Chloe Gomez's POV:

I tiptoed toward the front doors, my heart still hammering aggressively against my ribs.

I peered through the narrow crack in the heavy wood.

The dirt road outside was completely deserted, bathed in pale, freezing moonlight. Not a soul in sight.

My fingers brushed against a small alcove built into the inside of the doorframe. There was something hidden there: a handful of incense granules and a cheap lighter.

An idea—a desperate, insanely risky plan—flashed through my mind.

Burn the incense.

The Prophet couldn't stand being looked at.

If I knew exactly where it was hiding, I could use my gaze—or my mother's photograph—to scare it back. Then I could escape.

I crept carefully toward the nearby censer.

My heart was in my throat. Taking a deep breath, I lit the incense and deliberately knocked the burning embers onto the floor, letting them scatter.

The once dark and dreary stone floor was instantly dotted with tiny, glowing specks of fire. It was an eerie, terrifyingly beautiful sight.

As the embers settled, I saw them. Faint, dark patches where the incense had been violently and instantly snuffed out. They formed a jagged, fan-shaped trail of darkness radiating from behind a large bookshelf.

It was right there. Behind the shelf. I found it.

Suddenly, the bookshelf began to shake violently.

Old, moldy books and yellowed papers rained down, scattering all around me. The creature was agitated. Highly agitated.

I looked closely at the fallen papers and realized they were old photographs—some black and white, some heavily faded.

They showed scenes of normal town life, blurry faces, generations of townsfolk.

But something was horribly wrong. The eyes of some of the people in the photos had been violently scribbled out with black ink.

And then I saw it. A more recent photo.

My mother. Younger, but unmistakably her.

She was holding a baby wrapped in a blanket.

My blood ran ice cold. The baby's eyes had been crudely, viciously blacked out with ink.

It was me.

That baby was me.

Chloe Gomez's POV:

That photograph made my blood curdle. The baby in my mother's arms, its eyes blotted out by black ink. It was undeniably me.

A deep chill seeped right into my marrow.

Why were my eyes crossed out? What did it mean? What was so terrifying about my eyes that they had to be censored, even in a photograph?

A sinister realization slithered into my mind.

That creature, the Prophet... it wasn't just hiding behind the shelf. It had lured me here. It wanted me to find these photos. It wanted me to see myself.

What was it planning to do to my eyes? The thought paralyzed me with a fresh wave of terror.

I was trapped. Utterly alone. In the pitch black. Facing a monster that seemed to know my deepest secrets. Panic clawed at my throat like a physical hand.

Then, a memory surfaced.

My mother, kneeling before the Prophet's statue, praying frantically, her face drenched in tears. No, not praying—weeping. She had sobbed aloud, a raw, harrowing sound of absolute despair.

And the Prophet, whatever it was, had shown her mercy.

I dropped to my knees, the freezing stone biting into my skin. Tears spilled from my eyes—real ones this time, not faked.

"Please!" I sobbed, my voice raw and breaking. "Please, don't hurt me! I didn't mean to! I just wanted the money. For the black veil."

"They told me to take your veil, and they'd pay me."

"Please, don't hurt me."

The rustling behind the bookshelf stopped. A dead, suffocating silence fell over the room, broken only by my ragged, gasping sobs.

Then, a skeletal hand slowly reached out from behind the pile of fallen books. It was so thin it was almost translucent, the fingers impossibly long.

Clutched in its grasp was a folded piece of black silk. The veil.

It slowly, deliberately placed the black silk on the floor, then retreated back into the impenetrable darkness behind the shelf.