I had become a nun before I even got the chance to become myself, at just 17. Girls this age could only enter a convent with a bishop’s permission, and it was not easily granted. Luckily, I met someone who made it possible.
Sister Rosalyn Jackson… The first time I saw her was in eighths grade and, though not immediately, knew she was my key to freedom. Oh, I will never forget the moment that archaic entity in Benedictine robes had entered our class and first laid her eyes on me. She smiled. And not that she didn’t smile at others, no. The smile was plastered on her face the entire time of her scanning the room, kid after kid. I found it disturbing. Seemed like she had entered not a class but a store, like a bakery, and was carefully selecting a dessert from a menu. Her light, calibrated eyes ran over curious heads, held an interval of two seconds on each student, until they halted on me. I swear they spoke: There. A perfect piece of cake. A breathtakingly intimidating divinity in black with a pale face, serpent green eyes and a cryptic smile, she was everything I stood against: pious, holy, confined. A prisoner in her ebony habit, a shadow that blindly followed and obeyed her invisible Master. An echo of God without a voice of her own. And still she had snatched me away like did the demons from granny’s bullshit tales, like I was, indeed, a perfect piece of cake. All because I let her think I was that cake, sweet and innocent. It was what she’d said that gave me this idea. She’d said, a nun lives in monastic seclusion. We may never see our families, she’d said, for we are the brides of Christ, following and serving our Husband as best we can, with reverence and love. So here you go: she had me at may never see our families.
Through many touching letters I coaxed her into buying my ‘pure’ intention. I want to convert, I wrote to her. And she replied, I knew, I saw it in your eyes. She somehow, I don’t know how, convinced my family to send me away, mind you, to Boston, (take that, suckers!) to Belmont preparatory school, told them I was special, called to this vocation by the Lord himself. And while the rest of my family had bought it, granny listened to sister Rosalyn and watched my grave acting with suspicion. But she could only silently smell a rat, for her own words would backfire if she went against God’s will. After all, suffer those who question it. See what I did there?
In late June, after my high school graduation, Rosalyn Jackson took me away with her to her monastery, Abbaye de Sainte Marie, in Quebec. It was just like she had said when I asked her about it – beautiful. The biggest brick monastery contrasting nicely against the greenest pasture I had ever seen. No joke, when I’d made my way through the cloister and first glanced at the lush grass that covered its ground I thought it was faux. And the building appeared so bright it seemed newly constructed. But the interior left much to be desired. Some of the walls shook, some of the windows had cracks, some of the doors and staircases creaked so badly it felt as though the building moaned for help, and there was very little badly distressed furniture. I made mental notes of what needed replacement while sister Carmel, to whom I was introduced, showed me around. This is our refectory, she’d say in a strong French accent, and this is our library. And this is infirmary. Lavatory. And the chapter hall. Recreation room. The parlor, she’d gesture, the guest chambers. Then she showed me their chapel, a pretty thing that was separated from the main building, and though it felt ancient it looked nearly new. Unblemished cream walls, spotless limestone floor, glimmering mosaic windows, shimmering icons, polished pews. The Lord’s home was clearly prioritized over their own. There was also a barn which contained a decent amount of stock. Lambs, cows, chickens, one out-of-place goose. And a senior Bernese named Philip that had its own little cabin with P h i l i p inscribed at the top, a blanket, a pillow and a toy included. Cheap and cheerful. St. Carmel walked me through a meditation garden. I liked it for its many flowerbeds and statues. She showed me everything within the cloister, pointed to every tree and every bench and every door. Then she escorted me back to the brick building, to the dormitory.
Impassively I scanned the tiny space I had been provided; it was no different from my room back in Harrisburg. À la nuthouse plain white walls. A wardrobe, (for a lack of a better word) with three old hangers, pressed tightly to the left wall. Far left corner – a twin bed with one flat pillow, a wool blanket and a huge wooden cross nailed above the head. Straight ahead is a tiny drawer desk with a tiny chair situated under the springline window. A corner shelf for prayer attributes. The one exception was a useless-looking installation, a hovering concrete bench, protruding from the right wall and stretching almost across its entire length. Will do for now, I thought.
See, my plan was to escape my family, present and future, but I did not plan to stay in the monastery for long either, only until I had a concrete idea of how the real world worked and what I needed to do to live in it. But two months turned to two years. And the next thing I knew I had made my novitiate vows. It wasn’t so much because I still had no good plan, but rather what held me was the friendship I had developed that made me feel home.
