The Question, The Answer, The Lies, The Truth: Chapter 1 – The Question

Chapter 1 – The Question

“Let His blood be upon us and our children.”

These words that I’ve said are burned upon my mind and soul. It was from the day that I was a sinful man and a shameful priest of Israel. I had forced the Son of God to be crucified and gloried in His suffering. He said He had come to save humanity, and yet, He had not raised armies against the Romans, nor did He raise the people to take back what was ours. Instead, He performed miracles, healed the sick, and made the Church look corrupt, so I hated Him for it.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

His words when I first tried to ensnare Him in a trap with a woman I was having an affair with cut deep within my soul and further enflamed my hatred against Him. He looked directly at me and wrote my sins into the ground, so I fled before I could be embarrassed further. It was the day I decided He should die, and on the day of His crucifixion, I mocked and spat at Him from the front of the crowds. Because I was so close, His blood splattered on my face, and His holy blood burned my face. I was taken to be cared for in my house.

Again, I hated Him for what He denied me, and He even took away the joy of hearing about His death since the veil was torn in the temple, and my family and mistresses died while the earth shook. I was convinced He was a curse and everything that happened was His last strike against me. For three days, I was in burning, agonizing pain with wraps around my face. On the third day, I heard He came back from the dead, so I demanded to see proof, and as I finished speaking, He walked through my doors like a ghost.

“Caiaphas, will you continue to persecute me for the sake of your power and ego?” He asked.

I could no longer deny it. He had fulfilled the Scriptures and prophecies, so I proclaimed Him, “My Lord and my God.”

He then explained my new purpose in life for the foreseeable future, told me to take off the wraps from my face, and look in the mirror. I did as He said and saw that I didn’t have a face anymore. I could see, and yet, my face was a void I could put my entire hand into and feel nothing. I didn’t care, nor was I horrified. At that point, I was more disgusted at my previous life and thanked God for the second chance that I didn’t deserve.

Even now, after thousands of years since those events, I remember them every day as if they happened yesterday, and ever since then, I’ve been doing the Lord’s work, punishing sinners and bringing them back to Him. Tonight, my sight has been directed to a man who has been having difficulties directing his life and the lives of others. Hudson is his name, and his office building is home to a moderately successful business for his town. I walk through the building’s doors like a ghost, through and up the office’s interior and stairs as if I belonged there, and into Hudson’s office. He’s startled by my sudden appearance and tries to sneakily call for security with a button under his desk.

“Peace, Hudson. I come bringing you help, even though it may not seem like it,” I say.

“You’re the one who’s going to need help, buddy,” he says.

The door to Hudson’s office opens as his superhuman security guards enter and try to take me away, but my powers activate and ensnare us. To Hudson, it seems as if time itself stops. Everyone and everything freezes in place and begins to dissolve into a consuming darkness. When the darkness lifts, Hudson finds himself trapped in a large, maze-like series of claustrophobic, rusty metal cages he can hardly stand in. He’s stuck in a mess of razor wire arranged like spiderwebs. As for me, I stand outside the cage, free to walk around as I please, surrounded by the suspended bodies of those familiar to Hudson.

Hudson asks who I am, and I give the same short explanation I give to everyone, saying at the end, “It doesn’t really matter who I am. It matters who you are. Do you know who that is?”

“What do you want?! I have money, and I know people who can probably get you anything you can name,” Hudson says as he starts to sweat.

“I don’t want anything from you. It is my Lord who wants something from you, namely, your repentance and dedication of your soul to Him.”

“I don’t deal with demons.”

“This is no demon or false god I speak of. I am talking about the only God, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Why me?”

“Why not you? He suffered and died for all of us; therefore, every soul has the chance to be redeemed and saved.”

“I hardly know the first thing about that. I’ve forgotten most of it since my time in high school.”

“That was a shame you lost the faith so early. Your parents and teachers saw great potential in you to become something greater than what you are now. Even to this day, they still pray for you, despite the words you said to them that broke their hearts.”

“How do you know so much about me?”

“The Lord tells me everything I need to know about you for your salvation as if I were your guardian angel.”

“More like guardian devil. Let me out of here!”

“There’s only one way out, and that’s to repent. Physical strength won’t free you from the razor wire, and even if you did have superpowers, they wouldn’t move you an inch. Your soul must move towards the goal lest you bleed out and die.”

Hudson notices he is bleeding and instinctively moves in fear, which only hurts him and makes the bleeding worse. He screams out for help and does his best to physically move himself to no avail.

