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Barbara was born under a sun that shone like it could not possibly witness the shadows forming in Mondstadt. The streets of her childhood were cobbled and narrow, smelling of bread and salt, with wind-swept flags clinging to their poles, snapping like small voices that echoed far too late. The city itself hummed, quietly, as if the sound of its own contentment needed to be felt before it could be believed.
Her mother said Barbara had always been a “gentle child,” a word whispered with pride and expectation. That gentleness, as Barbara would learn, was not innate but grafted onto her with subtle hands. There were mornings when she woke to soft fingers brushing stray hair from her face and the quiet insistence: you must be sweet today, Barbara. Always sweet.
She did not understand that the sweetness demanded of her was a cage. She understood only that it pleased her parents, and she lived to please.
Mondstadt had a rhythm, and children were swept into it like leaves in the wind. There was school, yes, but also the Church, which had its own curriculum, its own rituals. Children learned to kneel before marble statues before they learned to read, to sing before they learned to question. The Church offered the path gently, in lullabies and whispered stories, until each child believed it had been chosen by their own hearts.
Barbara was no exception.
Her first memory of prayer was at the age of five, kneeling on a cold wooden floor, hands folded clumsily. The priest smiled down at her, warm and approving, and her parents nodded. She felt a tug of something—comfort, perhaps, or the kind of awe that could be mistaken for love. The words were easy to repeat, even if their meaning was not fully hers: “Blessed be Lord Barbatos. Blessed be Mondstadt. Blessed be service.”
She repeated them until her tongue hurt. She bowed her head until her neck ached. And she smiled because she was told to, and because smiling made the discomfort easier to bear.
It was during one such early lesson that she first noticed it: the sense that the Church could watch her more deeply than her parents. A shadow in the corner of the room seemed to linger longer than it should, bending toward her without quite touching. The candles flickered. She blinked, and it was gone, but the awareness remained. That awareness would grow, take shape, and eventually become something she could neither name nor escape.
By the age of seven, Barbara’s days were filled with song and instruction. She learned hymns, simple at first, then complex, the notes rising like small gusts of wind through the high ceilings of the cathedral. Her voice, they said, was a gift from Barbatos himself, clear and sweet, capable of bending hearts. And so, she practiced, endlessly, until it could no longer be called mere practice. It was expectation given flesh.
Her mother told her once, in a low voice, that the Church would choose her path. It sounded like kindness, a gentle guide along the river of life. But Barbara felt the first prickle of something unfamiliar, a spark she could not yet name. Choice, she realized faintly, was not hers to claim. It was offered like a melody she could not refuse.
Her path was clear: service to the Church. Obedience. Singing. Healing. Smiling. Always smiling.
At first, it was not difficult. Children are pliant. The lessons were woven into everyday life like bread into dough, each fold pressing her closer to the shape others desired. She sang for her parents. She sang for the priests. She sang for the birds perched on the cathedral’s eaves. Her voice was praised; her heart swelled with the warmth of approval.
But the first lie had already been planted.
They said she sang because she believed.
Barbara learned, slowly, that belief was not a feeling but a performance. She did not question this immediately. Who would question the hand that lifted them from the floor and placed them before God? Who would question the voice that told them they were loved, if they sang correctly?
It was only later, in moments of quiet, that she noticed the fissures. When she knelt alone at night, the cathedral empty, the statues staring from their pedestals, the thought would creep in like frost: Do I really believe, or am I merely doing what is expected?
At first, the thought frightened her. Doubt, she had learned, was dangerous. Doubt was selfish. Doubt could be punished, not openly, but in ways that reached inside and pried at your chest. She learned to bury it beneath hymns, beneath obedience, beneath the small, precise rituals that made her useful.
Her youth passed with little fanfare. She grew taller. Her voice matured, gaining the crystalline resonance that would later earn her renown. The Church noticed. The priests praised her dedication. Visitors remarked upon her angelic presence. And Barbara learned to measure herself against the expectations she saw reflected in their eyes.
