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You don’t know what to do. Your grasp of the situation is fragile at best. You hadn’t expected that to happen, even though by all rights you should have.
After all, who expects a Deal with a demon to go well?
You had wanted to live forever, to not die. To have power to defeat those who would try to hurt you or to hurt innocents. The demon had taken your wish and turned it into a curse, one guaranteed to land you in Hell if you tried to outwit it.
“For every good deed you do, your lifespan will be shortened. For every sin you commit, you shall gain life, and best of all? You won’t ever be caught. That I guarantee you.”
You hadn’t wanted this. You hadn’t wanted to be cursed to be a horrible person.
It seemed like all you could do was try to live what was left of your life as best as you were able. You couldn’t help people, not anymore.
Father Lantom would be disappointed when you stopped showing up to the service opportunities. But you didn’t want to die.
All you could try to do was go about your life and avoid doing good or sinning.
You could sin. It would keep you alive, and surely no one would fault-you for that.
Everyone wanted to live, right?
……
right?
You would not sin. It may cut your life shorter than it would have been otherwise, but you would not fall to a life of debauchery and indolence merely to stay alive.
You would take the suffering the curse saw fit to inflict on you and you would not diverge from your path. You may have already blown it with your Deal, but you did not want to miss Heaven.
You didn't want to miss Jack Murdock.
Days pass by in a haze as you go about your life, trying to fix the habits that had you reaching out to get a new cup of coffee for someone when they spilled theirs, that had you pulling out chairs to be polite.
It hurt, but you couldn’t afford the kindnesses that had once come so naturally to you.
People ask why you’ve changed, why you aren’t the same as you were Before. You don’t answer them. Let them think the worst of you- it can’t be any worse than what you say to yourself.
It can. Disappointment from those you love always cuts deep, but this is a whole new level.
Your best friend leaves you, not understanding
and it’s your fault, everything’s always been your fault.
As if that was the starting gun, people leave one by one. And then all that’s left is you, shivering and crying for help in a corner of your mind as your body walks around seemingly of its own volition.
Things come to a head when your neighbor starts beating his daughter. You don’t know if it’ll ever stop.
You try reporting it, try doing the right thing even though you can feel it shaving away at the time you have left. Your life might be cut short, but this girl is actively suffering. You would be as damned if you ignored it as you would be if you gave in to the demon’s curse.
The cops come. CPS comes. They do nothing. He’s too good at lying, his wife a little too
intentionally
blind.
It’s written off as a bad joke by an anonymous “reporter” looking to have some fun, and you want to scream. Can they not clearly see what’s in front of them? Can they not see the bruises undoubtedly left on her arms
(it’s not like you could)
, can they not hear the breaths rattling in her lungs as she draws painful breath after painful breath?
(It’s not like you couldn’t not hear that, not when you know what it means, not when you know that pain.)
Eventually you can’t take the blindness
(hah; you’re funny)
of everyone around you, and you resolve to take care of the matter yourself.
A mask to hide. A mask to scare.
A mask just like the ones you’ve been putting on for years.
You only meant to scare him into not touching her anymore, but you went too far.
The man lies dead on the flood, his daughter a whimpering, crying mess in the corner.
You approach, try to comfort her.
She won’t accept it. Demon she calls you, Devil she Names you. You took away all she knew, and she hates you for it even as she’s relieved to not have to suffer under him anymore.
You leave. Go back to your house. You don’t know what to do now. You hadn’t meant to kill him.
As you change back into your regular clothes, you realize the aches are gone. Your curse has receded.
At first, you can’t think of why. But then your mind is inexorably drawn back to the image of the man lying dead in a pool of his own blood. He had deserved it, of that there was no doubt.
And yet nonetheless it was murder. A sin. You had benefited from that man’s death.
You don’t know if you want to laugh or throw up. Murder is wrong, that’s something you’ve grown up hearing since you were a child.
And yet, it seems as if murder could be right. There are people no one will touch. People who will get away with anything because no one cares enough to report them
or take care of the issue themselves, like you did
.
Murder is wrong….but it could keep you alive. If you go after the bad people, the ones who deserve it, then you’re helping cleanse the Earth of some of the filth tainting it.
But it comes at the cost of forever tainting your own soul.
You don’t know what to do. It’s like you made that Deal yesterday, and indecision becomes the norm.
What should you do?
You don’t know what to do.
Murder is wrong.
Murder is wrong.
You know this. Murder is wrong.
Murder is….
You don’t know.
You don’t know anymore.
Murder is wrong, right?
It can’t be right.
But sometimes it may be the only solution.
You don’t know.