"Am I going to burn? Why are you so upset? After all, everything I said to you has a biblical basis, doesn't it?" Mordame took a deep breath, holding onto her strength. She was much more composed than that, but the fact that yet another old man wanted to lecture her and try to control her... She couldn't take it anymore. But she breathed and composed herself.

"Indeed. Everything you said is in the Bible. However, there's one thing I still don't understand..." The nun then began to sink into the ground, not in the sense of digging, but her body started to fall into the earth as if she were a specter, passing through the solid ground as if it were nothing. James prepared for any surprise attack from the nun. The general's staff shot out of the ground with all its force toward the man, stretching and advancing at great speed. James created a barrier the moment the attack came, but it was a trivial movement because the staff simply passed through the barrier and struck the man in the stomach, sending him flying backward.

Mordame laughed. She couldn't be found anywhere, but her laughter was unmistakable and present. The staff returned to the ground. The attack hurt, but it was nothing James hadn't felt before. His focus was on something else:

"What is it that you still don't understand?"

"Oh? I caught your interest? I don't understand why you felt the need to tell me all that? Indeed, the interior must be cleaned first, and, of course, the word is given by God and not by man. But none of that has anything to do with me, or are you implying something?"

"I think I made it quite clear what I mean. You're not a sincere Christian." The woman laughed even more. Again, the staff shot out of the ground. James jumped out of the way, but the weapon bent and followed him, stretching without any hindrance and pursuing him like a torpedo. James ran toward the cathedral, trying to avoid staying out in the open, but something grabbed his leg and made him tumble to the ground.

"My good sir, take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground." Mordame's hand was out of the ground, and she began to rise, emerging from the earth as if it were nothing. The staff was still in her hand, even though it was stretched out because it was still following James. The weapon passed through Mordame's stomach and continued with all its force toward the man's face. The weapon struck him right in the eye, and Mordame laughed. The weapon compressed back to its normal state, and Mordame didn't have a single wound on her, as if the staff had passed through nothing. "Do you really think I'm going to let a hypocrite like you enter there? First, purify yourself, for the impure cannot seek Him."

James covered his eye, which was tearing up and swelling from the blow. He murmured from the immense pain but did not ignore what he heard. He didn't care if the woman was hurt or not; he expected supernatural things here, but he couldn't let her say whatever she wanted:

"Stop distorting what's written. When He tells Moses to take off his sandals, it was a reference to respect. God welcomes all who come sincerely seeking help, but that doesn't mean He allows them to speak of His things any way they want. 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened.' A person doesn't need to be pure to seek God, precisely because no one is pure. The one who thinks they are pure and holy, that is the one who will serve others. That's what Jesus said to James and John when they came asking to sit beside Him in heaven. Does that remind you of anyone?"

Mordame attacked again. James tried to cast one of his barriers against her, but it was futile. The attack simply passed through her, once again going through her as if she were nothing more than a hologram. The staff coiled around James like a whip, and Mordame flung him against one of the surrounding buildings.

"You never tire of trying to seem better than me, do you? You talk as if you're perfect, as if you're better than me, and I know you enjoy trying to make me feel bad about myself. You're a hypocrite."

"... argh...." James coughed heavily, his back and stomach ached, and the impact against the wall seemed to have broken something inside him. But now it was his turn to laugh. "... I admit I do enjoy provoking you... and this need to prove you wrong... I recognize that this isn't a good thing..." He coughed a bit more, getting up from the debris. "... but I don't think I'm better than you... I'm correcting you... in what I believe to be wrong. But thinking you're right isn't the same as thinking you're better. Besides, aren't you, since the beginning, trying to act like your perfect? What makes you think that you are saint?"

"It's what everyone has always told me. How intelligent I am, how virtuous, how good. I am a saint and innocent. They've even told me that being with me is like being next to Jesus. Shouldn't I take pride in all these compliments? If so many people say this to me, how can I deny it?"

"Demons always recognized Jesus as the Son of God and His disciples as servants of God, but they always told them to be quiet because they didn't need flattery. If you need others to tell you that you are holy to feel holy, then you are not. Tell me, besides other people's opinions, what basis do you have to claim that you are holy?"

