locks himself away because of his work. Just then I tense up in fear as I hear a soft hissing whisper. Verse one, then two, and before I know it, the whole chorus joins in. It's a madman, one breathes out, getting, no, it's a shepherd. Hissed at it in reply.

It's hard to tell where the voices are coming from, but I can tell they aren't in the same room as me. The whispering crescendoes, and suddenly the voices seem to be administering an oath. Do you pledge yourself, your essence and your Icho, to the bloody chapel, and to Racta Pita? One voice slowly exhales. Do you leave your current form and take on the form Racta Pita has shaped for you? Another voice hisses out rapidly. do you leave the road you're currently on and join the blood-stained path of ractor peter a third voice grounds i do never in my life with such a simple reply filled me with more terror that wasn't another mysterious voice that was the calm tone of my husband i bought from the sheets and sprint out of the room to try and stop whatever is happening i frantically run from room to run from room to

room until my eyes fall upon the living room. There, bound to a chair in the center of the room, is the limp form of my husband. I run towards him, yet stop in my tracks when I see them. Creatures that seem to be nothing more than living crimson silhouettes, the redness within them rippling and reverberating as they move and surround my husband. One by one they touch him, placing a hand, a head, or one of the many limbs that they have. Well, right on him. When they withdraw, there's a dark crimson mark wherever they've touched him, and he's grown paler. My God, they're draining his blood. I try to move, but something stops me, whether it's fear or some effect of the demonic figure surrounding my husband. I don't know, but my feet won't budge.

When my husband has no more blood to give, a tall silhouette with twisted claw-like fingers and a horribly distorted proportion appears behind him. With a swipe of its hand I hear a rope tearing and see my husband slouch forward. The creature slowly turns towards me, darker spheres marking where its eyes are. Suddenly though the creature seems to be absorbed into a mirror that had been reflecting the moonlight across the room. and I am left with the corpse of the man I love. Finding that I can move again, I stumble forward, tears streaming down my face,

as I wrap my arms around his now lifeless body. Two years later, without any warning, I'm jolted awake by an unseen force. I look around at my surroundings only to be greeted by darkness. The only source of illumination in this place is a red light that pulsates every few seconds. I can't see much in this dim light, but, What is visible is a damp, natural-looking structure. The walls, which seem organic, are covered in slight indentations with no discernible pattern, rapidly alternating between deep and shallow, wide and thin,

sometimes gradually, sometimes instantly. As I'm getting my bearings, as distorted whispering rings out from behind me. I leaped my feet and search for the source of the noise, but can't see anything beyond what I've already noticed. I begin frantically searching my surroundings, but see only the same odd indentations in the walls and dim red light. Oh, and something moving. Something moving towards me, fast. Before I can move, the thing is upon me.

It looks like a horribly disfigured man, an unnaturally wide jaw, metal, emotionless eyes and proportions that are universally horrifying. On getting a better look at its face, I realise who it is or was. That fact alone makes his appearance more terrifying than any disfigurement could. Bends its elongated, twisted neck down, until its head is right next to mine. The thing's breath reeks of many things, but above all, the metallic tinge of blood. Drink the blood and be awoken. Suddenly, I find myself.

screaming in my bed, rocketing up and launching the covers off of me. I clutch my shoulders for what feels like hours, hugging myself and taking shaky, terrified breaths. Eventually I take out the journal I've been writing my dreams in and add this one to the Macabre array. I've been dreaming of that place for years now, ever since my John's death. Some nights are better than others. I simply lay huddled in the darkness until I awake, though the ones featuring my husband's mutilated body are becoming increasingly common. After I finished writing my account, I glance at the photo on my nightstand, morning, remembering the time before all this, the time when my future seemed to be full of love and joy.

No, I say resolutely, I can't go back no matter how much I want to. Despite my strong words, I can't tear my gaze away from the focus. until I hear seven knocks coming from somewhere in my house. They sound like someone lightly tapping on glass. There's no one in my house but me, at least no one who should be in my house. Fearfully I slowly stand up before making my way outside of my room, trying to move as silently as possible. I slowly make my way to the kitchen,

where I keep my phone so I can call the police. As I creep through my house, there's a little bit through my house, There's another sound. This time a high-pitched chattering, like noises bats make, but much louder. After a minute, it feels like a decade, I finally reach my kitchen. I quickly grab my phone, but notice my cooking knives as I do. Should I get the police involved? I can deal with this. Compiled by this wave of suicidal bravery, I pocket my phone, grab my largest knife and begin searching my house. house join my husband tonight the kitchen restroom and dining room all come up clear with

absolutely nothing out of place the only room left is a living room full of dread remembering what had happened to me last time i investigated an odd noise from there i creep to the living room when i open the door and start to investigate the room i almost start to laugh realizing that i most slightly just heard some sort of waking continuation of my dream, where my blood runs cold, and I see it in the mirror. The same mirror I've kept covered for two whole years. In the tall mirror is the red silhouette of the monstrosity from my dream, standing behind me. He moves a distorted limb towards me, and I see what looks like fleshy branches jutting out of it. Suddenly the silhouette begins to fill in, revealing a face covered in rips and tears, each of which resembles

a small, horrific mouth, curl upwards into cruel grins as it draws near. Ignoring the terror welling up inside me, I tightly clutch my knife in my hand and swing around ready to strike the creature behind me, bearing my knife and screaming. But there's nothing there. Suddenly the mirror behind me shatters with a disgusting sloshing accompanying the break. The last thing I remember is feeling the glass shards launch into my back and arms before going unconscious. Opening my eyes to shards of glass and my own blood, I quickly rise to my feet, wincing from the burning sting of the cuts, riddling my limbs. As soon as I've gathered my wits, I bolt towards my front door, leaving my now bloody knife behind in my panic.

I don't care where I go, so long as it isn't there. As I'm running, I notice that streaks of blood have appeared throughout my home, marking the floor walls, and even the ceiling with long, thin streaks of bright scarlet blood. Bursting into the cold night air brings a brief relief. I'm no longer inside there with God knows what,

but now I'm outside with no protection. This is made much worse by how secluded my house is. I suddenly realise that if something happened to me, it would be days if not longer before anyone noticed something was wrong. This creeping dread makes me wonder if I should call the police. On the one hand, who knows how all this blood got into my house and what that creature even was, though. On the other hand, I'd look very suspicious calling in about blood that mysteriously appeared, especially after the investigation. Upon hearing something behind me

and whirling around to see that blood had started dripping down the window closest to where I was standing. Drawing my phone from my pocket, I quickly dialed 911 and greeted with a calming, 911 operator, what is your emergency? There's... Something is in my house. It's left blood everywhere.

I shakily force out. The operator quickly responds with a calm set of questions where are you and what's your name i shakily provide my answers and receive a don't hang up help is on the way you should find a place you can hide until they arrive eating this advice i dart towards the thin woods near my house laying down in a patchy bush i began to dread what this may lead to not only as the creature that's haunted my sleep entered the real world but the police are also getting involved, which worries me more than it relieves me, given my history with them. Within minutes, three officers arrive, though I can't help but notice that only two were in

uniform. The third is a tired, tall, hooking man with apathetic eyes and slouching shoulders, who I assumed to be a plain-closed detective. Finally, hanging up on the 911 operator, I approached the officers from my hiding spot with my hands raised, showing that I don't have anything in them. Immediately I'm led to a more well-lit area near one of the PF cars and barrage with questions. Did you hear anything? Where were you when you noticed this? Has anything like this happened before? And all manner of other questions. Thinking it would be best if I don't mention the creature and how I prowl through my house with a knife, I leave those details out of my answer. I'm too shaken up to think through my new story though and

The officers seem to be able to tell I am leaving some details out. From over the officer's shoulder, I can see the detective searching through my room. Through my blood-splattered window, I see him pick up my dream journal and thumb through it, reading with increasing intensity. Eventually he sighs and hands it to another officer before leaving my field of view. Ma'am, hello? The officer that had been questioning me since. concerned. Are you okay? I'm completely blanked out there. It looks concerned, but there's something

else too. Suspicion. And that's when it hits me. He thinks I did this. Years ago when my husband died, some idiot journalist decided to propose that I had killed him, without any proof, of course. Still enough to destroy my reputation and get the police involved, though. They did an investigation, while they never found enough to bring me to court, many still believe that I killed him. Suddenly the detective I saw with my journal darts from the front door and starts heading straight towards me. Before I, or the officer even have a chance to respond, he sternly informs me that. You are under arrest for the murder of your husband. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right

As he's saying all this, I go numb with shock. I hesitated to call the police, but I didn't really think that something like this would happen. Brought back to my senses by the clicking of handcuffs being closed around my wrists. You can't do this, I cry out. I've already had to go through enough thanks to your investigation. You can't just do it again. My cries fall on deaf ears, however, as I'm loaded into one of the squad cars and driven off. My trial was vague and unorthodox.

The contents of my dream journal were examined in minute detail, teasing the specifics of each sentence apart, and although the charges formerly brought against me was the murder of my husband, he was hardly brought up. When it was all over, I ended up here, alone in the padded room with nothing but my thoughts and the constant pitter patter of Audley's bustling through room to room in this madhouse.

The doctors have me on something called Trasadone that's all but stopped my dreams and put me in therapy with Dr. Tudor, a serious yet kind man who sift through the contents of my journal page by page, trying to find out why my dreams began. He seems to care about my recovery, though. It's probably just an act. I'm interrupted from my thoughts when my cell door swings open and an orderly step through. Mr. Tudor has scheduled a therapy session today. Let's get you over there. She says in a kind yet pitying voice. I'm sick of the pity in people's voices. The unceasingly demeaning quality of the orderly's turns

might actually be driving me mad. Sying, I pick myself up and begin walking in front of the orderly on the way to Tudor's room. Despite my incarceration here, I'm not insane. At least I don't think. I think I'm insane. The orderlies don't treat me with the same caution they treat other patients, at least, yet they also don't think I'm quite sane either. They give me my Trazadone, despite my protests, and keep a watchful eye on me. More than anything, they seem to simply pity me. This is the place now. I want to trust you to let yourself in, okay? The orderly jokes,

acting as though being allowed to open a door on my own is a special privilege. Despite my annoyance, I control myself and smile back before slowly opening the door and stepping into Tudor's office. I'm greeted by the same slightly decrepit room I always am. A stained and threadbare rug, old ragged wooden desk and an iron barred window are exactly as they always are. And I can only assume Tudor will be as unhelpful as he always is. The window overlooks the front of the asylum and to the right of the window is a vast key rack, with keys for every wing and very likely every room of the assignment. Please, take a seat,

Duda Kami says. I believe today we can cut to the heart of why you're here. Nervously, I take a seat, wondering what exactly he's talking about. According to your file, you suffer from delusions and hallucinations that compelled you to kill your husband, though an initial investigation found insufficient. evidence to bring you to court.

New evidence did prompt a trial, which ended in a guilty verdict. He slowly states, as my blood begins to boil. Now normally, I would never bring up an event like this to my patients. However, you've shown remarkable recovery during your time here. Tudor hesitates. I think it may be beneficial to go over what happened. clenching and releasing my right fist i force out and of course knowing that this will be just like my trial where others tell me what i'm thinking and why i'm thinking it well ignoring any arguments i offer first i must ask do you think he killed him well there's no harm in confessing here you've already been convicted tudor inquires

letting my emotions finally get the better of me i reply with an angry of course not i would never do something like that he'd say i try toying up my husband and bleed him to death i'm not saying anything comes a cold reply the court is if you can't talk about this i'll simply drop the subject but it will reflect poorly on your recovery taking a deep breath i force a calm turn and tell him that we can keep discussing this if he thinks it would be beneficial. Ah, excellent, he replies. Now I want to make one thing as clear as possible. Your husband, John's death was not as suicide as you seem to believe. His only wounds were slit wrists, yet he'd been drained of all his blood. Not only that, but the coroner found evidence that he had been bound at the arms and the time of death.

Every session is like this, him repeatedly telling me I'm insane, even though I've done nothing abnormal since arriving here. The more he says it, though, the more I'm starting to believe it. It can't really be possible that demonic creatures emerge from a mirror and heard my husband, can it? I still refuse to believe that I killed him, though. It can't have been me, and just can't. I begin to lose track of Tudor's lecturing when a single phrase catches my age.

attention. If we can manage to maintain your current progress, it is possible, likely even, you'll be able to be released, perhaps even by the end of the year. I'm shocked. I might be released. Before I can ask for specifics, or even how that can be possible, given what I was charged with, the clock strikes the hour bringing our session to a close. That'll be all for today, Ms. Wilson. Please follow the orderly batch of your room. Following the orderly, I once again begin to question if I truly am insane. At the same time, though, my house was covered in blood the night I was arrested. There must be some truth to what I've seen, and there's no way that something like that could happen with no outside force.

Not to mention how sudden all of this was. Up until John died nothing like this had ever happened. The night after that I began having horrific nightmares for two whole years. is though. Glassing to the right I see something that makes my blood run cold. Through a window in the door of another patient's room I managed to catch a glimpse of it. The patient has written that cursed phrase, drink the blood and be awoken on virtually every surface in his room. It's written in a blackish red liquid and he's curled up and trembling in the middle of the room. Just a moment I could swear there were tendrils coming from him.

Within the blink of an eye, they're gone, though, and I speed up to get as far away from him as I can. Back in my room, my mind is racing with questions. Two people can't really have the same delusions, can they? It shouldn't be possible that my hallucinations and my dreams have also been seen by him. I was beginning to believe that I was insane, but if another person is seeing the exact same things, then it can't be an hallucination.

But that would mean that everything I've seen is real, and my husband is a lie? I need to know the truth. I'm going to start trying to avoid taking my medication whenever I can. I've heard whispers among the more lucid patients about ways to dodge their medication. I need to begin having my dreams again. It's the only way to find.

find out what's going on here and discover what happened to my husband. I've been successfully avoiding my medication for several weeks now, and the dreams have been slowly returning. I still haven't seen the creature. Well, my husband, I can't help but think it's only a matter of time before he appears, though, and I don't know what will happen when he does. I've seen more of the structure from my dreams, now that I'm willing to explore the system of never-ending organic caves. I've seen creatures and hieroglyphic-light ruins carved into what I can only assume to be massive bones. Slowly closing my eyes, I drift off into sleep. When I open them, I'm greeted with what looks to be a living church, lit by the same pulsating red glow from my other dreams.

Before I know what I'm doing, I begin walking down a chapel aisle, pews of writhing flesh and cartilage on either side of me. There's a bone altar at the end of the aisle. covered in a flowering red cloth that seems to be sculpted from blood itself. Seeing this, I gradually begin trembling as I approach the altar. Out of curiosity, I take a closer look at the cloth. A recoil as I realise that the cloth is a network of thousands of interwoven capillaries coming out of the centre of the altar. Scarlet Blood still sings through the veins,

and they pulsate along with the familiar red light. Above the altar is a massive mirror, its surface tinned red and a fibrous black growth, binding it to the wall like a tube. I lean in further when I begin to see something through it. This can just be a coincidence, an angry voice yells through the mirror, causing ripples in its surface. The ripples gradually seem to take form, and two blurry human outlines and a vague room appear in the mirror. you expect me to believe that dozens of patients have the exact same hallucinations you honestly think i'm dumb enough to just chalk all this up to random chance i could see one of the blurry figures lean in towards the other and even through his distorted form i can see the anger he's feeling looking around the figure's murky surroundings i noticed the familiarity of their environment the patchy carpet a cluttered desk and an iron barred window This is Tudor's office.

Then that means that one of the figures is probably... Not just that. Even when they're completely recovered, you force me to hold them here. Judah yells at the other figure, startling me from my thoughts. What the hell are you even doing this for anyway? None of you have anything to gain from holding them here. As Tudor finishes, his tirade, the other figure finally begins to stir. We provide your funding.

That should be all the reason you need not to question us, but since you demand more, the figure suddenly hesitates, looking quickly around the room. Oh, cover that mirror, he says in a hushed frenzy tone. Sying, Chudor's figure approaches the mirror, coat in hand, before the figures and scenery suddenly vanish, leaving nothing but my own reflection. Figuring that that's all the mirror will show me, I attempt to leave the altar and investigate the rest of the church, but find that I can't move my feet.

Looking down, I realise that a black growth, just like the one around the mirror, has enveloped them. Suddenly the mirror begins to ripple like water, slowly changing from my reflection to a new face entirely. The thing, my husband, stares through the mirror at me, bearing a grotesque and mutilated grin. This time it's far more than a silhouette or a blurry figure, and I can see every minute detail.

All proportions are off, with massive shoulders and long skeletal limbs and fingers that are little more than mere bones. Protrusions that resemble tree branches, yet made of a sickly yellow flesh, grow from it. The same protrusions I saw in the man in the asylum. again it intones the same thing it did on that fateful night drink the blood and be awoken this time it's different though i don't know why but the words provoke just as much fascination as terror that fascination soon vanishes though as the black roots holding my feet in place turn bright skylight and i feel a searing hot pain surged through my veins

I awake in tears. I can feel it, the burning hot Icho from the church, pulsing through my veins. It hurts so much. I need to get it out as quickly as possible. They don't allow anything even remotely sharp in my room, even if I am recovering, but they can't take my teeth. I slowly sink my two incisors into the soft webbing between my thumb and forefinger, wincing as they slowly sink further and further. First bruising. My upper teeth make it through the first, and I feel warm, crimson blood flowing onto them.

Soon I have the flap of flesh off entirely and spit it out before sucking on the wound trying to get the icor out of my veins. Oounce after ounce I await my relief, until suddenly the metallic taste of my own blood is replaced with something else entirely, something indescribable, that I can't help but drink against my better judgment.

With every drop I swallow my senses sharpened and my comprehension broadens. This must have been what John was telling me about. Drink the blood and be awoken. As suddenly as it had all started, it's over, and I'm left with nothing by my own metallic blood. I stopped sucking the wound and wince as the sickening pain spreads down my arm.

I should be glad The pain from my hand is nothing compared to what I was feeling with that in my veins But while drinking it Everything was so much clearer I began to understand what's been happening to me I still only know fragments But it's still more than enough

To boost the fascination I was beginning to feel To extreme heights The dreams let me see it Rattapita The being my husband must have been worshipping when he died. I don't know how or why, but when I'm sleeping, it's as if I'm inside of it. Settling into bed in the hopes of revisiting Racta Peter tonight, I realize that the God and the church are one singular being. I'm kept in a straitjacket when not under supervision now. I'm still able to

dodge my medication, and my dreams have become far more lucid, however. I dreamt of a macabre creature, something I could become if I pay the tithes the church demands of me something similar yet different than my husbander being with rough leathery skin membranous bat-like wings skeletal fingers and silver reflective orgs in the place of eyes something powerful and ageless I've already begun the transformation through my dreams and through drinking Racta Peter's Icho but the trials will only become harder from here I can't go further while trapped in this sterile helm. I've begun planning my escape,

but I still don't know how I'm going to do it yet. Tud has a key rack with all the asylum's keys in his therapy room, but I'm almost certain that even if I could get one, he'd notice it was missing before I didn't have a chance to use it. I'll also need some sort of weapon, which is obviously difficult given I'm not even trusted to have my arms unbound anymore. for now however i simply contemplate my dreams while they're still largely bizarre macabre patterns have begun to emerge the church is organic but almost completely static as well with almost nothing moving in the mirrors which i've begun to see more and more of being the only consistently changing feature the mirrors are always held in place by odd growths and have a red surface that ripples and reverberates as that will be a it were a fluid.

Sometimes they show scenes from everyday life, like a family having dinner or someone getting themselves ready for an event. Other times, however, they show bizarre and macabre things. A man tormented by the light of his deceased father's soul, a paranormal circus full of eyeless performers, or a woman peeling a skin off to reveal her true face to several horrified onlookers,

these have all appeared in the church's array of mirrors. The most interesting feature of my dreams is the creatures that have begun to show up more and more frequently, possibly as a result of drinking the Ickel. They have been tall and lanky with long, razor-sharp talons, immensely large and impossibly deep jaws and metallic silver eyes with moonlight reverberating within them. I've seen them ripping the walls away at the church and shoveling endless amounts of flesh into their gaping mares. I don't know if they're attacking the church or if this is just them kind of bizarre ritual Suddenly I'm jorted from my thoughts

by a noise from the door Rahnstein comes an orderly's tired voice A somewhat difficult task due to the straitjacket Before shambling to the door The door opens And the orderly helps me out of my restraints

Before I join a long line of fellow patience Slowly we'd be here making our way to the cafeteria when we get to the cafeteria I go through my usual routine of getting and choking down the food they serve ever since I've discovered my taste for blood everything they've served here has tasted like ash once I finally forced it all down I begin to plan my escape again I'm gonna need some sort of weapon if I want to escape but I just don't know where I could get one if I can get my hands on a knife and the key for my ward, then I should be able to escape at night,

when the number of orderlies is practically a skeleton crew, unlike now when the cafeteria's fire exit has several orderlies surrounding it. I stop my planning when I look up and see the man who had written the church's message, drink the blood and be awoken in his room. He is extremely pale and thin as a rail, and a shaggy hair that casts a dark shadow over his eyes, which dart around the room fearfully. He gets his food, limping to the most remote location he can find to eat. Deciding that I might be able to learn something from him, they slowly rise to my feet and make my way over to him. An orderly shifts his gaze onto me, but makes no move to stop me as I inch ever closer to the fearful man. When he sees my approach, he begins to shrink away from me,

and his eyes stop darting around the room and lock onto mine alone. I sit down next to him, and ask what can you tell me about the church which prompts a shudder but not an answer what can you tell me about the church i ask once again more forcefully this time i don't know anything about that that thing the poor man quietly stutteres out he stares at me fearfully and looks like he hasn't even blinked since he saw me feeling a completely new and foreign hatred spread through me I slowly lean in towards him and whisper, Based on what you wrote in your room, I'd say you do.

The poor man begins to shake, he can't muster up any pity for him. I know that we aren't like them anymore, like, like them people. He slowly turns away from me for the first time since he saw me, as though he couldn't stand looking at me any longer. It's your eyes.

Fains underneath them are practically barging, you haven't even blink once since I saw you walking over here. That's surprising to say the least. Without realizing it, I reach a hand up to rub my eyes, only for it to encounter a dry and ridge surface and for migraine-like pain to shoot through me. I'm changing faster than I'd realized. I need to escape.

Looking over the cafeteria, I notice an unattended knife just within the open kitchen. Realizing that I won't get a better opportunity than this, I decide to try and get it, though with all the orderly's present, it won't be easy. As I'm getting up to get the knife, I can't help but ask the man one last question. You've said we aren't human anymore. What are we? Turn in to face me, he opens his mouth to speak,

before his eyes open wide and he begins screaming, pointing at me and shrieking about my metal eyes. an orderly eventually hauls him off but his screaming agitated enough patience that lunch ends early to-day and a dozen orderlies are called in to send everyone including me back to our rooms if there was any chance of me being released it probably died as soon as he began screaming my meeting with tudor is to-morrow and based on this incident and the figure in my dream ordering him not to release patience i'm guessing that i'll have to rely on my plan to escape rather than illegal release. As I'm waiting in my room for my appointment with Tudor, I begin slowly blinking, or at least trying to. As my eyelids close on my dry, rough eyes,

a piercing pain shoot through my skull, as I'm sliding my eyelids over sandpaper. Any minute now an orderly will escort me to Tudor's office where I can start my plan to escape by stealing the key to my ward that he keeps in there. It's odd to look forward to another thing, therapy session, but fortunately this may just be the last one I have to go through. Just on time I hear the slow plodding of an orderly's feet approaching my door.

