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Everyone thinks they have free will but, come on, when’s the last time you did something that wasn’t required?
There were other people down here with me. We are gonna get them out.
You have to hurry… Rook…
They made me strong. Now they are weak.
Sin must be exposed so it can be absolved.
The path to Eden is clear to those who have faith…
The weak always think of themselves as heroes.
I am your Father. You are my child. And together we will march to Eden’s Gate.
The Deputy woke up with a start, their body shaking even after they woke. It took them a second to realize their surroundings - On cold metal ground, hands tied to the leg of a bed, leaning up against it, in Dutch’s bunker, in Hope County, still alive. Not dead.
They heard footsteps. Right, they were in Hope County, still alive, not dead, and with Joseph.
The Father appeared in front of them, his shirt off with his scars and tattoos exposed for all to see. The Deputy hazily looked to him, expecting him to say something, do something - but not knowing what. They, even now, had not gotten used to the presence of that unpredictable man. He had killed Dutch and tied them down in a bunker, before deciding that the Deputy would now be in his family. And sure, he was their Father and they were his Child, but the Deputy had seen what the Father was willing to let happen to his family. The things he had done himself to his family.
The Deputy looked to him, unsure of what to expect. Joseph silently placed something down in front of them. A small, plastic cup of water.
“You’ve been asleep a long time. But that doesn’t really matter now. I doubt time is even passing anymore.” Joseph said.
The Deputy looked down at the cup of water. Though they appreciated the unexpected gesture, their hands were still tied to the bed. They tugged on the rope a bit.
“Yes, I know. You have no way to drink the water. And I would let you, but there is one thing that stops me. You tried to kill me, child. You conquered the valley, the river, and the mountains so you could come to my convent and kill me. And I, not long ago, contemplated killing you, for the destruction you wrought against my family. But I did not kill you. I will not kill you. Because you are my child now. But I don’t know if you have accepted me as your Father. I don’t know that if I free you to let you drink that water, you may take that opportunity to kill me. I have decided on my mercy, child. What will you do?”
The Deputy gazed around the room. There wasn’t anything that could be used as a weapon in sight. They look down at their hands, which bloody and scratched and burned. Their body was weak. They didn’t think that they could stand if they tried to.
They looked to Joseph and merely shook their head. It wasn’t a direct answer to his question, but Joseph seemed to understand.
“I see.”
He untied their hands, and the Deputy shook them for a second, before Joseph took their right hand and handcuffed it to the bed, leaving their other hand free.
“I always take precautionary measures. It is less about me trusting you and more about you trusting me, child.”
The Deputy took the cup with one hand and drank the water. It was lukewarm, but it still felt good to have water down their dry throat.
Joseph sat down in the chair in front of the bed, facing the Deputy. He stared at them with an indescribable look on his face, one of grief, disdain, anger, and acceptance. The Deputy stared back.
“Back when that helicopter crashed outside my convent, I had gotten a great look into your eyes. They were the eyes of someone young and promising. To think the sinner with those eyes, would be the same sinner to make martyrs of my family, one by one.”
A forlorn look crossed his face. “My family…my family. We were not a perfect family. But we were all united under our faith. Our devotion to the Project. John was my Baptist. And though I disapproved of his methods, he did his job well. He only wished to absolve sin at its source. Faith...our sister...our siren. She was a lamb who had been astray, and she saw me as the Shepherd that would bring her into the light again. And her devotion to the Project was unparalleled by any other Faith. And Jacob, my brother, our soldier. He took pride in his work - rightfully so. We were not perfect. But we were going to save this county. We were going to march to Eden’s Gate. And you slaughtered them.”
He shook his head. The Deputy did not move, they simply looked at a single spot on the floor.
“And now that I look into your eyes, that youth, that promise, is gone. Your eyes are hollow and downtrodden. What a toll killing takes the human mind, hm?”
The Deputy still didn’t respond. Joseph leaned back in his chair.
