Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything was dark and he didn’t know where he was. He opened his mouth to ask where he was but was interrupted. 

“Please, Blake. Where are you? I’m scared,” The voice of a young girl said nervously, making him feel confused.

How did Jessica get here? He thought, and Jessica spoke again, this time more fearfully.

“He’s coming. AH! HE’S HERE! AH! GET AWAY! FAST! AAHHH!” Jessica shrieked and let loose one more scream—

—and he jerked awake, looking at his surroundings.

Oh, yeah. We’re in a helicopter investigating that Jane Doe, Blake thought and sighed deeply.

“Jesus, Blake, are you really sleeping?” Lynn, his wife, asked, accusatory, as she raised an eyebrow.

“I’m awake,” Blake said quickly, and mentally shook himself as he shot Lynn a sheepish grin. 

“You should have slept last night,” Lynn said, a faint smile playing at her mouth.

“I had to get that hospital footage organized,” Blake said, and Lynn shook her head playfully, then frowned.

“You were calling out some other woman’s name,” Lynn said, and Blake felt a stab of confusion.

“What?” Blake asked, still confused, and Lynn nodded.

“In your sleep. Jessica, I think. You know a Jessica?” Lynn asked warningly, crossing her arms over her chest and Blake furrowed his brow in confusion, then remembered his dream. 

“Oh. No. I mean…I was dreaming about Jessica Gray. From when we were kids,” Blake explained and realization appeared on Lynn’s face.

“Ah. Yeah. I haven’t thought about her in ages,” Lynn said, tucking her hair behind one of her ears to hide her embarrasment.

“Hey, we’re crossing into reservation land now. You said I’m looking for some kind of factory?” The pilot of the helicopter asked, thankfully interrupting their conversation about Jessica, and Blake looked out the window, seeing nothing but clouds and the Arizona canyons below. 

“Yeah,” Blake said, shifting his gaze to look out of the other window. 

“We can look, but there’s nothing out here,” the pilot said matter-of-factly, and Blake resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“It does look pretty empty,” Blake agreed reluctantly, and Lynn shook her head. 

“All that mercury in that woman’s blood…She had to have spent at least a decade downstream from some pretty heavy industry,” Lynn said forcefully.

“If you say so, ma’am. You bought the time,” the pilot said, and fell silent. 

“We should record an intro while we’re up here. Production value?” Lynn asked eagerly, and Blake nodded, amused by her enthusiasm.

“Sure,” Blake said casually.

“Can’t work my diaphragm with this thing on,” Lynn muttered, adjusting in her seat for a moment while Blake picked up his camera from where it sat on the seat across from him, made a few adjustments, and raised it.

“Audio’s gonna be crap. We’ll have to…” Blake began but was cut off when the helicoptor jerked, making Blake nearly drop his camera as his glasses fell off his face.

“Fuck! Sorry about that. Left panel’s a little soft, but, ah, well…we’re good,” the pilot said, and Blake sighed in relief as he put his glasses back on. 

“That was exciting,” Lynn joked, and Blake snorted, grinning a bit as he adjusted his glasses and raised his camera again.

“Get as much of the landscape behind me as you can. You got me?” Lynn asked, and Blake nodded.

“We’re good,” Blake said, and Lynn sighed deeply.

“Hummmm. Hummmm. Red leather yellow leather, red leather yellow leather. Have a soo pie. Have a soo pie. Okay,” Lynn said, and Blake pressed record.

“I’m Lynn Langermann, here for news tomorrow dot net. We’re flying past the Havasupai Indian Reservation in central Arizona in search of the origins of murder victim Jane Doe,” Lynn said, and Blake stopped recording.

“Hey, Lynn. I don’t think you should say ‘murdered’. We don’t know that,” Blake said nervously.

“I’ll say she strangled herself to death?” Lynn asked in annoyance. 

“S’what the police reports said,” Blake said, shrugging his shoulders. 

"We might play this before the doctor interviews. If this falls in the first thirty, we need to get the word 'murder' in there. We should probably mention the fetus, too, I mean, how it just…" Lynn said before a thoughtful look appeared on her face.

"Here, let me try a version that can serve as an intro for the whole piece. Tell me when we’re good," Lynn said urgently.

“Okay, we’re good,” Blake said, hitting record again. 

“Two weeks ago, a young woman was found wandering, barefoot, pregnant, and alone on a barren stretch of highway a hundred miles away from the nearest—" Lynn said, and Blake stopped recording as a big, bright flash of white light hit the helicopter.

"Oh!" Lynn gasped as the helicopter jerked.

One second, everything was fine, and in the next second, everything that could go wrong went wrong, and the helicoptor started going down. 

“We lost the engine. Fuck. Fuck!” The pilot said, fighting to get the helicoptor back under control.

“Jesus Christ,” Blake swore as the door on Lynn’s side got ripped away from the helicoptor, causing Lynn to nearly fall out and to her death, but she was caught and heaved back in by Blake. 

“Fuck! Blake!” Lynn yelled, curling into Blake’s chest, and Blake wrapped his arms around her in response, bracing himself so he and Lynn didn't fall out.

“I’ve got you!” Blake yelled back over the sounds of the helicopter alarms and the wind.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” Lynn shrieked and screamed over the pilot, yelling Mayday and how many feet in the air they were losing.

“Please, Blake, I don’t want to die!” Lynn wailed, and Blake clutched her tighter as the helicopter sped towards the ground.

“Don’t let go. Lynn!” Blake yelled, and everything went dark.

When Blake opened his eyes, he couldn’t help but look around. After a moment, he recognized the hallway in which he stood at St. Sybil Catholic High School.

I went to school here with Lynn and Jessica, Blake thought and cautiously walked down the hallway. After walking a few feet, a locker squeaked open, and Blake recognized it as Jessica’s locker.  

Blake stared at it for a second, then rounded a nearby corner, only to stop once more. At the end of the hall, walking away, was a man with his back facing Blake. Blake didn’t hesitate to hurry after him, and the man disappeared down another hallway a few seconds later.

Once he reached the doors leading to the next hallway, the doors slammed shut of their own accord, making Blake stumble back a few steps. The sudden noise echoed through the empty corridor, sending a chill down Blake's spine.

Suddenly, Blake sensed something behind him and slowly turned around. There, right in front of him, stood Jessica. Less than a second later, a wave of blood came crashing down the hallway and slammed into Blake, knocking him unconscious.

“We’re not alone here,” Jessica whispered in warning, and Blake's vision went dark.

Blake woke up slowly, breathing heavily. Blake looked around before grabbing the helicoptor door and shoving it off him. Blake stumbled to his feet, picked up his camera that was lying a couple of feet away, and looked around wildly. Not seeing Lynn, Blake began to panic. 

“Fuck. Lynn? Lynn!” Blake yelled, then spotted the remains of the helicoptor on a lower part of the mountain. 

Right then and there, Blake decided something.

“Find Lynn. Nothing matters but Lynn,” Blake said shakily, and managed to get down to the destoyed remains of the helicoptor. 

“Oh, shit. Jesus…is…No, there’s no bodies. She’s not in here. LYNN! LYNN!” Blake yelled, looking around erratically, but got no answer.

She wasn’t there. Lynn’s body wasn’t in the wreckage. She could still be alive, Blake thought giddily.

With a renewed sense of hope, Blake began scanning the surrounding area for any signs of Lynn. The realization that she might still be out there somewhere fueled his determination to find her, no matter what it took. A small fire nearby caught Blake’s attention, and he went towards it, only to stop and stare, deeply horrified, at the sight before him.

It was the pilot who flew him and Lynn to the Indian reservation. The pilot was clearly dead, and was apparently skinned, gutted, and tied up on a tree branch a few yards away from the wreckage. Blake’s heart sank as he processed the gruesome scene, overwhelmed by a mix of fear and grief. The sight confirmed his worst fears: Lynn was in grave danger, and he knew he had to act quickly to save her.

“Oh. Oh, fuck me. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. That…did not happen in the crash. Fuck this. Lynn,” Blake gasped, feeling proper fear and dread for the first time in his life and couldn’t help but sense that he and Lynn were in terrible danger.

The pilot. I don’t even remember his name. What the fuck kind of people would skin someone alive…Jesus Christ, Lynn, Blake thought and swallowed heavily. After steeling himself, Blake walked on, leaving the dead pilot behind. 

After a few minutes of walking, Blake saw a town, and felt nothing but relief.

“A town. Oh, thank God, I thought we were miles from anything,” Blake said in relief, and quickly walked towards it.

There’s not supposed to be anything for miles. But…I wasn’t alone out here. Fuck. I wasn’t alone out here, Blake thought absently. Once he arrived, he vaulted over a fence, walked up to a house, and knocked on the door.

“Hello? I’m lost. And hurt,” Blake called out raspily and weakly. When no one answered, Blake walked further into town, intending on finding someone to help him. The squeaking of a screen door caught his attention, and Blake cautiously walked towards the house. 

“Is anyone there? Please,” Blake begged helplessly, and hesitantly walked into the house. Blake poked his head into the kitchen, saw someone lying their head on the table, and walked closer.

“Hey. Hey, man…Oh, shit…Oh, shit, you’re…This just happened,” Blake said once he registered the blood on the table and the man’s slit throat. Blake gasped, covering his nose from the overwhelming metallic scent of blood, feeling a wave of nausea wash over him.

Blake gingerly picked up the suicide note and skimmed it, his brow furrowing in confusion when he read the name Papa Knoth. Who’s Papa Knoth? Blake wondered as he set the note back in its place on the table and walked out of the house. Blake looked to the side and gasped in fright. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a man wielding what looked to be a machete of some kind. The man's eyes were filled with a wild intensity, and Blake could see the glint of madness in them.

“All flesh is grass to fatten the oxen. Sacrifice. Sacrifice,” the man said in a raspy whisper, and Blake frowned deeply.

“Who’s…?” Blake began, but the man had vanished into the shadows.

Blake didn’t particularly care to question the strange actions of the man, so Blake moved onwards in search of Lynn. A minute or so later, Blake came across some sort of shrine that seemed to be dedicated to dead loved ones.

A tragedy wall. Topped with barbed wire. I could feel tension in my skin; somebody watching me, Blake thought as he stared at the shrine.

“That’s…That’s fucked up,” Blake muttered before spying a cracked open window, and he walked over to it. 

The second he opened the window, a crow flew out of the window with a few loud caws in a flurry of feathers, scaring Blake nearly half to death.

“Shit…” Blake muttered lowly, clambering through the window.

Blake meandered through the house, unlocked the deadbolted door on the other side of said house, and left after immediately noticing an opening in the wire fence behind the house. 

Blake crawled through the opening, vaguely noting that he was on the other side of the shrine, and continued on. Eventually, Blake came across a shed with a sign above the door with a Latin saying on it.

“Satanas Inimical Dei…Satan something, God,” Blake murmured slowly and cautiously as he entered the shed.

Blake walked down the stairs, through the hallway, and came up to a manger filled with straw covered in blood and a piece of paper. The Midwife’s Lament? What the hell? Blake thought as he read the so-called hymn. 

Midwife's Lament

The babe is coming,
ready the knife.
The babe is coming,
Night's midwife.
Mother to the Enemy stained within,
God's creation saved with sin.

(chorus)
Hallelujah, stay the storm,
No longer must we wait.
For come the dawn the Enemy born.
To die in Temple Gate.

The babe is growing
Her belly swells
The babe is growing
Sent from Hell
Ezekiel waits a-sharpening his blade
Gather at the gate we kneel and pray

(chorus)

Unnerved, Blake put the piece of paper down and moved into the next room, only to gape in shock at the sight before him.

“What in…? God…” Blake said, feeling sick to his stomach. The floor was covered with a pile of the dead bodies of young children.

It was a familiar smell, almost sweet. They…They killed their children, Blake thought, horrified, as he moved around the bodies, careful not to step on any of them, and followed a hallway to a set of stairs. 

Blake went up the stairs and left the shed, only to find himself outside again. Blake traversed through what seemed to be a child’s playground of some sort and came up to a gate with a gap underneath it, easily crawling under it and continuing on. Once he came to another part of the town, a raspy exhale caused Blake to freeze in his tracks. There was a beat of silence, and Blake cocked his head to the side so he could listen.

“In the book of life of the Lamb slain…A blade’s baptism for the spider-eyed lamb. The spiller of foul seed. By the crooked knife, Legion fettered every man chained. If any man hath an ear, he that leadeth in captivity. Bleed’s flase, heaven’s fear, beast seeds the cracked city,” the voice said, and Blake froze in terror. The voice was female, was as raspy as the exhale, and seemed to be quoting some sort of Bible scripture.

After a few beats of nothing, Blake walked forward slowly, only to freeze again when he saw someone. A few yards away, Blake saw a very tall, lanky middle-aged woman wearing black robes drapped on her like rags, and from what he could see, she had blue eyes, a gaunt inflection, pasty skin, and she was barefoot. She was wielding a crudely made pickaxe shaped like a crucifix with a spiked pommel, a rosary wrapped around it, and a glowing, fiery orange incense burner at the top of her weapon. 

The woman then turned and spotted Blake, let loose a raspy scream, and charged towards him. Blake immediately took off, and somehow managed to loop around a small shed and spotted a place where he could crawl. Blake dove and slid through the gap to safety. Blake breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, made his way through the barn he was in, wheeled a small cart next to a ladder, and climbed the ladder to the loft. 

“Do you hate him, God? Do you hate him?” The pickaxe lady asked, and Blake nearly groaned in severe annoyance.

Please, for the love of God, get away from me, lady. I really don’t like you. I haven’t been here an hour, and you’re probably going to be the one who’s going to give me the most grief, Blake thought as he army crawled across the loft. Suddenly, loft gave away, sending Blake to the ground with a grunt of pain. Blake picked up his glasses, put them back on, and stood up, satisfied that he was just bruised and nothing was broken. 

“God? Do you want him?” The pickaxe lady asked softly, sounding very nearby, and Blake just about screamed as he noticed that she stood directly in front of him; the only thing seperating them was a window.

“Oh…Jesus…Who…?” Blake asked, and the pickaxe lady looked at him sinisterly.

“Then you’ll have him,” the pickaxe lady said, turned on her heel, and left, practically dissolving into the night. 

“God wants me dead? Okay,” Blake said, deciding to worry about that later. 

Blake left the barn and scurried over to an open window and jumped into the house, slamming the window shut behind him and hesitating slightly when he heard someone singing, making Blake exit through another window on the other side of the house. After taking a few steps, Blake saw the person who was singing. It was a man sitting on a rocking chair on his front porch with a machete in his hand and a dark look on his face. 

“Come from the loathsome way of sin; hide you in Ezekiel’s blood. Come for the Lord will take you in, hide you in Ezekiel’s blood. O hide you in the blood, hide you in the blood, 'til the dangers pass you by!” The old man sang, and Blake shivered before moving on. Blake heard voices, before quickly crouching in waist high grass, using the microphone on his camera to help him located the cultists.

“Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The Foxes walk upon it,” a cultist said lowly. 

“Forsaken. True forsaken,” another cultist said darkly. 

All of a sudden, that same bright, white light that caused the helicoptor to crash flashed again, this time accompanied by a loud horn, making Blake put his camera down, squinting and blinking rapidly when the light died away.

“Oh, God, my head…The fuck was that?” Blake asked, looking around and seeing dazed townspeople everywhere, stumbling over their feet and reaching out to someone who wasn’t even there and rambling nonsense.

“They can’t even see me. Like they’re…It’s like they’re hypnotized,” Blake said in realization, and he took off before the townspeople could recover and attack him. 

Suddenly, a loud, croaky, male voice pierced the air via megaphone.

“And I’ve asked him. I’ve said, God, why must we suffer like this? Why must we do this terrible violence?…Do you hate us, God? Do you hate this world? And do you know what God says? God said unto Moses: I am that I am. And that’s all there is to it. We stand in opposition to the antichrist. If we hope to beat him, we cannot only try to be like Jesus. We need to be like God,” the voice proclaimed just as Blake approached a church. 

It’s enormous. Some sort of hillbilly Vatican. How could all of this have been here and nobody knows about it? It’s not possible, Blake thought as he eyed the church before walking towards it.

“And now God has sent us this…woman,” the voice said distastefully and Blake felt a mixture of hope and dread.

“Lynn! Oh, fuck…” Blake gasped, and quickened his pace. 

“Fallen like a rebellious angel from the sky. Take the gag off,” the voice ordered, and Blake could hear Lynn gasping and sobbing in fear.

“God, I ask you, who is this outsider? This stranger come into our midst?” The voice asked coolly as Blake found a gap in the fence and squeezed through it.

“Listen to me. Please. We crashed. We…” Lynn begged fearfully, her voice thick with tears.

“Hush, child. You’ve already revealed your tongue, fit for nothing but lies. God’s truth is here now; come to reckon,” the voice said, and Lynn let out a small shriek of fear and pain as Blake approached the door and peered through a crack, hoping to see something that would tell him that Lynn was okay, but he couldn’t see anything—only vague shadows of different people.