Valeria’s spirit matched the color of her ginger hair, fiery, also rebellious, exciting and sincere. She was a true friend, an atheist like me. I’ve been around too many ravenous catholics to know that they never questioned God’s existence but simply, blindly believed, so when Valeria had asked me if I believed in God, I knew right the way she did not. And she confirmed it without hesitation. With pride, even.
She’d put on quite a show of a quiet, pious type when around others, but in private she was ungodly, to the point of dangerous, fearless enough to not follow the rules of Saint Benedict, skilled enough to go unnoticed. For starters, she resided in the monastery on sufferance, unbeknownst to others. Her name was not Valeria. It wasn’t even Jeanne by which she went in the convent. It was Andrea. Between us two, she asked me to call her Valeria. And frankly, I thought Andrea, or Jeanne for that matter, didn’t suit her as well as Valeria did, so I gladly went on with the latter. She was the Copperfield at going unnoticed amidst many eyes. She’d make me laugh by making faces while others were in prayer. She’d curse. She’d drink. She’d sneak out of the convent, or into my cell to gossip about other nuns during grand silence, or hide bread rolls under my bed during sacred fasting on Fridays. For the food I was beyond grateful as the portions I was given would never fill my stomach and I always starved. So her contraband was always much appreciated. Once she had even managed to smuggle a log of salami and a brick of ham into the convent, which she hid in aluminum foil behind the fridge in the kitchen. To my question of where she had gotten it from, she’d responded – from the hot guy. Apparently there was a boy whose family had often visited the monastery’s chapel to pray with the community for someone’s well-being. She told me also that she and the hot guy had an affair. Inside the cloister. In the barn full of chickens. In a pile of hay. In broad day light. Like I said, she was fearless. Fearless and impious enough to conjure spirits. Right inside the convent. And God how I wish I’d never joined her in this…undertaking.
I remember our first cliché seance like it was yesterday, us sitting on the floor amongst the few silent candles, otherwise in total darkness of her cell, as Valeria spat mockeries at Ouija board. “Well hello, Father Hamlet’s ghost,” she sniggered. “Are you there?”
Silence.
“Is anyone here? We wanna chit-chat.”
Silence.
“Hell-o-o-o?”
Silence. The planchette stayed static.
She circled, more like jerked, the pointer over the board once again to revive it. “Come on, shy thing. We’re growing old out ’ere. Grace us with your presence, whoever you are.” She half spoke half laughed, winking at me playfully, flames reflecting in her darkened eyes.
We sat in total silence for another five-or-so minutes. Occasionally, Val uttered questions far from polite or respectful. She said stuff like, did I summon a deaf spirit? Did you die of bubonic plague? Are you bored with me, fancy pants? Why so serious? At least give us a sign that you’re here, blow a candle or something. Don’t be a buzzkill! Not one candle shivered. Everything besides Val’s impish presence was absolutely quiet and still, too still, it seemed, but that was just my imagination mixed with conditioned apprehension. When Valeria had had enough of playing around, her fingers slid off the planchette. “What did I fucking tell you? It’s all bullshit.”
This ‘bullshit’ happened often, specifically when Val was in an irked predisposition, had too much of useless worshipping, or, for instance, had to endure funeral rites (a common service in our monastery) and listen to preposterous eulogies of the deceased soul’s reunion with Jesus in heaven. She believed in cold reality of a dead end, not in afterlife rainbows. There were always some kind of attributes that she’d use, pentagrams, crystal balls, candlelights, mirrors and a bunch of ridiculous spells that went along, all to conjure yet another otherworldly agent whose existence Valeria yearned to refute. She wanted to prove it all wrong, all the gods and religions and spirits. She hated false hopefulness faith promised its followers and had her reasons for it, escaping from something unfortunate just like me. “See?” She’d say. “There is no divine purpose to our existence. It’s all about eating, shitting, sleeping, and dying into nothingness. So thank your parents for fucking when they did and make this parasitic life count while you still can.”
†††
It was one of those days, a wedding this time, and every sentence the bride pronounced made Valeria tsk. “What kind of idiotic vows are these?” She whispered, as we sat in the back pews.
“The lord instructs me to be your wife–”
“Pfft.”
“It is written in heaven–”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Our union is eternal–”
“Ple-e-ease…”
I sat beside her and grinned.
“Well,” I whispered back, surveying the bride that was a full head taller than her groom, “they sure do compliment each other.”
