I recently posted my translation of some very eerie notes I found in my new house, at least the first part of them. I was afraid to keep translating them because I don’t want any weird ideas or incorrect information to spread around, but here you go. I am still uneasy, and in the last two nights, the fog in the forest close by seemed thick and weird. I don’t know if it has anything to do with what happened in the past according to the notes I read, but it might. Here is what Ilya wrote next; see for yourself.
********
Sasha groaned and began to lose consciousness.
“Sasha, who? Who came after you guys? Who took the others?”
Only moaning words came out of his mouth as his eyes slowly closed, and exhaustion numbed his muscles.
Gurgling, he gasped, “Ebrugh… Ebrugh…”
I wasn’t sure if he had spoken a language at all or simply made incomprehensible sounds. The other three field hands who had rushed over carried him away toward our village, while I remained by my plow to retrieve the rifle from the edge of the woods.
The trees now appeared even more threatening than before, swaying uncomfortably, and the fog seemed denser and more oppressive. What had been there beyond the fields, in the depths of the old forest? What had the others discovered in that place where the angel had touched the earth? Had demons appeared and tried to drag the divine creature into the depths of hell? Had all the pilgrims fallen prey to the claws and teeth of beings from a distant unholy abyss?
Were they all truly… gone? All those who had ventured into the forest yearning for heavenly lights? Or had only Sasha gone mad, broken away from the group, and fled back? It was entirely possible, entirely…
But the trees… the trees seemed so strange and infused with malevolence…
I didn’t want to linger in that place anymore. I wanted to turn around and go back to the fields, but I knew I wouldn’t feel much better there either. Finally, I reached the rifle stuck in the muddy ground. I picked it up and secured it to prevent any accidents.
However, as I stood there at the edge of the forest, it felt as if there was something in the mist, as if shadows were moving in dense swaths. Slowly, I took the safety off the gun again and took aim. Something inside me seemed to warn me of the things beyond the trees. I aimed through the sight to focus. There were the trees, the mist, and disturbing shadows among the branches. The air seemed to crackle. The fresh scent of leaves and bushes taunted me. Would something come at any moment? Would I have to pull the trigger?
Or was I just too stressed?
I was stressed.
Sasha, the others…
I took a deep breath and lowered the rifle. This was getting me nowhere. Slowly, I stepped back from the edge of the forest, secured the rifle again, and slung it over my shoulder using its leather strap.
I walked quickly across the fields toward the village. The sky was still covered in clouds, and dark storms were approaching from the south. My boots carried me over the muddy ground. It felt as if all those who had perished on this godforsaken soil were mocking me. The horrors and calamities of the field tore into my mind. They numbed me, and I feared getting lost in the darkness of my thoughts. But I knew the Lord was watching over me.
For darkness is as light to you.
Praying those words, I calmed down a bit as my feet carried me forward. The cloudy thoughts and forebodings receded a little. Then, something reached my mind—an inkling, a feeling.
Something was behind me. Something was in the forest. Were they demons? Other creatures of hell? I grabbed the rifle and slowly turned around. A good hundred meters away, the forest loomed, but the trees were almost invisible. The fog had rolled onto the field slowly.
And in the mist, I saw them—two ghastly shapes. They were not like the ones my stressed mind had imagined every time my thoughts wandered to the Fields of Death and recalled the deceased.
The shapes… they were real. I caught only a brief glimpse of them, silhouetted in the mist. They were tall and scrawny, inhuman, with long, thin limbs, long necks, and roundish heads. They were over there, and I knew they saw me. They saw me, despite the fog that must have obscured their view!
I turned and ran, carrying the rifle carelessly over my shoulder. It couldn’t be! It had to be demons!
