Friday, March 6, 2020

This Weight I Carry: Chapter 4 – A Kind of Plenary Indulgence

Chapter 4 – A Kind of Plenary Indulgence
“Why did you have to do it when I deserve to be punished? Why?”
“Because I love you…”
“Grayson…I love you. I love you too. Can you hear me? Grayson! Grayson! Please, don’t leave me. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you and everyone. Oh my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended thee. And I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”
Julianna sees the graves of the people she’s hurt all around her. The graves reach as far as her eye can see and range from people she knew to complete strangers.
“Grayson, please…wake up. Don’t leave me alone. Grayson. Grayson! Grayson!”
Grayson wakes up Julianna who is in a cold sweat and holds tightly onto her.
“I’m fine, Grayson. I’m alright. Really.”
Julianna stares up at the ceiling as she finds it hard to fall back asleep. Grayson then gets up and carries her.
“Huh? Why are you carrying me for?”
Grayson looks at Julianna.
“I’m fine. I just need time to put the past behind me. It keeps gnawing at me. When I think I can finally put it to rest, it comes back harsher than before. I guess I deserve it for everything I did even though I confessed and I’m doing penance.”
Grayson is silent as he carries her through the city streets.
“How do you deal with it, Grayson? I never see you upset unless you’re defending people.”
Grayson points to the sky then to Julianna.
“I’m one of your reasons? That can’t be right. I’m the reason why we’re like this. Why so many people suffered.”
Grayson continues to point at Julianna before he holds her hand, which makes her tear up.
“Okay. I get it. I love you and I’ll never let you go. Is that what you want to say?”
Grayson shakes his head to say yes.
“Hahaha. I love you too and I’ll never let you go either. I promise,” Julianna says before giving Grayson a kiss on his forehead.
Before Julianna knows it, she sees that’s Grayson has taken her to a garden near the river. They sit there together for a bit in silence holding each other’s hand until they hear the sounds of a crowd walking behind them. Julianna turns her head to see a crowd of people with a banner that she once carried. One of the people in the crowd notices them and alerts the others.
“Hey, that’s Julianna!”
“And that must be Grayson!”
Julianna gets on Grayson’s back.
“Let’s get out of here, Grayson!”
A wall of flames stops Grayson and Julianna from escaping as the crowd surrounds the two with a single person stepping out from it dressed as a nun with jewelry and small cuts in her outfit that revealed her skin on her legs, arms, and body.
“We’ve finally found you, Sister Julianna and Father Grayson,” the nun says.
“Mother Superior…” Julianna says.
“We’ve been searching the country for you and doing God’s Will along the way.”
“What you’re doing is wrong. It isn’t God’s Will.”
“But you’ve shown us that it is.”
“I was wrong, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”
“Oh, sister. You have a case of the scruples. You have not committed any sin at all. I would know. I was your teacher after all. When Grayson and you started a revolution with your only love as your foundation, I was so astounded by what you two could accomplish by yourselves against the Church that my heart was moved to follow your example. Then when I committed myself to the Archbishop, I fully believed that what you were doing was God’s Will.”
The rest of the crowd agrees with Mother Superior as they begin to cheer Julianna’s and Grayson’s names.
“Stop. Stop! You’re all wrong!” Julianna says as Grayson pounds his fists in the ground to get the crowd to stop cheering. “Listen to your conscience. Look at yourselves. God has given us a way to see what our sins have done to us and you’re ignoring it. That’s on top of seeing what your sins have done to others. Have you ever looked behind yourselves to see all of the senseless death and destruction that you’ve caused?”
The crowd stays silent for a bit.
“It wasn’t senseless death and destruction,” Mother Superior retorts, “We gained powers from God because of our deeds. Powers that we will use to topple the Church that is trying to take our God-given powers away from us and those who truly do God’s Will. Join us, Sister Julianna and Father Grayson. Take your rightful place as the leaders of our movement of love.”
After looking at Grayson who nods his head, Julianna firmly says, “No, I will not.”