As Blake strained his eyes to make sense of the shadows, he could hear Lynn’s sobs growing louder. Desperation surged through him, fueling his determination to find a way to rescue her from whatever peril she was in.

“God, I lay these hands on dissembling sinner and ask that you reveal the truth. Pray with me, children. ‘God, give me voice, God, guide my hand,’” the voice said, and Blake walked away from the door, intent on finding another way to get to Lynn. The man who was speaking. That has to be Knoth. It just has to be, Blake thought, and a few moments later, Blake came across a makeshift dungeon filled with cages that contained people of all sorts, babbling about God and all sorts of nonsense mixed with the voices that had come over the megaphone, giving Blake a minor headache. 

Blake grabbed a key, made his way over to the nearby door, and unlocked it.

“Lay bare what she would keep hid. Make plain what she would confuse. Make true what’s false. Enter me, Lord. I don’t need to know the way, only to know that you do. I…” the voice proclaimed, and let out a yell, and Blake could hear Lynn sobbing in the background as he entered the ground floor of the church.

“Your child. Your child is the one. She is ripe with the antichrist! The enemy waits in her womb! Whore of Babylon! Whore to Satan! Mother of harlots and the horrors of the earth!” The voice declared viciously, and Blake swallowed heavily.

“Shit…” Blake muttered lowly, searching for the room where they had Lynn.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Lynn yelled, and Blake wanted to laugh out loud. He knew Lynn’s fiery spirit would not be easily subdued. As Blake navigated through the dimly lit corridors, he couldn't help but feel a surge of determination.

He knew he had to find Lynn quickly, and with each step, his resolve grew stronger, fueled by his love for Lynn. A minute later, Blake looked out of a window just in time to see Lynn jump out of a window nearby, and Blake wanted to collapse with relief, fighting the urge to grin happily.

Lynn was okay. 

“Lynn!” Blake rasped, and immediately jumped out of the window he was next to and ran over to Lynn, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and making Lynn look up at Blake. Lynn was dirty and covered in small cuts and bruises, but was fine otherwise.

“Oh, God, Blake,” Lynn said, looking relieved.

“Are you okay?” Blake asked desperately.

“No,” Lynn said as Blake helped her up.

“What the fuck?” Blake demanded, and Lynn shook her head in confusion. 

“There! There!” A cultist yelled, and Blake swallowed heavily as Lynn looked panicked.

“I don’t know. Oh, shit. We have to run,” Lynn said, looking up at the window she jumped out of before running off, and Blake was quick to follow her.

“Lynn…where are we going?!” Blake rasped, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Away from here. Anywhere but here,” Lynn said grimly, taking the hand that was on her shoulder. The pair ran for a few yards but was forced to stop when Lynn doubled over in pain, clutching at her stomach. 

“Ah! Oh, God!" Lynn moaned, and Blake was instantly on high alert.

“What is it?” Blake asked urgently, not even bothering to hide his concern. Lynn’s face contorted in pain as she struggled to catch her breath. 

“My stomach…It hurts. Something’s wrong. Fuck…” Lynn said, placing a hand on her stomach, and the pair started moving again, albeit this time more slowly. After walking for a few minutes, Lynn whimpered in pain, and stopped walking.

“I have to stop. I just…I need…Oh, God,” Lynn said, kneeling to the ground and crying softly.

“Jesus Christ, Lynn! What’s happening here?!” Blake said frantically, and Lynn shook her head.

“I thought you were dead. When you fell, I thought we were all dead,” Lynn sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

“It’s okay. I’m here. We’re gonna get out of here, okay? What did they do to you?” Blake asked worriedly, and Lynn shook her head.

“God. I…I can’t talk about it. Please, Blake. Please don’t ask me,” Lynn begged tearfully, and the voice rang out.

“Children! I have news grave, but glorious. This evening, after all these years, after all this suffering, our faith has been proven,” the voice declared, and Lynn looked over her shoulder to see where the voice was coming from. 

“They’re coming. They’re coming,” Lynn said, her voice starting to become hysterical.

“The woman who came to Temple Gate this day from the outside world brought with her the foul burden we’ve been awaiting all this time. She has a child in her belly. I performed the examination myself, and it is empirically true,” the voice said seriously, and Blake felt confusion wash over him.

“What? Lynn…?” Blake asked, and Lynn shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know. He’s insane. They’re all fucking insane,” Lynn said shakily, and Blake frowned.

“Lynn,” Blake said, but Lynn powered on.

“Please, Blake, I just want to get out of here,” Lynn continued, and Blake nodded before frowning again.

“Are you pregnant? What the fuck is going on?” Blake asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

“I…I can’t. Not now,” Lynn said desperately, and Blake nodded again.

“Let’s just get away from this place. Please,” Lynn added softly.

“Okay. Yeah,” Blake agreed, nodding once more. 

“The devil is in her belly, and she is among us. As is the yokemate who spilled his seed into that revolting vessel. Find them, children. Kill them. Soak the earth with their blood! Rip the devil from her belly, and crush it beneath your boot heels. Revelation is upon us, and we must, like angels, show no mercy. God loves you,” the voice said, and fell silent. 

A second later, flashlights turned on, alerting Blake and Lynn to the cultists presence.

“Oh, God. Stay back!” Lynn yelled, and Blake put a protective arm in front of her.

“We’ll be gentle,” one cultist said airily, and both Blake and Lynn backed up.

“I swear to fucking Christ, the first person who touches me loses their eyes,” Lynn snarled angrily, pointing a warning finger at them, her body language defensive.

“God wants the child,” the cultist said sinisterly, and the small group attacked.

“No. No!” Lynn yelled as they restrained her. Blake went to help her but was punched in the face as a response and fell to the ground, where he was restrained as well.

“Ugh, LYNN! G-Get off me, get off me! Lynn, LYNN! You motherfuckers get off me—you leave her alone. Leave her alone. No, Lynn, LYNN! Ugh. Fuck you!” Blake yelled, immediately struggling to throw off the cultists restraining him, but it was no use.

“No! Nooo!” Lynn yelled, and screamed in a blind panic. Blake panicked, stuggling harder, and could only watch what they were doing to her.

Suddenly, the cultists looked up as a different group of people, covered head to toe in mud and sticks, ran up to them.

“Heretics,” one cultist rasped, frightened, and fled, quickly followed by a few others. 

The few cultists who were restraining Blake were knocked off him, quickly killed, and replaced by two of the newcomers, and Blake could see someone who looked like the leader of the group walk up to the last remaining townsperson and could only watch as the leader strangled the last cultist to death.

“I watched my father fuck your God to death,” the leader said coldly as the townsperson crumpled to the ground.

“Blake! Blake!” Lynn yelled, and the leader kneeled next to Lynn.

“Hush. Hush…” the leader cooed, and Blake panicked as Lynn screamed for him. Blake struggled against their restraints, desperate to reach Lynn as the leader leaned in close to her, a sinister smile on his face. The leader's chilling words echoed in Blake's mind, fueling his fear and determination to save Lynn at all costs.

“Lynn, no, wait! NO, WAIT. Don’t! No no! For fuck sake…Shit!" Blake yelled, panicked, and struggled as he watched the leader knock Lynn unconscious. Tears welled up in Blake's eyes as he frantically tried to break free, knowing he had to act fast before it was too late. The leader's rumbling humming grew louder, sending a shiver down Blake's spine as he realized the danger they were both in. Desperation fueled his movements as he fought against his restraints with all his might, praying for a chance to save Lynn.

“Take her home. I want to share my love with the father,” the leader said serenely, stood up, and walked over to Blake.

The leader was a slim, well-groomed, androgynous-looking woman with short blonde hair and icy blue eyes.

“Motherfucker!” Blake swore, and struggled even more.

“God doesn’t love you. Not like I do,” the leader said as she knelt down next to Blake, and promptly licked his face a couple times, making Blake grunt in disgust before drawing back and tilting her head to the side, as if listening to something.

“Yes, my love? Ah. We have mother. I think I’ll see you again,” the leader promised and caressed Blake’s face before standing and leaving; her followers quickly went after her. 

The follower who was restraining Blake punched him once more, causing Blake to grunt in pain, and followed the group. Blake quickly stood up and picked up his fallen camera, gasping in fear, looking around wildly for Lynn.

“Oh, shit! Lynn! LYNN!” Blake yelled frantically but received no answer.

Lynn was gone.

After a minute of catching his breath, Blake decided to follow the river, hoping it would lead him somewhere. As he silently walked, he decided to think about what just happened.

“Jesus. Jesus God. The fuck were they? Called them Heretics. They called Lynn ‘mother.’ It’s not just the cult. Two sides. Christians and…Something else…” Blake said shakily.

Chapter Text

After a few minutes of walking, Blake came across another section of the town that was directly next to a small lake. Almost immediately, a flashlight swept across the water, and Blake dove underwater.

“The whoring of our children. It is upon us,” the cultist said, his voice muffled by the water, and Blake frowned, confused.

'The whoring of our children'? …the fuck are you talking about? Blake wondered as he resurfaced for air. 

He carefully made his way past the two guys who were patrolling the area by swimming through the small lake, ducking underwater when he needed to, and heaved himself up onto a small dock. When he opened the door of a nearby house, the same bright, white light from before flashed again, blinding Blake.

When Blake’s vision cleared, he noticed he was in a classroom at his old school.

“What the hell? I’m dreaming. Or I’m out of my fucking mind,” Blake deduced, feeling very confused, and left the classroom only to enter the adjoining one, staring at the message on the chalkboard, and somewhere in the classroom, there was a music box playing. 

“‘I’m sorry I have to do this. You should have loved me. You should have helped me. Jesus, forgive me; I don’t know what to do. I’m so so sorry. Jessica.’ I remember this!” Blake exclaimed, feeling a stab of melancholy, and glanced down at his camera, not seeing a picture, only static. 

There’s no picture. Just…noise. But I saw it, I know I saw it, Blake thought as he walked over to the desk, where he noticed a picture sitting there and picked it up.

“Jessica…and Lynn? When we were…Oh, fuck! I’m back in fourth grade. And here I thought this couldn’t get any worse…” Blake muttered under his breath as the music box stopped playing, and he quickly left the classroom. 

When Blake looked down the long hallway he’d entered, he couldn’t help but stare at the man on the opposite side of the hallway. Slowly but cautiously, Blake walked towards him, but when Blake got halfway, the man ran at Blake, who suddenly found himself at his starting point, the hallway in front of him shimmering like an illusion.

Blake calmed his racing heart and all but ran down the hallway, out the front doors, and into the snow-filled night. 

Blake instantly started shivering and walked away from the school. Once Blake stepped through the school courtyard gate, the ground beneath him gave way, and Blake yelped in pain when he was thrown every which way.

Once he stopped moving, Blake groaned in pain, put his fallen-off glasses back on, and sat up, clutching his head, waiting for his woozy vision to return to normal. Blake groaned again, realizing he was back in the Arizona desert, glancing up when footsteps approached him, making him tense up, fully prepared to run. But the newcomer looked around nervously before speaking. 

“You’re him, ain’t you? The outsider? Knoth’s eye, they killed you, didn’t they?” The newcomer asked hesitantly. 

“No. Not yet,” Blake said, grumbling in pain again as his vision spun. 

“Well, they’ll do it if they find you out here. Come on,” the newcomer said and offered Blake a hand, which Blake took and stood up. 

“Who are you?” Blake asked weakly as he followed the already-walking newcomer.

“My name’s Ethan,” the newly introduced Ethan said gruffly.

“But I mean…Are you one of them? And which side are you on?” Blake asked quickly, and Ethan scoffed. 

“You mean, why ain’t I trying to kill you? I been…Unborn. Seen too much to keep the faith,” Ethan explained slowly. 

“But you’re not one of those other ones. The…Heretics,” Blake prompted hesitantly, making Ethan stop walking and look at him. 

“Didn’t say squat when my wife got scalled, had to get cast out,” Ethan said seriously, and continued walking. Blake followed him at a much slower pace, trying not to aggravate his continuously spinning vision. 

“Didn’t complain when Knoth…pressed himself on my Anna Lee. And she not but fifteen,” Ethan said, and Blake felt seriously ill, instantly getting Ethan’s meaning. 

“I’m sorry,” Blake said softly as they approached Ethan’s house. 

“But when he said my grandson. The baby he’d put in her was might the anti-Christ, and I had to slit her belly and kill the child,” Ethan said, his voice thick with unshed tears, and fell silent, the pair walking in silence for the rest of the way. Once arriving at Ethan’s house, Ethan paused and looked at Blake. 

“I gave her a chance to run. Spun them idiots some stories. I been gifted with talk my whole life. You probably noticed,” Ethan said, turning around to walk up the steps to his house, and Blake smiled faintly before frowning in realization.

“Jane Doe,” Blake said quietly, and Ethan stilled in confusion. 

“Sorry?” Ethan asked, and turned to look at Blake. 

“Your daughter. She was eight months pregnant? Blond hair cut like a boy’s?” Blake asked hesitantly for clarification, and Ethan looked skeptical. 

“Yeah…Wh-what do you know? You seen her?” Ethan asked, and Blake nodded.

“It’s why we came here,” Blake said, and Ethan looked hopeful. 

“Is she alright? Please, mister. Just tell me she’s okay,” Ethan begged hopefully, and in that moment, Blake knew he couldn’t tell Ethan the truth.

 “…She’s fine,” Blake lied quickly, and Ethan looked downright relieved and clasped his hands in prayer. 

“Oh…Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God, and God bless you. Come on. Get you inside,” Ethan said, opening the front door and gesturing for Blake to come in. Once Blake stepped inside, a sharp pain flared up in Blake’s head, making him grunt and attracting Ethan’s attention. 

“Whoah, whoah, hey there. You really busted your head open, didn’t you?” Ethan asked, and Blake gave him a pained smile. 

“I’ll be okay. I…” Blake managed, and Ethan opened up a hatch door located on the floor. 

“Head down into the root cellar. I got a bed down there. You can hide…til you’re fixed up,” Ethan said, and Blake jumped down into the root cellar and looked up at Ethan.

“It’s all right. You just relax here; I’ll keep you safe. You rest up and heal. Ethan’s gonna treat you right,” Ethan added before shutting the hatch door.

Blake walked over to the bed and laid down, passing out the second his head hit the pillow. 

“Please, Blake. Where are you? I’m scared. He’s coming. AH! HE’S HERE! AH! GET AWAY! FAST! AAHHH!” Jessica screamed fearfully.

Blake jerked awake with a gasp, and sat up when he heard two sets of footsteps above him.

“I ain’t hiding nothing,” Ethan said fearfully, stumbling away from the other person.

“Righteousness cannot pass in blood by loins, but the blood of your heart,” the pickaxe lady rasped, and Blake stiffened in fear. The sound of the pickaxe scraping against the walls sent shivers down his spine when he realized who exactly it was.

"I kenn Papa’s gospel. I copied ‘em a hunnert times. If I knew where the outsider was…” Ethan began but was quickly interrupted.

“The prophet don’t need your help in finding the devil’s whore and her rut-mate. Knoth questions even now other heretics at chapel. God’ll guide him,” the pickaxe lady snarled, and Ethan gasped in terror. The pickaxe lady's words filled the air with a chilling certainty, and Blake desperately wanted to help him, but forced himself to remain in the root cellar.

“I ain’t a heret…” Ethan protested but screamed when the pickaxe lady attacked him. Blake could hear Ethan's screams echoing through the root cellar, causing his heart to race with fear. He knew he had to stay hidden until the danger had passed.

“You sinned when you denied the prophet your daughter. You sinned since to deny it,” the pickaxe lady snapped, and Ethan grunted. Blake could feel the weight of guilt pressing down on him as he listened to Ethan's suffering. The pickaxe lady's relentless pursuit of justice made it clear that no one was safe from her wrath.

“Please! Please, just let me talk to Knoth!” Ethan begged, his voice sounding strained, leading Blake to believe that the pickaxe lady was restraining him. Blake peeked through the floorboards, and saw the pickaxe lady holding Ethan up with her pickaxe against one of the wooden support beams.

“You know where the outsider is. His seed begat the enemy. God and the prophet both want his blood,” the pickaxe lady snapped, and Ethan let out a yell of pain.

“Just let me talk to Knoth. I can explain…” Ethan begged, and the pickaxe lady growled lowly. Blake could see the fear in Ethan's eyes as he pleaded for a chance to speak with Knoth. The pickaxe lady's grip tightened, causing Ethan to wince in pain.

“God don’t hear dead men,” the pickaxe lady said and let out a shout along with the sound of metal puncturing flesh, and Ethan groaned weakly in pain. Blake met Ethan's eyes and saw fear and resignation reflected in them. Blake knew that Ethan knew that his fate was sealed, and there was no hope for escape from the pickaxe lady's wrath. Ethan's eyes pleaded with Blake for help, but they both knew it was too late. Blake watched in horror as the pickaxe lady's actions became more violent, realizing that Ethan's fate was sealed. The prophet's followers were ruthless and unforgiving, leaving no room for negotiation or mercy.