When I dared to look again, I saw that the fog had lifted. I could make out the forest again and see only the trees and bushes. But I kept running, running towards the village. I had to reach Sasha, had to report to the others…
When I entered the hut where they had brought him, there was already an excited crowd inside. It seemed that all the villagers who could interrupt their work had gathered in the small, rustically furnished room where Sasha was lying, sweating on a bed. The news that only he had returned, feverishly talking about the disappearance of the others, caused shock and despair. Some of the relatives of the missing were also sitting in the room, stunned and pale as corpses. I heard sobs and weeping, looked into the eyes of desperate mothers and bitter fathers, glanced at the faces of shocked neighbors and shaken friends. They had all come to hear what had happened, what fate had befallen the others. They wanted to know the fate of their loved ones. And in the midst of it all lay Sasha, distraught and trembling.
I had to fight my way to him with some effort and probably only encountered little resistance because I was his best friend and had found him. Finally, when I pushed aside the curious but tearful Alyone, who always had to be in the front row, I could see how dire things apparently were for Sasha. He was still shivering, but now he was also wincing intermittently as his eyes darted around frantically. He was completely drenched in sweat, and his hair was so sticky it resembled wet strings.
“It will be alright, Sasha. Come to your senses!”
Igor, who was probably the closest thing to a village doctor, sat next to Sasha’s bed and tried to calm him down. But all the whispering and murmuring around us only seemed to intensify the problems.
“Sasha, it’s me. You’re home. You’re safe!” I shouted.
Igor looked at me briefly, his eyes full of suppressed concern, but he nodded at me.
“Sasha, it’s going to be okay!” I continued.
“Who are you… who…?”
Hearing Sasha’s whisper was much more terrifying than his shouts because I knew he really didn’t recognize me from the way he looked at me.
“It’s me, Ilya! Don’t you remember? We grew up together! We’ve known each other… forever!” I trembled.
“We… I… Sasha… Sasha… Ilya…”
He gurgled again, but his gaze held me fixed. There was a haze in his eyes. Oh Lord, what had happened?
“Ilya… we… I… I remember you… water… water… So thirsty… Please…”
He held out his trembling hand, begging. From somewhere, someone handed him a tin can filled with water. He drank it greedily, seeming to calm down a bit as a result.
“Ilya… I remember… we left… went there… to the angel… I went to the angel…”
“What happened then?” I asked quietly.
I suddenly realized that everyone had fallen silent and was listening tensely and anxiously. Old Igor had stood up and put his hand protectively on my shoulder, nodding at me again.
“Ilya, we… I don’t remember very well. Just… forest… We went through the forest… Water… More water,” Sasha murmured.
“Jesus Christ, bring him more water!” Alyone murmured.
Even she had backed away a bit.
After a few moments, another old tin can of water had been brought over. Sasha sipped the liquid as if it would give him new life. His eyes cleared, and his breathing steadied. Then, finally, he cleared his throat and began to speak carefully. Again and again, his eyes wandered to us to reassure himself that we were still listening to him… that we were with him and not leaving him alone.
That he was safe.
He finally looked only into my eyes, speaking as if we were alone in the room.
“Ilya. Oh, Ilya, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I left you here when you wanted to go with us. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you. But I think it was the right decision. You would have been… The angel! I think there really was an angel there. But it’s gone. It was torn apart by shadows and demons.
We walked. We walked through the woods, over hills and wide fields beyond the mountains. In the wind, we soon heard the songs of the Lord, songs that praised Him, the whispers of the heavenly hosts. And we were all soon dreaming, dreaming of the angel and the village it had visited. It had sent all the believers there to heaven; they had ascended and come to the Lord. They had all been devout believers, just like us. The angel advanced… in our dreams… our visions… through forests and finally to another village. The images appeared to us as if they were real, as if we were seeing everything the angel was doing. No one wanted to be awake anymore; all of us slept as much as we could to dream… We saw the angel striding across clearings, flying, hovering through the woods. And how it travelled… to the net village and… there, in the corridors of concrete, it was chased and torn apart, murdered by demons. It was a horrible sight. When we woke up after that vision… it had haunted us all at dawn… most of us collapsed. Something had been taken from us when the angel was… when the sacrilege was done…”
He broke off. There was dead silence. We could not believe our ears. Joy, happiness, despair, and fear struggled within me.
