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Clammy hands were tightened into fists, resting on the woman’s lap as her head hung low. Her chest heaved rapidly, sucking in as much air as possible as she tried to push through the pain. Perhaps even relieve herself of the thoughts that only made things worse, and yet it didn’t help, nothing did. It was getting worse day by day, the tightening of her chest getting so bad that she found herself unable to brush it off when it happened any longer.
Patricia’s demise was getting closer. She was fated to die, no matter what.
It was a fact that seemed to plague the woman’s mind, creeping in no matter how much she tried to think about something— anything else. For she usually wouldn’t let such a thing get the better of her, but she couldn’t do it anymore. She truly couldn’t. Every throb in her chest was a reminder, every sting was like a call to reality. And most important of all, the very being that had cursed her lingered by her side every day. Present even if she was doing the most mundane things to kill time, and if it was not her looking over Patricia; then it’d be the smaller ghosts she had seen wandering around the abandoned church.
Patricia hadn’t fully been able to wrap her head around the situation at hand. Everything happened so fast, all she knew was the reason that she was targeted was because she apparently shared faces with the one that the ghost bride was once betrothed to. It was ridiculous, unbelievable. Patricia never believed in reincarnation in the first place, so to think that she had been cursed to death— a painful death that would ensure that she suffered day by day until her death came, just because she shared faces with an individual long gone,
It was an understatement to say that she was pissed about it, irritated. It wasn’t her problem that the ghost hadn’t been able to move on from being abandoned so long ago. What does she have to do with it? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But she was still facing the consequences of another’s actions. It was sick. Infuriating.
The ghost had given her two options upon cursing her, letting the curse be as it is and suffer the remaining days of her life, or turning to the ghost and asking for salvation. Either saving her from her fate altogether, or merely making her death quick and painless. Patricia assumed it to be the latter.
Perhaps it was better off like that, a weaker part of her would think. Nearly itching to give up her pride for the trade of dying without suffering. But that would mean giving the perpetrator exactly what she wanted, which was a thought that Patricia wasn’t too fond of. Being so easy as to give in to the very being that had caused this to happen. She wouldn’t let herself be so weak, never.
Patricia held no fear of death. It was but a natural part of life, and she had been prepared to become one with the earth once again at any point in her life. She wasn’t weak.
— But of course Patricia was scared of what would happen afterwards. Patricia was scared of what would happen in the afterlife. If she would be bound to those very grounds for eternity with the bride instead of having her life handed to god like she expected it to.
It was all so much.
Overcome by her own thoughts, Patricia hadn’t registered the presence of another until she finally became aware of her surroundings again. Ghostly hands ran across the skin of her cheek, caressing her. But a reminder of everything. The very source of her suffering was right beneath her, head resting on Patricia’s lap as she sat on the floor. The old, ripped dress and veil covering the ground. Serpent tail peeking through said fabric.
Her smile seemed to grow larger upon seeing that the nun had finally noticed that she was there, pulling her hand back and instead grasping Patricia’s. “My love,” she called, weaving their fingers together. “What has been occupying that head of yours? I can’t help but wonder.”
Patricia stayed silent.
The pain from before had stopped some time ago. Leaving her body in a cold sweat as she recovered, head fuzzy. She wanted to do nothing but lie down at the moment, creeping back in the church’s basement where her makeshift bed laid. It wasn’t much considering that she had to use whatever scraps laid around the abandoned place, but it was enough.
Despite her staying quiet, it still seemed as if the ghost had been able to read her. As if she was just another open book, but she stayed quiet. Basking in the peaceful moment.