James raised his hands, created a barrier, and compressed it into a sphere. He shot it with all his force like a bullet; the object passed through Mordame and headed straight for the cathedral. The woman used her staff to hit the object and change its direction, preventing it from hitting its target.

"Can't you see with your own eyes? The proof of my holiness? You've been ignoring it all this time, but you are seeing for yourself that nothing affects me. I am so holy that everything could crumble around me, but I will remain here; a thousand may fall on one side and ten thousand on the other, but I will not be touched. I died and came back to life just as He said He would. If I, standing in front of you, am not a miracle, then what am I? Want the Bible? If your eyes are full of light, your whole body will be full of light, but if they are full of darkness, your whole body will be darkness. If you see me as evil, then I will be only evil in your eyes, no matter what I do."

"What you did is something divine? All I hear are excuses from a woman who desperately wants to find meaning in who she is. When I look at you, I don't see an evil woman, I see no one. The fact that you don't suffer is not proof that you are alive, but that you are dead. The path to life is narrow and difficult."

"Oh, so you're saying that the more a person suffers, the more alive they are?"

"No. I'm not saying that suffering is the main point of living; I'm saying that suffering is part of living. And you are just a big liar, you don't believe in God, you don't believe that you are holy, you don't believe in anything you say. Do you know why Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life? What I understand from that is that to be on the way, one must be alive in sincerity, and you have none of these things. You are like a parrot, just repeating everything you've heard without any real understanding of what you are saying. You want so much to be someone that you are constantly lying to yourself."

That was the last straw for Mordame; the woman was a sea of despair, desperately seeking to be someone, to feel happy with her own accomplishments, but those accomplishments were taken from her. They didn't let her choose the life she wanted; they forced her onto a path, which made her hate that path. Because this bird never managed to free itself from the oil; it merely resigned itself to living in it. The fault wasn't hers, the fault wasn't in the path they forced her onto, nor in the path she didn't take; the fault was in laziness. It is easier to force someone to follow a path than to talk, teach, and let them choose for themselves. The fault is ignorance. They speak of what they don't know and want to teach what they haven't studied. And who suffers? The poor generation that is confused. All the paths that end up covered by the fog of ignorance, making them unable to distinguish left from right, obligation from choice.

"ENOUGH! Even you don't really believe that. Why can you pretend to believe but I can't?"

"Pretend? No. I have faith that it is real."

"Please, I've heard that. I've seen that. Over and over and over again. How many have I seen leaving and giving up? How many have I seen leaving, coming back, and leaving again? How many have I seen not being there because they want to? People only worship God when it's convenient for them; if times are bad, they desperately cry out to Him for a way out. If times are good, they just settle into a routine and gradually lose enthusiasm for doing His work. Faith? How can you talk about faith if, deep down, you doubt? I've heard this story: 'I believe my child will be healed.' 'I believe everything will be fine.' but deep down you are stuck in 'but what if it doesn't happen?' If the child lives, you praise Him saying 'See? I knew my God is faithful.' But if them dies, 'It was His will...' Well, if that's the case, where is all that faith? What good is it to have faith that God will do something if at the end of the day there is a chance He won't? To me, you are just trying to console yourself and make sense of what you can't control, trying to give meaning to probability. Answer me, man, you who seem to know so much: if your faith moves the hand of God, how can He not do what you ask? Why for some does He do it and for others He doesn't?"

James thought calmly about what she said; it had always been the question, hadn't it? For every being that has encountered religion, is it real or an illusion? What proof is there that it is real? For every supernatural event, there will be a scientific and natural theory about it. Be it hallucinations, low probabilities, so many theories. How can one believe in something when there is an equally probable idea? Meditating on this, James remembered something.

It was thirty years ago; he lived with his parents and his ten-year-younger brother. Even though he was the youngest, his brother had always been stronger and more imposing than James, being the only one who could put him in his place.

James had a group of friends that many would consider questionable, as they involved him with all sorts of addictions, but for him, it wasn't like that. People like to judge and don't realize that no human does anything without a reason. If a person does something, it's because they have a reason, and not knowing or agreeing with the reason is not a motive to disdain. For him, it didn't matter—alcoholic? drug addict? vandal? What was the problem with being that way? Of course, there are problems, but what life doesn't have? He had fun; his friends weren't saints, but there are no saints, and he still loved them. Regardless of what others said, it was the life he chose, fully aware of its dangers, consequences, pros, and cons.