Sleep became a tool of discipline. Rest was indulgence. Hunger was weakness. She memorized the rhythms of her body, her heart, her breath, and learned to bend them toward devotion. When a note faltered in song, she counted it as sin. When she felt fatigue, she counted it as failure. And she prayed for forgiveness, not knowing that the only thing she needed to forgive was herself, or perhaps the world that demanded she erase herself.
Jean noticed the first signs, as she always did. The older sister, strong and observant, saw the way Barbara’s hands clenched when she thought no one watched, how her smile sometimes trembled at the corners. She tried to intervene with gentle words and suggestions, but Barbara would smile, obedient and bright, and insist she was fine.
I am fine. Lord Barbatos has entrusted me with strength enough to bear it.
The voice inside, that early whisper of conscience and compulsion, approved.
By the time Barbara was ten, she had begun to understand the rhythm of confession. It was a sacred act, they said, a cleansing of the soul. She knelt in the small wooden confessional, hands pressed together, and whispered the sins of others, carrying them like stones in her chest. Each admission lodged itself inside her, heavy and quiet. She felt the weight of guilt growing before she even knew what guilt was.
The first confession she offered herself was for something trivial: impatience when a novice fumbled a hymn. Her voice trembled as she whispered the words into the dark. Relief came, faint and fleeting, and she discovered she could summon it at will. But relief was a trickster. It faded quickly, leaving her with sharper edges of responsibility, sharper corners of conscience.
Barbara learned to listen to the voice of correction in quiet moments:
That isn’t sincere enough.
You’re thinking of yourself.
You’re asking for comfort instead of service.
And so she learned to obey even in silence, shaping herself into an instrument of devotion. Pain became proof. Exhaustion became absolution. The small body she inhabited was no longer hers—it belonged to Barbatos, to the Church, to expectation.
By twelve, Barbara’s reputation had begun to bloom outside the walls of her home. Visitors would speak her name with reverence: “The little singer of Mondstadt. A child of grace.” And she would smile, not because she believed it, but because it was necessary. Because performance, she had learned, was itself devotion.
Yet, even as she became indispensable, a hollow began to grow. Not immediately, not dramatically—it was quiet, subtle, like the absence of wind in the cathedral’s highest spire. She did not notice it at first. Hollows are quiet.
The first seed of isolation took root in those quiet spaces. It whispered as she walked the streets alone, as she gazed at the statues lining the cathedral steps: You are not enough. You will never be enough. And perhaps you are not meant to be enough.
Barbara did not answer. She could not. She bowed her head, whispered her prayers, and continued along the path chosen for her.
The foundation was set. The child of Mondstadt had been trained to serve, to sing, to be gentle, to be obedient. But within her, a shadow of self-awareness had begun to stir—a fragile, flickering thing that would grow and demand reckoning.
And that reckoning would come.
Barbara’s voice had changed by the time she reached her early teens. The clarity of her childhood notes deepened into a resonance that could command attention, even in crowded rooms. Every song she sang felt like a lesson in precision, a test she did not fully understand but could not refuse. Mondstadt’s streets whispered her name: Barbara. The syllables were light, reverent, and they carried a weight she did not yet know how to bear.
The Church, too, had noticed. They began to call her forward more often, asking her to sing at public services, to assist priests with their ceremonies, to read scripture aloud to visitors. Every duty was wrapped in praise, each compliment a small hand guiding her closer to the person they wanted her to become. And Barbara obeyed. She always obeyed.
At first, the obedience was effortless. She rose early, practiced hymns until her voice cracked, and memorized prayers until they became part of her breath. She believed she did it because it was the right thing to do, because the Church had chosen her. But beneath the layers of duty, a faint, persistent thought grew: Am I doing it well enough?
It was in these early years that Barbara began to understand the subtleties of performance. She watched how the priests moved, how they spoke, how they measured devotion. And she learned to replicate it, down to the smallest detail. A tilt of the head, a pause before a note, a softening of the eyes—all calculated to please, all designed to convince.
