Chapter Text
Darkness. That's all Terzo has known for the past six years, or has it been seven years? Time had lost all meaning. All the Emeritus could remember was his final moments. He could remember seeing that ghoul step into the room with him and his brothers. How that ghoul moved so fluidly behind him, and the painful prick he felt in his neck afterwards.
He remembered waking on his knees, his ears ringing, and his hands tied behind his back. He remembered looking up; everything blurred, but he could see the outlines of his brothers, held back by hooded figures as they yelled words he had long since forgotten. Then he saw the shadow of the sacrificial blade that he and his brothers had used in the past during their rituals glide across the floor, then fall.
That memory played over and over again in an endless loop. Why did it happen? Was he truly not good enough for the Clergy? He won them a Grammy, and he spread the dark word farther than both his brothers combined. What did he do wrong? Was his relationship with Omega really that blasphemous? Was he not enough?
He lived his death over again for what felt like the millionth time. He watched the world come into blurred focus, but instead of seeing the struggling figures of Secondo and Primo, he saw...nothing? He blinked, looking at the endless void out in front of him. It was a new experience, a disruption from years of routine.
He was unsure of what he should do, kneeling as he sat up straight for the first time in ages. It was then he realized the old, scratchy ropes that bound his wrists were gone. Slowly, he rose to his feet, holding one wrist in the opposite hand.
"Hello?" Terzo called out, his voice meek as he looked out ahead of him.
As he expected, only silence returned his greeting. That was until he saw what looked to be stars glinting in the void, small, needlepoint beacons of light. It looked as if the stars were beckoning him forward, lining a tunnel with no end. Was this it? Was this his meliora that Terzo dedicated his Papacy to?
With nothing to lose, he walked forward. He expected to hear his footsteps echoing in this space, but was surprised when he heard nothing. That didn't stop him from continuing forward. As he walked, he saw more and more stars. It reminded him of the nights he spent with his Omega, lying in his arms as they gazed up at the nebula above.
"Vita..."
Terzo paused, blinking as he looked ahead. He didn't say that, and he didn't recognize the voice. He recognized the word, though. Vita, life. As soon as he realized what was going on, he sprinted forward.
"Mortis..."
Terzo watched as the stars swarmed around him, and clouds of what looked like pure darkness.
"Careo."
Then everything was gone, but only for a second. The Emeritus felt a horrid burning in the core of his chest, his eyes flying open as he took in a strangled breath.
His vision was blurred, and he thought he was back to reliving his death, but after blinking a few times, he saw the glare of glass above him. He didn't have time to question where he was before his body was wracked with pain.
His body pulled itself taut as he felt the flesh around his neck mend itself, his scream choked off before it could ever leave his throat. Pain started to radiate across his body, causing the Emeritus to thrash and writhe. He felt everything, how his skeleton began to reorganize itself, feeling how the bones grow, stretch, and shift rapidly. He could hear his joints snap back into place after years of inactivity.
Then he heard the sound of what could only be tearing flesh against his back. His vision almost blacked out when he felt bones forming from his returned life force, bones that popped into place against his shoulders before muscle grew to cover them, followed by a sheet of flesh.
He could only thrash, every instinct in his body screaming at him to get away from whatever was causing him this pain. His limbs banged against the glass walls around him, scratching the previously smooth surface. Those scratches soon gave way to cracks, and with one good hit, the glass around him shattered.
Terzo brought his trembling arms up to shield his head from the falling glass shards. He hardly even noticed the feeling of the shards bouncing off the two new, blood-covered sets of horns that framed the top of his head like a crown.
With shaking limbs, he rolled out of the destroyed glass coffin, landing on the floor with a thud, glass shards crunching under his weight. A croaked whine of pain was the only noise drawn from him as he felt his spine being slowly stretched from his tailbone.
At last, the pain started to subside, leaving the Emeritus coughing and heaving on the ground. It took far too much effort to open his green and white eyes, his vision blurred and doubled as he gazed at the light filtering in from the door left ajar, a few old pages fluttering to the ground from the unseen figure that rushed from the Veneration in panic.
He couldn't hear the sound of footsteps, but he felt them in the ground. He kept his gaze on the door, watching as it swung open. The light silhouetted the large figure standing there, an arm stretched out to clutch the door-frame. Terzo kept his fading vision locked on the figure, the darkness closing around the edges of his sight.
The last thing he saw was the panicked indigo eyes of the ghoul scampering towards him, scooping his new form into his arms.