🔴 THE PREACHER SAID DADDY’S NAME, THEN POINTED RIGHT AT ME
I choked on the stale church air and gripped the pew so hard my knuckles cracked.
“Elijah harbored demons,” Reverend Johnson boomed, sweat glistening on his forehead, “and SOMEONE here helped him feed them.” The organ groaned, a long, mournful sound. The heat in the room was stifling, but a cold sweat prickled my skin. It smelled like old hymnals and fear.
My Aunt Carol squeezed my hand, her eyes wide and pleading, but I couldn’t meet her gaze. Mama always said secrets had a way of crawling out of the dark, and Elijah’s secrets were monstrous. She said “Protect them, baby girl,” but I was too young.
Now the whole church was staring. A baby started crying. And the Reverend stepped down from the pulpit, pointing again, his face twisted with fury. “Confess your sins, child, before it’s too late.”
I gasped, but couldn’t scream — someone grabbed my arm from behind.
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The grip on my arm tightened, and I was pulled from the pew. The world tilted. I saw Aunt Carol’s horrified face, a blur of concerned parishioners, the judgmental glare of the Reverend, and then – darkness.
When I opened my eyes, the air was fresh, carrying the scent of damp earth and pine needles. I was outside, the setting sun painting the sky in fiery hues. The church was a silhouette against the vibrant canvas. I was lying on the ground, a figure looming over me. It was not the Reverend, but Silas, the church’s groundskeeper, a man whose eyes always seemed to miss a stitch.
“You need to leave, child,” Silas rasped, his voice a dry whisper, “He knows.”
“Who knows?” I croaked, my throat raw.
Silas glanced back at the church, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “The thing Elijah made. The darkness…it’s hungry. It seeks to consume.”
He helped me to my feet, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Follow the creek,” he instructed, pointing towards a gurgling stream that snaked through the woods. “Go far, find sanctuary. Don’t look back.” He pressed a small, tarnished silver cross into my hand. “It’ll protect you.”
I stumbled into the woods, the cross burning against my palm. The woods felt both familiar and alien, the shadows lengthening as dusk deepened. I ran, driven by fear and a desperate need to understand. Elijah’s secrets. The darkness. What was it?
I followed the creek, the water becoming my only guide. I walked for what felt like hours, the woods closing in. The trees twisted, their branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. The air grew heavy, a suffocating presence. I heard whispers in the wind, felt the pull of an unseen presence urging me forward.
Then I saw it – a small, ramshackle cabin nestled at the edge of a clearing. Smoke curled from the chimney. A light flickered in the window.
Hesitantly, I approached. I knew I should run. But exhaustion, and a flicker of hope, urged me forward. I knocked on the door.
It creaked open. Standing in the doorway was a woman, her face etched with worry lines, her eyes kind. She was old, maybe as old as the church itself.
“Come in, child,” she said, her voice a soothing balm. “You’ve been expected.”
Inside, the cabin was warm, the smell of herbs and simmering stew filling the air. On the table sat a book, its cover worn, its pages filled with strange symbols. I recognized it instantly. It was the book Elijah always kept locked away, the one Mama warned me about.
“You know about the demons, then?” I asked, my voice trembling.
The woman nodded. “And I know how to stop them. But it’s not easy, and the darkness is relentless.”
She showed me the symbols in the book, explaining their meaning, the rituals required. I learned of the price of Elijah’s pact, the terrible things he’d done. It was worse than I could have imagined.
The woman, whose name was Elara, taught me how to fight. We spent days, weeks even, in the cabin, preparing for the inevitable confrontation. I learned to wield the silver cross, to recite the incantations, to understand the darkness and its weakness.
The darkness found us, as it always did. It came in the form of shadowy figures, whispers in the wind, a malevolent presence that threatened to consume us both. But this time, I was ready.
With Elara’s guidance, I performed the final ritual, chanting the words, the silver cross blazing. The darkness fought back, a searing agony that threatened to rip me apart. But I held on, fueled by Mama’s words, by the memory of Elijah’s sins, and the knowledge that I was protecting something sacred.
The shadows recoiled, shrieking in agony, then dissipated, leaving behind only silence. The air cleared, the sun broke through the clouds. The church was gone, replaced by the warmth of the sun on my face.
Elara smiled, her eyes bright. “You did it, child.”
I looked back at the space where the church stood, knowing that I had faced the darkness and won. My journey had just begun. I knew I would never forget the things I had seen, the secrets I had learned. But for now, I was free. And I was ready to protect those secrets, and keep the darkness at bay.