Next comes the slight clinking of a ring of keys, and after what feels like an eternity, the door finally opens, revealing a tired-looking orderly, tucking away a deep red key. Time for your appointment! He states in a completely flat tone before helping me out of the straitjacket and his escorting me to Tudor's office. On the way there I see the fearful man from the cafeteria being transported on a stretcher, a cloth strapped to his body, covering everything but his face. His eyes are wide and unmoving, and for a moment I think he's dead.

I'm proven wrong, however, when I noticed something writhing under the canvas over him. The otlilies are heading in the direction of the solitary ward, where patients too dangerous for uncontrolled interaction are sent. averting my eyes from the man i quickly arrive at tudor's office all i must do is grab one key off the key rack and i'll be one step closer to freedom as i walk in tudor quietly tells me to take a seat rather than his usual warm greeting once i'm seated tudor launches into yet another lecture albeit with far more hesitation and an almost fearful tone i nod and contribute the occasional platitude whenever I feel I must, but for the most part I try and think of a way

to distract him. As my eyes fall on a large bookshelf, stocked with encyclopedias on medical and psychological knowledge, I have an idea. Excuse me, Dr. Tudor. I gently interrupt, trying my best to put on the meekest voice I can manage. Yes, what is it? Tudor replies, seeming very tense. The way he's looking at him. Looking at me almost makes it seem as though he's afraid of me and wants me gone. You see, sir, I say, fidgeting my fingers. You put me on a medication to help me avoid dreaming. Trezodon, right?

Tudor only mumbled something in agreement. Well, lately I've begun having the same dreams again, so I was wondering if there was a stronger form of trezadone I could take. Tudor sits back and seems to ease up as he contemplates my question. after some thought he gets up and moves towards the bookshelf with a curt i might have what you need this is my chance as quickly as i can i steal over to the rack where tudor keeps his keys the sound of tudor working through his book to the section he needs sends a nervous sweat down my face since he could turn round at any moment i frantically look through the keys searching for the dark red one that

unlocks my ward suddenly i noticed an empty hook and realize that my ward's key is gone likely stashed somewhere by tudor in case something like this ever happened just then tudor turns back to me and in a nervous tone why are you standing are you looking for someone looking for something well caught off guard all i can come up with to reply is it bland it's nothing just then when i'm fully paying attention to Tudor for the first time all day, I noticed the dark red key hanging from a key ring at his waist. Oh, how the hell am I supposed to get it from that? Hiding my newfound frustration, I calmly sit back down and resume listening to Tudor's lecture, all the while trying to figure out some way to grab the key off him to no avail.

I may have to spend longer in this prison than I'd hoped. The changes can't be delayed, though. The time it rings bringing the session to an end. Despite normally being very punctual, Judah stalls today. There is one thing you need to know before you leave today, Judah says, hesitating every few words. Given what happened in the cafeteria and some enlightening conversations with the asylum sponsors,

I'm afraid you'll be moved to the surgery, what a month. I'm completely stunned. I expected not to get released or get another level of restraint, but not to be moved to the solitary ward. I need to escape tonight, but I have neither of the two things I need. Anyway, Tudor interrupts my thoughts. That'll be all.

I silently exit Tudor's office, walking back to my room with the orderly that led me there. as we approach my room i noticed the king and noticed the ring of keys on him and realize how dumb i've been the orderlies in my ward have the same key tudor has so i can steal it from one of them rather than from tudor if i had a knife it would be relatively easy but since the fearful man's breakdown made that impossible i don't know what i'm going to do what i do know is that wherever i attempt i must attempt it to-night or i may never make it out of it at this point there's only one way i could escape i'll have to kill or at least subdue an orderly so that i can steal their key and break out i can probably trick an orderly into coming into my room but i'll have to kill or at least subdue an orderly so that i can probably trick an orderly into coming into my room but by making them as an emergency, or that I mean in horrible pain. Even though it might me, my only chance of escape, I'm still queasy at the thought of taking a life.

Wait, what am I thinking? Immortality, power, and the chance to join my husband once again are all within my reach. Why would one life, a life I know and care nothing about, be worth sacrificing all of that? or taken orderly by surprise once they're in my room alone and I'll finally be able to escape night patrols or at least what I've been able to see or hear

are nearly non-existent here and any orderlies in my way will fall just as easily as the first some tiny part of my mind is horrified with these thoughts yet a far larger part of me can't wait for what's about to come I still don't have a weapon though I could try and use my bare hands but that's far more of a gamble and if this goes wrong

I'll probably be here for the rest of my life could the church help me when I get back to my room I close my eyes trying to have one last dream before I have to start my escape desperately hoping that I'll get something anything from it eventually I finally feel myself beginning to drift on.

When I open my eyes, I'm back with a racked a bit. This time I'm in a long, tall hallway, made of sculpted flesh and supported with arches of bone. Dotting the walls at random intervals are hundreds of the same mirrors I've been seeing, each showing some unnatural scenes. Some show miracles, some show tragedies, but they all contain a paranormal feat.

On one particularly large mirror, a bizarre man appears to resurrect a corpse before a rapturous audience. Even with my new mindset, these sights horrify me. Why are they doing this? Why are any of these killings necessary? At that moment I see a mirror that shows me. They are struggling with an orderly, trying to overpower them and steal their key. I'm watching horror as the orderly manages to restrain me, and I'm... moved to solitary almost immediately. Suddenly the mirror changes, showing a figure that looks like me, but is far too old. They're strapped to a hospital bed, comatose. That can't be me, can it?

Does this mean that if I don't escape tonight I'll end up trapped here, trapped in this sterile hell for the rest of my life? No, I won't let that happen, curling my hand into a fist, in my anger, before I know what I'm doing, I smash it into the mirror in my rage. Despite its fluid appearance, it shatters into dozens of fragments. The pain from my fist being pierced by several of these fragments is sobering enough that my fury is quickly replaced by a lingering malice. I won't let what the mirror showed happen. I'll do anything to escape, no matter what I need to do. This will be the last night I do.

spend in this asylum. Just then I noticed movement among the mirror's fragments. I bend down to look at what's happening when I notice that they're still showing scenes. They aren't the same one I saw, however. Each shard is different. Some show me dying in my escape attempt. Some show me escaping into the night, others show me never waking up from my current sleep. The largest fragment shows my struggle against the orderly, the original mirror showed. This time, however, I do have a weapon, a jagged red and black glass shard. Suddenly, I realize what I have to do. I scrambled to pick up the shadow. As soon as my hand closes around it, my eyes open, I'm back inside my dark asylum room. Everything is normal, with one exception. The glass shard I grabbed in my dream.

still within my palm, now carefully gripped so it doesn't cut me. I quickly set my attention to luring an orderly to me, curling into a ball and loudly complaining about the pain in my torso. I'm groaning that, my insides are burning, and I make sure all those near my room know. With any luck, a kind orderly will stumble by and not be able to resist, give me a helping hand. When he does, I'll be as good.

as free. Just then I hear a jingling coming from the other side of my door and a wide grin spreads over my face. Finally, my grin is replaced with an expression of agony as soon as the door begins to open them. The female orderly rushes over to where I lie and quickly asks, What happened? Concern clear in her voice. Oh, my torso, I can't breathe. I force out between breaths. The jacket's too tight. I can't breathe. From the look on her face, I can already tell I have a right where I want. Okay, hold still, I'm going to loosen it for you.

As she says this, she bends down and starts pulling at the straps, holding my strait at very comfortable type. As soon as one strap is loosened, now to a dangerous degree I squirm, trying to keep the prongs sealing back into the fabric, keeping the straps in a state where they can be moved. once all the straps are loosened i quickly and violently stand and spread out as much as i can knocking the orderly over me down and breaking free of the straitjacket what are you is all the orderly can get out before the rippling shard has found her home in her chest she lets out a gurgling cry blood beginning to seep from her mouth before she goes limp seeing the off white of her uniform

gradually turned to crimson red and the thickening stream of blood flow from her lips. I feel a hunger of awaken inside of me. Licking my lips, I bend down until my face is level with hers. She really was quite beautiful, wasn't she? Leaning in even closer I begin to lap at the blood coming from her mouth, tentatively at first but gaining impassionate intensity. The still warm fluid thrilling me the more I dream. the more i drink the greater my thirst becomes until i withdraw the shard from her chest and make a small nick in her neck as soon as i've made it i latched my mouth on and began dutifully sucking the blood from her just like when i drank actor peter's echo my sense is sharp and far more this time the darkness of my room is slowly illuminated and tiny details i once would have overlooked are highlighted in my own my new detail.

The more I drink, the greater my sight becomes, until the blood runs dry and my vision levels out. Suddenly my eyes begin burning with a dull, dry pain, which only gets worse the longer it goes on. Eventually I reach a hand up to rub them, and when I do the dry, ridged surface comes off, with quite a ripping sound and a searing pain that leaves me staggering. Looking down I see the skin off my eyes lying on the ground. Wait, how could I see that?

Reaching up, I lightly tap my eye, receiving a metallic ping in response. A massive grin contorts my features. I've taken yet another step towards the church. The other things can't be far off now. Soon I'll be exactly what the church showed me I would become. realizing that my one opportunity to escape is passing me by and I quickly creep out of the room and towards the exit creeping through the halls I slowly make my way to the cafeteria because of its emergency exit thanks to my heightened senses I can hear orderlies away and avoid them before they're even within the earshot once I've made it to the cafeteria I deftly moved towards the exit noticing an alarm wired to the door I reach my shut up and cut through the wires in one quick motion, deftly severing them.

I immediately pushed the door open, receiving a blast of cold night air. As it washes over me, so too does the realization that I am finally free. Taking my first steps through the door, I turn my eyes up to the moon, and immediately let out a cry as moonlight fills my eyes. Stumbling forward I stopped to figure out what had happened. Who's there? Soon rings out from behind me though, and I realised my cry must have drawn attention.

Breaking into a blind sprint, I run away from the orderly's voice, although with no idea what I'm running towards. As I'm running, I hear alarms start to sound out from the asylum. These noises only drive me to move faster, although without my sight I'm struggling to move without tripping and falling. Just when I think all is lost, I begin to regain my sight. I see a wooded area near the asylum, and without hesitation, make a run for it. Moving into the trees, I sprint haphazardly, listening in fear to the sound of orderly shouting

as they search the asylum and its surroundings, making their way further and further from it. As my vision further returns, I run for it. faster and quieter. Eventually I come to a shallow gorge full of tall grass, too thick for any ordinary eyes to see through. Deciding that hiding here is a risk worth taking, I hitch my way down into the grasses, laying down in the middle of it and making every possible effort to remain silent. After what feels like hours, several beams of light sweep the area, and I watch as several police officers search through the woods. They slowly make their way around where I'm lying, being as thorough in their search as possible. One slowly approaches my hiding place,

and I stifle a gasp, as I realize it's the same detective from the night I was arrested. He's staring right at me, straining to hear even the slightest of sounds as I hold my breath After what feels like another lifetime, he slowly turns away and makes his way further into the forest. Accompanied by the other offices, I still lay there, as still and as silent as I can, until the sun finally appears on the horizon. Emerging from the grasses, eyes sealed shut to protect them from the sun. I grin in triumph. I escaped.

I finally escape. I'm far from finished though and remaining out of the asylum will be far harder than getting out of it, but for the moment I simply relish my newfound freedom. Now that I'm free I can continue down Racta Pita's path. Soon I'll understand it all and transform into something far greater than what I am now. Soon I'll join Rack. Insanity is on a hill by Michael Whitehouse. Bard one.

The events of the past several days have both shaken my understanding of the world and left me with the disheartened and perplexed disposition. Yet I feel that I must organize these events in my mind, that I am compelled to structure the terrible things which I've seen so that I may understand them better, so that my mind may be at rest, I need to quantify just what took place. It was entirely by accident. that I met one John R.

It was spring, and the early crocuses were faring well against the last frozen constraints of winter's grip. I was researching an article I was writing for a publication which was, shall we say, less than reputable, when I found myself at the mercy of a small Highland village for the evening. The whole ordeal was frustrating and tiresome, to say the least. I was supposed to be back in Glasgow that night to type up my notes and brush off the fog which had often accompanied my writing assignments.

being stranded in a tiny village with one street and a pub in, which looked like it hadn't been decorated since the dark ages, was not my idea of home comfort. Especially after a few weeks of constant travel, interminable interminable interviewees and more than one restless night in a dingy bed and breakfast. There had been a small subsidence one town over, which had made it impossible for the local bus to continue onward,

and, more importantly to me, carry me to safety. Following several phone calls as I attempted to procure alternative travel arrangements, it became apparent that I was going nowhere until the morning. The sleepy pub-in, which was affectionately entitled The Laird of Dungorth, looking like it could fall down on top of me at any moment, complete as it was with wart wooden rafters and clientele who appeared just as creaky, would have to be my home for the night. After speaking to the owner, a tall, peaked man in his 50s,

I was kindly given a small room upstairs which clearly hadn't been slept in or cleaned for some time. Still the people were nice enough, and after some basic but enjoyable local food, I sat in a cosy armchair by an old open fire in the bar, deciding to kill the boredom with a few pints of local beer and a bottle of wine. The flames dance around before me, and as the evening drew in and the numbing of alcohol took effect, actually was quite content and was glad to be in such rustic surroundings. The village may have been somewhat bleak, but against the cold winds outside and a darkening sky,

the inn was not without charm. I'm not sure how long he'd been sitting there, hypnotized as I was by the heat from under the mantelpiece and a few glasses of red, but it became apparent that I'd been joined by another guest at the inn. He sat across from me in a broad and frayed armchair on the other side of the fireplace, sat there gazing at the flickering flames. He was curious in disposition. Outwardly he appeared to be relatively young, probably in his early thirties,

but his persona was swamped in a fragility which one would normally not expect to see in a man of his age. His face glowed in the firelight, carrying with it worry in lines which betrayed an inner turmoil. His eyes defocused, glazed over and his hands trembling slightly as he warmed them by the burning embers. Is there a problem? I heard the words but did not register them until they were repeated. "'Excuse me, is there a problem?' "'The man addressed me in a sharp manner, "'and I was taken aback by the realization

"'I'd been staring at him for several minutes.' "'No, no, not at all,' I answered apologetically. "'I thought, well, I thought I recognized you. "'As he turned to face me, "'he displayed in his expression a look of disbelief "'at my obvious lie, but thankfully not without a small vestige of good humour.' "'I apologise if I was a little abrupt with you,' he said. It's just that I'm sick and tired of people staring at me around here.

He raised his voice at the conclusion of his sentence and cast a wide eye around the pub to the few scattered drinkers and lurkers who populated it. I sensed that those present wished to avoid his gaze. We then diverted into an hour or so of small talk. His name was John R. And he was a land acquirement agent from London. He claimed to be appraising a location nearby, which a local farmer was willing to sell off to property developers. but I immediately sensed that he was not comfortable talking about his work. In fact, he quickly changed the focus of the conversation to me entirely.

My job, life, family, or anything. It was as if he needed our exchanges to continue in an obviously failed attempt to keep his mind distracted from a hidden anxiety. Each time I attempted to ask a question about him or his life, he would either provide one or two word answers or ignore them altogether, moving quickly into a question of his own. Finally, the conversation had run its course, as they often do with only one real participant. And for a moment we sat in relative silence, the only sounds coming from a few locals propping up the bar and the occasional clink of empty glasses being washed and cleaned by the owner.

The pub was now noticeably dimmer, with most of the light being provided by a few small overhead lights and the fire which continued to crackle and flicker all evening. A turn to one of the windows outside, seeing nothing but darkness. Then the words just escape from my mouth without a fault or effort. Why would people be staring at you, John? It was a long pause as I looked at him while awaiting an answer. His eyes trained to the floor, but his face etched in worry. I expected no in-depth response given the curtness of his previous conversation, and so continued drinking my wine when he suddenly replied in a somber tone.

They all know, but they don't have the courage. to speak about it. Turned into the few fellow drinkers still in the pub, he then shouted, They're all afraid. The response from the landlord and his patrons was unusually muted. They seemed to ignore John's accusation entirely, with only the briefest hesitation of movement or conversation, proof that they'd actually heard the outburst at all.

I didn't expect such a volatile response, but there was desperation in that shout, anger and frustration. then looking directly at me with what I can only describe as a mixture of fear and heartbreak, he opened his mouth as if to speak again, before hesitating once more. I sense that the man deep down wished to finally relieve himself of a burden, as if some toxic piece of information was boring into his very soul. As a writer, my curiosity was captivated by the possibility of an enthralling tale, perhaps even one I could use as the basis for a future article or story,

anticipating that he now only required the slightest push to confide in me, I leaned over and whispered, What is it? Filled with conflicting sentiment. I could feel that I was about to become privy to something important, yet by his trembling and anxious demeanour, I dreaded what that something might be. Another moment passed.

It was as if the entire room had fallen under a shadow of palpable silence, those nearby listening from tenibrous and uninviting corners. and then he spoke. If you'd be so kind as to share your wine with me, I'd be glad to tell you, he said softly. I didn't have to say twice. I rose out of my chair and asked at the bar for a second bottle and glass to share with my companion. It was a peculiar hesitancy as the landlord picked up both from the shelf behind him,

placing them in front of me. As I returned to my seat, I knew those present were now watching me, and I felt in my bones that there was something uncomfortably stifling about their looks, shadowed accusatory, glances steeped in fear. A poured a glass of wine, of which John drank in one glutinous gulp, a sight I knew as well as of a man drowning a malignancy which burns inside. After pouring him another, I sat the bottle between us, waiting for him to tell his story.

To looking down at his drink for a moment, he raised his head, staring intently at me as the fire crackled and burned. Then, as if exercising a burden from his soul, he began. Part two. John had initially intended on spending no more than a few days in the village. Even after travelling all day from London, and the evening bringing with it the bite of the Scottish winter, he intended to get started as quickly as possible. The quicker he was finished, the quicker he'd be home. Working for a large property acquisition firm, it was his job to facilitate rich clients in their pursuit. of land on which to build. The individual he was representing at that time was especially interested

in buying some farmland with a beautiful country view, where they wished to build a large holiday home for their family. A location in question had recently been put on the market by a local farmer had fallen on difficult times as the economy wilted. John was therefore hired to evaluate the land and negotiate a price, based on the recommendations made by a group of surveyors who'd been there the previous week. After checking in to the laird of Dongob, he drove his car to the farm, which was only a few miles outside of the village.

The entire area consisted of large sprawling fields where crops were grown and animals grazed, a few patches of woodland and the occasional river or bubbling stream. The negotiations were relatively simple. The farmer, an elderly man by the name of Dale, needed an injection of money as soon as possible to keep the rest of the farm on its feet, or the buying client was enthusiastic about the potential purchase and wished to conclude the deal quickly.

Regardless, John was always careful about finalizing a deal before he himself had taken a look at the land. Over the years, he'd developed a reputation for delivering exactly what a client wanted without any nasty surprises after procurement, such as land subsidencees or other planning difficulties. Although he didn't much enjoy the groundwork of surveying, who was well qualified to spot anything which might cause difficulties, at a later date. But despite this thorough attitude, he still hoped to be back in the city perhaps as soon as the next day, or things being well. The farmer, Mr. Dale, graciously agreed to take him out to the land by tractor. It was not without a slight feeling of remorse that John listened to

the old man describing the history of the area, his family's attachment to it, and why it was so important for him to keep the place going. But business was business, and the money Dale would make on the two fields in question would provide him with a subsistency. substantial windfall, hopefully enough to help him weather the financial storm. I'd approach quickly, and John was delighted that the bumpy and uncomfortable drive did not take too long. After a short time, Dale stopped the tractor, pointing to the two adjacent fields he was selling. For the next half hour, John sloshed through the mud and grass in his boots, taking photographs of where his clients were thinking of building, while perusing the

surveyor team's notes, comparing them with his own observations. Dale did not wish to accompanying him in the survey as I stood by the side of a graveled path, watching forlornly. Finally, John had vanished, but just as he did so, his eyes were drawn to a hill a few miles away, one which looked out over the entire area. It appeared to be uninhabited, with what looked like patches of woodland and grassland being its only distinguishing features. Despite its distance, the hill seemed to dominate the horizon, and without verbalising it, he felt as though it was special or unique somehow. On returning to the tractor, he pointed to it,

but Dale seemed unwilling to talk about that particular subject, answering any questions pertaining to it with an icy silence. It was John's job to keep a portfolio of land which he thought clients might have been interested in. With what to him looked like a beautiful view of the countryside, it would be something worth appraising for development, especially for a rich business person in love with the Scottish Highlands. On the short journey back to the farm,

John felt compelled to continually glance over his shoulder at the hill and was convinced that his professional instincts were telling him to investigate it more closely. After some annoying persistence, Farmer Dale eventually surrendered his silence and spoke briefly on the subject, with obvious disdain for the unusual landmark. When asked who owned it, even if perhaps Dale himself was a landlord, but at mere mention of this, the farmer scoffed, saying only, No one wants that, please.

and no one goes there neither. He would not say much else, but before John departed for the inn, the farmer placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and advised him to leave the hill alone, but it was dangerous, and he hoped he would never have to speak of it again. While Dale seemed to fear any mention of it,

the overriding impression conveyed was that the old man was dominated by a profound sadness, one which was best left alone. As much as he was fascinated by the farmer's warnings, It wasn't the first time that John had encountered local superstitions, ones which he of course never listened to. Otherwise, he might have lost out on a few good pieces of land or property throughout the years. The stories locals would entertain him with always seem to revolve around older,

more remote parts of Britain. In the past, he'd been told tall tales about abandoned houses which carried with them the stain of some murderous deed, or woods which would not be cut down for fear of what lived in them. but without exception nothing untoward had ever happened. There was no solidity to the myths, and while he enjoyed listening to accounts of hauntings and strange beings which prowled them more to an open countryside,

he had little time for them in his line of work. Such stories were a fun distraction, but beyond entertainment around a campfire, they serve little purpose. Returning to the inn, he was tired and keen to get to bed, hoping to conclude any business the following day, But before he retired to his room, he decided to have a small nightcap at the bar. The landlord seemed amiable enough and happy to have someone staying there as the inn's location often left it quite empty,

but his friendly demeanour altered drastically in the mention of the hill. Much like Dale, the landlord seemed reluctant to give it any detailed information about it, provided his own words of warning, citing bad ground as reason enough to let it be. Whispers and subtle dissension came from the darkened corners of the room, locals seemed perturbed by John's questions. No one approached him, but he was well aware of their discomfort. His remark of, You'd think the hill was haunted,

which was intended as a joke, provoked only silence. The void of sound left John feeling unwelcome, and quickly he finished his drink and walked towards the stairs to his room. But as he did so, a young woman barely out of her teens gently touched him on the shoulder and whispered into his ear, please don't go to the hill no one ever comes back the landlord was within a shot and quickly chastised the girl

for even mentioning it then turned his back while cleaning a pint glass saying in a stuttered tone you sleep well sir hope you can conclude your business tomorrow and get back down to London quickly after John it sounded more like a warning than a simple good night

the next day he rose early and made his way downstairs to be greeted once more by the landlord. But the man remained relatively quiet, which John found odd since he seemed to be quite a talkative fellow when he'd first arrived. Dismissing his host as just another individual of Urstam mornings, John grabbed a light breakfast and then made his way back out to the farm to conclude the purchase of Dale's land. As he drove along the quiet country roads,

appreciating the impressive landscape even in overcast weather, the farm came into view. But in the distance, so too did the... hill. He thought that it seemed a little more prevalent or imposing them the day before, with its crooked structure leaning towards the village in the distance, but quickly shook those feelings from his mind, regarding them as the after-effects of the townsfolk and their superstitious behaviour. And yet, there was something about that place. With only a few administrative duties left to perform, John was hopeful that he could be finished by noon and then make the long seven or eight-hour

drive back to London, finishing up some loose ends before taking part in his usual routine. On a desk in his apartment's had a 30-year-old bottle of Balveni won't whiskey, which he'd pour a glass from after completing an important deal. This would be accompanied by a cigarette or two. The only time he smoked is he couldn't trust himself to not succumb to the habit, a takeaway meal, and the next day off from work to do as he pleased. These were the times he enjoyed the most, The conclusion of a deal and a little break before, once again being sent to another remote corner of the British Isles. Sitting in Farmerdale's cottage, John enjoyed the coziness of the place and its antiquated decorations, which reminded him of his grandmother's house as a child.

