Washed over in a strange tranquility, a churchly choir hummed in unison.
Resonant. It was like angels had begun to sing for a congregation that was whole again.
Casimir felt Drowsy. Light. As if the weight of the world—the debt, the curse, the hunger—had finally been taken away.
It gave a familiar embracing feeling. A softness not felt since he was free as an innocent child, sheltered from the upcoming world.
“Be washed by my words,” the preacher smiled.
“Be dried by my hospitality. Let your vulnerabilities be mine. Be free. Be home.
Peace. Seek not the job you do. Relinquish that terrible schedule—those redundant tasks.
Live.”
But it wasn’t just him preaching these solemn words, in lockstep rhythm, all around, the skeletons were no longer skeletons. They were fully fleshed. Alive.
Hearts singing, words chanting.
“Be free, be at peace—drown out those whispers—never again hunger.”
“...never again displease.”
None blinked. All that moved were their mouths as they sang.
The hymn washed over. It cooed his mind into a state of bliss.
Casimir felt his shoulders ease. His breath evened.
And without thinking, he moved.
His fingers laced together in his lap.
His back straightened.
His lips parted—just slightly—as if the chant were his, too.
He hadn’t meant to.
He didn’t know why.
Only that it felt... right.
Around him, the congregation swayed in rhythm.
They sang without breath.
Without thought.
“Be free, be at peace—drown out those whispers—never again hunger.”
Casimir blinked.
And in the pew across from him—he saw himself.
Not a mirror. Not a shadow. A version of him, already still. Already singing. Eyes a glossy white as if nothing was there. A shell with nothing to hold.
He looked down. His hands were still folded.
His breath slow.
The song—still in his throat.
“Comforting, isn’t it?” The preacher leaned in with his unwavering eyes. “This can be you—free of your burdensome life. Take it. Enjoy it… be it.”
Casimir closed his eyes, swaying with the psalm. He felt moved—disturbed by how much he wanted to believe.
“Look.” The preacher pointed toward the far chapel door. “Green. Lush. Full and vibrant. Look at those saturated fields. Outside is alive and well. And so too can you be.”
Casimir turned his gaze to the large archway.
It was no longer the walnut-hewn lumber from before.
The doorway gleamed—ivory-pale, arched like a cathedral’s throat. A nave of pearl and bone, shimmering with unnatural light.
Beyond it: figures. Clamoring adventurers, full of skin and smiles. People. Branded, like him. Laughing. Whole. They crossed the threshold as if into paradise.
“Go on… take a walk. Look. But know that once you step onto the other side, there is no returning.”
The preacher smiled, leaning in with his long, slithering contorted frame.
“Will you be the first to rise or the last to rest?”
Casimir stood. The pew creaked beneath him. His limbs light. His shoulder—numb.
The Brand no longer burned.
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It was gone.
“I like… I like this feeling,” Casimir hummed.
“Then embrace it.”
He walked the aisle—slowly, reverently—between rows of watching eyes. His heart pounded. His eyes watered.
At the threshold, the warm air of the outside world brushed against his face—grass-sweet, sunlit, free of rot. It smelled like before. Before the curse. Before the hunger... before he grew older.
“I—I…”
Behind him, the congregation now stood. Fleshed. Smiling. Silent.
One stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Cold. Clammy. Too hard. Like the hand of a recently deceased onset by rigamortis.
It gripped and reminded him like a stiff relative presented in a casket.
His eyes widened on this touch. The hairs on his neck stood with a trail of goosebumps covering his skin.
This wasn’t comfort. This was mimicry. Death disguised as wholesome light.
“CASIMIR!”
A voice cut through and the veil distorted. The memory jarred a little.
He turned, frantic. His arms—too light. The weight of Hal was gone.
“Wait… where—Hal?!”
No satchel. No voice. Just warmth where bone should be.
“Worry not, Casimir,” the preacher cooed. “Your friend has already found peace. He turned to greener pastures a long time ago.”
Another push. Gentle, but insistent.
“Take it. Enter. Go home.”
“We believe in you,” the congregation chimed softly. “You’ve done enough. Let the weight carry you now.”
Casimir’s fingers gripped the glossy frame of the threshold. His knuckles whitened.
“No.”
He turned, shaking. He stared at the one behind him—glassy-eyed, vacant. There was no joy. No thought. Just the ritual of smiling.
“I’ve still something to live for… I choose my own way.”
Ardently, sweeping his shoulder from the cold hardened grasp, he stepped back. The warmth faded.
The light dimmed.
The smiles cracked.
Then they melted.
The congregant’s flesh slipped like candle wax. One by one, the crowd sagged. Skin sloughed from skulls, lips slurred into bone. Robes clung to hollow frames as the wax beneath their feet softened and spread.
Still they smiled. Still they stood. Still they chanted.
But now their voices were wrong—wet, bubbling, strained with the sound of something dying slowly. Imagine a thick gooey concoction over an open flame.
The light behind Casimir dimmed to nothing. The warmth faded entirely.
And the preacher…
The preacher loomed larger.
The chapel darkened in a flash, as if the only two places of focus that were left shined on Casimir, standing firm by the door, and the preacher himself clenching his altar. All other things were erased. Hollow and empty.
“Hmm,” he murmured, as if already grieving him. “And here I thought you’d be the last to rest.” His voice thickened in disdain. “Come.” He gestured Casimir to approach.
Cautiously, in the dark, Casimir crept his way through the rows of darkened skeletons as the light shined on he and the preacher solely.
Heart racing as he stared upon the tall, withering undead manifesting from his once sacred duty.
The preacher simply shook his head in disbelief.
“So you choose life... over rest.” A pause. No disappointment—just sorrow. “I cannot choose for you, Casimir. But I can give you what you came for.”
He swayed a bit from his alter resembling a snake slithering right. Robes sliding over the pooled wax like softened ash.
“I do not fault you,” he said, voice low. “To choose truth over peace is a cruel kind of bravery.”
From within his own chest—beneath layers of decaying cloth and brittle flesh—he reached.
His fingers slid between ribs, slow and ceremonial.
There was no blood. No wince. Just the soft sound of bone meeting bone.
He withdrew the relic once more like a confession: The Rosary of Gold Tooth.
“But take this, all the same.”
Casimir outstretched his palm almost willingly still. Obeying his command despite all else.
He pressed it into Casimir’s hand. It pulsed faintly—like something that remembered worship.
“For your masters,” he said. “That was always your purpose. Even rebellion has its place in the ritual.…”
“Take it.”
“Feed them.”
“That was what you were made to do.”
“Go now,” the preacher rasped—his voice broken by a stony grind. “To leave, you must walk. To rise, you must fall.”
Outstretched, bony and protruding, he pointed his index finger to the widening dark.
“Hold tight the Rosary. Hold dear the memory. Know that you are loved... somewhere, somehow.”
Casimir simply nodded and pulled the Rosary to his chest. He clenched his fingers firmly around the beads and held tight the molar gold.
The preacher himself now drank in darkness as shadow began to swallow him whole. It left nothing but Casimir’s silhouette alone in a pale white.
“Oh… and look to my altar on your ascent. I aid all pilgrims—whether they follow or not.”
Then—quiet.
His voice gone, swallowed like breath beneath stone.
The chamber bled into darkness.
Not a soul remained to speak.
Not one to hear, should he scream.
He took a step.
It cracked loud against the stone—too loud for a place this empty.
