Chapter Text
It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder cracked overhead, rattling the stained-glass windows of the Ministry chapel. For once, the building was quiet—eerily so. Most of the clergy had retired early, leaving the grand halls and shadowed corridors deserted.
Lightning lit the trees outside, their silhouettes stretching like clawed fingers across the church floor. Copia, unnerved, moved quickly to draw the heavy curtains shut. The howling wind outside only deepened his unease. He needed a distraction—something light, something familiar.
He wandered into the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards in search of popcorn. All he found was a dusty old Jiffy Pop tin. He squinted at it. “This must’ve been Nihil’s.” Shrugging, he lit the stove and held the foil container over the flame, giving it a gentle shake as it began to puff.
While it popped, he browsed the sparse DVD shelf in the living room. His fingers hovered over a few titles when, down the hall, the phone in his office rang—sharp, shrill, and entirely out of place.
He stiffened. Who would call this late?
With a frown, he crossed the hallway and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
There was a burst of static. Then, a voice—low, nasal, and unfamiliar.
“Do you like scary movies?”
Copia blinked. “Uh… sure?”
“What’s your favorite scary movie?”
He hesitated, caught off guard by the question. “Friday the 13th?”
A pause. Then: “That’s a pretty lame one.”
“It’s a classic!” Copia protested, clutching the phone a little tighter.
There was a long, static-laced silence on the line. Copia glanced over his shoulder, suddenly hyper-aware of how quiet the Ministry had become. Even the storm seemed to be holding its breath.
“I suppose you prefer Hereditary or something?” he muttered, trying to sound casual.
The voice crackled back. “I prefer something… a little closer to home.”
Copia’s stomach dropped.
“Who is this?” he asked, voice sharper now.
But the line had already gone dead.
He stared at the receiver, heart thudding. It was probably a prank. One of the ghouls, maybe. Mountain liked to mess with the old phone systems—he could have rigged something up for fun. Yes. That had to be it.
The foil on the stove had stopped rustling. The popcorn was probably burnt by now.
Still gripping the phone, Copia turned to go back to the kitchen—only to freeze mid-step.
The curtains he’d drawn earlier… were open again.
All of them.
He stood there, breath caught in his throat. The storm raged outside, wind whistling through a cracked windowpane. He hadn’t left them like that. He knew he hadn’t.
He swallowed hard. “Sodo?” he called out. “Is that you, stronzino? This isn’t funny!”
No answer.
Just the thunder, and the faint creak of a door slowly swinging open somewhere down the corridor.
He didn’t move at first. He didn’t breathe.
Then, gathering what little courage he could, Copia grabbed a nearby candlestick—more theatrical than practical, but it was heavy—and stepped into the hall.
Another creak. A whisper of movement. Footsteps?
He paused near the chapel doors.
And then, right behind him—ring-ring-ring—the phone shrilled again.
The shrill ring of the phone sliced through the silence like a knife. Copia flinched and turned back toward his office, breath shallow. His grip tightened on the candlestick.
Just answer it, he told himself. It’s just a call. Just a prank.
But every step he took toward the phone felt like walking deeper into a trap.
He picked up the receiver with a trembling hand. “Hello?” he snapped.
Silence again. No static this time.
Then: “You shouldn’t have left the kitchen.”
Copia’s blood ran cold.
He dropped the receiver, heart pounding, and stumbled backward into the hall. The clatter of the phone hitting the desk echoed unnaturally loud. He turned to run back toward the living room—toward light, toward sound, toward anything normal—but stopped dead at the sight before him.
The Jiffy Pop was sitting on the coffee table.
Popped.
Steam still rose from the foil. But the stove was off.
Copia stared at it. “No… no, no, no.”
A slow creak came from behind him. He spun around—
—and found himself staring at a figure at the far end of the hall.
A dark silhouette. Just standing there.
Watching.
“Who are you?” Copia demanded, voice cracking despite himself.
The figure tilted its head.
“Would you like to play a game?” the voice rasped—the same nasally, mocking tone from the phone.
Copia took a step back, bumping into a side table and knocking over a framed photo of the old clergy. The glass shattered on the ground. He didn’t look down.
“I—look, this is probably a prank,” he stammered. “Right? Some elaborate, uh, initiation joke for a new ghoul? Very funny. You got me.”
The figure said nothing. But a faint hum started in the air—low, vibrating. A distorted version of the Suspiria theme, Copia realized with dawning dread, warbling like it was being played through a broken cassette tape.
He looked around, frantic. “Alright! You’ve had your fun! I’m done!”
The figure took one slow step forward.
And then another.
The figure took another step, and Copia bolted.
He dropped the candlestick—it clanged against the floor—and sprinted back down the hall. His slippers skidded on the polished stone as he made a sharp turn into the library. Rows of looming shelves closed in around him like a labyrinth. He ducked into the nearest aisle and pressed his back to the bookcase, trying to catch his breath.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
Silence.
Had he lost them?
Then—footsteps. Slow, deliberate, echoing on the stone floor.
They were in the library now.
Copia clamped a hand over his mouth. He could hear the faint scrape of fingers dragging along the shelves. Searching. Hunting.
A flash of movement. A shadow passed at the end of the aisle.
He didn’t wait. He bolted again, weaving between shelves and into the old reading room, knocking over a chair in his scramble. Thunder crashed outside as he yanked open a side door and fled down a narrow passage rarely used by anyone but the archivists.
Behind him, the footsteps quickened.
So did his.
He pushed through a heavy curtain at the end of the corridor and burst into the old choir loft. The storm blared through the cracked stained-glass window—rain spattered the floor, wind whipping his robe around him.
He turned to shut the curtain—
The figure was there.
Closer than before.
Copia gasped, stumbled backward, and ran up the tight spiral stairs to the bell tower, limbs aching, lungs burning. He threw open the final door—
Lightning flashed.
The bell chamber was empty. Dust swirled in the gale. The wind howled through the broken glass like a scream.
He turned to look behind him.
Nothing.
No one had followed.
His legs gave out. He leaned against the cold stone, trembling.
It was over.
It was over.
Then he heard it.
The voice, right at his ear.
“Wrong turn.”
Something struck the side of his head—hard, cold, fast.
Copia collapsed, eyes wide, mouth parted in a silent breath as the world blurred and dimmed.
The last thing he saw was the figure standing over him, silhouetted against the stained glass, faceless in the flickering stormlight.
Then—black.