Hopeless dreams

Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:  So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

~Job 7:14, 15

            The sun broke the night sky into a million shards of glass.  I watched from a rooftop as the sun rose from the depths of space and rose to give this dying world light again.  The light burned my eyes at first, but soon they adjusted.  In life I would often watch the sunrise or the sunset and think how wonderful life was.  But in death, all I see in it is a waste of time.  For what goes up must come down.  As long as there is a sun to shed light, there will be a night to eliminate it.

            The cold drizzle of rain finally stopped for a moment and the dark clouds parted to let free the blue sky of desire.  No longer did I see the beauty in a magnificent blue sky.  All I was reminded of was the beauty of my fallen love.  A lover who couldn't be resurrected from the grave, but somehow, God had found it in his power to resurrect me.  Why was I chosen for this horrific task of murdering murderers?  Why couldn't God just kill them with fire and falling stars?

            For the first time in my journey I couldn't find the Crow.  I had no idea where it had flown off.  So I felt as if I was being left to pass time with my own measures.  I jumped down the back of the building and landed into a large puddle in the allies.  I wrapped my cape and hood around me and journeyed into the world of light, into the world of the living.

            I aimlessly and slowly journeyed to my old neighborhood.  Once there, my dead eyes gazed upon what was left of my old house that I shared with Aimee.  All around the yard was yellow police tape that was supposed to make the area quarantined from the public.  However, by looking upon the outside of the house, I could see that either the police were too late or someone had obviously ignored the yellow taped warning.  There were satanic symbols spray-painted on the outside of the house.

            I moved by the yellow tape and walked up to the front door.  I placed my hand on the doorknob and a flashback burned into my mind.  I saw myself standing next to Aimee and holding her hand.  She kissed me on my cheek and said, "So this is home?"  I smiled and said, "Yeah.  This is our home."  I unlocked the door and swung it open, and then I picked Aimee up off her feet and carried her into the threshold.

            With the vision over, I opened the front door and walked into my old home.  My already aching heart was even more scorned as I walked inside.  Once a place of happiness, once a place of beauty, now was nothing more than a destroyed and trashed home.  I assumed that those who had killed us also found it upon themselves to redecorate our home.  Things were broken and trashed, some things were burned, and more satanic symbols were spray-painted on the walls and floor.

            "Bastards," I mumbled out softly from my cold lips.  I walked into the kitchen where I gazed upon broken cabinets, a turned over refrigerator, and the kitchen table glued to the ceiling.  I remembered how often Aimee would cook dinners for me on Sunday night after service.  As soon as I came through the front door I could smell her cooking.  Every time I came home to that, my heart would skip a beat in the joy of knowing I had found someone special.

            I walked back into the living room and looked at the large TV that had a brick thrown the screen.  I remembered how Aimee and I would sit home on Saturday nights and play video games.  She enjoyed playing racing games a lot, and she would beat me almost every time at them.  In my head I could still see us sitting on the floor in front of the couch with a big bowl of popcorn between us.  To distract me from my racing, she would quickly grab popcorn and throw it my face.  It was things like that that made me love her even more.

            I reached into the TV and pulled out the brick they had used to destroy it.  I held the brick in my hand and crushed it with my supernatural strength.  A very small amount of satisfaction came over me, but it was quick to leave my system.  They had done so much damage to our home that it was almost unfathomable to me how individuals could do this to desecrate people's lives.  The anger swelled my organs as I dreamed of finding the others when night came around again.  Soon their blood would be on my hands, soon…

            I proceeded upstairs and into the hallway between the bedroom and spare rooms.  There was my private study where I had spent many hours reading and writing.  There was Aimee's workout room with her small gym equipment.  And of course, there was the bedroom.  The bedroom door was closed, but the image of a black pentagram was burned into the wooden door.  If I still had tears to shed they would have come rushing out then.  I was almost afraid to open the door, but I knew I had to.

            But what I found was no vision, but a sleeping Angela on our torn bed.  My first instinct was to flee before she awoke to see me, but somehow I was compelled to come closer.  When I walked up to the foot of the bed I saw that she had a syringe and a bloody needle in her hand.  An added sense of terrible sorrow filled me.  She had turned away from the Church and gone back to drugs.  My mind was puzzled as to why she would do such a thing.  I wanted to reach out to her and touch her, as if I could suck away her sin through my fingertips.

            "The Dead do not interfere with the living, Jacob!" a voice rang out in the back of my mind.  It was the voice of the Crow.  I didn't want to disturb her; I just wanted to touch her.  I just wanted to feel something that was alive and real.  I just wanted to somehow give her hope so she would turn away from drugs and go back to the Church.  But how could I?  I was dead and lost in hopeless dreams.  The Crow was right, what could I do for her anyhow?

