The forest was alive with silence. Not the comforting kind Ethan knew from hikes back home, but the kind that presses in on you, the kind that makes every breath feel like an intrusion.
And in that silence, she stood.
Nine feet of living contradiction of holiness wrapped in horror. Her black-and-crimson habit clung like the raiment of some sacred queen, embroidered with roses that seemed almost alive. From beneath her silken veil, blood streamed like eternal tears, trailing down porcelain cheeks. The flowers blooming at her feet were impossibly vivid, drinking from the crimson that dripped endlessly.
Ethan froze, staring upward like a child before a cathedral altar. His knees almost buckled beneath the weight of her presence.
Rosaria smiled, soft and maternal.
"Are you alright, my summoner?" she asked again, her voice slow and melodic, a lullaby delivered through bloodied lips.
Ethan's throat worked, but words tangled inside him.
"I… I… what…?"
She tilted her head. From the movement, a few drops of blood slid from her veil and struck the soil. Tiny roses burst open instantly, curling toward him like they were aware of his existence.
"You tremble," she whispered. "Fear is natural. Yet you need not fear me, child. Your suffering is not yet required."
"Not... what?" Ethan blinked. "What the hell does that even mean?"
Rosaria took a single step forward. Her habit brushed the flowers blooming at her feet, staining its hems crimson. Ethan had to crane his neck to meet her veiled face her height towered over him, overwhelming.
"I… I know you," Ethan stammered, his mind fumbling for something to anchor him. "You're… you're a card. You're… fake. You're not supposed to..."
Her smile deepened, tender and unsettling all at once.
"A card…? Mmm." She touched her fingertips, pale and thorn-laced, against her breast as though pondering the word. "So that is how you perceived me, through your small world's lens. A picture. A story. A game. How quaint."
Ethan's heart hammered. "So you're telling me you're real?"
"Have I not touched your air? Bloomed your soil? Poured my blood before your very eyes?" Her voice remained soft, loving, almost offended on his behalf. "What greater proof would you require, my summoner?"
Ethan's mouth went dry. His flashlight lay forgotten in the dirt, its weak beam paling before the glow of crimson flowers. "I... I didn't summon you, I didn't even know this was possible."
Rosaria extended her hand downward, her long fingers traced with thorns that punctured her own skin. More blood dripped, blooming tiny lilies between them.
"And yet… here I stand."
Ethan didn't move. The hand was beautiful. Terrifying. Like reaching toward the sun you knew it would burn you, but you couldn't look away.
"I don't… I don't get it," he muttered, shaking his head violently. "This is… this is insane. I hit my head or something. This is a coma dream... It has to be."
"Perhaps," Rosaria said softly. "If that comforts you, cling to it. Dreams are kinder than truth."
Her tone was gentle, but Ethan shivered.
"Why me?" he asked finally. "Out of everyone in the world, why me?"
Rosaria slowly crouched, lowering her towering frame so her veiled face was closer to his level. The blood dripping from her veil pattered against the ground between them, each droplet a tiny bloom.
"You chose me," she murmured. "You saw my image. You reached for me with your mortal hand. You kept me among your treasures, even as your friends mocked you. You invited me in."
"That was just a card," Ethan protested. "A piece of paper!"
Her smile didn't falter. "Paper is a prayer, child. A prayer written into form and prayers… are always heard."
Ethan's breath caught. He wanted to argue more, but something in her words rooted in his gut. It didn't make sense, and yet didn't it?
He had chosen her.
And now she stood before him.
He swallowed hard, unable to break her gaze. Even veiled, even weeping blood, he felt as though her hidden eyes pierced through him, reading every flaw in his soul.
"…So what happens now?" he asked finally, his voice almost a whisper.
Rosaria's hands folded gently in front of her, a posture serene and devout.
"Now, you walk the path of thorns, my summoner. Your blood, your pain, your choices they shall be the soil in which salvation blooms. I will guide you, as any mother would her child."
Ethan let out a dry laugh. "Mother? You? You look like you walked out of a horror movie."
Her smile softened further, almost amused.
"And yet, is a mother not terrifying to her child when she disciplines? Is birth itself not blood and agony before it is love? You see the thorns, but I tell you… they are kisses. Each wound, each tear, is but a hymn to the divine."
Ethan gawked. "You're actually insane."
"Perhaps." Her tone remained calm, unbothered, almost serene in its acceptance. "But there is beauty in madness. You will learn this, in time."
Ethan dragged his hands through his hair, pacing in a tight circle. The flowers bloomed wherever Rosaria's blood dripped, filling the clearing with a sickly sweet scent.
"Alright, okay, listen," he said quickly, more to himself than her. "I can't… I can't sit here talking to… whatever the hell you are. I need to find people, civilization or something. Because I am not about to survive in some alien forest with..." He gestured at her wildly. "No offense."
Rosaria inclined her head graciously, as though he had complimented her.
"Offense is not mine to take. Lead, if you must. I shall follow. The world will cut you, wound you, scar you but I will make of your suffering something beautiful."
"That's… not reassuring," Ethan muttered.
Rosaria rose again, her towering frame casting a long shadow across the flowers. The sight made Ethan's stomach twist. She was too tall, too perfect, too wrong like a stained-glass saint who had stepped down from her cathedral mural, dragging her holiness and her horror into the world of flesh.
"Come," she said softly, extending her hand again. "Let us walk. Each step shall bloom our path."
Ethan hesitated. His instincts screamed don't touch her, but something in her voice carried authority, like disobeying wasn't an option.
Ethan quickly sidestepping her hand. "We can walk, just… no handholding for now..."
Rosaria's lips curved faintly, as though amused at a child's stubbornness.
"As you wish, my summoner. The thorns need not embrace you yet."
Ethan shuddered.
The two of them began walking through the glowing forest. Ethan's flashlight beam jittered with each step, but in truth he didn't need it the blood-flowers Rosaria left behind cast an eerie red glow, illuminating the trees in hues of crimson and shadow.
Ethan kept sneaking glances at her. The way her veil dripped blood endlessly without ever emptying. The way her thorns pierced her skin, her wounds never closing. The way her every step seemed both sacred and horrific, like he was walking beside an angel sculpted by a sadist.
He wanted to ask a hundred questions, but the words stuck. Finally, he blurted:
"…Do you enjoy this?"
Rosaria turned her veiled face toward him. "Enjoy?"
"This." He gestured helplessly at her bleeding form, at the roses blooming underfoot. "Being like… that. Bleeding all the time. Covered in… thorns."
Her smile was tender, almost pitying.
"My child… this is joy. Each drop I shed is life. Each thorn is love made manifest. Do not be deceived by pain it is but the truest form of grace."
"That's insane," Ethan muttered.
"Insanity is merely truth unpalatable to the masses," Rosaria replied calmly. "You will see. In time, you too will bleed beautifully."
Ethan groaned and muttered, dragging a hand over his face. "God, I really am stuck with a psychopath nun."
"Psychopath?" she echoed, her tone amused, as though the word were a child's insult. "If to love suffering is madness, then I am gladly mad."
Ethan shot her a sideways glance. "And I'm supposed to just… accept that?"
"You need accept nothing," Rosaria said softly. "You need only walk. The thorns will teach you the rest."
Her calmness made his skin crawl.
But what else could he do?
He shoved his hands into his pockets, muttering, "Fine. Let's just find some people. Maybe they'll have answers."
Rosaria only smiled, blood blooming flowers with every step.
And together, the bewildered boy and the bleeding saint walked deeper into the crimson-lit woods, each step echoing with the promise of beauty… and pain.