“Be still,” the pickaxe lady ordered, followed by a heavy thud and pained gasping from Ethan. Knoth's followers were known for their brutal methods, and Ethan was now at their mercy. The pickaxe lady's actions were a grim reminder of the danger that was faced in the cult's stronghold.

“Take your penance. God loves you. God loves you,” the pickaxe lady said breathlessly, and there was one last metal on flesh sound, and Ethan fell silent. The prophet's followers were driven by their unwavering devotion to Knoth, willing to do whatever it took to uphold his teachings. Ethan's final moments were a stark realization of the merciless nature of the cult he had unwittingly stumbled upon.

“Catamite to the devil,” the pickaxe lady said remorselessly, and left the house. Blake was left to process the gruesome scene before him, knowing that he had narrowly escaped a similar fate. The chilling words of the pickaxe lady echoed in his mind, serving as a haunting reminder of the danger that lurked within the cult's stronghold.

“I hope you found your daughter,” Blake said quietly a moment later, leaving the root cellar, only to be met with the sight of Ethan’s corpse, and he bowed his head. The stench of death lingered in the air, causing Blake to shudder as he realized the true extent of the cult's brutality. He knew he had to find a way out before it was too late.

“You didn’t give me up to her. Even though she…Thank you,” Blake said sadly, and sighed.

That…woman? Whatever she is, beat him to death. Something about finding Lynn. Something about finding a chapel, Blake thought, and he left the house, ultimately deciding that was where he needed to go next. He needed to act fast, knowing that time was running out and the cult could be hot on his trail. As he stepped out into the night, the moonlight illuminated his path, guiding him towards his next destination with a sense of urgency.

“The chapel. Somebody there will know where they’ve taken Lynn,” Blake said determindly. As Blake searched, he could hear the old, croaky voice ring out again and wanted to groan.

“Children! I know you hear the glass breaking. You hear your neighbors’ cries. Them suffering are not the children of God. Those are heretics in our midst. Servants of the enemy. Lock your doors, and bar your windows, hold your loved ones close to you. The enemy’s passover is begun,” the voice said darkly, and fell silent just as Blake approached two people with horns on their heads hung up on wooden posts over fires.

“Fucking Christ…” Blake muttered in horrified surprise. They flayed them. Nailed them to wood. She was just a kid, Blake thought, then sighed when he saw the cornfield in front of him. As he approached the other side of the cornfield, a raspy wheeze caught Blake’s attention.

“Oh, fuck me, not her,” Blake whispered frantically as he watched the pickaxe lady drag someone behind her with said pickaxe.

“Those who’ve rebelled against our God shall fall; their infants dashed to pieces all. Their women with child shall be ripped up…shall be ripped up…” the pickaxe lady muttered before she vanished, and Blake let loose a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. 

Jesus Christ. The others call her Marta. The smell of what she burned, like…Coal smoke and frankincense, Blake thought as he turned around, and immediately stiffened when he saw flashlights from where he came coming his way. He looked around frantically, and after spying a hole in the fence and crawling through it, he was in the cornfield. Just then, the voice started speaking again.

“We must rise to face them. There is no innocence among the outsiders in our midst. Give them the knife, the club, and the fist if its all you got. God rejoices in the spilling of wicked blood,” the voice said before falling silent again. 

Blake managed to sneak around the cultists who were searching for him and get out of the cornfield in the process. As he came up to a locked gate, Blake sighed.

“Maybe there’s a way through the barn,” Blake mused and went to check. After getting into the barn and avoiding the cultists looking for him, Blake managed to get up to the barn loft and yanked on a chain. The loft doors opened, allowing the dead body that was hanging on a hook to come through. 

“Fucking Christ…” Blake said, and he gagged a couple of times before walking around the body and across a wooden beam. Once he got to the other side, a loud clank got his attention, and Blake turned around just in time for the body to slam into him, knocking him to the ground below.

Blake yelped in pain when he landed on the ground hard, but quickly scrambled to his feet when he realized that he had landed on a pile of bloodied corpses and hurried away. When Blake neared a street light, the white light appeared, nearly blinding Blake again. When his vision cleared, Blake noticed small things dropping to the ground around him.

“The fuck was that?” Blake gasped fearfully, and his eyes widened as he registered the dead birds that littered the ground around him. A teacher once told me that the music of birds was proof that God exists and loves us, Blake thought, and trudged forward.

Eventually, Blake ascended a rocky cliffside, and found himself in a dark cave. He came across what looked to be an underground church after making his way through a tunnel. He said she did it to herself. He said he was protecting you, Blake thought absently as he stared at some kind of statue that seemed to made out mud and sticks. 

“A church. No no…Some kind of…Heretic temple,” Blake deduced slowly, and stared at it before making his way out of the makeshift temple. As he walked, he saw that the walls were decorated with sticks and dead bodies, and he could hear Jessica sobbing softly and quickened his pace, only pausing when he saw Jessica’s hanging body.

When Blake went around a tree, Jessica’s body was gone. Blake sighed when he got out of the temple and saw the chapel sitting in the middle of the largest part of the town, but groaned when the voice rang out again.

“Any heretics God delivers to you, bind in withs and bring to the chapel. We will root out the outsider whore who’s brought this darkness to the good earth. The tribulations are upon us, and we must make ready for righteous violence in the name of the Lord. Pray, and hold fast. God loves you,” the voice declared dramatically.

The chapel. I could see the chapel. How far did this go? A feeling in my teeth like the sound of scissors, Blake thought, and he started walking to the chapel. As Blake made his way through a house, he could hear the voice speaking again.

“You hate God because he made you kill your child? God himself killed his own child! Nailed him to a tree and hung him, suffering for days before he died. And when his only son said, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’ he said not a word. I am that I am. I am that I am. We stand guard at the gate through which the antichrist will breach this world. We are at the cunt of Armagedon,” the voice said dramatically and fell silent as Blake picked up a note. 

March 9

More children dead. Knoth says there is no sin in such infanticide, as all are soldiers in God's army. Martyrs fallen on the field in defiance of the Archfiend. All those babies with slit throats and charred flesh will be waiting immaculate for us in paradise.

Papa Knoth also says that our sins find us in our dreams. Our sins find us in our dreams. But my dreams are nothing but the murder of my children. And I wake laughing, and aroused, and often wet with the involuntary lust of sleep.

I woke this morning thinking I was wetted with the blood of a child's slit throat. But it was wetness of my own making.

The others are having similar dreams. We have dug a tunnel so that we may meet in secret. We gather and share our visions and wonder at their meaning.

I feel increasingly this is a message. But nothing holy.

Blake shivered in disgust and horror before placing the note back in its original place, desperate to find Lynn at all costs. Blake made his way up to the main floor of the house, using the night vision on his camcoder to navigate through the darkness. The eerie silence of the abandoned house only added to his sense of urgency as he searched for any sign of Lynn's whereabouts. Blake paused when he spotted a dead body slumped against the wall, sending a chill down his spine. His heart raced as he realized the danger Lynn might be in, fueling his determination to find her before it was too late.

"If you get up and start moving around, I'm gonna shit a brick," Blake whispered to himself, trying to calm his nerves. With each step he took, the creaking floorboards beneath him seemed to echo through the empty house, heightening his anxiety. He knew he had to stay focused and keep moving forward in order to rescue Lynn from whatever horrors awaited her. A few minutes later, he found another note written in the same handwriting as before. 

Sullivan--

Papa. Ezekiel. Liar. Charlatan. Temple to gout. Addict. Coward. Rapist. Child-killer.

I am gone, and I have taken with me all with the courage to see the truth.

Come after us. Hunt us down. We are waiting and eager to murder and fuck every body you send up to the mountain.

I don't hate you. Could Jesus hate a Baptist for being a Jew? I could not have found my true vision without your years of ignorance and bullshit. I could never have had the courage to seek the truth if not fueled by my anger at your lies.

Your God is a child's superstition. Your faith is an embarrassment.

The signs of the True Father were before you. Before us all. And you--vainglorious, gullible, too stupid to draw beneath, you thought the visions were punishment from an angry and ominous God.

Your god is afraid because your god is no god at all. Your god is your own ego, vulnerable and false. An embarrasment.

My god is no god at all. But he is true. And he is here in every moment of ecstasy. And his child will fuck and tear this world to everlasting glory.

I do not ask that you join us. I tell you: you will join us. Because our love is greater than you can ever imagine.

Val

Blake frowned at the note, placing it back down in the same spot where he found it. The mysterious notes were beginning to make him feel uneasy and confused, as if someone was watching his every move. Blake glanced at the note once more before shoving a bookshelf out of his way and walking out the door, his need to find Lynn overpowering his fear of the unknown. The sense of urgency grew stronger with each passing moment, propelling him forward into the unknown depths of the desolate town.

Chapter Text

Blake sighed heavily, raking his hand through his hair before changing out the batteries in his camcorder.

"Alright. Let's do this," Blake muttered, and he checked to make sure that he had enough batteries and bandages. When he decided that he was fully prepared, he took a deep breath and opened the door, stepped out onto the little balcony, and looked around. A light caught his attention, and he frowned in confusion when he saw a cultist running away from something.

"The fuck are you running from?" Blake muttered as the cultist disappeared around a corner. Blake hopped down to the ground, and quickly noticed something over to the left.

“The power’s cut off. They’ve gotta have a…generator or something. If the fucking thing doesn’t run on prayers,” Blake muttered and began his search for the generator.

Blake rounded a corner, ignoring a distant scream of pain, and stopped in his tracks when he saw a female cultist just standing in the middle of the road, preaching like her life depended on it. Her eyes were wide and fanatical, and her voice shrill as she ranted about something or other. Blake quickly realized that this cult was more dangerous than he had initially thought. He needed to find the generator. Quick. After a moment, the cultist started walking closer to Blake, and he was finally able to make out what she was preaching. 

“Rejoice! Revel in the ecstasy of the Lord. The sins of Zion are bound up, and all debts to God come due. There is wailing, there is pain, there is blood, but it is joyous all, for we are in the sorrows of a travailing woman; from this arbor is the place of the breaking forth of yes, the children of hell, but also the opportunity of our salvation. For God is great, and Knoth is his prophet, and Knoth will ransom us from the power of the grave."

What the actual fuck is she talking about? Blake wondered, feeling very unnerved. He couldn't make sense of the woman's cryptic words, but the intensity in her voice sent shivers down his spine. It was clear that there was something deeply unsettling about the situation.

"Knoth will redeem us from death, for even redemption cannot be hid from the split eye. We are robed in the crimson glory of revelation!" The woman said, staring at Blake unceasingly.

As Blake listened to the woman's words, he felt a chill run down his spine, unsure of what to make of her cryptic message. The intensity in her eyes made him question if there was more to her words than just mere ramblings. The way she spoke with such conviction and fervor made him wonder if there was some truth to her beliefs. Was she just a delusional fanatic, or was there something deeper at play that he couldn't quite grasp? Blake couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this encounter than met the eye, leaving him with a sense of unease and curiosity.

"Okay," Blake whispered, and he quickly gave the cultist a wide berth as he eyed her warily. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was a deeper meaning behind her words, and he decided it was best to stay cautious in her presence. As he walked away, he couldn't help but feel a sense of unease lingering in the air.

"You don't turn your back...on Papa Knoth! You don't turn your back...on God!" A cultist screamed from inside a house, but Blake wisely chose to ignore it as he entered a different house and walked upstairs, opening a door that led out to a small balcony.

"Bam, bitch! I'm here now! Fuck all y'all!" Blake muttered jokingly. Blake looked around and quickly noticed a wire, making him guess that it would lead him to the generator. Blake left the house, only to start running when a few cultists began to chase him, yelling some kind of scripture at him. Blake ran into a building, slamming the door behind him and deadbolting it shut just as he heard a raspy scream. 

“Get inside! She’s coming!” A cultist yelled, which was followed by squwaks of fear and running footsteps.

“It’s Marta! Come on!” Another cultist yelled fearfully.

“Knoth’s Eye…It’s her,” a third cultist gasped, and Blake heard multiple doors slammed shut. Blake glanced over his shoulder nervously at the mention of Marta, and he sighed in relief when he didn’t see or hear her coming after him. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart, and began to search the building for any sign of the generator. As he crept through the darkened hallways, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. Blake walked upstairs, groaning in relief when he saw the generator for the elevator.

“That’s gotta be it…If I can find my way back to the elevator…” Blake said hopefully, and he quickly got the generator started. Blake sighed in relief and turned to leave, only to yell in fright when he saw the preaching cultist standing in the doorway. The cultist stared at him for a moment, then silently left, Blake doing the same a minute later. 

Blake glared at the female cultist, who was still rambling about the ecstasy of the Lord, as he walked by and made his way back to the elevator. Suddenly, a familiar person erupted from the shadows—a person carrying a pickaxe in the shape of a crucifix.

Marta had arrived. 

Instantly, Blake tucked himself into a corner heavily encased in shadows, and Marta paused directly in front of him, looking around.

“From his fundament to his chops, Lord, I will be thy plague and thy ransom. And what shall I say to him? Yes, Lord, like a pig,” Marta rasped and walked off.

As a result of Marta walking off, Blake took his chance and booked it to the elevator, ignoring Marta’s enraged yell from behind him. Blake made it to the elevator and activated it, relieved to see the gate shut in Marta’s face. 

“Papa, I have sinned in failure. I will be ravenous in my penance,” Marta growled, and Blake felt a stab of anger.

“What do you want from me?!” Blake yelled furiously but received no response as the elevator took him up. Once the elevator stopped, Blake got out, and walked over to a sign that caught his attention.

Temple Gate, founded by Sullivan Knoth, the ‘Modern Ezekiel’. Their knives sharp for the enemy, Blake thought, and he scoffed lightly before continuing on his way towards the chapel. Suddenly, two voices—one female, the other male—singing caught Blake’s attention. 

“…Jessica?…I’ve lost it,” Blake said as he cautiously followed the voices to a well and stared at it for a long moment before looking into it. A split second later, a long tongue erupted from the bottom of the well, latched itself around Blake’s neck, and dragged Blake into the well, making everything around him go dark. The last thing Blake heard before losing consciousness was the sound of his own muffled screams echoing in the darkness. The well seemed to swallow him whole, leaving no trace of his presence above the ground.

Blake suddenly felt cool metal surrounding him, and a nearby fan alerted him to the fact that he was in a ventilation shaft, leaving Blake with the only option of crawling forward.

“Please, Blake. Don’t let this happen. I’m scared. We’re not alone here. Please, Blake. He’s coming,” Jessica begged as he crawled.

Suddenly, the ventilation shaft gave out, sending it and Blake to the floor below. Blake quickly crawled out of the vent and stood, realizing he was in school again. 

Blake left the classroom he was in and quickly walked down the hallway, stopping when a locker opened. Blake’s breath left him with a whoosh as he recognized the locker as Jessica’s.

“This was Jessica’s…” Blake murmured thickly when he peered in and spied the music box before he picked it up and turned the crank a few times, making music pour out of it. Blake put the music box back and continued walking, but had to double back when he couldn’t go through the doors at the end of the hallway. When that didn’t yield any results, Blake went back into the hallway.

“Blake,” Jessica called, and Blake gasped.

“Jessica?” Blake asked, and hurried down the hallway, pausing when he noticed an open classroom that was closed before. Blaked gulped and entered the classroom. Blaked gasped again when he heard Jessica scream and ran out the other door, following her screams, only to stop and stare at her hanging body.

“Oh, God, Jess…” Blake said, his voice thick with unshed tears. But when Blake got closer, the tongue from before, along with multiple hands, pulled Jessica up into the ceiling. 

“Fuck,” Blake muttered and opened a nearby door.

Blake gasped again, suddenly finding himself back in town, in a house, and in a room with a gutted corpse in it. A second later, a cultist lunged at Blake, who immediately tried to get away from his attacker. 

“Father to the beast. I’ll bleed you in the yard,” the cultist growled, picking up a machete, and shoved Blake, who went tumbling down a flight of stairs with a yell of surprise.

Blake quickly got up and fled from the house, into another house, quickly slammed the door shut and deadbolted it, noticed a hole in the floor, and crawled into it. With no time to catch his breath, Blake quickly crawled his way out from under the house and ran into another house, squeezing through a barrier and shoving it as soon as he got by it, blocking his pursuers and falling over in the process.

“Consume the flesh and spice it well. Let the bones be burned. Her scum shall be in the fire. Woe to the bloody city!” The lead cultist said, waving his machete around wildly before he left, and Blake swiftly stumbled to his feet, quickly leaving in order to put some much-needed distance between them. 

“Ah…Okay…Okay…” Blake said shakily, taking a few deep, calming breaths, trying to lower his racing heartbeat. Someone started banging on the door in front of Blake, who stiffened in fright and quickly dove under a bed to hide.