Grayson then launches himself into the sky away from the crowd. He glides in the air and towards the ruins of the headquarters they left just yesterday. Before they get there, fires and explosions start happening across the city.
“The city is burning and suffering because of me again,” Julianna says.
Grayson holds her hand.
“I know. We can fix this.”
Grayson and Julianna land at the site of the headquarters where people are already moving to stop the followers that they inspired.
Julianna meets with one of the lead priests and says, “I’m sorry about bringing another problem on you, but I’m here to help.”
“Just find a way to help out. We’ll talk about this later,” the priest responds.
“Did she just admit to bringing us more trouble?” someone in the background asks.
Before she can respond, more explosions and flames rage through the city that makes Julianna and Grayson spring into action. They race to the source of the carnage and use their abilities to put down the followers who are rapidly changing into monsters. Julianna uses her blinding power and holy water grenade launcher while Grayson controls his rage as he pummels his enemies. Eventually, the followers become monsters because of all their sins and turn into snake-like humans with large snakeheads and snakeheads for arms and legs.
“Wake up already! Don’t you see that what you’re doing is wrong?!” Julianna screams.
Her old followers don’t listen as their monstrous transformation has made them feral and barely able to control themselves.
“I’m sorry for this.”
Julianna and Grayson fight their old followers until none are left in the area. They then head towards sounds of violence and destruction to find Mother Superior being the only one standing in a street filled with knocked out followers and guards of the Church.
“Your combined strength is amazing, Sister Julianna and Father Grayson. You truly are servants of God.”
“Then stop all of this fighting.”
“There’s no other way to change the Church than to fight it. You’ve convinced me of that.”
“Then I have no choice but to put you down.”
“On the contrary, you won’t. I’ll see that true love is known to the world. That true love is felt by everyone. That you remember what true love is like. That-”
Julianna shots a holy water grenade at Mother Superior.
“Will you just shut up and fight us already?”
Mother Superior smiles as she sheds her human skin and turns into a large six-headed flying hydra that’s the size of a truck. Julianna fires another grenade at her that does little damage to her. The hydra then charges towards the two with Grayson latching onto her. He climbs to her heads and knocks her heads into the buildings then forces her to crash. Julianna manages to catch up with them and manages to fire a grenade into the mouth of the hydra, which shrivels the head. Now with a way to defeat her, Grayson forces the mouths of the hydra’s heads to be open while Julianna fires holy water grenades into them while being bitten.
“Hold on, Grayson!” Julianna says.
The hydra tries to fly away, but Grayson makes sure she doesn’t by hitting her wings then breaking a part of the nearby building to hold the wings down. Grayson is able to hold off the many heads until there are two heads left. Fearing for her life, the hydra uses whatever energy she has left and flies off with Grayson on her back and Julianna managing to grab onto her. She flies up into the air and tries to shake the two off while Grayson helps Julianna get to one of the heads. The hydra’s head tries to bite Julianna, but she manages to wither it with her grenade launcher.
For the last head, Julianna shoves the grenade launcher into the hydra’s mouth and says, “Rest in peace, Mother Superior.” She then blows up the last head of the hydra as its body withers into nothing.
Grayson holds onto Julianna as the two fall from the sky. When they land, they both see that they’ve been turned back to normal.
“Grayson! You’re back to normal! I’m back to normal!”
“I’m back to normal? Oh man, but I liked my monster appearance.”
Julianna hugs Grayson then says, “Don’t make me smack you!”
They then look at each other in the eyes before kissing each other.
“I love you, Grayson.”
“I love you, Julianna.”
Julianna and Grayson head back to the headquarters to see everyone cleaning up. Since their appearance is back to normal, the lead priests assume that the debt for their sin is paid for and allow them to join back into the Church guard. The city is in ruins and sinners still conduct their evil deeds in the darkness, but the powers of love will triumph over evil as they have done today and will do for all eternity.

The End

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