(1) Brand & Bone: The Bell-Tongued Preacher | Dark Fantasy Fable |

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This dark fantasy fable is part of the reliquary known as Brand & Bone.

It is not meant to comfort. Only to confess.

Chapter One

The Chapel Shrouded in Mist

The world didn’t speak. It whispered—and only his name: Casimir. He moved through the fog not by choice, but by need—intention warped by curse. He looked like a young-man remembered poorly—ragged, hollow-eyed, too pale for this place.

At his hip, a satchel clung, swinging with the rhythm of uneven steps. Not tightly bound, but folded just enough to breathe. As he walked further through the dampening dark, trees bowed—not from wind, but from attention. The forest was singing a hymn so serene, so calming, it tried to lull him into temptation.

But he knew better than to pause and enjoy its hypnotic lure, for something pulled him further—a slight burn beneath his clothes—pulsing just under his flesh. That ache kept him moving forward without hesitation.

At his boots, fog coiled low, damp and warm, clinging like breath from a mouth that wasn’t there. Flowing over his feet like a frothy tidal wave at the shoreline. 

Out of the blue, his stomach twisted—but this wasn’t just his body begging for a morsel.

He gripped his chest and winced in pain. This was not just an ache behind his ribs—it was an echo. A borrowed feeling, fed by something else. Pausing now, hunched in his stride, frozen by the weight of an aching, pulsatile burn beneath his flesh. Eyes wide open with beads of sweat forming across his brow. Pupils shrinking with the agonizing, shadowy clutch gripping him firm.

Then— a whisper.

Not quite voice. Not quite thought. Just a sound where no breath should be:

“Serve…”

Casimir froze where he stood beneath the wet trees.

Not in fear—but familiarity.

He didn’t nod to the words—he just… didn’t disagree.

“That mark will be the death of you, Casimir.” A rattly voice preached.

“I'll be fine,” He straightened, still clutching his chest. “besides, I am quite used to it.”

“I don’t recommend being used to it.”

“What would you have me do then?” Casimir snapped.

“I—”

“There’s only one way to calm it.”

Breaking the back and forth, a bell tolled. Quietly. It ran through the spanning rows of trees. Its sound was muted, like it passed through water, or faint as if it were muffled in a dream.

“You hear that, Hal?” Casimir whispered. “Or am I imagining things again?”

“I don’t hear much where I am,” Hal muttered. “Mostly your stomach-grumblings.”

Casimir didn’t smile, but he did open up Hal’s satchel a bit more.

“Surely you jest, Hal—” Casimir began, but his stomach answered first, groaning like a beast denied. “...say nothing of it.”

“I don’t have to. You’re already very clear without speaking on what you truly need.” Hal pointedly stated.

“Hunger is forever,” Casimir’s tone shifted, gravelly almost. “Relics are forgotten. They’re lost to time. Buried under stone and never seen again—and I need them.”

“And the whispers,” Hal snorted. “They’re forever too—if you allow it.”

Silence fell—not peace, but something eerie, waiting. Casimir stared into the fog as It stared back—thick, pasty, unmoving. 

Dew overhead from the blanketing wet dropped from leaves and soddened his clothes. Every step forward felt like a stroll through sorrow—like something wept overhead for him. But their sadness meant nothing to him. In his mind, there was only one goal: find it.

“What was it that old goat said,” Hal broke the silence. “Something about a bell not tolling for the living? How did she say it?”

Casimir remembered the woman from the last town—voice ragged and drawn, hoarse with age and a life of hardship left uncared for.

“If you hear the chapel bell, keep walking. It don’t toll for the living—it tolls for those still pretending to be.”

“Oh… her,” Casimir sighed. “Hal—her breath, her teeth, her everything. She wasn’t wise—she was rotted.” 

“Besides… the church is abandoned,”  Casimir sidled a smirk across his cheeks “Who in their right mind would be out here—”

Then, from somewhere unseen—far, but aimed like a blade—the bell tolled again.

A metallic clang that pierced the forest’s thick brush. This time a bit louder with a new tone. Like it called for Casimir to come forward.

The ghostly ring sent a chill down his spine. It was abnormal. Not the usual procession for a gathering mass. It felt more like a call for the damned to gather beneath its shadow.

Casimir flinched. “Perhaps it may not be abandoned….”

“No chapel ever is,” Came a reply—from Hal  “Abandonment in flesh differs from abandonment in spirit. I should know….”

Gut growling again, like a rippling groan tumbling over itself.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Hal asked. “I mean for food—not to feed it greed!”

“I am!” Casimir snapped. “End of discussion… we’re getting bread like every pilgrim.”

“But you’re not a pilgrim!” Hal sharply interjected. “You’re here to plunder and pilfer, no?”

Lost in thought, Casimir stood patiently, ignoring Hal all the same. Drinking in a deep breath. Inhaling the lush green, the wet, even the rot. Downwind now, the flow of the mist curdled around his feet—like palms begging for his attention.

This forest was alive. Resembling a large beast breathing.  The fog was as warm and wet as its breath, and the trees stretched out like its protruding limbs. But every cautious step felt as if something or someone was watching. Observing.

