The July heat was relentless in Santa Rosa de los Álamos, a small town nestled between mountains, where time seemed to have stood still. The parish of San Ignacio, with more than 200 years of history, needed urgent repairs after the recent rains had deteriorated its foundations.

Father Gabriel had hired a group of local masons to carry out the work, taking advantage of the funds the city council had allocated to preserve the town’s historical heritage. That morning, Manuel Soria, the construction foreman and a respected resident, was directing the excavation in the parish courtyard.

 

 

 

Sweat ran down his forehead as he watched his men work. The shovels sank steadily into the earth when suddenly Ernesto, the youngest member of the team, let out a scream that chilled the blood of everyone present. “Holy Mother, there’s something down here!” he exclaimed, moving away from the trench as if he had seen it. Manuel approached cautiously.

At first, he saw what appeared to be white cloth stained by the earth. His heart racing, he ordered the excavation to be widened. What they found took their breath away. A human body in an advanced state of decomposition, dressed in a wedding dress. “Call the police,” Manuel ordered in a trembling voice. “And no one touch anything.”

Commissioner Velasco arrived half an hour later. A burly man in his 50s, with a penetrating gaze and few words. While he cordoned off the area, the construction workers continued digging under police supervision, discovering the unthinkable: two more bodies, all dressed in wedding attire, in varying states of decomposition.

“Three brides,” the commissioner muttered, while Father Gabriel crossed himself in horror. Three women buried in consecrated ground, dressed for a wedding they never celebrated. The entire town gathered around the church, watching from a distance. Rumors began to spread like wildfire. Some remembered Lucía Montero, who disappeared eight months ago, two days before her wedding.

Others mentioned similar cases in neighboring towns. Manuel watched the scene with a knot in his stomach. His daughter Cecilia had just gotten engaged. The thought sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the cold wind that had begun to blow, as if the souls of those brides had awakened from their eternal sleep to demand justice.

 

 As the sun set, turning the sky over Santa Rosa de los Álamos blood red, no one imagined that this gruesome discovery was just the beginning of a nightmare that had been silently brewing for decades in the shadows of that seemingly peaceful parish, under everyone’s gaze.

Commissioner Velasco established his operations center in the town’s small police station. On his desk, three yellowed folders contained information on women who had disappeared in the area over the past 10 years. Miriam Gutiérrez, 26, disappeared in 2018, two weeks before her wedding. Elena Cárdenas, 24, vanished in 2016, three days before her wedding.

And the most recent, Lucía Montero, 29, disappeared eight months ago. All brides, all young, all without a trace. Until now, he muttered to himself as he reviewed the preliminary forensic reports. The door opened and Isabel Fuentes entered, a journalist from the regional newspaper who had grown up in Santa Rosa before moving to the capital.

Tall with dark hair and a sharp gaze, Isabel had returned to town after hearing the news. “Commissioner, we need to talk,” she said without preamble. “I can’t give you any information, Isabel. The investigation is just beginning. I didn’t come for an exclusive,” she replied, closing the door. “I came because there’s something you need to know.” My grandmother used to tell me stories about brides who disappeared.

They weren’t stories to scare me, they were warnings. Velasco looked at her with renewed interest. “Sit down.” Isabel explained that her grandmother spoke of similar disappearances that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Young women who disappeared before their weddings, cases that were never solved and were eventually attributed to runaways or accidents.

My grandmother always said there was something sinister in the parish, that girls who married there should be careful. I thought it was old women’s superstitions to this day. Meanwhile, in the parish house, Father Gabriel knelt in prayer, his face distorted by horror and something else. Guilt. At 65, he had served at Santa Rosa for three decades.

 

 On his desk lay an old black and white photograph, a group of seminarians with an elderly priest, Father Tomás, who had led the parish before him. His trembling hands opened a locked drawer where he kept a yellowed diary.

He had found it hidden behind a confessional years before and had never had the courage to hand it over to the authorities. The pages contained confessions written by his predecessor, dark insinuations about necessary sacrifices and brides for the Lord. At Manuel’s house, Cecilia showed her mother her newly purchased wedding dress.

At 25, she was bursting with joy about her upcoming wedding to Alberto, scheduled for the following month at St. Ignatius Parish. “She will be the most beautiful bride Santa Rosa has ever seen,” her mother said, hiding the worry that had consumed her since the discovery in the parish courtyard. Manuel walked in at that moment, staring at the white dress with a look of pure terror.

