I’m in the principal’s office, surrounded by my shell of light standing across from the Legion incarnation that appears to be in charge. Other avatars are standing nearby, one of them is holding Maggie. I have Police Officer Paige and the demon nurse at my side.
“I’m here, I surrender,” I say.
The demon nurse looks at me, “Why are you giving up?” he asks one last time.
“Quiet,” the Legion avatars say in unison. Simmons pulls out his gun as if to threaten the demon to shut up. Before he can pull the trigger, I unmake the gun, pulling it apart until it’s just dust seeping through his hands.
“Enough of these games,” Legion says.
“I am the Sword of God. You have no power compared to me. Why should I give up? I can kill all of your avatars in this building.”
“And more avatars will be born. Margret will not be.”
“If I surrender, will you promise to leave her alone?” I ask.
“We have no reason to harm her,” Legion says.
“I want your other avatars to leave,” I say.
“You are here,” Legion says. “We don’t need them anymore.”
I can feel them all scattering. Things are finally coming to an end.
“He’s just a kid. You don’t need to do this,” Officer Paige says.
“We cannot let the Sword fall to the light again.”
The last remaining embodiment of Legion raises his hand. There’s only one weapon he has that can really hurt me, and I gave it to him. Pain.
All of Legion’s hosts are connected. Long ago, I learned that when I tortured one, they could all feel it. Eventually, I would kill the body and the fragment of his soul would scream with agony as it seared its pain into Legion’s collective consciousness.
Pain is chaos. It is energy that is writhing. It wants to change, it needs to change. And change is the one thing that can kill an angel. There’s only so much pain an angel can take before the stability of the light is torn away from it.
In a school filled with frightened children, it took the pain of five violent deaths to break Maggie’s guardian angel.
Legion’s soul contains the pain of thousands and thousands of brutal deaths. It’s filled with souls screaming out because of what I did to them. And Legion is going to focus them all into me.
I’m afraid, but a part of me is embracing the idea. A part of me thinks that I need to be punished.
People are dead because of me.
I let down the sphere of light around me. It won’t protect me from what’s coming.
“I’m ready,” I say.
“After everything you’ve done, are those your last words?” the final avatar asks, without his counterpart speaking in unison, he barely sounds like Legion. His voice sounds human.
I turn to Officer Paige, “Say goodbye to my Mum for me. Tell her that I’m sorry for the pain I’m about to cause, but I don’t have I choice. Tell her that I love her,” I say. I quickly glance at my two companions. I barely know them, but it’s nice to know that I won’t be alone. “Thank you both for being with me.”
The demon nurse takes my hand. “We’re here for you,” he says. I don’t know what he means, but I accept it.
I turn to Legion. “I’m sorry,” I say to it.
“Thank you,” Legion says. I can see a look of guilt in his avatar’s eyes. Children died because of his actions. For a moment, Legion looks at me and he sees a sixteen year old kid and he doesn’t want any more blood on his hands. Legion has had countless lives, countless sons, husbands, friends, and for a moment, he imagines me as one of them. But it’s too late, Legion has gone too far to stop now.
Legion raises his hand and gathers all of the pain within its collective soul, every hurt, every scream, every echo of agony in every corner of its soul is gathered up into the avatar’s hand and focused on me.
And then everything is released. A title wave of pain comes towards me and I scream out. But it doesn’t hurt. Parts of Legion are caught in the river of agony. There are so many lives. There are moments of happiness, moments of loss. I see images of small children, of funerals, of wars, and of celebrations. There are the memories of the boy I killed. I see his parents and his annoying little brother. I see me standing in front of him, forcing him out from this world. I feel his regret that he’ll never get to say goodbye.
Why can’t I feel the pain? I want to feel it. I want to hurt. I deserve to hurt for what I did. There are so many lives. I’m only seeing tiny fragments, but I know I ended so much life. I know there are children who grew up without a parent because of me. There are fathers who had to bury their sons because of what I’ve done. I should have to pay.
_________________________________________
I wake. It’s morning outside. I’m in my bed, but it seems so different. The alarm clock is beeping. It is one of those annoying beeps, like a truck backing up. I reach over to turn it off. As I do, I feel something cold and metal. There is a moment of shock followed by panic as I realize what the object is. It’s a gun.
More frightening than just the gun itself is the blood on my hand. I don’t know what happened. There are specs of blood all over my clothes. My first thought is to check for injury, but I don’t feel hurt.
Thoughts race through my head. I don’t know what to do.
Did Legion do this to me? Is he setting me up?
There’s a knock on my door. It’s a weak, quiet knock, followed by a little boy coming into my room.
Who is he?
I try to hide my body under the covers.
“Why did you go back into bed?” he asks. He’s so small. He’s not even eight years old.
“I’m tired,” I say.
“But it’s time for school,” he whines.
“I’m not feeling well.”
“But Mom told me to come get you. We need to go,” the little boy goes on persistently.
Mom?
“Tell her I’m not feeling well today, okay?”
“What’s that?” he asks, seeing the gun on the night table.
“It is a prop for class.”
The boy goes to touch it. I grab it quickly, hoping he doesn’t notice the dried blood on my hand.
“Get out of here twerp!” I yell.
Within a couple minutes, not long enough for me to discretely make it to the washroom down the hall, a middle aged woman comes into the room. She feels my head.