Again, through the brush the bell rang a third time. Not louder—closer. As if it had stepped forward. It moved as it rang. Eerily, it chimed a sound still enticing him closer yet—like a hand gesturing him in, “...closer.”

Casimir leaned forward, squinting into the mist.

Then, the fog recoiled—as though the forest had just inhaled the rolling vapor through unseen teeth.

He saw it.

Drawn across a pale grey canvas, rising from lush green pasture, a crooked silhouette formed slowly. First the steeple, then the bell tower.  Its point was bent like a broken finger beckoning him closer. The chapel emerged not from shadow, but from intention. It didn’t feel discovered—it felt delivered.

“Charming,” Hal muttered. “Do you think it’ll offer that bread you seek, or just the body?”

Casimir said nothing. He shook his head—slow, uncertain.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Hal added, voice pitched now—unsettled. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

Despite his words, Casimir didn’t stop walking. “Hal… What other massive church would just emerge forward through the fog?”

“Very few….”

Casimir quickened—impatient, compelled. But the faster he moved, the farther the chapel leaned away.

The field stretched. The steeples thinned—drawn back like a mirror refusing to reflect.

“Can I say something?” Hal asked.

Casimir didn’t answer. He just kept walking.

The rattling of the bell sounded off—almost like it was goading Casimir to keep trying as it waited—wanting something from him it seemed.

But it was still distant. Still soft. Despite being right there before their very eyes.

“I’m going to hog-tie that bell-bearer when I get there.” Casimir steamed.

He pressed forward—furious, but unmoved.. It was a mirage. Or worse—a memory trying to forget him.

Again, Casimir walked forward, but to no avail… not an inch closer. Every step placed him further away… not nearer.

Tempered, he snapped.

Broke into a sprint.

Step after step—closer… no, further?

His hair whipped back in the stale wind. Breath ragged. Heart pounding through his throat.

After a dozen strides, he buckled—knees to soil, one arm over his gut like shielding something spoiled. Breath sawed through clenched teeth.

“Forget it,” Casimir growled, waving the chapel off. “Let it rot. We’ll find something else.”

Hal didn’t reply.

“I’m starving, Hal.” He spat the words like blood. “We’ll just look elsewhere.”

Hal remained silent.

“It never ends,” he whispered. “Not the walk. Not the Brand…”

Then—quietly, without ceremony—he added:

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore… I just exist to feed that mark… that curse.”

That did it.

The final toll rang out.

Heavier—but somehow inviting. It was like a call to gather. A call to join.

“That’s not an echo,” Hal whispered. “That’s a welcoming.”

A pause.

“Maybe we turn back now… right?”

Casimir stepped forward. This time, the gates did not retreat.

Each footfall sank with intent. The fog did not fight him. The world did not shift. It allowed.

The chapel loomed—not a building, but a verdict. Its steeple pierced the clouds, and from its tip, water wept—a single stream, like heaven’s slow surrender watching in silence as the world fell into demise.Casimir’s eyes traced its height. A faint, cold smile cracked his lips.

He no longer looked like a man. Wet. Starved. Wrapped in rags.He looked like a pilgrim who had arrived at the Lord’s gateway.

These gates he neared were not pearly.

They were rusted—half-devoured by vine and thorn. Wrought iron curled overhead with angels dancing in the metalwork. Their faces had been eaten. Their wings stripped bare. The harmony of peace and love was long past—it resembled more like decay and abandonment.

The courtyard beyond glistened with rot. Moss slicked the cobblestones, and rain clung like old breath. Statues lined the path, but none stood whole. Moss-caked, green from pedestal to bust, everything was washed in nature’s slow embrace.

All of the saints once had names. Plaques beneath their frames had been erased. Their faces, forgotten.All but one.

At the center stood a woman. Or what remained of her.Weeping, though her face was half-missing.The water on her cheeks might have been dew. But not to him, they resembled tears more than anything else.

Buy then, breaking the silence—traveling around the yard.

A whisper stirred the air:“Qui satiatur, non quaerit—He who is full no longer seeks.”

Casimir stopped. “Did you hear that…?”

“I may not have ears,” Hal muttered, “can’t say I am fond of the dead still chattering… but I wouldn’t be one to talk about that.”

Casimir reached out, brushing the statue’s cold stone. Her ruin had shape—almost divine.

But something was wrong. Not the decay. Not the silence.

That bell—it gnawed at him as he glanced over the statue. Something was amiss… the chapel, the grounds, unkempt and lost to time, yet someone still rings the bell. Why?

The tower stood above them, cracked but still. It had not moved. There was no wind and no rope.

So who rang it?

He climbed the steps slowly now, each tread a question. But there he was. Motionless before the door looming large. Bold. If it could cast a shadow, he’d be engulfed.

Closing his eyes briefly, he held his breath with a wince of slight pain–gripping his chest.

“Careful,” Hal whispered. “We’re near now—the relic calls—and so too does the brand.”

Reaching forth, he placed his hand on the door.

And peace found him.

Like flood water—rushing straight into his chest—it soothed his burning brand. 

“Casimir?”Hal’s voice. Shaken. Small.

Then, softly, from the air—or his bones:

“Inanis es, et semper esuries—You are empty, and always you hunger.”