Valeria rolled her eyes.
“…and as guardian angels protect children, may God’s angels guard our love forever,” concluded the bride. At that one even I tsked. Say this to kids that get raped next to those guardian angels, I thought.
“Guess what we’re doing tonight?” Valeria threw me a laughing glance.
“What?”
“Summoning angels.”
We had agreed to meet in my room twenty minutes after Compline, at 9:20 p.m. to be exact since the night prayer was followed by strict silence and the day was pronounced over. Valeria’s attribute, a book with her little spells and charms, was sitting on my desk, but Valeria herself was missing. Good thing Ronan, the hot guy, had given her two old phones with prepaid services by Val’s request, so I texted her:
ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ?
And received:
ʀᴀɪɴᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ? ɪ’ᴍ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʀᴏɴᴀɴ.
This girl, I thought. She slithered in and out of the monastery like from a college dorm. I only sneaked out of here twice: to buy candy bars at a local gas station, and then to buy bread at the local bakery. Otherwise I refused to join Valeria’s escapades, too afraid to get caught and kicked out. But now thinking of Val probably having the time of her life somewhere outside the monastic walls while I was confined in those monastic walls, I was extremely bored.
I picked up the book. The Wicca Bible: a Complete Guide to Spells. I frowned at the name. Valeria surely knew more about its properties than me. I was a dumb-dumb when it came to ‘magick’ and treated things like these books as a total waste of trees. So I sat in my dark cell on my squeaky bed with the Wicca Bible on my lap thinking of what use I could get out of it. I flipped through the pages: Introduction. Know your power. Herbs. First spells. The Clements. More herbs. More spells, for protection, luck, money, love. Blah, blah blah, my eyes sprinted through lines, for power, for health, for happiness, blah blah blah… and then boom.
𝔈𝔫𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔓𝔯𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯: 𝔅𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔩
ℑ𝔫𝔳𝔬𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫.
✡️
Invocation. As a summoning? I slowed down on the next three pages, carefully studying the being I was to conjure. Raphael: Divine Healer; Facilitator of Miracles and Blessings. I assumed that was the angel Val had planned to invocate. Hm, sounds harmless. I learned some more about the actual ritual and, just out of excruciating boredom, was ready to try it. The only issue was that I did not have the right attributes. 2 pieces of aventurine, 2 of malachite and 2 of emerald; 6 big green candles; white roses or lilies of the valley. A wand. Where the fuck was I going to get all that from, and at this late hour? Those were not the ‘commodities’ the monastery carried. The only place I could think of was my mother’s crystal shop. Or Val. I shot her another test.
ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴜғғ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪᴛᴜᴀʟ?
No response. Whatever. I was way too bored and careless for the precision of what I used, so I worked with what I had at hand at the moment. I substituted the green candles for plain white ones, the fancy stones for Himalayan salt crystals, the wand for a tree stick, and the lush flowers for some apple mint blossoms, which grew in a greenhouse near the barn. The latter was a bitch to get. Not only was the tray with the mint situated in the farthest end of the greenhouse, but I had to force myself through the narrow space and creep like a bug between all the bullshit plants that curled and twisted in my way, squinting so not to poke my eye out. And on my way out I had managed to step into a bucket of liquid fertilizer and scratch my hand to blood on a nail that hid near the door. So that was fun. Oh, and did I mention it was winter? So I froze my ass while scavenging for the stupid plant. But once in my room, I shook off dirt and snow and went straight to business.
The instructions said, place the stones into a six-pointer, the Star of David, then stand a candle at each end of the shape. Unfortunately, I could only gather 3 big candles, and the rest were thin and flimsy. Therefore, I did not do a hexagon but poured salt into a triangle, and placed the big candles accordingly. The mint flowers – literally my blood, sweat and tears – were crumbled and sprinkled on top instead of the rose petals. The final touch – lighting the candles. I also decided to utilize the thin candles for the ambience. All nine of them, waxed in place, were lined up on that useless bench-like installation to get some use out of it. Now the room was twinkling with lights (according to the text, they indicated my pure love and intent) that created dancing shadows all over the room. I kneeled next to the altar I had assembled, the book in my hands. I turned the page and was now down to the next step of my ritual – Guided Meditation. I was instructed to stare at the sigil of archangel Raphael, an odd looking medallion with some lines and circles and what not, portrayed on one of the pages. I was to do so until the sigil would imprint in my mind and I would be able to ‘draw’ it using the wand inside of the alter with my eyes closed. I closed my eyes when the pattern became familiar. I was then instructed to sit still and meditate on my pure and good intention, no other thought polluting me. I was to imagine my worries, anxieties and unwanted thoughts as clouds swimming by. I remember thinking, before all thoughts dissolved, how preposterous I looked.
