Black Catechism - by Onlyreal

They came after midnight because confession sounds truer in the dark. Elias learned that early—long before the letters, long before the blood, before language itself learned how to lie. Midnight stripped things bare. It turned memory into ritual. The first envelope slid under his door like a tongue tasting the room. Black paper. Black wax. A sigil pressed where a name should have been—a warped cross bent backward, its arms uneven, as if crucified incorrectly. Inside, written in ink so dark it shone wet: We have already confessed together. You’ve just forgotten. Elias burned it in the sink. He watched the paper curl, watched the ink resist the flame, blistering instead of blackening, as though it didn’t want to die. That night, the smoke smelled like old churches and damp stone. The second letter arrived three days later. She died facing east. I made sure of it. Resurrection is a direction, not a promise. He dropped the page. The body behind Saint Agnes Cathedral had been found facing east. Only the killer and the priest who had washed her knew that detail. The priest had died of a stroke last winter, mouth twisted as if mid-scream. Elias began to pray again—out of habit, not faith. The words scraped his throat, unfamiliar and wrong, like a language spoken too late. More letters followed. Each one a liturgy. Each one a murder. They described preparation as much as violence: fasting beforehand, washing hands in salted water, the careful selection of instruments. The killer treated death like sacrament. Blood carries memory. Pain opens doors. God listens better when mouths are full. Elias stopped sleeping. When he closed his eyes, he saw chalk circles drawn on concrete floors. Candles melted into shapes that resembled human spines. He smelled iron and incense and something sweeter underneath—rot masked by devotion. The letters began addressing him directly. You always stood closest to the altar. You never flinched. You learned faster than the others. He found an old photograph in a box he’d sworn he’d thrown away. Himself at eight years old, standing beside his father in Saint Agnes’ basement chapel. Both of them smiling. Both of them wearing white gloves. He didn’t remember smiling. The basement came back in fragments. The cold floor biting into bare knees. Psalms carved into the walls—not painted, carved, letters dug deep and crooked by shaking hands. His father’s voice explaining that sin screamed when cut properly. That salvation was not gentle. And Elias—small, quiet Elias—holding the bowl. The seventh letter was written on vellum. He begged you to stop. The memory sharpened. It hadn’t been his father’s hands that trembled. It had been the victim’s. Elias remembered correcting his grip, remembered the way the knife felt—balanced, purposeful. Remembered the pride in his father’s eyes. You did beautifully, the letter continued.Even God watched. Elias began speaking aloud to the empty apartment. “You were the monster,” he said.“You made me.” The eighth letter disagreed. I gave you permission. You gave yourself joy. He smashed his mirrors after that. Blood soaked into the carpet. He didn’t clean it. It felt appropriate—an offering. He lined the letters on the floor in a circle, arranging them instinctively, the way his hands remembered even when his mind pretended not to. The circle was complete. The final letter appeared in the center. No envelope. No ink. Just words pressed so deeply into the page they could be felt more than read. Say it. Elias knelt. The room smelled like the basement again. Candles he didn’t remember lighting burned low and steady. His voice didn’t shake when he spoke. “I told you the killer’s name,” he whispered into the darkness, into the circle, into himself,“but I never told you mine.”

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