I remind him, “Only the Lord can save you now. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

At his wits' end, Hudson catches his breath, looks up to me, and says, “Okay…okay. Give me some help here. I need some advice because I have no clue what to do.”

“Your sins. Confess them with honesty.”

“Alright. I…I regret stealing from my family. I regret ripping off my friends and tripping up my own company so we can make our financial goals. I regret firing people who didn’t deserve it, and the time I broke the heart of a nice girl, but I rejected her because she was too religious-ah!”

Hudson realizes that he’s moving, slowly but surely, while also cutting himself on the razor wire.

“Good work, Hudson. Keep going.”

“But I’m cutting myself as I crawl, and I can’t stop it!”

“The confessing process is painful. This is simply how it must be. You won’t die faster because of it, but you will if you stop.”

“Ah, hell. Alright…uh…I’m actually regretting leaving the religious life behind and faking it so that I can be socially acceptable. I regret making fun of others who truly practice it and devaluing it with my words, thoughts, and actions. There’s everything that I did with my friends, like sleeping around, getting drunk, ripping people off, and stealing from stores. Actually, a lot of my mistakes were made when I was a teenager. Do I need to confess every single one of those sins? I can’t remember them all exactly.”

“No, the Lord will be merciful and accept what you can give.”

“Then what else can I give? That’s all I can think about right now, and I’m starting to slow down!”

“You know the answer. You know the people you wronged and what you have to do to make amends.”

“Fine. I’ll go broke, and…I’ll message everyone my apologies.”

“You can do more than send them a simple text or call them.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll personally visit them.”

“You must also divorce the woman you are with.”

“I thought divorce was sinful?”

“There is no divorce in a rightful marriage, but you only married the woman you’re with because of her riches, her connections, and you’re physically attracted to her. This should be easy for you since the love you once had with one another is long dead. Even your forced love-making sessions have grown stale.”

“I can’t say you’re wrong about that.”

“Well?”

“Alright, I’ll do it! Why am I still not moving any faster?”

“You confessed and want to do all these things to save your life, not so much because you’re sorry and out of love with the Lord.”

“What do you expect when I haven’t done anything religious in years? I’m a piece of crap, I admit it! I need to relearn everything from the ground up.”

“Yet, your confession and your desire to change are honest. That’s all that really matters. You now better see the faults in your life as the razor wire has bled out and revealed the cost of your sins within your soul. There’s only a single step that’s expected for you to make.”

“What’s...what’s that?”

“Come now. I’ve already told you.”

“Okay…I’ll dedicate my life to God, not because I’m afraid of punishment, but because it’s the right thing to do. I see that now! Give me a chance to try, but don’t come back to me if I fail. As I said, I need to relearn things, so I’m bound to fail again and again. It’s one of the reasons why I fell away from the faith. I’m afraid of failure and admitting I’m wrong.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“What else do I need to give? What else does God want? Tell me, and I’ll give it to Him a hundredfold for the years I’ve denied Him.”

“What else? Look around you.”

Hudson finds himself outside the razor wire cages. He’s ecstatic at the realization, so much so that he hugs me, but then backs off.

“I don’t know why, but I feel free and want to thank you,” he says.

I hug Hudson and say, “You don’t need to thank me. Simply, sin no more, and I’ll be happy.”

Reality shifts, and Hudson is startled to see us back in his office without a scratch or drop of blood on him. He looks up at his clock to see that time hasn’t moved in the slightest, and then back at me with his superhuman guards, dead on the floor with razor wire cuts all across their bodies.

“What happened?” Hudson asks.

“You passed your test,” I say.

“But what about them?”

“They were tested after you and failed.”

“Huh? It happened that fast? I don’t even think a single second passed.”

“That’s all the time a true confession from the heart can take. Don’t let the new flame of love for God go out from your heart, Hudson. Rejoice for your second chance, but beware of falling again.”

“I won’t sin again, I swear! If I do, I promise to pick myself back up!”

“For the sake of your soul, I hope so. May the Lord be with you. Always glory in His mercy.”

Hudson falls to his knees and starts to pray. The rest of his office is frightened by me and what I’ve done. I walked past them, since I have not been moved to test them, at least not yet. My soul is being guided to another I must put through the test, so I walk out of the building, into the shadows, and teleport to the location of my next target, all the while glorifying God and thanking Him for the mercy and justice He has given out today, just as Hudson is now doing.