[Early December]

One of the sisters had caught her packing, and placed a gentle hand on hers - they locked eyes - one set frantic, frenzied, hot with angry tears that she dare not let spill, and the other set calm, earnest, understanding, and apologetic. Bridget paused in her packing of her meager belongings.

"Sister-"

Bridget was quickly sushed as something was placed in her hand, and warm hands took both of hers and clasped them together in silent prayer, before leaving.

No words were exchanged, and after a brief moment Bridget finally looked at what had been placed in her hand - a plane ticket and an envelope. The destination?

Destiny City, Virginia.

An ocean away from this place so consumed by evil....

The memory flashed in her mind - in a dark recess of the cathedral, the father's robes consumed by shadow and in his place a man eerily similar but her mind would somehow not have made the connection if she had not seen the change with her own eyes, wearing dark military regalia. The person he was with - an aspiring young priest - nodded, seeming to consent to whatever proposition was made just moment before.

Bridget couldn't even gasp, so quick the father's hand was inside the ordinand, and he changed too, his robes replaced by simple, much less ornate, military garb.

All at once a fire raised up inside of her, along side the chill. She didn't even know she had stepped in to view until the ordinand's eyes met hers, drawing the father's gaze to see just what his newly recruited lieutenant was looking at.

Ah, not what but who.


The ordinand dropped to the floor in a half-collapsed kneel as the father walked towards her and words, sweet as cream and smooth as butter poured from his mouth, but all Bridget heard was a devil's voice.

She had known - she had always known - something was wrong here. She had been nosey from the start, not content to simply accept things unquestioned, and had been dubbed 'obstinate' by the Mother Superior. It had made her time in training difficult and long, but in that time she had only become more convinced that there was something deeply dark afoot.

Now her suspicions were confirmed, but it provided no answers, only more questions.

She could have turned and run, but something kept her rooted there - a fire and strength burning in her eyes, a fearless righteousness tethering her to this profaned holy ground as he got close. Uncomfortable, improperly close.


There was an exchange of words that now seemed no more than a loud buzz in her ears as she tried to recall them, but the toll of the bells, loud and pure, rang clear in her mind, signaling the father's retreat. The fancy and embellished military clothes faded back in to dark robes, as did those of the ordinand. As the two left she was still standing there in the middle of a now empty hall. Her feet did not move until the final toll of the bells, and finally whatever force kept her there - holy or psychological - released her.


And that brought her to where she was now, packing what little she had to her name, staring at an envelope and a plane ticket to some obscure city she had never heard of in a country she had never been to. Luckily she did have a passport. In the envelope were a few papers, a small amount of cash and a money card. it would be enough, hopefully.

She vowed that though she were to leave, she would not forsake this place to the evil that held it in its dark grasp. She would find out just what was going on, and dispel the devil that consumed from within.

[629 words]