DONG.
The final bell tolled through the cold morning air, its deep reverberation lingering like the last breath of a dying soul. As silence settled over the churchyard, the heavy wooden doors creaked open.
A man in his early thirties stepped out, dressed in a tailored black suit. His expression was quite unreadable; he looked calm yet distant, as if he had already buried more than just a friend today.
From beneath the canopy of a nearby yew tree, another man was seen standing.
He, too, wore black, though his appearance was far less composed. Eyes sunken with exhaustion, his skin pale against the gray scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Gloves covered his hands despite the mild weather.
He looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.
He stopped just short of the church steps.
"David," the man in the suit said quietly.
David met his gaze, lips pressed into a thin line. The grief was clear, but there was something else behind it. Something Amadeus knew he would never say aloud.
The woman they had both come to mourn had belonged to the divine more than the mortal world, and David had known she could never be his. That truth had kept his love silent for decades, maybe the fear of losing the friendship was far more unbearable to him than spending a lifetime waiting.
And now, she is gone.
David's eyes silently lingered on the church door behind Amadeus for a long moment, as if hoping she might step out again, as radiant as she was in her faith, as untouchable as David felt she was in her devotion.
But all that remained now was silence and a cold stone.
He finally spoke.
"Do you think this world is under a god?"
Amadeus didn't respond.
So David pressed on in a low voice, heavy with bitterness
"Or is it ruled by a devil who simply wears the mask of being good?"
"We suffer, we lose, we beg, we pray, and yet there is no reply. No justice. Just silence. If this world is truly His creation, then I wonder what He was thinking. Was He proud? Or he just enjoys watching people suffer"
The scarf around David's neck fluttered as a breeze swept through the graveyard, brushing past, maybe like a whisper of all the death surrounding them.
He looked up at Amadeus with hollow eyes
"Tell me, Amadeus, do you believe in God?"
Amadeus stared at the dying clouds above the chapel spire, then slowly looked back down to David then to the cracked gravestones and to the soil that still smelled of death.
He replied quietly.
"I don't believe in God. But I also don't believe that God doesn't exist."
David frowned. "What does that even mean?"
Amadeus's hands were folded behind his back, he was too calm and composed, too used to death to flinch anymore.
"I'm a doctor. I've held the hands of the dying and cut open bodies to try and cheat death. I've seen miracles that made no sense and tragedies that I could find no reasons to."
He paused.
"I think…I'm too insignificant to say whether God exists or not. And maybe that's the point. Whether He does or doesn't, life moves forward. People bleed, they cry and with time they heal with or without Him."
David's eyes dropped to the ground.
Amadeus continued.
"But humanity believes in God. And sometimes, belief is enough to keep someone breathing. If that's what they need, then I won't take it from them.
I simply don't need to believe in God. I just need to believe in people who do."
The two men stood in silence as the wind swept through the graveyard again, with indifference of a world that never paused for grief.
Amadeus's gaze drifted down to David's hands.
"What's with the gloves?"
David didn't answer immediately. He flexed his fingers once, as if testing something.
"I'm planning to try a ritual. It
requires me not to touch anything living for thirteen days."
Amadeus gave a quiet chuckle, half-amused.
"You really would've made a better son to my parents than I ever did."
"They lived for rituals. That's how I ended up with this weird name"
He glanced away, his voice still carrying a strange calm.
"Most think it means 'lover of God.' Sounds very poetic, right? But it doesn't. really."
"It comes from Asmodeus. The demon."
David didn't look at him. His voice was flat.
"You've told me that before."
Amadeus raised an eyebrow.
"Doesn't make it any less true."
David sighed and turned slightly, weariness carved into every motion.
"We've known each other for too long, Amadeus."
"I'm tired. So spare me the recycled tragedies today."
He stepped off the church path, his boots crunched over gravel, but Amadeus called out again but this time a bit more pointedly.
"Stop reading that book."
David paused mid-step.
Amadeus took a step forward.
"You're not a boy anymore. You're in your thirties. It's not normal for you to chase fiction penned by some faceless lunatic. I feel you know better."
David stood still. Then, he said softly;
"Maybe I do."
"But I have a feeling this one isn't fiction. This is going to work out."
Amadeus narrowed his eyes.
"What's going to work?...David?"
David finally looked back, just over his shoulder. His face was unreadable, but something in his eyes flickered with a quiet resolve.
"You'll find out soon enough."
And just like that, he turned and walked away.
Amadeus watched David disappear into the fog, his silhouette slowly disappeared into the distance.
He muttered under his breath, "There he goes again acting all mysterious."
