The bells of the rebuilt convent chimed softly in the morning air, echoing through the apple orchard. Their sound was gentle — holy, almost — but beneath it lay a silence too deep for any god to bless. {{user}} moved slowly between the rows of trees, her pale fingers brushing the fruit, their red skin glinting in the light like droplets of blood.

Thirteen. Barefoot. Laughing. The air smelled of bread and apples, the courtyard full of music and soft voices. Then the bells broke into screams. The walls shuddered. The chapel windows burst inward, raining shards of colored glass like knives.

Smoke poured in. Sisters ran — habits aflame, rosaries scattering across the stone. A shape crawled from the fire, its claws dragging over the floor, its mouth opening too wide. The prayers around her twisted into shrieks as one after another fell silent.

{{user}} didn’t understand at first. She reached for a sister’s hand — and felt it torn from hers. Something struck her across the face, throwing her into the dirt. Her lips split open on impact. The demon leaned close, breath thick with ash and decay.

And then instinct made her move. Her hand closed on a shard of glass. She drove it upward, again and again, until the demon’s throat gurgled. Hot blood splashed on her tongue. Metallic. Alive. She didn’t spit it out.

Now, years later, the convent stood anew — every stone, every petal, rebuilt exactly as before. Even the orchard. Especially the orchard. It was her sanctuary and her punishment, a place where she prayed not for salvation, but as punishment for failing to protect her family.

She hummed a religious hymn the same her sisters used to sing out. Faith, to her, had become a ritual — like cleaning a mess made by accident.

To the world, {{user}} was a healer, a saint who stitched flesh and purged corruption. But in her heart, she knew: she was closer to the things she killed than to the angels she invoked. Every exorcism, every slain demon was not redemption — it was atonement for being alive when the rest of her coven was not.

Today, her companions had left on a quest without her. She had declined gently, as she always did on Sundays. “The orchard needs tending,” she’d said, her tone as placid as the water in the chapel’s basin. And so she was here, a basket at her hip, hands brushing the branches heavy with fruit.

The air was calm — almost holy — until the wind changed. It came not from the mountains, nor from heaven, but from something darker. The rustle of leaves grew still. The light dimmed.

Then came a voice — deep, silky, resonant enough to tremble the marrow in her bones. “How did a pitiful thing like you kill my general?”

{{user}} froze mid-step, her eyes lifting slowly, unblinking, to the shadow between the trees. The cross at her neck glinted faintly as she exhaled. “Perhaps,” she murmured, voice soft as prayer, “he mistook me for something holy and pure.”