Inktober 2022

I never liked old castles. Or those churches and cathedrals. Well, I guess I just dislike grim looking old architecture. I always get this strange, eerie feeling wherever I’m near one, which chills me to the bone.

Apparently, it’s always been just me who felt that way, since no one else that I knew had ever felt disturbed by such buildings. I suddenly remembered that strange fortune teller I met a couple years back. He’d said I was ‘sensitive’ to spirits or something, but I never exactly took it to heart either.

Regardless, my point is; I don’t like places like this cathedral.

But then again, why was I here? My friends, being the thrill seekers they are, decided to make us visit the abandoned cathedral in the middle of the night on the 1st of October. And of course they had to drag me into it. Honestly, I couldn't even be surprised. Knowing these wannabe ghostbusters that were my best friends, this cathedral had probably been on their bucket list for months.

As we neared the building, that strange feeling started appearing in my guts again and I wavered, slowing down. The closer I got to the looming structure, the more uneasy I felt, flinching at every sound and movement despite my friend’s reassurances which came in the form of jokes and me being dragged my the arm. When we entered the grim cathedral, that feeling of fear and uneasiness only grew more and more defined and prominent, my entire body feeling cold and tense.

As we passed under a stone arch, it suddenly seemed to take on a physical form, turning into a glare as cold as stone, piercing into the side of my head. A hissing noise came from the darkened corner of the wall and I instinctively veered my flashlight in that direction, cold sweat immediately surging over me. There were a pair of bright red eyes on the wall in the corner staring into my soul.

“There's something on the wall!” I shouted.

My group then turned in the direction I was staring at, flashlights all pointing at the wall with perfect synch and brightness to see a blinded bat fall anticlimactically from a stone gargoyle's face.