Top Secret
The devils chatter incessantly outside. No doubt they are scheming to desecrate this church further. I must not let them into my head.
Focus on my face, write the scriptures to be read when darkness falls. My words shall ring through hell, and lead the demons all astray. But how am I to write words, when they've lost their meaning? Sometimes my heart can't make sense of it anymore. Every night, I feel this pain, I've forgotten where it comes from. But I must not lose this fight, I must wear this face for the people and the world that I haven't seen in so long.
The pain gets overwhelming, I have to get up and soothe my nerves. The devils outside snicker, malicious glee. I check to see what's so funny, if it is my suffering they find entertaining. At once, they're not laughing anymore, but I see what agitates them. Hellfire flares from the plant, threatening to swallow the source of its fuel, and from there, hundreds of souls.
Without second thought, I go to the armoire and don the silver rochet. Rubber coats my cheeks, letting no thing, no one, at my head. Breathing is difficult, yet easier than it soon would be without these warding vestments.
The devils' glare strikes me in the back. I turn and banish them, but they insist on staying with me, ask where I intend to go. To hell, I tell them sharp, they ought to snatch those poor souls down there instead. Who would be so foolish as to follow where I am headed?
As my feet descend down to the end of the line, my sanctuary left behind, I see my fear come true. A haze flushes the streets, trapping those it cannot drive to the edge of this world.
Alone in the thick air, the path is obscured, and yet I can breathe for the first time in months. No devils looking over my shoulder, no whispers in my ear. My thoughts are truly mine. The mirror I am wearing reflects a twisted image, and I see myself in it. Oh irony, that in the smoke I should see clearly. Not the path ahead, but what mistakes have led me here.
I realise, I cannot win this fight, not the way I fight. I'm playing the devil's own game instead of mine. Evil is patient, one day I will give in. I'll tell how they could do so much worse, and they'll thank me with sharp smiles and a hollow word to add to my name.
Sirens pierce the silver and the rubber with their cries. Soot clings to the screen that shields my eyes. My eyes spy glaring glows and the valve I came for. All the while, my spirit looks back at the dismal town, hoping the people can escape, for the plan my dark heart dreams up at this moment will destroy every house and home. Thick gloves wrap around the warm, rusted iron at my command, and pull with a body's weight. Radian by radian, it turns and shuts the vile black away.
But then I stop, leaving a gap, buying time and dooming this place all the same. The iron got too hot to handle, is what I say when asked. I had tried, they cannot deny.
The secrets I've kept will come to light sooner or later. It matters not if the light bears my name or another. But the devil selfishly keeps all this quiet, even what he himself doesn't know yet, because the hearts that learn to hate it matter. This is the way forward. I will retrieve the binder for the world's judgement, rally an army of raging souls, who, in wake of this disaster, may understand just what I am afraid of.
As I turn, my breath is caught in my throat. The fatal flaw of this mask, as becomes apparent, is the corners it obscures. Who found me, by the suit shining so bright in the putrid blaze? Those I hurt hitherto, or those I was to smite henceforth? I try to turn, to break free from the rope around my neck, to see who it is, to make things right.
What I have done, I have done for you. But the words cannot get out, will never reach your ears. You'll never know why I put on this face, the temptations I had to reject. I had meant to stifle this evil, as you stifle me, and encroaching inferno stifles you.
A flash in my heart heralds my end. The pain I've felt, it was my will to live, shrivelling away.
I try to turn, and am met with God.