WELCOME TO NEVERLIGHT VILLAGE EP#5
1032 Words
EPISODE#5 The Shadow In The Church
The trees were everywhere now. No village houses, no chapel, no streets. Just thick, ancient forest surrounding the house like a wall of shadows.
Jay rubbed his eyes. “I swear, we were in a village ten minutes ago. Now we’re in a haunted forest. Did the entire map just… change?”
John stood by the boarded-up window, flashlight in hand. “It’s like the village moves around us. Or we move around it. The rules don’t just affect time — they mess with space, too.”
Marcus glanced back at the broken fireplace, where the black box had dropped. “And the moment we closed our eyes… it shifted again.”
Jay shook his head. “Bro, this place is like a horror game designed by someone who hates sleep and GPS.”
Then a sound cut through the silence.
Gong.
A low, deep chime from somewhere beyond the trees.
Gong.
John stiffened. “That’s a bell.”
Marcus listened closely. “That’s… a church bell.”
Jay looked confused. “There’s a church? Since when?”
John grabbed his backpack. “Doesn’t matter. We find it.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Jay protested. “You want to go toward the creepy bell in the middle of this ghost forest?”
Marcus zipped up his jacket. “It’s either that or sit here waiting for another rule to break itself.”
Jay grumbled, “Fine. But if I get possessed, I’m haunting both of you for eternity.”
They stepped out into the forest, flashlights barely cutting through the thick fog. The trees were twisted, gnarled things — roots like claws, bark like scars.
The bell kept ringing, slow and steady.
Gong… Gong… Gong…
And with each chime, the fog thinned just a little, like the sound was clearing a path.
Marcus whispered, “I don’t like how it’s guiding us.”
Jay muttered, “I don’t like how it’s working.”
Soon, through the trees, a shape began to form.
A large, old church — gray stone walls, leaning slightly, its bell tower rising like a finger pointing at the sky. The door creaked in the wind.
Only… there was no wind.
John swallowed. “Okay. We go in. Quietly. Carefully. And no one touches anything.”
Jay pulled out a broken umbrella like a sword. “If I die, tell my mom I fought bravely with a two-dollar umbrella.”
Inside, the church was silent.
Dust hung in the air. Wooden pews were cracked and half-rotted. Stained glass windows were smashed, their colored pieces scattered across the floor like confetti at a very sad wedding.
But at the front — a giant wooden podium. And behind it, something even stranger.
A wall covered in mirrors.
Dozens of them. All shapes and sizes.
Some looked centuries old. Some were modern. Some were… broken.
John approached carefully.
Jay whispered, “Why does a creepy ghost church have a mirror collection?”
Marcus leaned forward. “Maybe they’re windows. Like… to different versions of the village.”
Suddenly, one mirror flickered.
Then another.
Then another.
Each showed a different version of the church — different lighting, different decorations, even different people standing inside.
Marcus gasped. “That one… that one has us in it.”
They turned to look.
In one mirror, the three of them stood in the exact same positions — but older. Worn out. Covered in dirt.
In another, only John stood. Crying.
In a third, the church was full of villagers. But their faces were blank.
And in the largest mirror at the center… was nothing.
Just black.
Then, the black mirror rippled.
Like water.
And something stepped out.
A shadowy figure, tall and thin. No face. No eyes. Just darkness in a vaguely human shape.
It dragged something behind it — a long, twisted staff made of blackened wood.
Jay whispered, “That’s new.”
Marcus held his breath.
The figure stopped in the middle of the church.
Then it raised its hand… and pointed at them.
One by one.
Jay.
John.
Marcus.
And then… it spoke.
In a voice like wind and static.
“You are not part of the pattern.”
The lights flickered.
The mirrors shook.
“You broke time.”
Jay stepped back. “That was already broken when we got here, thanks!”
The figure stepped forward.
Marcus shouted, “RUN!”
They bolted for the door, the church trembling behind them. As they exited, the doors slammed shut on their own with a thunderous BANG!
Then silence.
The forest had returned.
But this time — no fog.
No church.
No sound.
Back at the house, they collapsed onto the floor, breathing hard.
Jay panted, “Okay. Church ghost… not friendly.”
John opened his notebook again. “That shadow… it said we weren’t part of the pattern.”
Marcus nodded. “Meaning?”
“We disrupted something. Maybe by breaking Rule One, or just by being here.”
Jay raised a hand. “So now what? The whole haunted ecosystem wants to delete us?”
John scribbled quickly. “We need more information. These mirrors… that church… they showed us something. Alternate outcomes. Or possible futures.”
Marcus sat up. “Some of them were bad. But some… weren’t.”
Jay tilted his head. “Wait… are you saying there might be a version of us that escapes?”
John nodded. “Possibly. If we follow the right path. Make the right choices.”
Jay grinned weakly. “Well, we already broke one rule, right? So now we’re playing on ‘hard mode’.”
Marcus looked out the window.
The moon had moved again.
Now it was just past the halfway mark.
Time was crawling forward.
Barely.
But it was moving.
He smiled. “Then we keep going. Find clues. Avoid traps. Don’t break the other rules.”
Jay added, “And stay the heck out of ghost mirror churches.”
Marcus looked back at them. “Agreed?”
They all nodded.
And outside, in the trees, the bell rang once more.
But this time… in reverse.
GONK.
[To Be Continued…]
EPISODE#5 ENDS HERE
- Writer