Who is she?
“It doesn’t feel like a fever,” she says. I hide myself under the sheets. “I have to go to work for a while today. Do you think you’ll be alright?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling relieved for a moment.
“Do you want tea or anything?”
“I’m okay,” I say.
The woman kisses me on the cheek and tells me that she’ll try to come home early to check on me.
She leaves with the boy, and the house is empty.
I get out of bed and look at myself in the mirror.
Who is that? He looks so familiar, but it’s not me, I think for moment, but the thought disappears as if it never existed.
I have to figure out what to do. I’m covered in blood. Should I call the cops? I want to, and I know I should, but I’m afraid. Somewhere, deep down inside, I know the truth. In my heart, I know that I’ve done something horrible.
It’s all my fault.
I take off my clothes and go into the shower. I start to scrub off the blood.
Washing off the blood was a lot easier than I expected.
I can see the caked on blood dissolve or chip off and go down the drain.
I start to think all the things one would imagine someone thinking in this situation. I think I’m being set up. I think someone must be messing with me and that this is a trick or a mistake. I think I might be going crazy.
I know the truth though and I think about the fact that somewhere, someone is hurt because of me. I’m terrified. I’m young, and I didn’t do anything. I don’t want to go to jail.
I keep worrying about whose blood it is.
Is it Maggie’s? Is she okay?
I leave the shower for a minute and vomit in the toilet before going back in to finish washing off.
I get out of the shower and put on clothes. I look at my clothes from the night before and the blood splattered on them. I have never done anything like this before, but I’ve seen enough movies to know what he needs to do. I go to the fireplace in the living room. Inside is one of those easy to light logs. I take a match and light the log on fire. Once it’s fully lit, I put my clothes in the fireplace so that the only evidence left is the gun.
I go back to my room. I put the gun in my backpack. I have a plan now. I leave my home and go to catch a bus.
On the bus, I look around at everyone, worried that somehow they can sense my secret.
Eventually, I reach the park. In the park is a large wooded area. It’s government protected or something. People tend not to hike too far into the woods, and there shouldn’t be any kids around during a school day. I walk into the woods for half an hour, until I’m sure no one is close enough to hear. I have to know if the gun is real. I take it out of his bag and walk towards a tree. I aim the gun. I can’t remember ever firing a gun before, but I’m afraid I have. I’m scared. Eventually, I gather the will to pull the trigger. It’s louder than I thought it would be. I’m knocked back by the force. I stand up and walk towards the tree. There’s a hole in it. I feel the hole, it’s warm. I put my fingers in it and shudder. I imagine a person with a similar hole in them.
I pick up the gun. There’s a stream nearby. I walk towards it. When I get there, I prepare to throw the gun in. I want it gone. But I can’t throw it away. I want to, but I can’t. I need it. I put it back in my backpack and leave to go home. I long to have just dropped it, but I don’t have a choice.
_________________________________________
The world has shifted. I’m in so much pain right now, and yet I can’t feel it. I feel as though my very being is being torn apart, but I’m numb to it. I’m being shredded into nothingness and I’m afraid.
Isn’t this what I wanted? But I’m not back at the school. I’m somewhere else. Is this hell?
I don’t know where I am. I’m so confused. I look up and I see a boy. I don’t know him. Why is he doing this to me?
But I do know him, and I know why he’s doing this to me. This isn’t happening, it’s just a memory. And it isn’t my memory. I know where I am. I’m in Maggie’s Aunt’s house. And I know the boy standing above me, a slave to the light. I am the boy and I’m about to murder an innocent.
He didn’t know what he was doing. He wasn’t in control. I know all of the horrible things Legion did hunting me, but the boy was just a kid. He was a person with an annoying little brother and two parents who loved him, and I killed them.
______________________________________
The river starts to slow down. I start to feel reality again.
I hear a scream, but it isn’t coming from me. I look in front of me and I see the demon nurse fall to the ground. He absorbed all of Legion’s pain to protect me.
I turn to Legion. “Why did you do that to me? Why did you show me that?”
I can feel the avatar’s life fading away. “So you can be better,” he says. He had so much pain running though his mind, it washed away much of his soul. “He stopped us,” he means the demon nurse protected me. “Without our pain, we had no weapon; all we could do was show you who you were. We can’t stop you from being that monster. But I could feel it, when the energy was flowing through you. You can be better. Please don’t be that person again. Don’t be the sword.”
As the last echoes of life leave the avatar’s body, Officer Paige raises her gun. She points the gun at Legion’s head and pulls the trigger.
I look beside me and see the nurse lying there. I bend down to check his pulse. He’s still alive.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
He half opens his eyes. He looks up at me. He has goofy grin on his face. “I’m good,” he says. He’s demon. What kills angels feeds them. All of Legion’s pain is within him now. It’s left him in a supercharged state of ecstasy.
“Thank you,” I say.
He just smiles back at me.
I look over at the dead body. There’s blood splattered around the room. Another person who died because of me.
Despite everything that’s happened, this is the first time I’ve ever seen so much blood.
I feel the queasiness in my stomach and I turn away. I can’t hold it in. I make it to the garbage can by the principles desk and I start to throw up.
None of this should have happened. It’s all my fault.