“And yet, even after all this time, after all this violence, after all this tragedy, not once have I heard you speak.” Joseph chuckled, almost desperately. “A snake in the garden slaughters my whole family, and not once do I even hear them speak.”
He narrowed his eyes at the Deputy.
“Can you speak, my child? Or has all this violence robbed you of your voice?”
The Deputy nodded.
Joseph gave them more water, which the Deputy humbly drank.
“You cannot talk… and yet, more than anything, I want to hear what you have to say, what you feel. I can hear God’s voice, and yet I can’t hear yours…”
The Deputy didn’t know what response to give. They once could speak - they preferred to stay stoic, only to speak when they needed to… but after seeing Hudson tortured, wandering mindlessly through the Bliss, getting their mind poisoned by Faith, watching Marshal Burke shoot himself, going through Jacob’s trials, being tricked into killing Eli… eventually, the Deputy could not speak at all. Even when they tried, no comprehensible sound would come out.
The Deputy shrugged, which was all that they could give.
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” Joseph said. The same thing he said to them back at the Veteran’s Center. “The Lord giveth you strength, pride, unbridled tenacity. But He taketh your voice, your will, your purpose. He did me the same.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Joseph chuckled to himself, softly, and very briefly. He kept looking at the Deputy with eyes that seemed to be trying to analyse them, as if there was something about them that he just couldn’t lay his finger on.
Joseph rose from his chair and disappeared from the room, wordlessly. The Deputy was left alone with themselves for a minute, until Joseph returned. He presented before the Deputy a pen, and an old piece of paper.
“Here, child. Tell me your thoughts through written word instead.”
He laid it down in front of them. The Deputy used their free hand to pick up the pen, and struggled to hold it, unaccustomed to using their left hand.
Joseph then freed the Deputy from their handcuffs, cautiously, and raised his hands before him, as if he were backing away from a mad dog, that at any moment, could strike.
But the Deputy did nothing. They had nowhere to go.
Joseph lowered his hands, and sat back down. The Deputy took the pen in their right hand, and sat up. They scribbled the pen a bit to see if it worked. After scribbling a few colorless marks on the page, the pen worked.
They wrote in print, slowly.
I am not Wrath, nor Pride, nor Greed, nor Gluttony, nor Envy, nor Lust. I am Emptiness. God’s righteous path killed everyone around me. It killed my soul.
They finished their message, clicked the pen, and handed the paper back to Joseph, who took it idly. They could see his eyes scanning their short, sloppily written message.
“Is this all you wish to say?” he asked, looking back up at them.
The Deputy nodded.
Joseph placed the paper on the ground next to his chair. “You’re succinct, but poetic. A shame you chose never to talk.”
That was false. The Deputy was never much for words, thus their preference of silence. Never did thoughts like those ever cross their mind, most of the time. But they were broken now.
The Deputy was untied now, but they didn’t move from their spot next to the bed. They took off their filthy gloves and exposed their bare hands. They sat with their arms draped over their knees, their head in between their own legs. They turned towards Joseph, who still was leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed, gazing at the Deputy, almost studying them and their movements. The Deputy looked away from him, but they could still his eyes burning into them.
“Turn towards me, my child.” he suddenly commanded.
They shifted their position towards Joseph.
“Your chest, child.”
The Deputy pulled down at the top of their shirt, displaying their collarbone and chest and the word WRATH, that had been carved into their skin.
Joseph reached out and touched it gently, and the Deputy held their breath.
“Wrath,” Joseph said softly, “Ira. But you know I don’t believe that’s your sin. Perhaps… I should carve pride into your back.”
The Deputy shuddered involuntarily.
He shook his head. “But I won’t.”
The Deputy exhaled.
“I look at you, child, and you are still not clean. Not baptized. Not holy enough to truly be apart of Eden’s Gate. You still look like someone devoid of all faith. I feel I need to change that. For you to become my child.”
Joseph cupped his hands around the Deputy’s face. “Do you want to be baptized again, child? Do you want to be cleansed?”