It had been an angel! It had truly been a piece of heaven that had visited us. But…
There had also been demons. Demons had come from the shadows, from the darkness and the depths of evil, and had destroyed the angel.
There were demons. There was true evil. There was that which had once seized the people who had not prayed to the Lord, that which had been responsible for the hunger and the despair. People had been possessed by them, by the demons of old. They had also devoured the messenger of the Lord, as they devoured all happiness, comfort, and love. Demons existed. They were real.
For darkness is as light to you.
I swallowed.
“And then, Sasha?”
“We… we were… Hell had reached us. It had bled from the ground, from the rocks. All around us, the air seemed heavy, the winds seemed to mourn, and the trees trembled. We just lay there, on the flank of a green wooded hill. Sofia had been hit the worst. Through my tears, I could see her cowering there, like a newborn child… She cried and cried. We all cried, but she… she pressed her hands to her ears, didn’t want to hear anymore, squeezed her eyes shut, didn’t want to see anymore… She was crying, begging the Lord, begging Him to bring salvation after His servant was no more. It took us several hours to calm down…”
Sasha slumped down and seemed to disappear into his memories. Outside, rain had begun to fall, and loud pattering began to beat against the windows. No one said anything. Until finally, Sasha seemed to regain clarity and spoke again, this time more firmly, more determined.
“Our shock, our grief… that’s only where it began. We were alone, abandoned by the Lord. We knew it, we knew we were alone! Our breakfast was meager, our mood dead. Silently we sat there for a long time, most of us. The ones who had calmed down a bit. Sofia was the first to speak, despite her grief, despite the wounds in her soul. It was as if she had found her way back to the Lord when she spoke to us. She told us not to be afraid. That we would receive the greatness of the Lord. That she had heard the songs of the angel… and understood.”
“What did the angels sing? What hymns did they teach Sofia? What did it tell my girl?”
Sofia’s mother had leaned forward, her eyes teary, her voice trembling.
After a brief pause, during which Sasha seemed to think about the question, he began to recount what had occurred afterward.
“We sat together, all of us, trying to understand what had happened. And Sofia… She told us about the proclamations, the chants. She had been hit worse than anyone else, but… She spoke of the suffering in the songs, the suffering of forgotten times. I think she… she probably meant the fall from Eden, the original sin? Was that what the angel had tried to remind us of? We were not sure. But she also insisted that she had heard a promise of salvation in the songs. Perhaps the Lord had finally forgiven us humans? Maybe we could go back to paradise? Sofia found it difficult to speak the right words; her throat was dry and her voice hoarse. Therefore, this is all I can say about it. We stayed in that place for a long time, but finally decided to move on. We hoped that we would still find traces of the divine where… where it had happened. We were aware, of course, that the demons could still be there, too, but… we had to know… Was paradise near?”
“Was it worth it?” Mary asked from one of the back rows, barely audible.
Her eyes rested on Sasha, and genuine concern seemed to resonate in her words.
“Of course, it was, you silly girl,” Dimitri laughed hollowly.
“I… I don’t know…” Sasha murmured.
Terror bled into his eyes, and he began to tremble once more.
“That… That message, the promise of paradise, that was the last good thing that happened to us on the journey… Before the darkness…”
“Before the darkness? What darkness do you mean?” I wanted to know.
“Inside us. The darkness within us that began to grow… It began shortly after the… death of the angel. Shortly after we left that day to visit and honor its gravesite. Sofia… that night she was no longer herself. She seemed depressed, happy, angry, sad. All at the same time. I didn’t know what we should do. Nobody knew what we should do. We had no medicine with us, no doctor. I don’t know why, but I started to be afraid of her. A disease had attacked her spirit, the death of the angel had corrupted her.
