Chapter
3 – Flicking Light and Burning Desire
Part
1
“Wake up, Polina. Resist the
temptation plaguing your mind and remember who you are.”
Lily? Huh? Who’s Lily? I must be
daydreaming. It would explain why I’m staring out at Meridian with a strange
longing to go to it. Why would I want to? Everything and everyone I want to be
around is here, with my beloved. Perhaps, I have the feeling because my beloved
and their friends are more concerned about something happening in the city than
usual. My beloved told me that several of their friends who usually stop by
have to spend more time in the suburbs to capture or kill an incoming threat.
I hope they take care of the threat
soon, so more attention can be given to me. I haven’t received as much pleasure
as I need, and it’s killing me, and making me feel…strange. Where am I? There
it is again. What am I doing here? I need to get back to the Compassionate. Who
are they? They’ll save me. I don’t need saving. This isn’t me. God, have mercy
on me for what I’ve done.
I’m disgusted by my appearance, and
the most recent memories in my head torture me. Forcing the memories to stay in
the back of my mind by turning my attention to escaping, I see that the mansion
I’m in is heavily guarded by superhumans and their guard dogs. My psychological
powers aren’t working as they should, and they feel repressed. My so-called
beloved and their friends are away at the moment, so I investigate the mansion
further for a possible tunnel underneath it. Criminals and villains like them
usually have them as a way to escape capture or execution.]
Going into the basement, I find
what looks like a cultist butcher’s room. There are candles, blasphemous
symbols all over the room, body parts, and ritual components scattered around
the room. In one of the corners of it is a display of four dead bodies.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
my so-beloved says from behind me, scaring me.
“Huh? I…what are you doing here?” I
ask.
“Oh, Polina. I knew my spell over
you was waning, so I had to do something about it, but first, let’s appreciate
some of my best work.”
They grab me by the shoulder, pick
me up as I resist them, and carry me over to the glass displays.
“Let go of me!”
“I’m not going to do anything to
you, yet. Look at these people. I had people who were experts in corpse
preservation keep these bodies in the state they were when they died. They
resisted me the most out of every victim I’ve abducted and had my way with.
Their names were: Sabor, Jordyn, Ishbel, Allona, and Jerod. Despite them
falling to my curse, they kept coming back to their senses, and were in their
right minds by the end, a mercy from your God.”
“Your point?”
“There is no point. I just like
remembering what I put them through. Perhaps, you’ll end up the same way in the
end.”
“I won’t! My friends will find me
soon. I can feel it, and I know you’re nervous about their inevitable arrival.”
“Why would you want to go back to
that life? It caused you so much stress and grief that it made putting my curse
on you fairly easy. Remember, it was you who came to me by yourself to try to
help me because you felt guilty that I fell to my sins again despite the help
you gave and the other members of the sixth family.”
“You can still change if you stop
this. I promise that-”
“I don’t care about changing. The
sixth family and I, whom you tried to change, are happy in our sins, and trying
to avoid that reality made us miserable. Why don’t you join us in Hell? One of
the reasons why you fell to our curse is because you have the same longing for
pleasure as we do.”
“Stop it! It’s not true!”
“You’ll see it is.”
I’m chained to the center of the
room with an iron collar around my neck, hands, and feet, which are connected
to chains that attach to the walls. Other members of the sixth family and their
dogs come in from hidden rooms in the basement and surround me.
“It is time to begin the ritual
again. As I said the first time to you, this can be a pleasurable experience if
you let it. If you don’t, it will be nothing but torture.”
God, please help me. Hurry, my
friends, to find me faster because I don’t know if I can make it through this.
Part
2
The suburbs are burning because of
my angel’s flames. Zahara, Penelope, and I leave no stone unturned as we have
used all the resources of our hero association of the Dominion in our search
for Polina and the stamping out of the sixth family. I haven’t felt this way
since Timeo Severe first found me on the day that I was burning the entire city
of Meridian with my flames, but this time, I feel even more justified in using
my flames to burn whatever and whoever God wills.
“She’s out there, Raziel. She’s
resisting the torture put upon her,” my angel says.