            Her soft lips mumbled out my name and fear coursed through my limbs.  What would she think if she saw that the dead walked?  I couldn't ruin her life anymore.  I turned around and proceeded to slowly and quietly walk out the room.  But as I reached the doorway, she mumbled out, "No, no, don't kill him.  Leave him alone."  I looked over my shoulder and saw that she was still sleeping.  She was having a nightmare.

            I remembered seeing her before I died.  She was at the Church the night of the Great Tragedy.  She watched with her innocent eyes as those villains destroyed two lives.  I could only imagine at the horrible thoughts that went through her head then, and what terrible dreams haunted her mind now in her sleep.  "Leave her be," that voice spoke from within the dark depths of my mind.  It was the Crow, trying to move me away from this place.  Maybe this place was just too painful for me to bare at the moment.

            Angela rolled over in her sleep, still holding tightly onto the syringe and needle.  How I ached to do something for her.  I wanted to pull her out of the darkness that consumed her life now, just as I had before.  But now, I was too dark inside to save anyone.  All that was inside of me was a coldness that defied the pits of Hell.  What salvation could I possibly offer this young lost child?

            I left the bedroom and walked back down to the living room.  I looked around me at all the destruction and wondered what we would be doing if the Great Tragedy had never happened.  How simple would our lives had been, yet how complicated would the simplicity of it all effect us?  So badly I wanted to hold her hand again, to smell her perfume, to run my fingers through her hair, kiss her soft lips, and let my ears be blessed with the sound of her beautiful voice.  But all that was gone now.  And it was never going to come back.

            I screamed and slammed my fist through the floor.  I stood there holding my head in my hands.  For the first time I thought of what was going to happen to me after my death trip was over with?  Would I ever see Aimee again in the afterlife?  Would we ever be together again in Heaven?  Or would I be doomed to this Earth that would become my own personal private Hell?  These questions plagued my mind like a flesh eating virus.  But there wasn't much more time for me to think of these things, for my scream had awaked the living.

            "Who are you?  Are you one of them?" Angela screamed at me.  She stood at the foot of the stairs looking at me with her yellow eyes.  I said, "No, I'm no one.  I was just passing through."  I let the hood cover my face so she wouldn't recognize me.  She asked, "Your voice sounds familiar, do I know you?"  I turned so that my back faced her and I said, "I'm just another lost soul in the night."

            She said, "You are one of them, aren't you?  You're one of those assholes that killed Jacob and Aimee!"  I let out a deep sigh and started walking to the door.  But quickly Angela ran over to me and grabbed my cape.  When she pulled it away from me she caught a glimpse of my blood-stained axe that I carried underneath.  Her eyes widen with fear and she slowly stepped away from me.  She whispered, "You are one of those monsters."

            I said, "I can assure you, child, that I am NOT one of the monsters you speak of.  I'm quite the opposite."  I continued to walk to the door but she screamed, "Why?  Why did you kill them?  What did they ever do to you?"  I let out another deep sigh but ignored her words as I continued my journey to the door.  I put my hand on the doorknob and she screamed, "No!  I won't let you get away with it!"  She rushed up to me and stabbed her bloody needle through my hand on the doorknob.

            I turned around to face her and I held up my wounded hand.  I slowly pulled the needle out and let her watch the wound heal.  I dropped the needle to the floor and said, "You really shouldn't do drugs.  I know you've been through a lot of pain, but this is not the answer to your problems."  She asked, "Are you Devil or Angel?"  I grinned a little bit and said, "I'm both."  She rushed up to me again and started beating my chest with her fists.  She screamed over and over again, "Why did you kill them?"

            I grabbed her by her shoulders and held her back. I said, "I didn't kill your friends!  I'm here to set the wrong things right."  Tears were starting to flow down her very pale face.  I wondered how long it had been since she had eaten anything.  For the first time she got a good look at my painted face.  Her eyes widened for a moment and then she fainted in my hands.  I gently laid her down on the floor.  I whispered to her, "I'm sorry you had to see what you saw.  But things will be alright."

            My cold finger reached out and wiped the tear from her face.  And then my mind glimpsed into her pain and I was able to see things that no one should ever have to remember.  On the night of my murder, Angela was feeling lonely and desperate for love.  The old cravings for alcohol and cigarettes had been hounding her mind all day.  So she went to the Church that night to seek some sort of Divine comfort.

            But what she found was a horrible scar on the hand of God.  She was walking towards the Church when she saw a bruised and crying Aimee running into the church.  A couple of minutes later, Angela watched as the clan of Satanists howled in the night and made there way into the Church after Aimee. 

            Angela saw the whole thing.  She watched from the Chapel doors as the whole atrocity went down.  I could feel her heart sinking forty leagues under the sea and her mind snapping like a broken puzzle.  She witnessed the occult mutilate and destroy me with their evil magic.  And then she saw what I never did.  She saw what they did to Aimee after I had passed away.

