Tom

I'll be fine.

We'll figure it out.

But

My initial instinct wasn't to turn Santi into a living sacrifice.

And these are just kids, too.

Near the end of the game, we see them cutting themselves, which reads like a blood pact, but the object they bleed into tells us it's a little more than that.

It seems to be some kind of sacrificial stone, a stone with a hole carved out of it that you would fill with water or blood when making sacrifices.

You see it in all kinds of religions across the Americas and Europe.

Meaning, this isn't just a blood pact to kill their friend, it's a blood oath for a religious sacrifice.

This is not something that kids do on their own.

They need to be told or influenced in some way to head down this path of destruction.

And that is exactly what's going on.

In the orphanage, I mentioned how there seemed to be a lot of candles and sheep statues.

beyond just normal levels of enjoyment and is bordering on what I would consider cult-level behaviour.

At the end of the game, once the orphans complete the ritual, they end up surrounded by bipedal sheep, a mindless flock just doing whatever they're told, which is also very symbolic of those who are members of a cult.

cult.

They're literally sheeple who need to wake up.

This is 100% a cult, and the orphanage is where the indoctrination happened, because hidden in one of the secret rooms, there are candles surrounding a specific item, one that looks a lot like the sacrificial stone that the four use in their blood rituals.

This is where the pact took place, in the orphanage before the events of the game.

They were being brought into the cult and after learning their teachings, believed that they needed to do something about the bad omen in order to end the war.