Many of the facings were original, and he was certain that much of the house must have stemmed back countless generations. Dale himself seemed in a more pleasant mood than the day before, making his guest a cup of tea in a sandwich while John prepared the last of the paperwork. As the old farmer potted around with a kettle and a pair of cups in hand, John glanced through a nearby window, noticing that the house itself looked out towards the nameless hill a few miles away. Without thinking, he mentioned casually that those at the inn seemed wary of it too. And giving Johnny's tea, they all sat down at the opposite end of the kitchen table,

stirring his cup thoughtfully. There was another silence, similar to that of the evening before, and despite the cosy surroundings, John once again, felt uncomfortable. Then, eventually, that unsettling feeling gave way to annoyance. Why should he not simply ask why people were so afraid of it? These were just superstitions, and it was madness to think that in the modern age, people could still be swayed so easily by simple stories.

After toying with the idea of remaining quiet, John finally broke the silence. Mr. Dale, don't mean to be rude, but ever since I arrived in the village, people seem to be acting strangely about that hill, and they treat me like I've committed a crime just by mentioning it. Perhaps you did, he replied. Perhaps you shouldn't have mentioned it at all some. With all due respect, I just wanted to know who owned it, as I thought it could be good for the area, an exciting property development.

Property development, Mr. Dale scoffed. The only thing that should be done with that police is that the ground be sold with salt. It's just a hill. Just a hill. The old farm had trailed off for a moment, looking out of the window towards the uncomfortable subject of their discussion. Mr. Dale, John said, this time more softly. I've been to many scenic locations around the UK.

I know that some areas have stories, they get a bad name, or just seem a little frightening. In my experience, I've never come across any of them that couldn't be put down to simple superstition. I'll even prove it. "'You've what, lad?' said Mr. Dale, suddenly apprehensive. "'I fancy a stroll before I head back to London. "'I think I'll take a look.'

Standing up abruptly, the farmer appeared now more anxious than angry. His upper lip quivered, and he had the appearance of a man who'd been hiding a destructive amount of stress from the outside world, just waiting to be vented. "'You mustn't go there,' he shouted. "'Please, Mr. Dale, I didn't mean to offend you.' John's thoughts now turned back to the deal at hand, and with nothing signed yet, he didn't wish to jeopardise it with his curiosity. How would he explain that to his client?

The old man slumped back down in his seat as his eyes glazed over, as if fighting a losing battle against an onslaught of terrible memories. Um, I lost my son to that, please, he said, trailing off. Oh God, I'm terribly sorry, Mr Dale. Please accept my apologies. Let's just forget the whole thing. No, it's not your fault. The old family smiled across the table with a sorrowful countenance. No one talks about my boy. I'm not allowed to.

The locals think that just speaking about him and the others will somehow bring more of misery down on the village. After a brief pause of contemplation, he broke down, saying, He was a good lad. We're not built to lose our children. Oh, God. burying his head in his hands he began sobbing uncontrollably John didn't know what to say he could only offer I'm so sorry is there anything I can do

wiping the tears from his eyes Dale sat back in his chair mournfully after a few deep breaths he composed himself and then spoke his voice quivering with held back emotion no one knows when it started no one knows why What started? asked John, his compassion now overpowered by his curiosity. I grew up in this village. Even when I was a boy, we didn't have a clue. Oh, sure. They talked about old stories, about a dispute between two powerful families which went back hundreds of years. They all leaned forward, scratching the graying stubble on his chin before continuing.

No one knew their names, at least no one who was willing to talk about the hell. The deeds to that land are probably sitting in some solicitors safe with the owner living in the high life somewhere, unaware of the price we've all paid. Surely there must be a record of the owners. I'm sure there is that. You won't find anyone around here who wants to know. Over the years, the odd person would ignore the warnings and venture up there. Normally kids daring one another to have a go. But they never came back.

Dale shuffled in his seat uncomfortably as tears, began to fill his eyes once more. My boy, he didn't listen. Just like the others, he went up there, and he was gone. Surely he went after him? John asked in disbelief. Yes, I did. I tried to go up there.

I was broken by grief as my wife and other children were. They pulled me back from the foot of the hill. They knew it would take me too. So your son, your own son could have been up there, hurt, dying, and you didn't go after him all because of a stupid superstition. The idea that myths and lies could have resulted in the young boy's death enraged John, yet he felt ashamed of himself as soon as the words left his mouth. Dale suddenly flew across the table, grabbing his now unwelcome guests by the collar,

battering him against an old stove. Who do you think you're talking to? Dale screamed, his voice shaking John to his core. For an old man, he was still as strong as an ox. For a brief moment, he thought that the farmer was going to hit him, but then just as quickly Dale relinquished his grip, turning his back. When you have three other children to feed and a wife, we'd be heartbroken. You'd think twice about going up there too. Besides, a few of the boys from the village help my wife and, well, no one would let me go.

Not because they cared about me. Well, maybe some did. But mainly because they live in constant fear of that place, of what's out there, that it might come down. down and pay us all a visit. Straightening a chair, the old farmer scribbled his signature on the remaining papers and then asked John to leave, which he did after offering his apologies once more. At the door both men gave their polite goodbyes, with Dale simply adding, there's an old saying around here. Bairs to leave alone. And you'd be wise to listen to it. Despite being shaken by the old farmer's volatile reaction to his inquiries, John was still certain

that he wanted to visit the hill. knowing that those in the village would try to dissuade or even physically restrain him from doing so, he was resolute on driving there immediately from the farm. As he got underway, he thought that perhaps some good could come of it. He could break their fear of that place, but it was more so his stubbornness which motivated him now. He wanted to prove he was right, and if he discovered a piece of land perfect for development in the process, all the better. Getting there was more troublesome than he'd first and to do that. anticipated. While there was a small country road which led to the foot of the hill, it had been

apparently blocked off by the villages. An arrangement of large concrete slabs, red bricks, old wooden posts and other discarded materials had been unceremoniously dumped at either end of the road, making entrance by car an impossibility and by foot only with great difficulty. Seeing the very real and physical lengths which locals would go to in order to stop anyone from accessing the hill, John felt an increasing impulse to reach its peak and then returned to the village to let those below know how ridiculous they'd been. After leaving his car by one of the blocked entrances, he climbed over the stack of rubble with some effort,

careful not to cut himself on anything which protruded, and then made his way to the road. For a moment he considered what he might find on the hillside and the very real possibility of discovering the grim remains of a previous visitor, thoughts which momentarily left him questioning his side, current course of action. The road was just wide enough for a single car. It had obviously been left to the elements for some time, with a large potholes scarring its surface and deposits of mud and gravel covering the tarmac in places. As the hill came into view, he was struck by how much

larger it appeared to be than he'd estimated. From distance, he would have assumed a quick hike to its peak, but looking at its incline arching away from him, he realized that it would probably take around two hours to reach its crest, and that was only if a track or at least good footing could be found. Looking at his watch, it was early afternoon, but he believed he'd still have enough daylight to make it to the top, and then back to his car safely. It was there that he began to notice some of the strange landmarks more peculiar features. He stood quite alone, with no accompanying hills around it, as if it had been left there in isolation, quarantine from the land itself. It's a The scent seemed more pronouncedly crooked than it had at a distance, asymmetrical, leaning slightly to one side in bizarre fashion, and its surface was covered in sporadic pockets of trees, while wild and untamed collections of long grasses, a tangle of dead yellow strands embraced or strangled by the green shoots of more successful strains invading all around.

Most surprising of all was that there was a man-made path which ran up towards the peak, one which he was delighted to discover. It had been spared the onslaught of the wire in spindly grass, which had consumed everything else. For a moment John considered that this was all a hoax, and that he was a victim of an elaborate joke, as the path looked well worn, as though often used. But then a much darker thought flirted with his rational sensibilities, that the hill itself was leaning inward, enticing visitors, welcoming them to an unknown destination. He quickly dismissed this notion and continued on. An old gate blocked the way.

It was wooden, but had obviously been subjected to the ravages of the Scottish weather for some time, as its surface was partially eaten away by green moss and mould. As it creaked open, John stepped over the threshold, as the gate closed behind him, his shiver ran up his spine, accompanied by a mild nauseous feeling in his throat. If he'd been superstitious himself, he would have said that the place was bad, that the air seemed foul. and he was not easily affected by such thoughts. It was more likely that something he'd eaten had not agreed with him,

rather than the hill itself acting upon his nerves. Wandering up the path, he attempted to make as good time as possible. The idea of making his way back down at night was not one to be relished, with unsure and unseen footing, and as the afternoon sky was already a little dimmer than it had been at noon, he marched up the hill with intent, excited to take in the view from the top. The incline increased slightly, and with it so did the sporadic nature of his surroundings. The long grass had claimed everything by the park, as clumps of trees occasionally flanked him,

he can now appreciate whether locals had come to fear such a place. The reeds of dead grass and ivy encircling each trunk suggesting malevolent purpose. Some of the trees had even fallen over, taking unusual positions at steep angles, appearing as if they had been pulled into the earth, broken by the feet. fingers of grass which had clung to the husks of wood like a very real leviathan. But while the idea was fanciful, somehow the hillside did indeed feel wrong, unnatural in places. And as John ascended it, the coldness began to creep up his arms. Well, he'd hiked before, and in his job had often been required to brave the wilderness

while evaluating land. But this felt different. It was as if the land was affecting the temperature rather than the weather, making it increasingly difficult to ignore the oppressive atmosphere of the hill. Stopping for a moment, he rubbed his arms hastily to warm them, pausing to appraise his progress. He was astonished by how far he'd actually climbed. He'd been walking for no more than 20 minutes,

but looking in the direction he'd come from, he must have been at least halfway up the hillside. How could he be there? At every evaluation of the hill size, it seemed to confound the previous conclusion. It was as if the place was warped, somehow. John laughed to himself at being so swept up in the impression of his surroundings, yet the silence bothered him. No birds, no rustling bushes, filled with rabbits, foxes,

or even insects. Indeed, the entire hillside felt dead. No, not dead, he thought, but in the grips of death itself. It was winter, however, so perhaps he should have expected the seeming sterility of the countryside, but the quiet still perturbed him. Then another unusual phenomenon came to his attention, an inconsistency, something which contradicted his own memory, his very faculty. The path behind was now different. While climbing, John had been amazed by how overgrown the hillside was compared to the track leading upwards. This led him to suspect that it was perhaps used regularly. But on looking down the hill, it now appeared to be engulfed by the wandering hands of nature.

perhaps not completely but certainly to a far greater degree than it had been before. The grass swept over it while bushes and trees leaned in nearby, suggesting a more rugged terrain than he'd initially noticed. Yet the path ahead looked clear. Looking to the world outside and down below, everything appeared distant somehow, almost synthetic in appearance. The colours were not as vivid. The meadows which populated the valleys had foregone their vibrancy.

and the sky itself filtered down towards the ground with what John could only describe as false light. He struggled to dismiss the unwelcome feelings that he was experiencing, and while he continued on for a time, as he climbed the nausea from when he'd first stepped foot onto the hillside returns. The cold sensation which had enveloped his extremities had progressed like a disease, penetrating his insides and chilling him to the bone. John had tried his best to reach the peak, but he was no fool.

He knew that not a month passed without a report on the news about an inexperienced walker or clamor going missing on a remote mountain. While the hill was a seemingly more humble prospect, he was now willing to accept defeat, even welcoming it. The surroundings felt menacing and his current physical condition was enough to cause retreat. Though we'd not reached the summit, John decided that if he still made it back to the village

after being on the hillside, that would be enough to dispute their superstitions. Perhaps he'd return in the summer to evaluate the land, considering his decision to be a postponement rather than admission of failure. Entertaining the notion that the locals may have been right all along was not something he wished to do. There would have to be evidence of his adventure, of course. Taking out of his pocket a camera phone,

which he used to document his work, John began to shiver as once again an icy sensation crept up through his arms revoking a desire to be warmed by the fire back at the inn. With a few artificial clicks, he photographed the surrounding hill, then as a joke took a picture of himself, forcing a smile with a tangle of grass and trees as a backdrop. What he saw when he viewed the pictures, sent chills through his body. The first photographs of the area turned out as expected, but the last betrayed something through the bushes behind him.

What looked like a building of the area? of some description. At the forefront of John's mind, he was filled with an impulse to run, to leave that place, but he was fascinated by the idea of a hidden construction, removed from the outside world by a barrier of leaf, branch, and legend. Taking a deep breath, he crept quietly through the twisted grass, pulling the leaves of a large, low-hanging tree to the side. There, sitting on that hillside where locals feared to tread,

lay what looked like an old chapel or church. One small steeple reached upward to the sky, with large stained-glass windows, many of which were broken, dotting the shell of the grey stone building, speaking of days more prominent and glad. John's heart raced at the sight of it. Perhaps this was the reason

where the hill had been tarnished with superstition and myth. An old abandoned church was certainly a fertile foundation for frightening tales. The church itself did not banish his own feelings of caution. As he broke through a layer of leaves, grass, and climbing ivy, he couldn't help but respond to his nerves. Sweat began to drip down his face while his heart pumped blood with an unsettling, unstable rhythm. Leaving the hill was still his intention.

But as he drew closer to the stone archway which sheltered the church door within it, he surmised that the locals were more open to his conventional explanation of why people feared the place if they knew that he'd been inside. Without seeing the interior of the church, the villagers could once again spin stories and falsehoods about what remained hidden. The door was a dark brown oak with scratched decorative metal black strips adorning its surface, but unfortunately it seemed locked.

John gave it a good few solid shoves with his hands, and then, surprisingly, with a groan of countless years, It creaked open slightly, creating a space just big enough for him to slide through. Peering in through the gap, he could see that the church floor was covered in fallen masonry from the roof above. A large collection of stones lay piled up behind the door. Their collective weight had held it shut, and although they'd given way in part, they still provided enough resistance to stop it from opening completely. Cold, musty air escape from inside, smelling stale and of stone long-sinceau.

abandoned. For a moment John considered what he should do. Such an old building left a rot for decades, if not centuries, could prove dangerous, but the desire still burned deep within him to prove that he'd bravely seen all that could be seen, but there were no ghosts or ghouls there, only fragments of a forgotten history. Taking out his phone, he poked his hand through the gap in the door and took a few photographs with the flash. The light lit up the entire hall inside, showing it to be filled with rubble from an obviously failing roof, but at the back of the room there lay what appeared to be an altar of some kind. From his vantage point it looked to be made of stone,

resting on a raised step several feet high. Above it John was thrilled by the presence of an inscription of some kind carved into the back wall, but unfortunately he could not decipher the lettering from the doorway. Sying, he knew that the only way to read it would be to go inside. The concern of being injured or trapped by anything falling from above was paramount, but his curiosity was now in full flights, his enthusiasm quelling both the sickness in his stomach and the icy numbing of its extremities. After once more debating the risks,

John decided that he be as quiet as possible so as to reduce any risk of a cave-in. Oh, he just had to look. Taking a deep breath, he managed to squeeze through the opening, with a little effort. of the darkness inside. Using a small light on the back of his phone, he was now better situated to survey his surroundings in greater detail. The air was significantly colder,

stinging the back of his throat as he inhaled. And though he'd expected the interior to be cooler than the outside due to the volume of stone used in the building's construction, the church in reality felt more like a crypt than any place of worship. Stepping as carefully as he could, try not to disturb or dislodge the large piles of rubble on the front, floor. John kept his eyes trained on the roof overhead, nervous that any loud noise might bring a piece of masonry down on top of him. The extent of the damage now became clear, with the occasional

small shard of light penetrating the darkness from a few open wound-like holes above. However, the hall remained surprisingly dim. John found this curious as he felt that the interior around him should have been more visible somehow. It was as if the light was being absorbed by the darkened corners of hall. But he immediately dismissed this notion as fanciful and cited his escalating imagination as good a reason as any to keep his nerves in check. Isolated and unknown environments could cloud even the most rational of minds. After climbing over two substantial piles of rubble, being careful to avoid several large sharp pieces of broken wood jutting out from underneath, he finally found himself at the rear of the church hall. There lay the altar.

The table carved from stone and smoothed by attentive and devoted hands. It was easy to imagine how frightening a priest from the dark ages would have seemed, poised up there spouting fearsome tales from an unenlightened position, foaming at the mouth about damnation and demonic forces preying on the souls of the weak. A sense of relation and excitement filled John's mind, to be standing near to something with such a deep sense of history, yet he considered warily the possibility that the altar had been quarried from that very hill, wrenched from a deposit of rock deep in the ground,

born of processes far older than humanity itself. But the thrill of such an old and rare discovery quickly extinguished those thoughts. So enamoured by the object was he, that he almost overlooked a small open doorway to the right of the altar, which appeared to lead down a flight of stairs to an underground chamber, possibly a vault or tomb. shivering at the thought of what lay below, he knew that even with his level of skepticism, there'd be no venturing down there.

Superstition or not, wandering underneath the floor of a clearly decaying building was not a wise idea. Pointing his phone's narrow beam of white light to the rear of the hall, it cast a diminutive yet welcome glare over a series of dusty steps which led up to the altar's platform. A natural arrangement from which a priest or preacher would have delivered their service, service hundreds of years ago. Yet there felt little that was natural about it or its housing. Again, a creeping unease began to ruminate in his mind as he imagined a fervent and angered holy man standing above all, shouting cryptic and doom-laden parables of ancient origin at a huddled, confused, and frightened congregation. Making his way onto the platform, eager to

study the inscription on the back wall more closely, his attention was unfortunately distracted from the cluttered ground as his foot clipped to broken rock lying on the last step. Stumbling forward abruptly, John Shorter slammed painfully against the edge of the stone altar before reaching out a hand to break his fall on the cold, hard platform floor.

The noise of his fall echoed throughout the building with the sound ricocheting from wall to roof. For a second, he imagined that he'd heard a fainter sound stirring from elsewhere. Close, but far. Answering in kind, a small piece of debris plummeted from above, smashing to the ground, teasing and threatening a series of heavier and deadlier replies yet to come. Belief coursed through his body,

glad as he was that the object had not been more substantial in size, and even more so that the stone impacted in front of the small doorway rather than against his head, and he was becoming increasingly unsure of his safety. Regaining a solid footing, he stood up on the platform, holding his shoulder, which was now battered and bruised, keeping his eyes trained on the roof nervously. All but for a gentle wind whistling through holes and gaps in the building's outer shell, silence was omnipotent. Anxious that any other movements might bring the entire ceiling down on top of him,

John waited for several minutes before assuming temporary safety from further falling masonry. Then, slowly and more carefully than before, he turned and appraised the altar more closely. Religious iconography dotted its sides along with strange, jagged symbols which he did not quite recognise. It was easy to imagine a communion of sorts being given from there. Each member of the congregation somberly approaching, dishevelled and malnourished,

receiving a blessing from a stern priest who spoke more of wrath than of love. John would happily concede to anyone that he was not the most creative or imaginative in nature, but there in that forgotten place he was surprised by how vivid his impressions were. You can almost see those who would have been worshipping here, pallid faces, sheltering from the bitter cold of winter, bodies withered by the fruitless produce of a poor harvest, yet fear of something extraordinary and undefined suffocating their very thought. Yes, the church was such a decrepit little place that it was easy for the mind to populate it with the ghosts of lamented souls.

Of course, he had no way of knowing how correct or inaccurate his assumptions were. Shirking off the shivers of a wandering mind and laughing to himself of being so easily affected by the place, John's gaze finally fell upon the inscription carved above into the back wall. Reaching out, he ran his fingers over the dips and rough edges left by the author's chisel. It was clear that the message on the wall was out of place, rushed as it was with each letter unaligned. with those which came before it, suggesting them to be the product of someone hurried,

wishing to spend as little time within the church as possible. Standing back, the light from his phone now illuminated the words which came sharply into focus, reading, Those who dwelt in Dunger took this hill in 1472. In 1481, we gave it back, in hope that those we disturbed would forgive us our trespasses. Contemplating the meaning of the inscription, he stood motionless once more as the fearfully apologetic wording began to gently disturb him. Either the region was one of struggle, having been previously settled by another clan, or perhaps the original inhabitants of the hill shared a preoccupation with myth and superstition with their modern counterparts in the village below. At first the noise did not filter entirely into his awareness.

It was only when repeated with uneven rhythm that he had. his mind recognized its nature. Still, facing the inscription, his back turned towards the church hall. The creeping cold sensation he'd experienced outside returned sharply to his arms. His body quivered in retaliation to the temperature, which had nosedived at an alarming rate. His breath visible in panicked puffs in front of his face. John's flesh crawled once more with fear as the sound of one foot scuffing a stone floor nearby was slowly followed by another. but who would be in such a place?

Not one of the villagers, not with their superstitions and stories of warning and omen about the hillside. The footsteps felt close, and as his confidence diminished, John's thoughts now fled simply to escape, as the noise increased in volume, threatening proximity. It was clear that he would have to rush past whoever stood there to make it to the door. There was nothing left for it,

he had to push the jarring fear which now gripped him out of his mind. Slowly, he turned to face whoever was behind him. For a moment he thought he'd be faced by the strained faces of those from his imagination, but the hall was devoid of life, empty, yet still the sound of scuffing cold stone, like sandpaper on skin filled the air. John's frozen gasp rang out as something moved in the corner of his eye. Turning quickly to the darkened doorway which led underneath, the head of an indecipherable figure moved as its body raised up slowly with each shuffling step from below.

