CHAPTER 4
355 Words
The night air pressed heavily against Saint Matthew’s Convent, thick with the scent of damp stone and old incense.
The chapel’s bell rang once, echoing into the empty halls — a hollow, mournful tone.
It was a sound that seemed to awaken something ancient within the walls.
Rebecca sat at the small desk in the library, the archive book Mercy had left open before her.
She could feel Mercy’s presence hovering close, unseen, but insistent.
Her hands trembled as she turned the pages, the candlelight dancing across her features, making her shadows flicker along the walls.
Then it happened.
A gust of cold wind spiraled around the room.
The candlelight bent unnaturally, elongating shadows that no living thing could cast.
Rebecca froze, her breath catching in her throat.
“Do not fear me,” the voice whispered, soft but insistent, curling around her mind.
Rebecca gasped, clutching the book. She felt the cold like a living hand, a presence coiling around her spine.
“Help me. Only you can.”
Her eyes widened. Mercy’s spirit had chosen her. It was not an invitation. It was a command.
Rebecca’s body trembled as the presence deepened, whispering fragments of memories: the hallway, the dragging footsteps, the shadows stretching across the walls, the envelope slipping from Mercy’s hands.
Each memory was vivid, as if she had lived it herself.
“He cannot hide. You will make him see the truth. You will finish what I could not.”
Rebecca shivered. She had always been a sensitive soul, attuned to the emotions of others, but this was beyond anything she had ever felt.
It was as if Mercy’s anger, sorrow, and determination had fused with her own consciousness.
Outside the library, the first drops of rain began to fall.
The wind groaned through the convent’s eaves, rattling the old windows.
Shadows pooled in the corners, alive with subtle movement. Something was stirring, drawn to the awakening power Mercy had begun to wield.
Rebecca knew, instinctively, that this night was the beginning.
The convent’s darkness had been patient for decades, waiting for Mercy’s downfall.
Now it would meet her vengeance.
- Writer