Images of those bodies wearing similar dresses, buried beneath consecrated ground, flashed back to him. Cecilia, he said firmly, you won’t get married in San Ignacio. The regional hospital morgue had never been busier. Dr. Méndez, a forensic pathologist with 30 years of experience, meticulously examined the recovered remains.

The bodies, now identified through dental records, were indeed those of Miriam, Elena, and Lucía, but something about the autopsies puzzled the doctor. “It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered as he examined the marks on the bones under the fluorescent light. Commissioner Velasco, who had come to receive the report, looked at him questioningly. “These women didn’t die naturally, nor from obvious injuries,” the forensic pathologist explained. “There are strange marks on their wrists and ankles, as if they had been tied for a long time, and something else. I found traces of a substance on their ribs. It looks like candle wax, but mixed with something we’re analyzing.” The word ritual echoed in Velasco’s mind.

The brides hadn’t just been murdered; they had been part of something more sinister. Meanwhile, Isabel wandered through the cemetery adjacent to the parish, now cordoned off as part of a crime scene. With special permission, due to her insistence, she photographed old tombstones, looking for patterns. Her grandmother had told her about a particular mausoleum belonging to the Alarcón family, founders of the town and principal benefactors of the parish for generations.

The mausoleum, a towering neo-Gothic structure in the center of the cemetery, was sealed shut with a rusted padlock. Isabel noticed something odd. While the other graves showed clear signs of abandonment, this one looked carefully maintained. Fresh flowers decorated the entrance. Using a hairpin, she forced the lock open.

Inside, the air reeked of damp stone mixed with a sickly-sweet odor that made her nauseous. At the center stood a stone altar, its surface stained with what looked like melted wax. On the walls, to her horror, hung framed photographs of young women in wedding dresses—some so old they had yellowed with time.

In one of the more recent ones, she recognized Lucía.

Beneath the altar she found a carved wooden box. When she opened it, her blood ran cold. Inside were locks of hair, carefully labeled with names and dates. The oldest dated back to 1882.

Meanwhile, at the parish house, Father Gabriel made a decision. With trembling hands, he dialed the sheriff.
“I need to confess,” he said in a broken voice. “I wasn’t directly involved… but I knew the signs. Father Tomás told me everything before he died.”

Elsewhere, Cecilia was arguing with her parents.
“You can’t forbid me from being married in the town church! Every bride in our family has done so for generations!”
“That’s exactly why we’re worried,” Manuel replied grimly. “There’s a connection here we don’t understand—”

The ringing of the phone cut him off. It was Alberto, Cecilia’s fiancé.
“You need to come to my house right now,” he said, panicked. “I found something in the attic. It belonged to my grandfather. I think it ties to what they uncovered at the parish.”

Night was falling over Santa Rosa de los Álamos. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon, heavy with a storm—as if the sky itself was preparing to wash away sins the earth had buried for far too long.

Alberto lived in an old house passed down from his grandfather, Don Francisco Alarcón, who had died five years earlier as the last male heir of the town’s founding family. Though Alberto had grown up surrounded by privilege and respect, he’d always seemed modest, even uninterested in the airs of superiority his name could have afforded him.

When Cecilia arrived, she found him pale, sitting among scattered papers and photographs on the attic floor.

“My grandfather belonged to some kind of brotherhood,” he explained with a shaking voice. “They called it The Brotherhood of Saint Ignatius. Only certain founding families could be members.”

He showed her a photograph: twelve men in black robes standing in a circle around the parish altar. Among them were Don Francisco, Father Tomás, and other patriarchs of the town. On the back was a date: 1985.

“There’s also a diary,” Alberto continued, pointing to a dark leather-bound book. “It talks about an ancestral pact—feeding the patron saint with pure brides to guarantee prosperity for the founding families.”

Cecilia felt her stomach twist as she grasped the implication.

“You’re saying your own family—”
“I swear I didn’t know,” he interrupted, tears in his eyes. “But there’s more. The diary says the sacrifices must come from families outside the pact. And it names your family, Cecilia. That’s why your people have never prospered like the others, despite all your work.”

Meanwhile, at the parish house, Sheriff Velasco was listening to Father Gabriel’s confession.
“The pact began in 1882,” the priest sobbed. “A devastating drought threatened to wipe out the town. The founding families, desperate, mixed pagan rituals with twisted Catholic symbols. They sacrificed a bride the night before her wedding—burying her beneath the altar. The drought ended days later. Convinced the offering had worked, they formalized a pact. Whenever signs appeared—bad harvests, plagues, financial crisis—they would select another bride from the families not sworn to the pact.”

