XIII
"Young lady. You have fallen far from home. This world is full of danger. Evil things roam at night looking for stray souls to feed on. You can even hear them during the day at the edge of your perception, in the waiting fog. You can hear the echo of the hat man's cane tapping on the cobblestones."
The priest lets out a long, weary sigh. He exhaled the kind that sounds like it's been held in for decades. The candles around the altar sway as if they feel the weight of it too.
"This is only an echo," he says, voice low, gravelly, shaped by years of smoke and fear. "The cane‑man only hunts at night. In the fog. That's when he's strongest. When the hounds can smell the living from a mile off."
He glances toward the shattered pews, the claw marks, the gouges in the floorboards.
"The day… the day is a reprieve. A thin one. A borrowed one. But don't mistake it for safety."
He steps closer, robes shifting to reveal more of the grey‑green fatigues beneath. He wore the patched ghost of a uniform from a war fought over a century ago. The scars on his arms catch the candlelight, each one a story he doesn't have the strength to tell.
"Other things hunt in the day," he murmurs. "Things that don't wait for fog. Things that don't need it. They snatch souls right off the street, swallow them whole. Monsters that mimic men. Monsters that used to be men."
His eyes flick to the stained‑glass windows, cracked and yellowed like old teeth.
"I've seen them wear the faces of friends. Of comrades. Of parishioners. They wear the shape of a man until they're close enough to feed."
He presses a hand to the altar, not in worship, but in grounding, as if the wood itself keeps him from unraveling.
"I prayed every day," he says softly. "Not for salvation. Not anymore. I pray for a way out. A way home. A peaceful end. Not these years of torment, hiding from one predator after another, waiting to be consumed." His grey eyes wander to the graveyard outside one stained glass window.
His voice cracks — not with fear, but with exhaustion.
"This place is a sanctuary," he continues, gesturing around the dim, candlelit church. "One of only a handful left. Places that can shelter souls who still remember who they were. Before they fell here. Before they were hunted. Before they were hollowed out."
"You're still whole," he says. "Still bright. Still tethered to a living body. That makes you rare. And it makes you a prize." He steps back, giving her space, giving her the truth.
"You must be careful. The cane‑man saw you. The hounds smelled you. Your scent was caught and will be remembered. And the other creatures will notice you soon enough as you glow with life."
He nods toward the altar, toward the flickering candles, toward the faint warmth of borrowed sunlight filtering through the broken glass.
"For now, you're safe under the light of another world's sun. It may be dim, but it still drives away the dark." He opens the hymnal he holds in one hand, his knuckles meaty and battle scarred.
"In this world," he says, "nothing safe lasts long."
He approaches her slowly, the way someone approaches a wounded animal — careful, respectful, but with the weary confidence of a man who has survived too much to be startled anymore. As he walks, he pats his hands down the front of his robes, trying to straighten them, though the fabric is too worn and the man too tired for it to make much difference.
"I am Lance Corporal Carl DeGrasse," he says, voice carrying that unmistakable tired English cadence — the kind worn thin by years of smoke, mud, and fear. "Unit chaplain in His Majesty's British Army."
He gives a small, almost apologetic shrug.
"Or I was… until I fell into this hellhole."
He steps into a shaft of cracked yellow light filtering through the stained glass, and the details of him sharpen: the grey‑green fatigues beneath the robe, the single chevron stitched to the sleeve, the small metal cross at the collar. His uniform is from another century — World War I, unmistakably — but the scars on his skin are from this place.
"Gas attack," he says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as if remembering the burn. "The whole unit was caught in it. Thick as soup. Couldn't see my own boots. My gas mask was nowhere to be found. I stumbled, fell… and when I stood up again, I wasn't in France anymore."
He looks around the church at the broken pews, the claw marks, the candles trembling in their holders.
"Somehow, in that fog, I ended up here."
His voice softens, but not with comfort — with exhaustion.
"This place… it isn't death. Not exactly. It isn't life either. It's something in between. A crossroads. A trap. A hunting ground."
He gestures toward the smashed pews. "This happened during one night when something large and hairy broke through the church's doors in the disguise of a man. At night it shifted into something large, monstrous, and hungry. It couldn't stay long and ran back out the doors, but it left destruction behind."
"Most things here hunt and night. One of them you already know. The cane‑man hunts at night. His power lies the fog. That was only an echo you saw — a projection of him, a shadow of his true self. His real form is not that of a dancing gigolo. He will not fully manifest until he is certain he has you."
Then his expression darkens.
"But the day has its own predators. Things that mimic men. Things that snatch souls whole. Things that don't wait for fog or darkness."
He touches the altar again, grounding himself.
"This church is a sanctuary. One of only a handful left. A place that can shelter souls who still remember who they were. Before they fell here. Before they were hunted. Before they were hollowed out."
He looks at her — really looks — and something like pity flickers across his scarred face.
"You're alive," he says. "Still tethered to a body. Still bright. Still whole."
He shakes his head slowly.
"That makes you a miracle in this place. And a target."
He steps back, giving her space, giving her truth.
"If you're looking for guidance, you've come to the right place. But if you're looking for hope…"
He glances toward the cracked stained glass, where the mirror‑sky glints faintly.
"…that's harder to come by."