            Brutally they burned and beat her.  They knocked her to the floor and kicked and stomped on her.  They used lighters to burn her hair and they stabbed small knives into her breasts.  With the tears that flowed down Aimee's face, a new scar was formed on my soul.  Eventually the dark leader of the group, Seth, called his dogs off and they picked up the barely living Aimee from the floor and carried her out of the Church.  Angela watched from the safety of the shadows as they took her out into the parking lot and threw her into the back of a truck.  They all gathered into two cars and drove off into the night.  And from that moment on, Angela's mind and heart was destroyed.

            From the point of view of her eyes, I watched as she ran back into the Church and into the chapel.  There she looked up at my mutilated and crucified body.  My blood gushed from my body and ran down the Church wall.  Angela collapsed to her knees and started to cry.  She couldn't believe what she had just seen.  But all the proof she needed of reality was my corpse nailed to the Cross.

            I quickly stood up from Angela's body.  The things that I had seen, the brutality they had committed against Aimee, had ripped me apart by the seams.  I was beyond the point of anger and entered a whole new dimension of emotions.  I was beyond craving revenge and death, I was beyond the point of sorrow and depression, I was beyond sadness and hatred.  I had entered a new realm of pain.  I stood on the edge of time, at the doorstep of God's house.  I looked down at my dead hands and thought of the things I had done and the things I was going to do.  In that one moment I had reached a state of Anti-Nirvana.

            I rushed back outside of the house and stood in what used to be my yard.  I heard the all too familiar sound of the Crow.  I looked up and saw it circling in the sky above me.  I screamed into the sky, "What did they do with Aimee?  Where did they take her?  Surely you must know you bastard bird!"  The Crow only cawed again before swooping down and landing on the roof of my old house.  The answers I sought it seemed I would have to find on my own.

            I looked back once more at the house that at one time held so much happiness within it.  Now it was just a broken down building of sin and lies.  It was the new home of a drugged teenager whose about to start believing in ghosts.  It was the playground of destruction for a sinful few to take out their inner aggressions and release their inner demons upon the world.  I looked away from the house and started to walk back to the world of hopeless dreams.  What I was going to find out there, I didn't know.  I only knew that I wanted to find Aimee so I could kiss her lips one more time.  I just wanted one more taste of salvation.  Just one more.

Envy the Wrath

For WRATH killeth the foolish man, and ENVY slayeth the silly one.

~Job 5:2

            Just as quickly as the daylight overcame the night, the darkness of night again triumphs over the light to restore the beauty of the stars.  I had spent the day hiding like a rat in the shadows.  My mind crumbled over the thoughts of Aimee and the lost child Angela.  What good had I done by coming back?  Only evil and pain followed me wherever I went.  I was the Shadow of Death, taking back the disease of man's sin.

            The name of Simon was burning on my tongue.  I remembered him well with his long black coat and his sharp knives.  I prayed that the blade of my axe was three times as sharp as his blades.  I wanted him to suffer more than what Heaven would allow any man to suffer.  I wanted his blood on my hands.  I wanted him to die tonight so my soul could take another step to absolution.

            The Crow circled high above me as I leaned against a brick wall.  It cawed and cawed signaling me to follow.  But for a brief moment I was standing there frozen.  What had God put me on this earth to do?  To do all of this?  To kill these evil seven?  Was the whole purpose of my being with Aimee just so we should be murdered and I could come back from the depths of the grave to avenge our deaths?  It seemed like a shallow purpose.  I was a murderer of murderers.  I wondered what I had become.

            "Wake up!" that voice in the back of my head screamed.  I snapped out of my frozen state and started walking down the dark streets.  The Crow led the way for me to follow to the next victim of the night.  As I walked down the streets, I would constantly look up at the moon and each time I swore I could see Aimee's face in the radiance of the moonlight.  I would sigh and continue on my way to the bloodshed.

            The night wind carried with it an eerie sense of doom.  In the distance I could hear screaming and hollering.  Gunshots rang out in the night and I could already feel that someone was in great fear.  I walked through the shadows and found myself just outside of town near an old abandoned church.  The windows to the church had been shattered and parts of the walls were burned.  Near the old church was a playground for children.  But only the Children of Satan were playing tonight.

            A large group of people all dressed in black stood in a circle in the center of the playground.  Some of them had guns while others had swords or knives.  I couldn't see what they were gathered around, but the Crow provided a higher viewpoint for me to look through.  Through the Crow's golden eyes I could see from the bird's point of view of what was going on.

            In the center of the circle stood two of my enemies, Simon and Vanessa.  I was only hunting Simon yet I had found her too.  I remembered Vanessa, she wore a black trench coat and I had the feeling she was romantically involved with Simon.  My inner suspicions turned out to be true as I saw them kiss with blood on their lips.

