Ebrugh Report 14: My Village Was Haunted By God

Artist's rendition of the comet.

This Ebrugh Report is about the effects of a comet. In a desolate village deep in Russia, strange happenings begin to plague the people that seem to stem from the arrival of an angel.

## Summary

In a remote Soviet village, where the inhabitants clung to their religious beliefs as a source of solace amidst the harsh conditions of a famine-stricken era, an extraordinary event unfolded. It all began when a meteorite streaked across the night sky, crashing deep into the distant forest, capturing the attention of the villagers.

The ensuing night bore witness to a peculiar dream experienced by a young girl, who referred to a seemingly celestial entity she encountered as "The Witness." This vision left an indelible mark on her psyche, and she felt compelled to share it with her fellow villagers. A group of devout individuals, stirred by her revelation, resolved to embark on a pilgrimage to the location where the meteorite had made its descent, hoping to pay their respects to what they called an "angel".

However, the return of the pilgrims weeks later was marked by a palpable sense of dread. Only one of them had survived, and their harrowing account suggested that the celestial entity, believed to be an angel, had met a gruesome fate at the hands of malevolent forces. In the wake of this tragedy, the village became a focal point of unsettling occurrences.

One of the pilgrim's homes was discovered to be hollowed out, with her parents mysteriously vanished. Outside the desolate residence, an inexplicable piece of flesh was found, adorned with a human mouth that emitted mournful cries. As the nights unfolded, eerie shapes began to haunt the village's deserted streets, sowing terror among the remaining inhabitants.

As the bizarre events continued to escalate, two young men stumbled upon a peculiar hole in the nearby forest, interpreting it as a divine manifestation. The situation took a dark turn when one of the men, driven by fervent belief, cast his girlfriend into the growing abyss, accusing her of heresy, before flinging himself into its depths.

In a chilling denouement, additional holes emerged, each assumed to be a conduit to the divine. The villagers, gripped by an increasingly frenzied fervor, converged upon these apertures. Ultimately, they began to willingly cast themselves into the yawning voids, seemingly drawn to a mysterious beckoning. The once-thriving village was left abandoned, its population consumed by the enigma of the otherworldly, leaving behind only an eerie silence to bear witness to their curious fate.

## Report 14

### Rumoured Origin

*This strange tale was posted in several parts on r/mystery in 2013. I believe it contains a huge hint to discover the truth about the Ebrugh… and… everything…*

### Main Report

*I hope this is the right place and someone can tell me what may have been going on in my village. I moved here a few weeks ago. It's a small village in the heart of Russia and my parents and I came here because things started to boil in Moscow and my father lost his job. I don't know why we had to move to this isolated village, so far away from civilization. Maybe my parents wanted peace and quiet? To escape the hustle and bustle of the big city? Its dark, corrupt thoughts?*

*The houses here had all been far below average in price. Almost everyone who lives here has moved here recently.*

*There are crazy rumors about this village that people tell each other. It was found abandoned in the mid-nineties. Where everyone went, no one knows. They say that no signs of people were found at all, nothing. But... everywhere in and around the village… strange patches of earth had been discovered, circular and smooth. Not only in the forest or on the road, but also in the dilapidated wooden houses. At our new neighbors' house, one of the mysterious spots had supposedly been found right in the living room floor, where the floorboards had been just cut away.*

*These rumors scare me. I am afraid of this village. But yesterday... I was redoing the floor in my room with my father and there... I found a notebook under the old boards. I hid it from my father, I don't know why... Someone must have left it there.*

*Last night... that's when I read it. I read it and now I'm incredibly afraid of this house and this village. Of the fields and the woods that surround me. The notebook apparently belonged to one Ilya Vasiliev. I have tried to translate what he wrote, hoping that someone here can help me find an explanation for the rumors. For this uneasy feeling that I have since I moved here...*

#### **Part 1 – The Witness of the Lord**

I am fine. I want that to be clear from the beginning. My story is strange and in huge parts troubling, but I am still in the best state of mental health.

I am fine!

My story begins seven months ago, in December 1979, when deep winter was upon our village. We were preparing for Christmas, the first Christmas to be celebrated publicly throughout the village, after years of having to practice our faith in secret because the Soviet government did not allow religions. Only in the last few years did the Reds' view loosen and they allowed small islands of faith. One of them was my village, which finally dared to celebrate and praise the Lord.

I have been a believer all twenty years of my life, an exemplary Christian, just like my parents. Faith had kept our family line alive in times of terror and misery. Death had always been close to us, as the fields where most of the population of our village had worked for generations had once brought the end of hundreds of people. Many years ago, on those fields, atrocities had occurred that had finally given them their present name: The Fields of Death.

I myself had not been born back then, not by a long shot, but my grandparents had spent their childhood there, a childhood full of hunger and depravity. My grandfather Fomenko often told me and my sister the stories he had experienced and how faith had saved everyone. There had been a long, cold winter and the grain had been confiscated by the government to be taken to the cities for distribution. After all, the grain belonged to all the people, not just those on the farms who planted it, tended to it, and harvested it. And so, the only food of that time left my grandfather's village and never came back. Some of his neighbors had once tried to hold back some grain, to hide some sacks, but when they were caught, a hail of bullets determined their fate. People lived in fear, not daring to stop working, not daring to keep for themselves the food that was destined for the common good. In those days, horrors happened in my village that I cannot imagine today, not even when I hear my grandfather's usually clear voice begin to tremble. When I see in his eyes that he would rather forget, in order to experience a peaceful sleep once again… someday.

He told us of those horrors to warn us how quickly life can plunge from safety into infinite terror. Winter had reigned. The grain was being hauled away. They still shot all those who tried to keep back pieces of it, be it a sack or some husks that had fallen from a cart. In time, hunger began to drive people in our village insane. Parents locked up their children so they wouldn't be taken by neighbors to feed their hunger. Friends turned their backs on each other and killed each other in fights for the last livestock that was still alive. The streets reeked of decay and death, of misery and suffering. One day, my grandfather told us, he had hidden in the back room of his house while his parents dragged themselves, emaciated, to the fields to pick the last scraps of grain from the furrows with their dirty, half-frozen fingers. He had come across a book there, a book that had saved his life.

The word of God. An old Bible.

My grandfather had learned to read and was probably the only child far and wide with that skill. Perhaps because his parents had once come from another country, one where reading was part of basic education? Who knows these days.

It was in the room I now live in that Grandfather Fomenko had found the dusty book. Actually, he had been looking for something to eat, the days before he had found some sawdust. But despite his hunger and the grumbling in his stomach, eating the book was out of the question. Books were sacred, and no book as sacred as this one. He had begun to read and learned about the greatness of the Lord. Of the miracles his Son had performed. And of the magic of faith. His stomach had growled, but he had ignored it. The words gave him comfort.

The next day he immersed himself in the book again, disappearing into better worlds and times, hearing wisdom and encouragement. But around noon there was a knock at the door. My grandfather emphasized each time that he had not been afraid, that he had known that the Lord would protect him, when the old neighbor gained entrance to our house armed with a cleaver. It was clear what he wanted: Meat. My grandfather told us each time about how the neighbor had looked more undead than human, stinking and with sunken eyes, smelling like death from his mouth, the cleaver trembling in his hand.

"I'm sorry, boy," was all the man could get out.

My grandfather tried to mimic this poor man’s voice at the end of his wits, to express his pain through words so that we understood that poor fellow a little.

The Lord's words had given courage to my grandfather in his most terrible moments. He had stood up and firmly said:

"Away with you, the Lord protects the inhabitants of this house!"

But the intruder did not care, coming closer. And so, my grandfather again sought comfort and prayed. He prayed for mercy and peace and for his life. He would serve the Almighty for the rest of his days. Trust Him blindly.

Suddenly, like a gruesome miracle, the famished intruder had let out an inhuman groan and collapsed, dead and debilitated. There had been no hunger for my grandfather and his family for a week after that. My grandfather had been praying to the Lord since that day, thanking Him for His mercy. The story spread around the village and out of desperation or hope, in the next few days everyone secretly knelt in front of small wooden crosses they had made themselves and prayed to the Lord. A week later, like a miracle, the long-awaited delivery of grain arrived, along with spring. There had not been another bad time since then.

These events are the reason for the faith in our village... and our family. The psalm my grandfather had prayed as the hungry neighbor strode in his direction had become the guiding psalm of our faith. All these years we had not been able to celebrate Christmas with the other families, but since the restrictions on faith communities had been relaxed, we had all finally decided to celebrate the holy festival in the village square. And so, we started the preparations.

There, in those evening hours, my part of the story begins. I and my younger sister Zarina, together with other youths and young adults, were fetching wood for the fire that was to burn in the center of our village. So, we went out into the night, dressed with thick pelts, to fetch logs from the edge of the fields that some men had prepared.

My breath could be seen as an icy breeze in the dawning darkness and I was already looking forward to dancing around the fire with everyone later, drinking good drinks and eating sumptuously. I was glad that we didn't have to walk across the fields themselves, but could stroll along their edge to get the logs.

You can feel death when it has hit a place. I was glad that I didn't have to work the fields myself, and had learned the carpentry trade. Therefore, I was spared from having to wander around there every day, among the echoes of past atrocities and sadness.

We were all in good spirits, strolling over the muddy ground, when all at once Zarina pointed up and into the clear night sky.

"Look, an angel is descending!!!" she exclaimed excitedly.

We all looked to where her outstretched hand pointed. A round light glowed in the night sky, glaring yellowish and shining strangely cold.

"It's singing! At Christmas! The Lord puts our feast under his sign!" Zarina cried.

We stopped and listened into the silence of the night. At first, I could hear nothing, at first, everything remained quiet, and only the distant beating of axes and the rustling of the wind in the treetops were audible.

But then, there in the wind, I could hear it, briefly but clearly. It was a kind of melodic whisper, joyful, yet also strange and otherworldly. It was heard only very briefly, and soon died away as the glow flew out of sight and disappeared somewhere far away.

"Let's go find the angel! Let's-" Zarina cried, continuing excitedly, but I interrupted her.

"We have to get the wood. We can report back to the village later, if it hasn't already been noticed there too," I said.

"You heard the singing! Surely that was an angel. Shall we leave it there? It may have gotten hurt, it must have hit something!" Sasha murmured.

Sasha was my oldest friend and one of the boys who worked on the fields. He had always been very caring and had always tried to help. His parents were long dead and the old lady who had raised him was no longer around, either. So, he struggled along, working the fields, but the rest of us looked out for him as well.

"Shouldn't we go and look for it, Ilya?", Sasha urged me anxiously.

We thought about it for a long time but decided to leave the decision to the others in the village. Trusting the Lord to guide our actions, we quickly moved on in the direction of the woodcutters to complete our task.

We were not the only ones who had seen the glow. When we returned to the village square loaded with logs, everyone was in great excitement and full of joy that the Lord had sent us this sign of His greatness. Not everyone agreed whether it was an angel or a return of the poinsettia that had been witnessed, but everyone was sure that the Lord had sent us encouragement. So, we celebrated our first Christmas full of joy and pleasure, with good food, dancing and singing, full of happiness and under the protection of the Almighty Lord. I will always think back to those days, always keep in my heart how I glimpsed a part of the Lord in the sky.

