"I Was Hired to Demolish an Abandoned Monastery. Something was Trying to Stop Me" Creepypasta

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time, and one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete, my identity is something I am proud of, but I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance against hate that aired during the big game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words, and sometimes standing next to someone is enough, and you can show support by sharing the Blue Square. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your couch and winning from the comfort of your own home. I'm here with SpinQuest, where you can play hundreds of slot games, all of the table games you love, and you can even win real cash prizes. New users, $30 coin packs are on sale for 10 at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free to play social casino. Boyd, we're prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details. As a former Navy EOD diver and demolition specialist, when there's a specific job for ordinance disposal, I'm one of a handful of people called on. 14 years in the service, mostly underwater clearance and ordinance disposal in the Gulf and the Horn of Africa. I got out after a bad dive, then took two of my teammates and left me with nightmares that still wake me, tasting saltwater and diesel. These days, I take private clearance contracts, ugly, isolated jobs that most people won't touch, the kind where they send one man because it's cheaper than sending a team. I've been doing it for three years now, telling myself it's temporary. The contract came from a European preservation foundation working with the Estonian government. An abandoned 18th century monastery on the Baltic coast of the Soviets turned into a coastal defense bunker during the Cold War. Half the structure is flooded now, slowly sinking back into the sea. My job was straightforward on paper. Complete the final inventory of all remaining equipment and hazardous materials, conduct a structural assessment of the flooded levels, and carry out controlled demolition of the critical, unstable sections so the site can be declared condemned. Ten days alone on a remote, half-submerged rock with nothing but stone, seawater, and my own head for company. After this, I was done. One more job and I'd retire unhappily to figure out how to live the rest of my days. The supply boat's engine cut out with a guttural cough, leaving only the slap of cold Baltic water against the concrete dock. I stepped off onto the slick surface, boots skidding slightly on a film of salt and algae. The sky hung low and bruised, and the wind sliced straight through my jacket like it had been waiting for me. I hauled the heavy gear bags onto the landing one by one, the straps cutting into my shoulders. Ahead of me rose the half-submerged monastery bunker complex. Rotting gothic arches fused brutally with Soviet-era blast doors, freighted frescoes of saints peeling away under thick crusts of barnacles. Seawater licked lazily at the lower steps, patient, almost affectionate. This was it. My last clearance contract. Catalog every flooded level, seal the critical breaches, demolition, no more of this hell, waking up in strange places with my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribs. My hand shook slightly as I signed the handover papers the boat captain thrust at me. Out beyond the dock, the waves kept rolling in, and for a second, they sounded exactly like rotor blades churning through the gulf night. I clenched my jaw until the memory retreated. The weight of my chest settled in like an old friend I never asked to visit. It felt exactly like every other job I'd pushed through. I dragged the last crate into the upper cloister, muscles burning. The portable generator coughed once, twice, then rattled to life with a steady mechanical hum. I moved methodically through the drier upper floor, checklists clipped to my forearm, flashlight cutting sharp white tunnels through the gloom. The air was thick with the smell of mildew and something faint underneath. Old incense maybe, or just the ghost of centuries of prayer soaked into the stone. My boots echoed too loudly, no matter how softly I tried to step. I noticed structural cracks running like lightning through the vaulted ceilings. I logged the rusted remains of Soviet equipment still bolted to the walls. All junction boxes stripped wiring a faded red star half peeled away. All of it going to the demolition team's inventory. Standard procedure. My own breathing sounded obscenely loud in the empty corridors, each inhale scraping against the silence. In one particularly flooded stairwell, the water sat perfectly still, black as obsidian glass, even though the tide outside should have been pushing and pulling. There were no ripples or movement, just that flat reflective surface staring back at me. I wrote it down anyway. Sheltered micro event, no visible current. My pen scratched loudly against the waterproof paper. I kept walking, but the stillness followed me like a held breath. Patient, unblinking, pressing gently against my spine. I set up camp in the old monks quarters above the waterline, the same way I'd done a hundred times before in worse places. Every external door got checked and double checked out of pure habit. The portable generator rattled to life in the corner, in steady mechanical hum filling the stone room like a heartbeat I could control. I swallowed my meds with a swig of lukewarm water from my canteen, the pills catching slightly in my throat. Then