Suffering's Reward: Chapter 2 – Falling on the Ascent

Chapter 2 – Falling on the Ascent

The Americas are much worse than it was when I left. There isn’t a single light that can be seen in the empty void of the sky and most if not all the wildlife and plants are dead. In my hours of walking, every settlement is in ruins and either abandoned or crawling with possessed that I can only manage to defeat because my curse on the world doesn’t allow me to die from any injury and because I refuse to stop moving forward. The end is near. It has to be.

“You’re far from the end, Priscilla,” a voice says in my head.

“You’ll suffer for longer than you think even after you complete God’s role for you.”

“That’s what He wants from you. That’s all He’s ever wanted from you.”

I pray as much as I can as the temptations begin to take hold, and yet, they start to get worse and harder to bear, not easier.

“Do you think you can resist us?”

“We damned souls stronger and more faithful to God than you.”

“You’ve fallen many times already, and yet, God refuses to make you immune to us. That proves that He only cares to use you and then throw you away.”

That’s not true! I’ll overcome this!”

“And who are you, Priscilla?”

My arms and legs split away from my body, forming two versions of myself. One is wearing the brown leather armor that I used to wear as a soldier while the other is naked, her hair is red and black, and her body is covered with cursed grey markings.

“Even in your more faithful days, there was a time you fell to a curse and almost killed your true love, Dominic.”

“After that, you were jealous that God gave Dominic to another woman who he lived happily and had children with.”

I was…I am happy he chose her over me because of what I almost did.

“Once you met Evander, you dedicated your life to him. His status as the oldest man alive, king of the elves, and his charming childish personality made you trust him and his plan to bring peace to the world by force, through a dream reality that would make people live happily and faithfully whether they wanted to or not.”

“To achieve this dream reality, you killed, kidnapped, and aided in his manipulations for hundreds of years. Sure, some of the people you went after were corrupt, but others weren’t.”

“You didn’t care who got in the way. You only wanted the happiness you thought you deserved and covered your actions with the excuse that it was for the greater good.”

There’s no such thing as doing evil for good. I know that now. I was an idiot and still am.

“Because you couldn’t get to Dominic, you’ve had many husbands, all of which couldn’t give you the happiness or children you wanted.”

“You even had an affair with Evander, two broken souls enraptured by each other’s longing for happiness.”

It was a mistake. We already confessed and did our penance for that sin.

“But the sin of lust never left you. Once you achieved your dream reality, you made it so that you lived with Dominic and two imaginary children. Even after all these years, you still lusted over another woman’s husband.”

“What a stupid woman she was, wasn’t she?”

“She was unworthy of being Dominic’s husband.”

“While you were a distinguished woman of society and the army, she was nothing more than a bumbling fool, a housewife who couldn’t help but get other people hurt in her clumsiness.”

Persephone was a better to Dominic than I ever was. Her making to Heaven with him is proof of that.

“Many people are better than you at everything.”

“Even the man who broke the dream reality. He was a homosexual, a pedophile, a rapist, a thief, a human trafficker, a torturer, a transexual, a manipulator, a murderer, everything that is wrong with the world, and yet when God called him to do the right thing, he did it while you failed.”

God bless him. I hope he has one of the highest places in Heaven next to God.

“He has more than you’ll ever get even though he only served God for a handful of years before he died.”

“What did you get in return?”

“Nothing.”

“Less than nothing.”

“You ran away from accepting responsibility for aiding in what Evander did and then you were faced with Leif, a bestial man through and through.”

“He violated and tortured you in every way imaginable.”

“He let his servants and animals have their way with you while all you could do was cry and take it.”

“But that wasn’t the worst.”

“No, the worst was that he was able to make you pregnant while no other man could.”

“That’s what broke you.”

Stop it…

“You couldn’t deal with it and spent months growing your power to go back into the dream reality, your false happiness, and once your infant was about to be born, you cut yourself open, cut out the boy’s heart, and his head, and offered him to us as a sacrifice to obtain the dark magic you wanted.”

I’m sorry…

“If that wasn’t bad enough, Leif was being talked to directly by God and was used as His instrument against you. He even had the privilege of naming your son and the spirit of your son appeared to him first.”

Leif deserved to name him. I don’t even deserve to be called his mother. My body is convulsing at the feeling and sight of remembering my entire life and every sin and regret from it. In the distance, I see warped versions of myself appear along with demons of lust, despair, and wrath who surround and mock me.

“Even after you were humbled, you came back to us to curse the world to make it as it is now. You were on the verge of victory, but Jude prevented you from it.”

“You can still achieve your vengeance on God.”

“Join us.”

“The world can be yours.”

“You can have as many men and children as you want.”

“You can finally have the happiness you deserve.”

“The happiness that God has been preventing you from having for hundreds of years.”

No…no…get away from me.

“You’re pathetic.”

“Weak.”

“Beyond useless.”

“Where are all the spirits of your friends that appeared to you before?”

“They’re not here.”

“They gave you false hope.”

“God was being spiteful to you again.”

“You’ve fallen to us again.”

“They laugh at you from Heaven.”

“Show them Hell.”

“Denounce them.”

“Denounce Him.”

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away…the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away…the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away…blessed be the name of the Lord.

“He isn’t listening.”

Mother Mary and St. Joseph, be a mother and father to me now.

“They never cared.”

I trust my soul to you, Lord.

“He gave it to us.”

Guardian angel…

“We are the only angels here for you.”

You’re only attacking me because I’m close to God. If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t bother.

“We are bringing you to your senses.”

After repeating prayers and humbling reminders for so long, I pass out as a result of the constant trauma. When I wake up, I see that my body is intact and the demons are gone. I shiver in the dirt unable to move or do anything. What can be done now? What do I do? Wait. I don’t need a reminder. There are already two in my hands, two in my feet, and another on my head. Thanks be to God for them. Thanks be to God for His mercy. I pray to God for mercy for my sins, pick myself up, and continue wandering forward to wherever He wants me to go. Blessed be the name of the Lord forever.