Pereligiondo

The heavy oak doors groaned open, revealing Pereligiondo's central sanctuary—a cavernous space where incense mixed with the coppery scent of blood and the thick musk of sweat. Sunlight streamed through stained glass windows depicting infant girls spread-eagled beneath bearded saints, their tiny forms penetrated by glowing shafts of holy light. Along the marble walls, frescoes showed more explicit devotions:

one portrayed a birth scene where a priest thrust into the emerging crown of a baby’s head mid-crowning, her mother’s screams rendered as golden prayer scrolls. Another showed toddlers chained to altars, their eyes wide as men twice their size drove into them, the tiles beneath slick with fluids both sacred and profane.

At the nave’s heart, a pack of men surrounded Sister lily—no older than seven—pinning her rag-doll body against the baptismal font. One gripped her braids like reins as he rutted into her mouth; another spread her bleeding thighs wide to take her from behind. Her whimpers dissolved into wet gurgles with each thrust, tears cutting paths through the splattered seed on her cheeks. Nearby, a gray-haired deacon murmured blessings while forcing himself down the throat of a sobbing novice who couldn’t have been more than five, her tiny fists beating uselessly against his hips. Every gasp, every whimper, echoed like a hymn.