And… I had to think of the horrid images from my visions, of the demons that tore the being of the Lord to shreds, killed it from the shadows and from the darkness. That’s why I stayed away from her, and it was the right choice, as it turned out. After dinner - we had hunted rabbits and were sitting around the fire - Yulia sat down with her. You know how she is… was… how she always worried about others when things got bad. It must have taken some courage even for her to sit down with Sofia, but finally, they squatted there on an old tree stump next to the flickering fire that illuminated the night. Sofia’s eyes seemed distant and glassy as they reflected the flames. I couldn’t hear what Yulia was saying to her, but I guess that she wanted to comfort Sofia. She spoke softly and put her arm around Sofia’s shoulder while Sofia was still staring into the flames…”
“Can you blame her? She saw a messenger of God die. Sofia was young; she probably just couldn’t take it…” my father said quietly.
“The angel’s death… it haunts me too. Even now, I see the horrible images from the dream before me as if I were still there. But Sofia… No, something else had contaminated her mind. It must have been like that! Something ungodly must have crept into her because all at once she stood up, wordlessly, and let herself fall into the blazing fire…”
Sasha broke off and swallowed.
We all couldn’t believe what we were hearing.
“Sofia… No… It can’t be…”
A cry of despair escaped the throat of Sofia’s mother. It sounded like she was burning herself, and I wanted nothing more than to cover my ears and run away. But I had to stay. I had to know what had happened. I prayed silently.
For darkness is as light to you.
Hastily, some tried to calm the woman, but she began to lash out and finally sank to the ground, where she remained sitting, staring into empty space like a corpse.
“She was burning, ablaze. She burned, and as her flesh began to stink and her hair flared away, she screamed to the heavens. She screamed at the demons, and panic soaked her voice. She sounded confused, inhuman. Sofia finally lay motionless in the middle of fading embers. We hadn’t been able to pull her out; we had been paralyzed, we had failed her… We have failed her…”
No one could believe what Sasha was telling us. Nobody wanted to believe it.
Sofia. Sofia, whom I had known since childhood and who had always been shy and quiet…
Sasha continued.
“I envy her because she went to the Lord. I think the fire purified her. But the others…
We buried what was left of Sofia near an old fir tree. I think she would have liked that. She rests there now and is with our Lord. While I was digging the grave together with Mikhail, using what little means we had, I almost felt as if I could still hear her voice in the air, comforting me and encouraging me. Promising me paradise…
Mikhail seemed to hear it too. I saw it in his eyes. Quietly, he murmured strange words, seemed to sing to himself. We finally prayed the Lord’s Prayer and set out to lower her body. When finally only the freshly heaped-up earth under the tree reminded us of Sofia, it had already become the deepest night. The torches that we had rammed into the ground nearby had a ghostly glow, and the moonless night had something unsettling about it. No one was sleeping. Mikhail’s humming should have calmed us. He was humming the angel’s melody, probably trying to send us comfort. Or maybe he just wanted to distract his thoughts. But these sounds… They seemed strange from his mouth and not kind, but incomprehensible and eternal in a terrible way. And while I listened to the humming, I could only be comforted by the thought that Sofia had been given a decent burial.”
“She’s with the Lord, Mila,” my father tried to comfort Sofia’s mother.
“No, she has gone to… she can’t go to heaven. Not even after you buried her… She has… herself… Oh, Sofia…”
“The demons were chasing her. I bet the Lord called her to save her. You know how pious Sofia was, more pious probably than almost anyone else, including everyone here.”
The words seemed to bring her a little peace, but still, she wept. We all just stood there, silent, watching the poor woman on the floor. I, too, stared at her for a long time until I noticed with a shudder that Sasha had stopped talking. When I turned to him, I saw that he had started crying wordlessly and squeezed his eyes shut. I had never seen anyone with such fear before.
“That night, it was almost morning… they came,” was all he could get out before letting out a strangled cry and pressed his hands to his head.