            Even from the bird's point of view I couldn't see the face of someone who sat on the ground crying.  The person was sitting in the middle of the circle in between Simon and Vanessa.  Simon stopped kissing his lover and then turned to the group, "Tonight we will burn one of God's lovely creatures!  Buried in this woman's womb is a child of God, and we can't have anymore of those bastards running around, now can we?"

            Vanessa moved out of the way I was able to get a clear view of the woman in the center.  Once again, life had thrown me a curve ball.  Jessica, my fellow youth director at the Church, sat on the ground crying.  She had cuts and bruises all over her arms and face.  My mouth burned for the taste of their blood from all the anger that swelled in my veins.  My hand tightened its grip on the wooden handle of my axe, which I kept concealed under my black cape.

            Vanessa slapped Jessica hard against the face and Jessica fell face first into the dirt.  Her tears turned into a slimy mud that covered the side of her face.  Vanessa screamed at her, "How does it feel now?  Huh?  Where is your God now to save you?"  Vanessa then kicked Jessica in her back and then laughed.  Simon reached under his long black coat and pulled out two short swords that had skulls on the end of the handles.  The moonlight reflected off the shiny blades.  Simon asked the crowd, "Which limb should I cut off first?  How about a few fingers?  Or how about both her feet?"

            The crowd cheered and screamed for a body part to be cut off.  Simon licked the tip of one of his blades and his tongue started to bleed.  Vanessa quickly went into his arms and kissed him passionately, sucking up all the blood in his mouth.  Vanessa then turned away from her lover and screamed to the crowd, "I say we cut open her belly and pull out the fetus!" 

            Jessica rolled over onto her back and said, "Why are you doing this to me?  Just leave my child and me alone!  Please!  Don't you have any humanity?"  The group of Satanists just laughed.  Muddy tears continued to flow down her face.  Simon slapped her across her face and said, "We're going to show you just how much God loves you!"

            In the next couple of seconds of silence that followed his words, a loud thump came from the back of the crowd.  Simon mumbled, "What the hell was that?"  Everyone turned and looked to the back to see one of their own headless on the ground.  I stood over the dead body with the person's head in my hand.  I tossed it up and down in my left hand while I held my bloody axe in my right hand.

            I said, "I'm going to show all of you the Gates of Hell."  Simon screamed, "Who the hell do you think you are?"  I threw the head through the crowd and towards Simon, and he quickly reacted by stabbing one of his blades through the head before it hit him.  He dropped the head to the ground and said, "You've got a lot of guts, asshole."  I said, "My guts swell with anger and decay.  The worms and maggots that you fed me are not going hungry, I assure you."

            Vanessa said, "You are one crazy son-of-a-bitch!"  I grinned as I lifted up my shirt and showed them all the scars of tiny pinholes where the rusty nails pierced my flesh, but more importantly, I showed them the two large scars on my sides where Simon had thrust his blades into me.  I looked into Simon's eyes and said, "Do you remember these wounds, Simon?  Do you remember my agonizing scream after you pulled your blades out?  Do you remember the face of a dead man?"

            Simon only mumbled out, "Shit."  I said, "Exactly.  Time to give the Devil his due."  Simon screamed, "Get him!  Kill him!"  And those in the crowd with gun unleashed the fury of their bullets on me.  I just stood there with my arms held out, accepting death again.  I felt no pain from the hot bullets as they shot into and through my corpse of a body.  After several seconds of an all out war of gunfire, they stopped and looked with amazement as I still stood there.

            The people in the crowd just looked at one another with disbelief.  Simon quickly reached into one of his boots and pulled out a knife.  He threw it through the air and it stabbed into the center of my forehead.  He had used my painted cross as a bull's-eye.  Cold blood ran down my face and when it reached my mouth I just licked it up.  I pulled the knife out of my head and threw it right back at Simon who was unable to stop it before it hit him in his right thigh.  He screamed out, "Fuck!  Will somebody please kill this guy!" 

            Vanessa grabbed Jessica and forced her back up to her feet.  "Come on bitch, we're going to go have our fun elsewhere."  Simon said, "I'm right behind you.  I just want to see this creep die…again."  I said to the crowd, "I'm going to give you a choice.  Those of you that want to live can just simply walk away without any harm.  But those of you who decide to stay, will die tonight.  Are you willing to make such a hollow sacrifice?"  The people in the crow just looked at one another, but none of them decided to leave.  Simon had them brainwashed into fighting his wars for him.  I said, "Very well.  Let the Devil take his Children home."

            Two men with swords in their hand ran right for me.  One of them managed to stab their sword through my left shoulder, but I used my axe to slice open his belly.  The other one with the sword tried to swipe off my head, but I stopped the blade with my free hand.  As the one with his intestines drooping out fell to the ground, I snatched the sword from the other one's hands and used it to stab through his chest.  I then reached over and pulled the other sword from my shoulder and held it tight with anger.

