Kesswick, the town, remained silent. Not the usual stillness of a deserted village or the eerie silence of the dead. This was an incomprehensible absence, a void in which time seemed to stand still. It was immediately felt by the search party that arrived weeks after Malcolm Graves vanished. The chapel's structure was wrong - its ancient stone was bleeding something darker than water and the walls were bent at angles that defied logic. It loomed over the town. Even when there was no wind, a thick as flesh-colored mist curled at its base and moved. Stepping onto the deteriorated threshold of the chapel, Father Aldrich led the search. His breath caught the inside view. No pews. No altar No room. The walls vibrated as if something was breathing beneath them, making the interior seem infinitely larger than the exterior. The members of the search made cautious movements, but their steps did not echo. Here, there was no sound. Their voices were swallowed before they could form, dying in their throats. Someone said, mumbling, "It opens." Aldrich made a sharp turn. Who spoke that? No one responded. But the chapel had spoken, so he knew. The whispers then started. Something older, a resonance that gnawed at thought itself, not voices or words. Only hunger served as an explanation in the chapel. Aldrich observed a grotesque tapestry of those who had previously entered as the walls pulsed and limbs and faces stretched to the point of no return were among the shifting shapes within. Aldrich stumbled and retreated. The walls swung. No, the chapel breathed itself. It was getting to know them. The search party attempted to flee when they turned, but the entrance had vanished. merely an interminable corridor of swaying flesh, pulsating black veins, and empty, screaming mouths. Aldrich saw the faces of those who had disappeared - Malcolm Graves among them - swallowed, hollowed, their skin melting into the architecture of this living void.
"It appears." "And they swallow us up."