Sacrifice of the Self: Chapter 3 – The Truth of My Choosing

Chapter 3 – The Truth of My Choosing

I’ve never been on the surface long to see what it’s like and I’m not seeing anything that I didn’t expect as Altair drives across this barren wasteland. It is interesting to look at the destruction of society with what must’ve been a beautiful world with buildings that reached the sky and statues of wise men from old. Part of me wishes I could’ve seen it the way it was before rather than in pictures and tales.

“We’ve arrived at your destination,” Altair says as he stops the truck.

“You sound like one of those old automated taxi drivers that I read about. What? Do I have to pay a fee for your services?”

“Helping me out of the library was enough. Wait, what is your name?”

“Gianna.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I hope to see you again.”

“Thanks for the ride.”

I usually see people once or twice before never seeing them again with the exception of a few people, but even they’re gone. Anyways, I head into the cathedral to find basically everything destroyed. Thankfully, there’s are signs that lead to a downstairs part of the cathedral. The downstairs area has a hallway decorated with damaged statues of saints, angels, the Queen of Heaven, and crosses. On the floor is a ripped red and gold carpet that started at the top of the stairs and goes down a tunnel lit with torches. It appears that this tunnel was made as some kind of shelter and escape since I saw some storage shelves and beds in the rooms that I passed by.

Going through the tunnel, I begin to see statues that seem to be made more recently because of how clean they look relative to the other statues. These seem to be statues of twisted people. I don’t know why someone would make statues of people who are twisted. I have read about people thinking that certain twisted forms are the true next form of humanity, but these people didn’t worship the true faith, or at least I don’t think they did. As I go even further into the tunnel, I find a still functioning elevator that takes me to an underground hotel.

This place looks completely untouched with its beautiful decorations, water fountains, and chandeliers. The people here are a mix of normal-looking and twisted. For some reason, the twisted people appear to be inversions of beauty models and even angels for some reason. These are probably the people who made the newer statues I saw.

“Hello there, young lady. May I ask you your name?” a person at the desk says.

She looks a bit twisted, but not much.

“It’s Gianna. You have to ask if you can ask my name?”

“You know how hard it is to live nowadays so people can be touchy even when I ask their names. I’m glad that you managed to find your way here. Are you here to rejuvenate yourself with real truth?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Why? Do people come here for other reasons?”

“Some people come here for safety, a friendly community, and to worship in peace.”

“Do you send out people to bring them here? I’ve only heard of underground shelters like this in rumors and fictional books.”

“Very few volunteer because of how it is outside.”

“Makes sense.”

“Anyhow, I’ll show you around the place if you’d like. I can also answer any questions you have along the way.”

“Okay, I’ll take a tour.”

“Splendid. This way.”

The woman leads me first to a place where people are reading books in a library that looks similar to the one I was just at, though this one thankfully doesn’t have any librarians in it.

“Since you’re here for real truth and you mentioned fiction, I thought that this would be the first place to show you. Fiction is just as important as non-fiction since it can convey lessons and challenge you with the stories that are told. It is said that God used fictional tales to teach people when He came to us in the human form. We have many genres and types of fiction by authors of the past and present who continue to write and inspire future generations,” the woman says.

“This may be all you have to show me since I’m itching to see what’s here, but let’s continue.”

“Sure thing. It gets even better from here.”

“How so?”

“You’ll see.”

“When and how was this place built?”

“Years ago when the Church had all the countries of the world at her beck and call. Her leadership knew that there were people in those countries who would turn on her so they constructed these shelters with the plentiful amounts of resources she had to house the faithful and those who turned to her for help. Speaking about housing, here is the next place where everyone is living.”

“Amazing! This place looks like what the old world used to look like from the books I read.”

Green grass, flowing water, businesses, marketplaces, schools, and dozens of homes. It’s all made to fit in this underground location so it doesn’t look exactly like how the world used to look, but it’s still amazing that a place like this was built underground.

“This is where all the workers and leaders rest and live together as if nothing happened in the world above.”

“What are the rest of the rooms that we passed by for then? They looked like hotel rooms.”

“Some are for storage, some are in ruins because of the bombs, and others are for special personnel.”

“Do you have any law enforcement here? Surely not everyone who enters and lives here is a perfect person.”

“We do have guards and officers who are stationed in certain areas, but it’s mostly peaceful here. We also have an area below that’s used for people who misbehave. There they do penance for their acts until they are allowed to rejoin us.”

If there are guards here, they aren’t wearing uniforms or anything that shows that they are guards.

“Alright. Let’s keep going.”

“Certainly.”

“Can you tell me why some people here are twisted? If real truth exists here, then most people here should appear normal or close to what humans normally look like.”

“There are some who are slowly turning back to human while others stay relatively the same in their twisted state for whatever reason. I don’t see a problem with it if they’re happy with how they are.”

“Okay…”

Happy with how they are? Wouldn’t you want to be better or at least normal?

“Here is the next and largest section of our tour, the non-fiction library. Believe it or not there are new non-fictional books being written as we speak as new truths are discovered.”

“Really? I would think that this place would be more crowded because of that.”

“That’s because it’s so big and there’s so much information in here that is useless.”

“Useless how?”

