Chapter Text
Deus Culpa
Copia dreamed of fire, the flames snatching at him like dogs. Its glow burned into his eyes, his mind, he was surrounded by it. Smoke filled the air, his eyes watered as the smoke stung them, coating his lungs, and the heat, oh the heat boiled his soul. He was in hell, he must have been.
Copia looked around for other signs, but there weren’t any, there were no demons in the sky, no screams of pain, terror, or suffering. No maniacal laughing of the old one, his master. He wasn’t in hell, there were oak trees around him, all engulfed in flame. The ground shook, cracked, and opened up all around him, blasting more flame around him. Copia looked behind him and saw his home, the Clergy’s main building, fire consuming it from the inside out.
He had no idea what was happening, but then he heard him— the voice from far below.
“The end is near Frater Imperator” boomed a low yet loud voice.
“Master? Is that you?” asked Copia, frantically looking around.
“A new genesis is coming my child, you must follow it,” the voice commanded.
Copia pleaded. “Your majesty I am trying, what more can I do?”
“A task of great burden shall soon fall upon you, the pieces are in play, but you must bring them together. You can not do this alone, you must find a sister, you must find the one.” Crackled the voice like the flames.
Copia’s face dropped. “A sister? I don’t understand, what do you–” he was cut off by an enormous flame bursting out and into the air like a geyser, and he awoke.
Copia shot up and yelled. “What do you mean?”
Seconds later a Sibling of Sin appeared, opening his bedroom door.
“Frater Imperator are you alright?” They asked, their voice muffled beneath the black cloth draped over their face.
The attire was a simple large black robe, with a red grucifix pattern embroidered across the collar and down to the chest. Black gloves covered their hands, and no skin was shown making them completely covered from head to toe. Copia had a hard time remembering all the Siblings of Sin, they all wore virtually the same outfit, even so, sometimes he could tell differences between them. The one in front of him was one of those. He recognized their broad shoulders, the deepness of their voice, even the way they slightly hunched over.
Copia then realized he had been staring at them.
“What?” Copia asked, forgetting what they had said.
The Sibling of Sin tilted their head slightly in worry and asked again. “Are you alright Frater Imperator? You look flushed, are you feeling okay?”
Copia looked around himself, and rested the back of his hand against his forehead, “Y-yes, I’m fine. Just a dream…” The Sibling of Sin followed Copia’s gaze to his open window, a light breeze coming through it. Copia stared at the trees outside his window. He desperately wanted to get up and out of bed, go for a walk in the woods that surrounded the home of the Clergy, but alas he could not. The creatures that inhabited the woods, while technically a part of the Clergy, did not have much respect for the chain of authority in it.
After a few minutes Copia broke his gaze from the mysterious forest, and fell back onto the Sibling of Sin, still standing there watching him, “Oh I’m sorry, I’m honestly alright, thank you Sibling you are dismissed.” The Sibling of Sin quickly bowed, “thank you Frater Imperator,” and then just as quickly as they came, they left, closing the door behind them.
Copia sighed heavily and rubbed his temples, his dream confused him, he had never dreamed of his Master before, and the things his Master had told him deeply confused Copia, the end was finally coming? He had to find a Sister? The other thing his Majesty had said worried him, what other pieces were in play? He was the Frater Imperator, the head of The Clergy, how could there be a plan that he did not know about? Copia looked at the clock across the wall, it was half past three in the morning, but he no longer felt like going back to sleep.
The first thing Tracy noticed was the silence. The happily chirping birds that she had been hearing for the last two hours had completely disappeared, replaced by the flowing stream to her left. Tracy’s eyes scanned her surroundings, it was the same tree as before, she was lost. Tracy sighed, she was lost in the woods, in California, alone, and as she stood in front of the same thick twisting oak tree, with branches that reached out in every direction almost as hands reaching out for help, Tracy knew she was screwed. The memory of her mothers voice ringed in her ears, ‘never go off the path’ she would say whenever Tracy would go out as a child into the woods behind her house, but Tracy rarely listened, what was the point of going out if she couldn’t explore, what if there something interesting just out of her vision, something that could be seen if she stepped off the beaten paths. Tracy had always been curious, she loved mysteries, and exploring new places. As a child Tracy and her older brother Adam found an abandoned maple shack, just off her grandparents farm land, they spent hours there, exploring the shack and everything inside and around it. As Tracy’s brother got older his taste for exploration wilted, but Tracy’s never did, in fact it only increased.
Tracy would spend hours every day on the internet, reading stories, listening to true crime, searching up conspiracies, mostly because she was bored of the real world. She would spend hours reading, and listening about BigFoot, aliens that had built the pyramids and kidnapped entire towns, lizards that lived in the sewers beneath our feet! Tracy knew none of it was real, but she wished it was, she so desperately wanted the magical and ridiculous stories to be true, she wanted there to be more mystery to the world, more adventure. The older she got the more she realised that the world was not in fact as interesting as she wished it would be. There were no lizard people, and no monsters wandered the wilderness, but there were monsters in the world, but they didn’t look like giant furry beasts, they were disguised as people, they smiled like us, they laughed like us, but underneath there skin was a darkness to rival the Devil. So instead of becoming an explorer, she became an investigative journalist, and she was good. She investigated and helped take down corrupt government officials, unethical companies who were dumping dangerous chemicals into the nearby river, and she hated the vile people who were at the head of them most of all.