Yet there were moments of failure. She could not always hold the long note without trembling. Sometimes her hands shook during prayer. Sometimes her mind wandered. Each lapse, no matter how minor, became a stone added to the growing weight in her chest.
Jean noticed. She always noticed.
Barbara’s older sister had been trained, not by the Church but by life itself, to see strain where others saw perfection. Jean observed Barbara’s trembling hands, the way her shoulders stiffened after extended practice, the slight pallor that never seemed to leave her cheeks. And she worried.
“You’re overdoing it again,” Jean said gently one afternoon, finding Barbara hunched over hymn sheets in the quiet study of their home.
Barbara looked up, eyes bright, smile in place. “I have to practice. Barbatos entrusted me with this gift. I cannot waste it.”
Jean sat beside her, fingers brushing the edge of the sheet. “It’s not waste to rest. You’re still a person, Barbara. Not just a voice.”
Barbara shook her head, voice soft but firm. “I’m fine. I can do more.”
The voice inside, always waiting, whispered approval. Good. You understand your purpose.
By fourteen, the pressures intensified. Visitors arrived to hear her sing, their praise a mix of awe and expectation. The more they admired her, the more Barbara felt the need to perfect herself. She began to notice the smallest details: the way her hands looked while clasped in prayer, the curve of her smile, the tilt of her head. If anything felt off, it was a sin. If anything faltered, it was failure.
Confession became a refuge. She knelt in the small, wooden box at the back of the cathedral and whispered her sins—or what she deemed sins. At first, it was minor: impatience when a novice faltered, annoyance at a harsh word from a peer, thoughts she could not fully control. Relief came, fleeting and sweet, but each confession seemed to demand another.
Soon, she found herself confessing not only for mistakes but for thoughts, for feelings, for urges. “I thought about stopping,” she whispered one evening, the words trembling on her lips.
Her confessor hesitated, brow furrowed. “Stopping what?”
Barbara’s voice was barely audible. “Everything.”
They told her it was exhaustion, not sin. But Barbara did not distinguish the two. Fatigue was a failure of body and mind. Failure was sin’s shadow. And so she confessed again, and again, and again. Relief, if it came at all, was temporary. The weight persisted.
The voice, once a faint echo, grew bolder. It spoke while she walked, while she sang, while she studied.
You’re thinking of yourself.
You’re asking for comfort instead of service.
You’re pretending to be devoted.
Fear followed like a shadow. Her heart raced. Her hands shook. She pressed her palms together until they hurt, grounding herself in pain. Pain was honest. Pain proved effort.
Her teachers noticed the change, though none spoke openly. They remarked on her dedication, her unwavering posture, her angelic voice. But the small tremors, the obsessive repetition of hymns, the self-inflicted fatigue—they looked past it. Or perhaps they chose to, because to see it fully was to admit the cost of perfection.
Barbara began to test herself. She fasted for longer periods, restricting food until hunger became a proof of devotion. She reduced her sleep, insisting on rising before dawn to pray. Every bodily need became a betrayal if acknowledged. Hunger was indulgence. Fatigue was weakness. Desire was sin.
She also began to observe others more closely. The novice who stumbled during song. The priest who whispered a correction. The elder who frowned briefly at an imperfect note. Barbara cataloged them all, noting how easily they faltered. And she contrasted them with herself, striving to be perfect, to be the instrument of devotion that never wavered.
Her Hydro Vision, small and pulsing, became both a focus and a gauge. If her magic shimmered weakly, she interpreted it as failure. If it flared, she saw it as approval. Soon, the boundary between gift and discipline blurred entirely.
Jean tried again. “Barbara, you don’t have to bear everything alone,” she said one evening, finding her sister hunched in the study with ink-stained fingers from copying hymns.
Barbara looked up, smile steady, voice light. “I am not alone. Barbatos is with me.”