After a few long, agonizing minutes of waiting and avoiding the cultists who were searching for him, Blake finally got out of the house and entered an underground tunnel. Blake ran through the tunnel and stumbled to a stop when he entered a room and saw a young woman curled up in the fetal position, chained to a bed, and cuts all over her body.

I guess this is where the magic happens. Chairs for an audience to watch. I only saw her afterwards. I couldn’t have…, Blake thought, wanting to help the young woman but not knowing how, and continued onwards.

“…The fuck is this?” Blake wondered in disgust as he came up to a pit with spikes and gutted corpses at the bottom.

“Ah, shit…” Blake groaned as he noticed a ledge he’d have to shimmy across. A minute later, Blake was safely on the other side, and he picked up a nearby note.

God knows what I've done. And he forces my eyes on it when I am weak, and when I am scared.

It was not my fault that Judah could not swim, nor the lust he felt for me. I would have samed him had I the strength.

I do not doubt you, God, but please spare me the suffering of such forced dreams even when I do not sleep.

I cannot keep watching him drown. 

Accept my death as  penance, as I am newly heavy with Papa Knoth's child and wracked with pains such as I have never known.

Surely the infant in my womb must be the archfiend for the affliction of nightmares and agonies that fill and surround me. 

I am yours.

"Goddamnit. Okay. Alright, you know what? Could Papa Knoth stop just...straight up raping everybody in the town? It's fucking disgusting is what it is. That's the first thing I would like in the new world order here," Blake muttered, placing the not back down on the table and rubbing his temples in frustration. 

"I can't take much more of this horror," he added, his voice filled with exhaustion. Blake made his way from underground to the ground floor of the house he was in. Suddenly, he stiffened up when everything went dead silent. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he strained to hear any sound, but there was nothing. Fear gripped him as he realized he was completely alone in the eerie stillness.

Suddenly, a flashlight swept across the window Blake was standing in front of, and he nearly choked on his panic. The beam of light illuminated the dark room, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Blake's heart raced as he realized he was not alone in the house.

“He’s in the house!” A cultist yelled triumphantly. Blake's blood ran cold as he heard the cultist's words, sending a shiver down his spine. He knew he had to act fast to escape the dangerous situation he found himself in.

“No, I’m not!” Blake hissed as he turned on his heel and ran upstairs. As he raced up the stairs, Blake's heart pounded in his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The cultist's triumphant yell echoed in his ears, spurring him to move faster in search of an escape route.

“He’s upstairs!” The same cultist yelled, and Blake ran out onto the house’s balcony and vaulted over the railing, landing feet first on the ground with a grunt. The impact sent a jolt of pain through his legs, but he pushed through it and sprinted into the darkness, hoping to evade the cultists hot on his trail. The adrenaline-fueled escape was his only chance at survival.

“I see him! He’s running your way!” Another cultist yelled, and Blake put on a burst of speed. A few seconds later, Blake dove under a deck and started crawling as quickly as he could to the other side. The sound of footsteps above him indicated the cultists were close, but Blake remained focused on reaching safety. With each passing moment, the urgency of his situation grew, driving him to keep moving despite the pain in his legs.

“I got him! Over here!” A cultist yelled, and Blake wanted to groan. He knew he couldn't let them catch him, not after everything he had been through to escape their grasp. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he pushed himself to go faster, determined to outwit his pursuers and make it out alive.

“He’s gone under the house like a damn dog!” A third cultist crowed coldly. As he crawled, someone started jabbing a pitchfork down through the wood, managing to miss Blake every single time. Once Blake got out from under the deck, he spotted a shed with an open window over the door, ran over to it, and heaved himself in. Breathing heavily, he knew he couldn't stay hidden for long and needed to come up with a plan quickly. Inside the shed, he searched frantically for any means of escape or defense, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Son of a bitch. Where in hell…?” A cultist snarled angrily. Blake's mind raced as he tried to think of a way out of the shed without being caught. The sound of footsteps approaching outside made his decision urgent.

“He ain’t here,” a second cultist said angrily.

“He’s gotta be somewhere close,” a third cultist huffed darkly. Blake continued to look around frantically and, after noticing how weak the floorboards were, started stomping on the floor. The wood creaked loudly beneath his feet, causing the cultists to pause in confusion. Blake stomped again, this time with more force, and the floorboards started to give way beneath him.

“Hey, look in that shed! There’s something over there!” Someone yelled victoriously just as the floor broke, and Blake quickly crawled out from under the shed just as the cultists started bashing down the door.

“This fucker’s slippery as a greased hog,” a cultist sneered cruelly as Blake booked it to a small window, and went through it, dropping into the cellar of a house before scrambling under a bed. Blake heaved for air, his heart pounding in his chest as he listened to the cultists searching for him above. The sound of footsteps grew fainter, and he knew he had narrowly escaped capture once again.

Chapter Text

Blake remained where he was under the bed, trying to catch his breath. But he knew that he needed to kepp moving in order to avoid getting caught by the cultists. After hearing nothing, Blake crawled out from under the bed, and went upstairs.

When Blake opened a door, he couldn’t help but stop and stare at the sight before him. He wasn’t just in any old house. He was in a school, and he had just stepped into a classroom with the dead teacher sitting in front of the chalkboard, where a message was written.

“‘Don’t be afraid. You’re going to heaven,’” Blake muttered despondently, and the lids on the desks somehow flipped open the second he finished reading the message.

“Okay, what the fuck…? Am I losing it?” Blake muttered nervously, his despondance now gone. Blake stared at the desks for a moment, appalled, before something occurred to him.

“Did they just kill all of the kids ‘just in case’ one of them may or may not have been the antichrist?” Blake asked in shock. 

Going to heaven. God. Before they killed the children. You should have loved me. I…what am I doing? Blake wondered, and left the school, finding himself standing in front of a locked-up fence a minute later.

“How do I get over there? Fucking fence. I could climb that. Just need something to stand on,” Blake said and turned around, pursing his lips at the cart that sat directly behind him.

“God? Do you want him?” Marta asked slowly and walked out of the shadows. Blake froze and booked it when she yelled. 

After a few minutes of quietly avoiding Marta, Blake finally got the cart where he needed it without getting killed. As he started to climb over the locked fence, Blake yelped when he felt hands grab him and try to pull him off. Blake turned around, clutching the top of the fence, and kicked Marta in the face after a few seconds of struggling, dropping to the safety of the other side of the fence.

“I don’t know what the fuck your god wants from me, lady,” Blake muttered shakily and hurried forward, not wanting to take any chances, and sagged in relief when he saw the chapel in front of him.

The chapel. A chapel is supposed to be sanctuary, Blake thought as he approached the chapel and entered, only to be met with the sound of someone groaning in pain. Blake entered the room where the pained groaning was coming from and stared at the sight before him.

A man was strapped down to a large wheel, wearing only a pair of shorts, with his eyes gouged out and JUDAS carved onto his chest. 

“Mary? Knoth? Who’s there? Who are you?” The man demanded, and his voice sounded weak.

“My name’s Blake,” Blake said carefully and hesitantly. 

“The outsider…The father,” the man said harshly, sounding oddly pleased at that fact.

“I’m not anybody’s father. I just…” Blake said, but was quickly interrupted by the man.

“Kill me. You have to kill me. Knoth is coming back. With Mary. He’ll hurt her, and I’ll talk. If you kill me, he won’t have a reason to hurt her. Please…” the man begged just as a distant scream sounded out, making Blake glance over his shoulder and, seeing flashlights, quickly hid in the confessional closest to the man.

The second he did, an obese man and a few cultists restraining a crying young woman entered.

That's Knoth? Jesus Christ, he's fucking fat, Blake thought as he watched Knoth walk toward the restrained man, making sure he stayed quiet as he listened to their conversation, peering out through the holes in the confessional closet. 

“We found her, Josiah. Trying to flee ‘mongst the scalled. Not the actions of a woman unburdened by an immaculate conscience,” Knoth said as a woman started sobbing as she was placed on a stretching rack and tied down. 

“Mary?” Josiah asked hopefully as the woman sobbed harder.

“Answer your yokemate, honey. He can’t see you,” Knoth ordered icily, and after what sounded like the woman struggling, she answered.

“It’s me, Josiah. Please tell them I don’t…” Mary begged, and Josiah sobbed. 

“Please, let her go. Oh, God, Mary, I’m sorry. I didn’t want…” Josiah said tearfully. 

“God hates vanity. So do I! The outsider woman has this world’s destruction in her womb! But Val and his apostates stole away the unborn enemy. The fiend’s father is escaped! She will bear her filthy yield before dawn. We have only these few hours to find her, kill her, and save this paradise from hell everlasting. Where is she? Where did Val take her?” Knoth demanded furiously. 

“I can’t. I can’t,” Josiah said stiffly.

“This is for you, Josiah. Make the woman scream,” Knoth ordered coldly, and a second later, Mary started screaming as she was stretched. 

“Where is the woman?! The womb that harbors the antichrist?!” Knoth demanded loudly, but Josiah started repeating a prayer, obviously trying his best to block out Mary’s pain-filled screams. 

“Tell Josiah to make it stop,” Knoth said over the yelling.

“RAHHH!…Stop! Stop! I’ll talk! I’ll…Tell you! God…” Josiah sobbed, finally giving in.

“Where is the woman? Where did Val take her?” Knoth yelled angrily, throwing his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry,” Josiah apologized tearfully.

“Where is the woman?” Knoth demanded impatiently.

“The mines. Up the mountains. Val has her in the mines. You’ll never get her back! Not before the birth!” Josiah said insistantly.

“We are the hands of the Lord; we cannot fail,” Knoth said superiorly.

“This world will die screaming. Your God, in all his arrogance, will…” Josiah growled, but Knoth cut him off.

“Thank you, Josiah; that’s enough,” Knoth said, gesturing lazily with his hand, and one of the cultists stepped forward and struck Josiah in the chest with an axe a few times, killing him instantly. 

“Give the woman rest,” Knoth ordered, and Mary let out a choked gasp before dying as she was stretched one more time, and Knoth, along with the cultists he came with, left. The room fell silent, the only sound being the dripping of blood from Josiah's body.

“The mines. Where the fuck are the mines?” Blake wondered the second he heard the door squeak shut, and he left the confessional, staring sadly and disgustedly at the bodies of Josiah and Mary.

They alway…hurt women to punish men. It’s sick. It’s cowardly, Blake thought, and he left the chapel to begin his search for the mines. But his journey wasn’t meant to be peaceful because Blake was chased by cultists the second he stepped out of the chapel. Blake eventually managed to lose them by vaulting over a barrier and squeezing through a fence. 

Blake entered the nearest house and practically wilted when he noticed that it was a nursery of some sort, filled with empty cribs, and only a single female cultist, who was singing a lullaby, was present. Deeply unnerved by what he saw, Blake quickly skirted around the townsperson and left the nursery by jumping out of a window and landing right in front of a cornfield.

Blake quickly and quietly entered the cornfield and started making his way through it. Somehow, Blake got out of the cornfield without attracting attention to himself and entered a nearby shed, shutting and locking the door behind him. Blake entered the next room and sighed deeply when he saw the large wheel moving right in front of where he wanted to go.

“There’s gotta be a way to stop that wheel,” Blake muttered lowly, and started searching. A few minutes later, Blake found a crank, put it where it needed to be, and cranked it, hopefully stopping the wheel.

“That should do the trick,” Blake said, going back to check the wheel.

Thankfully, the wheel stopped so Blake could go where he wanted to go, but he had attracted the attention of his pursuers in the process but ended up losing them by sliding down a small hill, and Blake heard something about him being Marta’s piece. As he quickly and quietly approached a stable, Blake noticed the locked gate.

“I could fit through if I could get that gate open,” Blake mused and went to have closer look at it, frowning when he noticed that it was missing a hook.

“A door. But the chain’s broken. Maybe there’s…Something I could use,” Blake said softly, and he started searching for the hook. Almost immediately, Blake heard raspy whispering and wanted to groan in annoyance.

“Jesus. Don’t you ever quit?” Blake wondered softly and started looking for an alternative route, which he managed to do. A minute later, Blake entered a slaughterhouse and couldn't help but retch and gag at all the hanging meat in the center. 

Meat hung to cure, hooks through their Achilles’ tendons, Blake thought in disgust as he walked around the meat.

“Ugh…Jesus. Should’ve prayed for refrigeration,” Blake mumbled as he entered the adjoining room, grinning hopefully when he saw the hook that he needed. Blake yanked on a nearby chain a couple of times and grabbed the hook when it got close enough. Blake swallowed heavily when he heard Marta nearby, and he quickly made his way back to the locked gate.

Blake quickly unlocked the gate and scrambled through, yelping when he felt Marta grab his ankle and tug him towards her. Blake quickly grabbed onto the gate and promptly kicked her right in the face as hard as he could, making her howl in anger and pain, and Blake scrambled back and away from the gate just as said gate closed, seperating them.

“Okay. Fuck. Keep moving,” Blake said, following the trail in front of him. 

Chapter Text

Once he reached the top of a small hill, Blake saw something that made him extremely hopeful. A wooden sign that filled his chest with hope. 

“That’s the mine. Where the…Heretics, or…That’s where they’ve got Lynn,” Blake said, and he continued walking.

As Blake walked up a few flights of stairs, he noticed a small house and went to try the door, only to find that there was no doorknob. Looking up, he noticed a gap big enough for him to fit through, so he heaved himself up and over. 

When he landed on the other side, he found himself back in school, standing in front of a hangman’s drawing, surrounded by Jessica’s name in different sizes, and Blake felt confusion wash through him.

“Wait. Wait. This is before I found her hanging. Wake up. Wake up. I’m still here,” Blake said, staring at the hangman in surprise and fear.

After a moment’s hesitation, Blake went down the hallway on his left, jumping slightly when a bunch of lockers quickly opened and shut, but he walked on. Blake saw a light ahead and walked towards it, which led him to a classroom with a turned-on projector aimed at the chalkboard but in the wrong position. Then Blake noticed a hangman game in progress on the smartboard.

“The hangman game. Like Lynn and Jess used to play. The other half of this must be somewhere. Jessica would have left a hangman somewhere for Lynn to find,” Blake murmured in realization and left the classroom to go find it. After a few minutes of mindless searching, Blake entered a classroom and spotted the hangman he was looking for.

“Thank you, Blake. Very…Very generous of you,” a man breathed sinisterly, and Blake ignored the voice as he quickly picked up the hangman, went back to the classroom that had the projector, placed the hangman in the correct spot, and lined up the projector with the smartboard.

“‘Unforgivable.’…Sounds about right,” Blake murmured and left the classroom.

When Blake went down a different hallway, a sinister chuckle floated through the air, and the lockers started randomly opening and closing. Suddenly, a demon-like figure lunged at Blake, who yelped and found himself on his knees at the end of the hallway.

Blake got to his feet with a groan of pain, and made his way to a small office that seemed to double as a storage closet and jumped when the metal grate on the ceiling fell to the floor with a loud clang. Blake then moved a cart over so it sat under the hole in the ceiling, climbed onto the cart, and went up into a ventilation shaft.

“I’m back here. What the fuck?…I was just here,” Blake muttered, confused, as he crawled forward. Suddenly, Blake felt something grab his ankle, and when he looked back, it was the same long tongue that pulled him into the well. Blake let out a loud yell of fright, and tugged himself free.

When Blake turned back around, he noticed that he was back in the Arizona desert, crawling through a small tunnel. Blake scrambled out of the tunnel, and spotted something in the distance. Once Blake realized what it was, he wanted to laugh in relief. He had found a rickety, wooden bridge leading to the mines.

The mines. This leads to the mines. Where the others took Lynn, Blake thought, feeling giddy at the prospect of getting closer to saving Lynn. After sliding down a small hill and shuffling across a small ledge, Blake arrived at the wooden bridge, trying his best to ignore the moans of pain that echoed through the air.

As he cautiously stepped onto the bridge, he couldn't help but notice its unstable structure, causing his heart to race with each creaking plank beneath his feet. 

"Ah, Christ…It’s not that far. This isn’t so bad…" Blake said despairingly, and after steeling himself, he started slowly walking across the bridge.

“What in…?” Blake asked in confusion when a loud buzz filled the air. Suddenly, locusts filled the air and flew right at Blake, who started spluttering, and the bridge started shaking violently.

I don’t know how many of them got into my mouth. My skin wouldn’t stop itching. They were trying to lift me up, Blake thought as he quickly spat out a locust. 

“SHIT!” Blake yelled, and started swatting at the locusts, but ended up losing his balance and falling off the bridge with a loud scream, slamming into the trees with a loud grunt below a second later. Blake’s vision went dark for a moment but cleared a second later, and Blake noticed that he was hanging upside down in a tree and his camera was a few feet away in a different tree.

“Were they locusts or were they not?” A nearby voice demanded irritably.

