Eden Reyes was twelve years old, devout, soft-spoken, and obedient in every way a Catholic schoolgirl could be. She prayed every night beside her small wooden bed, palms pressed tight, whispering her petitions with a sincerity far beyond her age. Her parents—warm, attentive, and gentle—always said she was a blessing. And Eden believed them. She had a home where love was spoken fluently and a school where faith was woven into every hallway.
Every morning she wore her neatly pressed uniform, kissed her parents goodbye, and walked through the tall iron gates of Saint Gabriel's Academy. Her teachers adored her. Her classmates saw her as quiet but kind. Nothing about Eden suggested she would ever become the center of whispered terror.
Until the day she entered the school chapel alone.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, the kind where rain threatened but didn't fall. Eden lingered after class, feeling a tug in her chest—a strange impulse to pray more earnestly than usual. The chapel was empty when she pushed open the heavy wooden doors. Dust floated lazily in the strips of sunlight falling through stained glass.
She knelt in the first pew, closed her eyes, and whispered the familiar words.
But when she opened them again, someone else was there.
A figure stood near the altar, tall enough that its head nearly brushed the arching mosaic above. Its skin was the color of fresh blood. Its ears were long and pointed upward like an elf's, but twisted, jagged at the edges. Black veins pulsed along its temples, disappearing beneath leathery wings curled tight against its spine—wings like those of a giant bat, slick and membranous.
Eden's breath froze. Her chest constricted. Her pulse hammered against her ribs.
But then a verse surfaced in her mind—one Sister Lucilla had repeated countless times: "Humans were afraid, but angels said, be not afraid."
Her fear softened.
The creature tilted its head, watching her with eyes too dark to reflect light. Its mouth stretched into something like a smile, though its teeth—thin, needled, impossibly long—did not comfort.
Still, Eden stood.
"A-are you… an angel?" she whispered.
The creature blinked slowly. Then, to her astonishment, it nodded.
She fell to her knees again, trembling, but now with awe instead of terror.
She prayed to it right there—her voice shaking, her words stumbling. She thanked it for appearing to her. She asked it to guide her. She begged for protection, for wisdom, for closeness.
The creature did not speak, but it listened.
And it spared her.
She felt that truth pour into her mind like warm oil. It had chosen not to harm her. Not to tear her apart where she knelt. Why? Because she prayed to it. Because she worshipped it without question.
When she finally rose, trembling yet euphoric, the creature leaned down until its mouth hovered inches from her ear.
Only then did it speak.
"I appear only to good children," it whispered, its voice a rasp like burning leaves. "Keep me secret. Tell no one. Or they will take me from you… and I will not be merciful next time."
Eden nodded rapidly, frightened but honored. Chosen.
The creature straightened its spine, its wings unfolding slightly—just enough to fill the chapel with a suffocating shadow—before disappearing in a blur of dark red.
From that day forward, Eden prayed not to God, but to him.
Every afternoon she slipped into the chapel, knelt before the altar, and whispered the creature's name—one it had revealed to her in the hush of candlelight. A name that burned her tongue but thrilled her heart.
Her parents noticed the changes first.
Eden, once gentle, now snapped at them. Small frustrations ignited in her like sparks hitting gasoline. She shouted. She slammed doors. She cursed—words no twelve-year-old should know. And when she didn't get what she wanted, she lashed out violently, kicking furniture, screaming until her throat burned.
Her parents' confusion turned to concern.
"It must be the other students," her mother said. "Someone is influencing her."
But Eden knew the truth: he was pleased. He told her anger was strength. Devotion demanded transformation. Kindness was weakness. Mercy was a chain that needed breaking.
School soon felt her change as well.
When a girl borrowed Eden's pencil and forgot to return it, Eden exploded. She shoved her classmate off her chair, grabbed her by the hair, and slammed her head into a desk so hard she bled.
When a boy laughed at her during religion class, Eden lunged at him with a compass, carving jagged lines across the back of his hand.
When her teacher pulled her away, Eden bit her—deep enough to draw blood.
Wounds accumulated. Whispers spread. Fear blossomed.
Saint Gabriel's expelled her within the week.
Her parents cried. They begged for explanations. But Eden only stared at them with hollow, burning eyes, waiting for nightfall so she could return to the chapel—her true sanctuary.
They forbade her from going.
But Eden had stopped obeying long ago.
Sneaking out became routine. Every night she knelt before her red-skinned angel, trembling under the stretch of his wings, whispering prayers that tasted more like spells. Each visit fed something inside her—something expanding, twisting, filling her with rage and devotion in equal measure.
Her parents tried grounding her. Taking away her privileges. Removing her bedroom door. Nothing worked.
Finally, one stormy evening, they confronted her, voices raised, tears streaming. They demanded she tell them where she was going, what she was doing, why she had become someone they no longer recognized.
Eden shook with fury.
And somewhere deep in her mind, the creature stirred.
The lights flickered.
The floorboards shivered.
Her father reached out to hold her—but Eden's body jerked backward, as if pulled by invisible strings. Her limbs twisted. Her head snapped forward. A guttural voice spilled from her throat—not her own.
"You should have let her worship."
Her mother screamed.
Eden's spine arched violently, and her eyes rolled back until only white remained. Her fingers curled like claws. The creature poured through her, using her body like a doorframe.
The house went silent. Then erupted with chaos.
By the time neighbors called the police—after hearing the shrieks, the crashes, the bone-splitting thuds—the Reyes home was soaked through with darkness and blood.
Eden stood in the center of the living room, trembling, drenched, her eyes black as obsidian. Her parents lay motionless beside her, twisted at unnatural angles, throats carved open in jagged crescents.
The creature's presence slipped from her body like smoke, whispering one final command only she heard:
"Good girl. Pray to me again at dawn."
And she did.
Every morning, until the chapel itself began to rot.