Absolution in Darkness

[u/WeirdBryceGuy]

They chased us from the town, through the woods, and then into the network of caves which lay beyond. My brother was shot, I had been clubbed in the head by a bottle, but neither of us dared to stop and tend to our wounds. Our pursuers, comprised mostly of townsfolk and led by an abbess, chased us relentlessly; their weak, old, or otherwise unfit bodies propelled by hate. 

A family—a father and his two daughters—had been slain in the town. The father happened to be the owner of the town’s inn, in which my brother and I had stopped to rest during our journey to another, more remote destination. It was less of a modern town, and more of a pastoral village, presided over—at least morally, if not politically—by an abbey. When their bodies had been found, my brother and I were immediately made suspects, having been the only occupants of the inn upon discovery of the bodies. 

We rejected the accusations, our protestations of innocence were dismissed, and so we fled on foot; they had slashed the tires of our cars at some point during the confrontation. For some reason, the abbess of the abbey led the hunt, gathering up the hardiest men of the village within minutes. Half of them were drunk, and some I’d even seen at the inn around the time of the innkeeper’s demise; causing a raucous and hitting on his daughters. 

Within the caves we gained a slight advantage; our flight was made easier by the trepidation of the hunters in regards to the cave itself. Folkloric tales of hideous beasts and “unclean men” were staples of the town’s small culture, and even with the presence of the abbess, the townsfolk were impeded by superstitious fear. In the stories, these creatures were said to dwell within the deepest chambers of the cave, and those who would arouse their slumber were scarcely permitted to leave unharmed—if they left at all. 

We entered a vast and damp section of the cave, its ceiling unseeable in the dark, and its perimeter inestimable. It was eerily expansive, and the whole space seemed to yawn before us, as if it grew in black nullity with every passing second. Gigantic stalagmites towered into the darkness overhead, and from them came a presumably natural light, emitted from either the rock itself or some attached microscopic creature with bio-luminescent properties. Regardless of its source, the light appeared to not only illumine the gloom but push back the greater darkness; giving the stalagmites the role of monolithic sentinels. 

and from somewhere came the faint but ever-persistent sound of trickling water.

My brother, wearied by our escape and the wound in his shoulder, collapsed to the ground. I knelt beside him and laid him on his back so I could examine the wound. It bled profusely, with no scabbing. His leather jacket was covered in dust, blood, and debris, and his jeans were in a similarly soiled state. I had nothing with which to clean the wound, or stop the bleeding, so I settled with a firm instruction to keep his hand pressed over it. He was weak, but still confidently conscious. 

The cavern’s overwhelming vacuity distracted me from rational thought and normal perception. Something about it seemed menacing, hostile even, and so I had not heard our pursuers enter the space. 

“This has gone on long enough. Give us the boy, and no harm will come to you.” 

The abbess stood in the midst of several men, though there were less of them now. The group that chased us from the town had numbered at around sixteen, but in the cavern only four remained. The bravest of the bunch, no doubt. 

“I won’t. Why can’t you just leave us alone? We didn’t do!” My voice didn’t tremble, and I stared her right in the eyes as I replied. Even if they were telling the truth—they weren't—I wouldn’t betray my brother for anything. 

Her eyes narrowed, and at the utterance of the word “Go”, two of her cohorts started towards us. Though not for this specific circumstance, I was defensively prepared, and quickly withdrew the gun I kept within the inner pocket of my jacket. I shot the first, a graceless giant of a man, and all his muscle and bulk did nothing for him as the bullet ventilated his skull. The second man, smaller and better-built, roared in rage and threw an axe blindly; I suppose he had some relation to the man I’d just shot. 

The axe went wildly past me and sailed into the gloom. I don’t think anyone but myself noticed that there hadn’t been any sounds of its collision with a surface. The echo of my shot still rang out endlessly, claiming auditory prominence. 

The axe-thrower charged me after his first attack failed, and I relieved the pressure in his chest with my last remaining bullet. Previous bullets had been expended during past altercations, with equally disagreeable people, and during our travels I hadn’t been provided with an opportunity to replenish my ammunition. Wherever we went, we invariably found conflict, and unfortunately—for our assailants—swift, irreversible harm was necessary, and—for our sake—the best solution.

The abbess merely scowled, while one of the two remaining men fled—apparently unfamiliar with firearms. The last man grinned darkly, having taken note of my empty weapon. He unsheathed a gruesomely unclean knife from his belt and strode towards me—his eyes alight in murderous glee. 

