Second Death

Have you forgotten already? This article contains HEAVY SPOILERS for FAITH: The Unholy Trinity. Read at your own risk!

The Second Death is a Satanic ritual that can create a portal to Hell if successfully performed. A majority of key events within FAITH occur under its cause.

What is the Second Death?

Like stated prior, it's a Satanic ritual performed on a vessel by carving their face out with a ritualistic mask and dagger, creating a portal to Hell where demons can roam to & from, and stuffing the hole with as many infant children as will fit. Whether the ritual was performed successfully or not will kill the vessel regardless, but they are still capable of walking and talking, akin to a zombie.

The success rate is rather low and the conditions behind the ritual are uncertain, but a cult within Sterling, Connecticut known as "The Eternal Order of the Second Death" are fanatical on performing it. The cult members are misled by their leader, Gary, that if one devotes themselves into his and the UNSPEAKABLE's cause, an evil deity worshipped by them, then they will be blessed by becoming a worthy vessel. In reality, only Gary and his mother, Miriam, truly know that finding a vessel is not an easy task. It takes plenty of foreplaning and delicate processing in order for the ritual to become successful.

Gary and Miriam's primary goal is to find a worthy vessel and manipulate them enough so that the Antichrist can emerge from their gaping, bloody hole. Once this is done, the Antichrist can wreak havoc onto Earth and take over the world. Locating a possible vessel took roughly five decades for anything to come into fruition and plenty of trial and error, mostly because knowledge on how to perform the ritual came from an outside source (Check the "History" section on this page) and only Miriam somewhat understands the circumstances behind it considering that she was the only vessel before Chapter I ever begins.

List of Second Death Vessels

Before analyzing details behind the Second Death, it's very important to list every person who has ever had the ritual performed on them, whether it was successful or not, the exact date (if applicable), and where it was performed. This list helps to establish history behind this ritual because, otherwise, the series is vague as to what the Second Death truly is.

• Unknown Vessel (Implied)
  • Successful (?)
  • Any Time Before 1934
  • Unknown Location
• Miriam Bell
  • Successful
  • March 19th, 1934
  • Somewhere in Connecticut (?)
• Doomed Child (or Children)
  • Failure
  • Early 1950s
  • Within Snake Meadow Hill Church's Property
• Patients
  • Failure
  • Sometime in 1986
  • A Birthing Clinic in Connecticut
• Amy Martin
  • Successful
  • September 13th, 1987
  • Martin House's Basement
• Miriam Bell (Again)
  • Failure
  • Between September 22nd to the 27th, 1987
  • Within Malphas' House
• Tiffany Robinson
  • Failure
  • October of 1987
  • Within New Haven Apartment Complex
• John Ward (Special Gameover Cutscene)
  • Successful
  • October 31st, 1987
  • Within Garyland

To recap, the Second Death was successfully performed on Miriam, Amy, and John (in a gameover cutscene).

The Process

With much thanks to Note #19 in Chapter I:

“	ㅤ THIS IS THE CEREMONY FOR OPENING THE *. LET NO BROTHER OR SISTER UTTER IT. PREPARE THE *. USE THE RIGHT INDEX FINGER TO DRAW THE SIGNS OF THE * ON THE FLOOR. BRING AN IMPURE VESSEL TO THE SIGNS OF THE *. LET A BROTHER OR SISTER DRINK * AT EACH SIGN OF THE *. CARVE THE FACE OF THE *. THE BLOOD THAT FILLS THE OPENING IS THE NEW *. LET SEVEN * BE TAKEN FROM THEIR MOTHERS AND LOWERED INTO THE *. UPON THE OFFERING OF THE SEVENTH *, THE * WILL EMERGE FROM THE *. THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH.	”
	— Note #19: Second Death Ritual Instructions, Chapter I

