Chapter 20 — Evidence

Stefan sat on the edge of his bed, the stolen journal resting across his knees, both hands wrapped around it as if it might slip away if he loosened his grip. The room was dim, lit only by the faint spill of light from the corridor beyond the door and the dull glow of the small lamp by the wall. It should have felt quiet, ordinary even—but it didn’t. It hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

He looked down at the book again.

The leather was aged and uneven, worn to softness in some places and stiff as bark in others. When he shifted it, the cover gave off a faint, damp creak, as though it remembered where it had been kept. His fingers traced the indentation on the front, following the letters slowly, almost carefully.

Father Petar

He didn’t know the name. It meant nothing to him. And yet, the moment he touched the book, something in him had tightened—as if he had picked up more than just an object.

He opened it.

The pages resisted at first, then gave in with a dry whisper. His eyes moved over them quickly, then slowed as the confusion settled in. There were drawings scattered everywhere—circles layered into each other, lines intersecting at strange angles, symbols that looked deliberate but unreadable. Some resembled crosses, others something entirely different, older, twisted into forms he couldn’t place. Margins were filled with notes written in uneven hands, sometimes neat, sometimes so frantic the letters seemed to collapse into each other.

It didn’t look like knowledge.

It looked like obsession.

Like someone had tried to trap something on paper and failed.

Stefan frowned, turning another page. More of the same. Patterns, fragments of sentences, words scratched out, rewritten, then abandoned. There was no clear beginning, no structure—just a mind unraveling itself across the pages.

“Nothing special…” he thought at first.

But the thought didn’t stay.

Because he knew why he had taken it.

Not because of what it was—but because of who had told him to.

He didn’t look up right away. He didn’t need to. He felt it.

It was there.

It was always there.

In the far corner of the room, where the shadows should have been deepest, the light stood—if “stood” was even the right word. It didn’t touch the ground. It never did. It hovered just above it, as though the world beneath it had no hold. Its form was tall—too tall for the room, nearly brushing the ceiling—and yet it never seemed constrained by space.

It did not cast shadows; it displaced them.

Its shape was human only in suggestion. A torso, arms, a head—but without features, without detail. The edges of it shifted constantly, as though it were made of something that refused to hold still. And behind it, extending outward in a slow, almost breathing motion, were wings—not feathers, not anything solid, but vast arcs of light that stretched and folded with a quiet, fluid rhythm. They shimmered faintly, like heat rising from a stone, but brighter, more defined, threaded with something that felt alive.

It had no face.

And yet Stefan knew when it was looking at him.

He always knew.

“You told me to get this,” he thought, his gaze still on the journal, his voice existing only in the space between them.

There was no delay. There never was.

The response came not as sound, but as a presence pressing gently into his mind.

“Evidence.”

The word was clear, shaped, deliberate.

Stefan’s brow furrowed. He turned another page, more out of habit than curiosity.

“I don’t understand it,” he thought back, a hint of frustration rising. “There’s nothing here that makes sense.”

For a moment, the light shifted. Not moving, exactly, but tightening, as if something within it had drawn inward.

“Must reveal the truth.”

The words came slower this time, spaced, as though chosen carefully.

Stefan exhaled through his nose, his fingers pausing on the edge of a page filled with overlapping symbols.

“What truth?” he pressed, more insistently now. “This just looks like… like a crazy person’s diary.”

No answer.

That wasn’t unusual. Sometimes it spoke immediately. Sometimes it didn’t respond at all.

But it was still there.

Always there.

His thoughts drifted, pulled away from the book and into something deeper, something older. He didn’t try to stop it.

He remembered the night it had first appeared.

The house had been silent in a way that didn’t feel natural, as though sound itself had been pushed out. His mother’s voice was gone, so he decided he won’t speak again either. There was nothing more worth saying. The small, ordinary noises that used to fill the rooms had vanished with her. Everything had felt hollow.

He had packed his clothes without thinking—just a few things, shoved into a plastic bag. He hadn’t planned where to go. He hadn’t thought that far. He only knew he couldn’t stay.

