Skin Like Rags: Chapter 2 – Bleeding the Flesh, Purging the Sin

Chapter 2 – Bleeding the Flesh, Purging the Sin

Huh? I’m alive? Where am I? I landed in some ghetto. What broke my fall was a bunch of soft rotting mattresses and other trash with maybe a body or two under there since I’m hearing muffled noises from underneath it all. I’ve heard about places likes this and was never keen on finding it out if it was real. In the darkness of the town is this trash heap that people call home. Here you can find the true outcasts of society some are too good for it while others are too evil. Either way, they both suffer the same fate.

People sell custom skins, themselves, and their own flesh to get by here while very few try to work honest jobs like cleaning to get by. Still, the immense suffering that people in the light experience is amplified here and I’m sure that even the most virtuous people here become just as sinful as the others or at least are tested in their faith until their death, which shouldn’t be too far considering the living conditions here. I’m not exactly sure how people here can obtain food and water when the town doesn’t supply it and merchants probably don’t want to do business in a dump like this especially since it can be more dangerous. Speaking about danger, I can feel eyes watching me. It doesn’t help that I can hardly see down here, so I try to find an exit as faster as I can. Before I know it, I’m taken aside by someone in the darkness with a hand over my mouth.

“Quiet, I’m here to help. It’s not safe to be here. Follow me,” the man says in a quiet voice.

Since I have no better choice, I follow him while whispering, “Why are you helping me?”

“You’ve done a great service to us and to yourself by repenting of your past life.”

“You know what I’ve done?”

“Not exactly, but we know the people who were chasing you and they only chase their own. Worry not because you’ve shown us that you’re willing to put the past behind you.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“A place that’s safe from the slaves of the flesh.”

This sounds promising. If they know about the people who were chasing me, who are they? I guess I’ll find my answer soon enough. The two of us crawl through a series of tunnels until we’re finally out of the underground and back on the surface. We’re further from the town than I thought we’d be. On these outskirts, we might as well be underground since we’re far from civilization and any form of law enforcement. The townspeople here have to fend for themselves and it isn’t uncommon for the defenders to become creditors who defend for a price and require praise for their efforts.

Going into the far off settlement I find very few people with any skin on them. In fact, more people are burning skin than wearing it. People pray openly in the streets and things seem more peaceful here despite the clear poverty and burning of skin. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me here. Perhaps I will be as happy as everyone else here.

“We’re here,” my escort says as we approach a church that appears that it was constructed with scraps of different buildings.

Nevertheless, the exterior and interior are like the cathedrals that I’ve heard about in stories with abstract art of the afterlife, hell, and fearsome angels. People worship here in silence while some bleed and bruise themselves in penance for the sins of the world.

“Welcome here where you can live freely,” a priest says.

This priest doesn’t have any skin on him like the rest. He doesn’t even seem to have any kind of flesh in certain parts of his body as he appears to be completely skeletal in some places.

“Hello, my name is Siegfried. I’m so glad that you brought me here. After what happened, I thought I wouldn’t have long to live.”

“We should be the ones thanking you. You’ve drawn two of our enemies here that we interrogated to get valuable information that we can use against them.”

“You’re welcome, but you don’t want me to draw more here, do you?”

“Not at all since they know you’re a traitor and dead. The most important thing you can do now is to devote yourself to a life of prayer and penance. These are more important than any worldly effort since our true enemy is fought on the spiritual level. Help us and you will be given food, water, shelter, and friends to give you strength as we make reparations for all the evils of the world.”

“Well, life is suffering so I might as well embrace it. You have a deal.”

“I am overjoyed to hear that! So many souls are lost in this world, but you have come home.”

A meager feast of whatever the church can put together is held at the church before they go back to their penances and let me rest for today for tomorrow’s penances. Even here in the night, I can hear screams echo. I guess it makes sense given my location and the fact that I’ve heard screams and sounds of violence back where I used to live. In the morning I am given instructions on different prayers and acts of penance to do throughout the day. They’re nothing too hard to handle. The most challenging of them is the lashing of my back. I used to be whipped and beaten before, but that was actually easier to bear since I had skin. Now it’s more painful to do. On the other hand, at least I’m suffering this for a better reason.

