Midnight settled over the Old Cathedral District like an ancient shroud drawn carefully across forgotten history, while narrow stone streets disappeared beneath drifting mist that curled between abandoned buildings, cracked statues, and weathered archways where countless prayers had once been offered with hopeful hearts, leaving only silence to inhabit those sacred halls after faith gradually surrendered to fear.
Rain from earlier in the evening still lingered upon uneven cobblestones, reflecting the pale moonlight in broken fragments that trembled beneath every passing breeze, and the ruined cathedral rose above the deserted quarter with solemn grandeur despite centuries of neglect, its fractured stained-glass windows casting fractured patterns across the floor as though the building itself struggled to remember the light it had once embraced.