His brother was a thousand times more explosive than he was, but still managed to be seen as more "correct" than he was. But he never cared about what others said; he just kept living his life until he got involved in a bar fight, in which he accidentally killed a man.

That marked him deeply; it wasn't the first time he fought, no one had ever left with anything more than a black eye... he was sentenced and imprisoned. When he got out of jail, the guilt still plagued him. His friends? Some he never heard from again, others stayed, some changed their lives, others remained the same; as human nature goes, there is no recipe for it.

But James hadn't given up on that life; he had chosen it, knew he could have bad moments, didn't imagine something so big, but knew how dangerous life was.

His brother reprimanded him for the life he led, telling him to open his eyes, how his irresponsibility had destroyed a family and was hurting their own family. Every day his brother tried to talk, and James would deny it, making his brother furious. The man saw his family's love for him, but he chose that life and liked how it was, despite its flaws.

One particular night, James found himself drunk, wandering the streets in the early morning. On his way, he encountered a pastor coming from a vigil. The man was waiting for the bus at the stop. Until that day, James' view of religion was different; his entire family was atheist, and the only contact he had was what he saw and a few evangelists who came to preach to him at the bar and on the street. Always with the same talk, and feeling judged, he confronted the man.

He expected everything: he expected the guy to come at him, he expected him to turn his face and ignore him, he even expected him to start preaching the classic "God loves you," "Get out of this life while you still can," "God is the only option." But what came was different:

"God is not the only option; the Bible itself says you have the full right to choose whether to follow Him or not. The wages of sin is death, Jesus died on the cross in place of all humanity, and salvation comes through faith in Him—that is the main preaching: to have faith in Christ. The rest? You learn by reading and talking to Him. If you are happy with the life you have, I'm not going to tell you to abandon your ways. But I will give you an idea: give His Word a chance. In the end, you will be able to choose for yourself whether you decide to believe or not, whether it is good or not."

The man laughed, thinking how silly the idea of "choosing to believe" was. Either you believed or you didn't; you couldn't control what you believed. That man was fooling himself by saying he believed. That pastor came to be one of his friends. After years, James converted; he was the only one in his family who chose to move from a life of his choosing to a life of his choosing.

Indeed, what Mordame says is true; human faith is often weak. We dwell on "what if?" "will it be?" but reality is much beyond that. James then responded to the general:

"Again, you misunderstood. That's not how faith works. The leper said to Jesus, 'If you are willing, I will be healed.' Faith is not the conviction that God will act, but the conviction that if He desires, it will happen. It is the conviction that God always chooses what is best, regardless of whether we understand it or not. Yes, faith moves God's hand, but the main point of faith is not to move God's hand; it is to trust. Serving God is not for interest or security but for trust. You are right, we often doubt, but we choose to have faith."

"But that doesn't make any sense. How do you choose to have a feeling or not? It's the same as you telling me you choose to be happy or sad."

"Trusting is not the act of not doubting; trusting is the act of continuing to believe even while doubting. That is the essence of faith. I don't need complex arguments, advanced studies, or to defend every point to believe. I don't trust in cars or horses, but in my Lord. All gods might transcend before me, but I will still believe that there is only one God in heaven. Everything could scientifically prove to me that it doesn't make sense, and I would continue to believe in my God."

"CAN'T YOU SEE HOW RIDICULOUS THIS IS? You're literally saying you will deny everything that says you are wrong. This is arrogance, stubbornness, delusion. You don't give any chance to others' views, and only shut yourself off in your own closed mind. Look at how ignorant you are."

"Ridiculous? Arrogance? Stubbornness? Delusion? Ignorance? No. I call it faith. Even doubting, I believe. Even not understanding, I believe. That's what I choose for my life. I see that this argument is going nowhere; it's time to put an end to it."

"Hahaha, an end? Haven't you learned yet, old fool? No matter how much you attack me, you will never be able to hit me."

"I don't think so. You know, there's something I've found strange for a while. Why, being obviously a skeptic, are you protecting the cathedral so fervently?" — At this observation, Mordame's expression changed to one of fear. — "The only thing I can think of is that it will be disadvantageous to you if I destroy that pla..."