Day in and day out I do the same things until one day I see people faltering in their duties. The priests and other faithful condemn them for their perceived weakness saying things such as, “If you had been more devoted in prayer, then you wouldn’t be failing.”

“Give them pain that they can use to lift themselves up from their failure,” one of them says as they give me a whip.

Since it seems that I’m expected to do this, I whip the failing faithful as asked. These failing faithful appear to be thankful for the pain that I’m giving them, which reminds me of what I used to do except they don’t disguise the pain as pleasure. Time continues on and the weight of my penances gets me sick, and yet, I am still expected to fast and recover without any kind of medicine or something to numb the pain. Eventually, the pain gets to me and I have to stay and rest for the day. The priests and other penitential faithful berate me for resting and some are even allowed to beat me for it so I can make up for the penances that I don’t do.

I try to say, “I’m offering the pain I’m feeling in place of my penance.”

However, they hardly accept the excuse. When I get better, I have to do more prayers and penance to make up for what I’ve missed. To go around this, I’m offered to go out and hurt our enemies, the worshippers of the flesh. This honestly sounds like a good idea since I’ve been wanting to do something different that will have a more visible impact. Don’t get me wrong, prayer and penance have given me a sense of interior peace and self-worth, but I feel that I should be doing more.

I go out with the man who saved me to a location where a convoy of flesh worshippers are transporting a shipment of custom skins, real skin, and skin growth products. To stop this convoy, a few of the devoted throw themselves in front of it and die in the process. Their sacrifice causes the convoy to crash and injure everyone in the process and makes this an easy job. While going through the skins and skincare products I find something that I shouldn’t be surprised to find and that is a herd of skin growers. Skin growers are slaves that are used by worshippers of the flesh as fertile ground to grow their custom skin suits. I remember this because I was one for a short time. It wasn’t a pleasant experience constantly being skinned for cannibals and degenerates who have a fetish for cutting people.

Cheap custom skin suits are made with various kinds of material like leather and animal skins, but the real expensive convincing ones are made from real people. They are fed skincare products that contain ingredients such as walnuts, peppers, ingredients from oily fishes, and other things that grow skin on a person’s body while making it healthy before being painfully skinned. This is their lives and a person may be skinned at least three times a week. I try to free these people from the ropes and chains binding them, but I’m stopped before the shrouded wagon containing them is set ablaze.

“What did you do that for?!” I ask the person who did it.

“These degenerates allowed themselves to be enslaved, skinned, and used for perverted purposes.”

“They were slaves. They could hardly do anything.”

“You were a slave too, but you managed to escape.”

“I barely managed to escape.”

“And yet you did. You were wise enough to know that death is preferable to being a slave to your passions. These people didn’t do that and chose to subject themselves to the perversions of others. If they died while escaping or at least resisting, then I could say that they died honorably, but now they will suffer flames worse than this in the afterlife because of their decision not to do anything.”

There’s no convincing this person of what I think and it’s way past too late to save the slaves. From here on, I take better notice of the faults of these penitential people. The prisoners that we take from this ambush and the other ones were taken by other people are beaten to near death, mocked, spit on, and yelled at before they are healed and put through it all over again until the prisoners either die or repent and become one of us. This in addition to certain members being given special days off while the rest of us aren’t gives me the feeling that I should leave and perhaps join another group like this one. What makes me make plans to leave is the realization is that these people are proud of their humility and virtue.

They get off to this like the worshippers of the flesh in what might as well be a lewd way. In our meetings and short times of rest, we all tell each other how virtuous we are when we share the things we’ve done and the pain we’ve gone through. The one who suffered and gave the most is praised by everyone and is allowed to skip on whatever penances they want while being immune to any form of criticism for whatever sins of sloth or gluttony they may commit. It then occurs to me that these people are kind of like the people they hate except these people please themselves by telling themselves how good they are while doing things that may be viewed as good. No, wait. These people are exactly like their enemies except they sin differently.

