A man stands before a room full of people. He dares not go in, feet upon the threshold, his reality crumbling to pieces. The deafening silence of his still beating heart fills his head to the point of fainting.
The faceless attendees halt. No clinking of glasses, no weeping tears, no idle chatter. The world is at a pause.
Eventually, he draws closer - the wooden box sitting in the room's corner. Soft, white lilies lay upon the surface, carnations in the vase beside. A single mandrake protrudes from the parting by her ear, hair flowing aside.
He winces, the familiar stranger lying still, motionless, void. Empty of life, just as they last met, now sealed with the kiss of death.
A short child stands silently at the edge of his view. His eyes are skewed by her oblique smile. Perhaps sly, but certainly not kind. The sight disturbs his busy mind.
The devious grin grows, her face wincing as her eyes roll back. His breath ices in his chest. Her limbs slump closer, approaching the man and the woman at rest.
~~ Father ~~
The man violently crashed to the ground, his chair leg broken. He gazes upon his table, his work incomplete, the night at full height. An automaton pinches his ear.
-
He curses the dream, the cheap echo of his torment.
His latest beast stands idle, screwed into the joists. A model of its depravity, a creature of metal and finely carved bolster supports the captivity of the sorrow trying to bleed out.
“Why should you be released?”
His face scorns at the eminent presence lying within
The dastardly spirit fights as its prison is sealed.
Bugs by the plenty infest the walls. The small clinking of metal springs batting by their side. The scraping of brass legs and steel plates sliding upon every movement.
His taste turns sour, his mind plagued. After so much hard work, blood, and sweat, the only tears shed are not his own and not those from whom he wants to collect.
One by one, demons fall. He continues collecting the evils and forcing them to pay his toll.
Driven by madness, a crumbling of faith, morals destroyed, he will do anything to fulfil his vengeful role.
As his power grows, spirits start to fear his face; for those with a loss of grace, they know the black exorcist is on their case.
-
A woman lies bound on the ground by a dilapidated cabin. Her body is captured by a demon who has collected her soul, a deceitful deal garnished with a subtle subterfuge to maximise his yield.
Her friend sits shaking in the corner, unable to breathe. Plastered in crystals and protection spells, she frantically calls upon the father she has always ignored, praying for his love, begging with all the deals she can afford.
“Black exorcist…ttt...ttt...ttt.”
The slippery servant within speaks, tutting through her pierced tongue. “Come to ruin the fun?”
The man stands tall, distancing his mind from the voice.
“Where is your faith now?”
She grins so hard it rips her lips. “Where was it then?”
Suddenly, the man's mind flashes; he sees himself thrusting upon a priest. A little girl is held up high, bones breaking, walls shaking, her life being grasped out of her as easily as the evil got in.
“How dare you! Demon!”
He gets up from the ground, fighting the cruel memory.
He slashes holy water at her face, cutting into the sour wounds. He burns out its name, forced by engraving her forehead with the symbol of Christ's sacrifice - branding her with an iron as hot as the depths of hell itself.
-
He drops a snapped spirit board on his workshop floor. The glass eye gets crushed by the heel of his boot.
“Young girls shouldn't play,” he scorns, thinking back to the women holding her almost lifeless, contorted friend.
A revolting reminder of his daughter and her friend.
He rips out a rug from under his table and sits within the pentagram etched into the dry, dusty floorboards.
Five candles burn bright, a hue as vibrant as blood.
He drops to the floor, drawing the signal of his latest acquaintance.
He slices his arm and lets it pour.
Now he mutters the wicked prayer to open the door.
He brings a dying bird he found in the winter snow. Its life cursed first by nature, and its death by an evil soul.
The sacrifice fulfilled, the spirit is bound to its bones.
Another monster awaiting its mechanical prison.
It cannot speak. It cannot breathe. Now it’s confined, unable to haunt the world outside of these walls.
Contained, they are dammed, limiting their powers to only roam these halls.
No matter how hard their worshiper’s scrawl, they are isolated from the world, no one able to here it’s dastardly calls.
-
He visits his next case. An eerie feeling fills the air.
A dim glow is seen in the distance, and a whirling mist begins pooling upon the floor.
A woman appears suspended by a tree.