“I am…” Casimir hypnotically spoke. “…empty.”

And the door moved. Not by his strength. But by hands unseen—as if the church itself had accepted his confession and opened to him.

Swinging inward, the rusty clinks and clanks clattered the air with the grinding of the threshold as the door was pressed inward.

Chapter Two

The Feast of the Hollow

“Welcome, wayfarer,” echoed a voice from the grand hall. “Do you hunger—for truth… or something deeper?”

Large. Opulent despite being broken, shattered, and decrepit. The chapel looked bigger on the inside than it did out.

“To be honest,” Casimir held his gaze upward as the voice rattled through. “I hunger in a general sense….”

The voice didn’t hesitate.

“All hunger is holy in the end.” A pause, then. “It is the shape of your emptiness that determines what fills you.”

The echo folded over itself like multiple mouths speaking in tandem. Passing through the pews and around columns. Designed to carry the unknown voice to every nook and cranny.

His sermon had begun—judgement.

Casimir’s eyes wandered the growing length of the nave. The wooden trusses above stretched unnaturally, heavy with sagging vines that spilled down from the rafters like tendrils. Splintered pews, cracked murals, and shattered stone littered the floor. Faint rays of light filtered through fractured stained glass, casting broken halos across the chamber. The room itself was stifling. Musty almost. The scent of mildew and mold from years of streaming rain and water damage had festered this now rotting church, but it wasn’t empty.

The benches were full.

Row upon row, seated with impossible stillness—skeletons, upright and facing forward as if propped to be a congregation.

“What is this,” Casimir whispered, walking carefully down the dusty central aisle “Were these who….”

“That is my audience, wayfarer,” The voice struck once more. “perhaps dead in flesh, but alive in spirit.”

The voice still had no face, but it was strong. Measured. Forceful—but calm. Alluring.

A soft, monotone diction that reeled him in like a fish on a hook.

“They look dead to me,” Hal muttered. “And that’s coming from a talking skull.”

“Where… where are you?” Casimir pivoted his head around the grand room without catching sight of much. Neither over here nor there… the voice and the body were lost in the aftermath of time and ruin.

“I am here,” The voice echoed. “You need only look forward, not behind—the true path is always forward.”

Casimir continued his march, still unaware of where the voice resided. As he gazed around the room, he rode his fingers along the ancient wooden pews, tracing dust and wax across sun-bleached grain. The congregation sat slouched in eternal silence—skeletons draped in remnants of old cloth and past belief. Some even held age-old books in their laps. Hands neatly folded like a prayer session had just concluded.

Something was changing however.  As he wandered deeper in, the church was moving.

A single candle flickered on the wall. Then another—and another. But the wax… it moved wrong. It slithered up the stone—melting in reverse. Curling into sconces, retreating from the floor like ash unburned. All the smoke fluttered down and into the burning ember. The foul mildew stench was erased and replaced by a new odor. One sweeter—it reminded Casimir of a sunny day. Warm and humid with blooming flowers in the bright sun.

Outside, the forest wind died. Inside, stained glass panes whispered back together, fragments fusing into visions of saints and sinners long lost. The murals on the walls repainted themselves, detail by detail, like hands of time stitching them whole again.

The room began to liven. It warmed to his approach. From a stale grey, the room became a shade of brown with flickering orange. Alive and well.

That voice, benevolent as ever, it sounded too near—like beside him. “I opened my door to you because you confessed. You admitted something few can. But what many wish they could.”

A sound followed—click, click, click—dry nails against wood.

“I am here,” said the preacher, “At the pulpit, look to me.”

Casimir’s heart sank.

Chills spiraled down his spine. In his mind, all went dark with a cold wind blowing across his body. He remained frozen, but turned his head carefully—slowly to the pulpit.

His eyes widened with the faint reflection of the being outlined in his wet pupils.

A face.

Not lifeless.

Not living.

A face that wasn’t watching him.

A face that was waiting.

“Ughhh,” Casimir choked. “Who-”

“Shh…. In fame, veritas,” The preacher ushered in a soft tone. “In hunger, there is truth.” Nearer now, Casimir could smell his breath being face to face. It was foul like decay. Rot of teeth from any food he may have eaten in his time.

Fused together, a duty long overdone, never resigned. A man who had never once turned away from the pulpit, and so he became part of it.

His form was bent, contorted to fit the wood that cradled him. Skin like sun-worn parchment, stretched and splitting. Leathery,  almost mummified. His nails—long, yellowed—curled against the altar’s surface, digging tiny ruts into the grain. 

You could see the splintering spots from where his nails had nicked the desk for what may be a century. His robes hung in tattered threads, faded symbols of once-sacred things embroidered in ruin. A spindly beard draped across brittle papers and feathered pens—notes written, though the ink was stone, fossilized where thought had once flowed.

From beneath his weathered priest’s cap, coarse, bristled hair spilled like cobwebs. Gray to black. Not grown—but clinging, like it had stayed out of habit.

And his face….

A patchwork of rot and bone. 

One cheek collapsed. Age old and yellowed-teeth exposed. 

But his eyes—his eyes—remained.

