A/N: Dates are just for me to keep track of time, don't worry about them.
The church stood alone and forgotten, miles from any civilization, accompanied only by remains of an old monastery that still poked from the ground here and there. Apparently whoever decided to level the place, thought it inappropriate to wreck the sacred temple, so its massive shape still threw a long shadow over the sloped ground.
The sun had set, the sky was turning from shades of orange and purple to navy and black, but it was still bright enough that she didn't hesitate entering. Doors weren't anyhow locked - if anything was worth stealing it must surely be long gone now, and what's the point of locking up a church that's this far from civilization.
The insides were as she expected; dust hung in the somewhat moist air, the walls were stripped of all decorations, and only the wooden pews and a bare altar occupied the large, open space. Wide pillars rose from the ground towards wooden constructions connecting them to support an exquisitely shaped, high ceiling.
She walked down the main aisle, but came to a sudden stop halfway down. Did she hear a rustle? She slowly lifted her face to where she thought she heard the sound, but she didn't see anything in the colored moonlight pouring through the stained glass windows. She brushed it off and made it all the way to the altar.
She moved around, trying to find and open any possible compartments where something interesting could still be left behind. Then she heard it again, this time low by the ground.
She stopped and turned around to face the room. Her eyes scanned the area, but wherever the shadows fell they were dark and sharp, and as far as light reached there was nothing to be seen.
She assumed it must be some stray animal, maybe a flutter of wings of a bat. Her eyes dropped to the altar in front of her. The entirety of it was covered in a thick coat of dust, except for a patch to her left. She frowned when she realized it looked like an imprint of a hand placed to the surface a few inches from the edge, and then slid off. Except the hand looked like it only had three digits.
Her head shot up as the rustle repeated, and she could finally tell it came from behind one of the wide pillars. And that it sounded like something much bigger than a harmless animal.
Eyes trained on the pillar and whatever was hiding behind it, she slowly reached to the knife strapped to her thigh. Her other hand pulled out the small flashlight from her back pocket.
Holding both at the ready, she quietly circled the altar, her eyes never leaving the spot. A small rustle confirmed something was still there, and possibly became aware of her approaching. She stopped, and just waited for a moment before moving forward.
When she made it to the side of the pillar that was not shrouded in shadows, her finger traveled to the button of her flashlight and her grip on the knife tightened. In one quick move she jumped around the pillar with her flashlight on, barely registering a sudden sound when she moved. All she found was a cloud of dark smoke that immediately invaded her lungs and dissolved.
Coughing at the irritating smell, she took a few steps back and did her best not to lose stance. The sudden sound repeated somewhere above her, and then a quick rustle. The blade still extended defensively, she turned around, shining the light into all the dark corners up above. She couldn't see anything, but something was definitely there a moment ago.
As she finally managed to draw a lungful of clearer air she realized she already knew this irritating smell of the odd smoke as well as the odd sound accompanying it.
She stopped for a moment, hesitantly lowering her knife. Her eyes still probed the darkness and tried to disperse the darkness with her flashlight. Just as the beam drew closer to a particularly dark corner and she thought she could see something stir in the darkness, the sound repeated. All she foundwhen her light reached the spot were last wafts of dispersing smoke. Even before it was completely gone, the sound repeated somewhere up above, this time behind her.
It took all of her restraint to stop herself from turning around and trying to find the spot with her flashlight. Instead she took a moment to calm down and took a slow, deep breath, letting it out through the mouth quietly.
"You're the one who helped me" she said. The sudden resonation of her voice across the quiet place caused a rustle above her. There was no answer.
She swallowed and lowered her beam, turning around slowly. Looking up without the light was futile, the darkness swallowing most parts of the supporting construction was too thick for her eyes alone. But she was sure there's someone or something lurking in that darkness.
Ever since being a small child, she always felt disturbed by the dark. Maybe it's due to not having felt safe in her own home, but it seemed like there's always something waiting for her in the darkness. Something scary, dangerous and feeding off of her fear. Choosing to live out here homeless in a forest was against her instinct, but she'd take it over staying under her family's roof any day. At least here she knew what's out to get her. Every rustle, sound and sense of being watched, she could write off as wildlife.
