This Town - 2
Wednesday -- 10 a.m.
Her body ached -- muscles slack, skin damp, thighs sticky with the evidence of what had happened. But her mind... her mind was quiet for the first time in what felt like days, maybe weeks. No whispers. No hunger. No one else behind her eyes.
She looked around. The stained glass was cracked, the altar desecrated, the air thick with incense and something fouler beneath it. Blood, maybe. Sex. The pews bore scratch marks -- some from her, some from... whoever or whatever she'd been. She couldn't remember it all.
But she knew it was over.
She pressed her palms to the wood beside her, grounding herself. Breathing in deep. Trying to find the Mia underneath all of it -- the polite, pretty girl who'd just been passing through. But something was still inside her. Not the demon. Not anymore. Something else.
Something left behind. It was shame.
She moved like she was waking from a coma -- each limb slow, uncertain, as if relearning gravity. Her bare feet padded across the cracked marble floor, the echo of her steps swallowed by the church's stale hush. Near the altar, half-hidden beneath a shredded jacket and torn jeans, she found them -- a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Liam's, probably. He'd left in such a rush, naked and shaken.
She crouched, fingers trembling not with fear but anticipation, and pulled the pack free. Only two remained, slightly bent, filters a little yellowed with time. She smiled. No lighter, but she checked the jacket pockets anyway, and there it was -- a red Bic, half-full, warm like it had just been used.
She sat back on the pew, still naked, uncaring, her knees pulled loosely together. The cigarette kissed her lips like a secret. One click. Two. On the third, flame. She lit it, the tip flaring orange in the dimness, and took her first drag -- slow, indulgent, like it was the first breath she'd ever taken for herself.
Smoke filled her lungs and something inside her sighed.
She leaned her head back, exhaling toward the shattered ceiling. The tendrils curled upward, snake-like and holy, tracing faded saints with their sin. The nicotine hit her blood like medicine. Like a rush. She closed her eyes, took another drag. Slower this time. Deeper.
Each inhale reminded her she was still here. Each exhale whispered she could do anything now.
The cigarette burned low between her fingers, a slow ember counting down something she couldn't name. She flicked the ash onto the stone floor, then reached for the rest of Liam's things. The pack was deeper than it looked -- a mess of crumpled papers, a broken pocketknife, half a protein bar... and beneath it all, the neck of a bottle. Peppermint schnapps. Almost full.
She unscrewed the cap and took a sniff -- sharp, sweet, stinging. It reminded her of Christmas mornings and first kisses, of mistakes made behind high school gymnasiums. She tilted her head back and drank.
One swallow. Two. Three.
It went down hot, syrupy and vicious, warming her belly and loosening the tension in her jaw. She coughed, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and smiled -- not because it felt good, but because it felt. The bottle was cold comfort in her palm, but she held onto it like it meant something. Maybe it did.
She stood and crossed the room, her bare skin lit dimly by shafts of ruined sunlight pushing through stained glass. In the far corner, where she'd first been dropped by the darkness that used her body, her pack sat waiting. Dusty. Unmoved.
She knelt, tugging it close, and her fingers brushed against the soft little bear stitched to the front -- brown, threadbare, eyes nearly rubbed out. A relic from childhood. From a gentler life. Mia stared at it for a moment, thumb grazing the seams, then slowly pulled the bear free. Threads tore with a soft snap. She held it for a beat longer -- then dropped it to the floor.
No tears. Just a hollow sort of grief. She wasn't that girl anymore.
Her dress came next, wrinkled but clean enough. She slid it over her skin like armor. Then the boots. Then the jacket. The zipper stuck halfway up, but she didn't care. It still held her.
She looked around the church one last time -- the cracked altar, the scorched pew, the shadows that clung to the corners like regret. She left the rest behind. The smoke. The sex. The scream that hadn't been hers.
And she walked out the door.
Because it wasn't her shame to carry.
Not anymore.
The wind caught the door as she left, pulling it closed behind her with a groan and a dull, echoing thunk. Mia didn't look back.
The street stretched ahead -- cracked but not crumbled. Dusty, yes, but not destroyed. This wasn't the end of the world. It just felt like it.
She walked quickly, the schnapps bottle clinking inside her pack, cigarette smoke still faint on her breath. Her boots thudded softly against the pavement, the sound swallowed by the thick air that hung over the town like a held breath.
The sky swirled above her -- not stormy, just... moving. Like the clouds were pacing, impatient. Light broke through in pieces, shards of pale gold cutting between waves of gray. The sun hadn't fully vanished, but it was far from shining.
Storefronts lined the street. Some shattered, gaping with broken glass and scorched wood. Others completely untouched -- a flower shop still boasting dried bouquets behind dusty panes. A diner with every stool in place, menus open on counters like someone had just stepped out for a smoke. A red bicycle leaned perfectly upright against a fire hydrant, its tires full.
Mia passed an alley where the shadows felt thicker -- not darker, exactly, but denser, like smoke that hadn't finished rising. The buildings on either side leaned too close, as if conspiring. A single flickering light buzzed above a warped metal door halfway down, casting long, twitching shapes across the cracked pavement.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't stop.
But her eyes lingered for just a breath longer than they should have. Something about the stillness in that space felt aware, like it had been waiting for her to notice it.
She didn't give it the satisfaction.
Boots steady on the sidewalk, she moved on, the alley falling behind her like a held breath she refused to exhale.
She passed a burned-out house with melted siding and collapsed rafters, black streaks up the walls like it had tried to scream as it died.
Then she passed a pristine home, blue shutters, front porch swing swaying slowly though there was no wind on her face. The contrast didn't sit right. It never did. The town wasn't ruined -- just hollow. Preserved, but wrong.
Like it was meant to be this way.
Like it was waiting for something.
Mia didn't care what. Not right now. She needed shelter. Somewhere safe. Somewhere to curl up, dry out, and pretend for a few hours that she still felt human.
She turned the corner onto Main, skirting past an overturned bench and the bones of what used to be a pet store. That's when she felt it -- the shift. Like the wind held its breath. Like something behind her had stopped moving just to listen.
She froze, even though she knew better than to freeze in a place like this. Every instinct screamed to move -- to run, to hide, to do something -- but her body wouldn't budge. Not with the dull throb still pulsing between her legs, a raw ache left behind by whatever had been inside her. She clenched her thighs without meaning to, but the pain flared, hot and intimate, reminding her that she wasn't whole yet.
Bolting wasn't an option. Not like this.
The growl came again -- closer now, just beyond the alley's mouth, wet and heavy like breath through torn lungs. Her heart hammered. Her feet stayed planted. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry.
She didn't have it in her to fight.
Not again.
The sky darkened overhead, a mass of cloud pulling tighter, and the silence stretched thin. Then came the sound -- low, guttural, almost feline. Not quite a growl, not quite a word. Like breath forced through vomit and teeth.
Her skin prickled. She turned slow, eyes scanning the alley she'd just passed.
Nothing.
But she knew it was there.
The sound came again -- closer, wet, hungry. Something shifted in the dark. A shape. Not animal, not man. Her feet moved backward on instinct, breath catching in her throat.
Then-- a voice.
"Hey!"
Bright, sharp. Human.