After good ten minutes I became fully aware of the present. I felt the cold floor underneath me, my bent knees aching ever so slightly, my shoulders down and neck long, my heart beating slower and my breathing decreasing. I heard the soft crackling of the candles. I heard the occasional wafts of the wind outside, and when the wafts would pass, I clearly heard the silence. My senses were heightened: exactly what I was trying to achieve. I had opened my eyes for just a moment then to poke the stick at the middle of the triangle before I closed them back and by memory began to outline the sigil. I halted several times, trying to recall how the pattern went, but overall I thought I had drown it correctly. The last step – The Call.
Ad Sanctum Raphaelem Archangelum
Diregere dignare, Domine Deus, in adiutorium nostrum, sanctum Raphaelem Archangelum;
et quem tuae maiestati semper assistere credimus, tibi nostras exiguas preces benedicendas assignet.
Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
⚕️
I had to recite it 6 times for 6 candles. However, since my DIY altar contained just 3, I recited the prayer thrice only, butchered it with terrible pronunciation. Then I waited for a while…for absolutely nothing. Obviously. I rose from my aching knees and sat on the bed opposite to the nine candles that burned in perfect tranquility, staring at the unwavering lights with apathy. Faux. And to think there were individuals that actually fell for this crap? This is so stupid. I tittered. If only Val knew what the hell I was doing here, I thought, she’d–
Something moved. A shadow? I disregarded it. The candlelight was obviously tricking my eyes; they were tired. She’d think I’m–
Something moved again. My attention snapped. I stopped thinking of my stupidity and Val, or anything for that matter. My vision focused on the shadows that seemed to stir out of place; nothing suspicious. I rubbed my tired eyes. A noise followed. Unobtrusive. Hardly hearable. Like a gentle breath or a waft of wind, just a bit clearer, as if the wind blew inside the room. My fingers halted right on the eye they were scratching. With one eye available I noticed shadow movement, another clearer ‘slither’ along the dim wall. I swallowed. No. This isn’t coming from the candles.
Then poof. The first candle went off.
It almost seemed like someone stood right above it and ever so gently blew it out. I stared breathlessly at the smoke that came from the extinguished wick. The feeling I had experienced resembled drunkenness, even though I didn’t know what being drunk was. But basically, fear to the point of lightheadedness. The whole space swayed gently, and I felt I swayed with it. In my head the same question on replay: Is this happening or am I going mad? I even remember uttering, “Val?” as if she was there, pranking me somehow.
The second candle died out. The same gentle blow, a soft breath. I remember shaking my head no, denying what I was witnessing.
The third candle went off.
6 candles left.
I didn’t dare blink, goggled at the remaining flames with horror, and I remember how I wished for them to burn forever. Just as I wished that, the fourth candle went out. After the fourth one, the interval between them dying became shorter. And shorter. And shorter.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine!
The last one went out so violently that the poor thing trembled. What was left were the three big altar candles that burned on the floor beneath me. But by then, my body was so numb, so rooted to the spot with fear and extreme confusion, that I couldn’t even move a muscle to look down, as my eyes, round as saucers, still gaped at the smoking darkness that was lit up a moment ago.
I felt them, heard them go out. One by one. Angrily. At an interval of three seconds between each blow. I glanced down for an instant to register what had happened below me only to look up and find myself staring at two burning lights. It confused me to no end. I could have sworn all of the candles went off, unless my eyes betrayed me and I missed something. Regardless of what it was, a fact was a fact. There were two flames burning. Still as a statue, I watched them. Observed them. They moved funny, floated yet maintained the same level and distance. At times one light would slide behind the other, and then the other way around. It was a baffling sight that became more baffling as the seconds ticked by. Only some time later it dawned on me – my candles weren’t as tall as those lights, weren’t as bright. Those were no candles. Those were eyes.
I felt a presence, I remember. It was so strong that I could sense its thick energy just by moving fingers through the electrified air. And I remember having this unmistakable feeling in my stomach, dread twisting my guts into a knot. Something was sitting on that bench in the darkness.
