The Suicides in the Church

Nearly every building in this town of death was wrapped in withered vines and branches. It really did have something of a Cthulhu feel to it.

Nick chopped into a vine stretching down into the depths of a fissure. The blade felt as though it had struck rotten leather, and with a slight flick of his wrist, the entire vine crumbled across the ground as if weathered away. Even the moss clinging to it turned to ash.

"Everything here... uh... seems to have lost its vitality." For a moment, Nick even felt a little relieved.

It was hard to imagine what the elite soldiers who had entered this canyon one group after another had encountered, or what sort of hell of flesh and blood this place had once been when the vines covering the entire town were still alive, like that forest earlier.

"All I want now is to get out of this godforsaken place as quickly as possible." Dahlia swallowed. Her SAN was nowhere near as high as Nick's, and she was not doing well at all.

But before she had finished speaking, the ghostly howls of the "Hollow Men" came again from the direction they had come, accompanied by even more hoofbeats.

"We need cover. The street's too open." As Nick spoke, he handed her two grenades.

Both M4A1s he had brought down were fitted with M203 grenade launchers, but with visibility as poor as it was, they could not make use of their superior firepower unless they found a way to slow the cavalry's charge or took advantage of cover.

Dahlia had the same idea as Nick. Pointing toward the end of the road, she said, "Let's get into that church first."

Nick hesitated as he looked at the dilapidated little church, almost completely enveloped in vines. Although its doors and windows looked reasonably intact from outside, he still felt uneasy about it.

But there seemed to be nowhere better to choose right now. Compared with the seemingly tottering row houses and drafty shops lining the street, the little church was the only building that looked somewhat sturdy and could offer shelter.

Taking turns covering each other, they climbed over the low fence outside the church. Nick stood guard at the foot of the steps while Dahlia leaned beside the doorway and reached out to try pushing the church's heavy wooden door.

The rusty hinges creaked. The wooden door rocked back and forth, opening a crack.

Dahlia listened for a moment. Hearing no movement inside, she stepped forward and shouldered the wooden door open, quickly poking her head inside for a peek. After confirming it was safe, she gave a low whistle.

Nick backed up the steps. Feeling a light tap on his shoulder, he quickly drew his rifle in, turned, and went through the doorway.

The church's wooden door closed again. They leaned against it, scarcely daring to breathe, until they heard the hoofbeats draw closer and then gradually fade into the distance. Only then did they both breathe a sigh of relief.

They were not afraid of a handful of "Hollow Men" cavalrymen. They were worried there would be no end to them. The three cavalry battalions that had disappeared back then alone had numbered over two thousand men, to say nothing of the town's original population.

"Have some water and catch your breath first." Nick set his backpack on the floor, took out his canteen, and handed it to Dahlia, then took out a flashlight to inspect the church's interior.

But the moment he switched on the flashlight, Dahlia choked and coughed out the mouthful of water she had yet to swallow.

The church's roof had rotted away, allowing a little light to filter through, but because all the surrounding windows had been boarded shut, there was hardly any mist inside. Visibility was actually much better than outside.

As a result, the moment Nick shone his light over the chapel, the dried corpses sitting in row after row of pews were exposed in full view. What was more, they were all wrapped in thick white cobwebs, making them look, at first glance from the pair's angle, like ghost brides in wedding dresses from a horror movie.

"Боже мой!" (My God!)

Unlike Dahlia, who was so shocked that she had slipped into her native language, Nick was more concerned with the condition of these dried corpses.

"The way these people look..." For a moment, he could not find the right words. After hesitating briefly, he finally managed the rest. "They seem to have been pretty normal before they died. No mutations."

Dahlia carefully approached one of the dried corpses, picked up a solid silver box resembling a rouge compact, and opened it. She held it to her nose, sniffed, and immediately threw it to the floor.

"It smells of almonds. Cyanide. The people here all died by suicide."

Suicide in a church? Nick opened his mouth, unsure what to say for a moment.

Only someone like him, a man from Cyrus who had spent twenty years living in Europe and the United States, could understand just how ironic and desperate the scene before them was.

After all, those who committed suicide could not enter heaven. These believers had gathered in the church before their deaths, only to choose suicide to end their lives. Did that mean the situation outside had been even more terrifying than hell?

"We'll rest here for a while. Don't worry. We'll definitely get out alive." After speaking, Nick took a drink from the canteen as well, then opened his backpack to replenish Dahlia's ammunition.

He believed his cheat, the movie ticket, would never issue an impossible mission. His previous two attempts had merely suffered from a lack of experience. This time, the third time would be the charm; he would definitely succeed... even if he could not complete the main mission, he had to complete the side mission.

Naturally, Dahlia had no idea where his confidence came from. Taking it as an attempt to comfort her, she turned and lightly bumped her shoulder against his.

But just as she was about to say something, a strange creaking cry suddenly came from somewhere, followed by a rapid rattling of floorboards, as though something was running quickly across the floor.

Both of them started and raised their rifles, but the church was dim, and even without mist surrounding them, visibility was poor.

Nick thrust the tactical flashlight in his hand into Dahlia's, then felt out another and switched it on. In matching movements, they held their flashlights against their rifles, moving their muzzles with the beams, but their tense search revealed nothing.

Another strange creaking cry sounded. This time, they heard it clearly: something really was running across the floor, like a swarm of rats scurrying around.

Dahlia instinctively jumped onto a pew. Her flashlight beam swept wildly over the floor, but she still found nothing.

Just as she concentrated on listening, she saw Nick lower his muzzle and slowly draw his knife. His voice was tense. "Dasha, don't look up."

It would have been better if he had said nothing. At his words, Dahlia instinctively raised her rifle and looked toward the top of the church. What she had thought was a ruined roof was no roof at all, but a spider nest woven from countless vines and cobwebs.

Countless spiders the size of human heads hung upside down from strands of silk, slowly lowering themselves. There were at least a hundred.

Most terrifying of all, "human heads" was no mere description: these spiders actually had skulls for heads. The moment the flashlight beam struck them, they dropped like rain.

One landed right on Dahlia's head. Nick was about to step forward to help when two more landed on his own head and shoulder.

Even if not all women had an innate fear of arthropods, having a Human-Headed Spider suddenly leap onto her face still frightened Dahlia into falling onto the pew, knocking over the dried corpse beside her as well.

Nick punched the Human-Headed Spider off his shoulder, grabbed the other one from his head, and threw it onto the floor, crushing it underfoot in a burst of goo. Then, with a casual slash, he cut the one preparing to leap at him again in half.

When he looked up again, he could not see Dahlia. Briefly alarmed, he then spotted her on the floor, where she had rolled off the pew. A large swarm of Human-Headed Spiders was lunging toward her.

"Open fire!" Nick roared. At a time like this, he could no longer worry about whether gunfire would draw those "Hollow Men" cavalrymen. Who knew whether a bite from these things would turn them into more of the same?