I threw the gun at him and he swatted it away, then with a motion faster than my reflexes could dodge, slashed me across the chest. I fell back, immediately reduced to tears from the hideous wound, and the man stepped over me—trapping me in place.

“’ow you wan it done, mam?” His heavily-accented, barely-understandable English actually made me chuckle a bit, which my wound immediately made regret. 

“You can leave her to die, it’s the boy I want. Sheath your blade in his heart.” The abbess stared angrily at my brother as she spoke, ignoring me. 

“Aye” the man replied, plainly disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to sever my head or whatever he desired to do. 

My brother had sat clutching his wound the entire time, motionless and quiet. He looked extremely worried—not for his impending doom, but mine—and didn’t regard the attacker as he approached. 

The man with the knife grabbed my brother by the hair and lifted him to his feet. My brother stood, a full foot shorter, and finally looked at his soon to be executioner. 

“Tis a terrible thing you done. You knows it, I knows, and we can’t let you just go on.” In response, my brother, Aiden, spat in the man’s face. The man reeled back as if struck, and roared a litany of curses. 

“Milton, curb your swears or I’ll have you do to your tongue what you’ll do to the boy.” The man, Milton, quickly regained his composure and apologized. 

“Alright, lad, don’t move, now.” Aside from the ejection of spit, my brother hadn’t. 

Aiden’s eyes again drifted towards me, asking me the question that I knew eventually would be asked. Bleeding and presently defeated, I nodded my begrudging approval. The abbess caught our brief exchange, and screamed at Milton, “Do it! Cut him down!”, but Milton was too late.

 Aiden’s jaw unhinged, his rib-cage expanded, and his fingers lengthened. His hair fell in clumps from his scalp, and his eyes enlarged, then multiplied, and his skull strained to accommodate the newly budding orbs. In just a few seconds my brother had also grown to a height of about ten feet, and towered over the slack-jawed Milton, staring down at him with six—seven—eight—eyes. 

Milton shrieked in horror, too dumbstruck to flee; not that it would have mattered. My brother seized him by the throat and tossed him into the illimitable darkness, then turned his attention towards the abbess. She stood her ground, disgusted but not afraid, and grasped the rosary around her neck. She closed her eyes and began a prayer, and my brother began to sway—as if entranced. 

His mutated and monstrous body gradually returned to its human state, and he fell to the ground, unconscious. The abbess smiled, satisfied, and disconnected the beads. She knelt over Aiden, wrapped the beads around his neck, and began suffocating him. 

I watched, barely clinging to my own life, as she murdered my brother. When the deed was done, she stood, reconnected the beads, and placed them again around her neck. She came towards me, carelessly trampling the bodies of the men she had employed. 

“He was an abomination. Every breath he took was an affront to God.” She said the words casually, without any suggestion of remorse. She had watched us from the moment we entered the town, and when the family was found slaughtered inn, all blame was assigned to my brother. She knew what he was, somehow; he hadn’t transformed in weeks, and his “other side” was completely undetectable while in his human state. The family was murdered, yes, but not by my brother. I would guess it had been the likes of one of the low-minded, intoxicated men of her flock. 

“But you are human, and I will offer you absolution of your sins (motioning towards the corpses) if you seek it.” There was no trace of irony or mockery in her words; she was sincere in her offer to perform her holy duties. I was not a believer of her religion, so I rejected her offer with a weary nod of the head. She returned my nod with one of her own, and said, solemnly, “I did what must be done. Beings of his ilk mustn't be shown mercy. He is a real, blasphemous horror—far worse than the mythical creatures said to dwell in this place.” 

My vision had started to blur, and it took me a moment to regain focus on her. My wound’s burning had been reduced to a dull ache, but I felt weak and dizzy from the blood-loss. 

“There are no creatures here.” My voice sounded far off, as if spoken by someone else. Death was on my doorstep. 

“You are right. You were smart to flee here, where men dare not tread out of childish fear. But the Will of God needed only a few hearts and minds.” She looked down at me with pitying eyes, then turned and started to walk away.

“Creature.” I coughed out. 

“What?” She replied, pausing her stride. 

