⚠️ Warning: This chapter contains scenes of religious violence, including physical torture. Some readers may find it disturbing.
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Journal of Mylova – Day 1 at the Abbey
Fear, today, wore a cruel costume.
It had no single face, but a thousand masks — sometimes silent, sometimes screaming in the dark.
This morning, I saw fear stripped bare: a cold, relentless beast that seeps into the bones.
The light never crossed the filthy glass of my cell window. There was nothing but shadow and a deafening silence. I was left there, alone, like a shameful secret best forgotten.
I waited, my throat tight, my heart pounding dully in my chest.
Then, a massive, metallic bell tore through the air — not to wake me, but to strike me like a whip of sound.
When the door finally opened, three black-clad figures appeared. Severe. Wordless. Inhuman.
One of them handed me a grey robe — coarse, shapeless. The order was clear: change. Without a word, she yanked my top away. I said nothing.
Humiliation seeped into me like a slow poison — the first step in a long torment.
They call it "integration."
I call it defeat.
In a freezing room, surrounded by other silent girls, I was made to kneel. The Abbot approached, his eyes scanning me like a damaged object — deciding whether to repair it or break it completely.
His voice, soft as death, carried poisoned words: sin, forgiveness, purity. Words that rang like veiled threats.
— God loves docile souls, Mylova. He breaks those who stray.
His icy hand rested on my head — a tombstone pressed against my hopes. Then, near my ear, his breath was like winter's blade:
— Here, obedience is not a virtue. It is a condition for survival.
I tried to straighten my back, to swallow my tears and my fear.
A sister struck me across the face. Hard.
The sting caught me off guard, but I said nothing.
The Abbot smiled — not a human smile, but the satisfied grin of an executioner.
Then they sent me to chores. Around me, the girls barely spoke, whispering like dead souls. Their eyes were heavy — heavy with all the tears they had already shed. One of them whispered to me:
— Stay quiet. Never look them in the eyes. They like it when you challenge them. And they'll make you pay for it.
Here, everything was calculated. Silence was a weapon.
You were never truly alone, but never truly accompanied.
You were prey — always watched, always judged.
At mealtime, they isolated me. The bread was hard, the water lukewarm and foul. Every bite was a trial. They wanted me to refuse, to give in to their trap. But I swallowed their victory — as bitter as their thin, tasteless soup.
In the afternoon, they led me to the interrogation room — a bare, cold place where a cross hung like a sentence waiting to fall.
The Abbot returned.
He demanded I confess my mistakes, that I reveal why I resisted, why I refused to give up Louis.
I told him I had nothing to confess.
He leaned in, his breath like a blade against my skin, and whispered:
— When you love an illusion, Mylova, you destroy the soul God has chosen for you. Louis is nothing but a trick of the Devil.
I tried to turn away, but his hands gripped my face, sealing it in an icy hold.
— This is not hate you feel, Mylova. This is the hand of God. And it is hard because you are defiant.