He had stood by the door for a long time, hand on the handle, unable to move forward and unable to turn back. He could hear Natasha’s even breathing as she slept in the kitchen. His chest had felt tight, his thoughts too loud, too fast.

And then—

it had been there.

Not sudden. Not violent. Just… present.

Behind him.

He hadn’t turned at first. Something in him had already understood. The air had changed, warmed slightly, though not in any way he could explain. It wasn’t like standing near a heater or a fire. It was something quieter, deeper, like warmth that didn’t come from outside but settled somewhere inside him.

When he finally turned, he hadn’t been afraid.

That was the strangest part.

A tall figure of light stood in the middle of the room, its form shifting softly, its wings spreading behind it in slow, silent motion. It had no face, no eyes—nothing that should have made it familiar.

And yet it didn’t feel like a stranger.

It felt… known.

Not recognized, not exactly—but known in a way that didn’t require memory.

He had stared at it, waiting for fear to come.

It hadn’t.

Instead, something else had taken its place. Something steady.

“Stay.”

The word had come then. Clear. Calm. Certain.

And he had.

The bag had slipped from his hand without him noticing. He had sat down on the floor, his back against the wall, his thoughts slowing, settling, as though something inside him had been anchored again.

The light figure had remained.

It had not left.

Not that night.

Not the next day.

Not ever.

Since then, it had followed him everywhere—through the church, through the narrow corridors, into his room, into his thoughts. It did not need him to speak. It understood before words formed, before questions fully took shape. Sometimes they talked—if that was even the right word. Other times, it simply existed beside him, silent but present, like something that refused to let him disappear into himself.

It told him things. It asked him things too. Not always things he understood, but things that felt important.

It kept him company when no one else did.

It spoke of him—of when he was younger, things he barely remembered, moments that felt too small to matter and yet somehow did. It knew him in ways no one else seemed to.

And sometimes, they argued.

Not about anything serious. Small things. Silly things. The kind of arguments that didn’t matter but somehow still felt real. It would grow sharper, its presence tightening, its thoughts coming faster, almost overlapping, until he pushed back—and then, just as suddenly, it would quiet again.

It was his friend.

That was the simplest way he could understand it.

And it had protected him.

The night in the archive proved that.

It had guided him there, step by step, showing him the way not with directions, but with certainty. The window had been unlocked—of course it had been. It had shown him that too. Inside, it had led him through the darkness, through the narrow aisles, straight to the shelf where the journal waited.

“Evidence,” it had said again and again, the word repeating until it pressed against his thoughts like something urgent, something unavoidable.

He hadn’t understood.

But he had listened.

He always listened.

Now, sitting on his bed, he looked down at the journal once more.

“I don’t know what you want with this,” he thought, quieter now. “I really don’t.”

The figure in the corner did not move.

“Evidence,” it repeated.

Stefan let out a slow breath, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly, replaced by something closer to exhaustion.

“Maybe you should not ask a kid to do your bidding. I don’t think this is fair” Stefan thought while yawning “I’m tired, I’ll look at it tomorrow.”

This time, the reaction was immediate.

The light shifted more noticeably, a subtle vibration running through its form, the edges of its wings pulling inward for a brief moment. It wasn’t anger—not exactly—but something close to it. A flicker of resistance. Annoyance maybe.

Then, just as quickly, it stilled.

And vanished.

Not fading, not dissolving—simply gone, as though it had never occupied the space at all.

“Oh well, I guess someone is feeling grumpy today. Good night to you too.”. Stefan’s eyes were feeling tired. He yawned again.

The room felt different without it. Emptier. Colder in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. Empty in a way he had learned to notice.

Stefan thought he heard a faint creek echoing in the hallway. He froze. Is this why his friend left abruptly? Is someone coming? Why didn’t he warn him this time?

He hesitated for a moment, then moved quickly, sliding the journal under his blanket, pressing it flat against the mattress.

The door opened almost immediately after.

Natasha stepped inside, her presence grounding in a way that felt entirely different from the one that had just disappeared.

Her expression was calm, but there was something beneath it—something measured, something deliberate.