Chapter
1 – Just Punishment
It’s just another normal day in the
world as a young boy sneaks into a decrepit store about to close for some food.
He thinks about stealing an apple and moves his hand back and forth until he
gives into temptation and takes it. Hearing someone coming his way, the boy
finds his way back out and hides in an alleyway. Eager to eat, the boy licks
his lips, but as he goes in for a bite, the apple turns rotten. As he drops the
apple, his hands and then his arms turn rotten as well. He quickly looks
around for something he could use to cover his rotten arms until someone
catches sight of him in the alleyway.
“Thief!”
The boy runs away further into the
alley as the store’s owner runs out after him.
“Get back here so you can pay for
what you’ve done!” the store’s owner says.
Since the boy keeps running as a
refusal to pay for what he’s done, his legs rot like his arms and his run slows
to a crawl before he’s able to exit to the other side of the alley. The store’s
owner catches up to the boy and hits him upside the head.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” the
owner sternly says.
The owner slaps the boy again only
to have his hand broken. He screams out in pain as he holds his broken hand.
Now he can’t help but feel even angrier at the boy who is trying to crawl
away. He goes in for another slap, however, a woman stops him.
“You’d think that broken hand would
stop you from slapping him again,” the woman says.
Without even breaking eye contact
with the boy, the owner says, “He deserves it!”
“He deserved the first slap, but
not the other. Say you’re sorry then back off.”
“I won’t apologize to scum like
him!”
As the owner spoke his words, the
inside of his mouth became rotten. He then pulls his hand away from the woman
and is about to slap the boy, but his hand is stopped by a large bony hand.
Finally looking over to the woman, the owner sees that she has a red eye along
with an eye with a flower in it. She’s accompanied by a large skeletal man who
lacks a jaw but is large and has spikes coming out of his back and blades on
his head, shoulders, and elbows. The owner along with the boy is astonished at
the appearance of the two.
“What? Never seen a couple of
sinners before? You two should look in a mirror,” the woman says.
“Alright. I got ahead of myself. I’m
sorry, kid.”
As the owner apologizes, his mouth
and hand are healed, but not fully. The large skeletal man lets go of the man’s
hand.
“That’s good.”
“Thank you for stopping me.”
“Now, what do you say, kid?”
The boy stays silent and his
silence begins to rot his throat.
“You may want to apologize soon. It’s
for your own good.”
“I-I’m sorry,” the boy says as his
throat continues to rot.
“Be honest.”
“I’m sorry!”
After the boy’s apology, his throat
goes back to being somewhat normal and is able to stand without much pain in
his legs and arms.
“Pay the owner back for what you
stole.”
“I don’t have anything to pay him
back with. I don’t even have a home.”
“I need workers for my store. I’ll
allow you to pay off your debt and let you work as long as you don’t steal
anything else. Deal?” the owner offers.
“…deal.”
The owner and the boy shake hands
and their rottenness goes away a bit more.
“Go to a priest if you want to get
fully healed. I’m glad to see that you two worked things out,” the woman says
as she begins to walk away with the skeletal man.
“Wait, who are you? Why did you
help us?” the boy asks.
“We’re just a couple of sinners
doing our penance.”
A scream is heard from down the
street.
“We have to go. See you later!”
The woman and the skeletal man head
off in the direction of the screaming and find a man trapped by several
monsters who look like the skeletal man except these monsters appear more devilish.
“Hey! Fight someone your own size!”
the woman says to get the monsters’ attention.
When the monsters turn their gaze,
the woman presses the center of her eye in her flower eye and a bright light
comes out of it that blinds the monsters.
“Have at him, big guy,” the woman
says as the skeletal man’s eyes turn red.
Despite being roughly the same size
and being outnumbered, the skeletal man is able to take on the other monsters.
He throws them into each other and uses them as weapons against one another. Even
when they’re all down, the skeletal man keeps beating on them until the woman
grabs his shoulder and starts caressing it.
“It’s okay, big guy. I’m here,” she
says in a soothing voice.
The skeletal man looks at the woman who grabs
his head and kisses his forehead. His eyes turn back to normal as he calms
down.
“Are you okay?” the woman asks the man
who is still sitting on the ground. “You don’t have any kind of marks on you,
so you haven’t sinned recently. Why were these people after you?”
“I don’t know. They just wanted everything
I had on me. Why is everything like this? What happened?”
“Because we don’t take our sins
seriously enough. God made the consequences of sin more obvious to try to get us
to turn away from them.”
