Chloe Gomez's POV:
That photograph made my blood curdle. The baby in my mother's arms, its eyes blotted out by black ink. It was undeniably me.
A deep chill seeped right into my marrow.
Why were my eyes crossed out? What did it mean? What was so terrifying about my eyes that they had to be censored, even in a photograph?
A sinister realization slithered into my mind.
That creature, the Prophet... it wasn't just hiding behind the shelf. It had lured me here. It wanted me to find these photos. It wanted me to see myself.
What was it planning to do to my eyes? The thought paralyzed me with a fresh wave of terror.
I was trapped. Utterly alone. In the pitch black. Facing a monster that seemed to know my deepest secrets. Panic clawed at my throat like a physical hand.
Then, a memory surfaced.
My mother, kneeling before the Prophet's statue, praying frantically, her face drenched in tears. No, not praying—weeping. She had sobbed aloud, a raw, harrowing sound of absolute despair.
And the Prophet, whatever it was, had shown her mercy.
I dropped to my knees, the freezing stone biting into my skin. Tears spilled from my eyes—real ones this time, not faked.
"Please!" I sobbed, my voice raw and breaking. "Please, don't hurt me! I didn't mean to! I just wanted the money. For the black veil."
"They told me to take your veil, and they'd pay me."
"Please, don't hurt me."
The rustling behind the bookshelf stopped. A dead, suffocating silence fell over the room, broken only by my ragged, gasping sobs.
Then, a skeletal hand slowly reached out from behind the pile of fallen books. It was so thin it was almost translucent, the fingers impossibly long.
Clutched in its grasp was a folded piece of black silk. The veil.
It slowly, deliberately placed the black silk on the floor, then retreated back into the impenetrable darkness behind the shelf.
