Chapter Text
You collapse in the restroom, your knees slamming hard against the dirty tiled floor. This room seems to be the only one in the office where you can find some sort of respite. Your fingers dig into your skull as if to anchor yourself to reality, however cruel it may be. You mustn’t give in to your panic attack in front of your boss, god knows you’ll never give him that satisfaction.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
You've been prone to panic attacks for as long as you can remember. Unfortunately, no one has ever taught you how to control them. Your mother has always been convinced that you were faking them to get attention so maybe you ended up believing her somehow.
It had become your routine, both at work and at home, but it’s worse here, the pressure of having to put up with it all and hide so you don’t lose your shitty job, which you highly depend on.
If only your boss didn't know how distressed you were, maybe he'd take it out on someone else. It's probably cruel to think that way, but at this point, it's no longer your problem.
Your coworkers have never taken any risks to stand up for you; it makes you wonder if everyone here hates you for some reason.
Maybe they're enjoying the show. They're all laughing at you, like vultures circling a poor rodent in its death throes.
Tonight, after enduring your daily dose of public humiliation at the hands of your boss and despite your truly impeccable work, that asshole couldn't help but let his wandering hands get the better of him, yet again.
Breathe, breathe.
This has to stop; you have to get out of here no matter what, but unfortunately, again, it's not as if you have a choice for now.
Breathe.
It’s 10:45 p.m. As usual, he’s forced you to stay here without pay, claiming there’s an emergency with a client. You’ve never been able to stand up to this man, and it’s not for lack of trying. Unfortunately, the last time you rejected his inappropriate advances, or even tried to leave on time, he made sure you paid dearly for it.
You hear someone pounding on the door, calling you every name in the book with a purely cruel laugh.
That's it, you’re done.
You open the door with a sudden, brutal motion you didn't know you were capable of, slamming it right in your coworker's face.
He starts yelling at you, holding his nose, which is dripping with blood; he seems to be raising his other hand probably to hit you, but you run, you run like you’ve never run before.
As you storm out of the building like a tornado, rage churning in your gut, you continue on your quest, god only knows where you’re going. You don’t want to go home; you just want to escape this utterly repulsive reality.
It wouldn’t bother you to run until you're exhausted, until your body gives out. After all, you don't have a job anymore, and you were already barely making ends meet because of your mother's debts, so this is the last straw.
The freezing night air hits you right in the face, causing an intense burning sensation in your lungs. That pain is probably the only thing keeping you grounded in reality at this point.
Your mind is blank; you’re neither upset nor sad, you desperately need to feel alive, so you run even faster.
Your thighs start to burn too; you’re not exactly an athlete, after all, and you know they’ll give out any minute now, but you keep pushing.
…
A sharp pain in your shoulder jolts you awake. You struggle to open your eyes, then realize you’re on the ground, apparently in a forest or woods.
Your pupils are having trouble adjusting to the light or rather, to the lack of light. The moonbeams filter gently through the branches of the tall trees, which are almost entirely bare.
Under normal circumstances, panic would set in in a situation like this : alone, in the middle of the night, deep in a forest you didn’t even know existed. But your day has been so chaotic that the atmosphere seems almost…peaceful.
You can hear the wind blowing strongly through the branches, knocking a few of them down as it passes. All around you, there’s a rustling in the fallen leaves, no doubt nocturnal predators setting out on the hunt.
Oh, how you wish you were one of them, but just look at yourself, you have to admit that you’re the very definition of prey, frozen and curled up on the damp forest floor, waiting to be eaten alive.
You’re trying to feel around in your pockets for your phone. It’s really nice you ran and found peace of mind, but you should head home and figure something out to pay your rent, which turns out to be tricky without a map.
Fuck.
It's completely shattered, pieces of your screen's glass are scattered on the durt next to you. You must have fallen really hard.
Don’t panic, breathe, just breathe.
You sit up to try to assess the extent of the damage; your arm is scraped down to the flesh, with dirt and debris stuck to the wound. You really should clean that up as soon as possible, but how?
As you try to stand up, you feel intense soreness in your legs, you’ve only got yourself to blame for that one.
But if you’re already sore, how long have you been lying on the ground, unconscious?
It’s okay, just breathe and figure it out.
You have to find your way back at all costs; you have to keep moving forward. Technically, you should eventually make it out of the woods, right? As usual, you don't really have a choice. It can be so exhausting to just endure life like this.
Seems like you never have a choice.
This isn't the time to get lost in complaints; you have to keep moving forward, putting aside the pain, the cold, and the distress. You shut your mind off completely and go on autopilot, oh you've gotten good at that. Maybe it's the only useful thing your boss has taught you.
…
It feels like you've been walking forever, and to top it all off, since it's the middle of winter, the nights are excruciatingly long, and daylight isn't likely to break anytime soon, so you're relying solely on the pitiful flashlight you keep in your bag, hoping the batteries don't give out on you too.
As long as you breathe, it’ll be fine.
