ANTON'S POV

Memories were fleeting, soft, and useless. They were a representation of a past that could not be fixed. There was a representation of his damned household.

Anton remembered the faces and voices of everyone he had ever cleansed. Their shrieks, their terrors, the beautiful color seeping out from their bodies, the way they tumbled into ashes, and nothing more. See, this was nature. They would return to the soil where they had grown from.

Memories were unpleasant.

Anton remembered so much, yet so little about his childhood. He remembered his religious fanaticism of his mother—the way she parroted off bible verses to him, always attempting to kill him by digging her nails into his throat, watching the beads of crimson ebb out...

Usually, the priest did not remember such trivial things. Yet today it all came rushing towards him.

.

.

His mother.

.

.

What kind of person was she?

What kind of person was he?

Anton felt like he knew. That the memories that had been buried into the web of his consciousness had started to drift away, floating through the tiny little cracks.

So many instances of madness.

PAST

The first instant was the killing. His first cleansing was when he sacrificed the lambs.

"Anton, what are you—"

His mother's name was Mary. A rather fitting name, considering she gave birth to a God. That was what Anton has thought since he was young. This was his destiny, his fate. It all lay in the stars, mapped out for him to see. He annotated every inch of it to his brain and committed it to his memory.

"—Anton!" Mary shrieked, her voice shrill and garbled as she dropped the pit she was holding, "what the—!"

They kept pets. Both of them. Could they even be considered pets?—both were lambs, given by a trader who had been taken care of when he had fallen ill. They were all without blemish, and both males of the first year.

Both were dead.

Both were split open, their insides bloodied and gone. Their flesh lay outside, roasting and causing a beautiful, damned smell to leak out of the place. It smelt of death, but to Anton, it smelt of sacrifice.

"Verse three."

"What?" Mary gasped out, seeing the calm look on her son's face—only aged eleven.

"Verse three states that on the tenth day, each person was to take a lamb for himself. In verse five they stated that the lamb must be completely clean, and a male of the first year. Verses six, seven, and eight show that the innocent lamb must be bled to death, and the bones were not to be broken—it had to be roasted whole. I am only abiding by the scripture, Mother." Anton said listlessly, his beautiful, porcelain face matted with blood, his hands dirty and crimson.

"You are...refuting the...the..." Mary screamed, tumbling back at the grotesque sight, "oh lord, oh lord, oh—!" She clutched onto the cross around her necklace, her heart racing.

What kind of person had she given birth to?

What kind of monster?

"It means the same to God. Their ghastly death and terrible scourging are the same. It redeems us, buys us back. They bled to death, their blood spilled onto the earth, and the lambs expired innocent and pure. This is not a sin. I have never sinned, just like the lamb without blemish and without spot." Anton continued on, a smile on his face.

Mary had never seen her son smile so genuinely before. Not when he scored the highest in a prestigious competition, not when his intelligence was so clearly a cut above the rest.

This time, the smile etched on his face was disconcerting.

"Once we accept God as our savior, because he was sinless, his blood covers our sins. He redeems us from evil.  I have just redeemed you from the death angel. When we eat the lamb, we receive energy, and our life is sustained. I am the perfect and ultimate sacrifice for sin."

Hebrews 10 (ESV) stated clearly. It was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. The coming of the one would be brought forward like a lamb to the slaughter, also stated in Jeremiah 11:19. The wages of sin was death, and that very death separated Gods from humans—separated people from Anton.

Was this not what his mother read to him every night? Was he not making use of her teachings?

"Fucking monster!"

Anton recoiled like he had been stung, blinking at his mother.

Wouldn't she be proud? She had always been so high and mighty, always so irritating. And now that Anton had shown her teachings in real life, why was she so disgusted?

Anton walked closer to her, tilting his head.

"What's the matter?"

"Get—get away from me—!"

The expression she had sent a million spiders crawling up Anton's spine. It wasn't because he was scared, no. It was because it was like he was seeing his mother in a new light. Up to now, she had been tolerable. Barely. But now, every inch of his body was craving to dismantle her, craving to kill her. She was ugly. So, so ugly, from her frazzled hair, from the way her thin lips pursed in horror and the way her posture hunched in fear...it was embarrassing for a God like him to have such a poor mother.

This was what she wanted. So why was she...

Anton sighed, dropping the flesh of the lambs beneath him. He stared at his hands, all red and dirty.

"You said we were running out of food. So why not cook them, Mother?"

Mary gave a hysterical laugh.

People had always said her son looked so angelic, so beautiful. That she got lucky.

That he resembled her dead husband, who had died four days after Anton was born.

No, Mary thought, no. He killed my husband. He killed my husband...

Mary had never hated anyone as much as her own son, until now.

—

Anton did not know why his mother had made such a big fuss over that little incident. She locked him in the house, burnt some offerings, and started to light up candles until there was a strong, incense wax smell.

Books, blank canvases—she dumped him with a whole lot of things to do, in hopes that she would somehow turn him normal.

Anton obliged; not because he wanted to please her, but because he had simply gotten bored out of his mind. Contrary to his expectations, no lamb had been served for dinner. Only thin, unsavory broth. He was half convinced his mother had made it horrible on purpose for the sake of torturing him.