Without giving him more time to speak, Mordame attacked again with her staff. The weapon stretched and came with all its force like a wooden whip. James dodged by throwing himself to the side. Mordame's weapon was flexible and resilient, as if made of a rubbery concrete. It was hard and twisted abruptly while moving like a serpent. It followed James as if it had a life of its own. He ran and ran, and the nun then sank into the ground, emerging in front of him in seconds.

James couldn't slow down in time and was about to collide with her, but he ended up passing through her, and while still passing through her body, she grabbed him by the arm, slowing his run and causing him to be hit again by the staff. Seconds after hitting the man, the staff coiled around his body and began to squeeze him while Mordame stepped back.

"Do you think I'm just going to stand still while you do as you please?"

"Actually... I was counting on you getting distracted for a bit." — With a loud crash, part of the cathedral collapsed. Mordame looked on confused. — "Did you think the point of creating my barriers was just around me? No, I usually do that just to confuse; they have a size limit, but I can materialize them at any distance as long as I can see the emergence site. I just needed to distract you a little so as not to hinder me."

The general didn't hear a word he said; she was too focused on the demolition of the building. With the walls falling, the interior of the place was revealed. Inside, something floated in mid-air, glowing like a beacon, and its sound was a very recognizable beat. The beating of the object became faster, as if its owner were in desperation.

"I see. Let me guess, that heart is the manifestation of your power? As long as it is free, you will be untouchable. As long as your heart is loose, you will be free from reality."

Saying these words, a barrier began to form over the organ, ready to come down with force and crush it. But before it could be hit, in a blur, the object returned to Mordame, dodging the attack. Testing his theory, now that the heart had returned to her, James created another barrier and used it to break the staff that had bound him. Gritting her teeth, Mordame jumped back, gaining distance between them. James compressed the barrier into a sphere and launched it with all his force against her, hitting her in the stomach and knocking her to the ground.

"Look, I've injured a saint. I guess that means I've transcended. Or did you fall from grace?"

"Stop mocking me..." The woman murmured as she got up, but this time, she had tears in her eyes. "I'm tired of people like you looking down on me. I tried to understand this god you all talk about so much, but I felt nothing. Do you know how much of a failure I felt because of that? No matter how hard I tried, heaven didn't open up for me, and I felt so humiliated, and constantly pressured by other brothers to feel something. I didn't know what I was doing wrong, but I tried. Then I got tired of living in the mud and wanted to start living for myself. Is that so abominable? Yes, I want to escape the reality where I threw my life away for nothing, but people like you keep bringing me back to it. I've said it before, if I can't know Him, then I will take what is His."

With that said, the stars on Mordame's habit began to detach from her dress and flew through the air like sparkling shooting stars. The woman also floated and began to face James, her face still wet with tears emanating a pride that James knew was artificial.

"See what a star is up close! See? Your god isn't the only one who commands, and the stars obey. Ahahaha," The woman said, launching them with all her might against the man.

"The devil can also perform miracles, woman." James created the largest barrier he could. In the middle of the path, the stars fused into a huge ball of fire, resembling the sun. The collision was intense, imagine a ball of magma colliding with a wall made of the hardest material in the world; both were straining to destroy each other. Mordame won; she managed to create a sun more powerful than James's barrier. "You may have godly powers, but you're not as holy as they are." The man enclosed the barrier in a dome with the nun. The heat was so intense that before the barrier could be destroyed, the fire turned even the woman's bones into charcoal, and a red light explosion occurred, destroying the sun and returning the world its most important virtue: Life.

The red light of life passed through James, healing his eyes and renewing his health. It did the same for all humans, across all time and space, healing every wounded and injured person. Lalá merely observed with a disdainful expression as the red sphere formed on one of the tables.

Revitalized, James was ready to continue walking but hesitated for a moment. There was a long speech to Mordame, but as he stopped to think, he realized that he needed to find someone like her to begin speaking about the things of God. He couldn't think of why he should continue talking about God in a world where He didn't seem to exist. To strengthen his faith, he had to continue living it, so before resuming his walk, he prayed. Something he hadn't done in years.