            Gunshots rung out into the night as I was once again being blanketed with bullets.  With my axe in one hand and a sword in the other, I quickly made my way into the crowd and starting unleashing my fury and hatred.  Limbs flew everywhere as the playground began to be flood with blood.  Their screams of pain were classical music to my ears.  The more they tried to harm me, the angrier I became.  Quickly Simon's little army was reduced to just a few.

            The few that did remain backed away from me and took their place by Simon's side.  My clothes were drenched in bloodshed.  Hot blood flooded down the blades of my axe and sword and dripped to the ground below.  I looked into Simon's eyes and asked, "Am I the devil in your dreams?  Or am I the angel to your salvation?"  Simon said, "You're nothing more than just another victim.  You're just a sad poor excuse of a love gone wrong.  You're just a fucking pussy who couldn't accept the hand dealt to you."

            I stood straight up and cocked my head side to side, popping the bones in my neck.  I said, "You helped make me into what I am today, Simon.  And for that, I owe you something."  Simon grunted, "You don't owe me shit except for your head on a silver platter."  I smiled, "I owe you something special.  I owe you the chance to repent your sins to me now, in the hopes that God might forgive you."

            Simon and his soldiers looked at one another and then laughed.  I laughed, "Yes, oh yes, I knew you would decline.  Thank you, O' Lord."  I threw my sword like a spear and it stabbed through the neck of the one standing to the left of Simon.  The man fell to the ground as he tried to scream through gurgling blood.  Only Simon and two of his soldiers remained.  Simon said, "Come on, punk!  Come and get me!"  I threw my axe spiraling towards Simon and it stuck into the ground between his feet.  Simon looked up and said, "Ha, you missed!"  But I had disappeared from their sight.

            They looked all around but couldn't see where I had disappeared.  Simon's two remaining soldiers stood next to each other and tried their best to grasp the things they had seen tonight.  They witnessed a man walk away from bullets and massive stab wounds.  They witnessed all of their friends die in bloodshed.  But before they could fully comprehend the things they had seen, I snuck up behind them and smashed their heads together.  It was a great explosion of brain matter and skull fragments.  Their two corpses fell to the ground and all that was left was Simon.

            He took a few steps back but still held in his hands his two short swords.  As I walked towards him as he walked back, I reached down and yanked my axe up from the ground and held it in my hands once more.  Simon said, "The Master will see to it that you never walk this earth again."  I responded, "You mean Seth?  The bastard who crucified me?  His name is on my list too.  I'm saving him for last."  Simon laughed, "You might think you're the shit now, but the Master will have your head on a stick and eat it for breakfast."

            I screamed with rage and plunged towards him.  He acted quickly and stabbed both his short swords through my chest and I collapsed to the ground before his feet.  He stepped back and then spit on the back of my head.  "Yeah!  Yeah!  Now we see whose the man!  Not so strong now are you?"  I growled as I reached over and grabbed his ankles and pulled.  He fell flat on his back and I quickly stood up, pulled his swords from my chest, and stabbed them through his shoulders, pinning him to the ground.  He screamed with misery and I loved every note of it.

            I picked up my axe, which I had dropped when I fell.  I leaned over Simon and held the edge of the blade close to his face.  I asked, "Maybe I should skin you alive?  No wait, how about I chop off all your fingers and stuff them down your throat?  I could come up with a hundred different ways to kill you."  He spit in my face and I slapped him hard against his cheek.

            In that moment when I touched him, my mind was once again clouded with visions.  I saw Simon and Daniel, the chubby one, with shovels as they dug deep into the earth's soil.  They drank beers and smoked weed as they dirtied themselves up digging this great big hole in the ground.  In the background, I could hear someone sobbing, moaning, and crying for help.  It then struck me full force that it was Aimee's voice I heard in the background.  Simon pointed in a direction that I couldn't see and said, "Will someone shut her up?"  I heard the sound of a hand meeting the face, and the sobbing stopped.  I heard Vanessa speak, "Damnit, she bled on my hand!"  And with that the vision ended.

            I screamed and twisted one of the short swords in Simon's shoulder.  He screamed with pain.  I screamed, "What did you do to her?"  Simon mumbled out, "To who?  What are you screaming about?"  I stood over him, looking down at his bleeding and suffering body.  The word WRATH was etched over his lips.  I held my axe up high into the air as I stared into the depths of Simon's dark soul.  I said, "You destroyed life, you took away a great beauty that God had graced this planet with.  You took away my life!  You took away her life!"

            Simon said, "You bitch."  Above, the Crow cawed and I saw a gleam in its golden eyes.  The scent of death was in the air.  It was a scent I was intoxicated with.  How many had died tonight by my hands tonight?  I didn't care.  They were just stepping-stones on my path to Salvation.  The playground was soaked in blood and the ground littered with dead bodies and severed limbs.  And before me, was one of the seven who started this.  With his blood, I would be cleansing myself of the sins of the past.