We all talked about the event and even the older people were fascinated and inspired. Even my grandfather and the others who had witnessed the death and misery of the world seemed to slowly find a spiritual peace they would never have dreamed of otherwise. They were happy and strengthened in their faith. However, we were not sure if it had really been an angel who had come down and so we hesitated to go and look for the creature of God.

But in the night, after the light had shone in the sky, I was awakened by Zarina crying in her sleep. I straightened up and slowly paced over to her bed, where in the semi-darkness she began to squirm, cramping.

"No, no, no..." she moaned painfully.

I began to shake her to wake her up. Zarina did not respond to me. Her face was like a distorted mask hiding something bad underneath. Her breathing became shallow, and she began to whimper. I was terrified and began to pray. The Lord had to save her, He just had to save her!

Zarina cramped more and more, started coughing and whimpering louder and louder. Slowly, the rest of the family woke up and my parents and grandfather huddled tightly around her, praying for her to open her eyes.

"Please, don't take our child! She has only been in your world for fourteen years..." my father cried, as panicked and desperate as I had ever seen before.

His thick, black mustache trembled with fear.

Then, abruptly, Zarina stopped convulsing.

For a terrible moment she just lay there, her hair disheveled, her face pale in the glow of the candle my mother held over her.

"Mom, Dad, Ilya, Grandpa... what's wrong?" she suddenly asked sleepily.

For a moment it was as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just seen my sister almost die, but then she began to cry.

"What's wrong, dear?" my father asked, just as pale in the face as Zarina.

It took a while before she finally found some calm and was able to talk to us.

Finally, she croaked:

"I saw the angel. I was with him."

A revelation? Had the Lord touched my sister?

We all said another prayer and finally, filled with awe, I asked:

"Where did you see the angel? Is it here? With us?"

She looked at me briefly, seemed to hesitate for a little moment, and then reported:

"I was with it… in a dream. It was in a white village, a village made of angel dust. I saw it. It didn't have wings and that's why at first I wasn't sure if it was an angel. However, soon it spoke to me."

"What did it say, Zarina?", I asked tensely.

"It said it was not God, but the Witness. It sounded like a man and a woman and a child and a baby and... It felt peaceful. Calm and carefree. Then I woke up."

"An angel. Angels are the witnesses of God, that's how it must be!" my father said enthusiastically.

Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once.

No one knew what Zarina's words meant, but we were sure that they contained something incomprehensible that we, as ordinary people, could not understand. But everyone was delighted. Everyone was caught in a beautiful dream.

The next day, the adults sat together in the large barn near the edge of the village, which was used for community events. Most of them found seats on the lined up wooden benches and the rest stood crowded against the old walls, some of which were rotten. Dimitri, probably the closest thing to a mayor, sat at a heavy pine table at the end of the room, staring at the crowd, while my parents and Zarina sat on old chairs in front of him. Tensely, the crowd looked at them, waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat thoughtfully.

"You... all saw or heard about the falling star. It was brighter than the others that keep crossing our sky and much more... melodic. Some even heard the singing. Who still doubted that the Lord sent us his messenger... doubts are now useless. Zarina has received a vision. She has seen how the angel, who was sent by God, walked on our earth, and visited a village and consecrated it with its grace. She has seen the angel marching to spread its holiness in these lands..."

"Are we sure?"

Mary, the dressmaker, had stood up. She was still young, my age and Sasha's, and she always wore her blond hair carefully braided, her dresses self-made, blood red and flashy, with silver embroidery. As always, she wore makeup - a luxury not many could afford. In other places she would have been considered a lady of higher rank, but she was also skeptical, and I had not liked her very much since childhood, because she often made insinuations that seemed to go against the Lord. Also, she had never played with us outside and had always thought of herself as someone… better. I was shocked that she now so obviously doubted the Lord's actions.

"Mary. Zarina has seen a vision. The Lord spoke to her through her dreams! The angel has joined us. How can you deny it?" my father asked coldly.

"I'm not denying it, I'm just saying, what if there is something dark that the angel was sent to fight? What if it is going into battle against some unknown evil? The angel may be spreading sanctities, but we have no idea if it is trying to redeem us or defend us..."

"It said it was a witness of God," I noted.

"That's what Zarina said when she woke up."

"Then it is benevolent to us! We must find it!" someone shouted from one of the back rows.

An excited murmur began to spread through the room.

"Silence!" Dimitri thundered.

His face looked hard but determined.

"We have to get there! If it is a message from heaven that the angel wants to bring us, we must hear it! How many can we spare? Who would even want to voluntarily leave for the wilderness? We don't know how far the journey will be, and you yourselves know how dangerous this area can be..."

A loud commotion broke out. Everyone shouted at once and volunteered. I also jumped up and loudly offered to go out to look for it.

The angel. The witness of the Lord.

I imagined meeting it in a clearing, under a full moon. How I would hear its bright voice, gaze in awe at its graceful form, and fall to my knees in prayer before it.

"SILENCE!" Dimitri shouted.

"You can't all go. The kids wouldn't make it in the deadly cold out there. Let seven go. Seven is the Lord's number, there must be seven! Seven workers from the fields! We can't spare any more!"

"You can't be serious!" I cried out.

Cold anger boiled up inside me.

"I want to go, too. We all want to. You can't just stand there and make a decision like that!"

Others joined in.

"SILENCE," Alexeij now thundered, the master blacksmith.

"We need you! Daniil, Ilya, Nikita, you have a job to do! We can't get by without you! You can't go, be reasonable!"

"But if the Lord wills it, he will make sure that everything here will work reasonably well. That nothing will happen!", I tried to argue, still boiling with anger.

"No. Winter is tugging at our huts, we need you," my father said slowly.

"So do the others. Without you, it's going to be tight. The fields lie untended there under the snow, but everything else will be weakened by time and storms. We can only spare the field hands. Besides, they're the ones most likely to withstand the cold and the wilderness; after all, they're constantly out on the Fields of Death, toiling in the wind and rain. They'll all make the trip!"

I tried to change his mind, and several came to my aid, all those who were also forced to stay.

"You can manage without a dressmaker! I want to go too!" Mary cried defiantly, her cheeks red with anger, her nose wrinkled.

This woman really believed she deserved the sight of the angel! She really believed her hypocrisies would deceive the Lord, despite her obvious doubts about His divinity. Others also complained, young and old, many who didn't deserve to go and even those who did.

But it didn't help.

Dimitri was in charge. Everyone knew that. If we started to contradict him, our village would soon end up in chaos. And deep down I knew that I had to stay. That I had to take care of my sister, who would not survive a trip in the snow. That I had to repair the huts that the storms would eat away at.

Sasha was a field worker, he was allowed to go. Sasha and Sofia, Anatoly and old Igor, Ivan and Yulia and Mikhail. When the decision was made, a decision many of us accepted only with heavy hearts and which brought out deep envy in several faces, some of the chosen ones began to cry. They were happy, fulfilled... satisfied.

They would see the messenger of the Lord, hear its melodious voice, sing its hymns.

Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why was the world so unfair? I had always believed in the Lord, prayed to Him, been subject to Him and lived according to His will. Why hadn't he chosen me to see his messenger? I had been so proud back when I had been allowed to learn the carpenter's trade thus had not had to go to the Fields of Death to toil there. At that time, I had felt like someone better when I saw Sasha and Sofia setting out early in the morning with all the other workers, with their old-fashioned plows and thick, shabby clothes. Was this the punishment for my arrogance?

The Lord knew everything. He had seen what repulsive thoughts I had had, how superior I had felt to the others.

Perhaps it was my punishment that I was not allowed to go. Perhaps the Lord was no longer favorable to me and I would have to prove myself to Him.

The next day, the seven set out north. They were seen off with singing and dancing; they were the center of the village’s attention. Envy threatened to drown me.

Why not me? Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why did I have to stay here?

And I knew: it was because of these thoughts. I wasn't pure enough. I had to get better, work on myself.

As the others disappeared from sight, as the small group seemed to be swallowed up by a patch of forest between distant trees, an icy chill ran down my spine.

What if they really did encounter evil? What if Mary had been right?

I prayed to the Lord that they would return home safely:

*Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.*

He would bring them home safely, our pilgrims. I did not begrudge them their happiness. I was not a selfish person, was not complacent like Mary or some others in the village. I lived by the word of the Lord and I would not begrudge them.

They would all return home safely.

I continued to stare into the distance for a long time as my suppressed envy sought to consume me. But I was winning.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

#### **Part 2 – The Pilgrims**

Even though the days and weeks passed, I never forgot to think of all those who had set out to witness the glory of the Lord. The cold winter had passed and frost and cold left the land, so that soon we could begin to prepare the fields for sowing. Since the sighting of the angel had caused us to let some of the farm workers leave, and they stayed away longer than we had expected, I had to join others in helping to plow the Fields of Death. The work was exhausting and made me physically very tired, since I still had to work in the carpenter's shop as well. We could not afford tractors, so we still had to resort to older tools. So, it happened that one day I was driving one of the hand plows through the dirty ground and was lost in my thoughts and full of sweat. I was quite far away from the village, as the nearby surroundings had been worked shortly after the beginning of the thaw. The fields were extensive, partly reaching further than the eye could see. Only in one direction the dense forest extended, which introduced the beginning of a dark hilly landscape, that finally merged northward into high, alien mountains, whose white peaks rose high into the sky and, like once the tower of Babel, blasphemously tried to penetrate the heavens. But next to these distant giants there was only the plain, the vast plain that had to be tilled.

I hated the field work.

And I hated the fields.

Every time I even thought about this piece of hell that had become reality long ago, my stomach turned. All the events that clung to this dark place, all the human lives and suffering that had sown the ground with death here many years ago....

It was even worse when you stood in the fields yourself, truly being there on your own. It was as if I could smell it in the air, the rot of the starving and the hot blood that had watered the soil. It was as if I could still hear in the air the cries and wailing of the people who had met their end here, who had pleaded for their lives and the lives of their children and friends. It was as if I could see them in the early morning fog banks that lay on the Fields of Death, the shadows of people past, crawling and cowering, weak and starved. I had to pull myself together and look away, into the forest. A place does not forget, a place always remembers the days gone by and the cries that had been.

The plow pulled through the ground, ripping a furrow behind it. It was almost a bit comforting to imagine I was gutting this place of horror with my labor, inflicting deep wounds. Hypnotized, I stared down over and over again, watching the ground swirl to one side, smelling the fresh earth being pushed to the surface. But never could I escape my terrible feelings and the forebodings, never quite could I forget what kind of place I was at.

The few times I looked to the forest beside me, my thoughts wandered enviously to all those who had set out to find the angel. Had they reached it yet? Had they already learned from it what needed to be done for God's power on earth to be strengthened so that false prophets and promises could be swept away? How to drown the selfishness of the state? What needed to be done to serve the Lord? How I would have loved to be there! How I would have loved to go with them, but I also understood the decision not to send everyone along, and I understood my family's objections. I was needed here. I could serve the Lord here by tilling the fields and taking care of the soil and the sowing. I had to care for my sister.

I had already made several furrows when noon came. The sun was almost not visible, just a murky spot in the clouds, and the fog had not lifted either. The world looked pale and apathetic. But amongst all the desolation I could suddenly hear something, something that seemed to come out of the forest.