“Laird. Your grace. It was a shadow in the sky. But I-I ain’t rightly sure,” a slurring, muffled voice replied nervously.

“God loves his children, ugh,” a third voice gumbled lowly, and Blake could hear a wet, squelching sound accompany a crawling man, who seemed desperate to get away from something.

“I’m sorry, your grace, I’m sorry, I’m…” the man pleaded, but his apologies were cut short when a flaming arrow suddenly sprouted from his neck, and the man instantly crumpled to the ground, dead, followed by heavy footsteps. 

Blake’s eyes widened when the archer appeared out of the shadows carrying a lantern-style flashlight and gazed down at the dead body.

“Sorry,” the third voice said, sounding somewhat apologetic.

“His suffering is done. Knoth’s words are true…Momentous times are upon us,” the first voice said as the archer walked off. Is that one or two people? Blake wondered as the archer’s footsteps faded away. Blake wiggled around for a moment and dropped to the ground with a loud grunt. Blake stood up, picked up his camera, and brushed himself off.

“Guess I’m taking the long way,” Blake muttered, and he started following a nearby creek. 

Eventually, after a few minutes of following the creek, Blake came across a wire fence with a couple of warning signs on it.

“Ugh…Fuck! There’s gotta be…Some other way around,” Blake muttered in slight revulsion.

“Sickness here; God bless.” These people were rotting even before they were murdered, Blake thought in realization and forced himself to continue onwards. Blake quickly found another way around, and just as quickly realized that he had come across a camp of some sort, full of some seriously sick people.

As he quickly walked through the camp, Blake recognized the sores and rashes on their bodies as syphilis and gonorrhea, and felt nothing but pity for them. He could practically smell the stench of unwashed bodies and hear the hacking coughs echoing through the tents, a stark indication of the harsh conditions they were living in. Blake felt the need to vomit as he witnessed the suffering of the inhabitants. Suddenly, one man grabbed him and threw up on him, making Blake yell in surprise and disgust before letting him go and walking off.

“Agh! God, fuck!” Blake said, swallowing down his own need to vomit and moving through the camp quickly.

Blake hurriedly wiped the vomit off himself and made a mental note to be more cautious as he navigated through the camp. Despite the unpleasant encounter, he couldn't help but feel a sense of compassion for these afflicted individuals. Blake tried his best to keep his distance from the sick individuals, but he couldn't shake off the feeling of guilt for not being able to do more to help them. He knew that he needed to focus on his own survival first and foremost, but the sight of suffering still weighed heavily on his conscience.

After a few minutes, Blake approached a locked gate just in time to see the archer shoot a guy with a flaming arrow.

“…Oh, God…” Blake gasped, realizing that it was two people—a short man riding on the back of a much larger man.

“I see you again today; I’ll pull them eyes from your head and squeeze what they seen out of them,” the small man threatened as the duo walked off.

I didn’t even know what I was looking at. Some kind of deformed toddler, Blake thought, and he walked away from the fence. A few minutes later, after Blake had gotten to some higher ground, he went to pull himself over a ledge but received a punch to the face instead and tumbled to the ground below. Blake now found himself in a lower part of the camp. Suddenly, someone spoke in an awed voice.

“Praise God and his Prophet, Knoth. We have found the Scalled Christ,” the little man said, sounding ridiculously happy, and a flaming arrow flew past his face.

“OH, FUCK ME!” Blake yelled, turned on his heel, and ran.

“Stop him! Bring back our Messiah!” The little man yelled angrily, and Blake grunted when one of the Scalled lunged at him, but Blake forcefully pushed him off and booked it once again. Blake's feet pounded against the hard ground as he sprinted through the camp, his heart racing with fear. He knew he had to find a way out before it was too late. Tree branches and bushes whipped at his face as he ran, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Wind whistled against his face as he ran, and he could hear the angry but desperate shouts of the Scalled behind him growing louder. Blake's mind raced, trying to come up with a plan to escape the dangerous situation he found himself in.

“You worms. Your weakness infected our Messiah,” the little man yelled, now sounding more distant. Suddenly, up ahead, he spotted a narrow gap in a couple of cabins and made a split-second decision to dive through it.

Blake gasped softly, realizing that he was in a locker from his school a second later, gasping when he saw the man in front of the locker. A second later, the man walked off, and Blake stepped out of the locker just in time to see Jessica run into a classroom.

"This way, Blake,” Jessica urged, and Blake hurried after her.

“Jess, come back,” Blake called, frowning when a school bell rang and the voices of other children filled the air.

“We’re not alone here,” Jessica whispered as Blake turned down another hallway and saw her go into another classroom. Blake quickly followed her, only to frown when he didn’t see her, only seeing a lit-up computer.

Blake went over to the computer and noticed that there was an email on it about Jessica, so Blake quickly read it before leaving. When Blake stepped into a hallway, the lights started flickering, and the hallway started twisting of its own accord.

“What the fuck!” Blake exclaimed, and spotted Jessica at the end of the hallway. When Blake got halfway down the hallway, Jessica bolted.

“Don’t go,” Jessica pleaded, and Blake quickly followed her. As he quickly rushed after her, Blake’s thoughts wandered to the flash of bright white light that kept happening. There has to be some kind of scientific explaination behind it. It’s not the glory of God just shining down upon them, Blake thought to himself.

A few seconds later, creepy singing filled the air, and Blake resisted the urge to shiver as he hesitantly followed the singing. Blake rounded a corner and spied a stepping stool in front of a set of doors and stepped towards it, flinching when one of the ceiling tiles fell to the ground. Blake swallowed heavily, heaved himself into the hole in the ceiling.

Blake grunted in confusion when he realized that he was back in Arizona, crawling through a log. Blake crawled out of the log, and was immediately grabbed by a few of the Scalled, immediately making him struggle in a panic.

“NO! No-Get-Let go! Fuck! Get off me! Fuck-fuck off, goddamnit!” Blake yelled in a blind panic, his eyes widening when he saw the little man and his large friend appear.

“Give him to us! Let us have him!” The little man snapped, and the large man grabbed Blake, forcing him to look at the little man. Blake's heart raced as he tried to break free from the Scalled's grasp, his mind racing with fear and confusion. The little man's eyes bore into his, filled with malice and hunger, sending a shiver down Blake's spine. He knew he had to find a way to escape before it was too late.

“Oh, praise God and his prophet, Knoth. Praise God…Forgive me, Lord, but I have to be sure,” the little man said as he took an arrow out of his quiver and sliced his hand open. Blake's breath caught in his throat as he watched in horror, realizing the man's intentions were far more sinister than he had imagined. The metallic tang of blood filled the air, and Blake knew he was running out of time to save himself from whatever fate awaited him.

“Open his mouth, Nick,” the little man ordered, and Blake’s eyes widened even more. Nick? That’s the guy you’re riding on?! Blake wondered as Nick forced his mouth open, and the little man forced his blood into Blake’s mouth, forcing him to swallow it. Blake's mind raced with fear and confusion as he tried to comprehend the situation unfolding before him. The taste of blood lingered in his mouth, a chilling reminder of the danger he was now trapped in.

“Yes, swallow it. There you go. God, please, let him be the one…” the little man said imploringly as his hand retreated from Blake’s mouth. Blake gagged, and spat out the remaining bood in his mouth, and the little man looked absolutely awed.

“He is unmarked. He is pure. He is the Scalled Messiah!” The little man said joyously, and Blake groaned in pain when he felt someone bite his arm.

Blake looked to his right just in time to see the guy biting him get smacked in the face by Nick, forcing him to let go of Blake. Nick's quick reaction saved Blake from further harm, but the little man's words about the Scalled Messiah echoed in his mind, leaving him with a sense of foreboding. As he struggled to comprehend the situation, Blake knew that things were only going to get more dangerous from here on out.

"You halfwit dog’s cunt. He ain’t been transsubstantiated yet. He ain’t been…reborn. First, we gotta get him on that cross. Get my hammer and nails; let’s get him up on that hill,” the little man ordered, and Nick punched Blake in the face, dazed him, and started dragging him. As Blake started to struggle against Nick's grip, he realized the gravity of the situation—he was being forced into a role he never asked for. The little man's twisted version of salvation was far from what Blake had ever imagined.

Blake continued to struggle against Nick's grip, his heart pounding in fear as he realized the gravity of the situation. The little man's words echoed in his mind, sending a chill down his spine as he was dragged towards the ominous hill.

“He will come born on locusts’ wings, immaculate as a newborn. He will give us his gospel, the sacred words of His teaching. He will be nailed to a cross and die, and he will be buried. But he will rise again in more perfect flesh. We will eat of that flesh in holy communion and be healed of our physical sins. And we shall inherit this broken earth,” the little man rambled cheerfully, then stopped, dropping Blake and gesturing at the cross they’d prepared. The little man's eyes gleamed with a fanatical fervor as he spoke, his words resonating with an unsettling intensity.

“You see, we prepared everything. It’s all ready for you,” the little man said earnestly, and Nick picked up Blake and gently placed him on the cross.

“…What?…Don’t do this. Please,” Blake begged helplessly but was ignored.

“Lord. What I mean is—where is your gospel? You’re supposed to have a gospel for us. To guide us in our salvation after the end,” the little man said urgently, and Blake stared at him in confusion.

“G-Gospel?” Blake asked weakly, and the little man nodded jerkily. The surrounding Scalled members grabbed Blake’s arms and placed them on either side of him. 

"The truth. Your guidance. We suffered a long time waiting on you," the little guy said before patting Nick on the shoulder.

"Well, Old Nick. I guess we better put those nails in," the little man said carelessly, and Blake began to struggle.

“Wait! Wait…Wait,” Blake begged as Nick placed a nail in the center of his hand and brought the hammer down. Blake screamed in pain, his vision going dark, and could only watch as Nick hammered in another nail, making him scream again, and Nick stepped back.

“Good. Good. That wasn’t so bad, was it? What’s this?” The little man asked as he looked at the ground with curiosity, eagerly pointed at it.

“Nick, hand me that! Is that a camera? A record?” The little man asked urgently as Nick picked up Blake’s camera and handed it to the little man.

“Of course. How could I not see it? A modern Christ would use a camera, not a book. This is our gospel. How could I not have known? Lord, please forgive me for doubting you. There is no suffering I do not deserve. I am a worm, a festering wound, a…a…I must…I must study His lessons. Drive the other nail in and hang him up,” the little man ordered with a small gesture, and Blake panicked.

“No. NO!” Blake yelled, and screamed in pain as his other hand got nailed to the cross. The next thing Blake knew, the little man and Nick vanished, and the cross was propped upright. A second later, Blake promptly passed out. 

It was dark.

It was cold.

Where was he?

He didn't know where is was.

Lynn?

Lynn, where are you?

I can't see you.

Emotions swept through him.

Determination.

Terror. 

Dread.

Anxiety.

Rage.

Hold on, Lynn.

I'm coming.

With a deep, but shaky, inhale, Blake woke up, and looked at both of his hands. Blake grimaced as he looked at both of his hands, and, after bracing himself followed by a few grunts, got his right hand free and got his left hand free a second later, sending him to the ground in a heap of pain. He winced as he struggled to sit up, feeling a sharp pain shoot through his body. After taking a moment to catch his breath, Blake slowly stood up and assessed the situation around him.

Blake slowly got to his feet, gasping for breath, and stared at the gaping holes in the center of his hands. He was going to need quite a lot of bandages for this, and he was going to need to get his camera back.

As he stumbled to his feet, he noticed the blood dripping from his hands onto the ground, leaving a trail behind him. The pain was excruciating, but he knew he had to push through in order to find his camera and get the evidence he needed.

He clenched his fists, ignoring the searing pain, and began to search the area for any sign of his precious camera. Despite the agony, determination fueled his every step as he refused to let this setback defeat him.

“Oh, God. Fuck. God. Fuck. Stop the bleeding. Gotta…” Blake muttered, and stumbled off towards a nearby camp, hoping to find bandages. Blake felt relief surge through him as he spotted some bandages and picked them up.

“Shit shit shit shit shit, oh, shit…Fuck. Fuck me. Oh, fuck, that hurts,” Blake whispered, pained, as he bandaged his hands.

Now, the only thing left he had to do was find his camera, and he quickly left the camp. Once Blake got to some higher ground, he could see the cross he was hanging on, and he could see that the Scalled had noticed that he wasn’t there anymore, so he quickened his pace. Blake saw the beam of a flashlight sweep across the ground in front of him, so he quickly ducked behind a nearby tree to avoid being seen. He knew he had to be cautious and move stealthily if he wanted to escape the Scalled and find his camera before it was too late.

"Heavenly God, is that you?" A Scalled member called out from a distance, making Blake's heart race with fear. No, it's not God! Blake thought as he held his breath and waited for the right moment to make his next move, determined to outsmart his captors and make it out alive as well as hoping and praying that he wouldn't be discovered.

"You're supposed to die!" Another Scalled member yelled, sending chills down Blake's spine. Wh-God?!? Blake thought in confusion. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, Blake knew he had to act quickly and decisively to evade capture and survive this dangerous situation. He silently cursed himself for getting caught in this predicament, but he refused to give up without a fight.

“Hurt them! Break their ignorant skulls! How could you let our Savior escape? You whore’s miscarriage. You festering shits! Nobody gets saved! Nobody!” The little man yelled angrily in the distance, and Blake burst into a light jog, only to freeze when he saw the little man and Nick in front of him. Suddenly, Blake realized something. 

Wait, hold on. When I fell off the wooden bridge, the man that got shot called the little man Laird. So I’m guessing the little man’s name is Laird. Okay, then, let’s avoid Laird and Nick at all costs, Blake thought, and nodded his head grimly.

“…There is no salvation outside the Way of Sorrows. It is the only way. Ah-The gospels. He will try to receive his gospels. Out of my way!” Laird shouted as Nick’s heavy footsteps faded away. Blake walked forward a few steps, and stiffened when he saw Laird and Nick ahead of him.

Blake looked around, spotted a fallen tree leaning against some rocks, and ran over to them. Blake crossed the tree, thanking whatever god that was out there that Laird and Nick didn’t see him, and dropped into a small lake below, narrowly avoiding Laird and Nick’s sight by ducking underwater. 

“Do you need to make water, Nick? I can hum if you’re feeling bashful. We hear all the voices…Come on. Our Messiah is waiting for us. I’ll hurt you if I must, Nick…Let’s go,” Laird said threateningly, his voice sounding muffled, and left, Blake resurfacing with a gasp a second later.

Blake trudged out of the lake, not entirely happy that he was soaking wet, entered a nearby house, and sighed in relief when he saw his camera sitting on a table.

“Goddamn vultures…How many corpses did you pick over…?” Blake muttered spitefully as he picked up his camera. 

When he looked up, he found himself back at school, much to his utter confusion.

"I keep coming back earlier. What the fuck?!” Blake demanded, and picked up an unfinished hangman game that obviously spelled out ‘Don’t Let Me Go’. Blake put the game down, and left with a tired sigh. As Blake roamed the halls, a loud ringing caught his attention, making him stop and listen.

“Is that a…phone?” Blake asked in confusion, and followed the noise to an empty office. Suddenly, a demon-like person walked out of a room, and glared at Blake with a hissing shriek.

The demon was nude, coated from head to toe in blood, was lipless, jawless, noseless, had multiple limbs, and had a long, pulsating tongue. Blake immediately turned around and ran off, intending on looking for a place to hide.

Blake stopped in the room he started in, and hid behind one of the tables in the room. When the demon didn’t appear, Blake stood up and slowly made his way back to the office with the ringing phone. Once he arrived, Blake cautiously picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

“Hello! Hello, oh, thank God, you’re alive. I need you to stay calm. We’re going to get you help; we’ll get you out of there. I want you to find a place to hide, someplace safe where you can remember the taste of her kiss when you felt her neck break, you diseased cocksucker,” the man on the other end said, calmly at first, then viciously, and the demon’s tongue came out through the receiver and wrapped around Blake’s throat.

Blake wrenched the tongue off with a shout, and promptly dropped the receiver on the desk when the tongue went back into it. Blake quickly left the office, and ran into the demon again, causing him to run. 

“HE’S COMING!” Jessica screamed, and Blake watched her hide in a locker, making Blake copy her, causing his vision to go dark. 

When Blake's vision returned, Blake found himself in a closet in one of the houses, much to his utter confusion.

"What the FUCK?" Blake hissed before sighing and tilting his head back until it rested on the back wall of the closet, allowing himself to rest a bit and catch his breath. 

Hold on, Lynn. I'm coming.

Chapter Text

Once Blake caught his breath, he left the closet, went over to the table opposite of the closet, and picked up the note he had spotted. 

Laird

There is nothing so wretched among the afflicted as self-pity, and I trust you not to allow yourself satisfaction in such a womanly sin.

If the disciples I have entrusted you to lead are hungry, and in pain, and afraid, it's a  necessity of their physical sin and the will of God. 

I send to you all the food and wine God wants you to have, and no more,

I've had visions of this plague worsening, of all our suffering reaching a point at which none of us will be able to further endure.

