Sister Agnes
The town of Lin was small enough that most people knew one another by name, yet old enough to have collected centuries of whispered stories. The cobbled streets, the moss-covered church, and the weather-worn gravestones gave the town an air of forgotten times. But among the market gossip and the day-to-day complaints, there was one tale that was never told in full voice—never during daylight, and certainly never after sundown. It was the story of Sister Agnes.
Not a real nun. Not anymore, if he had ever been one at all. The figure who bore that name was said to be a man—tall, gaunt, wrapped in a filthy, tattered nun’s habit. A fraying veil hid his face, though townsfolk swore they had glimpsed slivers of it in moonlight: paper-pale skin stretched too tight, lips cracked like old parchment, eyes reflecting madness.
Every evening, when the church bells tolled midnight, Sister Agnes would appear. Not from a house. Not from the church. Simply appear. One moment, the streets would be empty; the next, he would be standing in the corner of your vision, unmoving, just watching. He never ran. Never called out. He would simply follow from a distance, his silent presence punctuated by the faint sound of footsteps in perfect rhythm with yours.
But the truly horrifying part was the detail that embedded itself into nightmares, was the lullabies. Sister Agnes sang them in a low, almost soothing voice, each word a warped version of holy hymns meant for children. What should have been comforting verses about salvation came out wrong—crooked rhymes, half-forgotten prayers, and strange phrases in a language no one could place. Sometimes, he replaced words with strange guttural hums, his tone breaking in places as if someone—or something—else was trying to speak through him.
Parents warned their children: Never follow the voice. Never look for Sister Agnes. If you hear the hymn, turn away and pray until it fades.
For most, that warning was enough. For Lois, it wasn’t. She was sixteen, restless, and stubborn in the way teenagers often are when told that something is too dangerous. All her life, she had heard the whispers about the mad nun who stalked the night. The story thrilled her in a way she couldn’t quite explain. She told herself it was just an eccentric man, maybe some poor soul who had lost his mind decades ago and clung to this strange persona. But deep down, a darker curiosity whispered: What if it’s real? What if he really is something else?
That summer night, a thick mist clung to the streets, curling between the buildings and pooling low like breath on glass. The moon was nearly full, hazy behind the clouds, and the air smelled faintly of wet stone and candle wax drifting from the church. Lois wandered farther than she should have, her sneakers crunching softly on gravel. Then she heard it. The lullaby. It was faint at first, like the melody of a music box carried by the wind. The voice was soft, coaxing, almost sweet—until you noticed the pauses, the strange choking hum between verses, the way some notes lingered far too long. Lois froze. She should have run, should have turned back, but the pull was magnetic.
She followed the sound. It led her to the old graveyard on the hill—a place overgrown with weeds and thistles, where the graves leaned like crooked teeth. The gate was ajar, squealing faintly as she pushed it open. Fog curled between the headstones, and the air felt heavy, as if the night itself were holding its breath. That was when she saw him. Sister Agnes stood in the center of the graveyard, motionless except for his hands, which clutched a small, rusted metal cup. The liquid inside was dark, thick, and glistened as the moonlight broke through a gap in the clouds. He lifted it slowly, holding it as one might offer communion.
“Join us, my child,”
He crooned. His voice was wrong. Layered, like two people speaking at once. Beneath the words was a faint echo, almost a growl, almost a sob.
“The Father wants you to be free of sin.”
Lois’s breath caught. The closer she looked, the less human he seemed. His hands, pale and long-fingered, trembled with a strange stiffness, like the movements of a puppet. His veil shifted slightly, and in the darkness beneath, two pinpricks of light gleamed—eyes too small and far apart for any man. She stepped back.
The ground seemed to ripple beneath her shoes, as though the grass had turned to water. The headstones around her looked taller, their shapes bending in unnatural ways. Then he was suddenly in front of her.
One blink he was ten feet away. The next, inches from her face.
“Don’t you want to be saved?”
His breath reeked of rot, metallic and sour. The rusted cup tilted toward her lips, and the dark liquid inside shifted like it was alive. Lois screamed. She stumbled backward, tripping over a cracked gravestone, and scrambled to her feet. She ran. She didn’t look back, but the lullaby followed, louder now, the melody twisting until it was almost a chant.
“Faith will cleanse you, my dear…”
Her legs burned, her lungs ached, but no matter how far she ran, she could hear the footsteps just behind her—hoarse breathing, the faint rattle of beads like a rosary shaking in the wind. She burst out of the graveyard and into the main road, the streetlamps casting weak halos through the mist. The singing stopped. She spun around—nothing but fog and shadows.
The next morning, Lois’s parents reported her missing. Search parties combed the town and surrounding hills, but no one found her. Only the old graveyard remained as it always had—silent, decaying, indifferent. Three days later, the townsfolk found an empty grave near the center of the cemetery. No one recognized the name on the headstone—it had worn down into an unreadable blur—but at its base lay a single wilted flower.
Beneath the moonlit tree in the graveyard, someone found a rusted chalice, its inside stained with something black and crusted. The priest refused to touch it. He told the people what the elders already knew but rarely spoke aloud: Sister Agnes was not a man, nor a ghost, but something older. Something that wore the shape of faith to lure the curious and the prideful. Centuries ago, the spirit had been bound here, trapped between the earth and whatever lay beyond, and the habit it wore was not clothing but a shroud—stitched together from the belief of the fearful and the desperate.
The lullabies, he said, were prayers to a god no one alive could name. From then on, no one went near the graveyard after dusk. Doors were locked. Curtains drawn. And if, on certain foggy nights, the tolling of midnight bells was followed by a soft, beckoning hymn, the people of Lin knew to turn their heads and cover their ears until it passed.
But even so, some swore that when the wind was right, you could hear the faintest echo of a young girl’s scream woven into the melody. And those who claimed to hear it never stayed in Lin for long.
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