The church stood crooked at the far end of Ember Hollow like a spine broken in prayer.
Its steeple pierced the fog, jagged and blackened by time, barely clinging to the top of the roof. The bell tower was shattered, the bell itself nowhere in sight—just a gaping hole where sound once lived. Dead vines strangled the wooden walls. Stained-glass windows, long since shattered, had wept their colors down the planks like bleeding eyes.
Maya hesitated as they approached. "I don't want to go in there."
"We have to," Samuel said. "This is where it began."
"No," Ikenna muttered. "This is where it ends."
The front doors were open just a crack. Enough for the smell to hit them first—iron, rot, wet earth. It wasn't just old. It smelled fresh, like something recently buried had clawed its way to the surface.
As Ikenna pushed the door, it groaned open slowly, echoing into the silence like a cry for help.
Inside, the church was dark. No pews. No altar. Only long, black scorch marks on the wooden floor and walls. The crucifix at the far end had been turned upside down, nailed there with rusted iron stakes. Candles, melted to puddles of wax, circled the pulpit in a strange spiral, and carved into the pulpit's surface were symbols—deep, ragged, and wet.
Still wet.
Maya knelt, hesitantly touched one of the carvings with a fingertip, then jerked back. Her finger was slick with blood.
"It's fresh," she whispered. "Oh God. Someone was just here."
Samuel stepped into the center of the room, eyes glassy. "This was supposed to be sacred ground."
The door slammed behind them.
They spun around. Ikenna ran to it, twisted the knob—it wouldn't budge. The fog outside pressed against the windows like a living thing, dense and writhing.
"We're trapped," Maya said, her voice cracking.
Then the room grew colder.
Frost crept across the floorboards like a spider's web. The melted candles began to tremble, the wax re-forming slowly, unnaturally. One by one, the wicks ignited—no flame, just light—pale and greenish, casting long shadows on the walls.
And then came the chanting.
Low. Whispered. Hundreds of voices. None in English.
Samuel dropped to his knees, shaking. "It's the congregation," he whispered. "The ones who were here the night it burned. The ones who made the pact."
Maya stepped back toward the pulpit—and the wood beneath her feet gave way with a crack.
She screamed as she fell, vanishing into the floor.
"MAYA!" Ikenna shouted, running toward the hole.
He dropped to his knees, shining the light from his phone into the darkness. "Maya! Can you hear me?"
From below came only ragged breathing.
Then her voice, trembling: "There's something down here."
"What do you see?" Samuel called.
"A room… a basement. It's full of bones. And…" she went silent for a moment. "There's a child."
Ikenna's stomach dropped. "What?"
"I see… a boy. Sitting in the corner. I think—" her voice broke. "I think he's dead."
Silence.
Then the child's voice echoed up: "I'm not dead."
The lights in the church flared white-hot. All around them, the walls wept blood, thick and slow, oozing from the cracks like the building itself was bleeding.
The chanting grew louder, faster—like the voices were spinning around the church in a circle.
Ikenna scrambled to the hole. "Maya, grab my hand! We're getting you out!"
"No," her voice came up, smaller. "He won't let me leave."
Suddenly the floor rippled beneath Ikenna's knees—the wood moved, like muscle. Something alive throbbed underneath.
Samuel screamed, stumbling backward as the crucifix above the pulpit twisted, cracking in half. Flames licked up the baseboards, black and cold, casting shadows that danced and shrieked.
"Maya!" Ikenna yelled again.
No response.
Only laughter.
From the boy.
From the thing pretending to be a boy.
The hole slammed shut with a sound like a coffin being nailed closed.
Silence returned.
The candles flickered out.
And Ember Hollow claimed its first offering.