The Ninth Hour of Malachi : SEASON 2

A Romanian Exorcism of an Ancient, Hungry Presence | SEASON 2: When a Demon Knows Your Mother's Name

By Tales That Breathe at NightPublished about an hour ago • 6 min read

Faint, agonized faces form and dissolve within a pool of black liquid, representing a chorus of tormented voices speaking as one

Season 2

Chapter 5

BROKEN DOCUMENTED FACT: The Monastery of the Silent Veil was built on the ruins of a pre-Christian pagan site known for ritual sacrifice. Historians note a significant number of suicides among the early monks, with bodies often found twisted into unnatural postures, mimicking the position of a figure being broken on a wheel. The term "Malachi's Hour" first appears in a 13th-century text, referencing the ninth hour of the day...the hour of ultimate darkness before dawn.

A close-up of the Cyprian Relic: a small, dark cross of petrified wood in a monk's hand, lit by a single candle in a dark sacristy

The sacristy was a sanctuary, a small, quiet space that smelled of beeswax and old leather. Yet, even here, the ambient terror of the monastery seeped through the stone. Pavel quickly located the Cyprian Relic...a small, dark cross carved from petrified wood, strangely smooth and without an inscription. It felt cold, utterly indifferent to their desperate situation.

An elderly priest and a younger novice converse urgently in a shadowy monastery sacristy, a strange wooden cross between them

Sorin: "A piece of wood? How can this stop what Holy Water cannot?"

Pavel: "It stops nothing, Sorin. It focuses you. Malachi is not a demon bound by the traditional rites of Rome. It is a contagion of the land, a hunger that predates Christ in these mountains. It is sustained by doubt, not sin. This cross is a blank slate. You will pour your raw faith into it. It will become your shield."

A visual representation of a terrifying, slow scraping sound coming from a stone ceiling, causing dust to fall in a dark corridor

As Sorin grasped the cold, simple cross, the lights in the sacristy flickered violently. A scraping sound, slow and deliberate, began to echo from the floor above, where Ana lay. It sounded like something heavy being dragged across rough stone, slowly and purposefully moving towards the stairwell.

Pavel: "The creature knows what we seek. Its influence is expanding. We have wounded it, but only by recognizing its true nature. Now, we use the relic. We go back, and we introduce a new variable into its perfect cage."

Chapter 6

FATHER PAVEL’S PRIVATE JOURNAL: Entry dated November 4th, 2003. The siege continues. We used the relic. The result was not purification, but a transference. The entity retreated from Sorin’s mind, but its rage manifested physically. The entire floor of the lower cell is now covered in that black, oily substance. The girl is gone. The demon did not take her; the monastery did. It is pulling her into its foundation.

An abandoned monastic cell with an iron bed, its leather restraints torn and dangling, the occupant mysteriously vanished

They raced back towards the cell, the scraping sound growing louder and closer. When they reached the bottom of the chapel stairs, the light source illuminating Ana’s cell was dead. The doorway was dark, and the low, guttural growl that belonged to the entity had replaced the scraping.

The entire floor of a stone cell is covered in a thick, glossy, black oily substance that seems to pulse with malevolent life

Sorin: "It stopped dragging. It’s waiting."

Pavel: "Be ready, Sorin. We go in together."

They burst into the cell. Ana was no longer restrained on the iron bed. The restraints were broken, dangling uselessly. The bed itself was empty. But the creature hadn't vanished; it had retreated into the very matter of the room. The entire floor of the small cell was now covered in that thick, black, oily substance that smelled of decay and despair. It was the same substance that had bled from the walls of the Silaos Asylum in the previous accounts...the essence of the spiritual rot.

Faint, agonized faces form and dissolve within a pool of black liquid, representing a chorus of tormented voices speaking as one

The Entity (A whispered chorus): "She is with the roots now, Sorin. She is safe from your fire. And you... you will join her."

The black substance began to bubble, and a profound, mournful lament, a symphony of sorrow, filled the air. They realized the horrifying truth: Malachi was not merely possessing a body; it was merging with the monastery itself, pulling its victims into the dark, geological memory of the mountain.

Chapter 7

FATHER PAVEL’S PRIVATE JOURNAL: Entry dated November 4th, 2003 (Later). The creature has abandoned the host body. Its presence is now diffuse, anchored to the structure itself. The Rot is geological, not spiritual. Malachi is the name given by the first monks to the consciousness of the earth they built upon. To kill the demon, we must kill the mountain.

A pool of black, oily substance swirls as it drains into a jagged crack that has opened in a monastery's stone floor

The thick, black, oily substance covering the cell floor began to sink, coalescing and draining into a single, jagged fissure that had appeared beneath the iron bed. The smell of sulfur and decayed lilies intensified, creating a toxic, suffocating atmosphere.

Sorin: "It's gone. The substance is retreating. What did it do with her, Father?"

Pavel: "It pulled her down. This floor... it is the membrane between the monastery and the mountain itself. Malachi is not a guest, Sorin. It is the host. It absorbs the broken minds and the doubt, using them to strengthen the rock that holds this place together."

A dark, stone-lined vertical shaft is revealed in a cell floor, leading down into warm, humming catacombs

As the last of the viscous liquid vanished, the gaping fissure revealed a narrow, black shaft leading into an ancient, stone-lined passage...the catacombs, sealed for centuries. The air rising from the shaft was unnaturally warm, humming with the sound of the rhythmic thrumming they’d heard before.

A young and old priest stand at the edge of a dark hole in their monastery floor, preparing to descend into the unknown

Sorin: "The catacombs. This is where they performed the early rites, isn't it? The pagan rituals?"

Pavel: "Yes. But we aren't descending to fight a demon, young Father. We are going down to find the anchor. Every ancient evil must have an anchor...a relic, a body, or a contract. Malachi bound itself to this monastery through an act of profound betrayal. We must find what holds it here."

Chapter 8

BROKEN DOCUMENTED FACT: Archaeological surveys of the monastery's substructure, conducted secretly in 1955, noted several small, sealed chambers beneath the catacombs. The survey team mysteriously abandoned the site mid-project, leaving all equipment behind. Their final, cryptic report mentions a recurring, non-physical sound: "A grinding of teeth within the stone."

The air in the catacombs was thick with dust and the oppressive silence of consecrated death. As they moved deeper, the walls themselves seemed to shift, the ancient stone pressing in, making the passage narrower than it should have been. Malachi was testing them, using the monastery's architecture as a weapon.

Sorin: "Father, the walls are moving. I can barely get my vestments through."

Pavel: "Focus on the cross, Sorin. The path is only as narrow as your doubt. Malachi is trying to separate us. Do not look at the stone; look at the light."

A narrow, ancient stone passageway in catacombs where the walls seem to constrict and press inward unnaturally.

Suddenly, the passage widened into a small chamber. Standing in the center was a gaunt figure in a monk's robes, his face a mask of silent, profound despair. He was kneeling, his hands clasped in prayer, but his body was unnaturally twisted, its posture identical to the "mind sickness" description in the old monastery records.

The translucent apparition of a monk kneels in prayer, but his body is grotesquely twisted backward in a catacomb chamber

The Monk (Whispered, desperate): "Go back, Father. It knows your name. It knows your regret. I was spared the flame, but I was not spared the truth. He is the one who was spared."

A young priest stumbles against a catacomb wall, clutching a cross, his face collapsing under the weight of supernatural visions

The figure vanished, leaving behind only the echoing sound of a single, soft, desperate sob. Sorin stumbled, his composure breaking under the weight of the vision, realizing the entity was recycling the torment of its past victims to break his will.