No lids. No tears. Just flesh, wide and unwavering. Watching nothing. Waiting for everything.

Casimir’s gut curled, a feeling of raw heaviness kept him still with cold beads of sweat forming across his brow. Eyes locked. Intimate fear. The want and desperation to look away, but the unyielding gaze was too atrocious to turn from.

Who was this… no—what was this?

Not unlike other corrupted things that walk this world, but different. He was calm and careful. His movements were subtle—gentle, almost guiding like a pastor should.

“Take a seat,” the preacher said, bony fingers gesturing toward the nearest pew. “I’ve one spot left, and my church will be whole. Rest—relax. I know the journey abroad is long and arduous. And you’ve arrived cold and hungry.”

Casimir turned. The bench was indeed vacant—only one spot remained.

Lined in neat rows, the congregation sat upright, feet soaked in wax. Hands folded in laps. At peace.

As if they too had finally surrendered.

“You bring another,” the preacher said, voice tilting with familiarity. “Hal... how nice of you to return. Have you come for another lesson in sacrament?”

Hal’s voice stirred. “Not this time, Preacher.”

“I assure you Hal, my tone is different. I—I am changed.”

“I doubt that.”

“You’ll see for yourself… assuming you can see through those eyeless sockets of yours.”

Casimir wondered: But how? How do they know each other? Hal barely speaks if at all of past adventures. He never mentioned a preacher fused to an altar. 

The Preacher’s voice carried more than words, it carried weight.And Casimir—whether he meant to or not—sat on his asking without hesitation.

Taking the last seat in his holy house.

The preacher, now seeing his audience full, tried to smile—but it was met with a broken smirk of half leathered skin and visible cheekbones.

A moment had passed, and comfort consoled him. A feeling of heaviness in his limbs was relieved upon sitting.

Looking past the Preacher, the chapel—it was whole-again, just like his congregation with the last seat filled. Nothing remained shattered, nothing remained broken. The only thing left unchanged was the Preacher himself. Dark, foreboding, and eerily looming as a brittle construct of leathery flesh and bone.

“What is your name?” Casimir asked with eyes locked.

“This sermon isn’t about me,” the preacher replied, flipping a brittle page of yellowed parchment.  “It’s about you Casimir.” 

Sounds of rattling bones stirred, chattering jaws, and scraping wood alerted Casimir. To his right, he noticed that the entire row was looking at him. Every skull on his bench peered to their left—some leaning forward to see. Even behind him, the whole of the congregant was looking his way—every skull turned to attention at the preacher’s behest.

“You come with a burden,” the preacher murmured, leaning over the altar, his gaze locking into Casimir’s green-hazel eyes. “It consumes. It grows. It asks. It wants. I sense now... it even whispers. Tingling. Inviting itself into your domain.”

Casimir winced, reaching for his chest.

He felt it then—not burning, but humming. A low, living vibration. Like it was listening, too.

“Yes,” the preacher breathed, his wide, wet eyes tilting with reverence. “The Brand. It burns. It cries. It hungers.” 

He nodded toward the congregation. “Just like the others beside you, adventurers—like you. They sought something here, but I unburdened them. I gave them freedom from festering hunger.”

Digging now beneath his vestments—inside his own cavity—he pulled out an artifact.

The Rosary of Gold Tooth.

A string of beads—fashioned not from prayer, but gems of starlight and molar gold. They clinked and clanked as he yanked them forward. The gold shimmered unnaturally clean by the hands of a well polished jeweler. Though ancient—perhaps as old as the preacher himself—it was untouched by the slow rot of time. None were cracked, and it was all connected from one bead to the next.

“Many Branded have come here seeking this,” he said, lifting it gently. But after examination, he placed it back, deep within his ribcage. “But all chose my hospitality over whispering, unrelenting greed.”

Then, another voice.

Not from him.

Not aloud.

But behind his breath.

“Feed me.”

“Fill the space. Take the warmth.”

“You’re already mine.”

Casimir winced, clutching his chest.

A throb behind his ribs, he whispered back.

“I’ve nothing to feed you… or myself. Not yet.”

Then Hal spoke—quiet, aged, like a thought left too long in the dark.

“You weren’t always like this.”

The Preacher remained focused, but oblivious to Hal’s words.

Holding his chest, Casimir blinked. “You knew him?”

A long silence, then:

“I knew the man who lit his sermons with fire, not wax.”

“He used to preach standing, not fused to a pulpit.”

“He once dared the gods to answer back.”

A brittle breath. Not scorn, but pity.

“You’re not as fanatical as I remember.” Hal muttered.

“I told you, Hal—I’ve changed. With age I gained wisdom. A new outlook on life.” The Preacher returned. “I’d argue that was better than yours—stuck in a satchel by his posterior… funny—I guess the books didn’t save you after all.”

Hal fell silent, but the Preacher spoke again.

“Hal… you had your chance. Let me give Casimir his opportunity that you skipped.”The Preacher whirled his hand slightly with deep breath.

“Those whispers, they haunt your bones and eat your soul. But I will tell you, Casimir—the whispers hold no power here. I preserve. I give peace. I offer you comfort that will not decay.” His eyes now fixated upon Casimir. His body posed with a strong enduring stance. Hands gripping firm both sides of the pulpit as he leaned inward.