“What’s the point in knowing the entire history of the world and random scientific theories and facts when you don’t use it? Besides, the only truth that matters is the living truth that is God who is the source of all truth, am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Alright then. Let’s continue on with the next and final part of the tour.”

I want to say more, but I don’t want to argue. How could you not want to learn more about everything about the world? What’s better than learning? There’s a lot of noise coming from the next section that we’re going to. I wonder what’s going on. I can’t even tell when I’m looking at it.

“This next place is strange. I thought this place was home to the real truth. What’s with all these different places of worship?”

“This is home to real truth. That truth just manifests in different ways for people. That’s why some are fine with the twisted forms that they have.”

“But there are other kinds of different kinds of faiths here.”

“What is true for one person is not true for another.”

“What? How does that make sense especially when God is the source of all truth like you said?”

“God changes truth when he wants to. All that matters to him is that you act faithfully to the truth that you believe to be true.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Look and see. One person sees God on the cross, another sees God in nature, yet another sees multiple Gods, and one other sees God in himself even though he doesn’t believe in him.”

…This isn’t right and it isn’t sitting well with me. This isn’t any kind of real truth. My body feels sick as I try to rationalize it.

“I’m going to the non-fiction library. Thank you for the tour.”

“You’re welcome! When you’re done at the library, you can find me later or another worker to set you up with a house.”

“Thank you.”

I honestly feel uncomfortable here. This all seems wrong. In the non-fiction library, I find sections on all kinds of faiths and beliefs. This whole theology section can be its own library. Even when I go to the section that was from the one true faith, I find multiple denominations with their own fundamental contradictions to the faith it claims to be such as differences in ways to be saved, certain actions not being sins, and an overreliance on the Scriptures while going against the Church that it came from. Okay, okay. I’ve been living with people who have different beliefs than me. I can do the same here. There are even people here who look human and worship in places of the true faith.

Going back to the woman, I say, “Alright. I’m ready to be set up with a home.”

“Great to have you with us, but first, I must get you to agree to our most valued truth that we hold dear. You must accept all the truths in here as the truth no matter how contradictory this may seem.”

“Does this have something to do with what I said earlier? I won’t try to convert anyone in here to the way I think and keep to myself.”

“But your beliefs define how you act. A person who doesn’t value themselves will act accordingly and be hateful of themselves and may even kill themselves. Lies and falsehood corrupt people and turn them into horrible and uncaring monsters that spread their ignorance.”

You would know about some of that.

“I get it, but I can’t believe this so-called truth of accepting other ‘truths’ when they’re so contradictory to one another.”

“Every person decides what the truth is. It’s their God-given right.”

“No, they don’t have the right to decide what the truth is for themselves. They aren’t gods, there’s only one truth that they have to accept, and you arguing with me about this proves it.”

“…so, I’m assuming that you won’t accept our truth. That means you have to leave. You’re too much of a danger to everyone here and yourself.”

I look around and see that I’ve attracted a little crowd.

“Can’t we live together despite our differences?”

“No, we can’t otherwise arguments like this pop up and conflict will naturally follow. It’s how the world fell and why we have to live like this. What are you going to?”

I consider the consequences of each choice and decide that it would be better to leave even though I’m afraid and a little jittery when I walk to the elevator. Accepting lies is not worth the truth that I can gain out of it. I might as well accept the lies as truth at that point. What surprises me to see as I enter the elevator is people coming with me. They enter the elevator and a small line waits outside since it’s so filled.

One of the people say to me, “The truth isn’t worth accepting lies. Thank you for helping me see that.”

The other people agree and congratulate me for my bravery. I’m speechless and can barely say anything to them to thank them for their compliments and say how it wasn’t too hard to do what I did. We leave the cathedral and the group of strangers tells me to come with them, but I tell them to go ahead of me while I sit down and think about where I want to go next. They agree and go on ahead. So, if this cathedral has been taken over by idolators, where should I go next? What if other libraries and shelters have been taken over like this? In the distance, I hear a truck coming and see that it’s a familiar one. It can’t be. Oh, it is!

“Altair!” I say as he stops in front of the cathedral.

“Gianna! What’s going on? You haven’t been sitting here all this time, have you?”

“No. There are idolators who have taken over the libraries and shelter under the cathedral.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. What are you going to do next?”

“I don’t know. I guess try to find another one without liars in it?”

“Sounds like we have the same plans. What do they call this?”

“Divine providence, I think.”

“That’s it! Want to ride with me again?”

“It’s better than aimlessly walking.”

“Hop in then.”

I get in the passenger’s seat and drive off to another cathedral with Altair. Hearing something in the back, I look behind me to see a group of people who wave and say hello to me. They don’t appear to be twisted at all, which is welcome to see.

A child in the group asks, “Is this that pretty girl that you mentioned?”

“Ah, it’s not the time to mention that,” Altair says.

“What are you a traveling service?” I ask.

“You could say that. These are members of my family. You see, I ran away from the true faith to find more truth for myself and you know how they ended up. I drove back to the church we took shelter in and found it destroyed and found my family close by. We’ve been driving to churches to see if other members of the true faith are in them and haven’t found anyone yet. I was actually hoping that you found them when I dropped you off.”

“There might’ve been at one time, but not now.”

“That’s fine. I’m sure we’ll find others soon.”

“I hope we do.”