The Deputy nodded slowly.
“Good. You would have no choice either way.”
He cuffed the Deputy again, and took them by the hand somewhere else in Dutch’s bunker. The Deputy tried their hardest not to look at their surroundings. The sight of the place where the Deputy was once saved made their chest feel heavy.
Joseph stopped in one room. He let go of the Deputy, and pushed them down onto their knees.
“Wait there, child. Your baptism commences.”
There was a large, dirty sink against the wall, with a rusty metal faucet and a white basin standing on metal legs. Joseph took a plastic basin out of a nearby cabinet, and placed it under the faucet. He turned one of the knobs. The faucet squeaked, and a stream of water began to pour.
Joseph leaned over the sink, watching the basin fill up.
“To think I once despised you, with all of the earthly passion that God would allow. I thought you a heretic, one who put all their efforts into defying God. But not once did I ever lose faith that you could be redeemed. That your soul could be salvaged. And as always, I was right.”
The Deputy could only see his back as he talked. He turned and faced them.
“And now you are apart of my family. Now, your sins are being washed away. God’s will is proven righteous again.”
The Deputy fiddled with their handcuffs.
Joseph took the basin out of the sink once it began to overflow, and turned the sink off. He gingerly brought the basin over to where the Deputy sat, water spilling over the brim and onto the floor.
He stood in front of the Deputy.
“I know John has already baptized you, but I always doubted John. He mocked the cleansing, and its purpose. He seemed to want to harm our children, instead of loving them. Don’t worry, child. I will cleanse you properly.”
The Deputy did not know what it meant to be cleansed properly, but they no longer worried.
They were surprised at Joseph’s gentleness with them. When they first encountered him, handcuffing him in his compound that fateful night, everything about him seemed… peacefully violent. But now, he seemed not to want to inflict any harm upon the Deputy. He was treating them as if they really were his own child. The Deputy supposed that now that they had no will to fight anymore, and Joseph felt that he’d won, he had nothing to worry about. He could make them a member of Eden’s Gate without the fear of the Deputy fighting back.
Joseph lifted the basin over the Deputy’s head.
“Deputy. I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Joseph emptied water onto the Deputy’s head three times, once for the Father, once for the Son, and the rest of the basin for the Holy Spirit.
The Deputy let the water drip off of their head. Completely still, they awaited him to do something next.
Joseph threw the basin aside, and bent down in front of the Deputy, clasping his hands around their face.
“Now. Now you are truly cleansed in the name of the Lord.” he said. He smiled at them, his face only inches from the Deputy’s. The smile sent a chill down their spine.
He stepped back and sat a few feet away from the Deputy.
The Deputy still had water dripping down their face and off their hair, and their hands were still bound.
“You have almost been converted completely. You are very close to accepting both God’s and my love into your heart. There is only one last step to take.”
He untied their hands and threw the binds aside. The Deputy looked down at their hands as Joseph kneeled in front of them. He pulled something out of his back pocket, something that the Deputy was surprised that they never noticed before. It was a crucifix, made out of two small sticks of birch tree, tied together with twine. Small wildflowers were wedged into where the two sticks met and made the cross, and the end of the crucifix was sharpened into a point.
Joseph lifted his arms up, his hands clasped around the crucifix, holding it out in front of the Deputy. The Deputy, in return, looked at him in confusion.
“Join me, child, join me in prayer. Pray with me, child, and we will complete your conversion together, what will truly allow you to pass through Eden’s Gate.” he said to them. “Join me.”
The Deputy took the cue, and slowly lifted their hands and clasped them around the crucifix as well.
“Deputy,” Joseph said, gently shutting his eyes. “Do you wish to be redeemed?”
The Deputy paused for second, wondering whether they do anything in response to him. He was trying to make them an official member of his cult, but for what? He didn’t have anything to gain from that…
The Deputy realized that was exactly it. He had nothing to gain from anything anymore. He only had the Deputy… They felt stupid, he had already told them the answer to that question. And the Deputy realized they had nothing too. Nothing to lose. Nothing to gain.