Jean’s hand hovered, unsure. She could see the truth beneath Barbara’s composure—the exhaustion, the tension, the hollow growing where her joy should have been. But Barbara flinched if touched, recoiling from any suggestion that she was human before she was holy.
By fifteen, Barbara was performing almost entirely. Singing, kneeling, praying—it was no longer devotion as an act of love but devotion as an act of survival. Her audience, both human and divine, expected perfection. And Barbara learned to give it, even at the cost of herself.
It was during this time that the first hints of hallucination appeared. Shadows lingered where they should not. Candlelight bent oddly. The cathedral seemed to watch her, not as she watched it, but as a sentient thing, aware of her every thought.
She ignored it at first, telling herself it was imagination. But the voice inside, always near, encouraged the perception. They see you. They know you’re pretending. You must do better.
Barbara did better. She practiced longer. She fasted longer. She sang until her throat burned and her voice cracked. Each small success was a fleeting relief; each failure, no matter how minor, compounded the weight in her chest.
The hollow inside her grew, and Barbara did not notice it, just as a candle does not notice the wind licking at its flame.
She had become, in every measurable way, the instrument they wanted her to be. Perfect posture. Perfect smile. Perfect voice.
But the self—the Barbara who existed beneath the performance—was retreating, moving deeper into the shadows, hidden by obedience, fear, and devotion.
And she did not know it yet, but the first cracks of what would become a complete collapse had begun to form.
Barbara’s days began to blur into one another. The distinction between duty and devotion became almost meaningless; everything she did was measured against the invisible gauge of holiness that had taken residence inside her. By sixteen, confession had become a ritual, not merely a relief. It was a necessity, as critical to her survival as food or breath.
At first, the confessions were tangible. She spoke of impatience, of envy, of frustration with her own body when she could not sustain a note. The priest listening, patient and kind, offered gentle absolution. Relief, delicate and fleeting, filled her chest. But it never lasted long. It never felt complete.
Barbara began to catalog her sins, both real and imagined, in secret. She knelt in her room at night, whispering them to the air, counting each one aloud so that they could be weighed. I envied her skill. I felt pride at my voice. I wished someone would praise me more than they did.
Each confession, rather than lightening her burden, sharpened it. The weight of guilt did not recede—it concentrated, honed itself against her ribs like a stone slowly cutting a groove into her chest. She began confessing multiple times a day, sometimes fifty or more murmured sins in a single sitting. At first, it was a test: how many could she carry before the chest ached? But the practice soon became compulsion.
The voice, always present, grew clearer, more authoritative. It no longer waited for prayer. It spoke in the quiet moments of her day:
You’re thinking of yourself.
You’re asking for comfort instead of service.
You’re pretending to be devoted.
It did not matter what Barbara was doing. Eating? The voice whispered that indulgence was sin. Walking? It noted her desire for rest. Singing? It warned her of the pride flickering in her chest. Every action, every thought, was subject to scrutiny.
Fear became physical. Her heart would race without warning. Her hands shook so violently she sometimes dropped the hymn book. She pressed her palms together until they ached, grounding herself in pain. Pain was proof. Pain was honest. Pain was the only evidence she had that she was trying enough.
Barbara began to fast more often, not for spiritual clarity, but for purification. Food was indulgence, a betrayal of devotion. Sleep was weakness. Every bodily need became a threat to the holiness she sought. And when her body finally faltered—dizziness, fainting, trembling—she interpreted it not as a failure but as proof that she had pushed herself closer to sanctity than most could imagine.
She began copying hymns obsessively, line after line, until her hands cramped and her fingers shook. The act of writing became a method of control, a way to anchor her body to her devotion. Each precise stroke of the pen was a small victory. Each tremor, a reminder that she must try harder.
The voice praised her then. Better. This is closer.