I lay down on a thin camp mattress staring at the cracked, vaulted ceiling, forcing my mind away from the gulf dive that still played on loop when the lights went out. The cold water rushing in, two voices that went quiet too fast. I clenched my jaw and pushed the memory back into its box. Not tonight. Sleep came in shallow fits. Around 2am, I jolted awake, heart already racing before my eyes even opened. The generator was still humming, but something else was in the room with me. Very low, deliberate dripping. I sat up fast, sweeping the flashlight beam across the walls and floor. There were no wet patches on the stone, but the sound kept going anyway, steady and patient. It felt like it was matching up my heartbeat, rising as I tried to focus on hearing it, falling as I tried putting it out of my mind. I lay rigid in the sleeping bag, breath shallow, whispering under my breath like a prayer I didn't believe in. Just the whole pipe settling, the building breathing, nothing more. The quiet after each drop felt heavier than any combat silence I'd ever known, like the entire monastery was listening to see what I would do next. Morning came cold. I geared up for the mid-level bunkers anyway, checking my flashlight and camera twice, telling myself this was still just the job, just another checklist. I began the systematic inventory of the mid-level bunkers just after first light, boots echoing down the long stone corridors. My camera clicked steadily as I photographed as I photographed rusted Soviet machinery and faded its village warning signs, everything going into the reports before demolition. The barnacles were the first thing that felt wrong. They grew across the lower sections of the walls in unnervingly perfect geometric patterns, tight spirals and interlocking angles that looked more like deliberate architecture than anything the sea should have made. I tried to ignore them and stay on the checklist, but my eyes kept drifting back. While kneeling to measure a hairline crack near the waterline, something happened. A cold, smooth sensation like heavy wet fabric rust slowly across my gloved fingers just under the surface of the shallow pool. It lingered for half a second, almost curious, then withdrew. I yanked my hand back so hard I nearly lost balance, heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted out. The flashlight being shook across the water. There was nothing there, just dark, still liquid reflecting my own distorted face. Floating debris, I said aloud, voice deadier than I felt. I logged it anyway, the words scratchy on the waterproof paper, possible seaweed or fabric fragment. The touch lingered on my skin long after I pulled away, cold and far too intentional. It stayed with me like a fingerprint I couldn't wipe off. By day three, the mid-levels were finished, so I geared up with a heavier waterproof jacket and waded deeper into the flooded lower crypts. The water came up to my thighs almost immediately, colder than the bolt to get any right to be this time of year, cold enough to bite straight through the neoprene layers and settle into my bones. The headlamp cut a narrow white tunnel through the water that was strangely clear, almost crystalline, revealing every crack in the submerged stone steps. That was when I saw the strand. Pale, thin, delicate things drifted lazily in the gentle current, swaying like impossibly long seaweed caught an invisible tide. They caught the light with a faint pearlescent sheen. I took one careful step forward and the beam brushed across the nearest cluster. In perfect unison, the strands retracted, graceful, almost shy, pulling back into the darker waters as if they'd never been disturbed. I stayed still for a long time, water lapping at my hips. Unidentified organic matter, I muttered, voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling, possible invasive species. I logged it anyway, the words feeling small and ridiculous against the silence that followed. I kept moving, boots scraping over silk-covered stone, but the strands didn't stay behind. They seemed to follow my path with quiet grace, drifting alongside me just at the edge of the light, never quite touching, never quite retreating completely like curious fingers trailing through the dark. I finally reached the next chamber and started rigging the portable pumps, refusing to let the job stall even for a second. The hoses snaked across the wet stone like pale veins. The machines coughed once, twice, then wrought a life with a mechanical growl that should have felt comforting. At first, the water level dropped exactly as it was supposed to, inch by inch revealing more of the barnacle-crusted walls and the faint outlines of frescoes bleeding into rust. Then, it began rising again. Not in chaotic surges, but in a slow, regular rhythm. One measured swell, pause, another measured swell, pause. The cadence hit me like a memory I couldn't outrun. The exact sound and feel of water flooding into a breached compartment, the way it had climbed so steadily that night in the gulf. My chest tightened hard, breath locking in my throat for a second that stretched too long. My hands froze and the pump controls, all phantom pressure built behind my eyes, and the taste of diesel and saltwater flooded my mouth, even though the air here was only damp stone and mildew. The world narrowed to the rising line of water and the pounding in my ears. I forced my fingers to move again, jaw clenched until it ached. I'm not leaving this half done. I motted through gritted teeth, the words barely audible over