            With one hard stroke down, the blade of my axe severed Simon's head in half.  His blood splattered onto my lips and I licked them dry of his disease.  For a brief moment it seemed as if my pain had been alleviated.  But the taste of blood was still fresh in my mouth, and I knew that it wasn't over yet.  During all of the bloodshed, I had lost track of where Vanessa had taken Jessica.  But I had a pretty good idea.  My journey would now take me to the old abandoned church that stood near the bloody playground.  In there, I knew I would find my prey.

            The old doors to the abandoned church swung open with eerie sounds that echoed all throughout God's old halls.  The Crow flew in over me and disappeared into the dark shadows.  Fresh blood dripped off of my axe and my clothes and left a crimson trail behind me.  With each step I took the floor beneath my feet creaked with an unsettling noise.  I walked down the middle aisle and the old pews to my sides rotted with decay and mold. 

The clouds outside the church shifted in the wind and the full blast of the moonlight shined through the shattered church windows.  With the inside of the church fully illuminated, I was able to see Vanessa standing behind the old wooden podium that the Priest would stand behind when preaching.  She grinned madly under the moonlight and raised a gun towards me.  She giggled, "I know who you are, dead man."  I held my axe up and let the moonlight reflect off the blade.  I said, "Then you know why I've come, don't you?"  She fired her gun at me, but the bullet ricocheted off the blade of my axe and blasted through one of the church pews.

She said, "Don't take another step.  I've got a price over your head."  From behind the podium Vanessa shoved out Jessica.  Jessica knelt on the floor on her knees as Vanessa held a gun point blank against her head.  Vanessa said, "Take another step and I'll blow her head off, man!  Don't come any closer!"  I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared into Jessica's eyes.  Deep down in the bowels of her mind I think she recognized who I was under the shadows and face paint.  But disbelief clouded her better half.

            I screamed, "Leave her alone!  She has nothing to do with what's between you and me."  Vanessa grinned cynically and said, "No, I'll tell you what's going to happen.  Either you give me the power that you have or she dies.  I want to be invincible like you, dead man!  Give me a taste of your blood!"  I responded, "God gave me my power.  You don't deserve it.  You're nothing but scum, a silly fool, just a whore to the Devil's pawns."  Vanessa used the butt of her gun to strike the back of Jessica's head.  Jessica wailed with pain and fell face down on the floor.  My first instinct was to immediately throw my axe through Vanessa's skull, but she still held the gun at Jessica's head.  A bullet would travel faster than the speed of a hurdling axe.

            I said, "My God is the one true God.  My God can kick your god's ass."  Vanessa paused for a moment on recollection.  She halfway grinned, "Very funny.  You're really starting to piss me off, and at this point, you don't want to get me angry!"  I looked down at my bloody axe and then back up at Vanessa.  I said, "Alright, if you want my power.  Then you can take it."

            The Crow cawed and appeared out of the shadows and swooped down onto the podium in front of Vanessa.  The Crow just stared at her with its golden eyes as Vanessa stared at the Crow with wide eyes of fear.  I said, "There lies my power.  If you want it, then take the bird into your hands.  Take all the power you want, I don't want it anymore.  I'm tired of all this killing and bloodshed.  I just want to go home."

            A gigantic insane grin overcame Vanessa's face as she dropped her gun and took the Crow into both her hands.  The Crow just let out a simple soft caw and allowed itself to be taken by the evil woman.  She just stared at the Crow for a moment and then she raised the dark bird into the air and screamed, "Yes!  With this power I take in thee!  I will be immortal and will sit by the throne of Dark Gods!"

            Without any warning the Crow acted violently by stabbing its hard beak through one of Vanessa's hands.  She screamed as blood gushed and squirted out of the wound and onto the floor and podium.  She screamed, "You little bitch!  You are my servant now!"  The Crow pulled its beak from her hand stabbed it again and again.  Blood continued to gush out and cover the floor with her disease.  She screamed again and then slung the big black bird away from her, and the Crow took flight and u-turned right back into her face.  The Crow used its sharp talons to dig into her neck and then it shoved its beak through her screaming tongue.

            The Crow let go and flew back into the shadows of the church.  Vanessa collapsed to the floor behind the podium and fondled around to find her gun.  I grabbed the podium and threw it into the wall behind her.  Vanessa found her gun and quickly raised it towards me but I kicked it out of her hand and grabbed her by her black Mohawk of hair.  I pulled her up to her feet and looked deep into her painful eyes.  The word ENVY was written in blood in the white of her eyes.  I grabbed her by her throat and my mind was taken to a distant night.

