Page 90 of Sinister

After a couple more steps, we reach a section of the crypt where the walls look even older. Splashes of color catch my eye, and soon, the faded outlines of intricate scenes start taking shape.

I step closer, squinting to make out the details in the dim light.

“What do you think?” Sin asks, his voice a soft echo.

“It’s incredible,” I breathe, moving along the wall.

The lines are simple yet disproportionate, while the brush strokes can only be described as frenzied. At first, it looks like the various scenes on the crypt’s walls depict events from medieval life.

But when I step closer, and when I look more attentively, I see something else—something very unsettling.

As my eyes adjust to the lighting in the crypt, I notice that certain drawings depict horrendous events. One of them freezes me on the spot: On the wall, the sinister lines curve and straighten to depict a human figure with its chest torn open and the resultant cavity filled with rats.

I gasp and shout, “Sin, look at this!” before I can stop myself.

“What is it?” he asks, stepping closer.

“Look at this! Don’t you see? It’s exactly like how they found . . . Edwin’s body.”

“Fuck!” Sin exclaims as his eyes widen in recognition. “Fuck, you’re right!”

“What does this mean, Sin? This isn’t one of your pranks, right? Or so help me God, Sin, if it’s some kind of joke⁠—”

I’m stepping away from him, and I’m rambling because my life has gone topsy-turvy of late, and now I’m in an underground room and there are murderous paintings on the wall.

“Petra, no!” Sin cries out, his face pale and his body shaking. “What are you even saying? I never even looked at the paintings properly before today. This . . . I don’t know what the fuck this is!”

“Then tell me what you do know!” I demand in a surprisingly firm tone.

“Just that the Ouroboros Society was formed in the 1800s, and that they were initially a theological society searching for answers beyond what the Bible taught,” Sin replies hurriedly. “Petra, please, believe me! I just thought these are cool ancient paintings of harvest festivals or something.”

“Then why would someone paint something like this?” I ask again. “What are you not telling me?”

Sin takes a deep breath. “Petra, I only know what my family and other adults told me growing up. St. Anselm Hall University—it was a university back then—had one of the most prestigious departments of theology in the country. But at some point, their study veered toward the . . . unorthodox. It’s said that a group of professors and students made a deal with a demon.”

As he speaks, we continue walking along the dank walls, the meager light from our phones weakly illuminating cloaked figures on the wall. Despite a part of me that’s not convinced by even one word uttered by Sin so far, my heart is pounding, and my hands feel cold.

University. Rituals. Department of Theology.

Why is this so similar to my dreams?

“They performed sacrifices,” Sin continues, his voice barely more than a whisper, “because they believed—or read somewhere—that it would please the demon they were . . . summoning. It’s said that every few decades, these rituals have to be repeated.”

“So, what we’re seeing on these walls,” I begin nervously, “are depictions of those rituals?”

“I suppose so. That’s the only explanation. And it fits the timeline. This year would mark the 150th anniversary of the society, right?”

When I glance back at the painting of the hollowed-out figure filled with rats, the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach intensifies. “Edwin . . . he was part of it, then. A sacrifice?”

“Looks that way,” Sin replies grimly. “But the question is—who’s continuing these rituals now?”

“But why would anyone even want to continue doing stuff like this?” I ask, my voice trembling. “Aren’t we past that kind of superstition?”

“Power, Petra,” Sin whispers softly—and is there the slightest hint of longing in his voice?

“Even if the demon wasn’t real, some of the people involved with the University did end up becoming quite wealthy. And even now, they are some of the richest, most influential people in Radcliffe.”

We have turned a corner to arrive at the left arm of the room’s semicircle expanse. Sin stops beside another ebony-rich, Goyaesque painting whose palette of deep blacks and rusty reds suggests a kind of barbarism I can’t even imagine but that I can sense quite vividly.