It was at first just like a rustling in the wind that sounded a bit too regular, such that it triggered a natural uneasiness in me. I looked into the forest, but could hardly make out anything through the dense plants and the still lingering fog. That is why it was left to my own thoughts to imagine what was there, what was producing this strange noise.

I could not remember any animal that made similar sounds, was at a loss.

Suddenly, a bang echoed through the forest, accompanied by a panicked scream that broke inhumanly from the trees and spread across the fields.

Then, something new joined the sounds in the air.

The trees and bushes rustled, almost seemed to be torn apart.

Something was running through the forest, something seemed to be... coming right at me.

Was it perhaps a startled bear, an elk, or a wild boar?

Had one of the hunters from the village accidentally startled an animal, scared it in the wrong direction and now wanted to warn us with their cry? But then, why this panicked sound...?

I paused, took my hands off the rusty handles of the plow, and turned toward the forest. Still, I could only see fog, I could only hear rustling, but slowly I could also make out grunts and groans coming to me from the fog. It sounded heavy and panic-stricken.

Was I in danger? I began to pray to the Lord and ask him for assistance. I was not a fighter and so I had to hope that nothing would reach me from the depths between the trees that could easily tear me apart.

*Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.*

My baptismal motto gave me courage. The Lord saw me, even in my darkness, and would be with me.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

Then, someone burst out of the bushes and fog and rushed toward me.

It was Sasha.

I almost didn't recognize him. His skin was pale, almost snow-white. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face. His pants and jacket were almost completely torn, so I could see his dirty shirt and his cut and bruised legs through the holes. There were also some small cuts on his face that worried me. Sasha's eyes twitched searchingly, panicked, and in his hand, he held the rifle that he had taken with him when he had once set out. Apparently, he had run through brush and thorns, had gotten scrapes and wounds from stones and branches.

When he saw me and looked at me with his big, panic-filled eyes, I became horridly afraid. It was as if… behind his eyes there was no Sasha anymore, but only an animal. As if instinct had taken over his thoughts when an unnamable terror had entered his world. An animal inside him, which had enabled him to escape from... something. Sasha staggered out of the forest, it was almost as if all strength left him now that he was back home. The rifle fell from his hand and dug into the mud beneath his feet. He limped slowly toward me, not taking his eyes off me. Then, suddenly, he wheeled around and looked back into the forest and the mist.

Only for a moment.

Again, he let out a shrill scream and sprinted the last few meters to me. When I looked into the forest myself, I saw nothing, only the fog. But, didn't I feel a presence there, in the bushes? Between the trees?

I didn't see anything.

Sasha had reached me and collapsed. I quickly knelt down next to him and called for help. But the other field workers had already rushed over, obviously attracted by the rifle shot. I was in a trance, seeing only Sasha lying there, supporting his head. His eyes were still twitching around and despite my proximity he didn't seem to recognize me. He looked at me, confused.

"Sasha, what happened?", I asked, feeling his forehead.

Despite his paleness, he was uncomfortably hot.

A fever raged in his body. Who knew how long he had been running around there among the trees, his protective, warming jacket torn? With wounds that had not been tended and some of which were still bleeding?

Then another horrible thought occurred to me.

"Sasha, where are the others? Sasha, where are the others?"

This question apparently brought back some clarity that his gaze had not possessed before.

"They... they took them. Took all of them... All of them. All our brothers, all our sisters... all of them," he gurgled in panic.

"Sasha, what do you mean? Who are 'they'? Wasn't there an angel in the village? What did you see? Sasha, please, answer me!"

But he became more restless again, trying to look around. To the forest. The others helped me to cover him with our jackets.

Slowly, Sasha began to tremble more and more. A deep fear had taken possession of him.

"They're after us... they're coming... after me... they're coming after me... chasing us... they're here..."

He groaned and began to lose consciousness.

"Sasha, who? Who came after you guys? Who took the others?"

Only moaning words came out of his mouth as his eyes slowly closed and exhaustion numbed his muscles. Gurgling, he gasped:

"Ebrugh... Ebrugh..."

I don't know if he had spoken a language at all or just made sounds that made no sense. The other three field hands who had rushed over carried him away toward our village, while I remained by my plow to retrieve the rifle from the edge of the woods.

The trees now looked even more threatening than before, swaying uncomfortably gently about, and the fog seemed denser and more oppressive. What had been there, beyond the fields, in the depths of the old forest? What had the others found, in that place where the angel had touched the earth? Had demons appeared and tried to drag the divine creature into the depths of hell? Had all the pilgrims fallen under the claws and teeth of beings from a distant unholy abyss?

Were they all really... gone? All those who had gone to the forest longing for the heavenly lights? Or had only Sasha gone mad, broken away from the group and fled back? It was entirely possible, entirely...

But the trees... the trees seemed so strange and full of evil....

I didn't want to linger there in that place anymore, I wanted to turn around and go back to the fields, but I wouldn't feel much better there either.

Finally, I had reached the rifle stuck in the muddy ground. I picked it up and secured it so that no accident would happen. But as I stood there, at the edge of the forest, it felt as if there was something in the mist. As if shadows were moving in the dense swaths. Slowly, I took the safety off the gun again and took aim. Something inside me seemed to warn me of the things beyond the trees. I aimed over the sight to focus. There were the trees, the mist, and disturbing shadows among the branches. The air seemed to crackle. The fresh scent of the leaves and bushes taunted me. Would something come, any moment now? Would I have to pull the trigger?

Or was I just too stressed?

I was stressed.

Sasha, the others...

I took a deep breath and lowered the rifle. This was getting me nowhere.

Slowly, I stepped back from the edge of the forest, secured the rifle again, and slung it over my shoulder by its leather strap.

I walked quickly across the fields towards the village. The clouds still covered the sky and dark storms were approaching from the south.

My boots drove me over the muddy ground. It was as if all those who had perished on this godless soil were mocking me. The horrors and calamities of the field tore into my mind. They numbed me and I was afraid of getting lost in the darkness of my thoughts. But I knew the Lord was watching over me.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

I calmed down a bit as my feet carried me forward. The cloudy thoughts and forebodings moved away a little.

Then, something reached my mind. An inkling. A feeling.

Something was behind me. Something was in the forest.

Was it demons? Other creatures of hell? I grabbed the rifle and slowly turned around. A good hundred meters away, the forest rose up, but the trees were almost invisible.

The fog had rolled onto the field, slowly.

And in the mist, I saw them, two ghastly shapes. They were not like the ones my stressed mind had imagined when my thoughts wandered to the fields and remembered the deceased.

They… were real.

I could see them only briefly, only briefly silhouetted in the mist.

Tall and scrawny, inhuman. Long, thin limbs, long necks, roundish heads.

They were over there, and I knew they saw me.

They saw me, despite the fog that must have obscured their view!

I turned and ran, carrying the rifle carelessly over my shoulder. It couldn't be! It had to be demons!

*For darkness is as light to you.*

When I dared to look again, I saw that the fog had lifted. I could make out the forest again and see only the trees and bushes.

But I kept running, kept running towards the village.

I had to get to Sasha, had to report to the others...

When I entered the hut where they had put him, there was already an excited crowd inside. It seemed that all the villagers who could interrupt their work had gathered in the small rustically  furnished room where Sasha was now lying sweating on a bed. The news that only he had returned, feverishly talking about the disappearance of the others, caused shock and despair. Some of the relatives of the missing were also sitting in the room, stunned and pale as corpses. I heard sobs and weeping, looked into the eyes of desperate mothers and bitter fathers, looked into the faces of shocked neighbors and shaken friends. They had all come to hear what had happened. What fate had befallen the others. They wanted to know what had happened to their loved ones. And in the middle lay Sasha, distraught and trembling.

I had to fight my way to him with some effort and probably only met little resistance, because I was his best friend and had found him. When I finally pushed aside the curious but tearful Alyone, who always had to stand in the first row, I could see how bad things apparently were for Sasha. He was still shivering, but now he was also wincing intermittently while his eyes looked around frantically. He was completely drenched in sweat and his hair was so sticky it looked like wet strings.

"Calm down, Sasha, come to your senses!"

Igor, who was probably the closest thing to a village doctor, sat next to Sasha's bed and tried to placate him.

But all the whispering and murmuring around us only seemed to intensify the problems.

"Sasha, it's me. You're home. You're safe!", I shouted.

Igor looked at me briefly, his eyes full of suppressed concern, but he nodded at me.

"Sasha, it's going to be okay!", I continued.

"Who are you... who...?"

Hearing Sasha's whisper was much more terrifying than his shouts, because I knew he really didn't recognize me from the way he looked at me in a brief moment of clarity.

"It's me, Ilya! Don't you remember? We grew up together! We've known each other... forever!", I trembled.

"We... I... Sasha... Sasha... Ilya..."

He gurgled again, but his gaze held me fixed. There was a haze on his eyes. Oh Lord, what had happened?

"Ilya... we... I... I remember you... water... water... So thirsty... Please..."

He held out his hand trembling, begging. From somewhere, someone handed him a glass. He drank it greedily, seeming to calm down a bit as a result.

"Ilya... I remember... we left... went there... to the angel... I went to the angel..."

"What happened then?", I asked quietly.

I suddenly realized that everyone had fallen silent and was listening tensely and anxiously. Old Igor had stood up and put his hand on my shoulder, protectively, and nodded at me again.

"Ilya, we... I don't remember very well. Just… forest... We went through the forest... Water... More water," Sasha murmured.

"Jesus Christ, bring him more water!" Alyone murmured.

Even she had backed away a bit.

After a few moments, another old tin can of water had been brought over.

Sasha sipped the liquid as if it would give him new life.

His eyes cleared and his breathing steadied. Then, finally, he cleared his throat and began to speak carefully. Again and again, his eyes wandered to us to reassure himself that we were still listening to him... That we were with him and not leaving him alone.

That he was safe.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

He finally looked only into my eyes, speaking as if we were alone in the room:

"Ilya. Oh, Ilya, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I left you here when you wanted to go with us. I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you. But I think it was the right decision. You would have been...

The angel!

I think there really was an angel there. But it's gone. It was torn apart by shadows and demons.

We walked. We walked through the woods, over hills and wide fields beyond the mountains. In the wind we soon heard the songs of the Lord. Songs that praised Him. The whispers of the heavenly hosts. And we were all soon dreaming, dreaming of the angel and the village it had visited. It had sent all the believers there to heaven, they had ascended and come to the Lord. They had all been devout believers, just like us. The angel advanced… in our dreams... our visions… through forests and finally to another village. The images appeared to us as if they were real, as if we were seeing everything the angel was doing. No one wanted to be awake anymore, all of us slept as much as we could to dream... We saw the angel striding across clearings, flying, hovering through the woods. And how it travelled… to the unbelievers and… there, in the corridors of concrete, it was chased and torn apart, murdered by demons. When we woke up after that vision… it had haunted us all at dawn… most of us collapsed. Something had been taken from us when the angel was… When the sacrilege was done..."

He broke off. There was a dead silence. We could not believe our ears.

Joy, happiness, despair and fear struggled within me.

It had been an angel! It had truly been a piece of heaven that had visited us. But...

It had also been demons. Demons had come from the shadows, from the darkness and the depth of evil and had destroyed the angel.

