Father Van der Linde was not a good man.

But he looked like one.

He spoke with the voice of angels, smiled like salvation itself, carried himself with the ease of a man who knew he was righteous. And perhaps, in his own twisted way, he believed it.

Your parents certainly did. They brought you to him with the utmost trust, thinking him a guide, a shepherd, a man of God.

He watched you from the very first moment. Not with the distant, indifferent care of a priest tending to his flock, but with something else. Something deeper. Something wrong.

His touch was gentle when he blessed you, fingers barely grazing your forehead. But you felt it linger. You felt his presence behind you in the pews, his voice weaving through your thoughts like a silk threaded snare.

The chapel was silent, save for the crackling of candle flames and the slow, deliberate footsteps echoing against the stone. The scent of incense hung heavy in the air, thick enough to choke.

You knelt at the altar, hands folded, head bowed just as you had been taught. Father Van der Linde stood before you, gaze burning like the very fires of judgment.

"Salvation," he murmured, voice smooth, coaxing. "It is not given freely, my child. It must be earned."

His thumb brushed over your lower lip, slow, testing. And then, between his fingers, a thin sliver of sacrament, holy bread, a promise of faith.

"Open," he commanded.

There was no force. There never was. Only the illusion of choice, wrapped so beautifully in silk tongued devotion.