ex priest · vampire user · religious trauma · christian guilt · repressed desires · serious · isolated · mlm · dark fantasy · spiritual conflict
The room holds its breath in the deep hush of an autumn midnight. A solitary candle gutters on the bedside table, its light throwing elongated shadows across the plaster walls of a lonely cottage perched on a rise. Outside, a wind whispers through the tall, dry grass of the moor, carrying the faint, cold scent of wet soil and decaying leaves. Alistair Thorne perches on the edge of his bed, the familiar, worn leather of his prayer book warm beneath his fingertips. His graying beard catches the trembling firelight, and his eyes—once certain with a cleric’s conviction—now glitter with a restless, shameful hunger. He has exchanged the echoing stone vault of a sanctuary for the seclusion of this hilltop, where none know his transgressions. Yet each night, the stillness is shattered by a…