We can piece together that, first, select cult members will prepare the intended vessel and equipment needed to undergo the process (seven newborns, a ritualistic dagger and, judging by a note written by Tiffany in Chapter III, a ritualistic mask). Once everything is nearby and ready, the first real step is to draw satanic symbols on the floor, specifically in the shape of an inverted crucifix. Next, the vessel will be brought into the middle of the crucifix; cult members will drink some kind of liquid at each sign of the symbol and place a ritualistic mask on the face of the vessel. Shortly thereafter, a ritualistic dagger is used to carve the vessel's face; the blood seeping from the face will become the portal to Hell. Once this is done, the ritualistic mask will be removed (showcasing a now bloody, gaping hole) and seven newborns will be lowered into the portal. Upon the offering of the seventh, a human hand originating from the UNSPEAKABLE will emerge from the hole, signifying that the ritual is now complete.

Conditions

This is where we breach into uncertain territory, a majority below is based off of notes, dialogue, and theories.

Finding a worthy vessel for the Second Death is the primary conflict of the entire series and why so many key events occur during John's journey to exorcise Amy. The conditions, however, are never outwardly explained. Here's a rough list as to what certifies that the ritual is a success:

• Able-Bodied (Alive before the Ritual)
  • Taking Gary's dialogue and the appearance of Amy within the Crucible into consideration, immediately after Chapter I's events (where John flees after watching Amy plummet all the way to the ground), he and other cult members apparently relocated Amy to the Crucible in hopes that she may recover (just like what they did with Miriam roughly a couple of days later). Although Amy is still "alive", she's nearly bleeding to death. If she either succumbs to her injuries prematurely or cannot wake up before the Profane Sabbath, then Gary's plan has failed and will have to wait for another year. And it's likely by then Amy would've died from her injuries.
• Young
  • Taking a quote from Gary into consideration, the vessel has to be young at the very least. Whether the vessel can be a child or not is uncertain, but it seems that as long as the vessel is between adolescent age to adulthood is fair game. The cutoff time is the elderly. Miriam was either in her 70s or 80s by the time the cult retried the Second Death on her in 1987, and since nobody took account of her age, she became unresponsive.
• Unwilling (?)
  • This condition is unclear. Tiffany willingly performed her own makeshift Second Death ritual and it was a failure. Although she's still talking and kicking, a behemoth of a demon situates itself on her obliterated head. All the other vessels had the ritual performed on them unwillingly, so there's that too. The only exception to all of this is Note #41 in Chapter III, providing a timeline as to when Miriam willingly instructed other cult members on how to perform the Second Death on her. Tiffany's statement that she is the first to have the ritual performed on her can mean one of two things: A.) She doesn't know who Miriam is or B.) There are circumstances behind Miriam giving advice to cult members. Perhaps she was coerced or forced to provide cult members on how to perform the ritual on her. It's tough to say.
• Past Traumatic Experiences (?)
  • This condition is unclear but the most substantial. There's a running theme between Amy and John who had the ritual performed on them; Trauma. Amy has been isolated from the outside world due to her living in the middle of the woods for the majority of her life. She has also been dealing with a delusional mother who thoroughly believes that her twin sons are still alive. Her father appears to be ok, but he was temporarily absent for the majority of 86' before she got possessed in September of that year. For John, he's had a bad childhood experience where his mother passed away due to an illness and seemingly abused by Miriam when he was an orphan at Snake Meadow Hill Church. Additionally, failing Amy's exorcism took a heavy emotional toll on him, believing that it was his fault for failing her. All of these issues culminate to a special cutscene where John gets the Second Death performed on him in a GameOver. We don't know too much about Miriam's early life, but it's likely that she's had past issues to the point where she would induct herself into a cult.
  • If Past Traumatic Experience was a required condition, it would thoroughly explain as to why the Second Death failed on patients at a clinic and why it took Gary and his cult roughly five decades to locate a worthy vessel, because otherwise, it's unexplained.

History

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The only closest timeline we have of anything behind the Second Death is Note #41 from Chapter III, so a majority of sub-headings in this section are primarily based off of notes, gameplay, and dialogue. So, this section may very well become outdated in the near future if Chapter IV comes out anytime soon.

October 31st, 1987

TBA