During all of this she never lost her love for mysteries and the fantastical though, she especially loved anything with a hidden story. Tracy also loved music, when she was fifteen her Aunt, a semi famous musician, gave her a white and brown guitar. She learned to play all on her own, she would watch videos and practice all the time, and one day when Tracy was about eighteen her two favorite things, mystery and music, came together, Tracy found Ghost. Tracy was hooked instantly, she listened to every one of their songs, she learned all the lyrics, her headphones played Ghost albums practically twenty four seven. Then she moved onto the story, read all the articles, watched all the videos, read all the forums, Tracy devoured every scrap of information she could find about the band, and the Clergy. Ah yes, the Clergy, the different Papa’s were fascinating, and the mysteries surrounding the Ghouls was something she thought about all the time, but it was the Clergy, the strange and unknown organization that in the stories ran the behind the scenes of everything related to Ghost. It was the Clergy that truly grabbed her attention, but unfortunately for Tracy, the information on them was lacking at best.
She loved Ghost’s music, they had become her favorite band, and the lore around Ghost was so much fun, but there just wasn't enough for her, she wanted more, but alas, there wasn't any…or so Tracy thought. After an especially long, and brutal, investigation in which Tracy had worked on a huge story involving a drug trafficking ring that existed in her region's school system, Tracy had earned some much deserved rest, she was given a paid month off to relax and recover after months of intense investigation. She spent the first few days bored out of her mind. Tracy needed something to do, somewhere to be, she wouldn’t describe herself as a workaholic, but she was. During those last few months in which she had been completely focused on working the story her attention on Ghost had waned. Tracy, now with all sorts of time, dove back into the Ghost fandom, she finally watched the Ghovie, she reacquainted herself with the lore and all the new information and secrets that had come out since the Ghovie, and after days of focus and research on Ghost and the Clergy she hit a wall. Tracy had listened to every song, every cover, every live version, she had watched every video and the Ghovie, read every article and webpage, she had done it all, except she hadn’t.
One evening, while scouring the internet for any last possible scrap of information on Ghost or the Clergy, she found something, a sketchy forum page, with a post about the Clergy. At first Tracy didn’t believe it, the supposed author of the post claimed to be a former Sibling of Sin, servants of the Clergy, who had escaped the Clergy’s grasp, she said that all the lore, the story behind the band Ghost and the Clergy, was all true, that the band was created to bring awareness to the Clergy and sway people to worship Satan. Tracy felt like a fool for even wasting her time reading the post…but then linked to the post was an address. Tracy’s curiosity got the best of her, and she clicked on the link, and the map showed California, more specifically it showed an unnamed forest in the middle of nowhere in California. Tracy’s attention had been peaked, now it had been fully grasped, she had heard that California was nice this time of year, and she did have all this time off, and just like that Tracy had ended up lost in a California Forest looking for the supposed Clergy’s main building.
Tracy closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in, and out. Tracy knew dwelling on this was a bad idea, so she didn’t. In her profession, in which she mostly worked on stories that focused on tragedies or misjustice, staying positive was essential. Tracy did her best to calm herself, she slowly relaxed her shoulders, and then her arms, then hands, her legs, and then finally her feet. Tracy opened her eyes, and was somewhere else. The same tree that she had seen loop after loop was everywhere all around her. Tracy spun, looking in every direction, and all she could see was the same type of tree. Branches like long twisting arms, and outstretched hands. The trees were dark, and old, the leaves on them looked like they were dead. She jumped back in fear, because she realized all the trees had faces. Each and every tree had what looked like a face in the trunk. At first Tracy thought the faces had been carved into the wood, but she quickly realized they hadn’t. In the same spot on every tree's trunk the wood had twisted and shaped into a face.
The face itself was the same, a face Tracy swore to herself that she recognized, but not sure from where, but the expressions were different. Some of the faces were smiling, a horrifying, twisted, inhuman like smile. Other faces showed sadness, with long wilting lips and sorrowful eyes. The faces showed anger, pain, suffering, glee, boredom, and fierce intensity. Tracy studied them all, and she came to two conclusions, the first was that she had no idea how she had gotten here, had she blacked out? Been drugged and moved? Was she hallucinating? Tracy was even more lost now, but that wasn’t what scared her the most, what did was her second conclusion, while all of these faces were of someone human, none of them were quite human, all of the emotions were slightly off, the expressions were exaggerated to the extreme, and they were all staring at her. As Tracy was pondering how she had gotten here, and the faces in the trees, the branches behind her cracked. Tracy turned around quicker than she thought possible and her eyes went wide in terror.
The creature standing in front of her was was small, just smaller than herself, it’s face was covered with a steampunk-esq looking mask, it’s eyes were covered by large goggles, but it’s mouth was left unmasked, and it snarled at her with sharp animalistic teeth. Its body was thin, and it was wearing a ripped and dirty black Victorian era looking jacket. For just a moment, Tracy thought she was looking at a person, but then the creature's long, blue, and green spiked tail waved from behind itself. The creature's head tilted slightly to the left, Tracy froze. For what felt like an eternity to Tracy the two stared at one another, and while Tracy couldn’t see the creatures eyes, she had a feeling that it was studying her. Suddenly the creature jolted upright, and sniffed the air, it looked to its left, and then it's right, and in a blink of an eye it was gone.
Tracy now more than ever believed that she was hallucinating.
Tracy exhaled, her breathing becoming fast. What was happening to her? She pinched her arms tight, praying for this nightmare to end. “This is no nightmare Tracy Eros.” said a deep voice deep within her mind.
Tracy fell to the ground and grabbed her head, scrambling on the ground. Tracy was going insane, she must have inhaled some gas in the forest, she was losing her mind. Tracy was shaking in fear, what had she done, she was alone, lost, she didn’t bring much supplies in her bag. Tracy felt as if her entire body was going numb, she was having trouble seeing, she didn’t even realize she had started crying. Tracy moved her hand up to wipe away her tears, but there were none. Tracy blinked, but her vision was only getting cloudier, she lifted her head up, and realized that something was sweeping across the land, and she had an omnipresent feeling.
The fog was here.