So, this whole mess started a week or so ago. I was rooting around in one of my old buyer’s houses to see if they had anything worth ‘borrowing’. Y’see, my main source of income at the moment is selling hard-to-find valuables, through slightly less-than-legal channels. The money used to be a little better a few years ago, but a bunch of the people who supplied my goods got raided. I was scared shitless at the time that eventually they’d stumble across something that connected me to them, but I guess they didn’t look too hard at where the goods went. Either way, I haven’t come into anything good for a while, and I was starting to get desperate for the next big thing. Which, I guess, is why I ended up rooting around in that damned house.
I remembered the guy who lived there buying up plenty of my more valuable goods, and I figured at least some of it must have survived the fire, and it wasn’t like he’d ever come asking about it. Turns out, though, whatever could’ve survived was already taken. Except, of course, that note. I guess nobody who’d come before had dared to go into his study. Everything in there looked somehow more burnt, except a single sheet of paper on his desk. It certainly looked old enough to be worth something, so I pocketed it and got the hell out of there.
I didn’t even really think anything could be off about it until I got home. I’d seen some weird shit in my time for sure, and I figured it was, at worst, some weird calling card. I’ve certainly seen weirder ones, after all. Then I got to reading it. I won’t write it out here, just in case whatever it’s gotten the attention of is looking out for the words and not just the specific note. All you need to know is it was a written version of some religious speech. It definitely hadn’t been written in the past century or two, at least based on what documents I’ve gotten my hands on over the years. It started off pretty normal for a religious speech, but then it ended with some weird rambling about a fire that wouldn’t save whoever they were talking to from their sins. Yeah, pretty thematic, right? So I put it in my drawer, just in case I needed it, and hit the hay. That was… the last good night’s sleep I’ve had.
I was probably eating my breakfast the next morning when I first picked up on it. It sounded like fire, but really, really distant, and somehow coming from all around me. Couldn’t see any smoke, though, so I ignored it. But it hasn’t gone away. It’s been the best part of a week, and all it’s done is get louder, and closer, by the second. After a couple days of this, I’d set out to go see my doctor over it, hoped it might be some weird kind of tinnitus or whatever. But all I remember is leaving my house, arriving at the church round the corner, and feeling like I was meant to go in. I did, for whatever reason. It’s not even like I’d ever been religious, but I could feel something pushing me towards it. And I don’t mean something from within my own soul or whatever, I mean something else. Something… totally separate to anything else I felt before then. But it doesn’t matter why, I went into that church, and straight into confession. I don’t know if it was open, or how they’re even meant to work. My line of work doesn’t leave much room for morality, after all.
As soon as I sat down, I heard it start talking. I at least knew it was meant to be a priest or something on the other side of that panel, but this thing definitely didn’t sound human. It didn’t even sound like an animal. It sounded like a whole crowd of tortured souls screaming out, and listing off every single sin I’ve committed. And I felt every single one of them sharply. Stealing that old lady’s bike, setting fire to my old school, stabbing my best friend in the back… I’d always written them off as unavoidable, or just part of my job. But, right then, it all hit me at once, that I’d chosen to do all those horrible things, that I could’ve quit, started a job that wasn’t so damn cruel, or even just made a little less that year. But I never made that decision. And then, in one agonised scream, they all cried out “And the Gods will watch you burn.”, cutting through my own thoughts, and immediately going completely quiet. Almost before the words hit my ears I felt myself being… watched. It was coming from everywhere, and whatever was watching me felt the same as that thing that pushed me in here in the first place; totally alien and wrong, something that shouldn’t even be able to exist, but it does, somehow more deeply than anything else.
I ran, of course. I was hoping that thing was just watching the church, or whatever I’d been talking to, but no. It’s still watching as I write this. I haven’t done much since then, and the fire just keeps getting louder and closer, and I know it isn’t going to do anything except condemn me completely. I tried to burn the note, figured maybe that’d do something, but no. The fire from my lighter just went straight through it. Can’t write over it, rip it, I even tried throwing the damned thing into a river and when I got back it was right there, on my desk, like I’d never moved it to begin with. But it doesn’t matter, either way. It promised to watch me burn, and I get the sense I can’t do anything to stop it. The fire sounds like it’s right outside my house now, and I can feel the heat of it already. I don’t even know why I’m spending my last few hours writing this up, except as a warning, I guess. To stay away from this sort of stuff. Avoid this thing’s attention. And, if you don’t, well, I guess I’ll see you in hell.