the pumps. I kept working, adjusting valves, checking connections, refusing to step back, even as the water licked higher up my legs with that same, patient, inevitable rhythm. The pumps weren't pushing anything away. If anything, they seemed to be drawing something closer. Later, that same day, while working through a debris filled side chapel, I pried open a rusted metal box half buried under collapsed shelving. Inside were stacked leather bound 18th century monastery volumes mixed together with faded Soviet clipboards. The metal corners long since corroded into orange lace. Most of the old pages were in faded script I could barely decipher. Tight, spidery handwriting, they looked like a mix of Old Estonian and Latin. The ink had bled in places where seawater had crept in over the decades. I flipped through them carefully, gloves leaving faint smears on the brittle paper. Tucked between the old volumes, I found a modern folder. It was clearly left behind by researchers or EU preservation students. A crisp plastic binder with scanned excerpts, English translations and typed notes. One 1792 entry had been carefully translated and highlighted. The monks had written in frantic, repeated lines about desperately sealing the lower cistern because of the quiet one in the deep that quote must not be disturbed. Below the translation was a photocopy of the crude ink drawing, simple folded arches disappearing beneath wavy lines that were obviously meant to be water. The students note in the margins simply read, local superstition slash possible folklore reference. I stared at the translated page for a long moment, a chill traced its way down my spine. The same feeling I used to get right before bad news crackled over the radio. I snapped photos of both the original pages and the translated excerpts anyway, close ups of the text and the drawing. It was thorough documentation for the foundation's records, nothing more. But the name stuck in my head like an unwanted radio call sign, repeating quietly every time the silence stretched too long. Later that same afternoon, I slipped on my mask and dove into a narrow, flirty corridor to clear a blocked drain, the beam of my headlamp cutting through the cold water ahead of me. Under water in the narrow corridor, the world narrowed to the cone of my headlamp and the slow swirl of silt around my fins. The passage was tighter than I expected, stone walls pressing close on both sides as I worked my way toward the clogged drain. My light swept ahead and caught something massive and pale, moving far below the deeper cistern. It undulated slowly, gracefully, like the trailing of hem of an enormous white robe, or perhaps a wing made of smooth, heavy flesh. The motion was unhurried, almost regal, disappearing into the black water before my mind could fully register the size of it. I kicked hard for the surface, breaking through with a gasp that burned in my lungs. Cold air hit my face as I clung to the stone ledge, chest heaving. I didn't want to think about it, but it was almost like a large marine animal, possibly trapped inside the structure. My hands shook badly as I logged the sighting on the waterproof clipboard, the pins slipping against the wet paper. I ran away, I repeated the words twice, trying to make them stick. The image refused to leave my retinas, even when I closed my eyes. I could still see that slow, pale undulation drifting through the dark. Back at camp that evening, I sat on the edge of the bedroll with a tablet balanced on my knees. The generator flickered in the corner, throwing unsteady yellow light across the stone walls. I plugged in the helmet cam and hit play, the small screen glowing coldly in the dim room. Before ditch started normally, my gloved hands clearing the drain, the narrow corridor walls sliding past. Then the moment came, the pale shape appeared far below, undulating with that same slow grace. I watched it again, breath held, and realized the movement matched my own breathing from the dive exactly. Every rise and fall of that massive form synced perfectly with the audio's inhale and exhale. When I'd breathed in, it had swelled, when I'd exhaled, it had settled. Not approximately, exact. I killed the video and sat there in the flickering light, the tablet screen going dark. That night, the dripping returned, each slow drop landing in perfect time with my heartbeat. Thump, drip, thump, drip, echoing softly somewhere in the stone around me. My back pressed against the cold wall, knees drawn tight to my chest. Just finish the seals and get extracted. I whispered into the dark, voice rough. I can still do this. I've pushed through worse. The words sounded small. The walls felt like they were listening, leaning in, absorbing every syllable with quiet, patient attention. I powered up the satellite phone to send my daily report, needing to hear another human voice, even if it was just the automated confirmation tone. The satellite phone crackled alive from my hand, the small screen showing a wheat signal bar. I dialed the secure reporting line and waited for the connection, thumb tapping nervously against the casing. Static answered first, wet sounding static that rolled like a distant surf. Then, underneath it came the tones. Slow, mournful sounds threaded through the interface, almost like chanting made of water and grinding stone. Not words exactly, but something rhythmic and ancient, rising and falling in long, liquid phrases. They carried a strange dignity, like a funeral hymn sung in a language the ocean had invented. I lowered the phone and stepped