Children of the Clergy

Season 1 | Episode 17 | Grave Games

"But you are one of the sisters that cleans Imperator's room for her. Why are you helping the nurses instead?"

Secondo followed Sister Angelina into the apothecary. She was collecting supplies for a check-up spell which Anya had wanted to perform to make sure that the Ether was gone for good. Secondo supposed that it was but, then again, it had hidden from him like this before so he was still a little on edge.

Sister Angelina was a young Spanish girl, the same age as Secondo. Her mother was Russian so she would sometimes switch between that and Spanish, often without even realising. She still had a very Spanish accent though, regardless of her other languages.
She had thick wavey red hair that fell just below her waits. Her honey-brown eyes sparkled in the light and her soft, ghostly-pale skin was like an anti-void under the sun's glare. There was a thin black inverted crucifix painted down from the bottom of her right eye. It perfectly matched her spiked eye lashes and thin black pursed heart lips. She wore a tight scarlet corset over a long silky black dress with long puffy black sleeves. It had a thick black v-neck ribbon collar and a thick frilled scarlet choker was fixed just above it. Covering some of her hair was a long black frilled nun's veil. There were various gold and silver pendants and charms fixed all over that and her outfit. It was the Russian Sister of Sins' uniform but she wore it anyway, regardless of the country she was in.

"Well, since Seestor is being kept in the dungeons for a while, we aren't really needed to clean her room. So, they just moved us to where we are needed. Which is here, with the nurses." She slowly began collecting the various herbs and items that they would need. Secondo smiled as he watched her stretching up, trying to reach a few of them. She was already very tall for her age but the apothecary was still designed with the height of an adult in mind. Even some of the smaller adult nurses could barely reach the top shelves, "No-one really knows what is going on with you, do they? Not completely, at least?"

Secondo shook his head, "No. The Ether is a mystery to all of us, even me. Although I do not feel its presence now, I cannot seem to truely believe that it is gone."

Angelina nodded her head in understanding. It made sense that Secondo didn't trust his senses. They were what the Ether would mess with the most.

Sister Angelina proceeded to ramble on about how much she hated working under Seestor, but Secondo found himself getting distracted as he began to notice the small voice that was whispering to him incoherently from behind. It was a calming, comforting sound but he didn't recognise it. It wasn't the voice of anyone he'd ever met.

He turned to look for its source but there was nothing behind him. Just the door out of the apothecary.

He slowly crept towards it as the whispers got louder, leaving Sister Angelina to speak to herself. He placed his hand on the metal door handle and it felt odly warm. The door creeked open as he walked into the silence of the ministry.

Silence?

The ministry was never silent, not during the day.

He closed the door behind him, staggering back as his environment changed in a single second. Everything went slightly more grey and corners of the doors, the ceiling, and the walls appeared to be rotting away. Small white specks of dust fell slowly, like snow, but never seemed to cover the floor. It was cold. Cold enough that Secondo could see his breaths in the air in front of him.

He shuddered as the decayed corners of the halls began to move. Randomly, doors and walls would crumble away into nothing, drifting away into the air like smoke. Secondo noticed the whispers getting louder and angrier as the entire hall in front of him fell away. The voice slowly got closer to him with every marble tile that crumbled away.