The Wretch is a creature that appears in FAITH: Chapter II and its Prologue.
John Ward transforms into this creature during his nightmares.
Appearance[]
The Wretch visually looks similar to a stick doll, which are a jumble of sticks and dead twigs that oddly resemble a human. The key difference between the two is that it's a real creature since it can leave a bloody corpse, boasts two beady red eyes, and can only crawl on all fours like a spider. Whenever it moves, it makes various discordant piano notes and the aberration of the screen bleeds (if the visual effect is turned on, that is). It's speedier than John's base walking speed.
Biography[]
Mid-Late 1950s[]
After a young John Ward's mother passes away, he is taken into Snake Meadow Hill Church as an orphan. He, along with five other children in the church at the time, are looked after by a nun named Sister Miriam Bell. Overtime, Miriam begins exhibiting strange behavior around the children, which is mostly ignored by other church staff on account of her being an excellent caretaker otherwise.
One day, it is discovered that her, along with four of the six orphans, have gone missing, leaving only John and another girl named Lisa Pearson. A detective soon arrives to help the head of the church, Father Clarke, with the search. Some time goes by, and all they have found so far are stick dolls cropping up around the church grounds, as well as the two remaining orphans claiming that Miriam is still around.
Later one night, Clarke and the detective are woken up by the sound of an old woman's cackling. They run to the chapel and see Miriam leading the two orphans into the church's basement. When the detective draws his service weapon, Father Clarke stops him and follows Miriam into the basement alone, sealing the entrance behind him. After writing his final memoir on a torn-off page from the Bible, he proceeds into the darkness to confront the demon. He presumably does not survive, though John and Lisa somehow do, being left to walk as "husks".
September 22nd - 27th, 1987[]
(The first two paragraphs are recaps so feel free to skip them)
We flashforward roughly thirty years later to 1986. Whatever Miriam did to John back in the mid 50s took a heavy toll on his personality, he's reserved and antisocial. Lisa seemingly moved on and tries to reach out to John whenever she can, but he ignores her[1] and lives his life in solitude somewhere in Connecticut, possibly as an attempt to ward off any bad childhood memories with Miriam or anything that occurred within that Church. He became a priest of the Catholic Church/Vatican and was assigned on September 21st, 1986, to assist a priest named Father Allred to exorcise a teenager named Amy within her house[2]. The session turned into chaos as Amy strangled her own parents and killed Father Allred during the confusion. John prayed to who he thought was the Lord to escape the house alive[3], and he was able to do so by stumbling towards the police and paramedic stationed outside. The two were restrained within an institution because they were too mentally unstable to be incarcerated or stand trial[4]. After a month of counseling, John was able to return back home[5].
Flashing forward to nearly a year later, Amy somehow escapes from an institution and runs all the way back to her home[5]. Gary, a leader of a cult called the Eternal Order of the Second Death, and other cult members have been waiting within her home in hopes that she would return someday[6] so that they can perform the Second Death ritual on her. She does so and the cult restrain her and perform the ritual in the basement, now she has a gaping, bloody face hole[7]. At some undisclosed point, John experiences a vivid nightmare where Amy pleads to him to return back to the Martin House on the anniversary of the exorcism to finish what he started[8], and he does so, but Amy lunged herself out of a window after a brief struggle. John finds a rifle in the foyer and feels compelled to kill her but shakes off the evil urge and decides to just return home, despite willingly leaving her to succumb to her wounds alone. Gary and others return back to the Martin House after gathering sufficient sacrifices to put into Amy's carved face[7], but they find her nearly bleeding to death. Cult members relocate her to a secluded area named the Crucible to see if she'll ever wake up[9] and Gary (somehow) finds out that John was the one who tampered with his plans. John begins to experience vivid nightmares that seem to be demonically influenced.
