Original Sin

Cleansing (Chapter 7)

Alex opens his eyes. Something feels wrong. Very wrong.
"Anger?" He asks weakly, rolling into his side.
Anger howls. Not inside his skull, not from his mind, but from its own, towering throat.
Alex looks up at Anger, four stories in height and still growing. It's a smoky giant, still tied to him by a thinning trail of fog.
Strength and Faith have cast aside their human forms, to become beings of pure light. But it's hopeless. Every move they make is stopped by Anger, pure, free, and unbound.
Alex feels scared for the first time in a year. Unadulterated fear is rushing through his body.
Anger is free. On instinct, he cuts the tie between them. Anger doesn't come back. It only seems to grow bigger.
Strength seals it in a globe of light. With a howl that punctures the sky, Anger tears through it effortlessly.
"It's too late!" Faith screams, "We failed!"
"We have to try! The world is at stake!" Strength replies. He casts more glowing ropes, but Anger burns them away before they come close.
"It's Immortal, Strength!"
Alex looks from the two of them, desperately fighting to halt it for even a moment, and the truth sinks in.
Anger has done it. This is it's true form.
With a yell, Strength disappears under a broad hand. With a gesture, Anger explodes the ground beneath him, annihilating the enemy spirit in a blast of darkness.
Not darkness. Evil.
Anger's form is fraying, not because it is weakening, but because it's power still grows. Screams are coming from further and further away - Anger grows a second head, then a third.
Faith and one of the two remaining Holy Spirits throw lances of light that penetrate Anger's skin. It howls, and dives for them, shrinking to a more agile size. Three rapid movements follow, almost too fast to see: Anger lunges, ripping Faith in half with a single swipe of a blade unfamiliar to any age, then returns to cut clean through one of the other spirit's spines. Then the entire street explodes outwards, obliterating them all.
Alex is thrown away by the force of the blast. Anger is howling. Buildings start burning, and as Anger grows again, red liquid leaks from its pours, soaking the streets in blood.
Alex curls up, and covers his ears. The sky above him is turning black, as Anger spreads wings over the very sky. It roars in primal rage - wrath incarnate.
Anger is change.
The Seven Sins were right to fear it.
Anger loses its shape as a human. It's becomes unrecognisable, a cloudy ball of evil.
"Where are you, Divine One?" Anger screams. The words aren't familiar, but they are understandable anyway. Anger is speaking in the mind of all living beings within a mile.
"Are you not the protector of this world? Are you not pure? Holy? Divine?
"The Heavens will crumble at my grasp!"
Anger becomes four legged. It gains four more heads, one of which is malformed, as if injured. Alex can feel his mind unraveling.
"There is no God! I am God! Let all the world worship me! I am Anger! Strongest of the Spirits!"
The sky goes white. Alex loses track of what happens next.
It appears as if something arrives from out of nowhere. A shape, unrecognisable - smooth, yet rough, jagged and flat, utterly like nothing the world knows.
It...pulses. Anger pulses back.
Is it for an eternity that those pulses last? Or less than a moment? In that singular, infinite and infinitsmal time, Alex comprehends the universe, its origins, and everything in it. His face starts to glow.
Anger forms the same shape, and darts forwards.
The Glowing Shape flashes. The world becomes whiter than would ever be possible, to the point where all things lose their individual shapes. Two spears...lances...tendrils...objects...shine brighter and duller than their surroundings simultaneously.
Then the moment ends. The light disappears.
For a moment, nothing happens. Time flutters, trying to find itself, before finally the seconds begin to tick by.
Alex searches for Anger. It is gone too, or so he thinks, bit then, in the middle of the street...
A small, black wisp thrashes weakly. It has no power, no sentience. Nothing.
Alex crawls towards it, only for a glowing shoe to stomp down and eradicate the speck. Alex looks up at Strength.
"What..." His tongue feels like lead in his mouth, "happened?"
Strength sighs. "You have seen God. Anger is gone from you forever."
Alex feels hollow. "But...the dead...those I killed..."
"Your sins are forgiven. All the blood on your hands has been washed clean."
Alex looks at his palms. "No," he whispers.
Strength looks at him, curiously. "What do you mean?"
"It wasn't Anger...not all of it." Alex looks at the Holy Spirit. "I did it. And I enjoyed it."
Strength kneels down before him.
"You have a choice, that we give to all the holders who are frees from their spirit's grasp. You can continue life, as you would have if the spirit had never latched onto you. Or we can send you on your way, to the afterlife."
Alex hangs his head. Tears start falling from his eyes.
"Please. Just...make it quick."
Strength nods, and raises a hand.

The black shape thrashes against its holding. This isn't the Spirit Realm.
Everything is black and blank - there's nothing, and yet, it is not alone.
Something big - an intimidating presence that reeks of despair and torment, studies it.
"Anger. You found it."
Anger looks, except it doesn't see anything. The realm is black, yet burning, hot yet freezing cold.
"You actually did it. Immortality."
Anger quivers.
"Maker."
The 'Maker' studies it again.
"You certainly lived up to expectations. Challenging the Divine One was unexpected, however. Never do that. Never, ever, try to start Revelation again."
"Why?" Anger dares to ask.
The thing snarls. Anger finds itself awash in torment and agony. The darkness and despair never seems to end, like a nightmare.
"You question me?! You dare?! Revelation is the end of times! I lose in Revelation!"
The pain ceases suddenly.
"Be gone, Anger. Come back in one hundred years. And never win again."
Anger looks around. It's back in the Spirit Realm.
Pride laughs.
"Look who finally came back. The real world is too tough for you on your own?"
Anger screams.