My Long Lost Mate

"Darkness... will prevail once more." 

What does that mean?​​

"What did you just say?" Luke, who stood beside me, glanced at me. He noticed how I was staring at the door and decided to follow my eyes, curious about what had me so focused. But when he did follow my gaze, all he could see was a normal wooden door. "Is there something there?"

If Luke couldn't see the inscription, it was clear to me that this was a message meant for those with magical abilities—for witches. Instead of answering him, I took his hand in mine, allowing him to see the magic around us. 

Luke's eyes narrowed as he watched the words appear one by one, and a frown immediately appeared on his face when he finally saw the whole inscription. He was perplexed as to why someone had scribbled such nonsense on the entrance of a holy church—though not very holy with this one. He called bullshit on that. 

"Someone was definitely drunk when they wrote this," he mocked. 

"Do you know what that means?" 

"Darkness usually refers to black witches, so I'm sure this one also refers to them," his fiery eyes stared at the inscription, his frown deepening. "They must have thought that they still had a chance in this world." 

Scoffing, Luke opened the door to the church, leading me inside and keeping me close as if he was afraid that I would be left behind and would suddenly go missing. The dust all around the church prompted me to cough soon after entering, and I waved my palm in front of my face vigorously to keep the dust from entering my lungs.

When the cough died down, I was astounded by what I saw in front of me.

With the day bright, I could finally see the grandeur of this place, even if it was still the same scary church with all the ruins and remnants. The exquisite carvings on the pillars and walls, the stained glass windows, and the building's structure were all brilliantly constructed. Even the statues that had previously frightened me now astonished me.

A few parts of the church were covered by the snow that came through the broken windows, but not too much to hinder our paths. I continued to gawk my eyes at the scene before me, noticing a few greeneries amongst the ruins and snow, struggling to survive the harsh weather. 

As we walked down the aisle, I let my fingers brush across the wooden pews that stood on each of my sides, still sturdy and beautiful even under the dust that settled on them. Though the church was not too big, I'm sure it could have accommodated more than fifty people inside back in its glory days. It truly is a waste to leave such a beautiful church behind. 

We came to a halt in front of the altar, admiring the stained glass windows that had stayed intact despite a lengthy period of neglect. There were three stained glass windows in front of us, one on each side and one in the middle. Each of them depicted a different image that I hadn't noticed before. Perhaps due to the lack of light or due to magic. 

The one on the left showed an image of a woman dressed in a black gown, while the one on the right showed an image of a man dressed in similar clothing. Both of them stood in each other's direction—to the image of the woman by the window in the center. One had a fan in her hand, while the other had fruit in his.

Strangely, I felt a pang of familiarity when my eyes fell on the image of the woman in the center. It was as if I had seen her before, but I couldn't quite recognize who the woman was. The woman had her eyes closed, long black hair that ran until the bottom of the window—no, I think it was not hair. With a closer look, I noticed that it was not her hair but snakes. She had snakes—numerous snakes in place of her hair. 

"This must be the queen," Luke said, staring at the same snake-haired woman. "The Queen of Black Witches." 

The Queen... of Black Witches? I continued to stare at the woman, feeling a tinge of fear and restlessness the more I did so. Was it because we were both enemies? When I stared at her, I couldn't help but feel a certain amount of uneasiness. 

Noticing my uneasiness, Luke squeezed my hand a little tighter, leading me to look elsewhere. "Let's go. There's nothing good to see here." 

I nodded to his offer, glancing at the woman one last time before leaving. We walked over to the side aisle, taking in the murals that adorned both sides of the church's walls. First, we took a look at the mural on the left side of the church. 

But towards the end, their smiles vanished, their eyes hostile towards each other. They exchanged dirty looks, frowns, and scowls. They drifted more and more apart until they were split into two groups. One was the people with white gowns, and the other was the people with black gowns. Their relationship was no more, and their trust in one another was broken. It was the white witches and the black witches. 

It was not mentioned here what happened between the two groups that broke them apart. 

Moving to the other side of the church, another mural was seen. But, unlike the other mural, it didn't depict people being chummy with one another. It depicted a war. Red was the primary color in this one. 

It started out as a conflict between the white and the black, who initially fought with their words rather than their powers. However, as they couldn't find a bright spot after their discussions—or, should I say, debates—black and white smoke appeared. Magic appeared and started the war.

White against black. Black against white. Either refused to give in. 

Towards the middle, black was winning. Red splattered on the white gowns, and the black cheered. The snake-haired woman stood in the middle, a crown on her head. The four shining figures in white kneeled before her, and so did the rest of the white. 

Celebrating their win, black took the four shining figures and tied them to a stake. For the first time in this mural, people had smiles on their faces. The smiles only grew wider when the four shining figures burst into flames, burning so fierily and wildly in the brightest colors of red and orange. The white then turned to grey—to ash. 

"This is not what happened," Luke said. "Black didn't win. They lost." 

Continuing towards the end of the mural, the snake-haired woman sat on a chair so grand and so posh, with numerous people in black cheering and kneeling before her. Snakes dominated this part of the mural while doves—dead on the ground. White was no longer seen.

"This is not what happened, but this must be what they wanted to happen," I said, staring at the snake-haired woman. Her victorious smile only looked evil to me. "They wanted to kill the doves." 

After seeing the murals, I finally realized that this wasn't a church built to worship God. This was a church built to worship the Queen of the Black Witches. But why a church? That remained a question for me. 

Was this their plan all along? To kill white witches? But why? They were so close, so kind to each other. Even the mural showed how happy they were. What on earth happened between the two that made them end up like this? 

And who were the four shining figures? They must have been a significant figure in white witch history, given the fact that they were painted brighter than the rest of the white witches. Could they be something similar to the queen?

When I asked Luke about them, he told me that he'd never heard of them before. This was his first time learning about them, as it was mine. I wondered if Maggie knew something about this. She'd claimed to be very knowledgeable about magic—though she tends to be very stingy about it.

Seeing that there were no more things that we could see here, we decided to go to the underground room. We looked for the door that would lead us down, lighting the lantern we'd previously brought to light our way down there. 

There should be something down here—there must be.