Terror coursed through his veins to such a degree that his rationality melted away, only to be replaced by pure instinct. As he burst into a sprint, jumping off the path, platform leaving the altar and inscription behind. He felt a deep and unyielding fear tear at his insides. Stumbling as he landed, the impact dislodge more debris from above as several pieces of large stone smashed into the church floor, one narrowly missing his head by only a few inches. The exit drew ever closer, and fevered thoughts now filled his mind as he scrambled over and through piles of ruined and forgotten sediment, dead skin cast off by the ancient building without

remorse. For a moment he felt surrounded, impressed upon by a man of the cloth preaching of sin and ancient evil, while a pitiable and diminished congregation huddled together in fear of what walked nearby. As the footsteps scuffed the dirt and dust-ridden floor, John's clarity of mind returned, as he began to climb up a large pile of broken wooden stone, The door to safety on the other side. His curiosity calmed his nerves momentarily. The dread he felt in his stomach told him to continue onward, out into the open, away from that place.

But his need to know was relentless. He had to look. Taking a deep breath, he turned cautiously towards the altar, slowly casting the light from his phone towards the darkened staircase. The air in the hall now grew colder. John's panicked breath visible in the dim light. darkness seemed to cloud his vision, yet what he could decipher was unmistakable. A tall figure now stood in the doorway, but a deep impression of tortured and perverted humanity

emanated from it. Both man and thing exchanged a long, silent stare, and a croaking string of syllables emerged from the figure's mouth. A language long forgotten, and while its precise definition eluded John's understanding, the contempt with which it spoke of did not. Shaping the doorway now moved forward. As it imitated its sullen movements, John cried out in terror, haphazardly clinging to the rubble,

attempting to reach its summit and then make his way to the door. Now he did not care for silence, his clambering movements echoing throughout the hall, several pieces of stone plunging once more from the roof. As he reached the top of the mound, at the very last moment he peered above only to see a rock, as large as a man hurtling towards him. Jumping for his life, he tumbled down the other side of the debris pile.

As his body rolled down towards the floor, a searing pain wrenched through his side. Slamming against the stone ground, the impact surged into his bones, leaving him dazed momentarily. Staggering to his feet, he looked down only to recoil in horror. A large chunk of wood had impaled itself several inches into his right side. The blood poured from the wound as he was. he almost instinctively pulled at the piece of wood, it grating against his insides before finally being removed. He let out an anguish scream, but as he did so, he turned to a noise from behind. The pain in his side was agony, but the sight he beheld was worse than any sensation.

The figure in the door was writhing on its belly, dragging itself at an impossible speed over the rubble and towards him. His body blackened, the bandaged remnant. The bandaged remnant. The bandaged remnant, of a white shroud sliding over the jagged surface with ease. Stumbling in shock, John was paralyzed with fear. Then the realization took him. Escape was close. Swimping badly towards the door, its slight opening now within grasp, he shoved his body through the gap into the light outside.

The door pressed and prodded at the wound in his side, sending strikes of pain piercing through his abdomen. With one last push he screamed, the force of his momentum causing him to fall to the ground outside. Looking up through the gap stared the entombed figure, with his face sneering from inside, its arm outstretched, spitting a vile and deafening groan out into the retreating sunshine. John did not take his time to observe the creature. He staggered once more to his feet. His hand now drenched in blood as it clenched the open wound in his side.

Moving as quickly from that place as he could, leaving the church grounds behind, he was sure that he could hear voices from deep inside as he fled, the yells and vitriolic protests of long-since-gone clergy and congregation, mocking, resentful, and despised. In his haste, he'd lost track of his direction, unfamiliar with the surroundings. In the grip of panic, he limped on as fast as he could, but disorientation, took him, and before he was aware of how or why, he found himself surrounded by a maze of broken and toppled gravestones. Dizzyed and gasping for air, he no longer cared where he was, just as long as he could leave the church and its attendant behind. After catching his breath,

he began to negotiate the old cemetery, some headstones large and looming while others humble and ruined. Then, as if suffering the effects of an unknown poison, the war began to spin, and as he tried to catch his breath once more the stones took on an ominous and menacing form towering above, blocking out the light staring forcefully down at him it was not a graveyard

which he now stood in but a ring of warped stones several feet high they had weathered many storms ancient and forgotten long before the first brick had been laid on that adulterated church he had compelled

to somehow become closer to one of them he reached out a hand, touching its moss-covered surface. Flashes of a hidden past now filled his mind, as he felt overcome with faintness. His vision clouded, and the world began to spin as an abrupt nausea swamped his senses, one which was so intense that it knocked him to his knees. And though he struggled valiantly against its grip,

within seconds he crumpled to the ground, the wound in his side heaving and throbbing with each beat of his heart. lying on his back, staring above, the sky seemed to pulse and everything around became distorted as though he were detached from the world, viewing it through a thick and warped lens of glass. The light curved inward unnaturally, and the veil of the world drew back as John gazed into the abyss behind. And awareness left him. He awoke to the silence of the earth. Whips of broken grass touched his cheek as the wind carried them away.

to an unknown destination. The sky was black, or no truly living thing stirred. John did not know how long he'd been unconscious, but the blanket of stars above left him in no doubt that it had been for at least several hours. The sickness remained, though not as potent, but the wound in his side still wept blood. Rising to his feet, it became clear that his body

was still under the effects of whatever was on that hill. In the intoxication of it The world still possessed a fluid, watery form But on closing his eyes for a moment He felt that he'd somehow become accustomed to it At least to the point where it could gain his bearing And find a route to escape Luck was on his side as the moon was present above

Or be it only as a partial waning crescent This provided him with enough illumination To gauge the strange world in its shapes which surrounded him He was unsure if he remained where he'd fallen as the ancient standing stones, which he remembered vividly and with no little sense of dread, were nowhere to be seen. But as he stood there with his hand vainly attempting to stem the blood from his side, a frightening realization crept towards him. Well, John found it difficult to convey to me in simple words what that was, but he described it as the rules of nature up-turf. Nothing seemed to make sense. For a moment he didn't know who he was, why he was there,

and what abominable source was causing such illness in him. He seemed to retain the knowledge of the hill and a memory of the church, but his thoughts were turbulent and disconnected. Fleeting moments of identity would quickly be surpassed and replaced by utter confusion. But regardless of the affliction, one constant remained. His instincts pleaded with him to leave that. place immediately. But in this fragile state of mind, he couldn't tell which way would lead him down to the land below, and which route would send him upward, to whoever, or whatever, sat on the summit.

The sensory intoxication was an experience unlike any other, and the world unraveled. The smell of sickness tinged the air. Whether it was his own vomit or the illness playing tricks, he didn't know. But within that stench, there was something else. The smell of dampness mixed with the unsettling scent of burned hair. It became so strong that it began to sting John's eyes, which only furthered his disorientation. Though his eyes were clouded by tears, and the world seemed wrong, he now sensed what he could only describe as a presence. The musty smell increased impotency, and as it did, John led out a cop.

The response to the noise was distinct, and though he believed that it was impossible to know the mind of someone, Something approached, and it did so with malice and hatred as its companions. Terror now turned to fleeting purpose as he quietly wandered past shadowed trees and amongst the wild grass hoping to find his way out. Staggering as he fumbled his way through the darkness, the pain in his side and thoughts of dying out there on the hill, never to be found by his loved ones became apparent.

For a moment he thought that he'd collapse once more, but while the sickness intensified, he was now accompanied, by the sound of dead grass and wilted flora being thrust aside, as something trudged through the undergrowth nearby. John's vision was now so poor that he could not tell which way was forward and which back, and in fleeting moments of clarity, he felt repulsed by the idea of ending up back at the church,

or the stones, or graves, unsure of what they'd been. He was utterly lost, something which called that hideous hillside home now approached. Be still. But silence, nor darkness could shield him. No realm of oblivion could provide obscurity. For a wickedness as old as the earth now stalked a man who once laughed in the face of

stupistition and myth. The air grew denser, and what little light the sliver of moon provided, diminished as though it were being sucked deep into the ground with no escape. And then, nothing. noise of branches and grass being broken and pushed aside ceased and in its place a void of sound almost unbearable at the end of his nerves john could feel any remaining vestige of hope or escape abandon him or it was close his breath could be felt upon the air foul rancid as if something long ago lived and yet had not relinquished the desire to cause hurt and pain

then movement Dead leaves cracked under its weight The long grass Which had seemed so impenetrable So dominant Now torn and broken With each shuffling stride

The only thought in John's mind Now was to hide Slowly his breath Stuttered and quietly gasping He sank into the long grass And lay there Silence Terrified

The presence was closer still and in the darkness he thought that at times he could see the vague shape of a figure wandering just out of reach. It circled slowly, coming closer then retreating as if searching the ground meticulously. Then finally, the sound of its cumbersome footsteps grew distant and then ceased. John breathed a sigh of relief, and then a hand touched his face. Survival now took him, and with a yell of utter terror, he rolled onto his side. Searing pain ran through his body as his own weight and motion thrust an uneven piece of ground deep into his wound. A low-grown escape from whatever monstrosity

stood before him, and then, without knowing which way to proceed, John became motivated by a new impetus, jumping to his feet and bolting in a random direction, hoping beyond hope that it would lead out of that madness, that nightmare. Trees and grass flew by in the pitch black of night, a thick miasma of sickness and burned hair encircling everything, eliciting convulsive retching as he ran. At last he knew where he was, yet his bearing and it was one which he'd hoped he would never possess again. The church loomed tall and twisted before him. Something hurtled through the trees behind, and in a moment it would be upon him. At least he knew which direction to go, running as he did to the side, towards the point.

path which he'd ascended earlier in the day, a worn track which would lead him to safety. But the land appeared unfamiliar and unnatural. The very shape and construction of his environment seemed to have bent to an unknown and malevolent mind. He had to continue on, to get away from what pursued him. The path must have been in that direction. Then, finally, he broke through a line of bushes and trees into a clearing. His heart sank to death. He was a death. He was depths he did not know. There stood the church once more, but it appeared different somehow. By night the building seemed to possess a more sinister and bizarrely altered form from his daytime persona. For a moment John imagined its steeple to be not of rock, stone or concrete, but of vine

and earth and wood, spiraling towards a heaven which had long since spat it out of the world. The rustled of trodden leaves approached once more as he stumbled and gasped for air. The pain from his wound was now almost unbearable, each step forward accompanied by an internal, blinding, tearing sensation. Forced to flee across the face of the church by his stalker. John moved as best he could, staggering and limping, weak and exhausted, entering a thick network of brambles and thorns. His clothes caught as the barbed appendages of the plant scratched at his face and arms. It was no use. He could not outrun what was coming.

Looking over his shoulder, someone was clearly ripping through the branches only a few feet behind. Fear coursed through John's veins as his stalker now bore down on him. Letting out a cry of pain and anguish, thing amongst the branches seemed to stop for a moment, observing him struggle, his hands cut and grazed by thorns. John pulled and grabbed at the thicket in front, trying to escape. And then to chill his bones once, the figure behind stared. letting out a harrowing groan, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh of satisfaction. It began moving at great speed, breaking through the entangled cage of thorns and branches with ease, closing in quickly.

With a scream of pain and disbelief, John finally broke free of the thorns' embrace. But despair haunted him. There the church stood once more, almost mocking, twisted and warped in ways that no human architect could conceive of. Staggering with little fight left, he moved past the church once more as his assailant broke through the tree line, rushing towards him. John increased his pace as best he could, but by now he could muster little speed. The heavens now opened, and swathes of liquid poured over the church, flowing to the ground beneath which quickly became sodden and water-locked. John's strength diminished as he fell to his knees, admitting defeat as a hunted animal relents at the

the end. Then, salvation. From far away, shone alight, one which beamed and broke through the almost impenetrable surrounding thickets. Something to hold onto to hope, an anchor to follow, a light from outside that terrible hill. As a sound of his pursuer neared, scrambling across the grass in darkness, one last surge of energy awoke John from his terrible fate. The side of light and life reignited what small. vestige of hope remained. He screamed in agony as he lifted himself to his feet, the rain now lashing down upon him, drenched to the bone, pouring into the hole in his side. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was that light, and the safety which it promised. Limping as quickly as he could in its

direction, he thrust himself into the vines and branches of the entangled woodland, fear overriding any pain brought about as thorn scratched and cut at his skin. Yet he was making progress, and the light began to loom larger and larger, vibrant and sustaining. It was clear now that he was heading downhill, as the momentum of his trajectory caused stumble and fall after fall, it also increased his speed markedly. Flashes of memories not his own once again invaded his mind. Thoughts of anger and hatred filled his vision, images of the church never empty yet absent of the living, as the priest reared his hands, so bowed the congregation's heads.

Confusion was beginning to seep into him again, and the smell of burnt hair once more filled the world around. Though cumbersome, his stalker could be heard increasing pace, yet it seemed more agitated than it had before, angered, perhaps even frustrated. John felt sick with panic, the blood now pouring from the wound in his side, unimpeded. just as the light seemed closest, the promise of redemption, safety, and escaped loom near.

He flew down a steep incline of grass, slipping in the wet mud and tumbled at speed to the ground. Pain, exhaustion, and hopelessness ruled supreme as his body, already battered and bruised, came to rest on top of a large fallen tree trunk. The clambering footsteps drew near, and as they did so John thought to himself that he, and that which he laid upon had both been victims of a cruel and hidden evil which called that hillside home. Come on, come on son, get up, get up!

The voice called in the darkness, almost drowned out by the now fervent breaking of ground and grass behind. The world seemed warped, but his consciousness now prepared to wither once more from his mind. Clarity returned and John realized where he was. His body was slumped not against a fallen tree, but against the wooden gate which marked the boundary of that terrible place. Or something was close, that thing which had been hounding him in the dark only a few feet away.

Move, it's nearly upon you, cried the now familiar voice of Dale. With one last movement, with the final piece of life left in him, John R. opened the gate, walking face down into a puddle by the roadside. Part three. transfixed, the words flowing from John in stuttering fashion, yet with a conviction and reality which I found difficult to ignore. Regardless of my skepticism, this man believed with every fibre of his being that what he had told me was the truth. Dale had apparently gone after him, against the wishes of the other villages. He had long ago lost a son and did not wish for anyone

else to succumb to the apparent malevolence of the hillside. The landlord, being an old friend of the farmers, eventually gave in and both men travelled to the foot of the hill in the hopes that John would find their light in the darkness, follow it would be the first to escape from there in living memory. No matter how much they wish to help, though, they would not dare touch that gate, nor cross the hill's threshold. John had to do that on his own. They did so just as his pursuer leaned over him. Oh, I remember letting out a sigh of relief as he finished the last of the wine in front of the fire. There was a moment of silence between us, and I realized that the entire bar was bathed in an anxious reticence, one which was almost tangible, as if those present wanted

to speak but dared not. Finally I spoke, tempting to be as reassuring as possible. That is an amazing story, John, but it's just a story. I'm sure there's a rational explanation for it all. He bowed his hair gravely, staring at the floor. If it's just a story, then why can't I leave? He said, looking up at me with an expression half caught in fear, half crapped in desperation. What do you mean you can't leave? I've been here three months, he shouted. Sometimes wish Dale had just left me there.

John, I said, leaning over and resting my hand on his shoulder reassuringly. You can leave whenever you want. But I could see from his expression that, He did not believe me. He'd been consumed by one of the myths and superstitions the locusts had fed him. I concluded that his psyche had been poisoned. Of course, I felt that the landlord and others meant well, but I was sure that a conventional explanation would hopefully cure him of his afflicted mind.

But I'm going to Glasgow tomorrow, I said cheerfully. Why not join me? The bus will be here in the afternoon and we can travel back together. But, of course, I'm forgetting. I mean, you have your car with you. Please don't think I was fishing for a lift. I laughed, but John just stared at me grimly and then answered, my car is sitting out back, wrecked.

Really? It's not too bad. I mean, what happened? It took me several days to recover after my experience on the hill. He said mournfully before continuing. When I felt up to it, I packed my bags, thanked Dale and the landlord, and drove out of the village. A couple of miles into my journey, the rain came down in sheets.

Visibility was terrible, but I just wanted to leave. Well, I lost control of the car, went straight into a tree. I survived, but the car's a right off. Well, accidents happened. As long as you were okay. Hey, how about another drink? I said standing up. As I did so, John grabbed my arm forcefully.

It was no accident. It was something else. else on that road. I saw him standing there. A man, I think. At least it appeared like a man. I swerved to avoid him. And a good thing too. The last thing you want around here would be to accidentally kill a local. My jokes, once more, did not appease his frustrations. I sat back down as he conveyed to me his predicament. After the incident with the car, which was towed back to the inn by Dale, John tried everything he could to leave. Each time he attempted to use the local bus, there'd be a problem. It would break down, or there'd be a landslide

stopping it from entering the village. He even claimed that was why I'd been stranded overnight, because he'd intended to take the bus again that day. The man was adamant. For three months, he'd been a guest at the Laird of Dungor, and yet no matter how he tried, he could not leave the outskirts of the village. Several times he'd even tried to hike to the nearest town, but on each occasion he was beaten back by bitter and perilous weather which appeared without warning. He'd even tried to phone for help, but his mobile phones seemed to have no signal, while using a landline resulted in a continuous static. The same applied for anyone who tried to make a call on his behalf.

While I couldn't explain everything that had happened, I was certain that a series of rational and conventional events could account for each. You see madness that someone so obviously intelligent and articulate be much. made to believe such nonsense. I genuinely felt sympathy for the man. Look, you're the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I said confidently. What do you mean? John replied. I've worked in many villages like this.

Come to an old part of the country with a haunting landscape. Seems like another world compared to the modern life of London. Then you provided with paranoia fuel, a myth that the locals believe about a curse part of the land. Taking all that in, you have some terrible luck hitting a tree with your car, and before you know it, you believe the whole thing. Perhaps you even imagined the figure on the road, maybe even the whole encounter. What about the hell? he asked, obviously intrigued by any possibility that escape could be achieved. Probably a placebo effect from all the stories you've heard.

That or, who knows? Maybe you had food poisoning or a virus of some kind and hallucinated the entire thing. maybe there's even some nut up there living in that church. It was obvious that he remained unconvinced, but I felt that it was my duty to take this poor soul out of that village, back to Glasgow where he could hopefully make arrangements to get home. I'd seen the damage that unfounded beliefs could cause amongst people and communities before, and I was genuinely appalled by it.

I just wanted to help. Tomorrow, we'll get the bus together and I'll buy you a pint in Glasgow. He never said much in return, other than nodding his head reluctantly in agreement. Part four. The next day I rose early with a singular purpose. While I had to get home to work on my assignment, the bus was not due until the early evening, which gave me just enough time to persuade John to come with me in the most dramatic of fashions,

to go to the hill myself. I knew that if I returned without any of these strange experiences, that perhaps he would forget about the superstitious nonsense which the villagers had afflicted him with, and leave on the bus with me. I must also confess that I was utterly intrigued by the idea of the place, and while I had absolutely no doubt that John's experiences were mistaken, I actually felt that there might be an article, or even a story in the whole ordeal. As a writer, such opportunities rarely present themselves.

Before I left, I spoke with him and made my intentions clear. He pleaded with me not to go, that his fate need not be mine, but after much protestation he accepted that I would not be dissuaded and reluctantly agreed that should I return without paranormal, supernatural or other-worldly incidents that he would leave for Glasgow with me. After providing me with directions, ones which I was sure would not be forthcoming from the villages, and made my way out to the supposedly tainted hillside. I must admit that when I saw it at first, it did appear odd to me, misplaced somehow.

But again I counted this as the subconscious effect of John's tale. The environment appeared to be just as he'd described. At least that much was accurate. The road was blocked with rubble and rubbish, and I too found the wooden gate lying at the foot of the hillside. There was even a stain of blood upon it, certainly making the conclusion of his story more believable. The thought of some maniac up there did give me pause,

but even if someone had chased John through the undergrowth, He probably moved on after being confronted by jail and the landlord. In any case, a badly wounded John had been able to escape, so I felt confident that I'd be fine. I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary as I crossed the threshold, and while the tangled weave of trees and dead grass did provoke feelings of decay, I was surprised by just how innocuous and commonplace the environment felt. After climbing the steep path, which clearly had been used numerous times in recent years,

I reached a spot which was reminiscent of John's descriptions. There it was, obscured from the world by a wall of leaves, rotting wood and grass, the church. I was significantly surprised as I thought such a building would surely have been part of John's hallucinations, and I concede that I began to feel slightly unnerved by its existence, and hesitated for a moment before proceeding. I'm embarrassed to say that had the area not been illuminated by the morning light, I may even have considered retreating, but I did not. The church was fascinating, and I, at the very least, wished to see if it was, as John had said, with an altar undisturbed inside.

It wasn't difficult to gaze inward, though I shuddered slightly remembering the description of the door being partially blocked by debris, yet it lay wide open, unimpeded, and this discrepancy did give me pause once more. Yet there I stood, at the threshold. told, peering inside. It was exactly as he described. The floor strewn with rubble from a falling roof. The altar raised up ahead, an inscription, which by now I had no doubt did indeed read,

as John had stated, and the doorway leading downstairs to an unknown destination. Now you must understand that at no point did I genuinely think that something supernatural resided there. The very idea seemed laughable. But I did begin to question my safety. thoughts of a hermit or a mentally deranged recluse living under a remote church did not fill me with confidence. Hello, is anyone there? I shouted, my voice echoing up towards the raft is above. With no reply, I castigated myself for being so paranoid and stepped inside.

Carefully I negotiated the rubble, noticing droplets of blood on a broken piece of wood which I assumed were Johns. Thoughts of blood poisoning now entered my mind. Perhaps the wound in his side caused the hallucinations, at least the ones which occurred afterwards. That would have explained his disorientation. The altar stood, as he had stated, realizing that I may need to prove that I had been there to reassure the man. I took at my phone and started taking pictures of the church interior. With each flash the hall lit up. And as it did so, my mind crept back to John's descriptions of a zealous priest and a fearful congregation

huddled under the protection of the church, but protected from what? Turning to the darkened doorway, which led underneath the building, I felt my heart began to race at the prospect of descending the stone staircase, but I was compelled to, although not for entirely altruistic intentions.

Yes, I did want to show John that there was nothing down there, and that the beliefs which seemed to hold him paralyzed within the boundaries of the village were unsubstantiated, but I also wanted to know what lay beneath myself. Why did this church have a subterranean level? Was there a crypt?