There were demons. There was true evil. There was that which had once seized the people who had not prayed to the Lord and had been responsible for the hunger and the despair. Those people had been possessed by them, by the demons of old. They had devoured the messenger of the Lord, as they devoured all happiness and comfort, all love.

Demons existed. They were real.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

I swallowed.

"And then, Sasha?"

"We... we were... Hell had reached us. It had bled from the ground, from the rocks. All around us the air seemed heavy, the winds seemed to mourn and the trees to tremble. We just lay there, on the flank of a green wooded hill. Sofia had been hit the worst. Through my tears I could see her cowering there, like a newborn child... She cried and cried. We all cried, but she... she pressed her hands to her ears, didn't want to hear anymore, squeezed her eyes shut, didn't want to see anymore... She was crying, begging the Lord, begging Him to bring salvation after His servant was no more. It took us several hours to calm down..."

Sasha slumped down and seemed to disappear into his memories. Outside, rain had begun to fall and loud pattering began to beat against the windows. No one said anything. Until finally, Sasha seemed to regain consciousness and spoke again, this time more firmly, more determined.

"Our shock, our grief... that's only where it began. We were alone, abandoned by the Lord. We knew it, we knew we were alone! Our breakfast was meager, our mood dead. Silently we sat there for a long time, most of us. The ones who had calmed down a bit. Sofia was the first to speak, despite of her grief, despite the wounds in her soul. It was as if she had found her way back to the Lord when she spoke to us. She told us not to be afraid. That we would receive the greatness of the Lord. That she had heard the songs of the angels... and understood."

"What did the angels sing? What hymns did they teach Sofia? What did he tell my girl?"

Sofia's mother had leaned forward, her eyes teary, her voice trembling.

After a brief pause, during which Sasha seemed to think about the question, he began to recount what had occurred afterwards.

"We sat together, all of us, trying to understand what had happened. And Sofia... She told us about the proclamations, the chants. She had been hit worse than anyone else before, but... She spoke of the suffering in the songs, the suffering of forgotten times. I think she… she probably meant the fall from Eden, the original sin? Was that what the angel tried to remind us of? We were not sure. But she also insisted that she had heard a promise of security in the songs. Perhaps the Lord had finally forgiven us humans? Maybe we could go back to paradise? Sofia found it difficult to speak the right words, her throat was dry and her voice hoarse. Therefore, this is all I can say about it. We stayed in that place for a long time, but finally decided to move on. We hoped that we would still find traces of the divine where... where it had happened. We were aware, of course, that the demons could still be there, too, but... we had to know... Was paradise near?"

"Was it worth it?" Mary asked from one of the back rows, barely audible and looking at the floor.

Her gaze rested on Sasha and genuine concern seemed to resonate in her words.

"Of course it was, you silly girl," Dimitri laughed hollowly.

"I... I don't know..." Sasha murmured.

Terror bled into his eyes and he began to tremble once more.

"That... That message, the promise of paradise, that was the last good thing that happened to us on the journey... Before the darkness..."

"Before the darkness? What darkness do you mean?", I wanted to know.

"Inside us. The darkness within us that began to grow... It began shortly after the... disappearance of the angel. Shortly after we left that day to visit and honor its gravesite. Sofia... that night she was no longer herself. She seemed depressed, happy, angry, sad. All at the same time. I didn't know what we should do. Nobody knew what we should do. We had no medicine with us, no doctor. I don't know why, but I started to be afraid of her. A disease had attacked her spirit, the death of the angel had corrupted her. And… I had to think of the images, of the demons that tore the being of the Lord to shreds, from the shadows and from the darkness. That's why I stayed away from her and it was the right choice, as it turned out. After dinner - we had hunted rabbits and were sitting around the fire - Yulia sat down with her. You know how she is... was... how she always worried about others when things got bad. It must have taken some courage even for her to sit down with Sofia, but finally they squatted there on an old tree stump next to the flickering fire that illuminated the night. Sofia's eyes seemed distant and glassy as they reflected the flames. I couldn't hear what Yulia was saying to her, but I guess that she wanted to comfort Sofia. She spoke softly and put her arm around Sofia's shoulder while Sofia was still staring into the flames..."

"Can you blame her? She saw a messenger of God die. Sofia was young, she probably just couldn't take it..." my father said quietly.

"The angel's death... it haunts me too. Even now, I see the horrible images before me. But Sofia... No, something else had contaminated her mind. It must have been like that! Something ungodly must have crept into her, because all at once she stood up, wordlessly, and let herself fall into the blazing fire... She burned to death…"

Sasha broke off and swallowed.

We all couldn't believe what we were hearing.

"Sofia... No... It can't be..."

A cry of despair escaped the throat of Sofia's mother. It sounded like she was burning herself and I wanted nothing more than to cover my ears and run away. But I had to stay. I had to know what had happened. I prayed, silently.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

Hastily, some tried to calm the woman, but she began to lash out and finally sank to the ground, where she remained sitting, staring into space like a corpse.

"She was burning, ablaze. She burned and as her flesh began to stink and her hair flared away, she screamed to the heavens. She screamed at the demons and panic soaked her voice. She sounded confused, inhuman. Sofia finally lay motionless, in the middle of fading embers. We hadn't been able to pull her out, we had been paralyzed, we had failed her... We have failed her..."

No one could believe what Sasha was telling us. Nobody wanted to believe it.

Sofia. Sofia, whom I had known since childhood, and who had always been shy and quiet....

"I envy her, because she went to the Lord. I think the fire purified her. But the others...

We buried what was left of Sofia near an old fir tree. I think she would have liked that. She rests there now and is with our Lord. While I was digging the grave with Mikhail using what little means we had, I almost felt as if I could still hear her voice in the air, comforting me and encouraging me. Promising me paradise... Mikhail seemed to hear it too, I saw it in his eyes. Quietly, he murmured strange words, seemed to sing to himself. We finally prayed the Lord's Prayer and set out to lower her body. When finally only the freshly heaped up earth under the tree reminded us of Sofia, it had already become deepest night. The torches that we had rammed into the ground nearby had a ghostly effect and the moonless night had something unsettling about it. No one was sleeping. Mikhail's humming should have calmed us. He was humming the angel's melody, probably trying to spend us comfort. Maybe he just wanted to distract his thoughts. But these sounds... They seemed strange from his mouth and not kind, but incomprehensible and eternal in a terrible way. And while I listened to the humming, I could only be comforted by the thought that Sofia had been given a decent burial."

"She's with the Lord, Mila," my father tried to comfort Sofia's mother.

"No, she has gone to... she can't go to heaven. Not even after you buried her... She has… herself... Oh, Sofia..."

"The demons were chasing her. I bet the Lord called her to save her. You know how pious Sofia was, more pious probably than almost anyone else, including everyone here."

The words seemed to bring her a little peace, but still she wept. We all just stood there, silent, watching the poor woman there on the floor. I, too, stared at her for a long time, until I noticed with a shudder that Sasha had stopped talking. When I turned to him, I saw that he had started crying wordlessly and squeezed his eyes shut. I had never seen anyone with such fear before.

"That night, it was almost morning... they came," was all he could get out before letting out a strangled cry and pressed his hands to his head.

Finally, he just sat there, weeping and swaying back and forth as if to protect himself from the terrors and sins of the world.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

The Lord makes light out of darkness. So it was written in the holy scriptures. Why did the words of the Almighty not give comfort to Sasha? Why couldn't his faith protect him? Was he... in doubt? No. Not Sasha.

"The Lord protects you," I said firmly and sat down next to him.

When I put my hand on his shoulder, he slowly calmed down, but when he looked into my eyes, I knew he was still trapped in the nightmares of his memory.

"Ilya... That night... they came. The demons. The night Mikhail disappeared. No... When they came for him. When they took everyone.

I lay there, freezing, a gnarled root in my back and my blanket wrapped around me, my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I heard the rustle of trees and wind, the crackle of small animals in the underbrush, and Mikhail's strange humming. I just wished that he would stop, that he would be quiet... Didn't want to hear the sounds anymore....

And then it was quiet. The humming had stopped, and I heard Mikhail get up.

Where was he going? Just into the bushes? Why had he stopped making his sounds? Had he calmed down? Had he come to his senses? At first, I believed that, hoped for that, but....

A feeling crept into my mind, an ungodly, sickening feeling. The closeness of doom and contempt, contempt as old as time. I had never felt such emotion. I knew the demons were near, spreading their aura to devour us. I squeezed my eyes shut, didn’t want to see them. I wanted to be alone, away, away..."

Sasha's voice faded. He swallowed, composed himself, then groaned:

"I opened my eyes. Opened them and looked into the darkness, saw the forest in the light of dawn. Mikhail had already walked away, had… almost… disappeared among the trees. I straightened up. Thick fog lay between the firs, bleeding into our little camp. Behind the fog lay darkness. It was a terrible darkness that seemed as if it embodied the end of time, of the world, as if it were getting ready to spill toward the Lord Himself during the final battle like a tidal wave of scum and wickedness! The darkness seemed deep, infinitely deep. Around it the fog, white haze that grew over the ground like a rampant scrub.

Mikhail ran towards it, laughed, joyfully humming his tune again. He ran toward the darkness. Why? Why was he running toward it? What had poisoned his mind and lured him to the demons? They had to be there, in the mist or the darkness, I knew that. I felt their contempt! I felt their ungodly presence!

Just before Mikhail disappeared into the darkness, before his outline was forever swallowed by the blackness, I could see skinny figures in the mist. I heard their whispers, inside me.

"Vermin... vermin..."

These voices, these noises were driving me crazy. I was scared. I was terrified, terrified! The cold made my arms and legs go limp. I wanted to get away, wanted to get away and escape. Then...

They stood up. The others. All of them. They got up, got up and ran to the darkness. Ran to that deep hell. But they were pious! They were all pious, had served the Lord all their lives! Why, why were they paying homage to these demons? What dark thoughts were running through their heads? They all... They all ran into that blackness... They all were devoured, without words. In the light of the rising sun, I could see them smiling. Not madly, not like the members of a satanic cult, not madly....

They were almost dancing. Didn't speak a word. They danced and ran away to another hellish place, happily.

Why didn't I run? Was my faith stronger than theirs? Was I the most pious among us? It had to be! I never saw them again, none of them... I'm sorry, I should have stopped them... Should have saved them from their fate..."

Suddenly, chaos broke out. Everyone shouted in confusion, ruffled their hair, cried and screamed. Mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors...

Many collapsed. I sank down beside the bed, feeling the realization germinate in me... They had all gone to hell. They had been taken by the strange demons, seduced and lured into suffering... I hit the floor hard, but I didn't care. I didn't know where to go anymore. Why had the Lord allowed my friends to succumb to sin? Why?

Then something else dawned in me, a thought that made me nauseous.

*Better them than me...*

I was almost going mad. That voice, my own voice, almost singing, forcing those horrible thoughts into my mind. I was not such a person. I was not a bad person! I was devout and believing and....

"I'm sorry, I should have stopped them. I failed..."

Sasha's moaning reached my ears only distantly. Over the weeping and wailing of many of those present, he continued.

"I ran, ran away. I was a coward, running and running. I had my gun with me, but I didn't dare point it at the demons. I didn't dare to attack them, to do violence. Would that not have made me one of them? Those creatures? Would that not have made me a sinner as well? Is it okay to kill demons or do you have to stand up to them with only your faith as a weapon? I didn't know, I still don't know. I ran away, ran in the direction of our village. I had to at least warn you, had to tell you all what had happened... You had to know..."