The Deputy nodded slowly.
“Do you wish to forget your past?”
They nodded.
“Do you wish to feel pure and unburdened?”
They nodded.
“Do you wish to be reborn?”
They nodded faster.
“Do you wish to put your trust, faith, heart, and soul into the Father?”
They nodded. They breathing heavily now.
“Do you wish to pass through the gate, onward to Eden?”
They nodded again, their hands trembling around the cross.
Maybe he was right. Maybe everything that happened was fate. Every bullet, every death, was all destined to happen. Perhaps if they had just joined the Peggies at the beginning this all could have been avoided. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was right this whole time.
“Then, Deputy, I pronounce you a child of Eden’s Gate. You will suffer to carry out the will of the Father. In the end, you will be rewarded. You will walk onward to Eden.”
The Deputy looked up from the cross at Joseph, whose eyes were closed, his face pensive and tranquil, and remembered. They remembered everything. They remembered the heat against their face as they tried to escape the helicopter crash, the Marshal screaming as the cultists took him away, Hudson nearly stabbing the Deputy in the face once they found her, John ripping GREED from Nick Rye’s chest, Whitehorse’s face as the bliss slowly took him over, Tracey sobbing over Virgil’s body, Pratt screaming as he shot up Jacob’s control room, and how they were dead, they were all dead, they’re dead they’re dead and they died for nothing nothing nothing nothing
The Deputy did… something, they weren’t sure what. But it was an action filled with rage and despair, the kind that nothing good can ever come from.
The red faded from their vision, and the Deputy saw where they were; on top of Joseph, water from their hair dripping onto his face, the sharp end of the cross plunged into his chest. Joseph fell off of his knees and onto his back.
Joseph’s eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. The Deputy’s eyes were wide open, staring at the wound.
“I knew this would happen,” Joseph said, surpisingly calm. “I knew because I was with you.”
The Deputy ripped the cross out of Joseph’s chest. Blood dripped of it onto Joseph’s abdomen. They then threw it aside in a single movement, sending it spinning to the wall. They rose to their feet.
Blood continued to pour from Joseph’s gaping chest wound, but his face showed no sign of pain. He only looked at the Deputy standing over him.
“You win,” he said, sounding more in pain now. “You’ve won, Deputy. But now what will you do?”
The Deputy looked at him, expressionless. Without even an action to represent a goodbye, they began to walk away.
“You have forsaken me, child.” He said, the blood forming a pool around him. The Deputy stopped. “But you have no one else to turn to. You have nowhere to go. God sees your actions, but He will not protect you no longer. Where will you go, my child? Who will you be?”
The Deputy turned and looked at him, and opened their mouth. They tried to speak, for the first time in what seemed like decades, but only a quiet wheeze came out. They gathered all the force in their throat they could muster and spoke.
“ ...uck….y-you.” They managed to croak out. They, then, turned away, refusing to look back at him. Joseph coughed and rasped. As he succumbed to the wounds, he watched the Deputy leave the room, listening to their footsteps as they left the bunker.
The Deputy wandered through the bunker until they finally found the exit. The place was so familiar and so foreign, and they could barely feel their own body. They slowly walked up the metal stairs, their hand outstretched to the handle. They took hold of the handle, feeling the cold metal in their hands, and turned it.
The Deputy opened the hatch to the bunker, and it flipped open. A wash of sunlight came over them, similar the one they experienced when they first emerged from Dutch’s bunker, so, so long ago.
They stepped out. It wasn’t the nuclear wasteland they remembered leaving. Everything was...normal. Sunlight shone through the leaves, their shadows dancing on the muddy ground. They could hear, far away, birds singing.
They stood there, taking in their surroundings, confused, wondering where all the death, destruction, and carnage had gone, until they heard a voice.
“Rook?”