Finally, he just sat there, weeping and swaying back and forth as if to protect himself from the terrors and sins of the world.
For darkness is as light to you.
The Lord makes light out of darkness. So it was written in the holy scriptures. Why did the words of the Almighty not give comfort to Sasha? Why couldn’t his faith protect him?
Was he… in doubt? No. Not Sasha.
“The Lord protects you,” I said firmly and sat down next to him.
When I put my hand on his shoulder, he slowly calmed down, but when he looked into my eyes, I knew he was still trapped in the nightmares of his memory.
“Ilya… That night… they came. The demons. The night Mikhail disappeared. No… When they came for him. When they took everyone.
I lay there, freezing, a gnarled root in my back, and my blanket wrapped around me, my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I heard the rustle of trees and wind, the crackle of small animals in the underbrush, and Mikhail’s strange humming. I just wished that he would stop, that he would be quiet… Didn’t want to hear the sounds anymore…
And then it was quiet. The humming had stopped, and I heard Mikhail get up.
Where was he going? Just into the bushes? Why had he stopped making his sounds? Had he calmed down? Had he come to his senses? At first, I believed that, hoped for that, but….
A feeling crept into my mind, an ungodly, sickening feeling. The advent of doom and contempt, contempt as old as time. I had never felt such an emotion. I knew the demons were near, spreading their aura to devour us. I squeezed my eyes shut, didn’t want to see them. I wanted to be alone, away, away…”
Sasha’s voice faded. He swallowed, composed himself, then groaned:
“I opened my eyes. Opened them and looked into the darkness, saw the forest in the light of dawn. Mikhail had already walked away, had… almost… disappeared among the trees. I straightened up. Thick fog lay between the firs, dripping into our little camp. Behind the fog lay darkness. It was a terrible darkness that seemed as if it embodied the end of time, of the world, as if it were getting ready to spill toward the Lord Himself during the final battle like a tidal wave of scum and wickedness! The darkness seemed deep, infinitely deep. Around it, the fog, white haze that grew over the ground like rampant vines.
Mikhail ran towards it, laughing, joyfully humming his tune again. He ran toward the darkness. Why? Why was he running toward it? What had poisoned his mind and lured him to the demons? They had to be there, in the mist or the darkness, I knew that. I felt their contempt! I felt their ungodly presence!
Just before Mikhail disappeared into the darkness, before his outline was forever swallowed by the blackness, I could see skinny figures in the mist. I heard their whispers inside me.
‘Vermin… vermin…‘
These voices, these noises were driving me crazy. I was scared. I was terrified, terrified! The cold made my arms and legs go limp. I wanted to get away, wanted to escape. Then…
They stood up. The others. All of them. They got up, got up and ran to the darkness. Ran to that deep hell. But they were pious! They had all been pious, had served the Lord all their lives! Why? Why were they joining those demons? What dark thoughts were running through their heads? They all… They all ran into that blackness… They all were devoured, without words, without screams. In the light of the rising sun, I could see them smiling. Not madly, not like members of a satanic cult, not madly…
They were almost dancing. They didn’t speak a word. They danced and ran away to another hellish place, happily.
Why didn’t I run? Was my faith stronger than theirs? Was I the most pious among us? It had to be! I never saw them again, none of them… I’m sorry, I should have stopped them… I should have saved them from their fate…”
Suddenly, chaos broke out. Everyone shouted in confusion, ruffled their hair, cried, and screamed. Mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors…
Many collapsed. I sank down beside the bed, feeling the realization germinate in me… They had all gone to hell. They had been taken by the strange demons, seduced and lured into suffering… I hit the floor hard, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know where to go anymore. Why had the Lord allowed my friends to succumb to sin?
Why?
Then something else dawned on me, a thought that made me nauseous.