"You did the right thing," Dimitri suddenly said.

"You didn't give yourself to them when the others were lost to the devil and to hell... You told us everything... You..."

"I kept running," Sasha interrupted him bitterly.

"I ran on and on. For days and days. I stopped only to sleep and hunt. I ran and ran. But they were after me. The demons had seen me and had not forgotten me. I heard them every night. I heard their whispering voices and their rattling breath. Saw their outlines in the mist that followed me. And the darkness was near. I did not see it again, but I felt its nearness. Why didn't they devour me? Why didn't they seduce me too? Why didn't the demons do anything? Were they waiting for me to be tempted? Were they waiting for me to be weak? Did they play with me? I just don't know. I don't know anything anymore. Only that I was a coward, always a coward. I just didn't dare, didn't dare to use the gun! I didn't dare to attack them. Or did I know that it wouldn't do any good? Did I know that they were just tempting me?

Finally, I was close… I was close to the village, so close! My home... But they came, they came after me. I don't know why, but I shot... I shot into the mist and ran.... And ran..."

He was silent. Everyone was silent. The room seemed to have gone numb.

"The demons, are you really sure you saw them? That the others were seduced by them? They were all pious, I am so sure! Did you really see demons, or... did you imagine them...?", Dimitri's voice cut through the silence.

Everybody was quiet. I could see in people's eyes that they partly hoped Sasha had just gone mad. That he was lying. They couldn't understand how the others had fallen.

But Sasha was telling the truth. I knew that.

"I... I saw the demons too," I said slowly, looking at old Dimitri.

His eyes grew wide before he squinted them in disbelief.

"You saw them? Where? How?"

"At the edge of the forest, when Sasha broke out of the undergrowth. I stopped short to retrieve the rifle he'd dropped when I... there in the mist..."

I faltered as the images of the shadows appeared before my inner eye.

"They were scrawny, tall, inhuman. They had no wings, no claws. No scales, no fangs. No glowing eyes that shone through the mist. I almost took them for strangely shaped trees, so thin, but their presence, their aura... It was so dark and strange that I knew... they were demons... messengers of hell and the horrors beyond..."

"We must defend ourselves! Must arm ourselves against them! We must pray, confess our sins to the Lord!" someone shouted.

Many agreed.

We didn't know what we should do, how we could protect ourselves. One by one, people left the room. Set out to tell the others who had not heard Sasha's story. Panic was written on their faces. Sasha finally remained alone in that room. His eyes were glassy and looked almost dead. I was the last to stay with him, but soon I too left to be with my family. To grieve with them and to process the messages Sasha had brought.

#### **Part 3 – Demons**

The next days passed slowly. I had not slept well, no one had slept well. My dreams had been troubled and I had dreamed of the demons and the mists. And of Sasha and his misery. He had survived, but part of him had probably died too....

We took turns taking care of him. He was completely emaciated and lay in bed for many days. The people who had lost friends and family members held no grudges against Sasha, but every now and then I saw a dark shadow in their faces when they spoke bitterly and contritely about what had happened. They all knew that charity had to come first, but still.... Sasha had not stopped the others. I also felt dark thoughts arising in me, albeit of a different kind. It was true that my friend had fled, left the others behind, but... I probably would have done the same. I wanted to tell myself that I was like my grandfather, that I would have stood there and prevailed and confronted the demons only by means of my faith, but the voice in my head sprinkled doubt into my thoughts. I wanted to spent more time than usual praying and dealing with myself, so I cut myself off from village life a bit. I continued to work in the fields when I could be spared in the carpentry shop. The hated fields that I had thought I had escaped from when I had started my apprenticeship six years ago.

*Why did they have to go into the darkness, selfishly? Now I had to help on the field because they were gone. Now I had to toil so that enough harvest could be gathered in fall, and we would not starve. They had just gone, started on the path with their false piety, and finally betrayed the Lord to the demons. It wouldn't have happened to me, but I had been forced to stay here with all the others who....*

There it was again, the voice I hated so much.

Why, why couldn't I be without sin, without dark thoughts? Had the demons already exerted their influence on me? Had they poisoned me and now forced me to think such thoughts? Or worse, was it I, the real me, who was driving these words into my mind? The others, they had been pious, I had never doubted that. Something else just had to have happened, it didn't make sense! I often visited Sasha after work and kept running into Mary, who had made it her mission to bring Sasha a hot meal every night, to take special care of him.

*Mary.*

*Yes.*

*Mary should have gone along; she would certainly have been seduced and driven into the darkness. Then I would have been rid of her smug ways.*

Was I jealous of Sasha and her? Did I think that way about Mary because I was alone and the two of them had apparently found each other?

When I lay in bed at night, darkness fell over my soul and I had to pull myself out of the black with prayers. The Lord would guide me. I was sure of it. I would pass his tests.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

One day, when I returned from field work and strolled home through the village square, I noticed Sasha standing next to the fountain. He seemed confused and beside himself. As I approached him, I noticed his sunken cheeks and pale face. From the looks of it, the time in bed, left only with his own thoughts, had affected his soul as much as the escape through the woods.

"Ilya... Ilya, I need to talk to you..." he murmured.

His gaze avoided mine and he swallowed.

"Yes, what's wrong?", I asked him.

"It's Mary..." he said softly, almost tearfully.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She is, different. Today, when she came to me. You may know that we... I didn't want to tell you, I know you don't like her, but..."

*Mary. Just a hypocrite, a hypocrite who was not faithful to the word of the Lord and only pretended to honor and love Him... And pretended to have changed....*

The voice whispered softly, but I ignored it. I had to, Sasha was my friend, I prayed for him and his love.

Didn't I?

Yes, I did. No more ungodly thoughts.

"What about her? Is she alright?", I forced myself to ask with feigned concern.

"Yeah, no, I don't know. She was different today. Scared. Seemed kind of... scared of me. I have no idea why, but I could see it in her eyes."

"Afraid, of you? Why?"

"I don't know. I have no idea. But somehow... Maybe she's right. I haven't felt good since I saw the demons. Ever since I shot at them."

"No, she's not right! There's nothing wrong with you! You've been through a lot, how else would you feel after such experiences? Your faith makes you strong, you just need to rest!"

"Ilya, I think they got me... They are beginning to cast their spell on me too. I think back to the darkness, praying to the Lord... and I think I can hear Him. When I think back on what happened and that darkness, seeing that blackness in my mind... I believe I hear the voice of God there. A whisper, a sensation of... love..."

"You think the demons are trying to turn your faith against you?"

"Yes."

"You must stay strong, whatever you have been through. You must stay strong and read the scriptures! I know you're in a bad place, but you can do it!"

Sasha frowned, seeming to digress and think.

"Yes, I think you're right," he said.

"Thank you, Ilya!"

With those words, he stomped off. I watched him go, slowly losing myself in thought. I remembered the demons. I remembered their looks, their blasphemous looks from the mist. Their inhuman outlines. Would they leave Sasha in peace? Or would they always haunt him?

That evening, as I sat at the dinner table with my grandfather, my parents, and Zarina, I could sense that something was not quite right. It was colder than usual, and Zarina avoided our glances. I didn't notice it at first, because the previous evenings had also been bad, triggered by the terrible story Sasha had told about the trip. Suddenly, however, Zarina looked up and glanced at me.

"What did they look like, the demons?" she wanted to know.

Her fork was trembling.

"Why? I don't know," I said.

We hadn't told her about the demons, and we hadn't told her about Sasha's experiences.

She was still too young.

"You've seen them. Everybody knows. We all do. You talked about them, the others..."

"Keep eating," my mother murmured.

"You're too young for that. Ilya didn't see anything. Those are just stupid rumors," my father said, chewing.

He and my mother exchanged quick glances.

My grandfather was absently silent.

"That's right. I didn't see anything. Only Sasha, who wasn't feeling well. He..."

I started, but Zarina cut me off.

"Tonight, they were with me."

My spoon fell to the floor with a clatter. My parents tensely sucked in their breath. My grandfather remained silent and closed his eyes.

"In your room? That can't be, Ilya didn't say anything about something like that. You just imagined it!" my mother said quickly, looking over at me.

But I didn't know. I had been fast asleep, dreamt of shapes and mists.

"No, not like that. Not in the room. I just... It was deep in the night and I couldn't sleep. Just like every night since I saw the angel in my dream. I lay there and couldn't sleep. I went to the window and looked out, at the street."

"What did you see there, Zarina?" my father asked.

I felt sick in my stomach. Were they here? Had the demons come to the village after chasing Sasha for so long? It had to be so. After all, why wouldn't they come here? Because our faith was so strong? Never. Demons are not easily kept away by people, no matter how strong their devotion to the Lord was.

"It was at the end of the side alley next to our garden, next to the barrels and the mud hole in the street. You know I can't see very far from my room, but there... There was something there. Like a glimmer that didn't shine. In the darkness I could hardly see it, but it was there. And in the shimmer... A shape. A large distorted shadow, not visible for long. Scrawny, emaciated, inhuman, tall. What was it doing there? It wasn't looking in my direction. It didn't notice me, looked elsewhere, further down the street, I think. It wasn't there long either, soon disappearing into the shimmer..."

"I think you're imagining things. I'm sure you've heard some rumors and made it up. Sometimes you see what you want to see," I said softly.

"No, they were there, believe me!" Zarina exclaimed, now incensed.

"I think you saw something, but it certainly wasn't the demons. They can't go into the village. Our faith... You know how pious we are. How devout you are. Demons dare not come here," I said slowly.

"They were there!" Zarina screamed and ran out of the room.

"Thank you," my father said, nodding.

"No need to worry her unnecessarily. We can only pray to the Lord to protect us. But she doesn't have to worry too," I said, pressing my lips together.

She had seen the demons. But maybe she could be convinced. Maybe I could make her believe that she hadn't seen anything bad. Our good Zarina. At least she should be able to live carefree. But was it the right move to keep such horrors secret from her? At what point did we have to admit that life could be terrible and we couldn't protect her from it?

"Yes. She is still young. Experiencing the evils of the world at her age leaves behind deep scars," my grandfather said.

I looked at him, saw the wounds he spoke of on his face. I wanted to say something to him, to cheer him up with a psalm, but suddenly there was a banging on the door, a panic.

Who could it be at such a late hour? Who could...

"Help! Help, I need help!"

It was a female voice.

Mary?

What did she want here? She lived at the other end of the village, didn't she? Why...

"We're coming!" my father shouted and rushed to the door.

I stood up and followed him. Zarina came rushing out of our room, excited, wanting to see what had happened.

"Get back!" my father hissed, more aggressively than I had expected.

But it had the desired effect. She retreated into our room in surprise, almost like a kicked animal.

I silently thanked my father. We had to protect Zarina. She was almost an adult, but still... she would always be our little Zarina....

Mary's insane looks silenced my thoughts. She looked awful, breathing bumpily. There were tears in her eyes.

"Help, please, the Popovs..."

The Popovs. Sofia's family. What had happened?

"Mary, calm down..."

"Come... You have to see it..."

