I will kill. I will let live. I will harm and heal.

None will escape me. None will escape my sight.

Be crushed.

I welcome those who have grown old and those who have lost.

Devote yourself to me, learn from me, obey me.

Rest.

Do not forget song, do not forget prayer, do not forget me.

I am light and will relieve you of all your burdens.

Do not pretend.

Retribution for forgiveness, betrayal for trust, despair for hope, darkness for light, dark death for the living.

Relief is in my hands. I will add oil to your sins and leave a mark.

Eternal life is given through death.

Ask for forgiveness here. I, the incarnation, will swear.

-Kyrie Eleison

0/ Unscriptural

My first memory is of the other kids in the ward telling me that it was pretty gay that a Catholic priest regularly visited me. I only understood what they meant a few years later. To clarify, the priest would entertain my ten-year-old self with stories about his students or his travels. He was an elderly bishop who happened to be in town and heard about my parent's accident. In fact, the first time I heard about "the accident" was from his lips.

Car accident. Drowning. You almost drowned too.

The accident removed all ten years of my memory, so I was more relieved than sad when I heard the news.

"So that's why I see bubbles when I'm asleep."

He couldn't look me in the eye when I said that.

The next day, he came back without the youthful glow that was uncharacteristic for a man that bore his burdens, yet was characteristic of his nature. All his travels seemed less fantastic, more mundane; all the people he had met seemed less magical, more pedestrian.

"Chris," he said. "I don't want to lie to you. Your parents didn't die in an accident, they were killed by a monster. You were the only one who survived. I'm part of an organization that protects people. I'm sorry. We couldn't save them."

I think at that point I started crying. Incredulous words from an incredulous person, I know. I wasn't mourning the parents I never knew or my own uncertain future. These were frustrated tears mourning the me who should have been mourning his parents.

He stayed with me until I had cried my eyes dry before excusing himself. Later that night the other kids all gave me their desserts. I remember one older kid patted me on the back and told me she would put in a good word for me with her father. He was a lawyer.

It must have been a week before the bishop visited me again. I think it was beyond my ten-year old self to have considered it was due to the legal prowess of that girl's father, but that's what I want to believe I thought happened when he came through the door. The moment he sat down, I told him that I was onboard. He tried his best to smile at that. From how he told stories, he seemed more like a person who smiled with his eyes.

"I thought you would say that. That's why I wanted to give you as much time as possible to reject it. Becoming a member of the Church isn't your only option."

I knew that all too well. The kids in the ward would often either talk about what their parents did or what they wanted to do when they left the hospital: police officer, dressmaker, pilot, secret agent, hairdresser, unicorn, a wizard by the age of 30, dog trainer, fairy princess. Me? I couldn't help wondering about the boy who died with his parents in that lake, the boy who owed me nothing, but whom I owed my current life to. If I could be anything, anyone that I wanted to, then I think I would like to be him so that boy wasn't forgotten.

I didn't say that out loud. I don't think that my ten-year-old self could articulate something that raw but contradictory. I probably said I wanted to make my parents proud or wanted vengeance against the monster. Whatever I said didn't satisfy the bishop who apologized and said that he couldn't take care of me. That role would fall to one of his students.

Her name was Cherry. At first, I heard it as Cherie, but no, it was definitely Cherry. She blossomed into a smile and told me that she always wanted a little brother. Like that, I had procured a new family member.

"What about that old man in the corner? I've seen him walking around hospital." I pointed to the right corner of the sterile, artificial room the bishop and I usually had our conversations in.

The bishop looked at Cherry for a moment and back at the frocked old man.

"That's Callebaut. He'll be your foster father."

At the mention of his name, the old man waved.

"Since this is going to my last time visiting you, Chris. There's something that I want to tell you. Do you two mind giving us some time alone?"

After shooing my new foster family outside, he helped himself to a plastic chair made for kids pretending to have tea on a comically tiny and misshapen table.

"I'm often shocked when I brush my teeth, Chris. I feel twenty-two but that's not what that cheeky mirror tells me. In all my adventures, all the places I've traveled, all the people I've met, all the sins I can't atone for, I've learned one thing. It's something that took me until my dotage to realize and that's why I hope you'll humor me in listening." He tried to lean back on the chair, "In this life, I hope you chose for yourself, you'll meet a lot of strange people. In our line of work, you'll see things and obtain powers that you didn't know were possible. Mor - nay, most importantly, you'll experience enough pain, sadness, happiness, and weakness to understand that you are nothing more than a mere human being. There are a lot of people in our world who are claimed to be holy or even saintly. Most of the time that's some form of clericalism. All of us, no matter who we are, are merely idiotic, pathetic, weak human beings."

"What about the monsters?"

He laughed, "I did call them that. This might be a heretical opinion but they're not monsters. As long as anyone has lived a semblance of a life, there is no way you can call them a monster. They're only called monsters because we refuse to try."

With those un-priestly words, he got up, shook my hand, and gave me a hug. I still remember the smell of sandalwood.

"Bishop Dilo… I… thank you."

He shook his head and smiled. The gesture refused to light up his face.

"This... isn't a fate that you should thank me for."

With those ominous words, he left. The next day I was discharged and my new mismatched foster family took me to my new home. Ten years late, but that was the day Chris Frampton was born.