An undisclosed amount of days pass after the second failed exorcism and John experiences a vivid nightmare where he relives his childhood place, Snake Meadow Hill Church. The dream begins with John standing nearby his wrecked silver sedan that collided with another cult member (called a thrall) who was driving in their truck. John inspects the driver; they're still alive and dart off into the adjacent cornfield when John wasn't looking.
John's silver sedan is caught on fire, so he decides to investigate the cornfield to see where the driver ran off to.
"GET OUT" Ending[]
Fending off the "thing in the cornfield", exorcising a demon hiding in a chalice, and banishing a demon lurking within the Church's basement, John catches a vision of Miriam shuffling away towards the darkness.
Nearby a staircase lies instructions on how to perform the "Ritual of the Door to Hell".
| “ | ㅤ
HERE IS THE RITUAL OF THE DOOR TO HELL. LET NO BROTHER OR SISTER UTTER IT. HE THAT IS MASTER OF SPIRITS, LET THREE SPIRITS THAT FOLLOW THE DRAGON BE PUT INTO THE EFFIGY OF THE ACCURSED. ONLY THEN CAN IT BE PURIFIED. YOU WILL KNOW IT IS TIME WHEN ITS EYES GLOW RED. TO ENTER THE UNSEEN WORLD, DESTROY THE PURIFIED EFFIGY WITH FIRE. THEN SHALL THE DOOR TO HELL BE OPENED. |
” |
— Note #8: Ritual of the Door to Hell, Chapter II Prologue
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Now back in the chapel, John decides to perform the ritual by walking all the way back to the cornfield. There's a scarecrow nearby, but this time it has a gaping hole, blood protrudes from the face, and two red eyes peer out from the darkness.
Purifying it seemingly does nothing besides removing the eyes, but it was one of the crucial steps to completing the ritual. Walking back to the car, John lights himself on fire from the wreckage and runs all the way back to the scarecrow to transfer the flame. As he burns, the Martin Twins stand behind it, and nine children emerge from the cornfields.
The screen then cuts to a pitch-black area littered with stick dolls. John turned into a creature looking similar to them as well, except he has red eyes and can only crawl. This creature is nameless in the plot, but it's called "Wretch" in the game files (which is the "husk" mentioned above) and this area is called the Unseen World, detailed by the "Ritual of the Door to Hell" note from earlier. Apparently, this area is analogous purgatory[10].
Aimlessly crawling around, John sees Miriam standing idly in front of six stick dolls, which are supposed to be a representation of the orphans she took all those years ago.
Once he approaches, she slowly turns around and boasts a wicked smile with her mask-like face. She screams, "GET OUT!" and the prologue ends.
Right now, the Unseen World and its inhabitants are vague, but more detail is provided in the "Chapter III" section. However, this won't be the last time John transforms into this creature.
September 28th, 1987 (Chapter II)[]
A week has passed ever since John failed his second exorcism with Amy. Sleeping in his bed, John experiences another nightmare.
After exploring Gallup Cemetery and Snake Meadow Hill Church's basement, John walks up a flight of stairs and exits a shed. Apparently, in the middle of the woodland, there's a lone shed with a satanic symbol etched on it that connects the basement to here. Meandering through the trees and watching deer frantically run away, John comes across a ritualistic circle with three decapitated thralls on the ground. In the middle lies a newspaper clipping. With no other choice, he reads it.
In summary, the article was supposed to be about the Sterling Police Department finding three decapitated bodies nearby Gallup Cemetery, but the newspaper slowly derails into mocking John for failing to kill Amy and believing that he can disrupt its works. Looking away from the article, Amy's Demon booms, "YOU ARE MINE, PRIEST" and the three thralls are mysteriously standing up. Their beheaded shoulders are engulfed in fire. Cultists roam the background and Amy stares at John directly. Suddenly, John's face contorts into anguish and agony as his body melts into the Wretch.
Once again, John is teleported into the Unseen World as a Wretch. Nothing but stick dolls dot the landscape. Crawling around, he comes across an underpass with a traveling couple attempting to fix their truck.