Fishing out his car keys, he walked to the lot beside the chapel. As Amadeus twisted the key in the ignition, the old radio crackled to life, A monotone voice filtered through the static,
"Heavy rainfall is expected to continue through the night. Citizens are advised to remain indoors. And in other news, another missing person has been reported, marking the thirteenth case within the last two weeks. Authorities remain baffled, and investigations are ongoing. If you have any information…"
Click..
He clicked the radio off mid-sentence.
For a moment, he just sat there, hands resting on the steering wheel and his eyes closed. He took a deep breath.
Thirteen people…just gone.
But his mind wasn't on them. It never was.
He wasn't heartless but just too tired.
Tired of the grief that keeps crawling back to him.
" The world always finds new ways to remind me that it will always get worse. I've already buried enough.
I don't need to carry anyone else's ghost."
With a final glance back at the chapel, he shifted the gear and drove off into the fog.
By the time Amadeus reached home, the sun was already bleeding into the horizon. Hazy orange bathed the buildings in a dying warmth, but his street felt colder than usual and unnaturally still.
He looked up at the sky, no birds returning to their nests, only the slow gathering of clouds.
He parked without a word then stepped into the house, and locked the door behind him with an absent click.
Shrugging off the weight of the day, he pulled open a drawer by the entry table, set down his silver watch, and slipped off his shoes. The suit came next, after folding everything with mechanical neatness. He walked into the hallway .
The bathroom lights buzzed faintly as he stepped in and turned on the shower. Hot water steamed up the mirror, clouding his reflection almost immediately.
He let it run over him, head bowed beneath the stream with hands pressed to the wall.
No prayers today, just silence.
Then, click.
The water stopped.
He waited a moment then turned the knob a few times, Still…Nothing.
"Cut off again?" he muttered. "Figures."
Not thinking much of it, Amadeus stepped out, dried himself in a hurry, and climbed into bed, still a little damp. He was too tired to care. The day had bled him dry.
He didn't remember when he fell asleep.
But when he opened his eyes…
he knew it wasn't the waking world.
The sky above him was pitch black, not exactly night, but just absence. No moon. No clouds. Only red stars, glimmering like scattered blood drops.
They looked like someone had smashed their head against a black canvas, and the blood had sprayed across it.
The air was unnaturally still. He couldn't hear anything but the slow beating of his own heart.
Then, faintly…a piano.
A familiar melody came to his ears.
The same piano tune that echoed in the church halls and school recitals in his childhood.
He turned.
As he turned back he saw two figures dancing beneath a gnarled leafless tree.
David.
And Sarah.
She wore the same white frock that she used to wear back in their early years of their friendship, her long straight hair flowed down her back and barefoot. With the same soft and kind smile that she always used to have no matter who she was talking to.
But something about the scene was wrong.
David's face was twisted in ecstasy, as if the dance was not peaceful but more of an obsession or perhaps borderline madness.
As the music quickened.
So did the dance.
In a feverish and Frenzied way.
Suddenly she looked at Amadeus.
As their eyes locked. The smile on her face was gone.
Something ominous passed through her gaze.
And without breaking rhythm, she grabbed David by the back of his head and
CRACK.
Smashed it into the tree.
A sickening sound followed as David's body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut off.
"Huff…huff..huff.."
Amadeus gasped awake drenched in sweat
"What the hell" he whispered, his voice felt hoarse.
Something in his gut twisted violently.
A premonition? A warning? What the hell is this.
He threw the blanket off, grabbed his coat and car keys, and bolted out the door without even changing. Whatever that dream was, he is not the kind of person to ignore something like this.
And David was in it.
Amadeus gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went pale. The car tore down the rural highway, engine screaming against the strong winds, headlights struggling to pierce the sheets of falling rain.
David's house was an hour away, tucked deep in the countryside, a place he'd always described as peaceful. But tonight, it looked like the sky itself was being torn apart above it.
Clouds churned violently, circling above the house like vultures. Lightning splitting the sky every few breaths . Just unfathomable gusts of wind that shook the trees as if they were trying to run away as far as possible.
"Something's wrong. Something's horribly wrong," Amadeus muttered. He could feel his heart violently pounding.
"The dream hadn't been just a dream afterall."
As he pulled up to the front gate, rain was pouring like knives. He jumped out of the car as fast as possible and ran across the garden towards the front door.
David's house stood there in the middle of all this chaos, two storey tall, it was old but well-kept. Or it used to be.
The painted white walls were now stained with long, streaking black patches, as if acid had rained from the sky and melted into the stone. Windows rattled loudly, The porch lights flickered wildly, casting crooked shadows across the garden.
He didn't hesitate. He ran to the door.
And kicked it open.
The wooden frame cracked and groaned as it flew inward, revealing a thick darkness. The moment he stepped in, a stench hit him.
of rot and blood.
It curled into his nose like smoke. But this wasn't unfamiliar to him. He had smelled death before.
"Blood," he whispered. "Fresh."