Barbara began to notice the cathedral differently. The familiar sanctuary, once a place of comfort, now felt alive in ways she could not fully explain. Shadows lingered where they should not. Candlelight bent strangely. The statues seemed to watch her more intently, the stone eyes glinting as though aware of every thought she tried to hide.
The first time she saw the statue weep, she thought she had imagined it. But the streaks on the marble cheeks persisted, darkening the stone, defying logic. She pressed her forehead to the cold surface, whispering apologies she did not fully understand:
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fail.”
The voice inside responded immediately. You should be ashamed.
Barbara believed it.
She began to test herself, deliberately courting exhaustion and hunger to prove her devotion. She would kneel in prayer for hours, ignoring fatigue. She would fast for entire days, believing that if her body faltered, her soul was being purified.
Jean tried to intervene again, quietly, gently, always gently. She would suggest rest. She would offer food. She would speak of the dangers of overexertion. Barbara’s responses were always polite, always smiling, always rehearsed.
“I am fine,” she said each time.
“Barbatos has given me the strength to endure.”
And each time, the voice approved. Good. You understand your purpose.
By seventeen, Barbara had begun to experience dissociation. There were moments when she would watch herself from the corner of her vision, seeing a version of herself who moved perfectly, smiled perfectly, sang flawlessly. That other Barbara was not flawed, not human. She existed solely for devotion.
The real Barbara—the one who remembered fatigue, hunger, fear, doubt—retreated further into shadows. She learned to obey without question, to perform without pause, to endure without complaint. The hollow inside her grew, stretching across her chest and gut, consuming the parts of her that felt, that questioned, that desired.
And still, she sang.
It was no longer joy or belief that carried her voice—it was necessity. The city expected it. The Church expected it. The voice demanded it. Each note was a tether to the world, a signal that she was still performing well enough to be loved, to be useful.
The weight of guilt and compulsion became inseparable from her identity. Barbara could not distinguish between devotion and self-erasure. Each act of obedience, each prayer, each confession, was simultaneously purification and punishment.
She had begun to understand, fully, the cost of her perfection. And yet, there was no alternative. She could not stop. She could not rest. She could not simply be.
The hollow continued to grow, quiet and insidious. It whispered that devotion was not enough—that perfection was never enough.
Barbara knew, deep down, that the breaking point was coming. She did not yet understand what form it would take. But she knew it would be profound, and she knew that she would face it alone.
The cathedral changed after dusk. Barbara had noticed it first during one of her late-night prayers, kneeling alone under the glow of flickering candles. The shadows clung to corners that daylight never touched, bending and stretching in ways that seemed almost deliberate. A chill ran along the floorboards as though the building itself were breathing, exhaling her secrets back at her in silence.
She told herself it was imagination, that her mind was frayed from exhaustion, from fasting, from endless repetition of hymns. But the sensation persisted. The statues seemed different after dark. Faces that had once felt distant and benign now appeared… aware. Watching. Judging.
One night, she noticed it most clearly. The statue of Barbatos at the cathedral’s altar, usually serene and unchanging, seemed to glisten with moisture. She blinked, thinking it a trick of the candlelight, but the streaks remained, darkening the marble as though tears had slid down the carved cheeks. Barbara pressed her forehead to the cold stone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to fail.”
The voice answered immediately, soft but unyielding. You should be ashamed.
Barbara believed it. Belief had become easier than doubt. Doubt had grown heavy, like a stone lodged in her chest. Belief, even forced, felt like air.
From that night on, the cathedral itself became a participant in her devotion. Shadows whispered. Candles dimmed in corners she had not noticed before. The marble floor creaked under invisible weight. Every night she returned, drawn to the statues, compelled by a mixture of fear, duty, and something she could not name.
The lines between perception and imagination blurred. She saw figures flitting along the edges of her vision, heard murmurs beneath the organ’s deep notes, and felt the floor vibrate beneath her knees. Every small anomaly became evidence of her failing—proof that her devotion was still insufficient.