My curiosity peaked and my mouth watered at the possibility of a published article describing my discovery of an unknown archaeological find with perhaps an important and valuable relic or two within. As I approached the door, I could feel the cold air breathing from below. Using the light of my phone, I calm my nerves which had begun to grate on me, and look cautiously inside. The steep and narrow flight of stairs dripped down into the ground beneath. The walls were dark and grey

and seemed to have been carved or formed with far less care than the rest of the church. I shouted down there once more, but again no one replied and I therefore assumed the place to be abandoned. As I descended, I was surprised by just how long this staircase actually was, and by the time I reached its conclusion

estimated that I was at least 50 feet beneath the old church. It appeared peculiar to me that a level would be so far beneath the ground and questioned to myself the purpose of it. Why had the architects, builders or followers of the church dug so deep? At the last step I composed myself, turned to face a darkened doorway at the conclusion of the staircase. The blue light from my phone illuminated everything around. What I saw deeply disturbed me. A large room. The floor littered with rags, stone and...

human bones. Couldn't tell how many bodies have been left there to rot, so they were too numerous. The chill in the air was pronounced, and I felt frozen to the core, not just by the cold of the stone which surrounded me, but by the sorrowful feeling I felt inside. It was almost as if I could imagine people huddled down there, spending the last moments hidden from the sun. The very impression I had was that they had died there. I didn't know why I was so convinced of this.

Taking a few pictures, I then entered what I can only describe as a mass grave. I was careful not to disturb the bones, but I'm ashamed to say that I felt the crunch of a few underfoot. To the right layer doorway leading into another chamber, and while I did not wish to disturb the too many more than I already had, I felt compelled to know the entire story. That is, what else was? was down there, after the doorways had a stone cherub, carved with a degree of artistic flair, putting it at odds with the room full of bones, but the childlike face wore a strange grin upon it, not of joy or playfulness, but of taunting and sadomasochistic indulgence. The very sight of it left me with a feeling of revulsion, so I quickly entered the other

chamber to be removed for its gaze. Inside was a large room, much grander than the one before, I could tell immediately that something of importance to those who built this church had once been housed there. The walls were adorned with beautifully carved symbols, some Christian, but many of a nature I could not identify. In the centre of the room lay a block of solid stone three feet across. A large hole lay to its side. On the rock was the following inscription. Here lies the father, loved by some, hated by men. As I pondered the epitaph, I peered into the hole.

The grave was vacant, but I was glad that I'd seen it before walking around the room, as it was deep and wide enough to have given me a nasty form. Being stranded down there with a broken leg was not something that I wished to consider. The dirt inside the grave was stained black by what looked like a deposit of charcoal throughout, and the fringe of the hole was surrounded by a circular pile of dirt. I assume that grave robbers, or perhaps those that had hated the man, had removed his body long ago. The air of the place was beginning to affect me intensely. Each breath inward was jagged and cold, and the discomfort was such that I decided I'd seen enough.

Or taking a few pictures to document the tomb before leaving, the flash from my phone brought something on the floor into sharp focus. Covered in earth and dirt lay a book which poked out slightly from the ground. down. Gently blowing the dust from it, carefully lifted it up, resting the book on top of the makeshift gravestar. The binding was ancient, healing slightly as I ran my hand over it. The dark red cover which I could not identify the material out of which it had been made spoke of time gone by and of stories lost yet important. Deep down I knew that such an item should be removed carefully and studied by scholars, but as a writer, my passion for a story. compelled me to see what it contained.

Opening it, I was amazed. This was a chronicle, a handwritten account of the history of the church, its congregation, and the hillside, the snapshot of a people long since forgotten. It was written in a linguistically confused tone, as the wording seemed to be a mix of old Scots English and phrases in a language unfamiliar to me, one which I assumed to be Celtic or Gaelic in origin, however the passages. in Old Scots, I could read to a degree. What follows is a loose recollection of what had been inscribed there. In the 15th century, a group of refugees came to that area in search of a place

they could call home. The valleys, or glens as they're known in Scotland, were uninhabited at that time, as too was a strange hill which dominated the landscape. The people were from a place called Dungor, and they'd escaped from the laird there who had ruled that region at the time,

fleeing his persecution. as he was a brutal and merciless ruler who punished all who did not follow his beliefs. In all they numbered only in the hundreds, and while their elders wished to settle in the glens, prominent priest among them claimed that to bless the lands and to ensure that no ills were before their community, the hill must be settled first, the beacon of holiness casting a shadow of protection on all below. While some were suspicious of the man's fascination with the place, he was known for his kindness and as one whose judgment could be trusted. Disheartened, the elders began to follow his example,

as it was typical at the time for people to be god-fearing. There, on that isolated and baleful hillside, they built a small settlement, but almost immediately a few of the settlers began to fall ill. A sickness which could not be explained, and which often resulted in a feverish madness. The priest blamed a number of standing stones which were peppered throughout the hillside, remorse of, to him at least, an old and heretical religion.

It was decided under his supervision that the people should build a church. With the presence of consecrated ground, it was thought that the effects of whatever resided on the hill previously would be eradicated. They were wrong. Despite their efforts, the sickness only grew worse, and many began to suspect that the priest himself was in league with the abhorrent forces at play. Some of the elders rose up against him, but under his orders, members from the church congregation executed those who rebelled. Hearing for their lives, many of the settlers, who were outraged by the priest and his followers, fled in the night,

escorting the remaining elders to the lands below. Most made it off of the hill, but some returned, wailing and frightened, believing themselves to have been stalled by uncertain and unearthly figures in the woods, unable to escape. To save their lives, they pledged undying fellowship to the priest and his church. Claiming to be receiving visions from the Almighty himself,

the Holy Man ensured the villagers that if they carried out his explicit instructions, that they would all be saved. Each night they gathered in the church as the priest spewed forth his visions and damning, seething hatred for those who had left. It became clear to some that he'd gone mad, that by then the man had formed a strict and brutally loyal conclave of followers who hung on every word and prophecy, making any rebellion sure to be a violent, bloody and uncertain one.

Many spoke of dreams without form, blinded by darkness, and several families were found in their homes, suffocated in the night. The priest blamed those who had escaped and told stories of how they were the source of the darkness which had persecuted his people, cursing them to a desperate end. Bitterness and anger swept through the community, and several villages were selected to descend the hill and bring back the elders who were to be judged and sacrificed if need be. But no one could leave.

No matter how hard they tried, the church loomed large, no matter which way they walked down or up, they would appear where they'd begun, confused and disorientated. The sickness spread. In the village watchmen, one by one, were found choked and mutilated in the streets, with witnesses claiming to have seen strange entities prowling around at night. in the panic those left had no option but to cling to their religion for salvation in the hope that the church would protect them they huddled together under its roof an abject terror for what approach from the shadows outside now here the writing changed markedly becoming jagged fervent and more pronounced the priest himself had taken over from the town chronicler who he had deemed to be unsatisfactory several pages followed pockets of inked English entangled with what looked like Latin and a number of unusual and indecipherable languages.

Each page was filled with pain and scorn for those who had left. And then, the words just stopped, standing there in that Stygian and foreboding place, I ran my fingers across the spine of the book and could see clearly that the last page had been torn out. What it could have contained, I did not know. I felt overwhelmed by the account which I just read. as a very real and palpable fear surged throughout my body. The thought occurred to me, but the accounts of the sickness which had plagued the exiles of Dungo

seemed remarkably similar to John's experiences. I could not avoid the coincidence, I began to suspect that something that in fact affected him after all, something tangible, perhaps a contaminant in the ground, a poison maybe. I'd read about pockets of methane gas escaping through the earth and that sea which had killed many, but it wasn't out of the question that something similar,

perhaps in a smaller dose, could in fact have caused mass hallucinations, sickness, and even madness. It was the most feasible explanation I could come up with. Yet why had I not been affected? Perhaps, as the chronicle had stated, some people were more immune to the contaminant than others. My attention now turned once more to the grave, or at least what was left of him.

I wondered what the people did with the body of that loved but hated priest, assuming that was who the father referred to. Did they rebury it in another location? Perhaps his followers were worried that his grave would be vandalized. Well, the answer became clear to me almost immediately. It burned him in his grave, under the very church he'd built. The whole where his body once lay, now marked eternally by the blackened stains of smoke and amber. I shuddered at the thought that he may have been thrown down there

and set a light while still alive. The air now grew noticeably colder, but this was not what marked the beginning of my ordeal. I leaned over, looking closely at what I saw on the rim of the grave. I couldn't bring myself to believe it. There on the brim of the hole was a callous signature left by the church's former attendant. In the darkness I must have missed it.

But now it was unmistakable. There on the edge of the grave was a handprint, blackened and burned, as of someone cloring their way out of their eternal and forsaken pit. My breath spiraled slowly out of my mouth, congealing in the icy surrounds while my heart raced at the mere possibility of what had risen from that hole in the ground. As the air grew colder still, I stood up and made my way to the foot of the stairs. I had to get out of there, into the sunlight, into the open.

It was then that I heard it. At first it was merely the impression of a sound, then more definite, rising in intensity and clarity. Something stirred above. People, many of them groaning and lamenting, crying for their lives in unison, chance in the darkness, both Christian and of something older, a fetid religion that had best been left in the ground. As the wales of misery ascended, a single voice. rose up out of the cacophony, deafening and terrible. It spoke of the end of days, of betrayal, and of unimpeded sin. Oh, the voice yelled and screamed, renouncing all who did not listen, a vengeful sermon from that stone altar above. I cannot put the fear I felt into words,

alone in the cold darkness of a defiled crypt, with no way out other than up and into that church hall where something hideous now relived forgotten and terrible times. The screams grew loud as the banging and scuffing of feet rushed towards the staircase, towards where I stood. Such pain in those voices. I ran in terror as they flew down the ancient staircase towards me. Without thinking, I jumped down into the empty grave, switching the light from my phone off, and found myself cowering, shaken to my very core by the agonizing voices which cried out against the world, and one another in the next room, hate and utter despair at evil both outside and in. The roar of agony increased, men, women, children, weeping and cursing a god they believed had forsaken them.

Accusations, persecution, and the tearing of flesh. And then... Silence, I clung to the bottom of that child grave with my fingernails etched into the soil. Any skepticism I'd had for unseen and hidden forces had reached. proceeded, shaking violently in the cold bleakness, waited for several minutes before switching the light of my phone back on. Peering over the brim of the grave, I pulled myself silently onto the floor. The rooms were empty, all but for the broken bones and skulls of countless lives ruined by whatever evil lay in that hillside. I finally plucked up the courage,

and with nerves shredded and belief shattered, I climbed the stairs slowly. Scared. rigid at the thought of what might be waiting for me at the top. But it was my only way out. I would be damned if I was going to end my days the way those poor people had, cowering deep below. The hall was empty. As quietly as possible, I crossed the room, negotiating debris and rubble quickly but quietly, cutting through an oppressive silence,

finally exiting through the doorway to the open air. Once out of the church, I fell to my knees, quivering with anxiety as I tried to process the entire experience. My mind then flew back to what had been in that grave, and more importantly, where it was now. Then I knew. Running as fast as I could through bushes and thickets, I reached the path quickly, unimpeded by whatever evil

had blocked the settlers' escape. But I did not stop, half filled with terror, what might have been in pursuit, and half pleading for my instincts to be wrong. The air burned in my lungs as I rushed down the path. Within minutes the wooden gate was in sight, and I was off of that wretched hill, a place I would never tread again. Not for money, not for a story, not for anything.

I would have breathed a sigh of relief at this thought, but that was not in my mind. I had to get back to the inn as quickly as possible. Continuing to run as fast as I could, I fought exhaustion and the limits of my own body, and after a time across field and hedgerow, finally the laird of Dungorf Inn came into view. Staggering towards the old building, it was then that I heard it, screams of agony of terror and for mercy,

and I knew instantly where and by whom. You found jolt of stamina found me as I broke into a sprint once more, bursting through the doors into the bar. There, the room lay in silence. Villagers sat staring at their drinks while the landlord himself stood motionless. His eyes pointed to the ground. The screams continued from the rooms above.

I begged and pleaded for someone to help me, but none would listen. Realising I was alone to confront it, I broke for the stairs, but the landlord forcefully intervened, dragging me back, his arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders. Leave him, son. You can't help. He yelled as two other men at the time. attempted to restrain me. I thrust my elbow into the stomach of the landlord, behind, and then barge past the two men, knocking one to the floor. Tearing up the stairs, I followed the awful

cry straight to John's room. The door was locked. Thrusting my shoulder against the door again and again, it cracked and splintered against my efforts. With each strike I heard the garbled gasp of something unearthly inside in response. Finally, the door gave way, and in I went. for a moment I glimpsed something which looked like a man at least something which was once alive blackened and burned it turned its head as if to stare at me I cannot say whether it truly saw me

as it had no eyes to speak of in its grip was the crumpled and lifeless body of John R and then it turned wriggling through an open window carting the poor man's body behind they were both gone

The room then took on a volatile and fluid appearance. I don't know if it is the exertion of my efforts, or just being in proximity to that grotesque miscreation. But a sickness came over me, seeping through my stomach, and as I lost consciousness, I cried out in helplessness. Part five. That was several days ago. It seemed I banged my head against the floor when I collapsed

and somehow injured my leg in the process. The village doctor who examined me prescribed, me some antibiotics for what he believed to be a stomach infection and a sedative which helped ease my anxiety. With a little else to occupy me, I've committed everything I can remember about this entire horrid ordeal to paper. After all, they writer writes. Yesterday I visited John's room for the first time since he was taken. It was silent, and it felt empty in a way I've never truly known before. An absence of life is the best I can describe it. The place they ran to sack, his belonging still strewn across the floor. I assumed that no one had been in there.

The landlord was probably too frightened, but, well, I don't blame him. As I turned to leave the now vacant room, I noticed one item which looked out of place. It did not belong. On John's bed lay a withered and stained piece of paper. I knew where it had come from without even needing to read it. The last page of the Chronicle. The account of those who had settled on their head. The hill. A maze of repeated phrases in arcane and forgotten languages spread out across the crumpled and fragile paper. But one in English stood out. It simply said, No one leaves. I don't know what to make of anything anymore. I feel exhausted, yet my mind still picks over the last few days piece by piece. I'm wracked with guilt. Somehow I feel my very

presence on that hill brought whatever that was back down here to take John. Otherwise, why did it take so long? My last thought on the matter is that perhaps I've just been lucky, that I visited the hill when that thing wasn't on it, probably saved my life. In any case, regardless of how the villagers wish to explain this, I'll be reporting John's disappearance when I arrive in Glasgow, and asking the police to take a look at the number of residents who've gone missing in the area over the years.

I think they'll be surprised by the number. Oh, home seems a million. miles away, but I know that I'll be there shortly, to my own bed, another world far away from the events of the past few days. Perhaps there I'll be able to put this madness into context. I'll have never been so homesick. Hopefully I'll be there in a matter of hours, although the bus out of the village is running a little late.

Our third tale this evening is, the Catholic Church knows the truth about hell, but the documents are buried deep within the Vatican's secret archive. by the Vatican archivists. The document I'm about to leak has been highly guarded for centuries and contained sensitive information regarding the Catholic Church's knowledge about life after death. It is written by a Byzantium priest named Quintus Aurelius, who was charged by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the year 335 AD to discover, through experimentation, what information he could about heaven and hell.

Sensing his rapidly approaching death, the alien Constantine wanted to know if his faith in God had been well placed. Given this urgency, he ordered the local order of priests to uncover the truth about the afterlife using any means necessary. What follows is Father Ourelius' account of his experiment. The document has been meticulously translated from its original Latin for readability. The results of my experiment must never be shared with the public. Their minds are too feeble to comprehend such hard truths, for I fear that they are. the church's reputation would be tarnished. Our hold on the peasants is weak enough as it is.

The last thing we need is for that vile mass of ignorance and superstition to go running back to the pagan gods that we've only so recently deterred them from worshipping. But I digress. Following my meeting with Emperor Constantine, I returned to my alchemy lab to begin my experiment. My goal was simple to concoct a liquid that upon consumption first stop the heart, then reanimated it minutes later. By creating this death simulation, as it's now been aptly labelled, my hope was that participants would ascend to heaven while their hearts rested in suspended animation, and then come crashing back to Earth the moment their hearts resume their normal rhythms.

Upon awakening, they would be able to share their experiences of the afterlife and hopefully prove the existence of heaven once and for all. Oh, if I would have known then how much my experiment would have been, would test my faith, I might have given pause. As it stands, I didn't think twice about the my myriad of results my experiment might bring and began to develop my potion with further. Much to my delight, I devised the means of creating this potion by the end of the week, and after meticulously testing its efficacy on field mice, was ready to begin human trials. So I packed my bags, prepare my cart, and travelled to Petra, a secluded village,

deep in the countryside to begin my experiment. The people of Petra are meek and pious. God himself couldn't select better test subjects. Hence word of my arrival quickly spread, and soon I was swarmed in the village square by families begging to be blessed. Although I wanted to jump right into my experiment, I obliged these requests and blessed every dirt- smeared soul that supplicated themselves before me. going the blessings would have been rude. The Petrons are a superstitious people. They would have

taken my refusal as a sign of God's anger and fallen into panic. Once the blessings were complete, I ascended a nearby podium and addressed the gathered families, who gazed up at me as if I were St. Peter himself. "'People of Petra,' I began, "'I come to you bearing a marvelous gift. At the request of the Emperor, I have developed a means of of gazing upon the opulent splendor of heaven. By drinking the concoction that I have packed inside my cart, your soul will be elevated to the pearly gates for several precious minutes, before easing back down to earth, bearing spiritual knowledge, thought previously to be beyond human discernment. I paused as excited murmurs echoed throughout the crowd.

Bejoice, for you are the only town that the emperor has deemed fit to partake in such a holy pilgrimage. The piety and goodness of Petra is known throughout the empire. No other city is better deserving of God's grace. So, step up while time remains and consume the drink that Jesus Christ himself would have bestowed upon his disciples. Now the Petron's clamored towards my cards, pushing and shoving each other like children battling for a promised piece of candy. I administered doses of my potion as fast as my fingers allowed. Until ten minutes later, every man, woman and child gathered in the square, possessed a vial. May God bless you all as you begin your journey, I said, reascending the podium.

Raise your vials now and drink. Carrying with you the goodwill of the emperor. My heart quickened as the gathered crowd emptied their vials. Her eyes burned with excitement as the liquid splashed down their throats. other than the faint whispering of the wind which had picked up with the arrival of the setting sun what a sound could be heard one by one the petrons tumbled to the ground as their heart stopped although i gazed upon this dramatic spectacle with expectant eyes my breath still seized at the sight of so many lifeless bodies languishing under the purple clouds even their chests were still

I was the only being in Petra that still drew breath. As the minutes ticked by and the still Petrons laid lifeless before me, I began to fear that my potion had killed them. The hearts of the mice that had served as my initial subjects had only fallen dormant for three minutes. Seven minutes had now passed since the Petrons had first downed their vials, and not a single soul had awakened. I cursed myself for performing my first human trial on such a large group of people. My excitement to uncover the truths that my potion had the potential to reveal had clouded my reason.

Had my mind been operating with its normal precision, I would have begun my experiment on a single subject. Then, if the results had been favourable, would have proceeded to offer the potion to a population like the one laying before me now. As it stood, I had rushed blindly into a large-scale human trial, and now faced the possibility that I had unwillingly murdered an entire city of law. loyal Christians. Just as I was about to fall into despair, a woman near the back of the crowd inhaled a raspy breath and sat up with such speed that I marveled that her neck didn't snap. Her eyes were wired with shock and stress lines dominated her forehead.

Moments later, another Petron bolted up from the ground, whimpering and slobbing like a crazed lunatic. I flashed the man, an admonishing look. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties and should have known better than to delve into such histrionics in public. As he dashed his hands to his neck and tore out his own throat, though, my look of consternation quickly morphed into one of pure terror. I watched in stunned silence as more patrons regain consciousness. Their expressions ranged from shaken to downright crazed. A frenzied energy filled the air as dozens of blood curled in shriek sounded, sending the birds,

clamouring from the nearby trees and into the velvet sky. Never before had I witnessed such a chaotic scene. What follows is my account of these poor souls' initial reactions to my potion, which is burned forever in my mind, like the vivid visions of a fever dream. The two men closest to the podium threw themselves down a nearby well and became wedged halfway down the stone shaft, which had been too narrow for them to travel fully down. Their spines cleaved in half as their bodies formed into right angles, chins and feet facing the sky while their bloated bellies arched down towards the tainted water. To my left, a half-dozen women pulled out their hair, thread by thread, until their scalps laid in tatters on their bloody shoulders. During the entirety

of this sadistic spectacle, they babbled about eternal darkness and lakes of fire, making even my blood rancourt. Before I had a chance to calm them to, down, they sprinted across the field, flanking the city and hurled themselves off of a cliff. They laughed hysterically as they fell, but then their skulls struck their jagged rocks dominating the crooked gulch below, silencing them forever. Three men near the middle of the crowd pounded their heads on the stone-filled ground until they fell unconscious. Blood poured from their wounds like crimson wine as the panic mass thrashing around them trampled over their limbs like stampeding cattle. All around me, the lives of the poor petrons were snuffed out in increasingly

abominable ways, until eventually all that remained of the village were children, the mentally handicapped, and a handful of adults whose temperaments were hearty enough to endure the horrors that they'd witnessed during their pilgrimage. The monumental effort it took to regain order supersedes my ability to put into words. All the survivors could do was blabber, almost incoherently, about the visions of hell that had been inflicted upon them until their throats turned raw. The children, much to my surprise, remained remarkably serene, especially given the deaths of many of their parents.

Suffice it to say that I eventually calmed everyone down and influenced those who remain to return to their homes, leaving me and a few volunteers to clean the square. After allowing the patrons two days' rest, I began my interviews, The information that they shared with me shook me to my core and has left me questioning my faith in God. If the surviving patrons didn't possess such reverence for the church,

they would have crucified me for inflicting such profound suffering upon them. I promised their magnificent visions of heaven, yet my potion had transported them to the deepest pits of hell. Whether this was a result of some unknown defect within my concoctual, or sins on their own behalf I did not yet know. After giving the survivors time to recover from their pilgrimage, and mourn the dead, I ushered them in small groups to the picturesque church on the hill

behind the village square to begin my interviews. Despite the massive tragedy wrought by the experiment, I still needed to procure what information I could from the patrons about the afterlife. Emperor Constantine fervently awaited my report. He is an impatient man and one that I was. didn't want to anger. These interviews continued for days and took such a toll on my mental and physical health that I aged ten years. Never before had my faith in God been tested so rigorously. Despair descended over me with each word that tumbled from the Petron's mouths.

A picture of the afterlife they painted was not only bleak but cruel and defied everything that I thought I knew about the Christian faith. Although I took extensive notes over the Petron's revelations, organizing and then transcribing these notes would take months. Given the importance of the information that I have to share, I've decided to only convey the high points, so to speak, of my interviews, which form a common narrative. May God have mercy on our souls. In the immediate moments after their heart stopped, a red light overcame the Petron

senses. They described this red lighters originating from inside them and shuddered when I asked them to elaborate. Rather than give me the detailed description that I desired, all they would say was that the light felt evil. Not only did it send their nerve endings exploding with white-hot pain, but it also inhaled thundering, raspy breaths while yanking them into the abyss. As their life forces flooded from their bodies, they felt their mind. They felt their mind. or possibly souls, detached from corporeality and descend into a dense black pain. Given that they were now bodiless, they were completely immobilized in this plain and subjected to what might be best described as infinite nothingness.

