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The Church

A Second Person Narrative

By Shannon MurphyPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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The Church
Photo by Mike Kotsch on Unsplash

You squint as the sun's low rays reflect off the recently fallen snow. You look around and see that you are in a forest, but you are confused about exactly where you are. You look down at your aged hands and your worn clothes. Well, you say clothes, but they are more like rags. Torn and restitched dozens of times over. Your shoes are no better, with the soles, long worn out, and your big toe sticking out of a small hole in the top of the left shoe. The old and tattered leather gloves, the right of which no longer has a thumb, do little to keep your hands warm. Your old, wrinkled hands shake slightly as you bring them up to your face and exhale loudly. A large puff of hot steamy air fogs up the thick bifocal glasses that currently adorn your weathered face. You sigh and remove the spectacles from your face and wipe the moisture away with your scarf. You look at it fondly as you remember your wife’s aged face. Her smile creating even more wrinkles on her beautiful features as she twirls one of her long grey curls. She had given the scarf to you before she passed last year. You sigh once more and place your glasses back on your face. After a moment you relocate the path and begin to walk, trudging through the snow slowly as you breathe heavily. You are tired and your body feels heavy and numb. You want to lay down and fall asleep but something inside you is telling you to keep moving. It urges you forward like the hands of a small child on your back telling you to keep going. It is cold and is getting dark quickly. You urge your legs to move faster, pushing forward toward the town that lay less than a mile away.

After a few minutes, you begin to hear the faint sounds of singing. “Singing?” You think to yourself. “There should be no singing way out here, especially in the middle of winter.” Curiosity soon gets the best of you, and before you even realize it you begin to walk toward the sound. As you get closer you realize that it is coming from an old church. The church, or rather what was once a church, is now in ruins. The stone exterior is crumbling away, leaving large holes and cracks in the walls. The wood-framed roof is partially caved in and birds are able to fly in and out freely. Now that you are closer, you can clearly make out the voices. They are deep male voices singing in Latin. You do not speak nor understand Latin, yet you feel a sense of renewed energy. You have now reached the steps of the dilapidated house of worship and you see that the old wooden doors are rotted, and one is hanging on by its last hinge. You climb the steps of the church and, avoiding the fallen door, carefully step inside. Once inside you see the full extent of the damage. The interior of the church has been extensively burned. Burnt wood is piled up along each side of the entrance, and most of the pews have been destroyed. As your eyes travel down toward the back of the church, you realize that the first four or so pews and the alter are still intact. Then you see them. Five men cloaked in brown robes. Monks. The monks’ chants and singing fill the church with a melancholy sound. Directly behind the monks, there are a few dozen candles lit, giving life to the old, crumbling building. One of the monks looks up at you and smiles softly. He wordlessly beckons you to come in and sit. You oblige him and move slowly to the back of the church looking for the least rotten bench. Once you are sure that the pew will take your weight, you ease your old weak body to sit and you feel an immense sense of relief wash over you. After a few minutes of watching the monks, your eyelids begin to feel heavy and you decide that it would be okay if you took a short nap. You close your eyes and lift your scarf up to your nose and inhale. The scarf still smells faintly of her and you smile as you let the monk’s voices take you off to sleep.

An owl high up in the rafters watches the old man as he drifts off to sleep. The old church lit only by the moon’s rays, is quiet. It always has been. The monks have not sung, nor candles burned in the church since the night of the fire. The only sound in the church is the cold winter breeze and the soft flapping of the owl flying off into the night.

Mystery
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About the Creator

Shannon Murphy

Aspiring novelist. I enjoy writing historical fiction and historical fantasy.

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