But whatever or whoever was lurking in this abandoned church did not belong to the wildlife. The eeriness made her hair stand on end, but she kept her face emotionless and her stance confident.
"Come out" she demanded.
Nothing.
"Why are you hiding?" she tried again.
Only quiet. She sighed with frustration and lifted the beam.
The sound. The smoke. The sound again in another part of the church.
"Great" she muttered under her breath. "And here I almost thought I imagined something after all. FINE" she said louder. "Fuck you, then" she flipped out the general area where she last heard the sound and headed to the door.
Fresh air hit her face and for a lingering, dreadful moment all she wanted was to be as far away from this place as she could. Hell knows what's lurking in that godforsaken place.
"Creepy shit" she hissed.
Her feet carried her quickly to the edge of woods before she cooled down and remembered that whatever or whoever that is, they saved her.
She turned around to look at the dark shape of the church. To her surprise she noticed movement, like a shape skirting along the roof. She shivered at the almost spider-like quality to its movement and watched it climb all the way up one of the narrow rooftops.
Her widened eyes were still trained on it as it perched on top of it in a crouched position. A thin, long tail was swinging from side to side of the shape, but the black outline visible against the lighter night sky was definitely that of a human.
And it seemed to tickle some memory in the back of her head, but she couldn't put her finger on it, too baffled to think straight.
She swallowed and turned towards the forest. She walked back to her camp in a daze, going over everything from finding the church to the peculiar shape perched on top of it when she left. She couldn't make sense of it.
"What did I see?" she whispered low. What was it, crawling in the night? "Crawling in the night" she repeated slowly, tasting the words, the notion of them adding to the tickle in the back of her head.
And suddenly she knew why she recognized this shape. The way it moved, perched , the tail, the imprint on the altar, even the sound. All of this together.
But it made no sense.
Absolutely no sense.
But what else to do in a forest than overthink and slowly convince yourself to have a shred of belief in the unbelievable? And how else do you rationalize a disappearing person with a tail?
By the morning light she was set on exploring this bizarre conclusion.
By six in the morning she made it to the nearest town, found a busy hotel and slipped in behind some family to fill her stomach at the breakfast buffet.
But the afternoon she found a net cafe and paid the fee with some of the change she still had left scraped up from begging. She felt like a fool when she typed out the title of the cartoon of her childhood. It felt a little less foolish and a little more bizarre when a few minutes later she was looking at a gallery with screenshots of this one character.
And the smell. Sulfur, wasn't it? His profile page said that's what it smells like when he teleports.
Before her time drew to an end she pulled out some more change and asked to print a few screens from the cartoon and some wiki pages. She folded the pages in a small, tight square and put it in the pocket of her pants.
She went on with the rest of her day as usual, and it was already dark when she made it to the abandoned church. The beam of her flashlight climbed the stone, outer walls of the building all the way to the rooftops, almost like she expected to find him up there. Then she lowered it to the front door and took a deep breath.
"What am I doing" she whispered under her breath before heaving the door open and slipping inside.
The cathedral was eerily quiet, and because the moon didn't rise high enough yet - even darker than the previous night. She flashed her beam on pews and pillars as she walked to the center of the nave. There was nothing, not even a rustle to indicate she's not alone, and she started to suspect she might be the only one here.
It felt almost more reasonable to assume that last night was just a fever dream. An imagination of a mind starved for stimulation in these isolated woods.
"Anyone here?" she asked low, but her voice carried loud across the empty walls. "Come out if you're still here."
There was nothing to break the silence but the sound of her slow steps. The dusty air caught in her beam light was undisturbed.
She swallowed, her eyes still skipping from one pool of darkness to another.
"Come on. I know you're here, Kurt" she chanced.
Maybe the silence became thicker and heavier for a moment. Maybe she just imagined it. But there was no answer. No rustle or any other sound.
