No one had stepped inside Saint Verity's Church for almost twenty years, at least not officially. The road leading to it had disappeared under weeds and fog, and the town of Blackwood spoke of the hill only in lowered voices. Children were warned never to climb there. Adults pretended it no longer existed.
Yet Clara Weston had made a career out of forgotten places. As a Christian investigative journalist, she traveled across the country documenting abandoned churches, lost congregations, and the slow erosion of faith in modern life.
The email arrived at midnight.
No sender.
No subject.
Only one sentence:
Come before it finishes praying.
Below it, coordinates.
Clara felt an odd tightening in her chest when she read it, as if the words had weight. She tried tracing the IP address, but it vanished. No server. No location. Almost as if the message had not been sent at all—only delivered.
By evening, she was driving toward Blackwood Hill. Fog rolled across the road like slow water. Trees leaned inward, branches scratching her windshield like skeletal fingers.
Saint Verity's Church appeared suddenly, rising from the mist. The bell tower leaned at an unnatural angle. Ivy strangled the stone walls. Broken stained glass caught the dying light like fractured eyes.
Her tires stopped crunching gravel. Silence swallowed the car.
Then she heard it.
A sound no building should make.
A slow inhale.
A slow exhale.
The church… was breathing.
Clara stepped out, heart pounding. The wooden doors stood slightly open. Inside smelled of wet wood, dust, and forgotten incense.
She whispered, "Hello?"
Her voice echoed wrong. Too many times. As if something deeper repeated it.
Behind the altar she found words carved into stone, deep and frantic:
WE DID NOT LEAVE.
WE WERE SEALED.
Before she could move, the doors slammed shut.
The bell rang once above her head.
And the church inhaled again.