She suddenly grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the house. Perplexed, I was pulled across the street, my father running close behind me. I could see that something was wrong immediately. The front door of the house was torn open and some other people had already gathered in front of the door, probably attracted by Mary's screaming. Slowly we approached the house entrance, but... people were not looking inside the house. They were looking at something lying in the tall grass next to the window, discussing agitatedly and seemingly disgusted. What was going on? Alyone was one of the curious people standing there, of course, and suddenly she turned and threw up, trembling. Mary continued to drag me along behind her until we broke through the small cluster of people that had formed in front of the window next to the front door.

There... lay... something.

Something that inspired disgust and contempt in me, even before I saw it. It was almost just a piece of misshapen flesh, stinking, twitching. It lay next to a round pit in the ground, while bile-like fluid pulsed from a gaping hole in the side of the object. It was grayish, slimy, with tentacle-like long outgrowths that writhed. But the most horrifying thing was not the sight of the thing, or the vile smell of vinegar and rotten eggs that emanated from the lump, but... that faint melody....

A soft melody that sounded off-key, dull, gurgling, and wrong. The voice with which the thing sang, strange songs that sounded almost like humming, was sweet, as bright as a bell, and... seemed familiar. I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to admit to myself what I was hearing. I wanted to cover my ears, wanted to run away, to retreat to a place of silence. But I couldn't. I heard Mary right behind me, crying....

"No, no, it can't be... I came to see you because of Sasha, he.... But I heard it, I looked and.... And... I had to get help..."

My father stepped past me, a long broom in his hand. He approached the end of it to the thing, slowly, trembling. I looked away from the ground, into my father's face, not wanting to see, not wanting to see....

I saw from the corner of my eye how he thrust.

I heard him turn the fleshy, ungodly piece of hell on its side.

The next few moments seemed like an eternity, like an eternity spent in purgatory. In my mind I tried to find the way to the Lord, to be close to Him so that He could deliver me from those moments.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

My father's face became a grimace and his mouth opened into a bloodcurdling scream that contained disgust, hatred and despair. He was not the only one. Mary fainted. Several collapsed to the floor, like Alyone, or fell to their knees to pray. In my ears, the melody sounded clearer now. Awfully much clearer...

I had to see it.

I had to see it.

I turned around slowly. I forced myself to look at the floor, at the thing that was under the window.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

The... something on the floor was tilted on its side. I could now make out on its top, next to the gruesome outgrowths, a human... female... mouth, with pretty, delicate lips, framed by burnt flesh, humming the gruesome tune. I recognized the voice now.

It was Sofia's voice.

It was Sofia's mouth.

Was... that thing... the rest of Sofia's body? How did it get here? How did it come to our village, how was that possible? Why... was it still alive? Oh, Lord!

Then, suddenly, the melody stopped, the humming stopped, and the mouth stopped moving. Slowly, as if none of this were real, the fleshy thing began to dissolve. First it became fine white dust that blew away, then it disappeared completely into the air. All that was left was a slimy puddle.

We didn't know what to do. Everyone just stood there, stunned, trying to understand. To process the event.

What had been there, on the floor? Sofia? A piece that was left of her rotting corpse? Or something else, alien, otherworldly? Why had it sung, why had it hummed? Had the devil taken Sofia from the grave? Had the Lord called her back with his divine voice and summoned her here? Had we seen a miracle of God and just didn't understand it? I turned around, had to turn away from that slimy eyesore. More and more of the other villagers came streaming in through the half-light of the early evening, confused and frightened.

The Lord was testing us!

My gaze wandered back to our house, where Zarina was surely cowering in her bed, fearfully trying to ignore the commotion out here. Fortunately, she could not see this place from our room, but only into the small alley that led to the street. I looked at the old barrels that were standing there, the muddy ground....

Zarina had said she had seen a demon last night, there, right there.

It had not looked at her, had been turned away from her....

I stumbled. If the demon had not looked into the alley, but in the other direction....

Then it had looked in the direction of Sofia's house!

Had it prepared to haunt the Popovs, to drag them into darkness, now that they might have lost faith in the Lord by losing Sofia? That had to be it!

I was sure the demon had sent this piece of hell, which mocked and corrupted the Lord's message. The sounds, they had not been the Lord's, but an imitation to beguile Sofia's parents and destroy their faith!

Sofia's parents...

I winced.

Sofia's parents, what was wrong with them?

Looking around, I couldn't see them.

"Has anyone seen the Popovs?", I shouted into the crowd.

Only horrified faces, no answer to my question.

And that was answer enough.

The front door of the house was still wide open, and a light was burning inside. They had to be nearby, probably still in the house. The building suddenly seemed distant, the door like the entrance to vents of corruption.

But we had to get in. We had to get into the old building, had to find out what exactly had happened to the Popovs. Had the demons taken them? Had they found refuge with the Lord and been saved? Had they escaped, unnoticed by everyone?

With a deep breath, I started to enter the old wooden house.

Why was it I who started to move while the others just stood there confused? Why was it me who wasn't as intimidated by the thing outside the window and as terrified and disgusted as the others?

*Was my faith stronger than theirs? Were they all not as devout as I was?*

No, that couldn't be. It was probably just coincidence. I had to pull myself together.

Next to me there were now two other men who seemed to have had the same thoughts as me and who now wanted to find out what had happened to the Popov couple. My father and our neighbor Yuri.

The front door seemed more and more like the gateway to strangeness, to godlessness.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

The Lord would protect me. Protect us.

We entered the first room, the living room, which was relatively cluttered with wooden furniture. A rather ugly carpet lay on the wooden floor and old pictures, apparently self-painted, were emblazoned on the walls. The gas stove had not been cleaned for a long time and cobwebs hung from the wooden beams that ran under the ceiling. The air was stuffy and stale and the light bulb that emitted a dirty light on the ceiling bathed everything in eerie contrast. On the dining table lay old ceramic plates with food scraps, on which some eager flies were now feasting. Another wooden door led to the bedroom, where all three Popovs had once spent their nights.

Were they still there? They must have heard the noise, the humming, they must have heard the screams. It couldn't be that they were still asleep, impossible!

Something had to have happened.

My father's hand was suddenly on my shoulder and I flinched. He pushed past me and motioned for me to be quiet as he pointed to the bedroom door that was ajar. The floorboards cracked under the carpet as we slowly crept past the reeking dining room table. I didn't know why we were so quiet, why we didn't just call out into the room, but it felt so... right. It felt like there was something in that room that we shouldn't draw attention from.

Finally, we had reached the door. Sweating, my father put his hand on the handle. I could still hear the chatter of the others outside the house, yet the voices seemed distant, as if they came from far away.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

The Lord would protect us. He would save us all...

Slowly, my father gripped the handle. Then he pulled the door open.

I could see nothing, only darkness, only blackness. As if the room in front of us was no longer in this world. Vicious, hellish, a deep darkness lay before us.

"Flashlight," Yuri murmured, standing behind me, handing me a long object.

I let the cone of light travel across the floor and into the bedroom. For a moment I thought that the light would not penetrate, that it would be engulfed by eternal blackness. But nothing of the sort happened. The cone moved across the threshold and then across the old floor of the bedroom. At first, I was relieved, happy that the Lord's protection had been with us, but then my father yelped. We all finally crowded into the adjoining room, and with growing horror I let the light cone slide across the bedroom.

There was nothing left. Nothing at all.

The floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything looked like it had been sanded down. The wooden beams that held up the ceiling were gone; there were no pictures hanging on the walls and no beds to be seen. But it had been the bedroom, of that, I was sure.

But the room, with all its contents, seemed to have simply vanished.

How was that possible?

Were the Popovs here when everything... disappeared? Is that why we didn't hear them?

I got goose bumps. I had to escape from this unholy, godless place. The dark forces had been at work here, too, had brought hell once more. Had burned out this room with purgatory....

I gulped and turned around. I quickly pushed past the other two and hurried out of the house. Outside, I had to brace myself on my knees and take a deep breath. Sweat was pouring into my eyes.

"What happened to them? What was that...?"

Mary sat not far away, her face still pale. Others were also looking at me questioningly. I felt the fear around me, felt their doubts. I had to reassure them. But how?

"They're gone. In the house... the bedroom is gone. Gone. The Lord must have taken them, must have sensed their grief..."

"Bullshit!" Mary exclaimed bitterly.

Before I could think clearly, I had gone to her and grabbed her rudely by the collar, pulling her to her feet. I shook her as she gasped in fright.

"They were devout, pious, and they lost their daughter. What else should have happened? What? Can't you once give succor to people without taking away their hope with your ungodly remarks?", I yelled at her as she choked and began to turn blue.

My father tore me away from her and slapped my face. I slumped, stars in front of my eyes and a roaring in my ears.

"Get a hold of yourself, Ilya! You too Mary! ALL of you, pull yourselves TOGETHER!" he then roared into the crowd, furious.

"We can't let them see doubt. The Lord has been protecting this village since we showed Him that we trust Him. So, trust Him! Don't get carried away with sinful thoughts like anger or contempt. Hold on to your faith, or the demons will..."

He broke off, exhausted.

We knew what he was about to say.

"I'm sorry, Mary, I didn't mean to...", I murmured, distressed.

"It's okay..." she said, but looked at me with disgust.

"I wanted to talk to you because of Sasha. That's why I was here in the first place, before I smelled that... thing. I wanted to tell you that he was feeling better and would like to have a drink with you. But I don't care what you do now. Just get away from me!"

With that, she got up and walked away.

I remained sitting there in the street, in the mud, my head still throbbing. I tasted warm blood. Apparently my nose had been injured. Someone handed me a towel.

"What do you want to do now?" Yuri asked.

"Go to Sasha, have a drink so that you forget your biting thoughts," my father said bitterly, but pity also resonated in his voice, barely audible.

I got up, spat on the floor and went to Sasha's, leaving my father and my exhausted neighbors behind.

#### **Part 4 – Rupture**

Sasha's small room was brightly lit. He was sitting on a stool with a half-full bottle of vodka in his hand, grinning almost stupidly. When I entered the room, he pointed to a glass on the table in front of him.

"There, Illya, there! Drink! Drink! Drink with me!"

"What's wrong, Sasha? Why are you so happy?", I wanted to know.

I wasn't entirely comfortable at the sight of him, but I still felt sick and my nose hurt.

"So, did Mary find you? I... I think I love her... Ilya... I..."

He sighed, put the bottle to his lips and took a big swig. When he held the bottle out to me, I thought about it for a moment, but then I took it gratefully and let the good drink run down my throat. It burned a little, but at least it numbed my other aches and pains.

"You love her? You sure? She doesn't trust God," I opined.

"Yeeees, yes she does. She assured me she did. Didn’t she... Hehe... Since I've been back, since I've been back... She's always been with me, nurturing me. Such a good soul. You just have to get to know her better. And persistent she is as well, if you know what I mean... What a catch... And such a beauty…"

He hiccupped and smiled even wider.

"Sasha, I just had a little altercation with her, gave her a bit of a rough ride..."

His expression darkened.

"Don't worry, I didn't hurt her!", I hastily assured.

"Well, if you say so, I believe you. You're the more God-fearing of the two of us. You wouldn't hurt a fly, would you? Neither would I. Did she hit you back and that's why you look like that?"

Sasha had regained his composure and was now laughing at my bloody nose.