Because of this, I leave in the middle of the night with nothing on me. The cover of the ebony moon that dulls most light should cover my exit. There has to be some place I can live where it’s at least somewhat tolerable. While I exit this place, I feel as if someone is watching me and the random sounds I hear don’t make it any better.

“If you leave, don’t bother coming back,” I hear whispered in my ear.

I don’t bother to turn around and just run in the direction I was heading and leave the town as I wander a dead forest filled with rotting trees and insects that feast on their carcasses. Where am I even going? Where should I go? My life has not changed ever since I decided to make a drastic change in it. No, it’s gotten worse. Everything I’ve done has been for nothing. Everything I do has turned against me. I guess it makes sense since I’m an idiot among idiots or rather the most idiotic person in the world. Nothing I do is good and nothing I will do will make up for my pathetic existence.

What’s happening now? I must be hallucinating or the ghosts from the past are back for revenge. In the distance, I can see what looks to be my wife and with my two infant children strapped to her back with cloth. Are they really there? I’m not sure what’s scarier. Them being there or me hallucinating. I think it would be them being there especially after what I’ve done to them.

“Siegfried! Siegfried!” I hear my wife call out as she runs towards me.

It really is them. Fear freezes me like two invisible angels holding my feet down so I can stand before my wife’s judgment. When she approaches me, she embraces me before giving me a kiss.

“Siegfried, I’m so glad that we finally managed to find you. We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Why did you leave us?”

I clench my fists as I muster up an answer. There’s no use hiding it anymore.

“I’m not worth your love after what I did.”

“What do you mean? You saved us from the fire that engulfed our home. You’re our hero-”

“I’m the one who started the fire!”

“What?”

“I couldn’t bear to watch my family suffer this reality anymore. At first, I was going to cut your throats while you slept to make it quick and easy, but then I couldn’t go through with it. I even thought I was going to cut my own throat. Then, I decided to burn the house down with you in it.”

“You saved us from the fire.”

“That doesn’t make up for the fact that I started it. I thought you died due to the smoke because you nor our children were waking up. I…I was also afraid of confessing what I’ve done, and…I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much and that I’ve taken away the little that we had through my actions. Please, just leave me. I’m not someone you can be proud of saying that you married and had a family with. Please, for your own sake and the sake of our children.”

I walk away from my wife only to be pulled back into her arms.

“You are the one that I said that I would be married to forever. You are the one that I said that I love forever, and that’s not going to change because of what you did. It doesn’t matter that we no longer have a house or any kind of life because we have each other and that’s all that matters. Together, we can start again somewhere else. It doesn’t matter how hard it may be. I trust that we can make it through anything because of the love we share.”

“I’m not worth it.”

“Of course you are. You apologized to me and I forgive you.”

I can do nothing now except cry. My wife’s seemingly unending capacity for forgiveness is astounding. Her faith is what has kept our family going and is what’s bringing me back to her. Perhaps now, I will actually practice her faith with her so I can be the husband that she deserves.

“Th-thank you. I promise to be a better man for you,” I say.

“I know you will be,” she answers back that almost makes me cry again.

“Where should we head to now?”

“Maybe we should make our living here or in the farmlands. I’ve heard that it’s not as hostile as the towns.”

“The farmlands suffer constant droughts, famine, and attacks from wild beasts.”

“That’s better than what we had where we were before.”

“Ah, you’re right. Let’s try it.”

I take my wife’s hand, kiss her, and kiss my children before we head out. It may be difficult and even unbearably so to live, but it’s worth it. My wife reminds me that we shouldn’t live to make ourselves happy nor to center our beliefs on what makes us happy. Instead, we should live for truth and love even if it makes us feel miserable because in the end living and suffering for real love and truth is its own reward.

The End