She inhaled nervously and shook her head at her own foolishness. 'Grow up, bitch' she scolded herself and turned around to leave.
She was about to grab the door handle when a young male's voice resonated softly from the back of the church;
"How do you know my name?"
She stopped still, her hand very slowly dropping back to her side. Very slowly, she turned around to find the church as empty as ever. Once again she almost wanted to write it off as her going crazy, but it sounded far too real.
She thought she had a game plan, but maybe she was just fooling herself. She didn't think it'd get to this point. Now she realized she was fully prepared to walk away from here with the conclusion that last night she had delusions from being in the dark for too long. But she couldn't do that anymore.
"Where are you?" she asked hesitantly, slowly moving her beam across the corners of the church.
"I- I'd rather not say" he responded, clear as day.
She knew she needed to accept the bizarre reality eventually. Sure, maybe she didn't understand the when or how, but she knew that who she saw, who she identified him to be and who this person thinks they are clearly match up. She wasn't ready to start unpacking what any of it means or how it's possible.
"How do you know my name?" he repeated faintly.
She reached her hand to the folded pages in her pocket, but stopped with her hand over it. Does he even know where he is? Does he know about the cartoon? Should she use this fact as a conversation opener? Should she even engage in a conversation or just walk out of that door and try to banish this memory to preserve some sense of this world making logical sense?
Her fingers slipped out of her pocket without the folded pages.
"If you get to be all mysterious then so do I" she said, inching her way back to the center of the room. "What are you doing here?"
She felt weird talking to the seemingly empty room, and it came as a surprise every time the empty room responded.
"Living, kind of" the disembodied voice said. "You?" he asked nervously. He sounded like he's in as much doubt about whether he should engage in a conversation as she was. It made it somewhat better, if only by a margin.
"I guess I'm your neighbor then" she said, trying to pinpoint where he is, but the way sound carried in these empty walls made it hard to figure out anything more than the general direction. "I have a camp nearby. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
She could hear him scoff with nervous laughter. "Busted" he said. "So you figured I'm the one who dropped off that stuff."
"I don't think many other people frequent those woods" she lifted the beam and clearly found the right spot because there it was. Sound, smoke. The sound again, from a different side. "Sorry" she said.
"For what?" his voice now carried differently, from a different spot.
She lowered her flashlight and switched it off. "You clearly don't want to be found" she said low, slightly uncomfortable with the deeper darkness that fell over the place.
He must have been taken off guard because he was silent for a moment before asking with confusion; "And you're just going to let it be?"
She slowly slipped into the nearest pew to at least feel her back against something firm and preserve her sense of safety in this eerie darkness.
"Maybe it's because I don't want to be found either" she said low, wrapping her arms around herself slightly.
"...Is that why you're camping in the woods?" he asked softly.
"Maybe" she said faintly. "How do you do that?" she lifted her eyes, but the darkness was unconquered.
"Do what?"
She saw something shimmer in the darkness. Training her eyes on the small, lighter spots that disappeared momentarily every few seconds within the darkness above she realized it must be his eyes.
'There you are' she thought, her heart beating a little stronger.
"How do you disappear and reappear somewhere else?" she asked.
"I, uh… I can teleport" he replied hesitantly.
She saw it coming and yet the idea was so out of this world she needed a moment to digest it. "Interesting" is all she could say without immediately telling him how she knew that's what he'd say.
At this point her eyes adjusted and the moon was high enough to break the darkness a little more. She slightly relaxed in her seat and rested her head back.
"So how did you know my name?" he asked, now sounding more interested than hesitant.
She smirked. "I'll let you in on my mystery when you let me in on yours" she said.
"What do you mean?" he sounded uncomfortable
The smile died on her lips and her eyes trained on the darkness where she could see the two lighter spots. "You come down here" she stated just above a whisper. "And I tell you how I know your name."
And while that sounded just like bickering, she needed to see that she's not crazy before making an outrageous claim like that.
It was a lingering moment before he responded; "How about we both keep our secrets for now?"
