Story 1186: God Without Bones

It began with a church bell that rang at midnight, though the chapel had long been abandoned.

Locals called it The Hollow Spire, a jagged ruin at the edge of the moor. Once a place of worship, now a monument to forgotten rituals and names that burned the tongue. None dared approach—save for Father Merek, who had returned to the town of Drowmere after twenty years of silence.

He walked with a limp, his left hand always clenched. In his youth, he was a man of scripture. Now he carried only a satchel, stitched from skin not quite human.

Inside: a bone-white reliquary with no seams or openings.

By dawn, animals were found turned inside out near the chapel grounds. Crops wilted under the touch of unseen fingers. And in the center of the old nave, something had been dug up—a pit, deep and wide, lined with symbols that bled ink when stared at too long.

Whispers began to ripple through town.