So, rejoice!

Take comfort that we will so reach the center of this suffering and emerge into paradise everlasting. 

If you cannot control your people by your tongue, then do so by the fists of your mount. 

Papa loves you, God will deliver you,

Knoth

P.S.--

I've included a satchel of the salted crickets Nick so loves, please see that he gets them and knows they're a gift from me.

Blake hummed, a deep frown on his face as he set down the note, walked over to the door, and opened it.

"Oh, Papa Knoth. You're such a big ol' softie. So kind to your congre-AYYYYYYEEE!" Blake squawked loudly when a flaming arrow pierced the doorframe right next to his face.

Blake fled the house and into the woods, hoping to avoid them there. Nick and Laird had certainly found him quickly. Blake stumbled around in the dark, using the night vision on his camera to navigate through the dark woods, trying to put as much distance between himself and his pursuers as possible. The sound of footsteps behind him only fueled his adrenaline, pushing him to keep running deeper into the unfamiliar terrain.

Suddenly remembering that his camera had a microphone, Blake activated it, now having a good idea where Nick and Laird were. He listened carefully, trying to pinpoint their location based on the sound of their voices and footsteps, hoping to outsmart them and escape their pursuit. Blake took his sweet time, making sure to stay quiet and avoid any twigs or branches that could give away his position. As he continued to listen and move stealthily, he felt a surge of determination to outwit his pursuers and make it out of the woods safely, ignoring how Laird kept calling him 'Messiah'.

After a few long agonizing minutes of avoiding Laird and Nick, Blake spotted a ledge he could shimmy across and ran towards it. Unfortunately, Laird and Nick spotted him at the same time.

“There you are, Lord. Messiah!” Laird yelled and shot a flaming arrow at him, narrowly missing him as he made it to the ledge and started shimmying across, narrowly avoiding a flaming arrow to the face. Blake's heart raced as he focused on reaching the other side, knowing that any misstep could result in a fatal fall. The adrenaline fueled his determination to escape, pushing him to move faster despite the danger lurking behind him.

Blake successfully made it to the other side, noticed a large fallen tree trunk, and started to cross it before he lost his nerve. Blake got to the other side and booked it, avoiding the flaming arrows that were being shot at him, and got to higher ground. Blake felt a flaming arrow whistle past his ear, and he immediately dove for cover behind a boulder, feeling the heat of the flames licking at his back.

"Ah! Goddamnit! Goddamn you! Fine! You wanna be like that, you sacks of shit?!?" Blake hissed, his anger boiling over as he realized the severity of the situation. He knew he had to keep moving if he wanted to survive this deadly game of cat and mouse, so he quickly scanned his surroundings for a safer path to escape. The adrenaline rush was still coursing through his veins, giving him the strength and focus he needed to navigate the treacherous terrain and evade the attackers.

Okay. This guy’s a really good shot, Blake thought as he dropped down a small ledge, landing somewhat hard on his feet. Blake didn’t waste any time and ran, ending up sliding down a hill and slamming right into a barbed wire fence, getting tangled in it. The sharp pain shot through his body, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through, determined to break free and continue on. Blake grunted in pain as he struggled to get himself loose and panicked when he saw Laird and Nick approach.

“We have you. It’s okay. Shhhh. We have you,” Laird said soothingly as Nick tugged him free, tossed him into a wooden coffin, and shut the lid. 

“The Gospel isn’t done yet. You will record your own resurrection. You will complete your Gospel. Yes. Yes, we will return him to the Way of Sorrows. His tomb is waiting. Take him. And when he rises, we all will have our communion,” Laird declared giddly. Blake started hyperventilating in a blind panic as Nick dragged the coffin to a site a few yards away and started slowly shoveling dirt onto the coffin. 

“Don’t…Please, don’t! Please, don’t! Please…Oh, you crazy motherfuckers! Oh, God…” Blake rasped brokenly, his breath continuing in short, panicked bursts. His voice cracked with fear as he pleaded for mercy, his body trembling uncontrollably. The sound of his own heartbeat echoed in his ears, drowning out any hope of escape. Tears streamed down his face as he realized there was no way out of this nightmare.

The darkness of the grave enveloped him, suffocating any last shred of hope he had left. As the dirt piled higher and higher, Blake's screams were muffled, his pleas for mercy falling on deaf ears. The horror of his situation sank in as he realized he was truly buried alive. Blake could feel the weight of the coffin pressing down on him, the air growing thinner with each passing moment. The panic set in as he struggled against the confines of his tomb, knowing that time was running out. Desperation consumed him as he frantically clawed at the wooden walls, praying for a miracle to save him from his impending fate.

When he was sure that he heard Laird and Nick leave and he had calmed down enough, Blake placed both hands on the coffin lid and pushed as hard as he could, the lid flying open a second later with dirt going everywhere. Blake heaved himself out of the coffin and collapsed on the ground next to it, gulping in deep breaths of air. Once Blake calmed down, he stood up, wiped his eyes, and stared at the fence he crashed into.

Pieces of my skin stuck in the barbs. It was too late to hold her up. And I was just a kid. I was just…, Blake thought as he looked for a way out. After searching for a few minutes, he found a gate and crawled under it, only to be met with a body hanging from a noose. 

She hanged herself before I could stop her. Or she didn’t; no…wait. Not her…He…Fuck, Blake thought, shook his head rapidly, and moved on. Blake slid down a small hill and felt a surge of relief when he saw a large building in the distance.

“The mine. That’s gotta be it. How the fuck do I get down there?” Blake wondered and looked around before noticing a small shed with an open window.

Blake walked over to it, noticed the gap seperating him from going into the house, backed up a few feet, ran, and jumped, successfully grabbing onto the window ledge and pulling himself inside. Blake looked around and noticed a pulley without a rope. 

“Shit. I can’t…A rope. I just need a rope,” Blake muttered to himself, knowing what he had to do. Blake heaved himself out of the opposite window in the shed and dropped to the ground on the other, his gaze immediately drawn to a shadowed figure who was staring at him.

“Messiah. The miracle…The Host is ready,” the man said delightedly and ran off to God knows where, much to Blake’s confusion and annoyance.

“You don’t actually have to tell anybody that I’m here; that’s not okay,” Blake muttered under his breath, scowling in annoyance. After a moment, Blake shrugged and went to find the rope he needed to use. After a few minutes of avoiding the Scalled, Blake finally pulled the rope he needed off a dead body and swallowed heavily. 

“Thanks,” Blake said shakily, and he turned to make his way back to the shed, only to duck out of the way of an incoming flaming arrow.

Blake took off towards the shed as quickly as he could.

“Stop him, you festering shits! Don’t let him escape! That is our Messiah! Our hope! Our glory! You worthless, wretched cunts. You’ve wasted salvation. There will be no paradise. No glory. Your weakness has damned us all. I tried to guide you, but you were all too stupid, too vain. You deserve your sores. You deserve the hell you’ll get,” Laird screamed beratingly just as Blake heaved himself back into the shed, Laird and Nick arriving seconds later.

As Laird and Nick tried to bash the door down, Blake put the rope on the pulley and started lowering himself down, clutching the rope tightly so he wouldn’t fall and ignoring the sounds of the door breaking.

Blake gasped when he felt the rope being suddenly yanked and looked up to see Laird and Nick struggling against their own lackeys. Laird and Nick both let out a scream when they were pushed and fell towards Blake, who let out a scream of his own, and all three dropped to the ground, causing the wooden boards below to break under their combined weight.

The fall was abrupt and disorienting, leaving Blake stunned and struggling to catch his breath as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. As he looked around, he realized Laird and Nick were oddly quiet.

Blake groaned in pain, and stiffened in fright when he saw Laird and Nick in front of him, unmoving. Blake was waiting for them to move, but when they didn’t, Blake sagged in relief at the fact that they were dead and he didn’t have to worry about them anymore.

My dad died within a month of my mom. He was perfectly healthy until she was gone, and then…, Blake thought as he crawled forward. When Blake reached a trap door, he quickly opened it.

When Blake straightened up, he noticed that he was at his old school, as well as noticing he was outside and it was still snowing heavily.

“The roof. Maybe I could…” Blake muttered thoughtfully and searched for a way inside.

After a minute of following a set of footsteps, Blake made it back into the school, encountered the demon again, and went back outside to escape him. Blake then went down into the basement and came out into the cafeteria.

“You’re not alone here. Come here. Quick,” Jessica whispered, and Blake could faintly see her silhouette a few feet away.

“Jessica! Jess! Hey!” Blake called and started blindly walking forward, quickly following Jessica’s voice.

“The day is done; O God the Son…Look down upon thy little one…O Light of light, Keep me this night…” Jessica prayed, and Blake became worried.

“Jessica, can you hear me?” Blake called out again, but Jessica continued to pray.

“And shed around me Thy presence bright…I need not fear if Thou art near…Thou art my Saviour, kind and dear. Quick!” Jessica urged and repeated the prayer.

“Jess, are you there?” Blake asked worriedly, but received no answer.

Suddenly, a bright light lit up the room, and Blake jumped when he saw Jessica’s body hanging from a noose directly in front of him, and the room darkened as Jessica screamed. 

And once again, Blake found himself back in Arizona, near a lake.

“A lake. Get to the other side of the lake,” Blake muttered, walking towards the lake. As he approached the lake, he saw someone walk straight into the water and not resurface.

“Okay. I’m not putting a fucking toe in that water. There’s something wrong. That lake is wrong,” Blake muttered darkly and shivered in disgust when he saw five corpses buried up to their necks next to some pikes on the shore. Blake swallowed back the urge to vomit as he stared at the gruesome scene before him, feeling a chill run down his spine. Blake knew that to get to the other side of the lake, he'd have to cross it, despite his growing sense of unease.

The lake smelled like…chemicals and dead things, Blake thought, and he started searching for a raft of some kind. As he climbed a flight of stairs, Blake could see towers in the distance, illuminated for a brief second by a bright, white light and a loud horn.

“What the fuck?” Blake asked in confusion as he stared at the towers for a moment.

A tower. A radio tower or a microwave relay. Civilization, maybe. For a second, I was dumb enough to think I might not die, Blake thought, and he walked up the rest of the stairs. As Blake arrived at the second part of the lake, he noticed a sign that spelled ‘HELP’ written on the sand with large logs.

“Help”. Help wasn’t coming, Blake thought before he spied the very thing he was looking for.

“A raft. That could get me acoss,” Blake murmured, hurried over to it, and boarded it. He grabbed the oar and began paddling across the swiftly moving river, determined to reach the other side before time ran out.

Chapter Text

Blake shoved off by using the oar, and started rowing toward the mines. Suddenly, a long tongue erupted out of the water before diving back down, and the bright, white light that illuminated the towers flashed in the air, and all the fish that were in the lake rose to the surface, belly up.

I wasn’t surprised they were dead. I was impressed they’d ever even lived in all that poison, Blake thought as he rowed through hundreds of dead fish.

“These are signs. The apocalypse. I hope to God I’m just losing my shit,” Blake said fearfully.

The white light flashed again, making a huge wave rise and crash over Blake, knocking him off the raft and submerging him underwater. Blake quickly swam to the surface and over to the raft, and he continued rowing after he heaved himself back on it. Blake quickly rowed towards the rapids, hoping the current would take him closer to the mines, but quickly got himself stuck on a rock. 

“Agh! Miserable excuse for a boat! Come on…Come on…Ah, shit! Fuck, come on! Just…Ah, shit!” Blake muttered bitterly, and started dislodging it from the rock, quickening his jabs on the rock when he saw people approach. Finally dislodging the raft, Blake quickly rowed away from the approaching people, and Blake finally realized who they were once he looked around. 

“Those were the ones. They took Lynn. I’m close. I’m almost there, Lynn. The cult wants her dead. Those good Christians. Because God said she has to die. But the others. The Heretics, they want her to have the baby. To spite God. What’ll they do when there’s no baby? I have to…Jesus. Lynn. I’m coming,” Blake promised and rowed faster down the rapids. A minute later, Blake couldn’t help but watch as a burning body fell into the water. 

“God…” Blake muttered, finally noticing that there were multiple dead bodies in the water.

Bodies so thick, I could have walked across the water on their backs. It’s almost funny…That’s how you walk on water, Blake thought as he let the current take him away. Suddenly, the raft slammed into a rock, sending Blake into the water with a loud grunt. The quick current sucked him underwater before vomiting him onto a small shore, and Blake stumbled to his feet, feeling panicked.

“Shit. Shit, the raft! Please, still be there…” Blake begged and decided to get to some higher ground so he could search for the raft. Once he did so, Blake looked around, feeling relieved when he spotted the raft. 

“There. The raft. If I could just…get across,” Blake muttered thoughtfully, and quickly shimmied across a nearby ledge. Once on the other side, Blake gaped at the skinned corpses impaled and strung up on pikes.

“Motherfucking no,” Blake said, swallowing back the bile that rose in his throat.

Killed as a warning. Or a welcome. We’re all welcomed eventually, Blake thought, and he moved towards a large tree that looked like it could be knocked over. Blake placed both hands on it and shoved with all his might, and the tree fell over with a loud crash, making a bridge to the other side. 

Blake crossed to the other side before he quickly rushed down to the raft, boarded it, and pushed off. As Blake rowed down the current, he noticed people running along the side of the river and, a second later, started throwing rocks at him.

The first two missed him, but the third one struck home by breaking a part of the raft, making Blake yelp and clutch onto the raft for a moment before the raft steadied itself. When Blake looked up, he noticed his location. 

“There’s the mine. Lynn. What are they doing to her? They think she’s somebody’s mother. Called me the father. But I’m not…we haven’t in months. I couldn’t be,” Blake said, feeling slightly confused.

Suddenly, something knocked Blake off the raft with a loud, cackling laugh. Blake caught himself before he was submerged underwater and looked around, noticing that he was surrounded by the people who took Lynn. Blake spied a ladder, and immediately swam towards it, but was pulled underwater by a long tongue. 

When Blake resurfaced, he noticed that he was in the pool at school and immediately noticed that the demon from before was there with him. Blake quickly swam to the side of the pool, heaved himself out, and looked at the pool to see how close the demon was, but the demon had vanished.

Blake heard the shower running, followed the noise to one of the bathrooms, and couldn’t help but stare at the showering blood. A loud thud caught his attention, and Blake stared at the stall where it was coming from, and slowly approached it.

Blake gripped the handle, and quickly opened the door, staring openly at the blood coming from the toilet. The metallic smell of blood filled the small bathroom, making Blake's stomach churn. He felt a sense of dread creep up his spine as he swallowed hard, trying to suppress the rising panic.

“HE’S COMING!” Jessica yelled and screamed, with Blake taking that as his cue to leave and going into the other bathroom, out the exit, up the stairs, and into a hallway, where the demon appeared again.

Blake ran down the hallway, and when he went to open a door, he was flung back a few feet as the demon appeared in the doorway.

“AH! WHAT THE FUCK!?” Blake yelled as the demon slammed the door shut and disappeared.

“ Motherfucker. God…” Blake muttered under his breath as he walked down the hallway. The second he turned a corner, the sprinklers went off, spraying blood instead of water.

“ Fuck. Okay…” Blake muttered, blinking rapidly. 

“Help me! Blake! Blake! No! No!…GET AWAY FROM ME!” Jessica pleaded loudly, and Blake ran down the hall, following her voice in hopes of finding her, but entered a storage closet instead.

“Just leave me alone…Leave me alone…Please,” Jessica begged softly as Blake climbed a ladder. As Blake quickly climbed, the ladder eventually switched from metal to wood.

When Blake climbed through a trap door, he noticed that he was back in Arizona, now in a shed in the mines. Noticing that it looked red outside, Blake frowned in confusion and went outside, only to gape in shock over the fact that it was raining blood.

Raining blood. I believe it was dripping off her shoes. No. Just…I tried not to step in the blood because I didn't want to leave tracks, Blake thought as he followed the path in front of him in hopes of finding an elevator that could take him down into themines, freezing when he heard a ghostly whisper, a whisper he couldn’t make out.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he strained to listen, his heart pounding in his chest. Suddenly, a cold chill ran down his spine, causing him to shiver involuntarily.

Eventually, Blake entered another shed, and started looking around. Hearing footsteps above him, Blake moved carefully in hopes of not attracting anybody’s attention, trying to ignore the rasping breathing and the rattling chains. When Blake walked up a staircase and further into the mining shed, he was tackled by a cultist covered in blood.

“Fuck!” Blake swore as he landed hard on his back, the cultist on top of him.

“RAH! We tried…We tried to get her back. Before the Enemy cracks her womb. But they…” the cultist said, his voice choked up, and Blake’s eyes widened slightly, and he pushed lightly on the cultist’s chest.

“Wait, Lynn?!…Have you seen her?” Blake asked desperately, breathing heavily.