Barbara began to fast even longer, ignoring hunger entirely as though abstinence itself could erase the imperfections she sensed in her soul. Sleep became a luxury she could not afford. Every movement, every note, every gesture was measured against an impossible standard she could never fully meet.
Her hands shook as she wrote hymns obsessively, copying lines from the walls of the cathedral, from the minds of priests she had never met, from visions she could barely comprehend. She lost track of how many she wrote. Ink smeared across her fingers. Her wrists ached. Her mind raced. Relief came only when the letters aligned perfectly, when the words made sense in their holy precision.
She began to see herself from the outside. While singing before the congregation, she would glimpse the other Barbara—perfect, flawless, composed. That Barbara never faltered. That Barbara was loved. That Barbara was holy.
The real Barbara—the one who felt hunger, fatigue, fear, and doubt—watched silently, horrified. Every note sung, every prayer offered, every act of devotion was performed by a version of herself that no longer belonged to her.
And still, the voice praised her. Better. This is closer.
By now, she had internalized the cathedral itself as a judge. Every crack in the marble, every flicker of candlelight, every shadow bending unnaturally became a reminder that her devotion was never enough. She walked through the building on tiptoe, hands folded, eyes lowered, listening for the echoes of her failures in the arches above.
Jean noticed the changes. She had always noticed. The older sister had grown accustomed to Barbara’s tireless routine, her insistence on perfect obedience, her near-constant exhaustion. But the subtle terror in Barbara’s eyes, the way she flinched at shadows, the way she recoiled from any suggestion of rest, made Jean’s chest tighten.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” Jean said one night, as Barbara knelt in the cathedral after everyone had left.
Barbara’s head remained bowed, voice low and precise. “I am not alone. Barbatos is with me.”
Jean reached out, fingers brushing Barbara’s shoulder. The contact made her flinch violently.
“Don’t,” she said sharply, voice trembling. “You’ll ruin it.”
The voice inside approved. Good. You understand.
Barbara stayed kneeling, hands pressed tightly together, repeating prayers under her breath. Each syllable, each note, each movement became a litany against the self she could no longer claim. The hollow inside her chest stretched wider, consuming everything she had once felt.
She no longer needed the congregation to witness her devotion. She needed only the cathedral, the shadows, and the voice. Every night, she returned, driven by a compulsion that was both fear and longing. Fear of imperfection, longing for the relief that never came.
Her Hydro Vision pulsed painfully in her hand during these sessions, the magic inside her reflecting her inner turmoil. She ignored it, forcing herself to continue. Each flicker, each shimmer was both a warning and a reward.
Barbara’s perception of reality began to warp. The statue’s tears seemed to follow her as she moved. Shadows congealed into shapes that whispered at her from corners she had never noticed before. The candlelight bent unnaturally, as if recoiling from her presence. And the voice grew louder, more insistent, a constant companion in every thought, every heartbeat, every breath.
You are never enough. You will never be enough. And perhaps you are not meant to be enough.
Barbara nodded silently to the voice. It was right. She had always known it, deep down. And so she prayed longer, fasted longer, sang until her voice broke, and wrote hymns until her fingers were raw.
Because if she did not, the shadows would consume her. And perhaps they already had.
The hollow inside her had become almost tangible. She could feel it in her chest, her stomach, the hollow stretch of her neck, her arms, her back. It was a space where Barbara the person should have lived—but she no longer did. Only expectation, only devotion, only the voice remained.
And in that hollow, she found a strange comfort.
Because the silence, she realized, was worse than any shadow, any judgment, any fear.
Barbara had always known she was being watched, though she rarely admitted it to herself. At first, it had been the congregation, the priests, her parents. Then it had been the shadows in the cathedral, the flickering candlelight, the statues that seemed aware. Now, it was herself.
She saw the other Barbara first during a hymn. The cathedral was full, the audience hushed, and Barbara’s voice rose, trembling and crystalline. She felt the familiar dissociation settle over her, a sensation like floating slightly behind herself. The notes were perfect, the timing exact. She could see every movement of her body, every tilt of her head, every precise motion of her hands in prayer.
