Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

Whatever was damaged had to be replaced by a superior flesh—that was how the herb functioned. The boy was quickly turning into one of the monsters that had haunted them for the last two days. Although he would probably retain his identity, even if twisted by his exposure to the secrets of the giants below, he would never be looked upon as a human again. He would never be able to enter human society, even one fractured and perverted by war.

“I’ll have to go down there and look for other survivors,” Corpse Eater explained. There was no sorrow or regret in his voice—only stoic acceptance. “Perhaps some boys are still alive. They’ll need my help to find their way to the surface. And there might be some villagers left too—I can’t let them escape the Underworld and come after you. If any survived, they’ll become too strong for you to deal with.”

“You sure you’ll be able to deal with them?” Tsetse asked, concerned by the difficulty of the task that the boy was preparing to face. He wanted to help him somehow, to lend him his skills—but he knew that the point when they were relevant had long since passed.

“I’ll be fine,” Corpse Eater calmly reassured him. “More importantly, the General might still be down there.”

Tsetse nodded. The boys shared an unspoken agreement that the man needed to go down for good. It was not expressed in common words or even similar thoughts. They didn’t need to exchange them. It was the very nature of their common experience that was pushing them both to the same conclusion.

“If he’s still in there, I’ll track him down. But if he escaped to the surface already…”

Tsetse nodded: “I’ll find him. He’s bound to show up somewhere.”

“…Right,” Corpse Eater hesitantly agreed, looking into distance.

Billy the Man-Eater took his AK-47 off his shoulder and silently handed it to Corpse Eater, but the boy refused: “I won’t hold it in my hands ever again. Keep it. You might still need it. The war is still not over.”

The war. It seemed so feeble, so distant to Tsetse at that moment. Over the past couple of days it had lost its thundering presence. It wasn’t looming over him with all of its dangers and responsibilities. After what he’d been through they seemed almost like a menial task.

“Go east,” Corpse Eater interrupted his train of thought. “Find some commune where you can be safe. And forget any of this ever happened. Forget the war, forget what you’ve done, and, most importantly, forget the Underworld. Never mention it again to any living soul. If anyone—even you—try to access it again… I’ll be guarding it,” the boy ominously finished.

“And Tsetse?” Corpse Eater turned toward the eldest boy. “Forget the General.”

“What?” Tsetse was taken aback. In his surprise he even shattered his mask of indifference and lifted an eyebrow.

“Forget the General” Corpse Eater repeated. “Forget what he’s done. I know you’ll try to find him, but trust me—it’s best to forget him.”

“Aren’t you going to kill him if you find him down there?” Tsetse wondered, slightly annoyed by Corpse Eater’s hypocrisy. “Why do you tell me to—”

“If I find him down there, he’s in my domain. And I’ve got nothing to lose,” Corpse Eater patiently explained. “But I know you’ll never rest if you don’t make sure that he’s dead. Forget it. Don’t let him control you. Don’t let him turn out to be right. Vengeance is not all there is.”

His eyes were radiating with calm authority. He was sure of what he was saying. Tsetse wanted to object, to protest, to tell Corpse Eater his reasons—but he could see how important it was to the boy.

So he said nothing. He simply nodded in agreement.

“Very well,” Corpse Eater said, taking a step back—into the shadows. Step after step, he was walking into the abyss, with his eyes turned toward the sunshine, until only his voice remained.

“Remember,” it said. “Do not tell a soul!”

And just like that, he was gone. Leaving Tsetse with two boys, an old man… and his thoughts.

“Tsetse, what do we do now?” Exterminator asked him.

Tsetse thought for a moment.

“We need to find a place to live,” he answered.

The priest had finished his service and was wishing his congregation to have a good night. Mothers were carrying their children, bringing them closer to him so that he could cross them and kiss them on the forehead, and men were waiting in a line to shake the man’s hand and pat him on the back.

Twenty years after the end of the civil war, he was trying to make it right. The things that he’d seen in the Underworld made him sure that there were indeed some higher powers—and he needed to make sure that during his life on Earth he’d atone for the many sins he had committed.

He navigated the narrow dirty streets to his house. At night, some of them could be dangerous, but none of the thieves or drug addicts looking for a fresh fix would dare to touch the man of the god—especially him. Though the days when he shed blood were a thing of the past and he did his best to keep them a secret, he carefully made sure that some rumors from that time lingered around. Nothing too precise, of course, but he found that a good rumor was supposed to be like that.

“He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I’ll vote for him,” said the old political billboard above the road. Years had drained almost all colors from it, but the smile of the man on it was still white. The billboard had endured for eighteen years and gone through the second civil war, but it stood on. The priest had suggested many times in the past that it be taken down, but people refused. To them, it was part of their history and they wanted to remember it. So the man who had gone on to become the president of the state continued to tease the priest every evening with its bloodthirsty smile, the smile of a man who had decided that he had nothing to hide. The man who, instead of choosing to hide, decided to own what he’d done.

Even though he had always told his congregation that nothing good would come from hate and revenge, in his heart of hearts the priest was drowning in hatred.

“Good evening to you, Father!” he heard the neighbor greet him. “How was the service?” he wondered.

“Splendid, as always” The man smiled.

“Good to hear!” The man beamed back. One of his front teeth was missing. “If you don’t mind, could you—”

“Come to the church tomorrow and we’ll discuss that,” the priest reassured the man, walking off toward his home.

He opened the door to his house and slipped in, finally letting out a heavy sigh and sliding down the door.

He spent about a minute leaning against it, his head in his hands, before he finally stood up and headed for the kitchen. Suddenly he froze.

He hadn’t been on the battlefield for twenty years, but he could tell that, even in the darkness of his home, he wasn’t alone.

Someone was sitting on the chair near the furthest wall. The dim light of rare streetlights outside wasn’t bright enough to pierce through the old drapes on his window and confirm his suspicion, but he didn’t need to. He was sure of that.

“General?” a soft voice asked him.

The priest remained stoic on the outside, but his heartbeat skyrocketed. He didn’t recognize the stranger’s voice. But more importantly, the man was sure that there was no one left alive who knew his biggest secret. The truth about who he had been in the past.

No doubt the stranger knew what he’d done, then. He probably had come to kill him. The General had feared that moment for twenty years, but when it finally came… he felt tranquility.

It was foolish of him to think that he could bury his past. It was useless to deny it—the mere suspicion was enough to mark him dead. At least he’d have a warrior’s death.