to the top of the stairs, leading down to the flooded levels. When I shone my light downward, the water appeared higher than it had been that morning, clearer, almost luminous. The surface barely rippled, yet something large was obviously displacing it from beneath, creating a subtle, constant pressure that made the whole stairwell feel alive. My heart started racing, I slammed the phone off so hard the casing creaked. The mournful tones still lingered in my ears, as if they had all the time in the world to wait for me to understand. The next morning, while placing explosive charges that seal one of the major breaches, my gloved fingers slipped on the damp casing. One of the charges slipped from my grip and disappeared into the dark water below, with a soft, final plop. I didn't hesitate long, the charge needed to be recovered, so I rigged my mask with shaking hands, checked the regulator twice out of pure habit, and slipped back into the cold water before I could torque myself out of it. My headlamp cut a jittery beam through the merc as I descended, hard already hammering harder than it should. I swept the light across the submerged walls, desperate for the dull, metallic glint of the dropped charge. Then the beam caught something else. I thought my eyes were playing tricks in the low visibility, but as I drifted closer, the shapes refused to resolve into anything human minds were built to understand. Several enormous, jointed pale limbs were folded against the stone in angles that made no sense. Ribs of a flirty cathedral crossed with the segmented legs of some ancient crustacean, all made of soft, luminous flesh that glowed with its own faint, sickly moonlight. The joints bent in ways geometry should never allow, folding inward and outward at the same time as if the limbs existed in more than one direction simultaneously. They did not reach for me, didn't twitch or threaten. They simply existed there with a kind of sorrowful patience, resting against the walls like forgotten pillars holding up the weight of the entire drone monastery for centuries. The sheer scale slammed into me like a pressure wave, my chest locked up, breath caught in the regulator. For one terrifying second, I forgot how to exhale. Every survival instinct I'd honed over 14 years screamed at me to get the hell out, surface, run, swim for the boat, call for extraction, bury the whole goddamn site if I had to. My body wanted to bolt, my mind was already halfway back to the dock, but my training kicked in harder. It's static, not a threat, recover the charge, finish the job, you don't leave ordinance behind. The old reflex clamped down like a vice. I forced myself to hover there another few seconds, eyes wide behind the mask, staring at those impossible joints while every nerve in my body screamed that this was wrong, this was so damn wrong. I kicked hard for the surface, breaking through with a ragged, choking gasp that burned all the way down my throat. My hand shook so violently I could barely grip the stone ledge. For several long minutes, I just knelt there on the wet floor, dripping, reaching water and bile that I'd inhaled from the panic, unable to form a single coherent thought. The image of those luminous limbs kept burning behind my eyes like an after-image from hell. Pardon me wanted to grab my gear and run for the boat right then. Another part, another part, the stubborn, broken part that always finished the mission, was already trying to rationalise it. I tried to push forward with a checklist, hands still trembling as I documented the next section of wall, but the world shifted without warning. Even though I was standing in air, I suddenly felt under water, pressure against my chest, cold liquid filling my mouth and nose, the slow drag of the depth pulling at every limb. Memories of the dead divers I'd recovered years ago flooded in without mercy, pale faces behind cracked visors, limbs floating in that same weightless drift, the terrible quiet after the bubble stopped. Those images mixed seamlessly with a new sensation, something vast and ancient, cradling every sunken thin with careful, unending care. Tears started running down my face without me realising why, they mixed with the damp already in my skin, warm against the stone-cold air. The sorrow I felt wasn't mine alone, it almost felt parental, terrible in its tenderness as if whatever waited below had been holding every lost soul, every forgotten wreckage, every ending, for longer than humanity had existed. I wiped my eyes roughly with the back of my glove and kept writing, but the lines on the waterproof page began to look wrong. The straight checklist marks curved and folded into the same impossible angles I had seen underwater as if my own handwriting was trying to imitate those luminous limbs. I stared at the page until the pin slipped from my fingers. It felt like all forms of self-autonomy faded. I was left with the resolve I'd built up over years of service, autopilot taking over. I doubled down hard. Every pump I still had was dragged into the lower levels, hoses snaking across the flooded floors like pale intestines. I worked with mechanical fury, welding plates over breeches, setting charges, cranking valves into my shoulders burned. The generator outside screamed under the strain, but I kept pushing, refusing to slow down for even a second. Every time I activated another pump, the presence grew more aware of me. I could feel it in the way the water changed, not churning but listening. The stone walls themselves began to breathe in a slow, majestic rhythm, expanding and contracting with a depth that made the entire monastery feel like a single living lung. But not hostile, just overwhelmingly sad as though the building itself mourned what I was trying to do. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, the welding torch jittered in my grip, throwing wild shadows across the dripping stone, but I refused to stop. I growled into the darkness between clenched teeth, voice raw and echoing off the vaults. My words of affirmation sounded pathetic, even to me, small and brittle against the vast, patient sadness pressing in from all sides. I couldn't face the deep chamber again, not after what I'd seen. So I told myself I'd finish the job from the opposite side. A narrow side passage I'd mapped earlier, one that stayed shallow and away from the main cistern, safer and contained. I'd set the last charges there, seal the breach and get the hell out. My hands were still shaking from the dive, but I forced them steady. This was still just one last job. I slipped back into the water with my mask and fins, headlamp cutting a weak tunnel through the cold. The passage felt familiar at first, tight stone walls, still stirring under my kicks. I kept my eyes fixed on the crack I needed to weld. Then, the water changed. One moment, I was swimming toward the ledge. The next, there was no ledge behind me. It simply opened. No surface above me, only endless liminal expanse of black water stretching in every direction, perfectly still, perfectly clear. My headlamp beam kept going and going until it faded into nothing. There were no walls or ceilings around me, no way back, just infinite depth and the slow, heavy pressure of something ancient noticing me. I spun in panic, kicking hard for where the entrance should have been. Nothing. My breath roared loud in the regulator. I was floating in a place that had never been part of the monastery, a place the monastery had only pretended to contain. I looked back. The entity was already there. It filled the void like a drowned cathedral given flesh, pale, impossible limbs unfolded in slow, majestic arcs, ribs and arches and jointed columns of luminous soft tissue that should not bend the way it did. They cradled the darkness itself and at the center, something like a throne or a cradle or a weeping mother waited, vast and sorrowful and patient. It knew. In that moment, I understood with terrible clarity that this was what the old monks had secretly worshipped in their hidden rites, not saints or gods. This, the quiet one in the deep, and it knew exactly why I was here. The charges, the pumps, the seals. This was its last chance to save itself. The great limbs opened. They simply parted like curtains of living moonlight and my mind was pulled inside. The visions came in a flood, hallucinogenic, cosmic, biblical. I saw the monastery as it had been in 1792, candlelight flickering across the same stone, monks on their knees before this presence, singing hymns of drowning and rebirth while the sea rose around them. I saw the Soviets arrive in 1945, the machines and their fear and still the entity waited, unmoved, holding every secret they tried to bury. I saw my own life, the gulf dive, the two men whose names I still whispered in my sleep, their bodies drifting in the dark just as gently as these limbs now held me. I felt a motherly love on a scale that made my chest ache. It wasn't at the level of human tenderness, but on a scale that filled me to overflow. The love of an ocean for every wreck it had ever claimed, every soul it had ever cradled, every ending it had ever witnessed without judgment. It showed me futures where the monastery was demolished and it was sealed forever beneath concrete and rubble, dying slowly, alone. It showed me the alternative, acceptance, release, the peace of simply being allowed to remain. The visions appealed to the deepest wound in me, the part that had spent 14 years trying to seal every loss, every failure, every memory behind steel and procedure. Here was something older than grief that offered to hold these things instead, to cradle them the way it had cradled oceans and civilizations and the quiet deaths of divers no one ever recovered. Cosmic and biblical and intimate all at once, the flood that never ended, the ark that was the sea itself, the god that did not demand worship but only asked to be seen. Tears streamed inside my mask, I was screaming without sound. My training still screamed at me to finish the seals, my mind screamed louder that something should never be witnessed. And yet, here I was, witnessing in return. I hung there in the infinite water, tears and sea water indistinguishable, the great pale limbs closing gently around the edges of my vision, like a cradle. I came out of the visions gasping, suddenly back in the physical chamber with water already surging up to my chest. Pure survival instincts slammed into me like a breakaway. I thrashed toward where the exit should have been, mask fogging badly, regulator screaming in my ear with every desperate breath. For the first time I yelled at it out loud, my voice roar and cracking even underwater. Get the hell out of my head, I'm not your damn priest, this is my last job, I'm supposed to seal this place and walk away. My hand shook so violently I could barely grip the last charges. I fumbled with the detonator, cursing myself between panicked breaths for ever taking this goddamn contract, for always having to finish things, for never being able to let anything stay open or unresolved. The entity didn't fight me, didn't lash