‘Need a cigarette?’ the vocalist asked May, lighting up himself.

‘I don’t smoke,’ May said automatically.

‘They’re not the nicotine kind, they warm you up,’ Thorn said, but May just shrugged and he left it at that. The two skugabor walked around the small clearing where Asrun had been found, in wider and wider circles. Soon, their footsteps were the only ones in the snow. Thorn inhaled long drags of heat, blowing out the smoke towards the clouds. They were dark, close enough to the pines to merge with the soft fog. Whatever Skygge had been there for, this deep in the woods, Thorn didn’t think the bassist had found it. The old skugabor didn’t know this part of the forest, and couldn’t tell if there were paths beneath the snow. May remained silent, eyes set on the horizon. There was an odd quiet between the dark pines, as if the clouds, hanging low and thick with rain, were absorbing even the sound of their footsteps in the snow.

‘You feel that?’ May said suddenly.

‘What?’ Thorn said, stretching out the tendrils of his mind through the shadows. Nothing, absolutely nothing, except the collective heartbeat of Slakshaven in the distance.

‘Exactly,’ the younger skugabor said. ‘Slakshaven is to my back. That means that I should notice we’re approaching Klipvegen. It’s large enough that we should be feeling it, right?’

‘Yes,’ Thorn said. Klipvegen was more than large enough to should be noticeable.

‘But there’s nothing in that direction. Nothing at all. It feels like it did when I was human.’

It was true, the man realized. He hadn’t felt that in a long time, and started in the direction May had indicated. She walked beside him, with long, quick strides.

‘Have you ever felt anything like that?’ she said.

‘Nothing. Never.’ Thorn wondered if it was possible he’d never been on this part of the island, had instinctively stayed away from this blank space. It felt wrong, to him, as if all sound had suddenly dissapeared from the world.

Unconsciously he sped up, until they were surrounded by nothingness and dark, towering pines. Thorn shivered, and tried not to show the fear that had crept up on him. He’d lost a sense that felt natural to him.

‘I feel like I’m blind,’ May said.

‘Do you want to go back?’ Thorn said, wishing she’d say yes.

‘No. If Skygge was going here and Asrun, too, maybe we’ll find answers.’

If Skygge had purposefully gone here the bassist was in over his head, and suddenly Thorn doubted the fire slowly consuming his bones was destined to cause Skygge’s death. If his friend knew what this place was, he should’ve been dead a long time ago.

Thorn found himself at the treeline, at the border of a large clearing. He could see the sky again, with it’s sickening green and purple storm clouds. A ruined building stood in the middle of the snowed-over field. It cast a large shadow, devoid of any life, not even omnious intentions radiating from it. No road led up to the crumbling ruins; no footsteps marked the snow. May halted beside him.

‘What is that?’ she said, staring at the white stoned ruins. Moss-covered arches supported crumbling walls, and thick vines of ivy covered the uneven stones.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s absolutely ancient,’ May said, awe in her voice. ‘It doesn’t look very Threooese, though. More continental…’

She started to cross the clearing, and Thorn had to hurry to keep up with her. Too quickly they reached the doorway, its stone arch without door and revealing a small courtyard.

‘1024 AD,’ she said, nodding at the engraved arch. ‘Ancient it is. How on earth didn’t I know this existed?’

‘What is it?’

‘A cloister,’ May said, laying a hand on the moss-covered rocks. ‘It’s mentioned in the history books, but I always assumed no one had ever found it.’

‘It’s right here in the middle of the forest. There’s no way no one knows it exists.’

May looked at the older skugabor. ‘We live right in Slakshaven, Thorn. No one knows we exist. I’d say something is off here, too.’

‘What’s it doing here, then? There’s one bloody church in Threoo and it’s a museum. Why is there a cloister here?’

‘It wasn’t used for very long,’ May said, ‘Christian missonaries ran the island for a few decades, but they were kicked off the island within the century.’

‘So what does this place have to do with us?’

‘I don’t think it’s the cloister,’ May said, ‘It’s the soil. They tended to build their churches and whatnot on old pagan sites.’

She walked into the old courtyard, where the forest had taken hold; young pines and small shrubs grew from between the broken tiles. In the center, descendants of herbs the nuns must have grown grew without constraint. Bright red berries peaked up from the snow.

Still, Thorn could sense nothing; no matter how hard he pushed at his mental borders, tried to force out the tendrils of his consciousness; there was nothing.

‘I really think we shouldn’t be here,’ he said.

‘Too fucking bad,’ May said. ‘That’s my sisters’ body they pulled out of the snow. Go back if you want to.’