And then she saw her.
Standing near the altar, smiling with flawless composure. Perfect posture, perfect expression, eyes empty of doubt, fear, or hunger. The other Barbara sang flawlessly. Every note, every word, every inflection was impeccable. The congregation loved her. They admired her. They believed in her.
The real Barbara felt something tear inside her chest.
That’s who they love, the voice whispered. You’re the problem.
Her Hydro Vision flickered painfully. Her knees buckled slightly beneath the weight of the hollow inside her. The other Barbara remained upright, serene, untouchable. She was everything Barbara could never be—holy, perfect, untouchable.
Barbara tried to continue singing, but the voice became insistent. You’re pretending. They see through you. You’re not enough.
Her fingers cramped around the edge of the hymnal. Her throat burned. She forced herself to finish the hymn, trembling as the last note escaped, barely audible, a whisper of devotion rather than the soaring proof the world expected.
The congregation erupted into applause, calling her a beacon of Mondstadt’s virtue. Barbara’s lips curled into a practiced smile. Inside, she felt nothing.
She had begun to exist in two realities simultaneously: the one she performed for the world and the one she carried in the hollow inside her. The other Barbara—the one who was adored, flawless, holy—lived in the world outside her chest. The real Barbara, the one who bled, who tired, who doubted, who hungered, existed only in shadow.
She began to see the other Barbara more frequently. In the mirror, her reflection sometimes flickered, showing not herself but the ideal, the perfect version the world demanded. The reflection smiled, eyes empty and precise, the corners of her lips pulled just so. Barbara’s stomach twisted.
You’re inadequate, the voice reminded her. You will never be enough.
She tried to correct it. She fasted longer, prayed longer, sang until her voice cracked. She copied hymns until her fingers bled. Each act of discipline was both punishment and devotion, an attempt to reclaim herself from the perfection she could never embody.
But the other Barbara would not be denied. She emerged more clearly with each performance, a constant reminder of the impossibility of perfection. Barbara could no longer trust her own eyes, her own voice, her own hands. Everything she did was filtered through the knowledge that she was failing even as she tried to succeed.
Jean noticed the change. She saw the tremor in Barbara’s fingers, the pale skin, the hollow gaze that did not meet anyone’s eyes. She tried to intervene, gently, carefully, offering rest, offering touch, offering presence.
Barbara recoiled violently. “Don’t,” she whispered, voice sharp and terrified. “You’ll ruin it.”
Jean froze, heart tightening. She realized that Barbara’s obsession had grown beyond mere exhaustion—it had become something other, something that could not be reached with words or gestures.
Barbara’s dissociation deepened. At night, she would kneel before the statues in the cathedral, whispering prayers and apologies to stone faces she imagined weeping again. The shadows twisted unnaturally, the candlelight recoiled, the space itself seemed to bend to her fear. She existed simultaneously as worshipper and observer, never fully present in either role.
Her Hydro Vision throbbed in her pocket, pulsing in tune with her heartbeat. She ignored it, focusing instead on the perfection she could never embody, the devotion she could never truly offer, and the hollow she could never fill.
The hollow had grown into a presence, quiet but undeniable. It occupied the spaces between her ribs, in her stomach, in the small tremors of her hands and lips. It whispered constantly: You are not enough. You are the problem. You are failing.
Barbara had begun to wonder if the hollow was more real than herself. Perhaps it was all that remained of the Barbara who had once been alive, who had once known joy, curiosity, or fear without guilt. Perhaps the real Barbara had been hollowed out long ago, replaced with obedience, devotion, and the impossibility of perfection.
And yet, she could not stop.
She could not cease her prayers, her hymns, her fasting. She could not stop performing. Every act, every note, every gesture was proof that she existed, even if only as a shadow of the person she had once been.
The other Barbara smiled, and the real Barbara trembled.