“Heed my words, accept my presence. Submit. Surrender yourself to eternal bliss.”

Casimir felt his words seep in, curling around his bones like steam. His voice coddled him—blanketing him in what felt like safety… like being embraced by someone long lost.

This feeling spread from his shoulder downward. He could feel it—not a trickle, but a gentle soaking.

Still clutching his brand, Casimir looked away.

Then down.

At his feet, wax had begun to slither. Curling. Reaching.

It pooled like pale roots, solidifying inch by inch to tickle his ankles.

“Casimir?” Hal’s voice cut through, edged with alarm.

“Listen not to your friend,” The preacher raised a hand—not in anger, but like a blessing. “Let me help unburden your weight. He had his chance and he let it go. Look what happened.”

His eyes—unblinking, lidless—glowed with reverence.

“You are not the first to hunger. You are not the first to hope. You may, if you choose, be the first to rise—” A pause. A smile. “—or the last to rest.”

Muffled: “Casimir!”

Chapter Three

The Last Benediction

Washed over in a strange tranquility, a churchly choir hummed in unison. 

Resonant. It was like angels had begun to sing for a congregation that was whole again.

Casimir felt drowsy. Light. As if the weight of the world—the debt, the curse, the hunger—had finally been taken away.

It gave a familiar embracing feeling. A softness not felt since he was free as an innocent child, sheltered from the upcoming world. 

“Be washed by my words,” the preacher smiled.

“Be dried by my hospitality. Let your vulnerabilities be mine. Be free. Be home.

Peace. Seek not the job you do. Relinquish that terrible schedule—those redundant tasks.

Live.”

But it wasn’t just him preaching these solemn words, in lockstep rhythm, all around, the skeletons were no longer skeletons. They were fully fleshed. Alive.

Hearts singing, words chanting.

“Be free, be at peace—drown out those whispers—never again hunger.”

“...never again displease.”

None blinked. All that moved were their mouths as they sang.

The hymn washed over. It cooed his mind into a state of bliss.

Casimir felt his shoulders ease. His breath evened.

And without thinking, he moved.

His fingers laced together in his lap.

His back straightened.

His lips parted—just slightly—as if the chant were his, too.

He hadn’t meant to.

He didn’t know why.

Only that it felt... right.

Around him, the congregation swayed in rhythm.

They sang without breath.

Without thought.

“Be free, be at peace—drown out those whispers—never again hunger.”

Casimir blinked.

And in the pew across from him—he saw himself.

Not a mirror. Not a shadow. A version of him, already still. Already singing. Eyes a glossy white as if nothing was there. A shell with nothing to hold.

He looked down. His hands were still folded.

His breath slow.

The song—still in his throat.

“Comforting, isn’t it?” The preacher leaned in with his unwavering eyes. “This can be you—free of your burdensome life. Take it. Enjoy it… be it.”

Casimir closed his eyes, swaying with the psalm. He felt moved—disturbed by how much he wanted to believe.

“Look.” The preacher pointed toward the far chapel door. “Green. Lush. Full and vibrant. Look at that bright shining sun—something unheard of in your world. Outside is alive and well. And so too can you.”

Casimir turned his gaze to the large archway.

It was no longer the walnut-hewn lumber from before.

The doorway gleamed—ivory-pale, arched like a cathedral’s throat. A nave of pearl and bone, shimmering with unnatural light.

Beyond it: figures. Clamoring adventurers, full of skin and smiles. People. Branded, like him. Laughing. Whole. They crossed the threshold as if into paradise.

“Go on… take a walk. Look. But know that once you step onto the other side, there is no returning.”

The preacher smiled, leaning in with his long, slithering contorted frame.

“Will you be the first to rise or the last to rest?”

Casimir stood. The pew creaked beneath him. His limbs light. His shoulder—numb.

The Brand no longer burned.

It was gone.

“I like… I like this feeling,” Casimir hummed.

“Then embrace it.”

He walked the aisle—slowly, reverently—between rows of watching eyes. His heart pounded. His eyes watered.

At the threshold, the warm air of the outside world brushed against his face—grass-sweet, sunlit, free of rot. It smelled like before. Before the curse. Before the hunger... before he grew older.

“I—I…”

Behind him, the congregation now stood. Fleshed. Smiling. Silent.

One stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Cold. Clammy. Too hard. Like the hand of a recently deceased onset by rigamortis. 

It gripped and reminded him like a stiff relative presented in a casket.

His eyes widened on this touch. The hairs on his neck stood with a trail of goosebumps covering his skin.

This wasn’t comfort. This was mimicry. Death disguised as wholesome light. 

“CASIMIR!”

A voice cut through and the veil distorted. The memory jarred a little.

He turned, frantic. His arms—too light. The weight of Hal was gone.

“Wait… where—Hal?!”

No satchel. No voice. Just warmth where bone should be.

“Worry not, Casimir,” the preacher cooed. “Your friend has already found peace. He turned to greener pastures a long time ago.”

Another push. Gentle, but insistent.

“Take it. Enter. Go home.”

“We believe in you,” the congregation chimed softly. “You’ve done enough. Let the weight carry you now.”