            Vanessa sat on the hood of a truck looking down.  "Oh what's wrong, honey?  Cat get your tongue?"  She was looking down at a very badly beaten and bruised Aimee.  Aimee was tied up and lying in the bed of the truck.  Vanessa stomped on her face a couple of times and said, "I hope you can hold your breath a long time.  You're about to go down six feet the hard way!"  She then laughed and looked over her shoulder at Simon who was digging deep into the earth's soil.  Vanessa screamed, "Dig faster, baby!  She's going to bleed to death before we bury her!"  Simon looked up at Vanessa and said, "Well, if you would stop stomping on her face maybe she will live long enough for us to bury her!"  Vanessa stomped on Aimee's face again and yelled, "What then?  What are you gonna do about it?"

            Seth, the leader who pinned me to the cross, walked into the scene of the vision and said, "It's time."  Vanessa hollered into the night air and hopped down off the roof of the truck.  The chubby guy, Daniel, and Simon reached into the back of the truck and dragged a crying Aimee onto the ground.  The rest of the evil seven gathered around to kick and scream obscenities at Aimee.  Aimee was tired and was growing very weak.  She wanted to die; she wanted it all to end.  But in her eyes, I saw that she still longed to be held by me.  I could feel the impulses of her mind flowing into mine, and I could feel that she was still completely horrified by my death.

            On the count of three, Simon and Daniel threw Aimee into the deep hole they dug.  Aimee's ankle twisted and broke when she hit the bottom of the hole.  But she had run out of screams and tears.  Pain was slowly becoming her second nature.  Daniel grabbed a shovel and prepared to throw dirt on top of her.  Seth raised his hand to stop him and he looked down into the depths of that grave and at the destroyed Aimee.  Seth said, "Sorry, no hard feelings.  It's just that there are things outside of this world that we can't control.  And your death was just one of those things, my dear.  See you on the other side, bitch."  And with those final words said, dirt was tossed into the hole to fill the depths of Aimee's grave.

            The vision ended and I screamed to the high heavens, "Why?"  My attention quickly turned back to the sobbing Vanessa.  I raised her high up off the floor and choked the life out of her.  Blood gurgled and flowed out of her mouth and down onto my hand.  I looked deep into her dying eyes and screamed, "What's wrong, honey?  CROW get your tongue?"  With my other hand I grabbed her by the top of her skull and ripped her head from her neck.  I dropped her body to the floor and then threw her head against the church wall.  The head exploded against the church wall like a hammer hitting a watermelon.

            I stood there and tried to gather my thoughts the best I could.  They had taken Aimee somewhere and buried her alive.  But I didn't know where.  With every last ounce of power in my soul I promised God that I would find Aimee's body and see that she was given a proper burial.  My fists clinched with rage so tightly that my nails dug into my own flesh.  But my rage was quickly subsided by the sounds of crying.

            I looked to my left and saw Jessica sitting on one of the old church pews.  She just stared at me through the tears clouding her eyes.  I slowly walked towards her because I could sense that she was terribly afraid.  The Crow flew down from the shadows and landed on the edge of the pew where Jessica was sitting.  Her eyes shifted away from me to the bird and then back to me.  I knelt down before Jessica and placed my hand on her stomach.  She held in her breath out of fear but I said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."  She looked down at my hand on her stomach and then she looked back up at me.  "What are you doing?" she asked.  I looked deep into her eyes and said, "You're child…it's going to be okay.  It wasn't harmed tonight, I assure you."  I removed my hand from her stomach and stood up.  The Crow flew from the corner of the pew and onto my right shoulder.

            "I'm sorry you had to see the things you did tonight.  But go home, shower, cry, and go to Father Cure.  He will take care of you, Jessica."  She seemed a little shock that I knew her name, but those shocks only confirmed her deep inner thoughts.  She couldn't deny it any longer, for she knew who I was.  She slowly stood up from the pew and placed her hand on my left cheek.  "You're…you're dead," she mumbled out.  I took her hand and put it back by her side.  I said, "That I am.  But you must forget me.  I don't belong here or anywhere."

            Without another word she just wrapped her arms around me and gave me a tight hug.  It felt good to feel human warmth again.  I placed my hands on her back and rubbed softly.  I said, "Everything is going to be okay.  Everything will be okay, you just need to get home."  The Crow cawed and she stopped hugging me so she could step away.  She looked directly into my eyes one last time before she turned around and ran for the exit.

            I looked back over at the remains of Vanessa and felt some small satisfaction in my handy work.  A large puddle of blood formed around her fallen body while small fragments of brain matter slowly slithered down the wall like insects where I had smashed her head.  I grinned at the thought that I only had two more to go and then my journey would be over with.  Soon I could go home.  Soon I would find my way to paradise.  But the darkness of my soul drowned out those pure thoughts as the clouds shifted back over the moon and the old church was once again consumed with shadows.