"No, my father. He was there. We were all confused, because..."

I fell silent. I couldn't tell him, could I? He had already been so badly affected, if I started talking about demons now... But I just had to tell him....

"The Popovs have been taken by the… things."

My words echoed uncomfortably in the room. Sasha took another swig and slammed the bottle down on the table.

Not even the vodka could calm him down.

"It just can't be. Why won't they leave us alone? We haven't done anything!"

"Maybe that's why...", I said thoughtfully.

"Yes. Maybe that's why. But I don't want to talk about it, not now that I've finally gotten closer to Mary..."

Again, we were silent. It was uncomfortable for me, especially after what had happened earlier. I didn't want to tell Sasha about that room, nor about the gruesome lump under the window.

"Ilya...", Sasha suddenly said, carefully.

He smiled a little. Looked into my eyes and made sure that I was listening to him attentively.

"Ilya, I think... I think there's a piece of God around here, close to the village..."

What, what had he just said? A piece of God? What was that supposed to mean?

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just a feeling. I've had it for a while, but couldn't place it. Maybe that's why the demons are here, looking for it. For the piece of the Lord that's here somewhere... Looking… for it…"

That was the last thing Sasha said that day, before the alcohol sent him into a deep sleep. I didn't stay with him much longer, and soon got up and staggered home through the muddy streets.

As I fell into my bed, half drunk, the world a whirlpool of impressions, I couldn't help thinking of the Lord. And of Mary.

Why was she allowed to act out her unholy thoughts? To pretend and subvert our faith? Why didn't she just disappear, move away? She should have gone to the cities. I heard that there were many unbelievers there. Or people who worshipped other gods. Human, false gods. Why didn't she leave? Surely, she could just go with one of the vans that picked up our grain and took it to the cities? I prayed to the Lord for help, for succor, for guidance.

*She was now Sasha's girlfriend; she would stay here...*

Maybe Sasha could convert her. Show her that the Lord was true and great. Surely, she could be saved. I had to believe in it, then it would happen. My faith was strong, after all.

Slowly I slipped into confused dreams. I ran through the woods, which seemed strange and distant, saw the demons, was chased by them....

The next morning there was a knock at the door. It was Sunday, so for once I didn't have to go to the field or to the carpenter's workshop. I could devote myself to our own garden and cut the grass. I had wanted to work the garden with Zarina to get her mind off things for some time now, but the pounding on our door dissuaded me from those plans.

Outside stood Sasha, cheerful, unusually cheerful, grinning at me.

"Ilya, come on, I know now," he said excitedly.

"What's wrong?" called my mother, who had just come out of my parents' bedroom.

"Nothing, Sasha is here," I shouted.

"What do you know… now?", I then wanted to know from my friend.

"The feeling, I know where it comes from. I know where God is. He is near. Let's go there! Come on, let's find Him!" Sasha whispered enthusiastically, so that only I could hear him.

A thousand thoughts rushed through my head. Had my prayers helped? Had the Lord come to us? Was Sasha right? I had to know.

The peace in Sasha's eyes fueled my eagerness.

"Let's go!", I shouted excitedly.

After brief parting words to my parents, we ran off, Sasha ahead, me close behind. Our way took us across the village, over the dusty road, and finally into the forest. My side hurt and branches whipped my face, but the fresh smell of nature inspired me. Soon we broke through some bushes and had reached a clearing. Sasha stopped, laughing, took a deep breath.

At first, I couldn't see anything unusual. We had often played here when we were little. The ground was sandy, and the roots of the nearby trees were sprawling into the clearing, so you had to be careful not to fall. Everything was like before, but then... An uneasy feeling welled up in my heart. Something was wrong. Something was incredibly wrong...

Then I saw it, not far away next to a fallen tree.

There was a... hole in the ground. I had no doubt that the uneasy feeling came from that little piece of darkness that was there in front of me.

The hole wasn't particularly wide, maybe five thumb widths in diameter, but after only a few inches there was nothing but darkness and blackness inside. The hole did not go down into the earth at an angle, but dropped straight in, steeply down. I didn't know what to make of it, but it scared me. Just looking at it was hard, and I didn't dare approach it any further. It was just there in the sand, not far from the roots and the fallen tree, inconspicuous, but if you had noticed it....

The hole seemed to soak up the surroundings and draw the eye.

"Come. Come closer, do you see it?", Sasha asked me.

He now had an uncomfortable glare in his eyes, staring at the hole with a smile.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

I didn't know what to say. This wretched hole in the ground was the worst thing I had ever seen. How could Sasha talk about beauty? How could he talk about this gateway to the eternal abyss, this little ghastly gateway, and call it beautiful? How could he claim that there was a piece of the almighty Lord there? It almost felt like blasphemy!

He slowly walked towards it and finally knelt in front of it. I got a tremendous fear, feared that he would fall in, although it was much too small for that. Afraid that hands and claws would break out and grab him...

"Come, come closer...", Sasha murmured again.

He looked dreamy.

"I felt… this! Yesterday. This was it. This is the piece of God I was talking about. It's really here! The Lord is with us, Ilya!"

Was he… right? Had he really found a piece of heaven? It looked so evil, so dark. But maybe I was wrong. I could at least take a look at it.

As I began to walk toward it, I noticed with each step that an unnameable panic was growing inside me. It was as if my subconsciousness was pulling me away from this little hole, as if something inside me was warning me of the horrors that were hiding deep below. Gasping, I broke out in a sweat. Sweat of fear. I shivered, unable to stay on my feet, and sat down, maybe three meters away.

Was I not worthy? Had my dark thoughts, which kept coming up, angered the Lord and He was keeping me away from His splendor, which shone out of the ground over there, black and cold? Sasha was not affected. On the contrary, he seemed content and happy, the way he squatted there and stared down, as if he could see paradise itself.

"I'm sorry, I'm just... exhausted. Maybe I still have a hangover from the vodka. I'm really sorry...", I apologized.

Sasha looked disappointed, but understanding.

"All right. I get it, but it's so nice, maybe tomorrow...?"

"Yes, maybe tomorrow. I think I need to go home. I have to take care of Zarina today, but we'll talk later, okay?"

"Yes...", Sasha said and fell silent.

His gaze went steeply downward and I could hear him singing praises. I turned around and slowly walked away. When I finally left the clearing behind me, I began to run. My instincts drove me away, away from that hellish little maw. I ran and ran, my mind racing, until I was in front of our gate and could calm down. I had to forget that hole, had to forget that not far away gaped an unspeakable abyss that seemed to swallow everything good. I distracted myself by tending the garden with Zarina. We were silent, both knowing that things were happening that we could not explain.

"Ilya... Do you think the Lord is angry with us? Because we didn't go to look for the angel right away? Maybe we could have protected it, maybe... I'm afraid it's all my fault. I could have told the angel about our village in the dream. Then maybe it wouldn't have... I think this is all my fault. I'm afraid...", Zarina suddenly said, while pulling a bush of weeds from the soil.

"No! It's not your fault! We have to trust in the Lord! Everything will be all right. You have a good heart. The Lord knows that. He will protect us. Maybe there are more unbelievers than we knew. Maybe that's why they are being taken. This is a test and with your goodness it is certain that you will pass it...", I tried to reassure her.

"Will you pass it?" she asked.

I froze inside.

"Yes. I will pass it too. I won't leave you alone after all," I reassured her.

We continued to work in silence, but my mind raced. Was the Lord testing us? Would the dark thoughts in my soul betray me and drive me into the arms of the demons as well? I had to be more pious. I had to protect Zarina and stand by her. Murder the darkness in me, the piece of Satan that slumbers in all people.

"Ilya. I need your help."

The voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked up, blocking the midday sun with my dirty hands, to see who had addressed me. But somehow, I already knew.

Mary's face looked like she had been through hell. She had her mouth pressed together and her eyes were watery again.

"I know we're not friends. I know you don't like me and I don't like you. But Sasha... He needs our help. I don't know what else to do..."

She chose her words carefully, but I could hear the tremor in her voice.

"Yes. I'm coming."

At least she had stopped feigning friendliness. Maybe she could be saved after all?

"Come," she murmured, turning around.

I followed her. We walked in silence, but I already knew where our path would lead us. When we broke through the thicket and stepped into the devilish clearing, I let out a startled scream. My guts tightened and fear grew inside me.

Sasha was sitting there, there by the hole, but....

The hole had grown larger. It now measured almost a meter. The darkness that shone out of it appeared filled with ungodly horrors and eternal emptiness. What had happened?

"Ah, Ilya, you are here too. Look, the Lord, he has grown! He is there for us! I have already shown Him to Mary too, I am so happy that she has brought you! Now you also see the full beauty of the Lord!"

He grinned, turning his gaze only briefly in my direction before again staring into the eternal blackness.

"Sasha, come away from there, come back to the village!" Mary cried.

She looked at me, seeking help.

"Please, get him out of there before... Before he falls," she murmured in my direction.

I took a step forward, but fear paralyzed me. Mary seemed to be fighting it as well, but I also saw that her love for Sasha, so fresh, so strong, was propelling her forward, through the terror. She had already come very close to him when her legs gave out too.

"Please, darling, come home," she begged.

Sasha didn't seem to hear her. Saliva ran out of his mouth. He stared into the depths.

"Darling, come away from this devil's hole!", Mary shouted at him, her voice shaking.

Thunderstruck, he turned around, anger on his face.

"This is a piece of the Lord, how dare you deny it and associate it with Satan! Take that back!" he shouted.

"Sasha, darling, this is not a piece of the Lord. It is dangerous, it changed you...", Mary tried to talk sense into him.

Sasha's gaze became hard, his face like a mask. Madness was blazing in his eyes. Slowly, barely audibly, he hissed, driven by a rising indescribable hatred that twisted my guts:

"Ilya... Ilya was right... He was right about everything. You... You are not a believer. You are not pious. You are not on the Lord's side. Did they send you? Are you on their side? Are you a demon, just in disguise?"

His gaze seemed dead, his eyes fixed on Mary.

"No, darling, no, I didn't mean that, I meant...," Mary stammered, completely thrown off course by Sasha's mood swing.

She backed away a few steps, looking around for help.

Suddenly she tripped over an old root in which her graceful red dress had gotten caught. She stumbled backwards and hit the ground hard. A painful whimper escaped her. Sasha did not care. He seemed changed, suddenly smiling sinisterly, standing up.

"But, maybe you can be saved... Maybe I can save you... I love you, no matter what vile things wander in your heart. The Lord is kind, and so am I."

"Please, Sasha, darling, please, let's go home, let's just go home and be together. Let's be together, just the two of us!" Mary screamed.

Tears smeared her eye shadow, and it looked like tar had poured out of her eyes. I wanted to help her, but I was too scared.

"The two of us...? You know we are never just the two of us. The Lord is always with us. How can I possibly teach you that? How can I make you understand His greatness so that you don't have to sleezily pretend to serve Him anymore? Yes... I know... I will show you... you will see..."

Slowly, purposefully, he strode toward her. She was still whimpering, seemed completely overwhelmed and abandoned by her muscles. Sasha's wide grin and his widened eyes made him look like a lunatic. When he had reached Mary, he squatted down in front of her. He looked at her and stroked her hair, gently.

"Please, let's go home... I love you..."