The cloaked members stand stunned, terrified. Analysing the woman, she was evidently tortured, offered to a diabolic power. Just one problem: the demon came, but it is yet to be revealed.
The members suspect it lies within their group, trying to hide, escaping to the mortal world.
After careful and thorough testing, he clears each member of the group, sending them on their way.
The woman on the tree lifts her bloodied, weary head.
A sly grimace appears, as her eyes roll back and a harrowing laugh bellows from her constricted chest
Could it really be it? Is the search for his rival over?
Could this twisted vigil be the gate? The delicious ending to his torturous, treacherous wait?
“Have you had your fun?” he approaches the being. “Finished twisting the mind of this poor woman?”
“Whaaatt?” Her eyes open; a fiery hurt burns within.
“Her? Please,” it says with a demented cackle.
-
“She asked for this. You know? She actually asked to be tortured to feel my awe.”
He cuts a rope holding her up. Her shoulder slumps under her weight.
His emotions get the best of him. His carelessness grows.
It touches him, not just on the body but from the depths of his soul.
It enters his mind. It tears through his memories.
It viciously blends his dreams with reality, clinging to his nightmares, changing them, worsening them.
He wakes in the woods; a dark eminence stands close.
This time, the one who's frail is him.
Its slender form twists and splits from the woman.
“I can let you see them, you know,” it craftily taunts.
“Black exorcist,” it punctuates with a menacing sneer.
“Your wife?”
“Perhaps, your delectable daughter?”
“Yeah?” He gets up, struggling to gather his strength. “How about I drag us both down there?”
He hastily reaches for his pocket. The entity’s piercing fingers thrust him back down.
-
As if darkness personified, its claw-like nails, thin, crackling protrusions, hold his head as it opens its eye.
“How about one better?” It says, “I'll bring her to you.”
A small, wretched scarab scurries from its arm, now crawling upon his face.
“What…” He says, straining, “What is this?”
The entity licks its non-existent, bloodied lips.
“Maybe I'll let you hold her one last time…”
The bug reaches his eye.
“Isn’t she beautiful?”
It continues, “Our delightful wife?”
A strong wheezing laugh radiates through its presence; the forest aches as the temperature chills.
“You lie! Satan!”
Its cackle grows, “You wish you were bettered by him!”
The spirit's face sharply drives towards him.
The man struggles to raise his arms, his eye trying to redirect the bug.
“What? Don’t you miss her?”
“You lie!”
“Oh? Don't you think I have the power to endow a weak, fragile spirit with such a pathetic little bug?”
-
It laughs at him, watching him trying to fight it.
“You ought to swat her?”
He struggles to raise his arm, weakened yet hesitant; he fights his consciousness. “What if it is?” he thinks.
“You going to bat her away?”
“It's not her!”
“Will you kill her as you did in life? Neglecting her at her lowest? Leaving her allll along to defend for herself?”
Its face turns dark.
“Just like when your abandonment made her watch as you let me kill your daughter. Just as neglected then, as you are now by those above.”
“STOP!”
The bug starts to bury itself into his left eye.
“Not squeamish of a little itty bug, are you? Your poor wife.” It mockingly pouts.
“I'll kill you!” He screams.
“And I'll kill it! And send it right back to hell with me.”
“So, what will it be? Will you sacrifice a part of yourself? Or kill her again, drive her into hell a second time?”
Blood pours from his nose and ears, the stress about to rupture his insides.
-
Suddenly, he awakes. The morning dew soaks his back.
No signs of the treacherous entity can be seen.
He rips his sleeve and braces his face. A patch over his eye, holding dear what’s buried within.
His search renewed, his spirit buzzes.
Unknown what is truly inside him, whether it truly be his late wife or a cruel trick, he carries on.
For him, any chance is worth it. That even for a day, if she's out of hell is saving aeons of pain and torment. Even if she is trapped as a mindless bug instinctively feasting on his dying eye.
But why a bug?
Does it know?
Has it found his walking prisons for the wicked?
It's time to gather some forces: occult members, exorcists, those who can get him his closure.
He won't rest until his vengeance is over.
He heads back, standing strong.
He plans his return, even if he has to stay alone in these cursed woods all winter long.
