She could go out.

She could go out and no one would recognize her or would hunt her down in the streets. No one remembered her. No one on the busy streets looked her in the eye. Not one of the people hurrying through the dark knew that she was May Schroder, murderer.

It was strangely exhilarating to be forgotten.

May had intended to go the cemetary when she left Thorn’s attic that morning. See if Asrun had been buried yet, if someone was taking care of her family’s snowed over graves. She desperately wanted to voice the guilt that had tortured her the entire period she spend in coma on Thorn’s ratty couch.

But, when she approached the cast iron gates, one creaking in the strong wind, she saw Abigail’s purple-haired silhouette bend over a grave. For a moment May held still, gloved hand on one of the gates’ bars. Should she go up to her? What was there to say? Certainly nothing that was appropriate above Sigrin’s grave.

With quiet regret, May walked past the entrance. She didn’t want to speak to Abigail again, see that hurt again, feel so rightfully judged again.

Despite the fact she’d sided with Thorn, yesterday, she understood why Abigail had said those horrific words, still echoing in her ears.

Where to then? There was no one to visit, no one above ground still. The archives, beneath the university? She could just walk in now, another faceless student in the halls, forgotten before she was out of the building again. But no. Before Thorn had declared he was to live, Abigail had told her all evidence of skugabor had been cut out of May’s beloved archives. Even if those immensely valuable pages hadn’t been burned or trashed or ripped and scattered on the wind, May hadn’t a clue where to look for them.

Should she go to Dyst? Find the booth where she used to write her essays, chatting with Oskar over the bar during the slow hours? Would he remember her, however vaguely? She shook her head to herself. No sense in digging up those memories if they’d only mess her up.

Without destination, she wandered through the moonlit city. Here, the small used book store where she’d bought battered textbooks she couldn’t bring herself to ask Erika for. Christmas lights were already in the windows. She considered going inside, but she had no money, and as she walked past a group of girls Asrun’s age wandered into the store. May pushed her hands deeper into her pockets. Perhaps it would’ve been better if Skygge had never showed up in Thorn’s apartment, if she’d never realized the outside world had forgotten about May Schroder and her September murders. It had been easier to miss the city when she thought there would be something here for her, still.

In her gut, there was a tugging begging to be noticed, itching in rhythm with her heartbeat and too deep inside of her to do anything about. She wanted to cry, but kept walking. Her boots stomped hard on the fresh snow, and May was glad for something to kick at. The itch had spread, slowly seeping through veins and nerves, disregarding her will. The other people on the dark Slakshaven street, clad in thick coats and soft scarves, didn’t look twice at her.

And here, in front of her, on a square in the old part of the city, stood the only church in of the entirety of Threoo. It towered high above the other buildings, and was made of wood despite burning down every other century or so. May wondered why they kept rebuilding it. She walked up to it. Cold, half molten snow dripped from her hair into her neck. Beside the massive, wooden doors, a list of years kept track of every rebuild. The first of them was 1033; not even a decade after the cloister in the woods had been erected.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

May frowned. Her teachers had always been fuzzy on the details regarding the history of this single church and it’s rather close relationship with arson, even in her college lectures. It had frustrated her to no end when she tried to write her homework essays. She tried the door. It swung open with surprising ease, despite the size of it. The roof towered high above her head, wooden support beams defying gravity high up in the distance. She shivered. Was it the cold? No - as she stepped over the threshold, the itching inside of her had intensified, become frantic. May swallowed.

It wasn’t used, this lone church; it’s relics all had signs regarding their historic significance beside them, and the wooden pews - remakes of remakes of remakes - were roped off. With every step May took towards the altar, the trashing in her gut intensified.

Here, the shadows were deep and fleshy. She’d half expected to be cut off from them, in the way both she and Thotn had been in the cloister - but the dark was easy to reach, too close on her mind to be comfortable, and there where too many small nooks where shadows could hide and watch, unnoticed. A sense of dread settled in her stomach. She glanced back, towards the open entryway. May could see the early christmas lights outside. Her veins prickled. The dark was pushing at her mental borders, not at all subtle any more.

The soil beneath this building was ancient, she knew with unsettling clarity. The rock, the mud here had seen rituals long before christianity briefly settled on these islands. What lay beneath these floorboards, the harsh tiles with their latin inscriptions? A sense of dread rose up from them, seeping through the pores in her skin and joining the coiling in her stomach. The dark of it was so thick that it did not surprise her any more, that people tried to destroy this place. Would a human being feel it, too?

She was not alone, she realized. Somewhere behind the altar a silhouette stood, perfectly still, aiming a camera at something behind her. For a moment she thought it was Thorn, photographing churches now Abigail no longer required him to photograph her crime scenes. No - she’d have felt his pull on the dark, his rhythm along the edges of her mind. She turned, to see what the man was photographing.

There was a stained class window there, the full moon thick and round behind it, and it’s depiction was clearly visible. A man, in pain - some saint or other she’d have assumed, if it hadn’t been for the coiling dark around his thin body. His face was twisted in a permanent, timeless agony, and his exposed wrists showed gray veins, his nails stained with a hit of red. Suddenly May didn’t question any more why no christian missionary had set foot on these islands after 1033. The message of this single window was very clear.

There be monsters here.

Not sparing another glance for the photographer, May hurried towards the open doors, back into the soft white snow of Slakshaven. A weight lifted off her mind the moment she stepped outside, and she took a deep breath she hadn’t realised she desperately needed. Here, the shadows were gray, not black, and thin as air.

As May marched home, feet cold in her boots, she couldn’t shake the dread that had settled in her stomach. It had taken on a near physical form. She could feel it break down in smaller grains of unease, entering her blood stream. She swallowed, hard. The old, looming buildings of Slakshaven towered around her, black silhouettes against an even blacker sky, and she couldn’t help but wonder what horrors these streets had seen.