“They killed us. The lucky ones they killed. Get out…We have to leave; we have to go!!" The cultist said as he got off Blake, not answering his question about Lynn, and ran off. Blake got to his feet, irritated that he didn’t get an answer, before he moved forward through a gap ahead of him. 

When he got to the other side of the gap, he nearly groaned when he saw that he was in the library at his old school. As Blake traversed throughout the library, he found an operating computer that had an open chat room on it, and he frowned when he instantly recognized his ‘BlakeAgainstTheMachine’ username and Jessica’s user name. Blake quickly read through the chat, and froze when Jessica’s message told him to turn around.

Blake hesitated for a moment, a bad feeling settling in his gut, and turned around, nearly screaming in fright when he saw Jessica’s body hanging from the ceiling before her body vanished into thin air. Breathing shakily, Blake moved on from the computer, traversing through the library once again. 

Suddenly, all the computers in the library started blinking on and off, nearly scaring Blake half to death. Finally moving on, Blake managed to leave the library and walk down the halls in search of the exit. As he walked, Blake could hear Jessica praying, and he saw, through a window, her walking around the edge of the school pool before she vanished from sight.

Blake moved through the hallways, pausing slightly when he saw a small Virgin Mary statue crying blood, before he stopped walking fully when he saw Jessica standing on the opposite side of a small hallway. 

“We’re not alone here,” Jessica whispered as Blake walked down the hallway toward her. 

Jessica quickly ran off, and Blake quickened his pace and followed her, only to turn on his heel and run back the way he came because the demon from before had appeared. Blake burst through a door and glanced behind him, almost sighing with relief when he didn’t see the demon behind him, but he didn’t want to take any chances and rushed down the halls, desperately looking for an exit.

Suddenly, a long tongue crashed through a window, wrapping itself around Blake’s waist, and dragged Blake through the window with it, Blake yelling in fright before he found himself submerged. 

Blake resurfaced, and got out of the water, quickly moving forward. Blake entered a mining shed by moving through a gap, but flinched when it crashed shut behind him, and he turned around just in time to see a Heretic covered head to toe in mud and sticks move out of sight, growling gibberish. Shaking his head, Blake faced forward again and moved on. 

I’m half expecting someone to pop around the corner and just yell, “Darling!” That would be something, Blake thought absently as he walked through the shed. Spotting a gap in the floor that he could crawl through, Blake went to do just that, but froze in terror when a Heretic landed lightly on their feet in front of them, their machete in hand, and growled angrily before moving towards him. 

Immediately, Blake shuffled backwards, and ran. Blake quickly hid, and waited for a chance to run. When he got the chance, Blake booked it as quickly as he could, through the shed and up some stairs.

Finally, Blake squeezed through a gap and blocked it off just as another Heretic started slamming its shoulder against the window. Scrambling to his feet, Blake shoved a shelf that was blocking the other window out of his way and jumped out just as the bright, white light from earlier went off.

When Blake’s vision cleared, he found himself hanging from one of the school’s windows. Blake quickly strafed to the right and heaved himself inside when he spotted an open window. Blake left the classroom he had landed in and ran down the hallway, skidding to a stop when he found multiple copies of Jessica’s body hanging throughout the courtyard.

Rubbing his eyes, Blake moved on down the hallway. Suddenly, the hallway in front of Blake started to warp of its own accord, and blood started leaking down the wall as the little crucified Jesus that was hanging on the wall fell to the floor. 

Deciding to ignore that, Blake continued moving. A few minutes later, Blake was in the library again, trying to escape the demon. As he tried to make his way through the library, a shadowy figure of the demon ran at him, making Blake squawk in fright before continuing.

A couple of minutes later, the actual demon appeared, and Blake ran. When he turned a corner, he flinched in surprise when he saw Jessica’s hanging body.

“HE’S COMING!” Jessica screamed as her body disappeared. Blake ran down a hall and skidded to a halt when he saw the demon appear in an open doorway.

“ SHIT!” Blake yelled before turning on his heel and running back the way he came in.

“PLEASE, BLAKE!” Jessica screeched and screamed fearfully as Blake watched her run away. Blake squeezed his way between a wall and a bookshelf, only to be attacked. 

Seconds later, the Heretic who attacked let Blake go, and ran off. Blake got to his feet and shook himself off. “The mine entrance is usually on the top floor,” Blake mused to himself as he started his search. 

Chapter Text

Blake looked out a nearby window, and rolled his eyes in vague annoyance. 

"Still raining blood though, which is, you know, very confenient," Blake muttered, blinking when he registered what he just said. "Confenient, not convenient. I like consistency in my life." He chuckled to himself, shaking his head at his own slip of the tongue.

"At least the rain is consistent, even if it is blood," he added with a wry smile. Despite the odd circumstances, Blake couldn't help but find the dark humor in the situation. He shrugged, figuring he would just have to make the best of it.

As Blake carefully moved through the shed, he could see the shadows dancing on the walls and hear the loud grunting of nearby Heretics. Blake quickly moved a small platform over to a hole on an upper wall and used it to climb over to where he needed to go. Once he did so, Blake ran for his life, jumping over and crawling under obstacles as he evaded the Heretics persuing him.

The adrenaline pumped through his veins as he pushed himself to go faster, knowing that any misstep could mean his capture. Blake sped around a corner and did the one thing he didn’t want to do. He slipped on some blood and tumbled to the ground a few feet below, landing on Jessica’s broken body.

“Fuck!” Blake swore as he stared at Jessica’s bloody nose, her broken neck, and her lifeless eyes.

Movement from the corner of his eye got his attention, and he looked up and saw the demon standing at the top of the stairs. Blake let go of Jessica and ran, vaguely aware he was back in school. Blake ran down the halls, dove into an open bathroom, and hid in one of the stalls.

As he waited, Blake could hear a man singing, and he tensed, preparing to run. Suddenly, Blake got an idea, dropped to his stomach, and started crawling under the stalls, running off when he was far enough away. As he ran, Blake could hear the same man who was singing speak.

“You’re not evil, Blake. Just confused. You don’t have to hide. Let me help you,” the man said soothingly, but Blake didn’t believe him and continued running until he came to an empty classroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Once he noticed an open window, Blake ran over to it and climbed out of it.

Blake panted heavily, realizing he was back in Arizona. Blake shimmied over to the left and dropped onto the deck below. Trying his best not to slip, Blake ran up a set of stairs, shimmied across a ledge, and jumped to a platform on the other side, almost missing it before he heaved himself up and continued towards the mine.

Blake entered another shed and started looking around. Not seeing a noticeable path, Blake eyed a large shute before steeling himself and jumping down it, yelling the entire way. Landing in a heap at the bottom, Blake groaned and got to his feet, dusting himself off. 

Seconds later, Heretics landed in front of him, and Blake ran for his life, jumping over and crawling under when he needed to. Eventually, Blake made it to the top and slammed the door shut, locking it behind him. Blake spotted the mine elevator and nearly slumped with relief. Blake hurried over to it and twisted the lever, activating it.

“It’s coming,” Blake said softly, assuring himself. A few seconds later, the elevator arrived, and three Heretics got off. Immediately, the Heretics attacked him with loud, angry growls, but Blake somehow dodged every single one of them and managed to board the elevator, shut the gate, and activate it, taking him down into the mines. 

“I can still save her. Jess. I just…Lynn. Her name is Lynn,” Blake said, and he shook his head, not sure why he had said Jessica’s name first and not Lynn’s.

As the elevator descended, Blake’s mind raced with thoughts of Lynn and the urgency to rescue her from the clutches of the Heretics. Determined to find her, he pushed aside any lingering confusion about why Jessic’s name had slipped out first. 

Before Blake could even process it, the elevator paused for a moment before free-falling. Blake screamed as he was tossed every which way before the elevator paused once more. Blake froze and screamed again when it started falling again before it crashed to the bottom. 

Sensing the elevator was about to collapse and not wanting to take any chances, Blake scrambled out of the elevator and dove to the ground, hearing the elevator crash behind him. Blake got up and turned around, feeling despair wash through him at the sight of the ruined elevator.

Trapped. I was never going to get out. But now I know it. At least I’d be there with her, Blake thought before he trudged away from the elevator, desperate to get to Lynn. As Blake walked forward, he was mindful of his surroundings.

Ahead of him, he saw Heretics running somewhere, but they hadn’t seen him, something Blake was grateful for. Eventually, Blake could hear Lynn screaming in fear and pain. 

“Oh, shit! Lynn!” Blake rasped and quickened his pace, trying to follow her voice. When he got to the bottom of a ladder, he heard someone speak.

“You’re not evil, Blake. Just confused,” the man said, and a shadow version of the demon ran at him but disappeared before Blake could process it. As Blake traversed the corridors, he realized that he couldn’t hear Lynn anymore. Trying to stamp down his growing panic, Blake cautiously approached a bunch of wood, seeing a fire lit near it.

“Fuck. Okay…” Blake said as he stopped and stared at a skinned man tied to a bunch of wood.

They lived down here. No, not lived. I had to find Lynn. I hoped I hadn’t already, Blake thought, hopefully. 

Deciding to be very careful, Blake continued on, avoiding Heretics the entire time. Eventually, Blake came across a wall with skinned corpses adorning both sides, making him want to vomit.

Decorated with the dead. I checked faces, looking for Lynn. Looking for my own. For Jessica, Blake thought as he carefully avoided a nearby Heretic that was roaming around looking for him.

After what seemed like a small eternity of avoiding Heretics, Blake managed to get away from them and was able to shove a minecart out of his way so he could move on. As he walked forward, Blake heard a man speaking. 

“If you’ve done something, I want you to tell me,” the man said gently, but Blake ignored the voice, purely focused on saving Lynn.

The urgency of the situation pushed all other thoughts out of his mind, driving him to act quickly and decisively. The man's words lingered in the back of his mind, but they were drowned out by the sound of his own heartbeat.

“Find Lynn. Nothing matters but Lynn,” Blake reminded himself as he continued forward.

Blake made his way through the mines, trying to ignore the occasional crumbling of the caves around him, and as Blake went down a flight of stairs, he could very clearly hear a man singing right up until Blake went through a door where the singing trailed off abruptly. Blake dismissed the singing in favor of the sight in front of him.

In front of him was an arbor decorated with thorns, and it had two skeletons posed together in a sexual position, making Blake frown. Blake felt a shiver run down his spine as he realized the disturbing nature of the scene before him. He knew he was getting closer to finding Lynn, and he steeled himself to continue forward despite the unsettling sights in the mines.

Loving and hating God is the same thing. Like making and killing children is the same thing. She told me to meet her in the music room, Blake thought as he pressed forward. Blake eventually entered a large, open room and yelled in fright when he was immediately restrained by a couple of Heretics.

Ignoring the fanatic muttering of the Heretics on either side of him, Blake could see someone holding a lit torch approaching them. A second later, Blake recognized the person as Val, the Heretic leader that was described in the notes he had found in the town, and he struggled even harder. 

“What have you done to Lynn?! Where is she?!” Blake demanded as Val set the torch down.

“We are creatures of appetite. I want to feel your hunger. I want to see your true face. Your seed will burn this world,” Val crooned as she stroked Blake’s face, and the Heretics on either side of Blake repeated Val’s words.

“Where’s Lynn?!” Blake demanded again, his voice filled with desperation. He could feel the panic rising within him as Val’s words sent chills down his spine. Val didn’t answer him as she turned around, walked a few yards away, and crouched down.

“I welcome our infant Lord, naked, hiding nothing. I lay down this mask…I show my true face. Show me. Show me…your true face!” Val proclaimed serenely, placed something on her, and picked up a crown of some sort before straightening up. 

“Oh, God. You crazy motherfuckers. Where is she?!” Blake yelled desperately. Val walked back towards Blake, the crown now on her head and her entire face covered in mud and dirt, one eye showing.

Suddenly, the cavern shook, and the two Heretics that were restraining Blake got crushed to death by two large stones, making Blake want to laugh, but he pushed the feeling aside as he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.

“Help me make this right,” Val called, her voice echoing like a ghostly whisper. After running through the twisting tunnels of the mines, Blake made it to a small body of water and dove into it, trying to create as much distance between him and Val as he could.

“He has come. The fruit of your lust. Your child. Your father. The Christ we deserve. Watch,” Val rasped as Blake moved silently through the water. Nearby sparking caught Blake’s attention, and he moved towards it and frowned in thought. 

“Jesus, those wires are live. Where the fuck are they getting power from? There’s gotta be a way to shut it off,” Blake muttered and followed the wires, avoiding Val at all costs. Eventually, Blake turned off both generators and made it out of the body of water without getting caught.

Blake ran through the tunnels and let out a soft groan of realization when he saw that he was going to have to use a minecart to get where he needed to go.

“What did you do to her? You can’t keep a secret from yourself,” a man’s voice whispered, but Blake ignored it. After a few minutes, the minecart smashed through the boarded-up area, and the demon from the school appeared, accompanied by a loud ringing. Seconds later, the ringing and the demon vanished, and Blake pressed forward. 

Climbing down a ladder and dropping into a puddle of water seconds later with a surprised yelp, Blake found himself in a dimly lit underground tunnel. The air was heavy with the scent of dampness and mildew, making it difficult for Blake to see beyond a few feet ahead. As he cautiously made his way through the tunnel, the sound of dripping water echoed ominously, adding to the eerie atmosphere. 

“God doesn’t love you. Not like I do,” Val crooned, her voice echoing through the tunnel, and Blake shivered in disgust. 

When Blake passed by a small opening, Val dropped down, her torch in hand, and Blake dove into a small tunnel and started to crawl. The light of the torch on the walls and shuffling behind him told him that Val was following him, and he moved as quickly as he could.

Finally, Blake scrambled out of the tunnel and ended up falling into another small body of water. The cold water soaked through his clothes, sending a shiver down Blake’s spine.

He desperately looked around for an escape route, hoping to put some distance between himself and Val. As he waded through the waist-deep water, panic gripped him, realizing that his options were limited in this confined space. 

For the next few minutes, Blake waded around in the water like a chicken with its head cut off before he finally stumbled out of the water and raced up a nearby ladder, just glad to be away from Val. 

As he climbed up ladder after ladder, Blake could feel his desperation to get to Lynn. He knew that every second counted and that he had to reach Lynn before it was too late. The thought of losing her fueled his determination, pushing him to climb faster and ignore the exhaustion creeping into his muscles. Blake trudged forward, coming to the edge of a body of water that led to a large cavern.

Blake frowned when he saw Heretics happily celebrating something in the large cavern and glanced down, wondering if he should slide down there. Coming to a decision that he knew he would regret, Blake slid down and flinched in surprise when a Heretic appeared in front of him, blowing some kind of dust in his face. 

Chapter Text

Blake coughed as his vision blurred, and the Heretic took his camera, running off with it as Blake stumbled forward, feeling very panicked.

“Ah…Generous of you, Blake. Help me make this right. He has come. The fruit of your lust. Your child. Your father. The Christ we deserve. Watch,” Val crooned, her voice echoing again as Blake spotted Lynn hanging on a small dais.

“My God…Lynn!” Blake yelled, stumbling forward, his eyes widening when he saw that she was heavily pregnant.

“Blake! Blake, oh, my God! Blake, help me!” Lynn screamed desperately.

“Lynn! Lynn, I’m here!” Blake called as Lynn sobbed fearfully.

“It hurts! Oh, God! Oh, oh…NO!…” Lynn wailed, and Blake felt hands whirl him around. Val shoved Blake to the ground and got on top of him as Blake struggled to push her off, his eyes going back to Lynn.

“I have…so much…pleasure to share with you,” Val murmured sadistically, and Blake passed out.

While Blake was out cold, he dreamed of Jessica and him in the kitchen at school when they were children. Jessica was on top of him, restraining his arms and laughing happily at him.

“Ha-ah! I’m beating you!” Jessica sang, laughing again, and Blake grunted in effort.

“Oka-Get off!…Get off me!…Stop…” Blake said, and Jessica gave him a knowing look.

“ You have to tell me,” Jessica insisted, and Blake scowled.

“Get off of me!” Blake said firmly, refusing to give Jessica what she wanted.

“Not unless you answer,” Jessica said stubbornly.

“No!” Blake whined, and Jessica pouted.

“Fine. Then you have to give up. If you say I win, I’ll let you up,” Jessica said, and Blake sighed.

“…Okay,” Blake muttered petulantly.

“You have to say it,” Jessica said, grinning at him.

“You win! Okay?” Blake asked, and Jessica got off him.

“You’re such a pushover, Blake,” Jessica said as Blake got up. Jessica grabbed Blake’s hand, and they walked out of the kitchen, out of the cafeteria, and down the school hallways.

“I don’t know why you have to be so precious about it,” Jessica said, and Blake eyed her cautiously.

“Did…Lynn ask you to ask me?” Blake asked suspiciously.

“I asked first. So?” Lynn asked matter-of-factly.

“I don’t know,” Blake said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Nerd,” Jessica said, and Blake scoffed.

“Shut up,” Blake said, and Jessica gave him a flat look.

