The church was nearly empty when it happened. The last notes of the organ were still trembling in the rafters when someone burst through the heavy wooden doors–a blur of movement and ragged breathing. They ran straight up the aisle, past the startled parishioners, genuflected–and seized the monstrance from the altar with both hands. The golden vessel caught the candlelight for an instant before vanishing into the night.

For weeks afterward, nothing in that church felt right.

It started small. The bread they used for Communion began to crumble, dry and brittle. Tiny fragments of what was supposed to be the Body of Christ scattered across the marble floor. Parishioners stepped on them without noticing. I once saw a woman taking the host on her tongue– it dropped and hit the ground, soft as ash–and she picked it up, tucking it absently between her breast. I wanted to scream.

Confession was worse as ever.

The day I went, there was a man ahead of me, smiling broadly, eyes too bright. When it was his turn, he didn’t go into the confessional–he walked straight to the baptismal font and plunged his bald head into the holy water, holding it there far too long. When he came up, he laughed, a gurgling crackling sound that echoed off the stone walls. “Clean now,” he whispered. “I’m so clean.”

My neighbor’s boy refused to go back after that. He’d tried once more, but came home pale and shaken. He said the priest had spoken only of sin and filth, fixated his every movement on going to hell with every thought. “He said the devil lives in my hands,” the boy whispered. That was the last time he ever went to confession.

When I returned alone, Monsignor cornered me in the confessional. His voice was not his own–he rumbled like something ancient and furious. “You are on the road to Hell,” he said, breath sour, eyes gleaming through the lattice. “Hell for all eternity. You will burn unless you obey.”

Something inside me broke. I stood, silent, and walked out. Behind me, he was still shouting–his voice rising, cracking–until it became a horrible roar that wasn’t human.

As I reached the aisle, I saw them: figures sprawled across the floor, their bodies convulsing. Dark shapes slithered out from their open mouths, twisting and hissing before vanishing into the cracks between the tiles.

I turned toward the altar. The empty space where the monstrance once stood glowed faintly–a pulse of dull red light, as though something inside the tabernacle were still alive and hungry.

And then I understood.

The thief hadn’t stolen the monstrance.

He’d freed what was trapped inside.