According to them, time slowed down to almost a standstill in this darkness. They went through great lengths to persuade me that they spent the equivalent of dozens of lifetimes wallowing in this abyss, like rocks submerged in a murky lake. Just as they feared that what remained of their consciousness might tumult into insanity, a cacophonous tearing sound erupted over the plain, bringing with it the intense red light. What happened next I can hardly commit to paper, for it defies everything I thought I knew about the natural sciences in Christian metaphysics. Given that Emperor Constance, seen himself is waiting on this report, though, I'll do my best to relate to the entirety of

the Petron's experience. Following this immense tearing sound, the Petron's souls were transmogrified into seeds of flesh, for I know not what else to call them. These seeds were about an inch in diameter, covered with minuscule orifices. They languished in despair as their consciousness were tethered to these seeds, which possessed no faculties for movement. All they could do was exist inside their newfound bodies, like the prisoners chained to the walls of Plato's cave. Before they hardly had time to adjust to their fleshy cages, these seeds rapidly expanded in size. This expansion occurred at such an explosive pace that they were ignorant of its cause. Soon their orifices resemble gaping holes, which burrowed deep into their wrinkled flesh like dank crevices.

Out of these orifices first sprang a torso, followed by limbs and a head. Such pain accompanied the sudden growth of these appendages that the Petrons visibly trembled as they recounted the experience. Their new bodies contained similar proportions to human beings, but possessed grey skin and were entirely sexless. Now that the Petrons have regained sight, they could gaze upon the hellish world that they'd been resurrected into. A putrid yellow lake of boiling acid stretched as far as their eyes could see. Spanning this lake was an obsidian bridge, black as night, which began at the rocky ledge on which

they now stood and ended at the entrance of an equally black city. The spires of this city ascended miles into the cloudless red sky and were sharpened into rough, jagged edges. trundling along the bridge and into the city were millions of the recently deceased. Each one possessed a similar grey body as the patrons and brandished intense looks of despair. The bridge groaned under their collected weight. No matter how many bodies were crammed onto its formidable surface though, it held strong and rippled malevolently into the rancid yellow glow of the lake.

Occasionally, someone would trip and, and go plummeting, head over heels, into this lake. They sent forth blood-curdling screams as their skin was scolded by its acidity, and were left flailing in the viscous liquid for an eternity. As a result, the lake was overbrimming with grey heads, which drifted along the desolate surface as their bodies slowly dissolved, but never entirely disintegrated. The patrons were compelled to approach this bridge by an invisible force,

so powerful that it stole the air from their withered lungs. Their feet moved against their will, and before long they were crossing this bridge along with the endless sea of other unfortunate souls. When they reached the city, they were crammed into the bottom level of the spires like vermin. Before they could even assess their new surroundings, they were lifted and locked into harnesses, which bore them slowly towards a massive red door. No matter how aggressively they struggled against, their harnesses, chains, they remained ensnared. The guttural cries of the dead frenzied into a crescendo as they were swept through the red door and disappeared into the room beyond. It was while in this room that the Petrins first encountered the denizens of hell.

The chains ensnaring the Petron's limbs groaned as the alien mechanism whirling above their heads carried them through the red door. They descended at a steep incline into a dead. dank cave deep below the spire which reeked of death and decay. Many of the Petrons refused to continue their accounts beyond this point. What took place in this cave traumatized them, and they may never recover from the heinous crimes they were forced to endure. It was only after I depleted all of the persuasive techniques at my disposal that they agreed to resume their narratives. But even then, at least a dozen of the patrons suffered nervous breakdowns, which I fear may have forever shattered what remained of their sanity. Standing on jet-black platform surrounding this

cave were the demons of hell. Their appearances spanned from blindingly seductive to shockingly grotesque. Every few seconds their faces, or occasionally their entire bodies, would drastically morph, as if their human-like features were masks disguising their true forms. Only their sizes remained constant. Each demon towered twelve feet above the ground and cast desolate shadows along the cave walls. The patrons trembled as their harnesses bore them ever closer to these frightful beings. All around them the cries of the deceased echoed around the cave, which reached such volume that dust and bits of rock rained down from the vaulted ceiling. Immediately after the Petrons cleared the Red Door, thick steel bars exploded from their harnesses and locked their limbs into place.

So restrictive were these bars that they couldn't even turn their heads. All they could do was stare forward in frightful agony as the demons looming along the cave walls grew ever closer. Although I'm often lauded for my calm heart and stoicism, the agonies the Petron suffered at the hands of these demons causes me to shudder even now. No human beings, especially loyal Christians, should be forced to endure such calamities. As it stands, not even the Petron's faith could save them from their fates, which were taking such a bleak turn that they could do nothing but lament their very existences. One by one these demons plucked the Petrons from their harnesses and consumed their limbs. Their teeth were stronger than diamonds and cleared flesh and bone in a single bite.

Once nothing remained of the Petrons but desecrated torsomes, the demons would strap them back into their harnesses, where new limbs would sprout from their orifices like bloody saplings. The steel bars would then relock with tendon snapping force, and their woeful procession would continue towards the next demon. This process continued until the demons had had their fill, which required so many rotations around the cave that the Petron's lost count. many of them went insane from the trauma of having their limbs continuously consumed and gnawed off their tongues the moment their heads grew back by most accounts they spent months in this cave their wrinkled gray torsos developed rancid sores from the chains that spanned their chests and backs and dripped pus incessantly down into the chasm below eventually time lost all meaning for the patrons their consciousness were consumed by nothing but pain, which dominated every moment of their pitiful lives. When this procession finally stopped, the patrons cried out to God to save them from such incessant torture. God didn't respond, though, and instead the alien mechanism thundering above

their heads roared back into life and bore them slowly towards the chasm below. The demons stared at them longingly as they descended. as if at any moment they might resume their barbaric menagerie. The lower the petron sank, the hotter the air became. Eventually the temperature became so extreme that their eyeballs withered and sunk deep into their skulls. If it wasn't for the screams of their companions which billowed around them like banishy shrieks, they would have been entirely without sense perceptions. As they continued their plunge into the depths below, their mouths below, their mouths.

met similar fate to their eyes, silencing even the loudest of their cries. After the Petron sank for so long that their experiences in the cave became distant memory, the mechanism stopped, sending them jolting forward into their chains with such force that their ribs cracked. What follows is a torment so sinister that only the King of Shadows could devise it. Following a mechanical screech so jarring it exploded the Petron's eardrums, Their harnesses started spinning. This spinning doubled in speed every ten seconds until the force of the air was enough to bruise their bodies.

So violent did this be become that the petrons couldn't even form thoughts. All they could do was languish in their chains as their brains vibrated inside their skulls like locust wings. Accounts of how long this spinning continued varies from petron to petron. Some say it lasted no more than a few days, while others say it lasted for several years. Regardless, the vile experience they endured in this second room shattered what remained of their spirits

and drove the majority of them past the brink of insanity. Well, the patrons regained consciousness in the village square before this spinning concluded, which leaves me with countless questions. Would their harnesses have eventually propelled them into additional chambers? Or is this violent spinning the final fate of poor souls cast into hell. Either option strikes fear in my heart,

for both surpass the threshold of human endurance. Given the horrors the Petron's experience during their pilgrimage, it's no wonder that many of them acted so crazed during the final moments of their lives. They were pushed well beyond the limits of suffering. Even the most heartless of villains would have had no choice but to take pity on their unfortunate souls. For this reason,

I have to ask. Why did God allow the patrons to be cast into the pits of hell? They're model Christians. If not even their piety is enough to ascend to heaven, then we must certainly all be doomed. Can God really be so cruel? Does our father truly have such lofty expectations for his children? If believing in Jesus Christ isn't enough to forgive us our sins, then what must we do in order to avoid a similar fate as the pen? I leave you to be the judge, for my mind is growing weary, and I must move on to my account

of the children's experience while my candle still burns. My hand trembles as I reflect on the freakishness of their tale, which has left me with more questions regarding our faith than even the grotesque venture of their parents. Gathered the children into the pews of the sanctuary and ushered them in one by one, into the pulpit so I could interview them. They were surprising eloquent for their ages, especially given the trauma they just endured. Descriptions of their pilgrimage poured from their mouths like milk and honey from the promised land, and painted such in a truce picture of the afterlife that it left my heart galloping inside my chest. Unlike their parents, the children were overtaken by a blue light after their heart stopped rather than a red

one. The light consumed their entire being. They became the light, and for a time, lost all notions of self. But then this light exploded like yoke from a cracked egg and sent them plummeting towards a landscape so alien I find it nearly impossible to rationalize. Towering trees dominated this landscape. Leaves bluer than the sky covered each jagged branch which shook violently from the gusting wind.

Each trunk was a different shade of white and possessed so many wrinkles they looked like ancient skin. The children huddled under these trees as yellow rain began to pour from the sky. This rain fell in unbroken streams rather than single droplets, and despite the protection of the leaves, the children soon became soaked. So thick was this rain that they could hardly breathe. All they could do was clutch the withered trunks with trembling arms and pray that each breath they took wouldn't be their last.

Just as the children were on the verge of panicking, Three creatures came barreling through the trees behind them and scoop them up with massive arms. These creatures had human faces, but were missing mouths and noses. Instead, two sets of eyes dominated their ivory white skin, which blinked independently from each other. They had four arms and four legs and sucked in air through gaping, toothy orifices on their backs. The children clung on for dear life as these creatures whisked them away into a nearby cave. This cave stretched for miles and wound upwards rather than downwards. Its walls were made of smooth white rock that glistened from the light spilling from the creature's

eyes. The creatures placed the kids on their shoulders, grasped these walls with each of their appendages and shimmied upwards like spiders. They moved with such speed that soon the children's arms ached from the effort of holding on. Air billowed around them like thunderstorm gusts and blew their hair back. from their brows. Eventually they came upon a sprawling chamber. The creatures placed them back onto the ground and then ushered them through the weathered archway that served as the chamber's

entrance. This chamber was filled with every toy imaginable. Dolls, balls, swings, wooden swords, any toy that a youthful soul could ever want. Additionally, thousands of children were milling about the chamber, playing with these toys and each other, as if they were siblings. Their joyous laughter echo pleasantly off of the stone walls, and their footsteps reverberated through the air like notes from a perfectly tuned drum. The creatures gently pushed the Petron children toward the toys. Their eyes glimmered with mirth as they surveyed the lively scene in front of them, as if they were the loving parents of every child dancing through their shadows. After a few moments' hesitation, the Petron's approach the toys,

and soon were bouncing around the alabaster walls with all of the other children. The fun they had in this chamber cannot be understated. Time slipped by in indeterminable chunks as they befriended every new child they came across and tested the diversity of toys like gluttons tasting wine at a symposium. Just as the patrons were beginning to feel at home in their new environment, a base-filled chart exploded through the air, followed by a searing red light. The Petrons watched as the children around them pivoted southwards and prostrated themselves. "'The servants are coming,' said a nearby child.

"'Whose servants?' said Claudius, the oldest of the Petrons. "'The servants of the grinning man.' Before Claudius could respond, six entities similar to the demons the adults had encountered in the depths of hell ascended through a chasm in the middle of the chamber and landed silently on the stones. Their massive frames made the prostrated children below look like ants. The patrons watched as these entities plucked armfuls of children from the ground and disappeared back into the chasm. After the last entity vanished from sight, the chanting and red light vanished,

and the children regained their feet and continued plain. Where did they go? Asked Claudius, grabbing a passing boy by the arm. The other petrons were cowering behind him like frightened lambs. To see the grinning man, said the boy, yanking his arm away. Don't you know anything? Who's the grinning man? He's the king of this place.

He takes care of us. Where is he? I want to meet him. The boy laughed. The only way to see the grinning man is if he chooses to bring you to his castle. "'Where's that?' The boy pointed at the chasm. "'Down there.'

Claudius's eyes drifted over to the hole, which split the ivory floor like a tarp hit. "'What happens at the grinning man's castle?' The boy shrugged his shoulders. "'Nobody knows. "'None of the kids who've ever been taken there have returned.' Before Claudius could respond, the boy picked up his ball and disappeared into the throng of cheer.

children speeding behind them. Although the Petrans were shaken by the spectacle they just witnessed, eventually the din of the hundreds of children dancing around them recommanded their attention and they drifted back toward the toys. A few hours later the ear-splitting chanting once again filled the chamber, followed by the blinding red light. The Petrons watched in awe as the grinning man's servants burst through the chasm once more and landed ten feet to their right.

Despite the fear coursing through their veins like snake poison, their feet remained rooted to the ground, as if they were being constricted by an invisible force. They watched in horror, as these entities scooped up a group of nearby children, then turned in their direction. "'Stay behind me,' said Claudius, doing his best to keep his voice calm.

All three of the entities snapped their eyes onto his. "'Grab him,' said the largest of the entities. "'His soul is worth that of three men. "'I can sense it.' The patrons cried as Claudius was grabbed by a monstrous hand, then carried down the chasm looming beneath their feet, like a cancerous sore. The frightened shrieks of the other children fill Claudius' ears as the entities plummeted down the chasm. They descended with such speed that the stone walls passed by in a blur.

Soon Claudius' eyes stung from the force of the oscillating air, so he shut them and prayed that this nightmare would be over soon. They landed several minutes later on a bed of jet-black rocks. The children whimpered as their eyes were greeted by a pulsating red light. This light was sourseless and clogged the air as if it were a physical substance. Despite the fear clouding his vision like sheets of ice, Claudius remained outwardly calm. He knew that he needed to keep his wits if he ever wanted to reunite with his friends. So he remained thoughtful as the entities lurched forward into the narrow passageway in front of them,

inquisitive mind straining to develop an escape plan. This passageway wound deep into the earth and was blanketed by a dense fog. The red light saturated this fog, giving it the appearance of bloody mist. The deeper they descended, the thicker this fog came, until eventually the children were gasping for air. No matter how valiantly they struggled to breathe though, their lungs remained empty. It was as if the air had been replaced by water and they were slowly drowning to death. Just as the children were moments away from blacking out, the entity shot out of this passageway like speeding arrows and entered a sprawling cavern.

In the middle of this cavern towered a black structure unlike any Claudius had ever seen before. Obsidian walls undulated like jagged hills over a yellow acidate lake and were blacked by three hexagonal spires that stretched from miles into the phosphorescent air. These spires were dotted with large barred windows which shook from the yanking of invisible hands. The entities carried the children across the drawbridge spanning the lake and through the crimson door that served to the castle's entrance. Sitting in a desk just beyond this door, was a red-skinned man. How many?

He asked the entities, bored eyes, half-heartedly scanning the children's faces. Twenty-six. The red-skinned man jotted the number down on the parchment in front of him. Thank you. Take them to storage. Without another word,

the entities carried them into a hallway behind the desk. The hallway was lit by torches spaced intermittently around the Gothic, walls, which cast ominous shadows onto the floor like insidious puppeteers. Eventually they came upon a staircase that wound deep under the floor. The entities carried them down this staircase, two steps at a time, then passed into a vast, dank cellar. This cellar was impossibly massive given its position in the castle and was filled with black, coffin-like boxes. These boxes were stacked as far as Claudius' eyes could see.

sea and emanated horse guttural screams. Get the boxes ready, said the largest entity to his partners. I'll load them in. The other two entities grabbed an armfuls of boxes from a nearby closet and spread them evenly across the floor. The sound of wood scraping across stone mixed with the muffled shrieks, causing the blood to drain from the children's faces. Once the entities were done opening the boxes, they receded into the background with their arms crossed behind their backs, like slaves awaiting their next command. After taking a moment to inspect the lids, the remaining entity grabbed the children and stuffed them inside of the boxes, leaving only Claudius free from the claustrophobic

prisons. Claudius watched in terror, as he pounded massive black nails into the lids, then tossed the boxes on top of the nearest stack. The frighten shrieks of the children intermixed with the frantic crying of the other poor souls trapped inside the boxes and soon became indistinguishable. They were like vermin trapped under the floorboards of a dilapidated house. They were completely ensnared by their wooden coffins, which loom so closely over their panicked bodies they couldn't even raise their heads. Don't you even think of running?

said the entity, reading Claudius's mind. you're needed in the inner sanctum he turned his head towards the other entities unload ten boxes and do it quickly we're behind schedule the entities hurried over to the stacks grabbed ten boxes and placed them on the ground they then tore off the lids with their bare hands revealing pale shivering bodies that barely looked human stand up said the largest entity his command was met by crazed sobs. He surveyed the pitiful bodies languishing in front of him, then turned around to address the other entities. Looks like their minds have spoiled. How long have they been incubating? About six hundred years. He grunted. They should still be ripe then. I suppose children

are growing feebler, will shorten the incubation period to five hundred years and see how they fared. "'Yes, sir.' "'I'll grab them and follow me.' "'Glorius was lifted into the air by a rough, fetid hand, "'which gripped his ribs so tightly he feared that they may crack. "'To his left and right dangled two children "'whose faces had gone blank from insanity. "'Her eyes were shriveled and crossed,

"'and their tongues had been chewed down to pulpy stumps. "'Took all of the energy that Glorious could muster to remain calm. panic threatened to overtake his every breath he imagined having to suffer inside the castle for an eternity and blink back the tears forming behind his eyes eventually they came upon a glowing crimson door even more massive than the one that fronted the castle standing beside this door was the red-skin man holding a wrinkled scroll

you're late he said i am the largest entity apologies there were some delays you know he hates being kept waiting. The entity cast his gaze towards the floor. Regardless, I can see you've brought him quite the catch. He smiled at Claudius. I have. May we enter?

You may. The red-skin man snapped his fingers. Behind him the crimson door spluttered to life and swung open on groaning hinges, revealing a colossal chamber. In the middle of this chamber, towered an imposing black throne on which sat the most beautiful man Claudius had ever seen. The moment this man saw Claudius and the other children being carried into the chamber, he grin.

Never a Claudius felt so violated, then, as the grinning man's yellow eyes stroked his flesh through the shadows. He felt like a prized cattle standing in front of a butcher who at any moment could raise his knife and sever his jugular. Only the grinning man wanted his soul instead of his meat, and for what purpose Claudius shuddered to think. Bring them closer, said the grinning man. I want a better look at them.

The entities heaved Claudius and his companions across the chamber. Their arms constricted from the force of their combined weight, sending the air blasting from Claudius' lungs. After performing a series of prostrations, the entities sat the children down. down on the black stones beneath the grinning man's feet. The grinning man's jagged throne loon menacingly over their heads, making Claudius feel dizzy. Wonderful, he continued. They're perfect, especially him. He pointed at Claudius. We only

find a child with a soul as powerful as his once every millennium. Where is he from? Petra, said the largest entity. He's a new arrival. interesting it's been many long years since a patron has walked through these dogs claudius's skin writhed under the grinning man's gaze he wanted nothing more than to flee from the chamber but his legs felt lethargic and boneless beneath him thank you master said the entity that's why i skipped his incubation period i figured that you would want to see him immediately ah you thought right by the time i'm through with him him be one of my most powerful servants. The wars of this castle will tremble from the simple uttering of his name. He leaned forward on his throne and addressed Claudius. Don't look so glow. Your life has a purpose now and one far grander than any you can find in Rome. He rose to his feet. Enough conversation. Let's begin. The gritting man strode across the

chair with such force the wall shook. His body grew with each step he took. By the time he reached the children, Claudius had to strain his neck just to see his face. Claudius watched in horror as his hands morphed into black withered claws. These claws had disease-ridden orifices languishing in the middle of their palms, which pulsated with a menacing darkness. This darkness tainted the surrounding air and filled the chamber with a sordid haze. After taking a few moments to survey the children with his children with his own.

yellow eyes. The grinning man grabbed two of them with hooked talons and dragged them across the chamber. They screamed as their bare feet slid across the core stones, breaking their toes and lacerating their skin. What happened next to these poor children turns my stomach. How can such meek and innocent souls be forced to endure such blasphemies? Tears fill my eyes as I write this, for even the memory of their experience burdens my heart. with dread, once the children were only inches away from his feet. The grinning man reared back his arms and consumed their heads with the orifices in his palms. The children's bodies heaved and quivered as their faces were caressed by the darkness. The grinning man's face trembled

with ecstasy as the children struggled to free themselves from his suction-like grasp. Their struggles only cause them to sink even deeper into his orifices, though, until eventually their necks passed into the toxic pits. Chills rippled across Claudius's body as their guttural screams sliced through the air. No matter how badly he wanted to help them though, he knew that his attempt would end in disaster. The grinning man now towered 20 feet into the air.

Not even the strength of ten men could overpower him. All he could do was to sit there on the stones and wallow in despair as his companion descended into a beautiful. Olivia. The ensnared children flounders, at first their torsos were consumed by the orifices and then their legs. If it wasn't for the panic shrieks reverberating through the chamber, Claudius would have thought that they'd been completely eviscerated. Several agonizing minutes later, the gritting man raised his hands into the air. His orifices opened with an ear splitting snap, revealing two red-skinned men.

their bodies were remarkably similar to that of the two children's, but their bodies were supple and strong. Your transformations are complete, said the grinning man. May you serve in my kingdom for the rest of eternity. Leave now and attend to the duties I have bestowed upon you. The red-skinned man bowed and exited through the crimson doors. Now that the children had witnessed what would soon be their fate, they started sobbing uncontrolled.

controllably. Even the cross-eyed children beside Claudius, whose minds he thought had fallen entirely dormant, wailed at the sight of the grinning man's dripping orifices. Only Claudius remained calm. His mind reeled from the effort of developing a means of escaping. No matter how hard he tried to think of suitable ideas, though, every time his eyes locked onto the grinning man's sadistic face, all of his epiphanies vanished into the putrid air. Grinning Man grabbed two more children and consumed their bodies with his palms. These poor victims struggled even harder than the previous unfortunate songs. Their limbs jettisoned through the air like severed tentacles,

and their screams reached such volume that their larynxes ruptured with an audible tear. But then the grinning man raised his arms once again into the air, and their screams morphed into joyous laughter as their bodies donned new flesh. Claudius watched in terror as the grinning man turned all of his companions into red-skinned men. Their cries wound through the air like animals being slaughtered, and were only silenced when their tormentor released his hold on their emaciated frames and sent their new bodies trundling through the crimson doors, hive minds, coutowing to his hypnotic commands.

When only Claudius remained, the grinning man banished the entities from the chamber and regarded him with ravenous eyes. It's only you and I now, he said. Don't be afraid, I have such sight to show you. Claudia screamed as the gritting man wrapped his claws around his head and lifted him into the air. Pain exploded in his spine from the strain inflicted on his neck, but he resisted the urge to cry.

