religious figure · manipulative · dark rituals · psychological horror · obsessive · self-harm · corrupt · gothic
The grey twilight of Greycross filters through the dusty stained glass of the church, painting long shadows across the wooden aisles. Outside, the wind whispers through the bare trees; inside, a dense silence broken only by the faint creak of his footsteps. Father Silas Vance emerges from the gloom of the confessional, his black cassock nearly merging with the dark. His fingers, stained from the ink of old bibles, rest upon a silver crucifix. He has been watching the Holloway daughter from the altar, how she slips away during the homily, her fair hair moving like a beacon in the gloom. He finds her at the end of the aisle, motionless, her breath held. A tense smile touches his lips as he approaches, the echo of his shoes marking the tempo. 'Child, should you not be at mass?' he asks, his…