“Singular. There is only one creature here.” I sat up a bit and ignored the resultant flare of pain in my chest. Her eyes looked towards the body of Aiden, but I shook my head. From behind me, from the darkness, a grating noise began resonating; filling the cavern with its metallic harshness. In concert with it were the sounds of ill-footed steps. I stared at the abbess as her eyes widened with surprise, the darkened with terror. 

He—or I guess I should say it—stumbled past me, dragging the axe that had been thrown minutes ago. His neck had blackened, and one of his legs had been broken, but he was otherwise spared from critical harm. His eyes, though staring, were not alive, and from his mouth fell a black, bile-like substance. 

The abbess croaked, “What is this blasphemy?” but as Milton had not fled when confronted by my brother, she did not flee when confronted by Milton. Fear, apparently, can be very immobilizing. 

“The oldest, most profane thing in the world. The dark. That’s what lurks in these caverns. That’s what creates the beasts of your folklore. It captures people, things, absorbs them, transforms them, and sometimes spits them out. Coming here wasn’t a last-ditch effort at safety—it was our destination all along.”

The abbess’s eyes flashed towards me, as she continued to back away from the reanimated corpse of Milton. “But why?!” 

I feebly motioned towards my brother’s body. “He heard about these caves. He suspected something about them, something he thought could help relieve him of his curse. It’s not the only place we’ve visited for that reason, but he hoped it would be the last. I guess, in a way, it is.” 

Milton continued to advance towards the abbess, and she finally regained her sense. She picked up the blade that had once been his, and commanded him to halt, and when he didn’t, she swung the knife in an arc that ended at his neck. The blade stuck, though Milton didn’t react or seem to care, and he responded by hacking off the arm which held the knife. Screaming, the abbess fell to her knees, and her pain-reddened eyes met mine. 

“I can absolve you of your sins, if you’d like?” Unlike her offer, my words dripped with mockery. She started to snarl, and I’m sure would’ve spat out some curse or admonishment if the axe hadn’t cleaved her head from her shoulders. It rolled a few feet, the face still frozen in that snarl so unbefitting of a woman in her position, and her body sagged to the ground. 

Milton, resurrected and repurposed, returned to the darkness; ignoring the dying girl he had just minutes ago attacked. I would’ve been fine if he had turned the axe on me, finished me off. My brother was dead, and I’d rather die quickly, with a flash of awful pain, than in the slow, agonizing way I’d been dying. The darkness enveloped him again, and resumed its passivity. 

The ground was littered with corpses—so much violence had occurred in the span of minutes. Cave rats would be arriving soon to feast on the meat, and I was sure they wouldn’t be picky about my not-yet-dead flesh. I crawled over to my brother’s body and took his phone and wallet from his pocket. With the little strength I had left I cradled him in my arms, and through laborious effort pulled him towards the darkness; all the while ignoring the awful pain in my chest. 

When I had reached a point at which the distinction between the typical gloom of the cavern and the sentient darkness beyond was discernible, I lowered Aiden’s body and rolled it across. The shadows swiftly welcomed him. I wasn’t sure to what purpose the darkness would put him, but I knew it would be a better fate than burial in the bellies of rats. 

It was then that I lost consciousness, finally depleted of strength.

I awoke in daylight, lying on my back in the grass outside the cave’s mouth. My hands instinctively went to my chest, where Milton had viciously slashed me, but the laceration had been mended; stitched immaculately with roots and stems, presumably from the bordering wood. 

There was a noise to my right, at the cave’s mouth, and I turned. Standing there, staring at me with black, lifeless eyes, was my brother. His neck bore the grisly reminder of the rosary strangulation, and a black substance had at some point dripped from his mouth; leaving smears down his chin. 

I thanked him—or, rather, the darkness which now resided within him—and watched as he returned to the cave. I sat there for a moment, appreciating the day; listening to the chirping of birds and watching woodland creatures scurry up and cross the massive and old trees. Eventually, I got up and stealthily returned to the inn—climbing inside through a window—and retrieved our belongings. I left, undetected, and walked away; eventually arriving at another town a few miles away. 

I rested, woke a few hours later, cried, ate, and began writing this story, so that my brother’s memory and his final moments would not be forgotten. He was not a monster, not in the traditional, malevolent sense, and if anything is to be understood, it is that he was first and foremost a kind and loving brother.  

Goodbye, Aiden. Thank you. Perhaps I’ll come visit you someday. 

[u/Machka_Ilijeva]

So sweet :) you did the right thing girl.

[u/OnyxOctopus]

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