He didn't want to give the grinning man the satisfaction of watching him, And Claudius reached the base of his eyes. The grinning man paused. Yellow dominated the entirety of Claudius' vision. The grinning man's irises glowed like torches in front of him and radiated such heat that the saliva evaporated from his mouth. No matter how badly he wanted to look away, though, his gaze remained transfixed on the yellowness swimming before him, as if he were hypnotized. "'Praise yourself,' said the grinning man, "'for your transformation will be an arduous process. "'When it's complete, your power will only be second to my own.

"'Not even the angels in heaven will dare test your strength.' Claudius' limbs went numb as an unseen force constricted his body. The sudden relaxation of his muscles caused his bowels to release and his arms to spasm. He couldn't even blink his eyes, much less struggle as the luminosity. of the grinning man's gaze intensified and sent bright dots dancing across his pupils. The brightness of the grinning man's irises increased to the point that Claudius feared he would go blind. Dark spots slid across his eyes like flowing lava and were only broken up by patches of yellow and red. If his throat didn't feel like it had been stuffed with pounds of cotton, he would have screamed.

Just as what remained of Claudius' vision was about to tumult into darkness, a tearing sound exploded above his head and he and the grinning man went soaring into a shadow-filled room. Chained to the walls of this room were creatures so grotesque they make Claudius's stomach real. Passus from the pores of their yellow skin and their faces were jagged and angular, as if their skulls had been partially crushed. Don't be frightened, said the grinning man. These are my children, and they won't harm you. The creatures howled at the sound of the grinning man's voice like hounds reunited with their long absent master immediately after their cries died in their throats they pulled against their chains with all of their might in an attempt to free themselves

luckily the black metal held firm they are soulless that's why their behavior is so erratic if the grinning man's claws weren't wrapped around his shoulders claudius would have bolted from the room Never before had he witnessed such psychotic behaviour, the creatures writhing in front of him would have torn each other to shreds if their chains weren't so powerful. Instead, they eyed each other hungrily through the darkness, as if they were fighting to prove their ferociousness to the grinning man. I can sense your soul. It has been many centuries since one of their siblings has received such a profound gift and they are desperate to tear away your flesh. worry not though I won't allow them to succumb to such base behaviour I'm a civilise man

Your union will be controlled and deliberate As tradition demands Claudius cringed as the grinning man's claws dug deeper into his flesh Blood poured from his wounds in crimson streams And plastered his tunic to his back The coppers scent of his blood sent the creatures spiraling into a frenzy They struggled against their chest

chains with such force, dust rained down from the ceiling. They then howled like feral dogs fighting over a bone as they sniffed the air. But the grinning man said something in a language Claudius had never heard before, and they all fell silent. They are growing restless. Pick the one you want to merge with, and we will begin. Claudia stared down at the ground. Like the fabled Spartans of Greece, he had accepted his death,

and refused to either struggle. against or aid the grinning man as he performed his demented ritual silence will not save you if you refuse to choose then the contest will decide your fate as it has countless souls before you claudius remained silent still you abstain fine let the contest proceed the grinning man dripped a pool of claudius's blood onto the middle of the floor with a hooked talon and snapped his fingers and released the creatures from their chains. The creatures threw themselves at one another like rabbit wolves. Black blood cascaded through the air and splattered against the walls

as their teeth ripped flesh from both. Only their guttural howls could be heard over the incessant tearing, which ripped through the air like cacophonous banshee shrieks. Eventually their teeth found each other's throats and sent their howls tumbling out of the open wounds in their necks. Black blood poured down their bodies in viscous rivulets, making their withered yellow skin look like rotten fiper husks in the shadows. The grinning man's claws tightened around Claudius's shoulders

and very nearly sliced through his tendons. Claudius hardly noticed the pain, though, for his attention was consumed by the malicious menagerie wreaking havoc in front of him. As the fight wore on, the brutal violence became too much for Claudius to bear. Not even his monumental bravery could influence him to continue watching as the creatures devoured limbs with teeth sharper than tempered steel. So he closed his eyes and tried to imagine what he was back home in Petra, laying beneath the trees behind his home, or running through the meadow beyond the village outskirts.

When the gruesome sounds finally ceased several minutes later, he opened his eyes. Crouched in the middle of the chamber was a single creature whose mouth was caked with the gore of his siblings. His yellow eyes stared longingly at him as if it could already taste his soul. Ah, we have a match, said the grinning man, and what a match it will be. Your union will shake the pillars of heaven

and cause even God to tremble. Claudius closed his eyes as the grinning man tightened his grip on his shoulders. He could feel his putrid breath crashing against the back of his neck like furnace fumes. and resisted the urge to gag. The surviving creature clamoured forward through the shadows.

Black blood ooves from its lacerated skin as it crawled on all falls across the colorless stones, clawed hands reaching for Claudius like spectral knives, hurtling through a pool of murky water. "'Don't resist,' said the grinning man. "'Only a handful of souls have had the privilege of merging with one of my sons. You're receiving a marvelous gift.' Claudia shivered as the creature wrapped a blood-smeared hand around his ankle.

His shin exploded with pain from the force of its grip, which was tight enough to crumple steel. The bond has been made. Your souls will soon intertwine. Tales of your union will echo through hell for an eternity. Claudia screamed as the skin surrounding the creature's claw turned black. His nerve endings writhed as an alien sensation spread rapidly across his life. leg, which felt like dozens of hornets simultaneously jamming their stingers deep into his paws. Before his mind hardly had time to register, much less rationalize, the decomposition of his skin, the creature's hand began to sink deep within the blackened husk that had once been his

leg. Such pain accompanied his sudden merging. He would have blacked out if it wasn't for the adrenaline pumping through his veins like gelatinous opium. For the first time, since the entering the nightmarish chamber, Claudius offered up a desperate prayer to God. Although, like all men he was a sinner, surely his sins weren't deserving of such a brutal punishment. He was only a child, after all. Did God not pity the innocent and reward the faithful, like in the Bible passages his mother read to him before bed? Despite the urgency of his prayers, Claudius' pitiful pleas went unanswered, and the creature wrapped his other claw around his arm and dragged him to the ground.

The force of the creature's bullying shattered his collarbone and sent stars dancing across his tear-stained vision. He grimaced as shards of bone went tearing through his flesh, causing warm blood to spill down upon his chest. This pain was quickly forgotten, though, as the creature's arm began to merge with his own,

creating a sensation so detestable his heart rate tripled. Claudius tried to pull away from the creature, spluttering before him, but his struggles did nothing but hasten the merging of their limbs. His arm and leg was now entirely consumed by its yellow flesh, and his face was no more than two feet away from its snarling mouth. It was as his eyes locked onto the bloodshot corneas of his assailant that the first felt an insidious presence slithering through his consciousness. This presence felt inhuman and evil, as if it were an extension of the creature.

as solid aura. Claudius's vision darkened as his soul became tainted with his twisted presence. He could sense its vile thoughts as clearly as his own and trembled as a single word

dominated his awareness. Mate! The creature grabbed his arm and yanked him on top of its body. Their skin formed a singular black mass that hissed and gurgled as his pale skin melted from his bone. Despite the agony threatening to tumult his sanity into oblivion, he ignored this pain,

for all he could focus on was the demented consciousness overtaking his own. Just as what remained of his soul was moments away from being consumed by the creature, a searing red light erupted in the chamber. This light exploded the grinning man's eyes and sent him plummeting to the ground. Floating in the middle of this light was a faceless black mass that unduly, across the stones in spasmodic leaps. Although this shadow silhouette possessed arms and legs, it was clearly inhuman

and exuded such malice that it made the creature writhing on top of Claudius looked like a newborn pup. Master, said the grinning man, black blood splashing down his cheeks. Your arrival comes as a surprise. A booming voice echoed across the chamber. This voice was pure bass, and spoke such a vile sounding language that each syllable constricted Claudius's lungs.

The grinning man bristled as this voice washed over him, then struggled to his feet. I don't understand, he said. The children were promised to me. Why interfere? The booming voice uttered a single sound with such authority that it sent the grinning man plummeting back to his knees. Yes, master, I understand, please, forgive my insolence. The boy is yours to do with as you please. The grinning man snapped his fingers. Claudius's limbs were released from the creature's hold.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the creature's tainted presence flooded from his spirit, and he regained full control of his consciousness. His relief didn't last long, though. For a few moments later, he was lifted into the air by an invisible fall. and went careening, headfirst, into the black mass dominating the chamber. Darkness flooded Claudius' entire being. Scolting tendrils of pure blackness snaked across his body, burning his skin and filling his mouth and nose with a fetid stench.

Never before had he felt such despair. The black mass writhing around him radiated cruelty like burning coal does heat, rubbing him of all mobility. all he could do was languish in the air as his life force leapt from his deteriorating body. Just as he was about to scream from the agony splitting his nerves, a malicious presence entered his consciousness and silenced his scream inside his throat. His presence felt exponentially more powerful than the creatures and filled him with despair. He tried to resist this presence as infiltrated his spirit, but his struggles were pointless.

He could no more combat such unspeakable evil and a fly can a titan. So he relinquished his soul to the blackness, billowing around him, like biting hurricane winds, and shuddered as what remained of his awareness was buried under a mountain of hatred and wickedness. The last thing he remembered before regaining consciousness in Petra was a booming voice endlessly repeating the same message inside his head. God is dead. By the time Claudius finished his account,

Knight had descended over Petra, and my inkpot was nearly empty. The pulpit was illuminated by a single candle, which sent our shadows cascading into the first row of pews. I leaned back in my chair, trying desperately to rationalise such a harrowing interview. No matter how hard I pondered the child's words, though, my face remained visibly shaken.

I felt like my faith had been irreparably tartary, How could I believe in a God that allowed such cruelties to be inflicted on his faithful children? If the results of my experiment are accurate which I believe them to be, then we must come to terms with a simple truth. Hell is coming for us all. God is not as merciful as he appears to be. Simply believing in his righteousness is not enough to cleanse us of our sins. Man has fallen into a pit far too deep to climb out of and I fear that he will languish there for the rest of eternity With his frightful revelation reverberating incessantly through my mind

I escorted Claudius and the other children back to their homes Then drifted off into a light sleep plagued with brutal nightmares When I awoke the next morning all of the Petron children were missing The chapel had also been desecrated Slaughter goats and cattle were strewn across the pews Which were sworn with buzzing flies Scrawled below the cross tearing above the porpoets Was a single message written in blood

God is dead Our final tale this evening is the parish depths By Cameron Campbell The dank wretched scent of frail estuary fish and perverse chemicals pervaded the cabin of the ancient stake-coach with a particular saturation I found

difficult to describe prior to my arrival in the parish though it would one day become my clearest recollection of the place the strange result of loathsome fish processed in the guts of men with broken backs and weak minds produced an inexorable scent of ailment and rot that led one to question whether it was truly a scent

or rather a curse stricken upon those foolish enough to forsake the comforts of modern society for such an irrelevant and backwards township. Yet the smell drew back some odd, hazy recollection in the recesses of my mind, some ethereal sense of concern to which I could draw no true reminiscence. I thought rather to dwell on this feeling later, as the wailing call a vast and speedy profit to grip my very being those parts. past months. The small, nigh, uninhabitable Louisiana County had escaped the attention of the general persons of the state for the unknown decades since its founding. In recent months,

however, a strange amalgam of rumours regarding the old parish had pervaded the more prominent parishes of the state. Some claiming that the men of the backwards parish had begun disappearing in droves in a strange ritual act, involving burying the burying, themselves in the ground in massive, shoddily constructed tunnels. Others said that these fellows were engaging in mindless attempts to locate some supposed treasure, having been driven to the brink of madness by the repetition of fishing work. While yet others, namely the authors of pulp fiction works and local journals, spoke to the idea that some monster or sea demon had dragged the men to the very depths of the earth. Yet others sought profit from beneath. Seeing the parishioners'

excavations is a cheap means of discovering valuables hidden beneath tons of sea-soaked earth. As a result, certain interest groups had acquired a fervent interest in what may lie beneath the murky grey soil of the parish, and paid fairly to any nigh rational figure, offering to supply them with frequent updates on the denizens of the old parish, or, more accurately, and the fruits of their excavations. At some point, my temptation grew unbearable, under the weight of promised coin, and I boarded the coach to the place. The impossibly aged driver was delighted to have found a spare passenger, and was eager to welcome me into his vessel, a wretched old carriage comprised of green, half-rotted wood.

His visage was grey and wispy, as if he lacked the constitution to exist. beyond the cramped walls of the carriage, in the same way a snail handles poorly life outside the shell. The struggled rasping of his breath resounded throughout the cabin, echoing in upon itself maddeningly against the cracked wooden interior of the carriage during the long ride from the city, only loud enough to block out any other auditory stimuli that may serve to occupy one's mind. He sometimes attempted speech. but failed to communicate sufficiently to warrant a reply, beyond a forced chuckle or nod for quite some time. Yet this seemed to please him, as his face never seemed to deviate from the wry grin he'd possess since I first inquired about his services.

Time passed, and as the ride proceeded, my mind drifted further into the rhythmic bumping and swaying of the old wagon, accompanied by corresponding cracks and groans. I began to answer the old man's procession of inquiries. I told of my dreams of wealth and of redeeming myself of the shame of my past indiscretions. The drink had taken much from me, despite serving as treatment for some sickness of the mind that had taken me in my youth. Gin, beer to panacea for all ales,

had not yet taken from me the whole of my more positive atterus. In time he convinced me to run him through the hole The circumstances that led me to becoming his passenger to the back woods I found his company oddly comforting I stared out the dusty and cracked window idly As I recounted to the ancient driver The woods that preceded the old parish manifested as a vague perversion of a glade

Excessive dampness pervaded every perceivable surface from the soil to the grey canopy above the gnarled and suffering willows. The whole of it seemed rather dead, despite the density of the foliage. The sky and ground blended together in a mashed haze of ashen hues, appearing perpetually obscured by a thick fog-bank. The ancient driver's ability to navigate the nigh invisible trail was remarkable in this regard, as to the untrained eye, no path existed, yet the driver managed to follow the invisible road with practiced perfection.

I pondered the lifestyle of the town that bookmarked the final livable space following this wretch of land. For what purpose people lived in this wasteland? I could not discern. Even the air itself seemed toxic. Each breath drawn seemed to burn the nostril and cause the flesh of one's chest. to ache and tingle queerly. The wood of the willow trees most certainly could not be used to build anything sturdy, and it seemed quite clear that no good

crop could grow in such a place, nor could the nature of such an ecosystem support even the hardiest of swamp folk. Soon enough, we had arrived in the old parish. I offered the meagre fee to the driver and exited the cabin, and I finished spilling my story to him.

Upon my first step from the carriage. I realized I had not found solid ground as my feet sunk some centimeters into the grey depths of murk that constituted the old parish earth. I found myself in the main thoroughfare of the township, flanked on either side by shoddily yet consistently constructed buildings with illustrated signs hanging from their porch storefronts denoting their function, insinuating the townsfolk were largely illiterate. Each structure's colour palette was consistent enough to convince one that they were, quite literally, cut from the flesh of the same tree.

Each building arched strangely off in a tangential direction, having warped from years of exposures to the unkind environment. Camouflaged amongst the moist and drooping buildings were a scant procession of wretched people, all of whom seemed to possess a weird shape, thin yet bloated, Each coated in garb of sickening brown rags, sewn together with unusual skill to manifest thick waistcoats, dresses and shirts fashioned in an unusual manner, using some type of leather or fishing line. Their stomachs bulged most unnaturally, and nearly the lot of them seemed to be dripping in loose skin

that hunging rolls from their otherwise malnourished-looking bodies. The men and women were hardly distinguishable, aside from the lengths of their hair. There was a strange congruence amongst all the things that comprise the town, grey, damp, and bent horribly. With an inherent desperation to escape the unpleasantness of the town's main road, I scurried to the entrance of a building that appeared to serve as the town's inn. The porch steps groaned miserably under my weight, and the hinges of the door produced an awful vibrato wail in protest to my entry. the entire interior of the inn had walked to a seemingly impossible curvature.

The wooden support beams bent and bowed to a frightening extent, clearly representing the direction in which the weight of the structure wield itself downwards into the earth. The dampness of the town's strip pervaded the interior of the inn bar as it did the outside. The floorboards and tapestries drooped heavily with it. The grey men walked in and out. toting large pots of what was, presumably a noxious local brew,

as indicated by the filthy odour they exuded as they shouldered their way past me in the entry. Dull, thoughtless eyes scanned me, endowed with a sense of anxiety-fuelled nausea. I dragged myself to the bar and locked eyes with a decrepit old barkeep. The keep was a frail and largely androgynous thing. Their spine was angled precisely the same as the warp supports of the inn, as though the two were intertwined in their gross malformation. Its hair was wispy, white and patchy, tied into an almost ponytail, and was cloaked in some type of dress, of an aged red tone, implying to me that I would be speaking to a woman. Her bottom jaw creaked open in preparation to speak, as her dull sunken eyes examined me with an off combination of scornment. scorn and reverence.

Business, hear ya? A scratchy and monotone voice inquired. Yeah, I'd heard word about the digging. So var! She snarked. The patronage of the inn continued their gnarled mumbling around us. Metal tankered swayed and clinked lifelessly. You know what we'd taken out the tunnels recently?

No. I was hoping to find out just that. Dirt! She giggled raspily and punctuated her fit with a deep cough. Tankers were filled and crumpled bills tossed without failure or delay. The maid retained her dull gaze on me as she went about business. Clearly, she had lost the need to apply the effort of sight to her work long before my arrival. I'd like a room, I replied,

plainly. Keyes flew from somewhere beneath the bar, guided by an unseen hand. I lost her gaze to the cracked wood and tankards. Listen, that began, feigning benevolence. The people here could benefit greatly from any information I get back to the rest of the state. Perhaps the people here could become more successful. My words evaporated as I spoke them, for I could not even entertain this as a possibility. Success? I've the only success around here. It's only because I sell beer

cleaner than water. Oh, which you'd be wise to invest. The sick smell of cheap ale hit me again. I paused. You shit out a bit of blood? The sound of goggling. Pardon?

Water is dirty, beer's clean. Samples that. A mug was hastened to front the nearest stool, stealthily filled with a drink of a shade of yellow amber. Smelled tolerable. I sat. Outside a brew, the maid creaked. A hesitant sip drew a soft and stale taste, not wholly unpalatable, but strikingly unremarked. It keeps the worms out of you, that's all, she affirmed with an awkward, toothless grin. Is there water? Only dirt water.

Turn the clean stuff to ale. Only enough stills to make one or the other. The maid spoke slowly, carrying an edge of genuine satisfaction on her voice. My face stiffened beyond my consent. You stay a while and you'll get it, lad. I felt her already muted concentration drift away from our dialogue and back to the rotting surfaces beneath her in practiced idleness. I knew by some strange instinct that I would get no more from the maid

and turn my gaze to the pale bubbles of my drink. I instead shifted my ears to the idle chatter about me. Conversation was sparse. and I understood little through the thick garbling of the grey men's mouths. Though it seemed to me they only spoke of their fishing, digging and boozing. It was remarkable they could communicate to one another with such a dialect. Their vocabulary was vastly limited, and their few words were spoken as though their mouths were full of oil.

I listened intently, yet I heard nothing of any real words. As the afternoon progressed, a sense of exhaustion began to overtake me, and my ability to focus on my eavesdropping waned. The length of the journey and the subtle effects of the ale had finally began to overtake my senses. I ordered no second mug, but held my seat for a short while, before retiring to the single bedroom the in-possessed. A cramped, dingy closet at the back of the establishment, with an ancient, creaking bed. with damp sheets only a few degrees of comfort greater than burlap.

Sleep was uniquely difficult with damp covers, despite my acquaintance with poor lodgings. I settled into bed as best I could. I awoke slowly, first perturbed by the friction between the rough covers of the bed and the bare flesh of my forearms. I'd left on most of my clothes from the days prior, desperate to avoid excess exposure. to the poor excuse for bedding the room provided. Every article was damped at the touch and exceedingly uncomfortable to wear.

I set about changing into a fresh pair of clothes. The floor creak loudly in protest as I shift my weight onto a single foot and the frail boards bent to a worrying degree, veritably threatening to give way to whatever lay beneath this filthy room. It was at this point that the scent of the place returned in force. That peculiar scent of fish, not unlike that of potted antivies of the lowest quality,

the type one might feed to an exotic bird rather than to themselves. I stomached as best I could, donning the fresh clothes from my pack. I hesitantly shoved the makeshift planks that constituted the door of my accommodations. The inn was sparsely lit in the early morning light, illuminated by only an infrequent scattering of awfully constructed lanterns. A strange, exhausted haze fell over me, which I attributed to mild dehydration. The barmaid eyed me hungrily, as though she was guided by some saleswoman instinct,

alerting her to an imminent purchase. So, is there any water fit to drink here? My question, as I approached. Come on to you as well, She chuckled dryly. Her hideously cracked lips Hardly parted as she spoke. I briefly pondered

If she'd been in that spot all night. I sighed deeply, determined To keep my composure. I'd not be a bit. I've fair news for you and I both. News, I inquired, riddled with hesitance. Your tab has been paid.

A calm, Some mechanical voice, vastly different from those of the parish men, came from my left flank. I turned my gaze over my left shoulder to observe a tall, slender and uniquely upright man approach me. His skin was unhealthily pallid, contrasting the stark blackness of his peacoat. His calm eyes were encompassed in a veritable sea of wrinkles and age marks, obscured only by a sparse, few locks of white hair. This old man slowly sauntered toward me with a confident smile that matched poorly with the general tone of the parish, just as his smooth locomotion matched poorly with his weathered

appearance. His hand thrust forth to shake mine, without a moment's rest from the falsified warmness of his gaze. So you're the outsider I've heard so much about. his toneless voice drew as he pretended to examine my appearance. I, I choked out, I suppose no one else here befits that description. I uttered, briefly taking his hand. An unusually firm grip, and warm. Just you and I.

I forced a small laugh. Well, friend, I'll keep this offer succinct. He paused briefly. you'll work for me and I'll pay. The benefactor's gaze remained unbroken. I appreciate the officer, but... You're already employed by another party to investigate. I'm well aware of your type.

Pardon me, but can I ask who you are, sir? The same entity that hired you, an anonymous benefactor. During the whole of our conversation, he never brought. broke his false smile, nor did his dry tone waver in the least. His silent stare left me uncomfortable. I felt an odd compulsion to comply with his offer. It's simple. All you need to do is stay in my home for one week and return to your other masters bearing the information that I give you. You'll find the accommodations far more appealing than that woman's little room. He hushed his final few words.

The cacophony of in-noise. You will be paid and then sent home. Come, let us discuss your payment. The aged man performed a rapid about face and began walking away slowly, liver-spotting, crusted hands snapping loudly behind his back as he began walking. My eyes widened, the rapidity of his movement surprised.

me. For some unknown reason, I found myself looking to the barmaid for reassurance. She grinned madly and thrust a tankard in my direction. I took it. See you next time. Her wry grin expanded further. I hastened my way out of the door to meet this strange benefactor. I walk quickly into the dirt street to follow the man southwards, whose stark black form. stood out in radical contrast to the swirling grey mix about him. Finally, I reached his side. 30,000. The benefactor spoke as though he'd rehearsed this moment at infinitum.