“And you allowed this to continue?” Velasco asked through clenched teeth.
“It was already established when I came,” the priest pleaded weakly. “Father Tomás initiated me gradually into the secret. He said it was my duty to preserve the town’s wellbeing.”

His words were interrupted by the crack of a gunshot.

At the same time, Isabel—who had gone to the sheriff’s office to report her discovery at the mausoleum—found the building deserted. Determined, she rushed to Alberto’s house, knowing Cecilia would be there.

The front door was ajar.

A chill swept over her as she heard muffled voices echoing from the basement—an area that had always been locked away from visitors. Quietly, she crept down the stairs, guided by the flicker of candles.

What she saw froze her in place.

Cecilia lay unconscious on a stone table, already dressed in a bridal gown. Around her, five men in black robes chanted in Latin. Among them Isabel recognized Alberto… and, shockingly, Dr. Méndez, the town coroner. Hidden in the shadows, Isabel switched on her phone’s recorder and began to film.

“The sacrifice must be completed tonight,” intoned one of the hooded men, whom Isabel recognized as Javier Alarcón—Alberto’s uncle and the town’s mayor. “The prosperity of our families depends on it. The signs are clear—the drought returns, businesses suffer. The Patron Saint demands his bride.”

Alberto’s voice wavered.
“But she’s my fiancée…”
“Which makes her even more valuable,” his uncle shot back coldly. “Never before has an Alarcón sacrificed his own bride. The pact will be stronger than ever.”

Isabel realized then the full scale of the horror. For generations, the town’s most powerful men had maintained their status through ritual killings disguised as disappearances—all justified by a twisted interpretation of faith.

At the parish house, Sheriff Velasco was handcuffing Father Gabriel when his phone rang with urgent news. Forensic analysis of the victims’ remains had detected a potent sedative laced with ritual elements—myrrh, incense, and a rare variety of belladonna that grew only in the Alarcón family’s greenhouse.

“The Alarcóns…” Velasco muttered, finally connecting the pieces. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered that Alberto himself was an Alarcón.

“Where does Alberto live?” he demanded of the priest.
“In the big house, at the end of Main Street,” Gabriel stammered. “But you won’t go alone, will you? The brotherhood protects its own.”

Velasco immediately called his two remaining deputies and ordered them to meet him there.

As his car tore through the rain-slicked streets, a terrible thought gripped him: if the pattern of the killings held, Cecilia Soria was the next victim.

Back at the Alarcón house, the ritual escalated. Alberto now held a ceremonial dagger above Cecilia’s unconscious body, his hand trembling.
“You must do it,” his uncle pressed. “Blood calls to blood.”

Isabel, crouched behind old shelves, knew she couldn’t wait. She hurled a heavy bronze figurine against the far wall.

The crash startled the hooded men.

“Someone’s here!” one of them shouted.

In the chaos, Isabel rushed to Cecilia’s side, shaking her desperately.
“Cecilia, wake up! We have to get out!”

The young woman stirred faintly, still drugged. Alberto turned and saw them. His eyes widened with shock… and relief.
“Isabel,” he gasped.

In an unexpected move, he stepped between her and the brotherhood.
“This ends tonight,” he said firmly. “I won’t do it. Not to Cecilia.”

His uncle’s face twisted with rage.
“You betray centuries of tradition! This sacred pact has kept our family on top. And now your weakness will doom us all.”

“This horror has gone on long enough,” Alberto replied, dagger in hand—no longer to kill, but to defend.

At that moment, Sheriff Velasco and his men stormed into the house, followed closely by Manuel and his wife. The basement door yawned open like a grave.

“Cecilia!” Manuel shouted, charging forward through the rain.

The scene below was chaos. Dr. Méndez drew a gun, firing at the sheriff—grazing his shoulder. Manuel lunged toward his daughter. In the confusion, Alberto turned the ceremonial knife on his own uncle, plunging it deep into Javier Alarcón’s chest.

“Traitor…” Javier gasped, collapsing as his blood mingled with the rain seeping through the cracked ceiling.

The brotherhood panicked. Two were captured by Velasco’s deputies, another slipped away. Isabel managed to rouse Cecilia fully, who stared in horror at the tableau—the altar, the robes, the man she loved standing with a bloodied knife at his feet.

The storm raged outside. Sirens wailed in the distance. The truth, long buried, had finally clawed its way into the light.