Be Not Afraid

The sneakers of my companions and I shrieked against tile floors as we sprinted through dark hallways in the dim hours of the night. Giggles and whispered commands erupted all around as groups of children split up, sliding into closed classrooms and crawling under the wooden pews that littered the sides of the passageway. In a matter of moments, only mine and two other pairs of sneakers were left bounding down the hallway. Up ahead, a set of metal double doors lay open below an archway affixed with a painted sign.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church Annual Lock-In

No Phones Allowed!

Immediately past these doors, the hallway abruptly took a sharp turn to the right, forcing a high screech as we pivoted in our momentum. The hall became even darker after this turn, our only light being an ominous red exit sign at the very end.

“Shit, they’re coming Seth,” came a voice from beside me. I turned as a faint beam of light painted the wall that we had just turned away from. The seekers were far down the way we came from, but I knew that they’d heard the telltale screech of our shoes as we passed the corner. The speaker beside me ripped a classroom door open and disappeared into the dark. I heard screams from down the hallway, most likely the dull children that attempted to hide under the pews being found. Heart racing, I ran another ten feet before choosing my spot: a faint outline of a classroom door on my left.

As I entered the ink-black room, carefully closing the door behind me, I attempted to survey my surroundings. Though, the first thing I noticed was the abrupt silence of the exterior shouts and screams as I latched the door. In this dark space, white brick walls swallowed all sound. My heavy breathing punctured the silence of the room, the sound seeming to linger in the air around me and die before touching the pristine walls. Though empty, the space felt sacred, like I’d barged into some ongoing church service in the stark blackness.

Through the miniscule red glow of the hallway seeping in through under the door I could hardly see my feet beneath me. I felt my way carefully through rows of scattered desks, looking for some sort of niche or cubby to hide myself. Eventually, I gave up, assuming I didn’t have the time, and scrambled into a dark corner of the room, sitting down and drawing my knees to my chest as my breath started catching up.

As I sat, my own heartbeat resounding in the complete silence, I surveyed my surroundings again. My eyes had adjusted a little more to the gloom, and I could make out faint outlines of posters and crosses on the white walls of the room. Several desks littered the floor, but they were arranged oddly. The room was arranged almost like a debate classroom, with the desks split into two triangular groups facing each other. I had slunk through one of these groups to get to my little corner, and the side of the classroom behind the other group lay in a darkness so complete, I couldn’t even make out the white brick of the wall. An aisle of free space separated the desks, with me on one end and the dark corner on the other.

The nerves began to leave my body slowly, my breath now relaxed and my heart still as I relaxed into the floor. It would be some time before they checked this classroom I assumed. A slight unnerving feeling washed through me at the lack of sound from the hallway. The game wasn’t quite as fun if you couldn’t hear everyone else get caught.

“Be not afraid.”

My heart sank to my stomach and my flesh went cold as a chill gripped my spine. The voice was so soft, spoken just barely above a whisper, yet it permeated the room, reaching my ears like dust settling from the ceiling. My eyes darted, searching the dim desperately for the source of the noise. I shrunk in terror when our eyes met.

A lone figure in white stood towards the far corner of the room opposite me, just down the aisle. Enveloped in the darkness, what appeared to be a white cloak draped on the floor, resting on a frail figure that must have been around five feet tall. It stood perfectly still, so dim and obscured that I would have no way of knowing how it was oriented.

If it weren’t for the eyes.

Tears fled down my cheeks as I gaped in terror at the bright whites that stared at me from the darkness. I could see no irises in the slightest, though thin pinprick pupils punctuated the blank pools of white like the tips of pencils pointed to me in the dark. The eyes were wide, as if there were no lids to obscure them on this creature’s pale face. They hungrily swallowed all the light in the room, making them starker even than the whitewashed walls. I was frozen, my cold body glued to the floor as my brain tried desperately to process what I was witnessing.

“You bear witness, child… to an angel of the lord.”

I choked on silent tears as the thing spoke. Its voice was so oddly soft, so alien. The only way I can think to describe it is as something pretending to sound like a man that was pretending to sound like a woman. Its inflection was strange as well. Emotionless and uncanny were its words, as if its grasp on language was new and loose. Those blank eyes remained completely fixed as it spoke, penetrating me and pinning me to the floor.

What felt like minutes passed. I could do nothing but meet its eyes, terrified that it could cross the open gap between us at any moment. I briefly questioned my sanity before it spoke again.

“You have… sinned… greatly. You do not… belong… in this holy place.”

“Fire… awaits you… in the next place. Weeping… and gnashing… of teeth. Suffering… relentless… and indiscriminate.”

That last word it spelled out phonetically, separating every syllable like a child learning to read. The softness of the voice was so incongruous with the words it was saying, making the speech almost hypnotic. Tears flowed freely down my face as it continued moments later.

“Yes. Yes. They will have… fun with your skin. Skin is… their favorite, yes. It grows back, so fast.”

My eyes had adjusted further, and it all became too much. I could see more of this creature’s face now. The pale outline was still much too obscured to see where the face started in this cloaked mass, but I could now make out the faint black line of a smile beneath those wide orbs.

I had reached my breaking point. Snapping out of stupor, I closed my eyes and began to pray. Lord, heavenly father, I know I’ve been bad, but please save me from this angel, I pray that you send him back to your home in heaven and I will do anything to get back in your good graces, I’ll be nicer to my sister and I’ll do my chores and I won’t look at pornography and I’ll be so good I love you and I praise you amen.

There was the clatter of an object falling from the wall to my left. Quick as a bullet, I looked back up and nearly jumped out of my skin. The angel had moved ever slightly closer to me. Closer to the light of the door. I still couldn’t see much more to its frame, but one thing had changed for certain.

Its smile had faded. Those inconceivably wide eyes now governed over a vexed frown, painting a resentful look on its hollow face. It looked as if it would pounce at any moment, and I mustered the courage to bring my feet under me, ready to spring myself at any sign of movement.

“Your God has no presence in this place, swine. His church lies with its people. In the hours of the night, when the whores and bastards have returned to their hovels, this place belongs to us.”

The voice still held the same gentle rhythm as before, but spoke faster and much deeper, reverberating through the room and pounding into my chest. With horror, I noticed the white cloak begin slipping from the things shoulders as a long, thin white arm reached out towards me in the gloom. I was surrounded by desks, my only way out blocked. Frozen in fear and shaking, I did all I thought I could. I screamed.

Suddenly, the door to the hallway sprung open. Narrow beams of multiple flashlights appeared, flooding the room with light. I was helpless, screaming and crying on the ground, having fits of shakes and tears. It took the other kids minutes to calm me down, and when I finally came to, I scanned the lit room once more. Where the creature was, a white priest’s robe was strewn across the floor as if it had been simply dropped by someone. I was led out of the room, before noticing a wooden cross laying on the floor right next to where I sat. There was an outline on the wall of where it hung previously.

It took days before I was ready to talk again. My parents had to send me to a counselor. She pretended to believe me, but I could tell that wasn’t quite true. That’s fine. I wouldn’t have believed it either. But there's one detail that I never told anyone, even all these years later.

When that door opened, and the light came flooding in, I saw something. For the briefest moment, before disappearing completely, I saw the creature that wore the priest’s cloak like a sheep’s skin. And every night before I go to sleep, I pray to God.

I pray that I never meet one of his angels again.