Shadow of the Phantom Curse

utside without making a sound. He never had any crushes; romance should be saved for when he was a stable adult and not a dumbass like his mother had said. But goddamn did he stare at some people running outside.

Of course, love wasn for him, he thought. All day long, Catheris would just daydream with a slight blush on his cheeks, before getting flustered at the realization of what he was doing and going back to taking down notes. He would repress any growth of romantic feelings into a burning pain in his chest – which is what he thought of his growing feelings of romantic attraction to the people he stared at; that it was heartburn, or something, anything that he could pin the blame on, honestly.

Adult-Catheris still somewhat treasured the fact that he used to daydream, though. Even if he did choke up in repulsion at the thought of the type of people he once daydreamed about, the thoughts were a bit cringy to his adult self… Gods, if he had dated who he actually wanted to pursue at the time, hed probably have broken up just from thinking of the lectures his mother had given him to prepare him for relationships and what type of woman he should look for. But in the end, the daydreaming had made school a bit easier to tolerate.

Now he had a simple life – working at a well-known luxury clothing company designing suits – but it was to be expected, as every company on the island he resided on was popular. Still, his life was as mundane as ever. At his job, everyone knew his name, but his air just gave off ackground character vibes; no one ever paid much attention to him unless they needed a favor from him.

But it was soothing to open up the windows of his new apartment away from his family, and to take in the slightly salty air by the beach. Again, his life was quite ordinary. The experiences he had been having lately, on the other hand…

With nobody to confide such information to, he thinks hes going a bit insane. For moments at a time, time seems to freeze and he can move. A figure of pitch black always hugs the edges of his vision, morphing to fill the cracks of any structures around him and slithering around his surroundings. Then it would slip out of his field of view, after which he could move again.

It was eerie, but if he were to ask his mother about his recent situation, it would have driven him insane from what he knew she would do. Telling her would mean that everyone in the family would know. The fleeting pitch-black figures he faced reminded him of some folktales from where his family originally came from and which his grandmother told him stories of. But he didn think it was noteworthy enough to bother the people around him; he thought hed just come off as a burden anyway.

Come to think of it, the Cathedral on Deliamois felt familiar, with the same mood and vibe that the shadow-slithering moments gave off. The feeling was very distinct, he still remembered the cold sensation filling him even after the years since hed last visited.

If he turned clinically insane over time, he decided that he would seek help. If that didn work out, then hed take a trip over to the Cathedral if the delusions worsened; for some reason, he couldn put off the feeling that the Cathedral, in particular, had something to do with everything going on. And if the visit didn help him find the cause of his problems, he could always just drown himself in the sea he loved so much.

In fact, the whole island of Deliamois felt off. During the few times hed taken a boat over to it, it felt like a dream, as if it wasn actually the real world but a sectioned off area that was an illusion. Sometimes, it felt so peaceful that it was only natural for Catheris to be a bit wary. Though the Cathedral and the ledge it was on was the only place that invoked his wariness to its maximum setting, Deliamois was still horrifying.

The air felt heavy in the Cathedral, leaving a feeling of having to be cautious of ones very breath. The impact the building had on him was powerful. The sheer amount of space within the building and how high the ceiling reached, as well as how intricate and detailed the carved stone walls of the Cathedral were – engraved with several deities – always struck him as majestic and yet foreboding. On a whole different level; that was the only way to describe the atmosphere of the Cathedral.

Whenever he entered the place with his grandmother, it was like the pain in his head could snap at any minute and send his mind into a sharp, painful, and agonizing recoil – almost like being struck over the head with a baseball bat; pain, accompanied by a dizzying nausea. His clouded mind would feel like it was about to burst, which made his ability to think clearly weaker. His grandmother would hold his hand tightly even as she was unfazed by the atmosphere; he didn know why she did so – it hurt, but he never questioned it.

Adults knew better, he had always supposed.

Whenever the Cathedrals bell rang – he could no longer remember what times it did – his whole body would freeze while every other visitor remained unfazed. The older visitors who knew more never even spared a flinch; he had been the only child partaking in the visits back then. If he were to recall trivial details, he remembered that the bell just rang – nobody went to ring it, it just activated itself with a mechanism.

Catheris had told his younger cousins what happened at Deliamois. At first, they didn believe him, but when it was their time to go and experience the eeriness of the Cathedral, they came back scared shitless. They then told their younger siblings and nobody really visited it again; the adults also ended up not visiting because their children didn want to. Thats why none of his younger cousins came to visit the island, because of the experiences their siblings who had experienced Deliamois had told them of. So, the island remained untouched for a few years. The island was then treated as if it were private property, where only the original people and their descendants could go on it. Catheris didn really know why; there were reasons and secrets that he wasn privy to.

What else could he recall? Well, there wasn much left to remember, anyways.

What did he live for anyways? A slice of petty family drama? Would he watch other peoples lives develop and change while he remained on the sidelines, or would he live his own life? It wasn like the rules of life were defined in a book. However, he didn have a say to decide what he lived by; the rules were outlined by his mother.