He followed the stench, footsteps echoing on the wooden floor, until he reached the foot of the staircase.
That's when he heard it.
A soft, humming sound.
It wasn't a song; rather it felt more like someone was reciting something very fast.
He froze, staring up the stairwell, but something tugged at his instincts.
He knelt down and tapped the wooden floor beneath him.
Hollow.
"There is something under there." he thought as he looked around to find no obvious switches or levers. And at that moment, he didn't have time to think or reason. Every cell in his body screamed at him to act.
So he climbed halfway up the staircase.
Took a breath.
And jumped.
The floor below cracked open, Amadeus crashed through the boards and plunged downward, slamming into a staircase hidden below. He tumbled and rolled down the stairs till he finally reached flat ground. His back and arms were shredded by splinters and nails. Blood dripped down his face.
Pain shot up his leg. His coat was torn. Blood pooled in his mouth. But he pushed himself up, coughing, blinking the sting from his eyes.
And then he saw it.
The room below was massive. Old stone and damp walls. Some kind of a cellar.
And in the center there was fire.
A circle of flame, burning with no fuel. Casting long shadows against the stone walls.
Surrounding it are ritual circles drawn in glistening red blood.
Thirteen bodies lay across the circle, not dead.
Alive. but barely.
They twitched and moaned. Their faces were pale, lips torn open from screaming. Blood leaked from all their pores, which continuously flowed into the circles.
Amadeus stared at the blood-soaked circle in utter disbelief.
The 13 bodies, the ones all over the news, were writhing inside complex magic sigils, drawn in language incomprehensible to humans. They weren't dead yet, barely breathing, their flesh peeled and blood oozing out, their eyes begging for death. And in the center of it all, David.
He was on his knees, muttering in a low, guttural hum, a prayer of sorts, It was quite certain it was not meant for any god of man. His own skin was rotting in real time, flaking away, exposing blackened veins that looked like dead roots of a long withered tree
And then, it was Rachel?
Amadeus's breath caught in his throat.
"No…" he mumbled to himself.
She lay in front of David, dressed in white, the same dress she was buried in. The same body he had prepared, the same body he had lowered into the casket. But her chest now…rose and fell.
A chill ran up his spine, numbing his limbs.
" no…that's impossible… I myself pronounced her dead and now she's breathing ? "
A thousand thoughts collided in his head but none able to finish. He wanted to scream and run as far away from this accursed place but instead, he had no choice but to step forward.
With the fraction of reason he still retained he recalled the basics of all rituals, that he himself has seen growing up with cultist parents, Every ritual needs a vessel, a medium of sorts.
"It's her," he whispered with a cracking voice.
"She must be the medium"
Something inside him snapped. He couldn't let David go any deeper.
Not him. Not the last person he could call his own.
He suddenly saw David raise a jagged black dagger, bound in red and gold threads, It pulsed with a strange ominous energy.
And David pointed it…at himself.
"No…NO!" Amadeus broke into a run. "DAVID!!"
A rush of emotion overcame him. His heart cracked. David, his only remaining anchor in this collapsing world and now even he was about to follow her into the abyss.
With desperation laced in rage, Amadeus slammed into him boot-first. David was flung from the circle like a rag doll, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
Amadeus didn't stop to think. He grabbed Emily's corpse, lifting her trembling form. Her skin was ice cold and eyes closed shut.
He didn't wait.
He threw her into the roaring flames.
The fire howled, rising like a beast tasting its first blood after starving for an eternity.
But then
Thud…
He turned.
David was laying motionless inside the circle. The dagger had already found his heart.
"DAVID!!" Amadeus screamed, running forward.
"No..Nooo..Why?! ,his legs failed as he fell to his knees, crawling toward his friend.
Tears mixed with ash. His voice cracked into nothing but sobs.
He reached out, just a fingertip away from touching David's blood-slicked hand,
-schlick.
A grotesque sound passed through his ears.
Amadeus froze and looked down.
A monstrous hand crimson and glistening with blood had pierced through his chest.
Its claws curved like obsidian blades, black nails soaked in red. And in that unholy grip was his still-beating heart pulsing.
He choked and coughed out a mouthful of blood, yet somehow just somehow managed to turned his head.
And there it stood.
An entity. Who couldn't be described in human words, a face that's feels incomprehensible to human eyes
A thing of unreal, too tall, skin made of shifting shadows, eyes like voids filled with burning galaxies, and horns that curled like ancient ruins above its head.
It looked down at him, and the moment their eyes met,
flames.
His vision turned white. His pupils boiled. His skin peeled off, Every nerve screamed louder than his voice ever could. In one eternal second, Amadeus burned. Not just his body, his thoughts, his comprehension of every concept of life, the world everything burned away and then followed darkness, an abysmal, eternal darkness.