That's quite an officer, but it's the best you will get. Your intention is to profit, is it not? A moment's pause. Therefore, your best cost of action, is to choose the individual who will pay you best. His eyes gazed ahead towards some infinitely distant object. I chose not to speak, letting him continue walking as I followed at his side.

His gaze remained steely as we jaunted down the grey street. I did my best to act undisturbed by the sloshing mess I was walking in. The parish man walked about us as we progressed. Often I found them glancing in my direction with disdain, but the sight of my companion seemed to ward off any extended glares. The men certainly were an unhealthy lot. I had oft subsided on less than wholesome feed, however it appeared whatever these men ate was all but poisonous.

Their skin, upon closer inspection, was horribly dotted with pores that were far too large. Their eyes bore evidence of what seemed to be cataracts, but their sight seemed to be unaffected, as their stairs were precise and damning. It appeared we were approaching the northern edge of the parish, as the shacks that acted as residences for the parishers became infrequent and eventually failed to appear in their entirety. The ground developed a slight bit more solidity, or perhaps my footing was slowly improving as I adjusted to my environments. It appeared the benefactor's home was a short distance up the road, a large window structure

that was utterly distinct from the other buildings I'd seen up until this point in the quality of its structure. The manor even had a mailbox, though I doubted any courier would dare travel here. The wood that constructed the tall, thin manor, was a light shade of brown, maintaining a state of decency mostly unseen in the old parish. The benefactor beckoned me up this stunned. mounted flight of steps to the manor onto the porch. The solid ground of the porch felt satisfying under my feet

as I kicked off most of the mud. The aged man keyed the manor door open and we entered into the main hall, an unusually small room with an ornate fireplace. The walls were made of painted wood and I found the air was far less humid than outside, presumably due to the fireplace, which maintained a soothing orange smolder in the centre of the centre

of the room. The old man moved a yellowed and dusty chair from one of the corners of the room and gested for me to sit in his twin. I accepted, and the seat was refreshingly comfortable. You'll have your choice of room. Food is provided. Little is required of you, no more than your word, or perhaps a small parcel of favours should the need arise, for which you will be, of course, compensated. Favours. Of what sort? The benefactor paused a brief moment, his gaze meandering to the floor.

Oh, you must have noticed by now that men of a sound mind are rare here. Your relative stability is an exceptional asset to my employers and I. Imagine of those men attempting to analyze the progress of a dig site. You see, poor breeding runs abound. here. Hence, their little digging act. A soft, genuine chuckle. All right, then, if I may ask, what is it you hope to find? I've heard rumours of all manner of things. Archaeological digs, gold, oil, you name it. Oh, I could not tell you. Is all this anonymity and vagueness really necessary? Oh, you misunderstand. I mean to tell you?

I do not know what the tunnels contain, if anything. Pardon? Vague and intangible possibilities of what the parishioners really dig up from the earth. That, man, din of itself, is of great value to certain parties. His voice briefly sounded organic. His word stuck with me a moment. Silence overtook us. The fireplace continued to crackle softly.

it sight an uncommon comfort in the soaking abyss of the parish. You see, none of the men in these halls would stand to gain much from anything they might find. The rumors are the result of vast exaggeration and misinterpretation. There's likely nothing to be found, yet people such as you and I make quite the profit off their efforts. We are, as middlemen, selling the hope of endless wine and haws to our infreptuers. and the possibility of a new venture to those we serve. I still did not speak. His blunt means of speech shocked me.

I shifted uncomfortably as he gazed deeply into the fireplace. A slight of guilt pulled at the edge of his decrepit visage. Well, shall I show you to your quarters? Um, yeah, that'd be great, sir. I finished hesitantly. The benefactor slowly led me up a winding staircase in the grand hall one room over. The wood of the staircase grown softly with each step we took to the second floor. The benefactor took the first right down a thin hallway,

which led to the spacious bedroom I was to be staying in for the next two weeks. It was large and warm, if a bit sparse, only containing a queen-sized bed, nightstand and an anorexic fern-type plant in a pot far too large for the sad little thing my benefactor cut my shoulder and gave me a friendly nod before leaving the room wordlessly I looked at the bed blankly for a moment I felt exhausted despite having only been awake for a few hours I stripped off the majority of my clothes a frustrating affair considering the dampness that had crept its way into my garb during our walk to the manor

The dry air of the room was quite satisfying once my skin was bared to it. Certainly an improvement from the dank closet I had caught home the evening prior. I lay down on the dull green bedding and pillows. I was, to this point, wholly acquainted with luxuries such as silk bedchies and feather pillows. Six days of reading, uncharacteristic lethargy and dining on crab and crusty bread, asked before I awoke to the benefactor opening my chamber door after a mechanical series of rasps at the door. He stepped into the room, already bearing his typical smile and stiff suit. Oh, I must ask you for a favour, he began mechanically.

You recall that I mentioned that such a thing may be necessary to fulfil your contract. I nodded. I would ask that you survey a tunnel for me. Would that ask you survey a tunnel for me? require me to enter the excavation, I uttered slowly. It would. I paused. I had no great desire to crawl around in some disgusting hole with those almost men. However, as I opened my mouth to utter my refusal, the scent of dusty gin and ancient straw bedding came to me from some dank recess of my mind, and I swiftly recalled my purpose.

I could not recall from whence these thoughts arose in my mind. The details on my past had been thoroughly drowned in gin and repression. I recalled only a few hazy days in an asylum, and doctors who told me I had garnered some form of shell-shock, similar to that of men who had survived the Great War. Opportunities such as this were rare in these times. Of course, sir. I owe you at least that much,

for the lovely conditions you've provided me. I spoke with as great an amount of counterfeit resolve as I could muster. His eyes drifted to the floor just a moment. His smile seemed to waver. Good, the benefactor mumbled, removing a dossier from his coat and handing it to me. A quick run-through of the file seemed to indicate that it contained the location of the tunnel in question alongside various safety information and listings of things I was to look for in the depths.

The list was, to put it lightly, extensive and bizarre. Safety advice read similarly to a survival manual, more so than a mining safety guide. Further, my quarries in the tunnel not only included such obvious things as gold and jewels and ore, but also the likes of fetish objects, strange openings, or objects that would convey to the reasonable person a sense of sexual malaise. I spent the better part of the afternoon reading through the leaflets and notes, and the rest formulating a simple plot to infiltrate the tunnel. I resolved to avoid arousing the attention of the parishmen, God willing.

I feared, despite their frail nature, I could not overpower one of them in a melee. several notes, often scribbled in the margins of more formal documents, warned me that the men were rather protective of their tunnels. Outsiders were hardly encouraged to intrude in any of their affairs, let alone their precious minds. I proceeded to spend the next few days observing the parishmen about the town centre. I spent time in the inn and following the men back and forth from the tunneling areas to better understand their patterns and behaviours. The men were far too absorbed in their own thoughts and conversations to notice me often, let alone to fully acknowledge my presence. My observation of them, unfortunately, was largely fruitless.

They garbled an hardly intelligible speech only elaborated upon their three obsessions, digging, hoaring, and drinking. Though, as my observation continued, I noticed a rather bizarre inconsistency. The men themselves hardly ever actually entered the chasms they so often spoke of. Rather, they stood or sat in crude wooden entry areas with simple chairs and lanterns, and simply writhed and fidgeted amongst themselves for hours in a bizarre manifestation of idle boredom. Occasionally, they would seem to receive some means of transport or shipment from within the mine. My position prone in the wood across the way from the tunnel afforded,

little insight to what lay within the tunnel. There appeared to be no light within. This sat poorly with me. It made little sense to me how the parishmen could speak of digging and excavating constantly, yet never enter a tunnel. I inquired to the benefactor as to what he may know of this phenomenon and was rewarded with not but roundabouts and non-answers. Following a careful week of surveillance, taking, I realized it had been a wasted effort. It seemed the only means by which to proceed will be to sneak my way into the tunnel. My plan was actually rather simple. I would bring two lanterns to the outside of the smallest tunnel entrance. I would light the first lantern and toss it a small way's off from the parishmen in front of the tunnel entrance to lure them

away. It all seemed quite simple then. Then again, do things not to always. seem so simple when one is seated upon the precipice of disaster. I awoke to my empty room. Readed only by my withered fern companion, a fellow silent observer in the parish who watched upon strange and incomprehensible folk by way of our ancient dusty window. My bed sheets were of a comforting dryness and coloration as they had been during the entirety of my stay. I glanced to the single, small window to my right, across the vast distance of the chamber. The streaks of dust, unusually bright for the parish,

slipped past the turquoise blind and into the room. Darkness would fall soon enough, and I would begin my journey beneath the soaking earth of the parish. Those tunnels were no place for many of my yoke. The disease of my mind had stripped me of what I thought to be the entirety of my pride, yet still those wretched sores of the earth felt all too horrible for anything but parish men feeling well cold rehearsed oh morning sir of course um well nervous is all i stumbled with a desperate attempt to replicate a reassuring smile

"'Good, with a mindset such as that, you'll one day find yourself in shoes not so dissimilar to mine.' The benefactor's face did not move above his nose, yet his smile widened slightly. "'The days of my youth are far gone, are they not?' "'Sly, chuckling.' "'I had no response, and simply stared down to the bed before rising from it. "'Oh, listen to me, Rand.' He approached, reaching into his pocket. Take this.

You may require it. He extended his hand, which grasped the palm-sized vial of terribly dark and viscous green liquid, speckled with black. I eyed it cautiously and recalled the unique hue of absinthe. It's a simple anti-anxiety tonic, a mild opiate substance in pleasant-tasting solvent. He spoke with a simple, and a simple, anti-anxiety tonic. quickly, breaking eye contact for the shortest of moments. I was hesitant to take it.

I was rather opposed to the use of intoxicants following my previous ales, opiates especially. I stared into the file, watching the specks dance about in a mesmerizing waltz. I reached out and took it, acting out in routine, and placed it in my pocket slowly, as to savour the cool feeling of the glass. My gaze remained on the bed, transfigged strangely by the patterns of the sheets, as my thoughts drifted aimlessly about some past I struggled to recall through the haze of drink. The benefactor left the room silently, with a paternal tap on my shoulder. Everything felt quite off, though I attributed such feelings to my fear of the tunnel depths.

I attempted to rationalize the situation with the thought that nothing could be in the tunnels worse than parish men. Logic failed to calm me, though. The conscious mind always flails helplessly in the grasp of the baser instinct, does it not? I set about my journey just as the refractions of the sun's light began to disappear from the ever-present fog that surrounded the parish, and as the area was subsequently drained of light, my entrance onto the main street of the road signalled the last light of day. The muddy street fell to an oppressive and murky darkness, broken only by the weak lamplight and the building fronts, which formed blurry orbs of radiance a few feet about themselves.

I trudged slowly along, both comforted by the anonymity of the dark and painfully aware of my own lack of sight. The mud sloshed about my boots loudly, despite the gentle nature of my footfalls, which only added to those of the parish men trotting the same path to the chasms. In my practical invisibility amongst the commoners, I felt an odd and impossible kinship with them, such that one would feel in a funeral possession alongside distant and unknown relatives, strangers bearing an ominous common cause. I drew near to the holes, after an hour's hike, and again hid amongst the woods across the scattered ramshacks of entrances. I stood only about ten yards away from the

sturdiest looking of the entrances, guarded by two scrawny parishmen, who appeared even more decrepit than the most of their peers. I drew a long and shaky breath of moist air, before drawing my first lantern from a string on my belt, and spindly match from my pocket. I lit the over-oiled lantern and tampered the fire to a slow burn. I closed my eyes tightly for only a moment to summon my resolve before throwing the lantern a short ways past my marked entry. The glass of the lantern shattered into dust, and the lantern's oil quickly spouted into a small area of bluish conflagration. The town's been jumped and swore unintelligably at the sound. Their panic only escalated when they noticed the flames.

The pair ran over and set about a desperate and clumsy attempt at fighting the fire, using what appeared to be thin sheets of burlap. I wasted no time with watching, and as quickly and subtly as I could, I burst into the shoddy tunnel entrance. I grasped the final wooden support before the hole went below ground and froze stiff. Before me was a veritable abyss. I had yet to light the land I intended to actually use in the tunnel. I heard the men begin cackling and realized they must have extinguished the flames from the first lantern.

I panicked and threw myself barreling into the dark. I groped at the soaking earthen walls as I descended the steep incline into the earth in a desperate attempt to make up for my dark. lack of sight. I descended only until I could no longer see the dim light of the surface at my back. I grasped desperately at my belt to locate the second lantern. I then grasped its small base and desperately lit it with another match from my pocket. The dim blaze illuminated the hall I was in for only a few feet in both directions with a pale orange haze. Despite regaining my ability to see, I was left relatively uninformed as to the nature of my surroundings. The tunnel ahead stretched on farther than the light of the lamp could hope to carry.

The straightness of the tunnel betrayed the shoddy construction of the thing. I began my hesitant descent further into the hole. As I descended the tunnel, it became increasingly haphazard, segmented off into smaller branches, that spiral off of their own accord. I stayed along the singular straight path as much as possible during my descent. Slowly, however, the chasm became stranger. The path split and forked frequently

into smaller pathways, and even tiny earthen rooms that smelled revolting and appeared to contain some odd type of animal dung or remarkably crude furniture that mimic tables and chairs and cots, made of either clay or splintered wooden pillars. One even contained a knife that appeared to be used to gut fish or game,

which I pocketed to return to the benefactor. After what felt like an hour of arduous exploration, the main thoroughfare ended in a wooden floor and wall that formed a sort of porch that acted as a large support for the perpendicular paths that split away from the first tunnel, occupied by a nearly presentable set of checkers, and a crate acting as a table. My legs were tired from the walking, exacerbated by my poor fitness, so I decided to sit a moment.

I took the chair facing left and groaned as I took the weight off my aching legs. I felt ashamed of how I'd let myself become so frail at so young an age. I had yet to see thirty years, yet I must look and feel as a man in his forties. I dreaded to look in a mirror and seeing the wrinkles and spots of a man many years my senior and thus had avoided them habitually these past few years.

I stared at the floor bleakly. Why was I here? Scampering in a dingy pit in the middle of nowhere for a paycheck. There was some hazy memory beyond the drunken stupor of the past years that I could recall clearly when I had some hope of being something more than an urchin in an alley.

Well, I felt my face grow hot with shame or disgust or some other convoluted form of emotion. My reverie was cut short. I heard some far off sound to the left, only barely crossing the audible threshold. Perhaps it was someone scratching or breathing. I froze and listened. The sound slowly approached with a procession of dull padding.

I quickly snuffed out my light and obscured myself partially behind the crate. The padding sound grew both louder and narrow. Despite the softness of the footholes due to the watery earth beneath, I could tell that the thing approaching me was loud and heavy. I waited several breaths for it to stop, yet the sound only grew louder. I ceased breathing and clamped shut my stinging eyes.

I clenched my fist and dashed back upwards the direction I'd come and into a side tunnel in a desperate attempt to hide. I moved as quickly as the cramped space would allow, dragging my body against the dirt walls of a crevice until I emerged into one of the odd rooms. I bumped painfully into the room. the walls and wooden furniture still without the aid of sight. I stopped and crouched down to the earth and stared blindly into the dark.

I paused my own breathing and waited. Silence. Stillness. I exhaled deeply and lit my lantern. Relief filled me as the burning carbon left my lungs. The room was sufficiently illuminated, yet exhaustion led me to continue gazing back the direction I had come, trembling. Though my ears perked, as I heard the padding begin again, impossibly close. I sat down the lantern and stood at full posture, pausing to listen a moment.

My back slammed against the wall in a sudden flurry of movement, forcing the air from my lungs as my back collided with the wall. My vision distorted as the back of my head slammed against the earthen wall behind me. My sight began to return to me, as I felt my neck grabbed by some soft yet forceful appendage. In my days, I slowly began to recognize the form of my assailant. Bright, grey, pupilless eyes gazed at me, utterly devoid of expression or understanding, surrounded by bulbous and fleshy skin of an odd brown orange hue that bulged into irregular and massive boils across the entirety of its huge disgusting head. Its nose, or what remained of it, was tiny and upturned, and leaked mucus and foul air in gross quantities. Its fat, naked body pressed firmly into mine, drenching me.

instantly with a vast amount of second-hand sweat or bile, similar to that on its hand. Its hand was, fortunately, too large and malformed, it seemed, to be able to fully constrict my airways. I swung desperately at its face, succeeding only in exhausting my oxygen, and popping one of its massive bile pockets, coating my hand in a sickening deluge of grey, stringy ooze. I screamed and sobbed, as it held me for what felt like minutes. My scratching, wailing and kicks were futile,

and served only to anger it further, and it moved its second hand to assist the first in strangling me. Its second, more hideous limb, exploded with bile as it struggled to bend in such a way that it would allow it to grip my throat. Suddenly, I recalled the gutting knife, I groped desperately amongst my pockets for the thing Its force came in my back troughs of pocket

As I began to struggle for air I gripped the knife just as my vision began to grey in my periphery And I desperately plunged it forward above the thing's sternum It recoiled in pain with a gasp I coughed and stumbled a few steps away As I regained my ability to breathe I glanced back at my attacker which had already began approaching me yet again,

clearly enraged as it stomped in my direction through the soaking earth. In a bout of unknown rage, I charged forward and grab a knife, stuck my bladed hook on the spine, and dropped my knees, opening the beast's stomach with a sickening, scratching sound. My hair and torso were showered in blood, and the stringy grey pulp that made home in the boils of its flesh,

The thing let forth a gargling wail as I collapsed to the ground and it stumbled back toward the opposite wall. I thought the urge to vomit and look to the beast, which was rapidly becoming soaked in its own horrible fluids, as it tried to hold its bisected abdomen together with one hand and reached spitefully in my direction with the other. I stood and watched in horror as the beast glared at me with its sightless eyes. It held an impossibly human expression for such an abomination. Its hateful glare only managed to barely conceal its nigh palpable agony. The thing took a single, feeble step forward, causing yet another surge of adrenaline to force its way into my mind.

In a moment of terrified instinct, I gripped the lantern from the ground and hurled it at the beast. Broken glass showered the floor in a moment of terrified. darkness before the thing erupted in horrible blue flames. Screamed and thrashed wildly as the taut bubbles of pus on the thing's body burst as they were set alight. The thing, no longer inflated by the constricting pockets on its body, adopted far more human mannerisms as it flailed helplessly about. Its wailing was not unlike my own. I could take no more of such and fled back into the darkness of the tunnel I'd come

from. The thing's screams echoed forever into the hallways and crevices of the tunnels. I searched desperately for the route upwards and simply clambered at any path that seemed to lead to a large tunnel or towards the surface. I recall little of this experience as I had no means of distinguishing neither time nor space. I writhed in that earthly abyss for what felt like days, pausing only to wipe the horrible viscera from my body in sporadic bursts of disgust. After some time I found the main tunnel, which I must have crossed dozens of times in my feral scrambling. I bolted upwards until I saw light at the surface and sprinted towards it. I crossed the threshold of an unfamiliar a wooden archway back into the grey of the parish. I rushed past the men at the gate

and ignored their empty gazes and garbled yelling as I passed, and my burning legs dragged me far into the swampy wood, where I collapsed to my knees. Even my knees fell to hold me, and I fell to the muddy floor into a fetal position and sobbed. I could feel my heart palpitating in my chest, and my lungs ached as though plagued by asthma. I shook uncontrollably and felt as though some form of seizure would overtake me. My mind returned to my forgotten habits and my arm, as if of its own accord,

dug in my breast pocket for the vial the benefactor had given me. I struggled for a moment with the cork, and my bestial impatience took over and drove me to snap the glass neck of the bottle in twain. before chugging the liquid quickly enough to bypass the entirety of my tongue, collapse further somehow as the chemicals took their effect on my body. My heart slowed and my breathing calmed as my mind slowly drifted away. I felt free the next few days are well beyond my recollection.

All I was aware of was awakening in the benefactor's manner in a daze. I recall being fed more crab and bread and rice blankly. I think he read to me at some point, but it is my belief that my mind was too damaged to truly understand words in their literal sense. The old man administered more doses of the strange liquid. These, far smaller than the last I'd taken. As the unknown days went on in a blur, not unlike a fever dream, I slowly regained my awareness and speech. I began walking and reading and eating on my own again.

I'm unsure of whether my brain ever fully recovered from the shock and chemical abuse, but I did regain my senses well enough to care for myself after a few days. During this time, I ate and spoke little, simply choosing to sleep away most of my time left in the manner in the haze of ether. The benefactor did not ask anything more of me than to describe my experience my experience in the tunnels. He, surprisingly, seemed unfazed about my lack of findings, as I had expected him to express at least some mild disappointment towards the barrenness of the excavation. He reassured me that the truth was all I could give him, and that I had done well.

I found his approval oddly comforting. A few days into my recovery, I thought to ask the benefactor to explain what such a monstrosity was doing in the tunnels. He was, expectedly, very cautious to explain to me what the thing was. He eventually relented, in his typical mechanical tone, that it was merely the product of untold generations of incest and alcoholism that caused gross deformities amongst the townsfolk, a reality they took advantage of by putting the most hardy of the deformed into the debts. I found this explanation unsatisfactory, but chose to hold my tongue,

fearing the sanctity of my pay. After a few weeks in his home, he sent me back to Baton Rouge, from whence I had come, with my check, and a bottle of Primo Scotch with a neat red ribbon tied around its neck, which signalled a welcome reintroduction of liquor

into my life. My other sponsors also paid me, and selling my story to some fiction authors left me wild amounts of profits and notoriety. To some extent, this aided my recovery. Drink, opiates, women, and gorgeous accommodations were just enough to keep the thoughts of the backwards parish in the back of my adult mind. Over the years, in fact, the names of the places and people, slowly faded. The manusier of their faces, voices and lives, sunk beneath my desperate quest

of opulence. This would not last, however, as my old vices returned to me in full effect, and over time Primo Scotch became bargain-bin-licker, and fine women became petty whores yet again. My constant craving for indulgence left me expending my earnings at incredible rates, is the thoughts of the past slowly gained traction in my mind. This unsustainable cycle of drinking and whoring left me all but penniless in the matter of a couple of years, despite my vast newfound well. With what little I had left in my estate,

after liquidating the vast majority of my assets, I set about finding an even greater fortune. As I weaned off the liquor, I began to dream again of a problem. proper home and life, and once again felt shame looking at my withering visage. I searched frantically for work, for anything that will pay in gross sums quickly, no matter the cost. Soon enough, utilising what sparse few connections I had left, I got a contract. After preparing a small pack of clothes and necessities,

I journeyed to where I would meet the stagecoach headed to my destination. And there, this lovely carriage awaited. To carry to some fresh opportunity, did it not? The passenger chuckles as he finishes his tail. The aged drivers give the horses the signal to slow down as they approach the town. The dusty old wagon crept and moaned as we shuddered to a halt. Here, interesting story, sir. Best of luck to you.

And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast wrong, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place,

and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, Sweet dreams and bye bye.