One instant. That’s all it took for me turn from a complete atheist to a complete believer, the feeling so painful it was hardly tolerable. My granny’s demons suddenly had weight, meaning, reason, sense. There was hell, and there was heaven, and devil, and God…my god…
The lights–the eyes flickered. I winced, but stared at them unwaveringly. Their movement began to make sense to me. They seemed to scan the limited space, curiously, thus the constant turning of…of the head? I imagined the face in which those eyes were embedded. But dumb with terror, I couldn’t come up with one, almost didn’t want to. My brain was too stunned to imagine what hid in that darkness. I could only goggle at the two lights that slowly took in their surroundings. When they halted on me, they glowed brighter. And bigger, it appeared.
I didn’t dare move, make a sound. Blink. And as far as I can recall, I wasn’t breathing. That was a long moment I had to endure, my limbs turning to stone in suspense. The eyes tilted. No, the head tilted, and then came out a deep, quizzical growl.
𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖊?
A laughter erupted. It sounded horrendously loud. To compare the magnitude, a lion’s angry roar would be a playful meow next to that blast of that horror. It was more than beastly. Wicked. Dark. Fierce. And so powerful it shook the walls. Truly something from hell. I wondered if other sisters heard it. They had to, for how it thundered. That sound paralyzed not body but soul, gripped it with cold claws of terror.
𝕺, 𝕻𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖗. . . 𝕼𝖚𝖆𝖊 𝕴𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖎𝖆!
It, whatever it was, guffawed madly. And then the eyes, for they were eyes (the more I gaped at them the clearer they became) momentarily disappeared. Closed? When they appeared again, they burned like hot lava. And a voice, for it sounded more human, albeit neither male nor female, echoed through the room.
“𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔, 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚔𝚎𝚛.”
My brain registered familiar language. I swallowed down the fear that was stuck in my throat like a hot coal.
“Ar-arch…angel?” I stuttered.
Silence.
“R-Raphael?”
“𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚁𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚊𝚎𝚕.”
It growled; its derisive reply felt like a punch in the gut. Then who? Who the fuck did I invocate? It truly felt like a dream, conversing with…with what? With who? Were I only imagining it all? If I wasn’t so deeply shocked I’d surely give myself a good slap in the face. But all I could manage was hoping I was still sane. And why did I get so tired so suddenly? It seemed my energy was draining out of me like water out of a broken vessel. I slowly inhaled and exhaled as I felt dizzy constantly holding my breath.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝙰𝚜𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚞𝚜.”
The name sounded familiar. But as I tried to think of where I had heard it before, nothing came to mind.
“What are you, Asmodeus?” I asked, my tone neutral, my eyes glued to the fiery lights on the opposite end of the room.
Silence.
Maybe it’s like Ouija board, I speculated, this thing replies to yes or no?
“Are you a spirit of a dead person?”
Silence. And the lights disappeared again. I thought of a more respectful question.
“Are you a man?”
Silence. Darkness.
“A woman?”
Silence. Darkness. I sat still. Am I delusional?
“Are you–here, Asmo–dees? Deus?”
The eyes appeared suddenly, glowed and blinded me with how brightly they shone, like the headlines of a train, splitting my cell on black and white.
“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚗𝚞𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝙸 𝚊𝚖.”
It sounded like a beginning of a threat.
“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎, 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚕. 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚓𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚖𝚢'𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎. 𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚋𝚢 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚎’𝚜 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚗𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚕𝚎𝚍𝚐𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞.”
The voice growled deeper the more it spoke; I could hardly make out the words that lashed at me. Not without difficulty I discerned sacral offerings, and how I neglected to prepare them for the guest I had invited into my house.
“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚝 𝚖𝚎 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚝𝚢. 𝙴𝚖𝚙𝚝𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚒𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚛. 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝. 𝚁𝚒𝚙 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚑. 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚞𝚌𝚔, 𝚗𝚞𝚗, 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚑𝚢 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑.”
The gruesomeness it spewed was nothing short of grisly. But as if hypnotized to keep my mouth shut I could only listen to the otherworldly outrage and feel its wrath chilling my spine.
“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚗. 𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜, 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚗𝚍.”
“Wai–Wha–Wh–” I mumbled, tongue thick with shock. A tear ran down my cheek. I was afraid. “I…don’t under–”
“𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚍𝚘𝚘𝚖, 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑.”
The voice roared and the glaring lights went off.
I don’t remember what happened afterwards, except that the following darkness lasted indefinitely. I might have had passed out. That is why, I think, it felt so long. I also remember the real daylight burning my eyes when I had opened them, and Valeria’s worried face as she shook me to consciousness.