Thank you, my angel. When this
first started, I begged my angel to help me find Polina, but he told me it was
my responsibility to find her on my own. I feel more responsible for her
disappearance than everyone else. If I had professed my love to her, perhaps
she wouldn’t have disappeared behind the backs of all her loved ones, but then
again, that just feels like a vain guess. At this point, all that matters is
finding her.
Today, my divine flames are burning
another section of the suburbs, and it seems like we have finally burned the
scum from out of their holes. Our search has revealed a vast network of tunnels
underneath a farm, which are connected to other seemingly normal farms in the
area. My angel’s flames have filled the tunnels with fire, and every ally and
member of the sixth family down there has come out, either on fire or just
narrowly escaping it, only to find themselves confronting me. My appearance has
changed, and closer to that of my angel than ever before. I have two scythes
for arms, burning wings, three eyes of fire on my face, and a cloak of flames covering
my body.
Behind me, Penelope is
interrogating the repentant survivors who had the flames purify their souls,
and Zahara is covering me with her sniper from a distance. I’m leading from the
front because my flames dampen the demonic power of the sixth family and can
free souls from the grip of demons. Though the demons tempt me with their
words, they cannot have the final victory over me because God fights with me.
The members of the sixth family scream their ear-piercing yell at me, and charge
at me like wild animals. They leap around me, trying to cut at me with their
claw-like fingers, while those with guns uselessly shoot at me.
“Your girlfriend is already ours,”
they say.
“We’ve already had our fill of her
body.”
“She’ll never be the same again.”
“She fell to us and is under our
spell.”
I cut apart my enemies around me
and let the flames of justice burn them and protect me from danger.
“Nothing you can say can dissuade me
from finding Polina!” I say. “Your efforts to stop me only show me that I walk
the correct path, and there’s a chance she can be saved.”
“There’s no salvation for you or
your allies.”
“Your angel allowed Polina to be
kidnapped and made you find her yourself, didn’t he?”
“What makes you think she’ll be
alive? If she is, she may turn on you.”
The attacks of the possessed intensify
along with their screams.
“Begone, demons! Go back to Hell,
where you belong, and leave the bodies of the people you possess,” I say.
“They came back to us of their own free
will.”
“They belong in Hell just as much
as we do.”
“Polina was wrong to be merciful to
them. Look at what your God’s mercy has done to her. Everything that’s happened
to this city ever since she decided to spare them is her and your God’s fault.”
“There is no such thing as being
wrong to show mercy. It is only wrong to show it in different ways. Some of you
deserve to die. Others will be spared and allowed to atone, but both have until
the moment of their deaths to beg God for mercy and win salvation at the last
moment. Here me, you wretched sinners! Take the merciful hand of God to save
your souls because these could be your last moments.”
My fires intensify, spew out from the
ground, and land on the possessed like hands claiming their prize. Once they
die down, they leave charred body marks on the unburnt grass and members of the
sixth family with their horns blunted and their original bodies restored to
them, and not shaped to be an ambiguous sex. After a few seconds, those who are
still living wake up and thank us for saving them. It doesn’t take Penelope
using her psychological powers to get the answers we want. They give us the
exact address of where Polina is and apologize for what they’ve done to her.
Looking at them, I can’t help but have
lingering feelings of hate and the desire to hurt these people for what they
did, not only to Polina, but others like Lily and so many men, women, and
children. What would putting these people through rehab accomplish? Should I execute
them now that they’ve repented and secured their salvation at the moment? Will
they lose that salvation again and end up in Hell like those who died? My
angel, tell me what I must do.
“Spare them. They have another
second chance, and God is allowing them to make amends for their lives, but they
will spend the rest of their lives in perpetual penance, and if they turn away
in the same manner again, they will die, repentant or not,” my angel explains.
I understand. I thank the repentants
for the info, tell them to go back to the rehab centers, and sin no more. With
a clear and precise destination in sight, Penelope and Zahara get in a car, and
I fly with my wings of fire as we rush to the address we are given. There’s no
more time to waste, and I won’t let Polina’s body and soul be defiled by sin
any longer.
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