anthology

chapel

trigger warning for gore, violence (mentioned), religious imagery, and death

word count: 854

notes: why did I forget to put this one here lmao I wrote it in august and was so proud of it but never published it here?? anyway, here it is now.

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A tall, white man stood in front of her, sepulchre light framing his silhouette with what could almost be described as a halo, except this was not salvation, and he was no angel. This was something deeper and more raw than salvation, something shattered into shards like the colored fragments of stained glass on the ground. This fight was not like what she saw on TV, it was graceless and dirty. It was personal, and so, so bitter.

She was struck, then--laying humbled and near dead on the floor of a chapel--that battle was not glorious, it was not to be venerated. Fighting for your life was a dull blade, hacking at your psyche with every drop of blood spilled by your hands. Images of soldiers cheering with bloodlust in their eyes replacing the shattered fragments of dreams were not to be iconized and worshipped.

Soon--too soon and a millinea later--the man whom she'd never caught the name of straightened up, with blood on his hands warmer still than his expression. When he looked at her, something caught and cracked, sending shards of panic flying into her thoughts. This was not a dream. She had just been kidnapped and almost killed by her best friends, and this man offering his hand down had slain every last of them unflinchingly. At her hesitance, the taut angles of his face loosened into something that may have been sympathetic, once. Shakily, she took his hand and he pulled her up with surprising ease.

"Do you think any more will be after you?" He demanded gently.

"N-no I... I-I don't think so?" She had no idea what metric he was basing his search for people 'after her' would be, but all her closest friends were on the floor, blood staining the blue carpet communion red.

"Alright... okay..." He trailed off, looking at something in the middle distance for a moment before shaking his head minutely and turning his attention back to her. "I can take you home, if you want. I promise I want to kill you far less than anything in the woods does."

He chuckled lightly, small smile and breathy laugh a non-sequitor against a backdrop of glass shards and bloodstains. Remembering that her car was still in the parking lot of a Chili's, she nodded.

They left the tiny chapel, wooden doors swinging shut with an eery finality and set off into the trees. As they walked, the sun began to fall, sending shadows creeping like so many tendrils across the forest floor. The crunch of leaves soothed her jangling nerves, and she could pretend she was just trying to find a good makeout spot for she and her girlfriend before remembering that said girlfriend was on the floor of a church no one knew existed, corpse forgotten and not yet stiff. Finally, when the stars were high up in the sky, they came upon the small road where black car sat, sleek and shiny as if it were made of night.

The man slung himself easily into the driver's side, ever so slightly cramped beside the wheel. Looking over, she tried to reconcile this image of a quiet man squished up in a too small car fiddling with the radio dials with the one that came in and chopped up her friends like a human cuisinart, larger than life in failing technicolor light.

"I hope indie is okay." He murmured, pushing a cassette tape into the deck. She couldn't have argued if she wanted to, her vocal chords were glued together with the glitter glue she used on the cards to all her friends that she made as indie musicians crooned from her speakers.

The drive was made largely without words, and she didn't even bother to ask why or how he knew where she lived. All that ran through her mind was relief at the amber squares from windows cast upon the sidewalks, glad that they weren't blue and green and white and so many other colors like angel tears watering the soil. He parked the car and turned off the rumbling engine, but before she could get out, he turned to her and lightly took her hand. Some voice her head--probably her mom--screamed to pull away and go to her apartment and fall asleep as if nothing happened. As if her roommate will ever return from that church out in the woods. But the look in his eyes... that's what stopped her. Something cracked as he said "I'm sorry."

It wasn't the kind of sorry said when you were forced as a kid, or the kind you use as a social nicety without any real feeling. It was the kind that came from your chest, reverberating through your limbs and shaking on the end.
"Me, too." She whispered, before closing the door on that shattered man in the driver's seat and knowing she left some pieces of herself in that leather, that she'd left a breadcrumb trail of her between the old pews and her apartment block.

Pieces of a glass heart she'd never pick up.

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notes: I told my mom the premise of this fic and she was like "that's so dark!" and that's why she doesn't read 90% of what I write. this is dark? I don't know what to tell her about the religious imagery body horror stuff. n e way, requests/thoughts/random pet peeve?

thanks for reading luvs! 💙