out, it simply let the visions flicker at the edges of my mind, like gentle, insistent after images. The two men I lost in the Gulf, drifting peacefully, instead of sinking alone in the dark. The years I spent sealing grief and failure behind steel doors and rigid procedure. Every time I tried to press the detonator button, those images pressed back, soft, patient, motherly on a scale that made my chest ache with something far worse than fear. I almost did it, I almost set the charges and swam for my life, but my fingers froze. The stubborn, broken part of me that had always finished the mission, the part that it kept me diving long after I should have stopped, finally cracked wide open. I couldn't press the button, the detonator slipped from my numb hands and sank without a sound. The water was already at my neck now. For the first time in my adult life, I chose not to seal something away. The water climbed steadily to my chin, then my mouth, I fumbled for the surface with the last of my strength and held out as long as I could. The pale limbs opened one final time, not to trap me, but to cradle. The chamber dissolved again into that liminal infinite expanse of black water. But this time, I didn't fight it. I let myself drift. I felt the entity's sorrowful, cosmic tenderness surround me completely. It was the same motherly love that had held entire oceans, forgotten civilizations. Eons of compassion were instilled in me all at once. It knew exactly why I had come here. The charges, the seals, the need to finish the job, it knew what I had done to myself for years, how I tried to wall off every grief and failure behind work. And in its quiet, majestic way, it offered me the one mercy I had never been able to give anyone, including myself. Release from the need to contain everything. I closed my eyes until the water closed over my head. The last sound I made was my own breathing, slow, deep, and finally sinking forever with a quiet one in the deep. I became the last monk, the new keeper, willingly held. I woke up on the rocky shore outside the monastery complex, coughing up seawater under cold, sharp pebbles. The sky was flat, lifeless gray of early morning. Small waves lapped gently a few meters away. My gear laid scattered around me, one boot missing, flashlight cracked but somehow still working. No cuts or bruises or any marks on my skin at all, just the heavy taste of salt in my mouth and a thick, dreamlike fog pressing behind my eyes. I sat up slowly, every muscle aching and stared at the half-submerged structure in the distance. It looked exactly as it had when I first stepped off the boat. Rotting gothic arches fused with Soviet blast doors, faded frescoes peeling under barnacle crust, seawater still licking lazily at the lower steps. Nothing were collapsed or even disturbed. There were no signs of flooding beyond the normal tide line, no debris from charges or scorch marks, no evidence that anything unnatural had happened at all. Was any of it real? The visions, the infinite black water, the pale, impossible limbs, that overwhelming motherly cosmic sorrow, it all felt too vivid to be a hallucination, yet too impossible to have actually occurred. My mind kept trying to do what it had always done, file it away, label it, contain it, stress, bad air, oxygen toxicity, just another trauma to seal. With the memory of that gentle, eternal cradle refused to be locked down, it lingered like warm water against cold skin. For what felt like hours, I just sat on the rocks, watching the silent monastery. I had a decision to make. I could call in right now, report the job complete, tell them the inventory was finished, the critical breach is sealed as best as one man could manage, and recommend the demolition team proceed. No one would question it. The reason I was handpicked for the job was that I was highly trusted in this line of work. I'd get paid, the contract would close, and I could finally walk away like I'd promised myself. Or I could go back inside, check the lower levels, see if the charges were still armed, see if the quiet one was still waiting down there in the dark. The thought made my stomach twist with raw fear. I couldn't tell if it was the strange god's mind tricks working, or my steel resolve had finally broken. But in the end, I chose the easier path. I powered up the satellite phone with wet, clumsy hands, and made the call. My voice came out steadier than I felt as I told the coordinator, the job was complete. Site prepped, final report will be filed by end of day. You can send for evac. I hung up before they could ask too many questions. As I sat there, watching the waves roll in, I kept thinking about what I might have left unchecked, about what I might have just condemned to silence beneath concrete and rubble, about whether I had appeased the only thing that had ever offered to hold my own broken pieces without asking me to seal them first, or if I just doomed the future to its true motives. But I was just one man, one tired, scarred man, who had spent his whole life trying to contain things that were never meant to be contained. Some weights were simply too heavy, some endings were never mine to decide. I stood up slowly, gathered what gear I could carry, and started walking toward the pickup point. Behind me, the half submerged monastery waited in silence, beautiful, rotting, and perhaps still quietly breathing. I didn't look back. What's up, baby? It's Bredsky, and I'm here to tell you that SpinQuest.com is giving out free sweet coins. 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