As you continue your journey, you stumble violently over something very hard, probably a rock, and, exhausted, you crash to the ground with a loud thud, causing the crows, which had been silently watching from the branches, to caw terribly loud.
You stay on the ground, picking up your lousy flashlight to see where you'd stepped.
Looking around, you slowly realize that you have stumbled into the ruins of an old church. Its crumbling stone walls are covered with thick moss and tangled vines, while the remains of shattered stained-glass windows stare back like empty, lifeless eyes.
A crooked bell tower leans precariously over the forgotten graveyard surrounding the building, its cracked bell swaying gently despite the absence of any wind.
The air feels unnaturally cold, carrying the damp smell of decay, and an oppressive silence settles over the ruins, broken only by the distant cawing of the crows. For a brief moment, you cannot shake the unsettling feeling that someone, or something, is watching you from the darkness within the church.
Something isn't quite right, and yet you feel an unfamiliar sensation deep inside you, one you can't quite put your finger on.
It's a feeling that's neither good nor bad, but powerful enough that you can feel it throughout your whole body, so much so that it gives you chills.
You consider staying here until dawn so you can continue on your way without hurting yourself any further. Besides, the church’s stone walls should be able to protect you from the merciless icy wind.
So you gather your courage and step inside the church.
You finally breathe, exhausted.
Maybe you should take a look around the area? That would probably be the responsible thing to do, considering that it’s not uncommon for some unfortunate people to have no choice but to live in places like this, having been cast out by society.
So you start looking around, worried about what you might find. The light from your flashlight flickers, but even so, you can make out details that catch your eye.
Most of what you can make out in the darkness seems to belong in a church left to its own devices: chairs are scattered about, covered in dust and cobwebs.
Old candles adorn some of the stone ledges, and brambles and their thorns have managed to make their way inside, growing around the central pillars.
Moonlight streams through the stained-glass windows, most of which are broken. It looks empty, and you probably won’t find a better place to spend the night. So it’ll have to do. It’s not like you were planning on falling asleep here anyway, this place is still pretty gloomy.
You lean against the wall near what was probably the main entrance and begin to take in your surroundings.
You lose yourself in the thought that, at one time, this place must have been teeming with life. The candles make you think that Masses must have been celebrated here. How ironic for you to spend the night in such a place.
You were never very religious, not even as a child. That didn’t sit well with your mother, who forced her beliefs on you from a very young age; perhaps you might have believed in all that if she hadn’t turned you off to it.
After all, life must be beautiful when you’re able to leave everything in the hands of a supposedly all-powerful being, how you would have loved to experience that serenity.
Lost in your thoughts, your eyes wander to the stained-glass windows, which you hadn’t really paid much attention to until now.
Four arms? You’ve never seen God depicted like that before. A strange choice.
If you look more closely, you’ll realize that the figure depicted here bears no resemblance to the usual representations of God; it looks more like a monster or a demon.
It’s probably a depiction of the devil, just to make sure the faithful stay in line.
But despite all that, something doesn’t add up. Because of your mother, you know this subject all too well, and you’ve never seen the devil depicted like this before, nor any other creature that might look like this.
That uneasy feeling in your stomach returns, accompanied by the premonition you had earlier.
Where have you gotten yourself into?
Should you really be here?
Suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, you sit up despite the sharp pains shooting through your whole body, and decide to take another walk to take your mind off things.
You should breathe.
This time, you venture a little further, approaching what must have been the altar. It’s covered in dust and dirt from the forest, but once again, something doesn’t add up.
Seeing the candles and other ritual objects scattered about, you expected to find the usual ritual items there, but instead, a wooden box adorned with engraved patterns you don’t recognize sits on the altar.
It’s surely a tabernacle, but why this choice of patterns and materials? A shiver runs down your spine.
You've probably been wrong about everything from the start; this is definitely not the kind of church you were so sure it was. But then, what on earth could have been celebrated here?
You’re considering the idea of opening the box, and yes, anyone else would probably have run for their life, but your legs surely wouldn’t let you. You’re going to spend the night here, so you might as well try to find out what lies hidden in this mysterious place your legs have led you to.
Open it, and breathe. It’s just a box, after all.
So you open it, gently lifting the lid. Using your flashlight, you try to make out what’s inside, but the dust completely blocks your view, so you blow on it.
You notice two different things: a book of sorts and a smaller box. Naturally, you decide to look at the book first, hoping to find information about what’s inside the small box.
The book looks extremely old and very fragile, so you handle it with great care. After examining the leather cover, you find no information other than the same symbols that adorned the box, so you open it to reveal the first page.
You come across something that looks like a painting, or rather, an ink drawing. There it is again: the four-armed monster you saw part of on the shattered stained-glass windows. In the illustration, it sits enthroned atop what appears to be a pile of skulls; it is simply terrifying.
Something’s wrong, you should never have seen that. Anxiety takes hold of you; black spots blur your vision and your ears ring; exhaustion overwhelms you; you’re about to faint, right here, all alone.