“You are,” Jessica insisted, and Blake rolled his eyes.

“She said to ask, didn’t she?” Blake asked after a few seconds of silence.

“Maybe…I don’t know. I just wanted to know,” Jessica said vaguely.

“You’re a nerd, too,” Blake said, and Jessica nodded.

“I know,” Jessica said mildly.

“You think your parents are home yet?” Jessica asked, and Blake shrugged.

“ No…Usually not until after dinner,” Blake said, wondering what Jessica meant.

“You think I could…come over?” Jessica asked suggestively.

“ Yeah, sure. Um, why?” Blake asked, feeling confused.

“Why what?” Jessica asked curiously.

“Like, why do you want to come over?” Blake clarified, and Jessica shrugged.

“I don’t know…” Jessica said as they walked past a classroom.

“What don’t you know, Jessica?” One of the priests asked as he walked out of the classroom they’d just passed. Immediately, Jessica looked nervous as she let go of Blake’s hand.

“Oh! Sorry. We…” Jessica began, gesturing between her and Blake.

“What are the two of you doing in here?” The priest interjected, placing his hands on his hips and frowning in disappointment. 

“I’m sorry, Father Loutermilch,” Jessica apologized, and Blake quickly interjected.

“We stayed after school for journal. We were just leaving,” Blake said, internally wincing when his journal statement sounded like a question, and Father Loutermilch frowned deeper.

“Let’s step back into class, please,” Father Loutermilch requested, his voice leaving no room for argument as he gestured to the classroom he had walked out of.

“…Blake?” Jessica asked nervously, grabbing Blake’s hand again.

“You’re not in trouble yet, Blake…You don’t want to get into trouble, do you?” Father Loutermilch asked, and Blake noticed a predetory gleam in his eyes.

“ Just stay with me,” Jessica said desperately as she dragged him into the classroom with her.

“I want you two to tell me what you were doing in here. Were you misbehaving? Do I need to call your parents? Jessica, do I need to call your father again?” Father Loutermilch asked suspiciously, and Jessica shook her head frantically.

“No! Please…” Jessica begged before she bowed her head in shame, and Father Loutermilch looked between the two of them.

“I only want us to be friends. Nobody’s in trouble yet. Does one of you think you can make this right? Jessica? Jessica, look at me. Will you pray with me? Will you help me make this right?” Father Loutermilch asked, placing his hands on her shoulders, making Jessica look up at him, and Blake could have sworn he saw tears welling up in her eyes.

“Why don’t you go along home, Blake?” Father Loutermilch asked, and Jessica looked desperate.

“Don’t go,” Jessica begged, shaking her head.

“Did I interrupt something between you two?” Father Loutermilch asked suspiciously.

“It wasn’t like that,” Blake insisted, shaking his head.

“Then what did you want?…You won’t say? You know…shame is a gift from God…To let you know right from wrong. And what you want is very wrong. Go home and pray,” Father Loutermilch ordered, and Jessica clutched Blake’s hand.

“Stay. I want you to stay,” Jessica begged fearfully.

“Blake, please…This is awkward enough. Nothing’s the matter, but I need you to leave us,” Father Loutermilch insisted, his voice leaving no room for argument once again, and Jessica shook her head pleadingly.

“Don’t,” Jessica pleaded tearfully, her eyes wide with fear as Father Loutermilch tugged her back.

“Everything’s okay. You can leave, young man. Walk away,” Father Loutmilch ordered, and he lightly pushed Blake out of the classroom, his hand slipping out of Jessica’s, and the door shut with a firm click. Blake walked down the hall towards the front door, a bad feeling settling in the pit of his stomach, but before Blake could leave, Jessica screamed at the top of her lungs in fear. Immediately, Blake hurried back towards the classroom, intending to help her.

“Help me! Blake! Blake! No! No!” Jessica shrieked, and Blake could see her running away from Father Loutermilch, who was following her sinisterly.

“Help! Somebody! Help me! Help…Help me!” Jessica begged as Blake raced after them.

“Get away from me, please! GET AWAY! Just leave me alone!!” Jessica yelled hysterically.

“Stop!” Father Loutermilch ordered forcefully, and Blake could hear Jessica struggle before she felt silent. Slowly, Blake approached a stairwell door and hesitantly pushed it open, beginning to sob when he found Jessica’s lifeless body slumped on the stairs, her neck broken and bruised, and her nose bloody.

“I don’t know what…you think you saw,” Father Loutermilch said, sounding incredibly frightened, as the young Blake hugged Jessica while sobbing. 

All of a sudden, an adult Blake found himself back in the mines in Arizona, hugging Jessica’s body. With a gasp, Blake stumbled to his feet, searching his person before feeling a surge of relief when he saw that his camera was somehow returned to him, and he raised his head, eyes widening when he registered the horrors going on around him. 

“You don’t turn your back...on Papa Knoth! You don’t turn your back...on God!” A nearby cultist yelled as Blake watched the cultists attack the Heretics in a full-blown cult war. Suddenly, a cultist turned around and immediately spotted him.

"Hope you get used to hurtin', cause the hell God's got waitin' on you's a motherfucker!" Another cultist yelled out furiously. 

"God, give me voice; God, guide my hand. God, give me voice; God, guide my hand!" A third cultist shouted loudly. 

“There!” The first cultist yelled, pointing at Blake angrily.

With a gasp, Blake booked it. Ignoring the crumbling mines around him, Blake searched for Lynn as he ran from the cultists. As he ran, fear and adrenaline coursing through his veins, Blake knew that finding Lynn was the only thing that mattered now. The cultists' shouts echoed behind him, driving him forward with a desperate determination. As he ran up a flight of stairs, he could hear Lynn wailing in pain, and he burst through the doorway, hurrying over to her, choosing to ignore the fact that she was covered in blood and even more dirt than before.

“Fuck! FUCK! Lynn! LYNN!” Blake yelled worriedly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, my God, Blake. You’re alive!” Lynn said in relief.

“You’re pregnant. How…are you pregnant?” Blake asked shakily, and Lynn shook her head.

“Please. I don’t want to die here. I don't want our baby to die here…ugh!” Lynn begged, her eyes wide with fright, and Blake nodded. 

“I won’t…I won’t let them kill you. We have to get out of here,” Blake encouraged as he helped her up, and guided her outside into the raging storm outside.

We’re out. I got Jessica out. It was cold, but the snow had just started. We’ll find a grownup, and we’ll tell them what happened. We’ll be okay. It’s not my fault, Blake thought as he guided Lynn through the storm. Both Blake and Lynn flinched when lightning struck a nearby tree, causing it to catch fire.

“What the fuck?” Lynn asked loudly, and Blake nodded.

“We have to find shelter,” Blake said roughly.

“As far from this place as we can get…oh…” Lynn added tightly, and Blake nodded again.

“Yeah,” Blake agreed as Lynn’s groans of pain worsened. A couple of minutes later, Blake and Lynn approached a destroyed house with an open basement.

“Down here. We have to get inside before the baby comes,” Lynn yelled over the sound of rushing wind.

“It’s too dangerous. You can’t…” Blake said, but Lynn shook her head, glancing up at the sky before giving him a look.

“We can't stay out here. Help me down. Please, Blake,” Lynn begged, and Blake did just that.

“Okay. Okay. Jesus. Be careful,” Blake warned urgently as he began to lower Lynn down into the basement, but he accidentally let go of Lynn and flew onto his back when lightning struck a little too close to them.

“Fuck! Fuck! Lynn! Are you okay?” Blake called as he scrambled over and peaked over the edge to see Lynn lying on her back, dazed and clutching her stomach.

“I-I’m coming down,” Blake called out, and he leaped down, landing next to Lynn.

“Aaah, it hurts!” Lynn whimpered painfully.

“I’m sorry,” Blake apologized, and Lynn started breathing heavily.

“I need to lie down,” Lynn gasped, and Blake helped her over to a nearby bed.

“Back here,” Blake said, and Lynn sat down, gripping Blake’s hand as he quickly kneeled down next to her.

“Okay. Okay. I just…ufff…uuuff…” Lynn gasped, and Blake squeezed her hand comfortingly.

“It’s going to be okay, baby,” Blake whispered soothingly. Lynn nodded weakly, her face contorted in pain. Suddenly, a loud screech filled the air, and both Lynn and Blake turned towards the sound.

When Blake saw that it was Marta, his body went cold with pure terror.

“Oh, fuck! FUCK!” Lynn swore loudly and got to her feet, leaning heavily on Blake.

“Oh, shit, come on! COME ON!” Blake said urgently, his voice filled with panic. Blake nearly dragged Lynn out of the basement and up to the house with him, Lynn groaning in deep pain.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Blake! What the fuck…I think something’s wrong…Aahhh! It hurts too much!…I need to lie down!” Lynn gasped painfully.

Suddenly, Marta crashed through the wall in front of them, her pickaxe in her hands.

“Oh, shit, Blake!” Lynn shrieked as Blake put a protective hand in front of her.

“God give me voice; God guide my hand,” Marta said, and she started repeating the prayer.

“Oh, shit. Shit shit shit,” Lynn gasped from behing Blake, and he looked over his shoulder to see Lynn had stumbled backwards and was leaning against the window for support. Facing forward, Blake saw Marta raise her pickaxe, and he tripped over his feet and landed on his back.

“God loves you,” Marta snarled, only to drop her pickaxe when a rooftop cross impaled her through the chest, making her groan in abrupt surprise and deep pain. Marta’s body slumped over as Lynn staggered over to Blake and hugged him, Blake holding onto her tightly.

They both stared in disbelief at the lifeless body of Marta, unsure of what had just transpired. As they clung to each other, a sense of relief washed over them, knowing that they were now safe from Marta’s menacing presence. Lynn broke the hug, and glared at Marta’s lifeless body.

“FUCK YOU! AND FUCK YOUR GOD!” Lynn screamed angrily before Blake guided her out of the house.

“Blake! A path!” Lynn said eagerly, and they started following it, the storm worsening.

“It’s getting worse,” Lynn said helplessly.

“Hurry. We’ll find shelter,” Blake said determinedly, leading Lynn through the treacherous terrain. 

“It’s like the whole world burnt,” Lynn said as they trudged through the charred landscape, their footsteps leaving imprints on the ashen ground. 

The acrid smell of smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe. Suddenly, Lynn doubled over, clutching her stomach.

“Oh, shit, Blake!” Lynn whimpered, and Blake wrapped an arm around her.

“Is it the baby?” Blake asked, and Lynn nodded weakly.

“Yeah. She’s coming soon…Ugh!” Lynn gasped in pain. Blake’s heart raced as he looked around, searching for any signs of help or shelter. Pointing ahead of them, Blake grinned victoriously.

“There! The chapel! We can take shelter!” Blake exclaimed and led Lynn over to it.

The world was on fire; the baby was coming. The impossible child. Lynn said Jess was like her little sister. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. None of this is my fault, Blake thought as he and Lynn walked towards the chapel.

“It’s cold,” Lynn said, her voice strained.

“Keep moving,” Blake urged, pulling her along gently. The howling wind whipped at their faces, making it difficult to see. As they approached the chapel, the sound of thunder grew louder, echoing their urgency. 

“Ah! Fuck!” Blake swore as lightning struck too close to them.

“Jesus,” Lynn gasped, clutching onto Blake’s arm tightly. They quickened their pace, fearing another strike. 

“The storm’s getting worse. Come on, Lynn! We have to get inside!” Blake yelled over the noise as they entered the chapel. Blake led Lynn over to the stretching rack in the sactuary of the church and helped her lie down. 

“Oh, shit. Shit shit shit,” Lynn gasped painfully.

“You need to lie down,” Blake insisted, and Lynn whimpered in pain.

“I can’t do this,” Lynn cried, tears streaming down her face. She clutched on to Blake’s hand, seeking comfort and reassurance. 

“You can. You can do this,” Blake encouraged, and more tears leaked down Lynn’s face.

“Oh, God! Something’s wrong…It feels like there’s something wrong!” Lynn squawked fearfully.

“Just keep breathing,” Blake said softly, and Lynn screamed in pain. “It hurts too much!” Lynn wailed, and Blake allowed her to grip his hand.

“I know, baby, I know! But you can do this, okay? Just keep breathing,” Blake said as he tried to stay calm himself.

Lynn’s cries grew louder and more desperate, her grip on his hand tightening with each passing moment. The sound of her pain echoed through the room, filling the air with a sense of urgency and fear. 

“Oh, fuck! FUCK! ARRGH! Oh, God. Oh, God. It’s coming,” Lynn shrieked, and Blake moved into position.

“Keep breathing. Just push. It’s…” Blake said as Lynn pushed hard, and the baby came out crying. Lynn slumped back onto the stretching table, stiff and exhausted.

“Lynn. Lynn!” Blake said, moving to her side and showing her the baby.

“There’s nothing there…” Lynn rasped weakly, and her head lolled to the side, her eyes slipping shut.

“Oh, Jesus God…Lynn!” Blake cried out in panic, shaking her to try to rouse her. When that didn’t work, Blake started sobbing.

I went through hell just to lose her, Blake thought as he crumpled to the ground next to the stretching rack. Blake’s heart sank as it finally hit him that Lynn had passed away. The weight of grief and loss consumed him, leaving him feeling utterly defeated. 

Eventually, exhaustion caught up to him, and Blake passed out, cradling the baby to his chest. 

And while Blake slept, he again dreamed of him and Jessica when they were kids.

“So. Lynn said you haven’t even kissed her yet,” Jessica said as she relaxed in her chair, and Blake gave her a wide-eyed look from his position on the floor.

“What?” Blake asked in confusion.

“Like in Beauty and the Beast?” Jessica asked slowly, amusement written on her face.

“Oh, you mean drama. The play. Um, we’re saving for the, like, actual night,” Blake said dismissively, and Jessica gave him a disbelieving look.

“Uh-huh,” Jessica said, with a knowing smirk.

“We are!” Blake insisted defensively. 

“ Okay,” Jessica said, holding up her hands in surrender, clearly not believing him.

“We, like…cheek kiss,” Blake said, and Jessica leaned forward, a playful grin tugging at her mouth.

“So, like…is she your girlfriend? Tell me or else,” Jessica said smugly as she stood up, placing her hands on her hips.

“Or else what?” Blake asked suspiciously. Jessica tackled him, and started tickling him, making him laugh loudly.

“I got you again,” Jessica said victoriously.

Blake woke up with a gasp before he looked at the baby.

“God in heaven. That’s…That’s the child, isn’t it?” A familiar voice asked, and Blake looked up at the man who spoke, his expression unreadable.

Knoth sat on a pew next to him, a large knife clutched tightly in his hand.

“My lord…I’ve taken care of my children. But yours…I am powerless against. The child’s too strong already. You’ve murdered paradise. God has gone silent. Since the storm. The birth. Who will he have? If he destroys us all? Who will he have left to punish?” Knoth asked, waving the knife around dramatically.

“I killed my children. All of them. Every last one. There’s no more perfect faith than that. And still, God is silent. Kill that child if you can. If you love anything at all, crush its skull under your heel. I know God doesn’t hear dead men. But I expect he answers them,” Knoth said as he looked at his knife before slitting his own throat. Blake watched unflinchingly as Knoth choked and spluttered on his own blood before slumping over, dead.

The room fell silent as Blake sat there, processing what had just happened. Blake felt a mix of horror and relief wash over him, knowing that the madness of Knoth had finally come to an end. As he stood up and turned to leave the room, Blake couldn't shake the feeling of unease that lingered in the air.

The priest dies. You didn’t have to do anything. You were a child; nobody expected anything of you. None of this is my fault, Blake thought as he got to his feet and walked out of the chapel, sparing one more look over his shoulder at Lynn before moving on.

As Blake walked through the town, he noticed the corpses of the cultists everywhere before spying many canisters of cyanide sitting on a few tables, and he understood what Knoth meant a few seconds later.

She’s going to be okay. You have her. She’ll get to grow up. She’ll do everything she was born to do, Blake thought firmly and proudly as he walked away. A faint rumbling got Blake’s attention, and when he looked up, the sun seemed to explode, and Blake passed out once more.

When his vision cleared, he was a young boy in school again, looking for Jessica.

“Ahah! Hey, Blake! Haha! Try to find me! Aha-I’m over here, ahaha!” Jessica called, and Blake put on a burst of speed towards the kitchen, a little grin growing on his face.

“This way, Blake-Hahihihi!” Jessica encouraged teasingly. When Blake got to the storage room in the kitchen, Jessica came out and grabbed his hand, dragging him in.

“Don’t worry. I’ll never let you go. You never let me go,” Jessica said happily, and they kneeled down to pray.

“Now the light has gone away, Savior, listen while I pray. Begging Thee to watch, keep, and send me quietly to sleep. Watchful Savior, wash away. All I’ve been wrong today. Help me every day to be gentle. Gentle more like Thee,” Jessica prayed before everything went silent, and Blake’s world went dark.