3: HOUSE_OF_THE_HANGING_MAN

She had heard these buildings, on an individual level, be called 'the house of God', and had assumed that the hanging man was probably nicknamed God. She didn't imagine it was a proper name– it felt too short and too punchy. Of course, different cultures had different names, but to her, it just didn't sound right for someone to be named God. Besides, she had heard the name Christ before. Perhaps that was the name of the hanging man? Then, of course, the question came as to why the man was hanging, or standing. Because it only ever seemed to be one of the two– either he was hanging from your neck or he was standing. A piece on a mantle, his feet on the roof of the church.

When Adelaide neared it, the cross around her neck burned only more. She had seen crucifixes– which seemed to envision the man, awkwardly fitted into the T shape, seemingly hanging from the cross itself, but that only struck her as bizarre. After all, he was the cross, wasn't he? She had nothing against literalism, but that seemed a tad too much.

Symbols to her usually boiled to the levels of singular and literal. Their meanings tightly packed into a basic understanding of the world and their complexities ignored for the sake of how she wanted to understand it. It made more sense to her that the man was hanging– just because. And that would be what she continued to believe, because it was far easier.

Adelaide didn't walk in through the door, and instead chose to walk off into the untamed wilderness which surrounded the town. The wilderness wrought with insects and animals, all doomed to die slow, painful deaths with no understanding as to why– was of course harbouring a grim atmosphere. She walked around it in a slow arc. No one was paying attention to the woods, so she walked to the church through them.

The woods were not more grim than the church itself. When she returned, and peeked through one of the church's hazy windows, she saw nothing but strangeness lingering past the frost covering the glass.

The inside of the church seemed almost comical in how miserable it was. Organs and blood all over the walls and floor. Don't they clean? Adelaide wondered. It almost amused her in some twisted way. Among the rows of pews were dead bodies, seated upright through some mechanism which she couldn't quite see. Wouldn't the stench be putrid, though? she wondered, almost dumbfounded at the sight.

The house of the hanging man was essentially entirely desecrated. The only saving grace for the building was it technically still standing despite the carnage inside. That said, Adelaide had to imagine if there were any reasonably knowledgeable official on the affairs of the hanging man's estates, they would be utterly mortified.

She pulled back, a grimace taking over her expression. Adelaide was a troubled sort, but she was not heartless. Cy had been attempting so very desperately to tell her she may not wander inside the church, but she doubted that was a call for her safety. Instead, it must've been some mad devotion that drove the act. Because this was a small town and there could never be so many disappearances that went unquestioned. In the same vein, there could not have been so many travellers to fill the church, either.

It was almost a chilling thought– because clearly, the fact was that these people had convinced themselves this was what was going to be good for them. She almost wanted to laugh, though she was more likely to cry. Adelaide sighed, before finally, pushing her hand against the window. It was solid, but it wasn't locked– perhaps because of how far out in the boonies this place was.

She pushed against it slowly, sliding the thing open. It creaked with a vicious, audible fervour. It too must've been madly devoted to whatever devilish nonsense was going on inside the church. Still, despite the sound being quite an obvious alerter to anyone inside, she still went through.

When she landed inside, her foot landed on something soft and wet. Something which gave quickly under the weight of her foot– splattering blood everywhere. The remnants of a heart, which was now completely crushed under her heel. She nearly slipped on it, catching herself on the window sill.

Damned messy cultists! Adelaide pushed herself upright and gave her foot a nasty shake until the heart slid off with a pathetic splat. She glowered at it, before continuing on, stepping carefully. As she headed in, some of the corpses twitched and shuddered. She continued walking in, focusing her gaze on them, just in case one of them was lively enough to try attacking her.

A door across the chamber she had entered was thrown open. And in stepped a rather angry looking man. He wore what she recalled being told was a 'clerical collar'. A priest. "You can't be here." He frowned at her. She was a little surprised at the calmness. Adelaide had expected something more… out there. Ridiculous behaviour. More befitting of a cultist. Perhaps it was a distraction for the carnage that filled the church. To act calm and convince someone they'd never seen it, but she had seen it and wasn't so easily convinced she was simply losing her mind quite the same way.

