10 MORE Horror Video Game Fates Worse Than Death
2. The Duty Of The Rope Shrine Maiden - Fatal Frame
Here's a little Fatal Frame 1 lore dump for you.
The Strangling Ritual is a practice performed every ten years to seal the Hell Gate and keep evil spirits from passing through. It requires a girl, chosen via a demonic game of tag, to act as the Rope Shrine Maiden.
Once selected, she is locked inside for the next ten years in near-total isolation. Eventually, she purifies herself by bathing in moonlight before her limbs and head are torn from her body by ropes. Those blood-stained ropes are then placed in front of the gate to seal it.
Yeah, and you thought your family had strange traditions.
That decade of isolation is awful, but the fate that befell the last Maiden, Kirie Himuro, is even worse.
Her Strangling Ritual failed, causing evil spirits to escape. At the end of the game, she returns to the Hell Gate and willingly binds herself to it to keep it shut. She then is forced to spend the rest of her life confined at the gates in pain and agony. It's the ultimate sacrifice but her sad duty as the Rope Shrine Maiden.