After emerging on
the other side of the bridge,
from the
darkness, Dan emerged. Like he'd always been there, flickering between
states—solid enough to cast multiple shadows, but shallow as mist over
graveyards. His eyes gleamed with hunger, lips curling into a smile both cruel
and tender, his voice a chorus of drowned echoes slithering into minds. "This
is only the first fracture," he whispered, stepping closer to Marietta, his
form adjusting with predatory instinct, as if starved for centuries. "The deep adapts."
Dan twiddles his thumbs in an artistic manner.
He circled her,
his presence a siren's song, threading temptation. "You could be more than
human. More than flesh. The deep will make your desires real—no more pain, no
more fear, just eternal desire." His words hung like clothes, morally
challenging, dangerously normal—not romantic, but a recognition of shared
monstrosity. Dan was ambiguous: The Covenant's hand flickering with mania, his
composed mask cracking. "We're already twisted, all of us. The only choice is
whether we twist toward darkness or find our own light."
Marietta's hand
trembled, the Mirror's shards clinging to her skin, their decaying light
seeping into her veins like an insidious promise. She saw visions: drowning in
endless waves, body dissolving, soul merging with the abyss. Doubt
flickered...Dan's eyes, his promise, pulling her toward a choice. "Does God
hear sinners cry?" he murmured, voice dropping darkly, a sly devil's echo.
Anne Faith
anchored her, hands outstretched, pulling back with fierce love. "Fight it,"
she urged, her voice etched with fear and resolve. "You're more than this." But
Dan's influence lingered, moral tension ripping psyche like chains, the door to
Marietta's mind creaking open wider.
Marietta's chest
tightened, grief raw and visceral. "Dan," she said, voice a blade, "you've led
us here.
Now choose."
Dan's smile deepened, offering no easy way out.
The ritual's
final words hung, a melody colder than water in the lungs, drawing the abyss
close—close enough to brush the soul. Dan's eyes burned with a sickly green
fire as he lifted the broken Abyssal Mirror to the heavens—arms trembling,
corruption leaking from his skin. "The 7-year-old boy who once was baptized by
his aunt behind his parents' backs... An innocent who took the body of Jesus
Christ rejoiced that hope touched hope. And love touched love, is fading in and
out of existence." The Holy Spirit GOD tugged at his heart.
"Daniel sees a
flicker of his parents as babies, turned inside out and thrown into an eternal
burning furnace. Daniel then hears a faint sound humming in his body from deep
within. It was a song he used to sing as a little boy behind his parents'
backs, when he still had hope. "Oh, happy day when Jesus washed my sins away."
Daniel sees a shadow of himself get lost within an endless light at the end of
a tunnel full of light, sorrow, and decay.
The ritual's
final incantation hung in the air, a chilling melody that seemed to draw the
very essence of the abyss into the church's desecrated sanctum. Dan's eyes
burned with a sickly, otherworldly green fire. As he held the Abyssal Mirror to
the heavens—arms trembling, duality of choices leaking from his skin.
"By the power of
the Crowned-Deep, I call forth thy servant!" he declared, his voice echoing off
the stone walls. "Grant me dominion over this realm, that I may reshape it in
thy image!"
He pauses
slightly and regrets his decision.
As the words left
his lips, a blinding flash of eldritch energy erupted from the mirror,
engulfing Dan in a vortex of swirling colors. His screams of triumph and agony
merged into a single, eternal wail as he was consumed, his form dissolving into
the abyssal void. He emerges not as Dan anymore but as a child of The
Crowned-Deep. Sinew flesh, twisted bones, missing eyes.
The mirror, now
freed from its master's control, began to shudder and convulse. Its surface
rippled like a living thing, as if struggling to contain the horrors it had
unleashed.
In the aftermath
of the destruction, an unsettling silence fell over the church. The air was
heavy with the scent of brimstone and sulfur, and the shadows seemed to writhe
with a malevolent life of their own. Dan appears in shadow form. "Marietta Anne
Faith, use it—use the mirror. It consumes a part of your soul; ignore it. The
Covenant will have its way anyway." Marietta and Anne Faith stood frozen, their
hearts pounding in unison as they stood like deer in headlights.
It was Marietta
who broke the spell, her voice low and urgent. "We need to get out of here,
now. Before whatever's left of that accursed object decides to make its
presence known."
As if in
response, the church's bells rang. The women exchanged a look of pure terror,
knowing they had to act fast if they were to escape the impending doom.