Better them than me…
I was almost going mad. That voice, my own voice, almost singing, forcing those horrible thoughts into my mind. I was not such a person. I was not a bad person! I was devout and believing and…
“I’m sorry, I should have stopped them. I failed…”
Sasha’s moaning reached my ears only faintly. Over the weeping and wailing of many of those present, he continued.
“I ran, ran away. I was a coward, running and running. I had my gun with me, but I didn’t dare point it at the demons. I didn’t dare to attack them, to do violence. Would that not have made me one of them? Those creatures? Would that not have made me a sinner as well? Is it okay to kill demons, or do you have to stand up to them with only your faith as a weapon? I didn’t know, I still don’t know. I ran away, ran back to where we had come from. I had to at least warn you, had to tell you all what had happened… You had to know…”
“You did the right thing,” Dimitri suddenly said.
“You didn’t give yourself to them when the others were lost to the devil and to hell… You told us everything… You…”
“I kept running,” Sasha interrupted him bitterly.
“I ran on and on. For days and days. I stopped only to sleep and hunt. I ran and ran. But they were after me. The demons had seen me and had not forgotten me. I heard them every night. I heard their whispering voices and their rattling breath. Saw their outlines in the mist that followed me. And the darkness was near. I did not see it again, but I felt that it was close. Why didn’t they devour me? Why didn’t they seduce me too? Why didn’t the demons do anything? Were they waiting for me to be tempted? Were they waiting for me to be weak? Did they play with me? I just don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Only that I was a coward, always a coward. I just didn’t dare, didn’t dare to use the gun! I didn’t dare to attack them. Or did I know that it wouldn’t do any good? Did I know that they were just tempting me?
Finally, I was close… I was close to the village, so close! My home… But they came, they came after me. I don’t know why, but I shot… I shot into the mist and ran… And ran…”
He was silent. Everyone was silent. The room seemed to have gone numb.
“The demons, are you really sure you saw them? That the others were seduced by them? They were all pious, I am so sure! Did you really see demons, or… did you imagine them…?” Dimitri’s voice cut through the silence.
Everybody was quiet. I could see in people’s eyes that they partly hoped Sasha had just gone mad. That he was lying. They couldn’t understand how the others had fallen.
But Sasha was telling the truth. I knew that.
“I… I saw the demons too,” I said slowly, looking at old Dimitri.
His eyes grew wide before he squinted in disbelief.
“You saw them? Where? How?”
“At the edge of the forest when Sasha broke out of the undergrowth. I stopped short to retrieve the rifle he’d dropped when I… there in the mist…”
I faltered as the images of the shadows appeared before my inner eye.
“They were scrawny, tall, inhuman. They had no wings, no claws. No scales, no fangs. No glowing eyes that shone through the mist. I almost mistook them for strangely shaped trees, so thin, but their presence, their aura… It was so dark and strange that I knew… they were demons… messengers of hell and the horrors beyond…”
“We must defend ourselves! We must arm ourselves against them! We must pray, confess our sins to the Lord!” someone shouted.
Many agreed.
We didn’t know what we should do, how we could protect ourselves. One by one, people left the room. They set out to tell the others who had not heard Sasha’s story. Panic was written on their faces. Sasha finally remained alone in that room. His eyes were glassy and looked almost dead. I was the last to stay with him, but soon I too left to be with my family. To grieve with them and to process the messages Sasha had brought.
***************
There you have it, my translation of the next bit. Yeah, this is really freaking me out. I know it sounds silly, but I have a bad feeling in my stomach when I look out of the window and see the dense fog coming from the forest at night. I hope it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. The people before us seemed to have been dangerously in love with their religion (but I might be the wrong person to talk about this since I consider myself an atheist). I don’t believe that there really were angels and demons and that something entirely different happened, but those thoughts don’t give me comfort and I am not sure. Also, there are these strange round spots everywhere. They creep me out as well, knowing what they might possibly be. I will translate more soon (sorry for some grammar errors, English is not my native tongue) and also keep you updated about the fog…