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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/achihiroe on 2024-10-08 06:21:37+00:00.

People said that in our local church, there is a novice nun that had recently gone missing. Rumors say that she ran away because she wasn’t prepared to fully commit herself to the church—overwhelmed, and scared to surrender herself and tell the truth, she decided that it be best to run away. No one knows where she is and her family is under the impression that she is still in the convent, and that her anonymity during this time is all part of the process of becoming a nun. The church has reached out to them via letters and a personal visit by the priest, but still they were in denial of the whereabouts of their daughter.

I am an altar server of the church, and I have been for almost 2 years. Every sunday before and after the mass, me and a carillonneur are tasked to make our way up the church basement, climb a ladder and ring the carillons three times as loud as we possibly can. This mass in particular was held at around 4:00am, so me and my friend (Tom) made our way up the staircase and up the ladder at 3:36am, we finally settled at the top of the church overlooking the entire neighborhood. The bell tower was eerily quiet and dark, only having a small flashlight as our source of light and the cold morning breeze howling through our eardrums. We sat for about 10 minutes until we heard creaking from below us. We didn’t think much of it at first as mice were known to run about the basement, lurking in the shadows of the idols that only came out during feasts and church events.

3:50am, we began to feel drowsy and after a long conversation about how the rest of our week went, we slowly began dozing off resting our heads on the walls that surrounded the bell. I felt the consciousness leaving my body and my eyes closing shut all together, I was so ready to take a short nap after staying up late for the whole night—that is when we heard a loud THUD, again coming from the basement. It jolted both of us awake that the weariness left our bodies. In a panic, we convinced each other to check the basement and figured that it must have been one of the statues falling that was the source of the loud noise that woke both of us up.

“I guess God doesn’t want us to sleep” Tom said, letting out a nervous laugh. I could tell that he was scared, we both were—but he was trying to lighten up the mood by making a joke. “We should probably take a look at the basement, the feast of saint Matthew is coming up and we can’t have one of the icons broken.” I replied.

“Well, one of us is gonna have to ring the bells, the mass is starting in 5 minutes.”

“Fine, Then I’ll check the basement.”

Anxious, and with a flashlight in hand I make my way down the ladder that lead to the basement. The place was dusty and dark, and I could hear the ringing of the bells above me. I went to where the icons were kept under white sheets of fabric—I lifted them up one by one, counting them over and over. I knew how many statues there were, and I knew like the back of my hand. “Seems like they’re all intact.” I said to myself, but I couldn’t leave yet, I needed to know where the source of the noise came from so again, I wandered around the cramped room pointing my flashlight in every direction—nothing. I saw nothing. I was just about to go climb back up when I heard someone gasping—Like the type you would hear when someone is struggling to breathe and is gasping for air. I turned around quickly and anxiously pointed my flashlight around the dark room, again there was nothing.

“I’m probably just imagining things” I thought to myself.

After about 20 minutes I finally went back up with Tom Who was waiting for me.

“So?” He asked “Nothing” I replied

“Nothing?” “Yeah nothing. I checked and couldn’t seem to find anything that could possibly be linked to the noise earlier, it was probably just a mouse or something.”

It was 4:20am and the skies aren’t as dark as they were earlier, me and Tom patiently waited for the mass to end so we could again ring the bells. We spoke about anything and everything, keeping each other busy so that boredom and drowsiness wouldn’t get to us once more. And at around 4:45, Tom needed to use the restroom—the nearest one was in the basement, in a very small area cramped behind the church equipment. Tom didn’t want to go alone, so he made me go with him. Again, we made our way down the ladder Tom went first with me following behind him because he really needed to go, and I was being careful not to step on his hands as we both went down.

I offered him the flashlight and he refused because he didn’t want to be seen doing his business. I scoffed and turn around as he entered the small comfort room—I pointed the flashlight at the direction of the equipment just in case he would be on his way out and so he wouldn’t bump into the storage that was kept in front of the door.

Tom was done after a few minutes, I was annoyed at how long he took but I didn’t want to make a scene so we both just quietly made our way up again, with me following behind him. 4:50am, we finally sat down and continued our conversation, that is when Tom said something that brought chills to my body.

“Hey you know when I was inside the toilet? It felt like there was somebody else there with me.” “What do you mean?” “Well when I was finishing up, something brushed my head. Not to mention that it smells horrible in there, like everything dead piled up into one corner of the room.”

“And the atmosphere was heavy” he continued “I could’ve sworn my hand accidentally touched something in there, it was luckily dark so I didn’t have to see whatever that was.”

“That’s odd” I replied, fear written all over my face. In our 2 years of being tasked to do this, we have never encountered anything like this. Even at times when I was sent here alone, the thought of being scared has never once crossed my mind. I could tell that Tom was scared too but was putting on a brave face as it was in an ungodly hour and we didn’t want to start the day bad. We sat in silence until the mass finally finished, and we rang the bells 3 times. The sun was already rising by then and we weren’t that scared to go back down anymore despite the fact that we scrambled our way out the tower.

Our day continued as usual, we went our separate ways and we never spoke about the incident again. Until we were notified of a memorial service by the church 3 days later— I had just gotten back from school and my mom told me to get ready because we were gonna sponsor the mass, I grabbed my albs and quickly changed into them. The church was silent, It was a memorial service for the nun that went missing 5 days ago. She was found by one of the ministers who was looking for an extra ciborium—she was found with a rope tied around her neck. They said that she had been dead for a week when she was found in the basement.

My eyes widened. “The basement?” I felt my stomach drop, my eyes darting all over the place frantically looking for Tom in the crowd. Turns out he came in late because he had Spanish class, we were both pulled outside as the deceased’s loved ones said their last words and reminisced their last moments with her. The priest, along with the abbess and the minister who found her

“Where in the basement was she found?” Tom asked

“In the restroom” the minister replied.

We both looked at each other, I knew what he was thinking. And now I wonder, was she the one that caused the loud thud in the basement? Was it her lifeless body that brushed Tom’s head? What made her end her life?

I’m home now, I was traumatized for the rest of the service. Tom went home after we were told the news of where the body was located, it was too much for him to handle. Especially when he was the last one to use the restroom. Maybe Tom was right, maybe he was fortunate enough to not take the flashlight with him that day. Otherwise things would have gone much much worse.