Content Warnings

Swearing, blood, violence, mild gore.

If you think there should be additional content warnings here, please contact me at [email protected].

Day #7

As Myra's boots met the edge of the treeline on this side of the grass—or what was left of it—she witnessed the abbey in all its glory.

It was black. So black that it seemed to be sucking up all light, all heat. Myra shivered. Some of this was from the sudden cold. The abbey was impossibly vast from this vantage point, half-crouched behind a blackened tree trunk. Its elaborate windows and jagged constructs were indistinct, likely due to the distance, but even this indistinctness was superceded by its sheer size. Never before had Myra felt so small.

As she squinted through her nausea, her eyes caught movement. Soulless. Shit.

Alright, a different route then.

***

Blood. Movement. Ripping, tearing. Blood. Screams. Running. Blood. Shadows. Blood. Pain. Blood, blood, blood.

They weren't entirely soulless. There were—chunks. Slabs of flesh woven tightly into the shadowy figures that screeched and clawed at her, and rivulets of blood trudging through what was left of them. Their blood, dark and thin, sprayed into Myra's face as she sprinted through the winding corridors of the abbey.

Pale moonlight illuminated their hollow faces, revealing hanging jaws and rotting eye sockets in regular intervals. It streamed through the narrow windows in the abbey's walls, and was all Myra had to see by through the blood pooled in her eyes.

The soulless were a tidal wave that surged and fell over itself in pursuit of her, pouring out of side rooms, tearing through candelabras and portraits and bookshelves for a chance to taste her flesh and dig their claws into her skin. Myra gripped her flint and steel harder, desperately thrashing as she ran. The air kept slipping from cold to colder. She was close, she knew, and, as she barrelled through massive double doors that led to a hall of pews and altars, Myra threw her pack behind her.

As it struck the first soulless, they began to pile and tumble, trampling each other in their attempts to clear the doors. Thank the gods. She only needed a moment, after all.

Her ears pounded as she stumbled to the pyre. The hall engulfed her with its stature—the saints in the windows watched her, impassive and stern.

It was so small. So unassuming. A shallow bowl held aloft by a wooden pillar, with something like gold dust collected in its dark basin. Myra's breath shuddered as she fumbled with the flint and steel.

The first strike did not spark fire. Nor the second.

Their screeching and scrabbling was growing more desperate. Against her every instinct, Myra chanced a look behind her as her hands shook against her little tools, and saw pressure fit to burst. It was as if they were combining into one horrible, roiling mass, some dead or dying, most crushing against them as the force of their hunting burgeoned.

They would be upon her soon.

Strike three. Strike four.

The doors creaked, and then cracked, and then thunderous noise was beating through the thrumming in her ears. The air tore apart.

Strike five. Shit. Shit.

It was so cold, she thought, as she tried not to cry. Myra did not even know if she was striking the steel anymore, racked as she was with fear.

A thorny hand clutched her shoulder, lancing pain shot down her arm. And then—

Journal #7

I did it. I did it. Holy shit. Gods above.

Easily the worst day of my life. It was fine at first. Managed to sneak in by climbing a tree near the abbey and jumping onto the roof from it.

It was

When I went into the

Kind of hard to remember what happened after that, but I know there weren't many to begin with. And then

And then

There was a

I heard

Managed to get to the church alright, and lit the pyre with no problems. Place was pretty much deserted. Halfway there.

I wish my mama was here. I want my mama. Mama, I hope you're alright. Mama, I

Better turn in for the night. There are plenty of empty rooms in the abbey. Gonna be nice to sleep in a bed for once.

Game Stuff

Draw: Joker. FIRST PYRE.

Roll(s): 6

Outcome: No soul points regained.

Oracle results

Place: 21. Abbey.

Theme: 93. Chaos.

Other Entries

First entry: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-myra-1

Previous entry: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-myra-6

Next entry: doesn't exist yet!

Pilgrim Stats

Pilgrim name: Myra

Pronouns: she/her

Soul Meter: 9

Check out Pyres of a Cursed Kingdom by Miracle M (if you're cool. what do you mean 'peer pressure'?):

https://miraclem.itch.io/pyres

I explain some of Pyres here: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-..

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