Going underneath the bridge, he somehow reverts back to normal. John continues walking upward in confusion and sees an entrance to a sewage tunnel. Red markings say "candy tunnel" on top of the entrance and three stick dolls are seen in the background. John goes inside.
"Initiation" Ending[]
Canonically, the dream ends where he and a Gray Figure fight off Miriam in Malphas' House. John wakes up and finds a letter at his front door. He's tasked by a stranger named Father Garcia to find the Martin Twins before the cult uses them to summon a great demon named Malphas on the Profane Sabbath/October 31st, the one day where demonic activity is at its peak. Alternatively, back in Gallup Cemetery, there was instructions on how to receive the UNSPEAKABLE's blessing. In order to be blessed, he has to, "conjure His [Lucifer's] demon.", "serve His demon.", and "walk among the children of men as His demon."[11]
John turns into a Wretch and crawls around the Unseen World. Instead of crawling under the overpass, John crawls downward and goes up an incline. John butchers the couple and then returns back to the overpass. He reverts back to normal and proceeds as usual.
October 30th, 1987 (Chapter III)[]
The Wretch is never truly seen again after Chapter II, but it's subtly referenced two times in Chapter III.
this is where it lives[]
John finds a secret underground tunnel system, named Garyland in the files, underneath a daycare center he was tasked to explore by Father Garcia. Avoiding getting seen by wandering cultists, John walks down a staircase and finds a poem left behind by, seemingly by word choice, Gary:
| “ | ㅤ
She consumed six little twigs Only two were left to walk as husks Go ahead, priest Stare into the eyes of my mother |
” |
— Note #33: Poem for Miriam, Chapter III
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John and Lisa, along the other six orphans, were captured by Miriam and any other evil entities running amok in the Church (our best guess is the Basement Demon considering that it appeared in the Church's basement in Chapter II Prologue). She turned all of these kids into stick dolls. Judging by how John agonizingly turns into the creature in Chapter II, it seems like the reappearance of the Unseen World is supposed to act like some kind of torture, possibly orchestrated by the UNSPEAKABLE considering that his nightmares are influenced by it. It's possible that John and Lisa were supposed to be dead all those years ago, but they're still alive, just husks of themselves.
Sounds[]
- Discordant Piano Notes, used while moving around as a Wretch.
- The Wretch's unique Mortis sound.
Trivia[]
- The Wretch is commonly nicknamed "The Spider Demon" by fans because the game never outwardly refer to this creature as anything else.
- The Peekaboo Demon shares this trait as well since it's nameless in the plot.
- Interestingly, the filename for when John melts into a Wretch is "spr_CH2_cine_MikeInAgony".
- Strangely, the Wretch visually looks similar to Michael since both are spider-like and have red eyes. Additionally, the Wretch's ran-over sprite is a recolor of Michael's.
- The distorted "MORTIS" as a wretch was originally used in alpha versions of Chapter I, where it was used in place of the now infamous, "MORTIS", voice clip[12].
- (This is trivia for the wiki page) For some reason, I cannot find a sprite of the Wretch ran over at all in Chapter II, so I used a screenshot from Youtuber Mad Punkerz' death compilation video[13].
Gallery[]
Other[]
References[]
- ↑ Ref. - Note #11 Ch III
- ↑ Ref. - "Intro" Dialogue
- ↑ Ref. - "Ending I" Dialogue
- ↑ Ref. - Note #9 Ch II
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ref. - "The Murderer" Note Ch I
- ↑ Ref. - Note #18 Ch II
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ref. - GoodiesFolder "FAITH TheStorySoFar".txt
- ↑ Ref. - Official Game Description of Chapter I
- ↑ Ref. - Gameplay Screenshot of Ending II Ch III
- ↑ Ref. - Note #10 Ch II
- ↑ Ref. - Note #4 Ch II
- ↑ Misc. - Alpha Build of Chapter I
- ↑ Misc. - Mad Punkerz Death Compilation
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