“What about those monsters? What
about those people seemed to have gained powers because of their sins? How’s
that fair?”
“They barely have any control of
themselves because of the sins they’ve committed. It’s a punishment more than
anything.”
“What did your friend do?”
“I’d like to keep that private.”
“What about your names?”
“My name is Julianna, and this is
my boyfriend, Grayson.”
“He’s your boyfriend? No wonder why
you’re sticking with him despite his appearance. I wish I had a girlfriend like
that.”
“You’re without sin unlike us, so
you should be thankful for that.”
“I guess so. Thanks for your help.
It’s nice to see people who are still out there helping others out.”
“You’re welcome. Come on, Grayson.”
Julianna and Grayson walk the
streets until they come to a church with a crowd of people outside of it. They
appear to be causing a stir with many of them stricken with the effects of sin.
One of the people in the crowd
notices the two and says, “Hey! Get your friend to break down the doors of the
church! We need healing here.”
“If you want me to break down the
doors, then you need to be humbler and more repentant before you can go in.”
“I am humbled and repentant. We’ve
tried to go to the other churches, but they’re all full. It’s those people in
the church that need to learn to be better. Ever since the Catholic Church
obtained the exclusive right to heal sins, it’s gotten so powerful that the priesthood
think they can do whatever they want.”
“It’s not like that. We’ll go in
there and see what’s happening.”
“Go do that because I’m not sure
how much longer people’s patience will last.”
Going around to the back, Julianna
and Grayson use their key to get inside the church. Inside, they find lines of
people waiting for confessions. There are at least five confessional booths
with more people going to the back to talk to the priests for confessions.
Julianna goes to find the head priest of this church in his office working.
“Julianna and Grayson. What do I owe
this honor? Do you need to confess something?”
“No, we don’t, father. We need to
know why this church and the others have locked their doors when there are
people waiting out there for healing.”
“There are already so many people in
here for confession that we can’t handle any more for now. There was also a
recent event where people got violent while waiting for their confession some
people and a couple of priests were injured as a result. We’re already short on
priests because of the explosion in need of confessions, so we’re just trying
to play it safe.”
“It’s not going to be safe when the
people out there begin to riot.”
“We’re going to be getting royal
guards soon so controlling the outside won’t be a problem.”
“Royal guards? What? Does the
Church have a military now?”
“The Church on Earth is called the
Church Militant. Why shouldn’t she have a military force here?”
“I guess you’re right. Oh. What
about holy water? We could give it out to those with venial sin to clean them
of that.”
“That’s a good idea. I can’t
believe I forgot about that. I’ll call the other parishes to remind them about
the holy water cleansing people of venial sin. Go out and help the people
distribute it outside.”
Julianna and Grayson help the
church helpers give out holy water to the restless people outside to heal them
of their sins. Some people are healed, but most aren’t leading to those who
aren’t healed getting angrier than before.
“How come they were healed but we weren’t?”
one of the unhealed asks.
“You have mortal sin on your soul.
You need confession for that,” Julianna answers.
“But I need healing now! Just look
at me!” another says.
“I’m sure if you confess to God and
ask Him to get you to confession, He’ll make it happen.”
A couple of people leave, but the
rest stay as their anger grows. There’s only one way that this situation
typically ends with Julianna and Grayson as they get ready to fight. Fire starts
to leak out of the skin of the people who are thinking hateful thoughts of the
Church and everyone associated with them. The appearance of the sinners begin to look more monstrous than human as they lose their human features. The church
doors suddenly swing open and the head priest comes out with a grenade launcher. A transformed sinner leaps at the priest and he fires a shot in close range that splashes the transformed, him, and everyone behind him in holy water. The transformed writhes in pain at the direct hit while the priest launches a grenade shell of holy water at the transformed sinners, which
burns their skin and causes them to run away.
“You seriously have something like
that?” Julianna asks.
“The Church does have a lot of wealth
these days,” the priest says.
“I can’t say that it’s not well
spent on that for the transformed, but I wish they spent it on better things.”
“You’re going to have to talk to
the archbishop for that, if you can find a way to get an appointment in his
busy schedule.”
“I gave up on that a while ago. For
now, I’ll go back to doing my penance. Oh. Father, before I go…”
“Hm?”
“Make sure you do your confessing
and penance as well.”
The people around the priest notice
that the holy water has eaten through part of the priest’s clothing to expose
his decaying skin as it purifies it.
“Hm. Yes. I will.”
“Good. We’ll see you later.”
Julianna and Grayson walk away from
the church and continue their mission.
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