✍🏻 Little Matchmaker

16 - Christmas Morning

"Let's take her to my presbytery, I might have something that would make her believe that God and especially Devil are real. She needs to know what happens to children that misbehave."

"What is it?" her mother said with such clear anxiety in her voice that Sophie shivered, barely hearing what came next and only making sense of it years later.

"Have you ever heard of a Krampus? Last year when I went to our congregation in Germany I got there something exactly for these cases."

(A/N: If you don't know how Krampus looks like, please do google it, it's quite a sight.)

Sophie ran up the stairs, not caring that they might have heard her, and closed the door behind her. But before she even managed to find a place to hide, the priest's strong hands wrapped around her arms and he dragged her out. She tried to scratch and bite while he was carrying her down the stairs and out into the dark night but all in vain.
She had no idea what was about to come but was scared to death, hearing that the priest can actually prove the existence of Satan himself. And as the cold night began to creep its way through her pajamas she felt her chest tightening and her limbs going numb. She couldn't catch a breath and when she began to fall to the ground, the priest swiftly threw her over his shoulder and she just hung there helplessly, seeing only the heels of his boots from underneath his long, black attire.

She was still heavily wheezing when he put her against the outside wall of his house at the presbytery and gestured to her mother to come inside.
Darting with her eyes across the vast meadows that looked so ominous in the dark night, she lost track of time and jumped up in fear when her mother appeared at the door again, pulling behind her a large wooden trunk by its metal handle on the side. She did not see the priest anymore and when the trunk was out in the open, her mother pulled her up on her feet, pushing her towards it.

"Ma-mamá?" Sophie stammered out and watched her mother open the lid of the box. She didn't answer and just lifted her up, putting her standing there and gently pushing on her shoulder for her to lie down. "Mamá?!" Sophie exclaimed with more panic in her voice realizing what's going on but her mother pushed her down with more force, making her legs give way.

"It is for your own good, Sofía." She said softly and kneeled down next to the trunk, brushing loose strands from Sophie's forehead. "I am just trying to save your soul."

Sophie gasped and her mother's teary eyes against the starry night were the last thing she saw before the lid closed above her head. She immediately began to scream from the top of her lungs, kicking around but not even able to stretch her legs fully in the tiny space. Her elbows were scraped after several minutes, feeling the warm blood soaking her clothes but she continued to toss herself around in desperate attempts to get out.

And then she stopped.

All of a sudden there were heavy footsteps approaching her little coffin and her mother's quiet crying and praying in the distance.
The footsteps were getting louder and louder until they stopped right next to her ear and she screamed in terror when the heavy hands of Satan himself slammed against the lid. Her own scream echoed in her ears and everything went quiet again.
She was whispering an urgent prayer over and over, begging for forgiveness for her faith not being strong enough, and shivered as she heard a long nail or a claw, slowly scraping against the length of the wood on her side.
It moved to behind her head and the other side of the box, going all the way around. And then something clicked and Sophie immediately hid her face in her hands, covering her eyes and sobbing through her fingers as the lid was lifted and the fresh air breezed inside.

Everything stood still.
She could not hear her mother praying anymore, nor anymore scraping against the wood. But she felt that she is not alone. That there was still something there.
Sophie did not know where she took the courage, but she parted her fingers a little and as she saw the red, glowing eyes and long horns, she screamed like never before, her nails digging deep into her cheeks and soon after losing consciousness.