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Kunikida sighed and walked down the aisle. The church was silent at night; it was peaceful. It was a good place to clear his mind of the sinful thoughts he had been having.
Kunikida sat down on the first pew and looked at the church altar. He pushed back his glasses and frowned. For a moment, he could swear the cross was upside down. He must be really tired; after all, it had been days since his last night of undisturbed sleep. Just the thought of those dreams he had been having and that had been increasingly worse in content made him shiver and – shameful as it was to admit – not always in disgust.
The dreams had started as small temptations. They were almost innocent, at first. Kunikida couldn’t even pinpoint the exact moment he started being troubled in his sleep because of how banal it all seemed. At first, that is.
He would sleep and dream of things he wanted to eat, things he would like to have. Small things that he denied himself in order to live a life of service.
Then the hallucinations – Kunikida thought that was a too strong word to describe the situation at the time, but what else could he call this sort of experience? – started. He would see things that weren’t there. He would sit to have dinner and he would imagine himself eating the most delectable dishes, just to be called back to reality and to find out he had been sitting at the table, ignoring his own food in favor of what his mind had to offer. He would hear things - not disembodied voices or whispers that couldn’t be explained, no. He would hear the most bizarre things being told to him from the lips of people he trusted and people who trusted him.
The most shocking thing had been a rather explicit confession a very faithful old woman had made to him. He had heard her voice but he had flinched away as the usual content changed to a list of things she would do to him, given the opportunity. Kunikida had been stunned.
He confessed the sins in which he partook because of the tricks his mind was playing on him. He had sought help but it had been unavoidable. Kunikida was sure he was losing his mind. He didn’t understand why God would see fit to punish him in such a cruel way, but he accepted it. He reminded himself that his faith was strong, his desire to do good was strong and he would not falter on his path until he could no longer walk on it.
Kunikida had prayed for a stronger will, for the courage to continue his duty.
It was then that the dreams had turned into a terrible torment. Gone were the pleasures he denied himself and, in their place, he was shown a dreadful side of his mind. He had seen himself torturing and tormenting innocent people that came to his church. He had seen himself killing the children he could recognize from the mass. He had been shown his inability to save them, time and time again, when he could not stop the person he saw in his dreams. In the mornings he was taken by shame and fear. Kunikida didn’t think he was capable of those things, but his thoughts were disturbed by the memories of the dreams, the macabre scenarios that he was plagued with.
Kunikida stopped sleeping, after some time. He would lie down in bed and pray, hoping that God would listen and help him. If everything failed to comfort him, he would go to the church and spend the night in deep thought.
It may have been the sleep deprivation – even if he didn’t feel any more rested on the nights that he did sleep – but Kunikida had started hearing his parishioners telling him cruel things. It would happen in the middle of the most pleasant conversations; their faces would turn vicious and the words would make Kunikida step back. He heard it from the lips of elderly and children alike how hateful he was, how much his good intentions didn’t matter and how his attempt to help the people who looked for him in times of need only had guaranteed them heartbreak and pain.
They blamed him and, as much as Kunikida wanted to argue, he could feel how much easier it was to simply let them tear him apart. It could’ve seen obvious to an outsider, but it took Kunikida quite a long time to realize most of his trial was actually temptation.
Kunikida closed his eyes and prayed for guidance. The night at the church was cold. He heard a snickering laugh behind him, but he was used to this sort of thing. He did not look.
“You’re quite resilient,” someone whispered right next to Kunikida’s ear and he turned around to look. There was no one.
Kunikida reached into his pocket and grabbed his rosary, holding on to it as if it was the physical anchor of his sanity.
He heard laughter again. Kunikida took a deep breath. Someone blew on his ear and said “Boo!”
This time, he could feel the physical presence next to him on the pew. He stared at the altar, refusing to give in and check if there was someone actually sitting on the pew with him. Kunikida’s throat was tight; he counted the beads of his rosary to calm down and, very slowly, he glanced to his side.
He could see the silhouette of a person. Kunikida let out his breath slowly.
“Who are you?” he asked, knowing that this could be another shortcoming of his sanity. He wanted to ask the person if they were real which was, in itself, a laughable idea, but this game had made him wearier. He just needed some certainty, some proof that this was real.
“Oh. I didn’t think you would acknowledge me. You have never done it before,” they told Kunikida and their voice sounded like mockery.
Kunikida didn’t answer; he kept his eyes on the cross and second-guessed his thoughts. This could not be real.
Soft lips brushed against his neck when they told him. “Call me Fyodor.”
“I won’t call you anything,” Kunikida said, faking more confidence than he actually felt.
“Oh, you will call me. You will beg before I’m done with you.”
Kunikida closed his eyes and said a prayer quietly. The person – not, it could not possibly be a person and he had known from the moment they materialized at his side that whatever it was, it was evil – laughed and reached out to him, tracing down his neck with the tip of a claw. Kunikida shivered.
“Go away,” Kunikida asked quietly.
“I’m never far from you,” the creature told him. “I’ll see you in your dreams, if not here. But can you even tell the difference anymore?”
Kunikida prayed and begged for divine help. “I’m not strong enough,” he thought. “I’m not wise enough.” Only the silence of the church answered him.
“Sinful beings,” the creature said. “Always so weak…’’
Later that night, when Kunikida was back in his room, he cried. He asked for forgiveness but the sin was engraved deep within his soul. The cold touch of the creature was still a ghost on his body. He set his rosary on the bedside table, right next to his bible. He was no longer suited to be of service. He had been corrupted. He had blamed God for it.
And now he was giving up.