She wasn't surprised. He's probably freaking out about her potentially freaking out about him. What a mess.
"So be it" she decided to approach it differently. "How did you end up here anyway?"
The hesitation was clear in his voice: "You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me?"
The silence was so deep she could hear him swallow. "At one point I just… found myself somewhere I didn't recognize and found that everyone and everything I knew is…" he inhaled nervously. "...Just gone, I guess."
"Gone how?" she tried to hide the intrigue in her voice.
"Just… gone" he sighed. "I'm staying in this church because I came to this area to find the village I'm from but it's just not… there."
"...How long ago was it?" she asked.
"I don't know exactly" he said faintly. "I lost track of time. Four or five months maybe?"
They were both quiet for a moment. A lot of this - the location, things and people he knows not existing - was too conveniently aligned with the bizarre connection she made between him and the cartoon. Before the girl fully took in what he said, he broke the silence;
"Do you want to know what the strangest part is?"
"What?" she asked.
"Last thing I remember it was the year 2000" his voice quivered. "And now it's…"
"2009" she finished for him, her own breath catching slightly. "So do you think you traveled in time, or…?"
"I think so" he said. "But I don't think it explains why my entire village just disappeared."
'So he has no idea after all' she thought with a pounding heart, her fingers pressing against the hard square of folded paper in her pocket. She had the impulse to show him her findings, but there was such a sad and lonely quality to his voice, and she second guessed herself.
"Must be pretty lonely to have everything you know suddenly disappear" she said low, once again shifting her hand away from the pocket.
He didn't respond, but she could hear some low sounds, like he wanted to reply but perhaps was short on words. The idea of this boy lurking in the darkness for the last few months, lost, alone and confused poked on her heart, stirring some emotion she long forgot even existed. Sympathy.
Scoffing low she dropped her eyes to her own hands and occupied herself with turning rings around her fingers. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that living on the run was already getting pretty lonely for her as well. This conversation was probably the first real conversation she had in weeks, everything else was just a bunch of lies intended to make her some coin.
Lately she made a habit of wondering if she will have to keep it up until the day she turns a legal adult and is able to reclaim her autonomy in the 'normal world'. While that was a much better perspective than waiting for that day under her family's roof, it was still a miserable life, with a lot of things that could go wrong.
She chucked bitterly.
"...What's so funny?"
"Nothing. Just the idea that I'd rather feed myself to the wolves than go back to my family" she said, a peculiar smile forcing itself onto her lips. "Being alone is a blessing for me really. But maybe the right company could be better" she shifted her face towards where he was hidden. "Listen, Kurt" she stood up. "You're clearly lost in a lot of ways, but you can get into anywhere" she said, marveling about how much such an ability would make it easier for her as an underage runaway.
But then while that made it easier in some ways, the appearance she expected him to have must close other doors. She could work for her money in some way as long as they don't find out authorities are looking for her, and he could teleport into places after closing and lift what he needs but couldn't interact with people.
"We could help each other."
She let those words hang in the air.
She would do anything to avoid including anyone in her great escape, but the most unlikely ally might be just what makes this life a little easier.
The stunned silence lingered. She just smirked at how bizarre this entire meeting was and she headed to the door.
"Just think about it" she said above a whisper. "I'll be back tomorrow."
She left the eerie silence in favor of the less overwhelming quiet of the outside.
24.06.2009
Journal entry: I'd rather feed myself to the wolves than go back to my family - that's words that came out of my mouth today, and even I was surprised how well it hit the nail on the head. Maybe that's why nothing in these woods scares me anymore - because the only thing scary to me is not in the wild, but rather in the walls of an upper-class suburban family house some couple of hundred miles away.She put the journal away just as sunrise turned into a full-blown daytime.
That day she checked her snares for prey and did her usual rounds, going in growing circles around her camp to make sure nothing looked out of place. Later in the afternoon she took a nap, woke up after twilight and decided it was time to do as she declared and come to the abandoned church.