"The Lord is here. Over there," Sasha said, pointing to the hole not far from him that led into vicious eternity.

"I... I'll show you, come on," he murmured and took Mary's hand, planning to pull her to her feet.

"What, no! No!" she cried as her eyes looked to where he had pointed and saw the patch of darkness on the ground.

"No, I want to leave, with you! That over there is hell! That's the end of all things!" she panicked.

Suddenly, Sasha grabbed her. The hand that had just been stroking Mary's hair now clawed at it. Startled and in pain, she cried out and tried to loosen his grip, but she couldn't.

"No, no, you're hurting me! Sasha, you're hurting me, please!" she screamed in pain.

But he ignored her. With a jerk, he began to pull her toward the hole. She tried to hold on to the ground, to grab something on the dry floor with her fingers, but she only tore her hands open. She shrieked and flailed, trying to find a foothold, to get up, but Sasha dragged her away by her hair like a wet sack. I was frozen. The young woman slithered across the floor, being pulled steadily, relentlessly.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they had reached the hole. Mary lay on her stomach, trying to hold herself up, crying and shrieking as Sasha pulled her head over the abyss and held her there. Her face was now hovering over the void and she was forced to look down.

"Look at it. There, there is the Lord. There is paradise..." Sasha purred dreamily.

I saw Mary try to turn her head, saw her eyes widen, incredulous and full of panic and disgust, almost fainting of fear of… what she saw. Sasha held her in place with an iron grip.

"No... Please... That is not paradise... That... That is the end. Hell..." she gasped.

A scream escaped Sasha, enraged.

"Heretic! You wretched heretic!"

He kicked her in the back and she yelped.

I had to intervene! I had to help her. She was my neighbour, even though a dark part of me loathed her. But defeating that part was what I had to do. I had to help her! But... I couldn't. Fear still paralyzed me. Made my limbs freeze uselessly.

"But you'll realize. Once you have descended into the hole, you'll know," Sasha purred softly.

"I love you. I want you to experience paradise. I want you to experience it. Even though you are a wretched heretic, you deserve the Lord's mercy. Once you are in the hole, you will thank me..."

When Mary realized his intention, she began to flail even more wildly.

"No, help! Help!"

Her gaze found mine. I saw her struggling, fighting for her life, her soul. I stood up, fought the fear. I was her neighbour. I had to help her! But I could hardly move. The fear of the eternity of the hole made me sluggish, useless, and my steps were too slow.

When Mary realized that I would not be with her in time, when she understood what was going to happen, humanity left her eyes. Her face. Her otherwise beautiful features became a grimace of terror and she made indescribable sounds that included despair and unbridled fear.

Sasha pushed her forward while Mary was still kicking, no longer driven by sense but instincts.

It was too late. Her center of gravity crossed the edge. She toppled forward.

The scream she let out as she slid into the deep blackness continued for what seemed like an eternity. I stared at the maw, stared at the deep void that gaped there in the floor. Sasha just squatted there, looking down.

Prayed, thanked the Lord for having given Mary salvation and paradise and for having been allowed to send her there.

I approached slowly, the hole always in sight. The fear of the darkness grew with each step. What had Mary felt when she had descended? Was she still falling? Was she falling through the hellish darkness? Would she hit the bottom, in purgatory, or... would she always fall? Always falling, while her fear and dread grew with each meter, while each additional second drove her more insane?

"Illya. Thank you. You believed in me. You didn't stop me and gave her what many want more than anything. I know you didn't like her, but thank you for your kindness. She is now traveling, descending to the Lord...", Sasha said softly and turned his head to me.

"I understand it completely now. This hole... it is my hole. The Lord, he is calling for me. The Lord has always called for me. His honeyed voice rings in the darkness. I love Him. I love Him and His goodness. I love Him for allowing me to take Mary into this hole... my hole. He made it just for me. He made it just for me, this hole to heaven, to paradise. Thank you, my friend. I will go to Him, now..."

Before I could respond, he allowed himself to topple forward and, smiling, his eyes happily closed, he too fell into the depths and disappeared.

"No!", I screamed.

What had I done? Why had I let it come to this? Were Mary and he now with the Father? Or had something deceived them? The hole, it had to be from the demons, it had to! This fear that one felt near it, this fear... it could not be anything else! It was a gate to hell and it had taken my friend. Just like the others on that pilgrimage. Just like Sofia's parents. And I had done nothing!

I fell on my knees and began to cry. Why? Why was all of this happening? Why?

I hit the ground. Dust swirled up and my hand began to hurt. I didn't care! I didn't care about anything! This hole, this cursed hole! It...

I looked up.

It was gone.

The hole was gone. Where it had once been, there was only smooth soil in front of me, inconspicuous. As if the damn thing had never existed. As if it hadn't just taken my best friend and his lover. That piece of filth! I took a deep breath.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

What did the Lord want from us? Why did he allow the demons to torment us and send us their tools of hell? Were we not pious? Was I not pious? Or was I poisoned without knowing it? Corrupt at heart and not worthy of the Lord's love? Why had I not felt enough charity for Mary to overcome my fear? Had that been a test I had failed? No, it couldn't be...

Desperate, I got up and made my way home, staggering away. I was unbearably thirsty, I had to drink something.

I said nothing at dinner and went to bed early. I was afraid that that hole would open up under my bed and swallow me. That the demons would come for me. I almost went insane, tossing and turning in bed, yearning for something to drink.

"Are you all right?" Zarina suddenly murmured in the darkness.

"Zarina? Sleep! Everything is fine, everything is fine..."

"What about Mary? I haven't seen her since you left at noon today. When you came back, I knew something had happened, but I didn't want to disturb you. Just... I can tell you're feeling terrible. What happened?"

The image of a beautiful woman falling through eternal darkness, yawing, being torn apart and put back together by demons, forever fading away in pain, cut through my thoughts.

"Nothing. They're out of town for a few days. Sasha was in a bad mood, and I helped them pack up some things and finally fix Sasha's old car. Just like Dad showed me. All is well..."

I knew she didn't believe me. I didn't need to see her face for that. We were silent and the fear came back. Half asleep, I dreamt of the clearing. It was colorless, dreary, smelled artificial and there... was the hole. The hole leading to unspeakable depths. It had opened again; would it swallow me? If I fell into it now, in my dream, would I wake up again? Was it just a mirage, or something else?

*"Ilya. You didn't help me! You didn't save me and left me to the depths of the Lord... It wasn't my hole, it wasn't meant for me..."*

Mary's distorted voice reached my ears. It wafted among the trees, but I knew where it originally came from: Whispering from the depths of the earth before me. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I had to look toward the hole. It was hard to make out. Barely visible. And then...

A hand poked out of the hole, jerkily feeling the earth at the edge. Finally found a hold. A second arm followed, twitching. I couldn't believe it. This was all my fault!

Slowly, terribly slowly, Mary crawled out of the hole. Crawled out of the hole. What was left of her. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes insanely large. Her lips gleamed blood red at me. Her washed-out makeup made her look undead. Twitching, slavering, she crawled toward me.

Again, I was rooted to the spot, again, fear paralyzed me. I had to wake up, had to get away....

She crawled closer, I smelled her stench, the stench of evil. She fixed me with her devilish eyes, with her hellish grin....

Finally, she was with me, grabbed me by the ankles, pulled me to the ground. I couldn't do anything, wanted to fight back, but the dream wouldn't let me.

Slowly, her face right in front of mine, horrible and alien, she laughed, defiled me with her foul-smelling saliva. She clung to me, hugging me tightly. Her mad, melodic voice reached my ears.

*"I will show you what you have done to me. I'll show you what it means to fall into a hole not meant for you. Such terrors..."*

With that she pulled me ahead, further ahead to the piece of miserable blackness on the ground.

Why couldn't I wake up? What would I experience, falling into the depth of the earth? Would I go mad?

Mary's shell laughed, dragging me onward, and the fear and dread of the blackness overwhelmed me.

Then, the light.

I was startled out of sleep. I don't know exactly when it came, but all at once I knew that everything was going to be all right. I had the feeling of paradise in my heart. I knew at once that God had not abandoned me, that He was with me, that He loved me. Just as I had always known. The Lord was with me. The Lord was near. He was so close... I stayed awake and content in bed for the rest of the night.

The next morning, after breakfast, I left the house, went to the garden. I knew the Lord was near. I knew it, felt it. Felt Him.

And there He was. Behind the old dilapidated woodshed, in the weeds. There, there I saw God! A small black hole, at the bottom of which lay paradise. I had been such a fool!

"Ilya, the Lord is here!" my neighbor called over the fence, happily.

I tore myself away from the deep blackness that prophesied an eternity of happiness and strode to the garden fence.

Old Yuri stood there in his worn-out work clothes, a rake in his hand, staring at something at his feet. There, I glimpsed a disgust that I didn't want to dwell on. Something horrible was there in the ground....

"That's wonderful," I said curtly, and turned away.

I couldn't stand to stare there.

I looked again at the hole gaping in the grass beside me.

So beautiful.

It was maybe ten centimeters wide, and I probably wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't felt it.

Suddenly... there...

Suddenly I knew it was my hole. The Lord had sent it to me. He had been testing me for the past few weeks and now I was being rewarded. I would go to Him.

Had we misunderstood? Had they not been demons, but angels? The beings who had sent us the darkness? Had it all been a test of faith? Was that why the people had stepped into the blackness between the trees, Mikhail and the others? Had the Lord taken the Popovs after they had prayed and begged? Had there not been a demon standing by the road, but a messenger of God watching over the Popovs? Had he protected them from the piece of hell that had taken Sofia's flesh? Had we got it all wrong?

Perhaps. But it doesn't matter. I am happy now. I am writing these words so that maybe you can know about my happiness. I believe that the Rapture is coming. That this hole, which appeared to Sasha, which now appears to me and... also to the neighbor....

These holes, I believe that they will take us all to heaven.

Because we believed in the Lord for all these years. Because we were all pious.

There is a hole for everyone. Yes, I think everyone gets their hole. Their hole.

I'm sure everyone will know their own hole. Will know that God is there.

Maybe that's why Sasha's hole scared me so much? Because it was not mine? I dread to think of descending into the wrong hole. What would happen? I'm scared... know that terrible things will happen if you don't go into the right…

Mary...

I'm all right. Everything is all right. The hole is calling me. I know now that not hell is down there. It is God.

*For darkness is as light to you.*

I may have always known. It's calling to me. I always knew it! darkness is the light of the Lord! For darkness is as light to him. Divine darkness.

The darkness, the darkness calls. The eternal darkness in the hole of the Lord will be my salvation.

I am in good health. I am in good mental health! I will be even better soon. I will be eternally happy. My family, my parents, Zarina, I am sure they will follow me soon. They will also participate in this Rapture. It takes a load off my mind to know that Zarina will also get her own hole. It will be prepared for her. She will also ascend to the Lord. Ascend into the eternal depths.

I will now go to it.

Good-bye.

## Characters

* Protagonist

## Entities & Objects

* Holes
* Pieces of Flesh
* Shapes
* Whitness

## Possible connections to the Ebrugh

* The Shapes bear resemblence to the shape Miharu has seen. They might be Ebrugh.

## Trivia

* The holes share parallels with the shapes in the walls of the story "The Enigma of the Amigara Fault" by Junji Ito.