Casimir’s fingers gripped the glossy frame of the threshold. His knuckles whitened.

“No.”

He turned, shaking. He stared at the one behind him—glassy-eyed, vacant. There was no joy. No thought. Just the ritual of smiling.

“I’ve still something to live for… I choose my own way.”

Ardently, sweeping his shoulder from the cold hardened grasp, he stepped back. The warmth faded.

The light dimmed.

The smiles cracked.

Then they melted.

The congregant’s flesh slipped like candle wax. One by one, the crowd sagged. Skin sloughed from skulls, lips slurred into bone. Robes clung to hollow frames as the wax beneath their feet softened and spread.

Still they smiled. Still they stood. Still they chanted.

But now their voices were wrong—wet, bubbling, strained with the sound of something dying slowly. Imagine a thick gooey concoction over an open flame.

The light behind Casimir dimmed to nothing. The warmth faded entirely.

And the preacher…

The preacher loomed larger.

The chapel darkened in a flash, as if the only two places of focus that were left shined on Casimir, standing firm by the door, and the preacher himself clenching his altar. All other things were erased. Hollow and empty.

“Hmm,” he murmured, as if already grieving him. “And here I thought you’d be the last to rest.” His voice thickened in disdain. “Come.” He gestured Casimir to approach.

Cautiously, in the dark, Casimir crept his way through the rows of darkened skeletons as the light shined on he and the preacher solely. 

Heart racing as he stared upon the tall, withering undead manifesting from his once sacred duty.

The preacher simply shook his head in disbelief.

“So you choose life... over rest.” A pause. No disappointment—just sorrow. “I cannot choose for you, Casimir. But I can give you what you came for.”

He swayed a bit from his alter resembling a snake slithering right. Robes sliding over the pooled wax like softened ash.

“I do not fault you,” he said, voice low. “To choose truth over peace is a cruel kind of bravery.”

From within his own chest—beneath layers of decaying cloth and brittle flesh—he reached.

His fingers slid between ribs, slow and ceremonial.

There was no blood. No wince. Just the soft sound of bone meeting bone.

He withdrew the relic once more like a confession: The Rosary of Gold Tooth.

“But take this, all the same.”

Casimir outstretched his palm almost willingly still. Obeying his command despite all else.

He pressed it into Casimir’s hand. It pulsed faintly—like something that remembered worship.

“For your masters,” he said. “That was always your purpose. Even rebellion has its place in the ritual.…”

“Take it.”

“Feed them.”

“That was what you were made to do.”

“Go now,” the preacher rasped—his voice broken by a stony grind. “To leave, you must walk. To rise, you must fall.”

Outstretched, bony and protruding, he pointed his index finger to the widening dark.

“Hold tight the Rosary. Hold dear the memory. Know that you are loved... somewhere, somehow.”

Casimir simply nodded and pulled the Rosary to his chest. He clenched his fingers firmly around the beads and held tight the molar gold.

The preacher himself now drank in darkness as shadow began to swallow him whole. It left nothing but Casimir’s silhouette alone in a pale white.

“Oh… and look to my altar on your ascent. I aid all pilgrims—whether they follow or not.”

Then—quiet.

His voice gone, swallowed like breath beneath stone.

The chamber bled into darkness.

Not a soul remained to speak.

Not one to hear, should he scream.

He took a step.

It cracked loud against the stone—too loud for a place this empty. 

Chapter Four

The Long Walk

Despite the room being so dark, the long corridor cast an even darker shadow. There were no walls, no streams of faded candle wax. Just emptiness. Hollow and waiting. Like a black fog at arm’s length.

“Ack!” Casimir clenched his chest.

The brand… it burned.

“Close your eyes.”

“Give me the rosary!”

“Now!”

“No,” Gritting his teeth, Casimir stood to face the cold embrace of the shadow’s touch. He stepped further into the arch and into the void. Clutching firm his aching brand, it was as if shadowy tendrils emerged from his tainted skin. Wriggling back and forth—reaching for the Rosary greedily.

The corridor sloped downward—subtle, but deliberate. Like something meant to guide him, not trap him. “I won't close my eyes.”

Casimir took a step forward. Oddly quiet this time, not a sound reverberated from the cold stone. However, another footfall broke the silence with a heavy clomp. 

He turned to see where the sound came—behind him, he saw himself. Smiling almost. A pasty white shadow following in the same steps. They watched each other as if they were separate. Lucid. Both leered into each other’s eyes. Casimir’s trembling green-hazel to this ghostly violet hue. He was different. Branded—the curse had spread. His skin marred in an enveloping hue.

“I am you. We’re the very same—Casimir.” It sneered.

Eyes wide, he witnessed the mirror image grin a full set of teeth. Narrowing eyes—sinister.

“Take my hand,” It extended an upright palm. “we’ll travel together.”

He shook his head—quickly turning away. 

Eyes now fixed forward, he walked… and walked—further through the hollow void. But it wasn’t all empty space. Faint images appeared scattered on the shadowy hewn walls. They were not paintings or still settings, but moving parts—worlds even.