The next step, she knew, was inevitable.
The night Barbara broke fully was quieter than she expected. No thunder shook the city. No divine light illuminated the cathedral. Only the low hum of candles filled the Favonius Cathedral, flickering against walls she knew she had memorized yet suddenly seemed unfamiliar.
Barbara knelt in her small room, hands pressed so tightly together the joints ached, fingers white with strain. She had prepared this night for weeks, though she did not consciously admit it. Every fast, every hymn, every sleepless hour had been a step toward this moment, though she had never named it before.
The walls breathed. Shadows stretched along them, bending unnaturally, crawling across her vision. Hymns seeped from the cracks, overlapping and discordant, echoing in her skull. She pressed her hands over her ears, but the sound came from inside.
You were never meant to be here, the voice said softly. You were meant to be useful, and then gone.
Barbara nodded silently. Relief flowed through her chest—not the sweet relief of confession, but a strange, bone-deep relief that at last, the answer was clear. She would fix the corruption she felt in the city, the imperfections in herself, the contamination she believed she carried. She would disappear. Not die. Disappearance was humble, removal, correction. Death felt too final, too selfish.
Tears streamed down her face without permission, dripping onto the floorboards. Her reflection in the mirror, distorted by candlelight, looked unfamiliar. Eyes too bright. Smile too strained. Face hollowed by purpose. This, she thought distantly, must be what true devotion looks like when it is complete.
She began to kneel, bow, and write, performing rituals that had once been acts of devotion but now felt like purging. Fasting had become extreme. The night stretched endlessly as she repeated prayers, copied hymns obsessively, and whispered apologies to statues she imagined crying again. The shadows responded, thickening, twisting, almost alive.
Jean arrived too late. The candlelight beneath the door flickered wildly as she forced it open. The smell hit her first—wax, sweat, and iron. Barbara stood in the center of the room, hands clasped, lips moving in silent prayer. Her eyes did not focus.
“Barbara,” Jean said, voice sharp with worry. She stepped closer, unsure whether to touch her sister.
Barbara flinched violently. “Don’t,” she said, voice full of terror. “You’ll ruin it.”
The voice inside her approved. Good. You understand.
Jean reached again, gently this time, but Barbara screamed—not in pain, not in anger, but in terror. It was as if being pulled back into herself, into the flawed, hollowed version of the world, was unbearable. She clutched at the air, at herself, at the space between the shadows.
“Barbara!” Jean shouted, voice breaking. She tried to anchor her sister, to bring her back from the hollow she had inhabited for years, but the distance between them felt infinite. Barbara’s devotion had become a fortress, unyielding, impervious to touch.
Barbara collapsed briefly, only to rise again, repeating prayers, copying hymns, fastened in a loop of compulsion. Her Hydro Vision flickered violently, responding to her panic and concentration simultaneously. The statue of Barbatos she had always seen as a comforting presence now loomed over her in her mind, eyes accusing, tears returning to streak the marble cheeks in her imagination.
She had reached the point where performance and reality were indistinguishable. Every act of devotion was both punishment and salvation, every note sung was both proof of life and acknowledgment of inadequacy. The hollow inside her had swallowed the real Barbara entirely; all that remained was the body, the rituals, and the voice.
Jean, desperate, whispered her sister’s name, pleading, grounding her, trying to reach the person behind the performance. But Barbara could not answer. Not yet. Her mind had become a cathedral of obsession, and she was trapped inside, performing for statues, shadows, and a voice that demanded perfection.
The night stretched on. Barbara’s prayers became silent murmurs. The hymns she wrote filled stacks of paper that trembled with the hand that created them. Hunger and fatigue pressed against her, but she ignored them. Her body was a vessel for devotion, hollow and disciplined.
And through it all, she felt the relief of clarity. She had discovered the answer: disappearance. Correction. Purification. The world could continue. She would no longer taint it with her imperfection.
But she did not vanish.