Cold.
That was the first thing Luther felt— a sharp, unforgiving cold, curling into his skin through the torn sleeve of his jacket.
"Ugh..." He groaned.
Lifting his head slowly, his vision swimming with both light and dust, to which was then followed by a sharp pain.
His right hand ached.
Looking down, something hard was gripped in it— a bottle, slick with condensation, cracked at the base, it's sharp edge dried with blood.
"Where the hell is this?"
He blinked against the muted light filtering through stained-glass windows— most intact, one near the corner fractured like a spiderweb.
Shadows stretched long and low across the floor. Wooden pews, some were toppled. A crucifix hung above the room, casting a crooked silhouette across the cracked marble.
He was in a church...?
With a bottle in his hand. Blood on his palm.
Luther's was filled with helplessness as if he had already been proven guilty of a misconduct, or in this case, a crime.
To which he can legally be charged of:
• Trespassing
• Breaking and Entering
• Burglary
• Vandalism
• Public Intoxication
• Disorderly conduct
Though some of them can be salvaged through the lack of intent...
Shaking his head, Luther's expression turned strange.
He had absolutely no memory of how he got here.
Bits and pieces fluttered in his mind like ash on the wind:
A club. Music— it was loud and deep as it vibrated through his chest.
A girl in silver heels?
Laughter. A drink spilled on his jacket.
Someone yelling before falling in the next second.
Then— static.
"This... I should have drunk less."
He tried to remember more, but everything else was just void.
Luther sat up slowly on the bed, groaning as the pain in his back flared to life.
He exited the room and looked around, trying to place anything familiar— but the church was old, worn, and coldly unfamiliar.
*Clunk!*
The beer bottle slipped from his fingers and rolled, the jagged glass clinking softly across the stone floor.
'Oh, shoot!'
He stumbled to his feet and saw the supposed source of his entry: a narrow stained-glass window near the side. The frame was bent inward. Shards of colored glass littered the floor like confetti from some twisted celebration. Blood smeared on the bottom of the sill.
Unconsciously touching the back of his head— it was tender, maybe swollen. No memory of climbing through though, but he must've.
*Gulp*
He broke in. He committed a crime, in a church no less.
Why, oh why should I have gotten drunk?
"This should lessen the chances of me going into heaven..." Luther muttered dejectingly before adding, "Though, I wasn't even going there in the first place."
Then there was silence.
"That's weird, why is it so peaceful?"
Quiet. It was too quiet.
The silence was a bit unnerving to say the least. The atmosphere was thicker and heavier than usual, even he who had just committed a crime can feel it.
This is the kind of quiet that followed after something went terribly wrong.
He wandered toward the front doors— tall, wooden, reinforced with an iron bar across the handles. Locked from the inside.
"Are they keeping the devil out perhaps?" Luther joked before slightly chuckling.
*Click!*
Stopping. His pulse quickened.
Someone else was here.
He turned just as a door creaked open behind the altar.
From the side corridor, a man stepped into view— tall, thin, wearing a black cassock.
It was a priest. His hair was graying, his eyes tired. He froze when he saw Luther, his whole body going still though his hands moved behind his robe for a moment.
"…Who are you?" the priest asked carefully.
Luther lifted his hands slightly, as if surrendering. "I… I don't know how I got here. I just woke up."
The priest's eyes darted to the bottle on the floor, then to the broken window.
"You broke in?"
"Looks like it," Luther muttered, glancing at the blood on his hand. "Last thing I remember, I was at a club. Then… nothing."
The priest didn't move, as if he didn't believe his excuse.
"I've been here for over a day," he said. "Alone. I haven't heard a single sound since yesterday morning."
Luther frowned. "You've been holed up here for a day and a half?"
The priest nodded slowly. "I came here when things started getting… strange. People panicking. Phones dead. Emergency signals on every channel. I thought the church might be safe."
Looking at the corridor behind the priest.
"Safe from what?" Luther took a step back, his eyes narrowing slightly.
The priest noticed his actions, but he just stood still and didn't answer immediately. He then stepped forward, scanning Luther more closely.
"You don't know?"
Luther shook his head. "No. I remember the club… people screaming, maybe a fight… that's it."