Stuart

Under the full moonlight, the widower walked through the cemetery, trying to escape that depressive ground. But the more he walked, the more gravestones he saw, like an eternal loop in a horror movie. The trees were cryptic and creaked at the slightest touch of the wind, which also howled through the cracks of the shadows as if trying to provoke the man. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Stuart noticed a brief movement among some gravestones, a quick, unremarkable blur—it seemed... a boy.

"HEY!" Stuart shouted, not as forceful or concerned as he should have been. His attention was heightened, but he remained indifferent. "I've seen you there, come out."

.........

......

...

Silence. Nothing replied. Only the wind howled, the trees creaked, and the man sighed before yelling:

"If you're not coming out, I'll come there until..." His threat was interrupted by himself upon seeing a young boy cautiously emerge from behind the gravestones. The boy had sweaty hands, his face was painted with the purest colors of fear, and the only lively part of his attire was his long yellow and red scarf. "A boy?"

"P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Please d-d-d-don't h-h-hurt me. I d-d-d-don't w-w-want to f-f-fight." All Stuart could think about that scene was that the boy was just a frightened child.

"Are you... one of those generals?" The boy didn't answer, just continued to stare at him, snapping his sweaty fingers while daring not to lift his face to look him in the eyes. "You don't look like someone dangerous who helped destroy the universe... well, not that I imagined anything in particular. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're n-n-not?"

"I didn't care before, and now that I know the kind of enemy you are, I really won't kill you. You're just a kid. What's your name?" he asked as he sat on the ground, leaning against one of the gravestones for support. The general, hesitantly, also sat where he was, away from Stuart.

"N-N-Nightmare."

"That's a pretty strange name. Is it your real name?"

"I-I-I don't remember what my original name was, I just remember Nightmare. C-C-Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. I asked you one."

-"How are you... well... okay? Shouldn't humans be destroyed?"

"You picked the worst person to ask that, man. I have no idea what's happening. I'm probably the most ignorant in my group."

"Ah... I see."

"And you? You also seem to be human."

"I-I-I don't know either. I just remember..." Flashes. People, so many people in his home. They were hurting him. Why didn't he run, Nightmare? How useless are you, not even capable of escaping? Your mind closes off to so many things.

With so much on his mind, the boy simply started crying. The tears fell forcefully, his breathing faltered, and his heart raced. It was an intense adrenaline rush from just a few memories.

"Hey kid, are you okay?" The man threatened to approach the boy, but Nightmare simply yelled for him to stay away. Feeling unwell, sinking into nausea, dizziness, and exhaustion, the boy began to hit his own head, trying to make his brain stop working. He wanted to stop thinking, to stop remembering, to stop imagining.

And amid his chaos, something fell from his pocket onto the ground. A drawing, a simple piece of paper and graphite, which brought him another memory, strong enough to drive out the frightening ones. The memory of a friend.

"Fernanda..." the boy whispered as he picked the paper up from the ground. He remembered what she had said about living. That he needed to stop running away... his fears were tormenting his mind, he could no longer run, he had to confront those traumas, he had to calm down. Because the paper also reminded him of something else.

He now had a friend, and with her came a responsibility. She had been frightened, the optimistic Fernanda had become momentarily catatonic when she heard that humans were there to kill them. His friend was scared, he wanted to protect her. To have courage, at least once in his life, to fight. If he couldn't do it for himself, then he should find the courage for someone else.

"Sorry, man..." The young man's murmur was not clearly heard by Stuart, who remained confused. The boy stood up, pulled out a thick book from his clothes, and a crooked piece of wood, resembling a wand, from a pocket. He opened the book and, using the wand like a pen, made a movement as if writing something in it. "... but, as the writer, I can't ignore the possibility of you going after her."

The man fell into the crystal-clear lake beneath his feet. A crust of ice formed on the surface, preventing him from swimming out. It was dense and thick ice that even the strongest pickaxe couldn't crack. A lake with thousands of meters of depth, where darkness slowly swallowed him.

Stuart sank deeper and deeper, confused. After all, where did this lake come from? He was in a cemetery, he didn't understand anything again, he was dragged into something that didn't interest him and suffered for something he didn't want to know. Why couldn't the world just leave him alone?

"Enough of playing the victim." Inside the lake, a voice echoed, and Stuart saw that, along with him, there was someone else there.