So he painted. It was easy to paint, really. The strokes of the brush were fluid, and the picture he sought for soon came to life slowly—he knew his mother wanted to understand his mind. Anton knew his mother did this as a backhanded way to see what was in him; to understand the actions she deemed as gruesome and horrific.

And so Anton would give her a show.

The lambs.

He painted the lambs, and dipped the brush in repeatedly—

There was no paint left. No red paint, to be specific. Anton did not like incomplete drawings.

Anton pressed his fingers to the edge of the paper—then, in a quick, swift motion, he brought his finger down, making a pool of blood drip out. A paper cut was painful. But it wasn't enough. He pulled the cut down, until the red was bountiful, plenty, and enough.

There. He had red paint.

He brought the painting to his mother, smiling innocently.

His mother never quite looked him in the eye again.

—

Third time's the charm, people said. Anton didn't know if he quite believed that. Mary couldn't even bear to look at him anymore; his precious painting lay in the trash and her prayers had gone more frantic, more crazed. She was terrified of him; hated him with all her whole heart. Offerings filled the whole house haphazard and cluttered, the smell of the candles was becoming more and more intense by the day.

Anton watched it with amusement. His creator was going crazy, he could see. Each day she was becoming more and more shunned by the people around here: they felt pity for him.

.

.

"You know that bright kid? His mother is a lunatic. Imagine locking your son up!"

"He deserves to go to another family. Somewhere better. She's going to murder him one day."

.

.

If these murmurs bothered Mary, she did not show it. Or perhaps she had long become deaf to it—deaf to the whole world. She was so wrapped up in whatever thing she was doing that there were many times where Anton starved, and he grew more and more hateful of her. If there was no food to eat, he would simply kill more.

She was crazy, but harmless. Anton simply had to wait a few more years until he could remove and detach himself from such humiliation. Why would God have to humble himself for this? Why was he born to such a horrid family, who failed to even see him?

Harmless, but mad.

"The devil is residing with us..." Mary muttered, her eyes closed and hands in a prayer, "the devil is...residing...with...us. With me."

Anton paid no heed to her, and stepped over the candles laid on the floor.

"The devil is..."

Anton felt it before he saw it.

Hands grabbing his neck, fingernails digging into his flesh. It was a burning, scorching kind of pain. With dull realization, Anton realized his mother was strangling him. Trying to kill him, trying to...

He gasped for air, before he pushed her away,

Silent anger coursed through him, and he tilted his head, seeing his mother pant, her hair messy and her expression crazed.

Hindrance, she was such a hindrance...

Anton simply walked away, paying no heed to her.

The fourth time, Anton thought, would work.

He couldn't quite remember what he did—was it the fact that Anton had killed the other two pets that she had brought it, doves this time, that had driven her to another bout of madness?

Anton had walked home, greeted by the site of an exorcism. A fucking exorcism. It looked like satanic witchcraft, if anything, with all the candles laid in an extremely specific order, a symbol made of blood on the floor, jewelry strewn on the floor, and the familiar smell of burnt gifts.

He couldn't help but chuckle loosely at the sight—oh, mother. You never learn, do you?

"This isn't from the bible." Anton smiled at his mother, "is this another stage of madness?"

He did not expect her to reply.

She did not.

Instead, she continued a series of chants. That irritated Anton; and all over again, the familiar rise of hate bloomed in him, and his beautiful, cerulean eyes darkened with unadulterated fury. His jaw was taut—yes, it was amusing, yes, his mother was going crazy, but oh, how embarrassing. This was no heaven for him, no throne for him to sit. Everything should have been handed to him on a silver platter—not this.

He stared at the flickering candles.

Verses six, seven, and eight show that the innocent lamb must be bled to death, and the bones were not to be broken—it had to be roasted whole.

A smile curled on his lips—penance. Anton would show his mother what true release of sin meant.

—

"Oh, Anton!" His neighbor, Anita, called out to him. "The meat you gave us was so delicious! What meat was it made out of?"

"Lamb." The lie slipped off his lips easily.

"You're really good at cooking," She praised, her cheeks rosy. "The meat was tender, fleshy, and delicious... You roasted it, did you? Must have been hard work, seeing how you burnt down half your house with it. You can come stay with us until it is repaired. Your mother is..."

Ignorance was really a man's best friend.

"Away," Anton supplied. Anita was rich and extremely wealthy. She would be able to act as the mother he deserved. The richness he should have had.

"Oh, poor thing. You're all alone, aren't you? Come. Did you eat any of the meat yourself? You seem like you have grown thin." She beckoned to him, and Anton followed, shaking his head.

"Ah, no. I didn't. I saved it for you guys."

"Aren't you a sweet child? Now, if only my own child was..."

Own child? Anton frowned.

He would have to...

He sighed.

A few weeks later, Anita's only child perished in a fire.

PRESENT

Anton rubbed his forehead, his head throbbing. He hated memories of the past. They were nothing but shackles, burdens.

And...

He glanced at the letters strewn on the table.

War.

War between the Imperial Army and the Church was about to happen.

please comment down your thoughts, it would really motivate me :)