Father Marquez's brow furrowed. "There were people in the streets," he said quietly, just enough for Luther to hear. "At first. Then fewer. Then… they started acting different."
'Hm?' Luther quickly picked up on his words. "Different how?"
The priest looked past him, toward the high windows with the splitting image of the known; Son of God, Jesus Christ.
"I saw a man walking into traffic without blinking," he said. "Someone screamed at him to stop. He didn't even flinch. Got hit by a van and kept on moving."
"You're saying he survived that?"
"He didn't. Not at first."
Luther stared at him.
The priest continued, voice now hushed. "By the time I got here, people were locking their doors. Barricading their homes. I even saw someone crawling through a window, skin hanging off their arms like wet cloth."
Luther tried to make sense of it, but the words didn't make it through as intended.
"That doesn't make any sense," he said. "Maybe they were on something. Bath salts or whatever."
"I thought the same," the priest rolled his eyes and replied dryly. "Until they started getting back up."
Silence filled the room once again.
Luther was caught off guard "You're serious?"
The priest nodded as he walked towards the broken window, it's shards on the floor. Looking outside, he noticed that the window was placed a bit higher than one can reach. He pulled up some wooden planks from out of nowhere and started hammering away gently.
'Where did he get those?!'
"I've seen things through those windows. Shadows moving. People who should've been dead— walking, dragging themselves across the street, clawing at doors as the screams of people who live there scream for their lives."
Luther looked down at his bloody hand.
'This is some sort of middle ages type of shit...' 'This guy must be crazy...'
He didn't remember anything after the club.
But, who the hell would believe this kind of information first hand?
From a priest who hid behind some closed corridor no less.
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
"How do you know I'm not one of them?" he humored him.
Father Marquez didn't answer right away.
"You're breathing," he said simply. "You still bleed. And you're confused. They don't get confused."
Luther looked up as if accepting his fate.
"So what now?"
The priest turned, walked toward the door he came through, and picked up a heavy flashlight and an old metal crowbar.
"Now?" he said. "We check the rest of the building. Make sure nothing else got in. And pray it stays that way."
He paused before fully opening the side corridor.
Then looked back at Luther with grim, sunken eyes.
"It's here," he said softly.
"You should prepare yourself mentally."
*Bang!*
The barricaded door shook slightly., grabbing his attention.
The priest's expression turned serious before he vanished into the shadows, leaving the door open.
"Wha-"
Luther just stood there, rooted, the hairs on his arms slowly standing on end. The air grew colder, as if the church had exhaled all warmth at once.
*Bang!* *Raghh!!*
The sound was louder this time. And it came with something extra.
"Damn it..."
His instincts flared up as he turned around and moved quickly, following the priest's path into the chamber, not bothering to check what was making the sound.
He closed the passage door though, he was not stupid.
Arriving at the end of the corridor.
The room was filled with supplies— canned food, bottled water, a map pinned to the wall with notes scribbled in red ink.
A battered shotgun leaned against the wall, from who knows where this priest got it from.
The priest in mention, was kneeling in front of a cabinet, pulling out boxes of shells.
Standing up, the priest handed him the shotgun without ceremony. To which he unceremoniously took, the metal cold in his hands.
It felt heavier than it should have been. Not just physically at least.
"What was that?"
"I call it the Black Veil," the priest answered. "A sickness of morality. A curse from who knows where. Doesn't matter anymore. The dead woke up, that's all. And they're hungry."
Luther swallowed hard at the though of the earlier sounds.
"This isn't some sort of elaborate prank, right?"
The priest stared at him as if he was dumb.
Another bang. It was muffled because of the distance, but it signalled a grim moment.
As this one came with a cracking sound.
Wood splintering.
Luther raised the shotgun unconsciously, his fingers finding the grip with unsettling familiarity.
"You said I should prepare myself mentally," he said, voice slightly steady now. "So tell me, priest…"
He turned toward the door as footsteps shuffled just beyond it.
"…what exactly am I preparing for?"
The priest looked towards right side of the map, of where a face with horrifying features were drawn and displayed in red.
And whispered, almost too softly to hear—
"Judgment."