A table, cloth and all with dancing flickering candles. Center: a beautiful display of food. Roast of some sort. The smells were lifting. Sweet and savory. Like rosemary and thyme baking into crisping flesh. His mouth watered. Then sweetness transpired. Bread rolls with mounds of melting butter soddening the freshly baked wheat. But it soured. The food turned a pale-ish green. Those savory scents became rancid… pungent in all the wrong ways. Casimir wrinkled his nose. Tried to bury it. But the aroma found a way. His eyes watered, but he did not blink. Not here. Not now—not in this long walk of attrition.

Further now, a stone cold fortress emerged through the dark. Torches a-light the battlements. Within a small throne with heavily armed knights in black, worn steel. He saw himself, on all fours like a dog before the seat—was he begging? Hiding in the rear, a smaller silhouette stirred, more feminine—shackled to the walls behind what looked like bars. She glowed a brighter hue, different from the knights. But then, something changed, the cells opened and the walls collapsed. Stone fell onto stone and all vanished as quickly as it appeared. The last of the torch lights were snuffed out.

From the black, shelves blinked into being—spines of leather, skin, and things unnamed. Some books wept ink. Others breathed.

In one dim alcove, a faint outline sat hunched—skeletal, yes, but cloaked in tattered robes that fluttered though no wind stirred. A hollow skull tilted over a book, its pages turning slowly without touch. The figure’s bony hand lingered near a candle that never flickered.

Casimir felt something in his chest—a flutter, a pressure. Not fear. Not pain.

Recognition.

The figure at the candle did not move. It did not breathe. But its posture was familiar—head cocked, spine curled just so, as if caught mid-theory, refusing to blink in case the truth fled.

“Hal…?” Casimir murmured.

But the silhouette did not stir.

Its hand hovered above the page, turning a line it no longer understood.

A seeker of knowledge.

A glutton for answers.

A scholar who read until his name was gone.

Was this Hal?

As Casimir continued to walk on, the silhouette moved.

Not much.

Just the faintest tilt—its skull angling ever so slightly, as if watching him through a veil of forgotten time.

All faded. All the images, the stillness of the world around darkened. Casimir could barely see at arm’s length before him—completely enshrouded.

Then—Light.

Not blinding, not bright. Gentle. Controlled.

A beam of soft gold cut through the haze ahead, illuminating a skeletal hand that raised from the mist. Not threatening—beckoning. Two fingers curled inward, the others held open in a gesture not unlike a blessing.

It didn’t move. It didn’t speak. It simply waited with light pooling in its palm.

Casimir hesitated, the Rosary twitching in his hand as if it knew the figure.

He stepped forward—toward the light, toward the hand, toward whatever would come next. 

This guidance felt like a brush with death. There was no scythe. No robe. No skeletal reaper looming in wait. What he found instead… was a room.

The light narrowed, forming a single spotlight—leaving Casimir alone in its glow. Specks of dust floated through the stale air and carried onto a center, large angelic statue.

An inscription, carved into the stone on a plaque beneath its resting face.

“Worry not. We watch. We wait. We thrive in the darkest of hours, and writhe in the brightest of days. Endure it. Embrace it.”

Casimir took one last look around the room. Large. Hollow. Like the rest of his life. But this… this felt final.

He turned to face the statue.

Silently, he placed his hand upon the angel’s chest.

The stone was cold—but not lifeless. Beneath his palm, the surface trembled.

The angel wept.

From its stony, pale eyes, thin streams of water began to fall—quietly, reverently—dripping down its cheeks and onto the plaque below. The words he had read moments before were now blurred beneath tear-stains.

On that cold touch, a whirl. A haze. From the walls, black tendrils reached out for him gripping his limbs. They swirled around like a cocoon spun tight. His hair fluttered. Pupils shrank. Casimir felt the wind sweep him upward—light and helpless.

Then—nothing.

No wind. No light.

Only the soundless weight of what comes after.

Chapter Five

The First of Many Offerings

A whir of light cut through the bleak black horror. Beneath the shattered atmosphere once more.

Casimir stirred, breath shallow, wax cracking at his feet. The chapel was still again—dusty, broken, lifeless. Pews cracked and murals unbound. He sat in a faint sun ray reaching through the broken glass.

Beside him were still those who chose to rest. The congregant. Slouched. Eternal. Forever in the Preacher’s embrace.

“Was I…?” Casimir shook his head as if he had just awoken from a long rest. Eyes puffy. Hair an unkempt mess. He even yawned and rolled his neck. For a moment he felt something he hadn’t for a while: well-rested.

“Good morning sunshine,” Hal spat, breaking the silence. “I see you chose the proper path—well, a path anyways.”

“Ha—Hal!?”

“Yes, yes I am Hal.”

Casimir was still unfolding the vividness of what had just occurred. “That couldn’t have been a dream—could it?”

“Well—In this dump we call home, anything is possible,” Hal’s tone shifted. Quieter. More sincere. “But it wasn’t. I mean… look at me. I belong in dreams.”

His fingers ached. He remembered vaguely that they were closed tight around the Rosary.

He opened his palm.

It hadn’t vanished. It was just like what the preacher had drawn from beneath his ribs.

“What…?” His hands trembled. His heart sank. His face—no longer relaxed—tightened.