It crossed her mind a few times to do this in daytime, but if the first meeting taught her anything, is that her peculiar conversator won't step out of the shadows, so she argued herself to grant him the luxury of having them in the first place.
Or maybe she was just making excuses to keep coming there at night because that's what she did before, and breaking that short-lived routine could come with new challenges.
At first when she entered the building it was perfectly quiet, but then she heard something stir in the darkness and she tensed. What sounded like fast paced footsteps moved somewhere above her, over the wooden construction connecting pillars under the dome.
"You came back" she heard the now-familiar voice.
"Why are you so surprised? I said I would" she relaxed and headed to the best lit pew.
"Why?"
She slowed to a stop. 'Why?' she asked herself, too. She sat down. "Don't know about you, but once food and shelter are taken care of, I don't have much to entertain me in these woods. Or have I interrupted some fun activities or something?"
"No, no… I was just curious" he assured defensively.
"I thought as much" she locked her eyes on the patch of shadows in his general direction. "So how about the little deal I offered? About how we could help each other?"
"...How would that work?" he asked nervously.
"I'm not sure. But since we both live in this forest I'm sure it'd be easier on both of us if we cooperated. And since you refuse to come out of the shadows it's probably safe to assume you don't go in the city either" she said.
He seemed to shift uncomfortably. "Ja, I don't. If I really need something I teleport to get it at night. I really hate that I have to, uhm, basically steal to survive" the shame was clear in his voice.
She nodded. "I get it. I always consider stealing as a last resort, it doesn't sit well with me" she grimaced. "See, I can go in the city. I can make some money if I'm being careful. And a portion of my food comes from gathering and hunting. I put up quite a few traps around the area" she explained. "But I don't have enough time in a day to go in the city and check all the traps frequently enough, so often potential prey escape or get eaten by larger animals."
She wet her lips.
"Since you can teleport you could make rounds around the hunting sites much quicker and more often. And I'd have more time to go into the city and make more coin, to get other stuff we need without stealing it" she concluded. "What do you think?"
She heard him inhale, as if taken aback.
"It sounds great" he said nervously.
"You seem hesitant" she noted.
"No, I just-" he cleared his throat, but his voice was small when he continued; "Can we do this without me- revealing?"
She grimaced before putting a softer expression on her face. "If that's what you want, for now we can work around the reveal. But just know this… It's okay to reveal" she was surprised at her own gentle voice. "I don't expect you to hide for nothing. I know there's probably a great deal of experience behind your reluctance to do it."
For a moment all she could hear was his shagged breathing.
"Ja" and in that short syllable was so much broken-ness that for the shortest moment her own throat clenched for his pain.
She swallowed. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
For a moment he was silent, and she could hear a low noise like he's fidgeting with something. "I just don't look like other people" he said low. "Never have" he swallowed and took a moment. "I thought I was the only one who's different for most of my life. Then I met people who were different, too, but…"
She waited for him to pick up, and it took him a moment to do so.
"They weren't as different as me, but I thought they'd understand. Or at least accept me. Surely. But it's… um… I guess it's not that simple" he chuckled sadly and snorted. "Even they treated me like the odd one out of the bunch if I didn't conceal the way I am."
"At the end of the day most people are shit, aren't they?" she responded.
The boy snorted and swallowed to clear his throat. "What about you? What are you hiding from in these woods?" he clearly tried to stir the subject to something else.
"My family" she responded flatly. "Town. Country. Past. Law. Everything" she sighed. "My relatives are shitty people. And for too long I thought my mother would be the exception and she'd take me and my brother out of that toxic shithole of a place. But I was forced to grow out of this delusion and save my own ass" she grimaced, absently scratching her finger against the pew in front of her. "I chose to find a way out, any way out, just so I don't have to stay there until I'm 18. I respect myself too much to let those fucked up narcisistic assholes be in charge of me. So I said I'll make my own way in this world, even if I have to start from eating from trash bins or end up forced to sell my body."
"...I don't know what to say to this" he admitted.