Thorn considered it, if only for a second, but mentally kicked himself in the shins for it. May wasn’t waiting for him, and marched across the courtyard, towards the cast iron gate that led deeper into the building. It wasn’t locked, and made no noise when she opened it. It opened as smoothly as Thorn’s own front door. But the hallway behind it was dusty, and moss grew on the walls; there was no light. It had been decades since Thorn had been well and truly blind in full darkness. He didn’t like it one bit, but followed. Guiding herself with one hand on the wall, May walked into the building until she stumbled against the first step of wooden, half-rotten stairs. The man swallowed a new complaint when she tentavily went up, testing each plank before putting her weight on it. He heard every noise the creaking building produced; every bird setting foot on its roof, every sigh of settling, rotting wood.

Against his better judgement, he kept going. The planks were unsteady beneath his feet, bowing to his weight, threatening to give way. Soon, the dark behind him swallowed the floor, rendering him blind. He’d forgotten how naked one felt in the dark. How vunerable a human body was. How easy it was to stumble, as May then did, falling forward with a sharp cry of surprise.

‘I’m okay!’ she said, and swore, climbing back onto her feet. ‘There’s a landing here.’

Slower, Thorn felt his way along the hall. When he looked back, he could see the faint twilight emerging from the entryway, much further down than he thought they’d come. May dissapeared into the dark ahead of him, footsteps echouing through the building.

‘Thorn?’ she said, and he followed her, every step forming clouds of dust in the air.

With careful steps they made their way across the hallway. There were holes in the floorboards here, each revealing their own, endless abyss. He feared slipping and falling and being unable to catch himself in a shadow, falling and falling and perhaps never crashing against a floor. His eyes should have gotten used to the dark, but its thick, liquid darkness was impossible to see through.

Then, after balancing past hole after hole, the soft sound of an opening door on well-oiled hinges and there was twilight again. The skugabor found themselves in the doorway of a large room, with holes in both roof and wooden floorboards. Dust danced in the low moonlight. The remains of sparse furniturne laid fallen beside the walls; an old table with two-and-a-half legs, a metal jug on it’s side, a wooden, fallen cross. Shivers rippled along Thorn’s spine. Had he wandered into the domain of some foreign god?

The walls were of rough, hewn stone, perhaps from the quarry near Klipvegen - but the backwall was brick and plaster, and from it missed three bricks, square in the center. From here, an even deeper dark radiated into the room. Thorn started towards it, carefully avoiding the gaping holes beneath his feet, watching, fascinated, as thick silken lines of black dripped from the hole. Ones he could not feel or reach in to.

‘Who comes here?’ a voice came, creaking as the floorboards did.

Thorn halted, foot in midair, May someplace behind him hidden by the dark.

‘Child? Is that you?’ it said, ‘It is not yet time.’

‘What do we do?’ May whispered, not quietly enough, and behind the hole appeared a face so ancient, so absolutely battered with age that Thorn stepped back from its peering stare. The bloodshot, sunken eyes widened when their owner realized there were strangers here, and then radiated with such cold, iron menace that it struck Thorn right in his gut. He heard May cry out somewhere near the door, and the things’ distrust and hate rippled through his organs and his blood and his nerves, and he turned and ran.

‘Not you!’ it screeched, ‘Not you! Not you!’

The crying echoud in his ears as he ran. He heard May stumbling somewhere ahead of him, and then he was to the doorway near the stairs and it kept screeching and the floor gave way. His boots punched clean through the half rotten wood, and he fell and fell and thank the gods it stopped, then - stuck to his waist in filthy, old floorboards.

He swore. The beings hate was punching at his mental borders, so much weaker in this place where he couldn’t feel the shadows.

‘Are you alright?’ May said, hands under his armpits, yanking at him.

‘No.’ He shook his head, to clear the noise out, wood sticking into his ribs and stomach. He could feel his shirt rip, his skin tear, and his feet hanging in absolute nothing. He knew it was irrational, but he could feel the void beneath his boots, endless and ready to swallow him whole. He pushed at the wood and he came free; and he’d later swear the screaming in the distance became even angrier. Thorn crawled onto the clearing. May stepped back, panting, and started down the stairs. The man followed, an arm around his bruised ribs, a barrage of inhuman pain bashing at his eardrums and mind. He was glad for his own hurt ribs, something other to focus on while he ran, fast as he dared, down the crumbling planks. May, in front of him, slipped. She caught herself on the mossy railing, pushed back onto her feet and ran into the twilight shining through that final doorway. Together they escaped onto the courtyard, and Thorn sharply kicked the metal gate shut.