Adelaide's eyes drifted toward the dead bodies for a moment. How would he have normally explained those? Or would he simply have acted calm and as though there was nothing going on there at all? "I'm sorry. I really just came to visit," she replied. "But this is an impressive effigy. It's not what I was expecting inside the Hanging Man's house," she said. She smiled at him, stepping awkwardly over the blood and the body parts.

"The house… of the hanging man?"

"Yes!" Adelaide responded, far too enthusiastically. She grinned and gesticulated wildly. "There's a demon in the house of the man who hangs! Why did you call on him? Was it in hopes you'd survive here? You're a servant of the hanging man, aren't you?" Her mouth moved quicker than the man in front of her could really process.

He stepped back, baffled. "We– Ah– we called upon the protection of Caidus."

"Protection? From a demon, and not the hanging man?" Adelaide stared at the man.

The priest frowned. "Who in the hell is this hanging man you're rambling about?" His eyes shot around, bouncing from target to target, as though awaiting for a backup that wasn't going to come.

"Your saviour! Erh, Christ or something. The grand lowercase 'T' who sits above this building, in fact." She reached the cross hanging under her tie, taking it off, and holding it like a blade as she showed it to him. "This, even, is his symbol. I think it should be familiar, right? There's one on top of this building– you've probably seen it before if you ever looked up while walking in. But I understand why someone wouldn't. I look up and my eyes are just red with ash again!"

The priest, despite being a cultist himself, was still rather confused by Adelaide's ramblings. In fact, he was distracted enough that when she punched him, he was sent staggering back. She jumped onto him as he staggered, stabbing him with the cross. Once, twice, thrice. Deep in the neck. His blood stained the metal and he gurgled, choking on his own opened valves. The man clawed at her even as he drowned in his own blood.

As his blood spilled out and tainted the floor like a sacrifice upon the altar, Adelaide held up the cross, with a serene smile. "Caidus– come on out. I don't like waiting."

Dead silence was all that answered. The corpses behind her however, began to twitch violently. She stood up from the body. Soon after, they began letting out strange, twisted sounds, like a toddler's screeches run through several layers of static. Adelaide grimaced. Obnoxious thing.

It emerged from darkness with an unrepentant grin and a chorus of screams to welcome its arrival. And it stared at her. A tall, pale figure, with its ribs pulled and bent outward into some grim facsimile of wings. Caidus was a hideous thing, its skin mottled with burns and rips to reveal rotted muscles and the yellow of fat oozing out from inside those thin wrappings.

Caidus leaned forward, eyeing her and her bloodied cross. "You've been tainting holy symbols to call my name. What is it you desire, my mortal child? Oh, come on here, I must see your face. I must know you. What good is it to promise things to those I can not know?" it called.

Adelaide obeyed, walking closer as it had ordered. "I called you for a single reason, dear sir."

"Well tell me, child. Tell me your name– tell me your desire. We demons live to serve– we are desperate creatures, my dear."

"My name… I am Adelaide. And my desire is to be your killer."

Caidus laughed. "You have a sense of humour."

Adelaide did not answer, focusing instead on cleaning the priest's blood from her cross.

She charged forward at the creature. It let out a shriek, which tore into her ears. The bodies which had been laid out and dormant before, were thrown at her, ragdolls in the wind. Adelaide ducked. A stray leg hit her in the shoulder. She jumped toward the legs of the demon.

When morning came, the people of the town had begun a riot. Though it was one that Adelaide did not see, nor hear much of, as she'd already been on her way out of the town. In fact, she was quite a few miles down the road before she even thought to wonder how the townspeople must've felt about her killing their false protector, and the priest who had brought it upon them. She had vacated moments after the creature was dead, doing nothing for the bodies which it had thrown all over the place. They spilled out the front steps, their broken forms laid out publicly.

She wondered for a moment whether the people of the town would react at all to what they saw. Or if they would be more upset about the loss of what she'd taken from them. She wondered for a moment if it was right to take something so important from another. What would Cy and Chris think the moment they saw everything? Would they curse her for not listening to them? That one made her laugh. They had been such a strange pair.

She didn't think about the town for much longer after that. It wasn't her issue.