"There's nothing for you to say. Just mark my words, Kurt. If they want me back, they'll have to drag my dead body to that hellhole. I'm not coming any other way."
The conversation carried on into the night as the both of them revealed some more details of their experiences prior to ending up in this forest. Eventually the girl was ready to leave, but the boy hesitantly stopped her.
"Hey, um… I don't even know your name" he said.
She stood by the open door for a lingering moment before eventually answering; "I don't seem to have one anymore."
"Can I call you… Fallen, then?" he asked.
She scoffed. "Sure. But why Fallen?"
"Listening to your story makes it seem like you chose to fall away from everything your circumstances tried to make you, and you did your own thing. An apple that's fallen far away from its tree and its roots."
She was caught off guard with this explanation. "I guess it works" she said.
Only after she closed the door behind herself did she let the smile creep onto her face.
"Fallen" she scoffed with amusement. "Why the hell not."
+25.06.2009+
Giving the benefit of the doubt, the girl spent the following day in the city alternating between sketching portraits of strangers willing to pay any amount and scouting elders who might want help carrying groceries for some spare change or food items. She was happy with what she had when she went back into the forest.
Arriving at the camp she was presented with fresh prey and a bunch of berries laid out on the stone she used as a make-shift table.
"Would you look at that" she shook her head with a smirk. "The boy really did know where everything was."
She settled down, prepared everything and divided it into two piles. She wrapped up one of them and carried it to the not-so-abandoned church. It was the first time she saw it up close in daylight, and the ruined state of it seemed more prominent now. She entered the building, in awe at how much it changed in the warm, stained glass-tinted twilight. There were no deep, sharp shadows either down by the floor or up, under the dome.
"Kurt?" she called out to no answer.
He must be doing rounds to check the traps or something. She appreciated the enthusiasm, even if they had more than enough. The first day of their cooperation was definitely a major success.
Using the opportunity of actually seeing the place well, she moved through the nave and looked around, trying to commit to her memory everything that was otherwise hidden in the night.
Then her eyes landed on what seemed like an old piece of construction to the right. Metal ladders led up to a set of platforms with metal skeleton and wooden planks for floors. She watched it curiously for a moment before placing the food she brought on the nearest pew and climbing up the ladders.
Reaching the last platform she found a large nook, extended by the platform, creating what seemed like a living space. A large, circular stained-glass window sat in the middle, and below it was a box of supplies, some sketch pads, a folded set of clothes and a thin mattress.
'Bingo' she thought.
There was an open sketchbook sitting in the colorful light, and she could see a drawing. She inched closer to confirm it's a sketch of what could possibly be a spot in this forest. She carefully paged back to reveal more drawings done with amazing eye for detail and skills she could only dream of at this point.
"Can you imagine if I could draw like that?" she muttered. People in the street would need to add an extra zero to the amounts they pay her for portraits.
Suddenly there was the familiar *BAMF* sound behind her, and a gasp. She turned around quickly but heard another *BAMF* and only caught sight of the dispersing smoke. The irritating smell of sulfur just reached her nostrils when another *BAMF* could be heard down in the main nave.
"Kurt?" she called out moving to the edge of the platform. She caught a glimpse of movement, but the boy quickly found himself behind one of the pillars.
"I didn't expect you here!" he panted in shock.
"Yeah, sorry about that" she started descending down the set of ladders. "And sorry about messing with your stuff but I saw the sketchbook- damn, you're good!" she tried to ease the tension. "You should think about letting me sell your works in the city. We'd make some serious coin" she made it to the floor and turned to face the seemingly empty room. "I brought some stuff for you, by the way. It's on the bench right here, if you want to come and see."
"I- I'll check it out later, thank you" he uttered nervously.
Her shoulders dropped. "Sure. You do you" she rolled her eyes, irritated at her attempts at being friendly falling so flat. "I don't have time for this bullshit."
She headed for the door, completely ignoring the nervous rustle as the boy circled the pillar, making sure to be on the opposite side to her at all times.
"Fallen…" he called out faintly.
But she left.