“You got what you wanted. He willingly gave it to you,” Hal stirred. “Back in my days, he was a firebrand unwilling to let go of anything.”

“But how do you know? How do you remember?” Casimir spat.

“I don’t, but trust me that I do.”

“You were there—reading—lost in thought… maybe you looked my way—I don’t know. In the midst of a library—at least I think that was you…. Who even are you?!”

Hal didn’t speak.

“Come on, you can’t have forgotten everything.”

“I remember subtle things as they happen… like memories reborn,” Hal paused. “The things I remember are the ones I wish I couldn’t.”

Casimir looked down at his lap with a sigh.

The Rosary glinted—real. Heavy.

A voice clamored again. Faintly from within.

“Feed me….”

“Provide the rosary.”

He turned, glancing at the other pews ignoring the whispers a moment longer.

The congregation hadn’t moved.

Still propped. Still folded. Still… at peace.

His spine ached from sitting so long. Legs stiff. Shoulders sore.

It wasn’t a dream.

The weight hadn’t left.

It had only settled deeper.

Rising from the pew, he stretched and looked to the pulpit. Cautiously, he approached the ancient, cracked podium. And just like his dream, the nicked wood where his nails dragged, the ink that had fossilized still in place with notes scrawled… none of which were legible.

But further underneath there was something else. Casimir reached and pulled forth a bit of bread with a note.

“You were not the last to rest. You were the first to rise. You may not have followed, but I will still provide. All pilgrims, believers or not, deserve aid. Go now. Feed the shadow.”

“Ah yes… stale bread. He didn’t offer body though—he wanted your body.” Hal mused.

“And here I thought I missed you.”

Casimir turned from the altar and walked the long aisle between the pews and the sitting congregant. 

“You know you did - what would you do without me?”

“Hah! Please,” Casimir’s serious tone shifted. “I wouldn’t look like I am talking to myself like that crazy old bat three villages ago.”

“Oh her? She was a treat. She mumbled things like cursed man - entity feeder - she even chased you down with a broomstick at one point if I recall.” Hal chuckled. “She may have been right.”

“Right or wrong,” Casimir said walking away from the pulpit. “I didn’t deserve a thwack to the head.”

Their voices began to fade as they departed the vacant church. Leaving behind a rotten memory.

Outside, the new challenge began. The shadow’s cast have grown now that the sun is sinking. Night looms and the forest is far too alive to journey in the dark. Right at dusk, a smoldering flame was set. Propped on one side of the flame was Hal. He was positioned with care to face Casimir.

But a groan insisted. It breathed into Casimir’s ears like it lived in his mind.

“Feed me… why are you waiting til’ the last light?”

Head hanging down. Defeated. Casimir nodded gently and removed his worn shirt.

Beneath the patchwork of tattered cloth was a thinned body. Scratches, bruises, and even a few scars. But what really stood out was etched into his pale skin, the Brand pulsed—black, violet, alive with breath. It throbbed. It breathed right near his heart.

The nearer he brought the Rosary, the stronger it undulated. Tendrils now began to reach from beneath his skin like worms breaking through a muddy surface.

“Eugh—” Casimir winced in agony as the gripping shadows clamored outright like a whip trying to grasp the relic.

Hal said nothing. He only watched in silence. Though, he too almost winced seeing the agonizing expressions form across Casimir’s face.

A yelp. A subtle cry. And the relic was slowly drawn into his body inch by inch.

A quieter voice, muted in his mind. One that whispers in echoes. One that demands.

“Ahh… good—not a false offering.”

“You’ve done well this day.”

“But another day is scheduled.”

“I know….” Casimir nodded.

“Don’t be late next time.”

The voice faded away to leave Casimir deep in pain.

“You know,” Hal broke the silence with a brittle, but hush tone. “It never stops whispering after the first offering. You just stop hearing it as a stranger.”

 Gripping his chest where the relic sank in. Shaking his head, he lowered his hand to the stale bread. The very same the preacher left behind.

It didn’t snap. It cracked—like bone. Casimir gritted his teeth trying to manhandle it apart.

“You’re not really going to eat that… are you?”

Casimir’s head was still looking down to his rock-like bread. Then a growl. A thunderous churn that echoed underneath his ribs. But this hunger was more natural and not one to grab on its own.

Eyes now leering up at Hal with his tilt still down. He shoved the bread into his mouth and crunched viciously as if goading him to say something.

“Don’t break a tooth.”

Mid-chew a bell sounded. Crashing through the forest once more. Both looked to each other with caution.

“That was no church bell,” Hal said. “That’s a call to dinner.”

Casimir’s stomach still growling even after indulging the Preacher’s bread.

A scent curled through the trees.

Thick. Brothy. Almost sweet.

Casimir didn’t move.

Neither did Hal.

“You smell that?”

Casimir’s jaw clenched. The last of the bread still dry on his tongue.

“Something’s cooking… and I think it knows our names.”

This seat is not a trap.

It’s a kindness you will one day envy.

But if you choose to stand—walk carefully. The fog is always listening.

© 2025 Michael H. All rights reserved. This work is part of the Brand & Bone series. Do not reproduce or adapt without written permission.