Gluttonous

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

~Exodus 20:12

            In the air I could smell the stench and vileness of Evil.  Everywhere I looked my dead eyes gazed upon the horrors of the End of the World.  I could almost see the sin dripping from their eyes.  I watched as everyone went on with their lives completely oblivious to the evil that was around them.  They didn't care.  As long as their lives were happy they didn't care.  And for those whose lives weren't all that happy, they dug themselves into deeper graves with drugs, whores, and more pain.  They swallowed themselves whole in the gluttony that was pride and self-righteousness.

            The Crow swarmed above me, flying in circles as if unsure as to where to guide me next.  I stood on the rooftop of an apartment building and just looked down at the people walking below.  It had started to rain again, and people clung together under black umbrellas and snuggled tightly in their raincoats.

            I looked up at the Crow and asked, "Where to next?  Or have I shed too much blood for you in one night?"  The Crow simply cawed, but that little voice popped back up in the back of my head.  It said, "There is much death in the air tonight.  More victims, more grief, more sorrow to behold."  I shook my head and mumbled, "I've felt enough sorrow for one lifetime.  I want this to be over with.  I just want to go back into Aimee's arms in Heaven.  I just want to go home."

            The voice spoke again, "There!  We've found him!  He carries on his shoulders many sins and fresh blood is on his hands."  The Crow looped around in the air and started soaring to the next location.  I took a moment to sigh and swallow my grief and then I jumped from one rooftop to the next in pursuit of the path that the Crow laid before me.  The rain stabbed into my face and hands like little piercing needles, but yet, I had suffered that fate already and this rain was rather painless compared to that experience.

            The Crow led me into a nice quiet neighborhood.  But it was a little too silent.  The winds seemed to freeze at this place, as if afraid to pass.  Many thunderous black clouds were hiding the moon above.  As we approached a certain house, I felt an overwhelming pain in my heart.  Something very awful had happened here, something dark and twisted.  I was starting to realize why the winds were afraid to pass.

            The house was fenced in, but the locked gate was no obstacle for me.  The freshly cut grass was soggy beneath my footsteps.  The closer I got to the back door of the two story house, my heart continued to sink deeper into the cold depths of my soul.  The Crow landed on the roof just above the back door and cawed.  Its golden eyes gleamed down at the door.  For a very brief moment, I thought I could see a sparkle of great anger in the Crow's eyes.  I reached out from under my cape and took hold of the doorknob, and a vision of the face of the chubby one shattered into my mind.  He was here.

            I didn't have to break the doorknob because someone else already had.  The door slowly creaked open and the sound echoed out into the endless night.  I took slow steps inside the house and listened carefully.  I made my way out of the laundry room and into a short hallway.  The Crow flew inside behind me and landed on my right shoulder.  By instinct, I opened a door and found myself in the large living room.

            Furniture was smashed, pictures in broken frames flung everywhere, and there was blood on the floor and curtains.  There had been a great struggle here.  And then my eyes locked onto the center of the floor.  A large bloody kitchen knife stabbed through a large chunk of human flesh and meat and stuck into the floor.  I slowly walked over to the knife and knelt down to inspect it closer.  I placed my hand on the handle and shock waves of pain filled my fibers and nerves.

            I saw Daniel, the chubby one, arguing with an older man and woman.  I couldn't hear what they were arguing about, but I could feel a great amount of anger filling the room.  Then the kitchen door opened and a little girl with blonde hair stepped into the room.  She was crying and yelling for them to stop fighting.  Daniel grabbed a picture from the mantle and threw it at the small girl.  The frame shattered a small piece of glass stabbed into her bare foot.  It was at that point the man lost control and struck Daniel hard against the face.  Everyone paused, completely afraid of what was going to happen next.  Then the stillness was shattered as Daniel reached into his large black boot and pulled out the large kitchen knife.  As he went to thrust downward with the knife, the old man lifted his arm to block.  The knife stabbed and ripped off a large chunk of the man's arm and the knife stabbed into the floor below.

            When the vision ended I stood back up and looked at the Crow.  It offered no advice or opinion; it was just here to watch.  I walked over to the kitchen door and saw a small amount of blood on the floor where the little girl's foot had been.  I opened the door and stepped inside the kitchen.  There was a small trail of blood on the hard floor that led to another door.  When I stepped forward and my shoe touched the blood, my mind was once again clouded.

            The older woman had burst into the kitchen with the bleeding little girl in her arms.  The woman tripped and fell to the hard kitchen floor, dropping the child.  The child screamed and cried as the woman got back up to her feet and took the little girl's hand.  The little girl dragged her bleeding foot across the floor as they made their way to the other door.  Just as they were about to make their escape from the kitchen, Daniel slammed open the door.  He had a look of true evil in his eyes.  I could see the rage boiling in his blood, pumping throughout his dark veins.  He pointed his finger at the two helpless ones and said, "Get back here!"  The woman screamed and escaped out of the kitchen with the girl in hand.  Daniel explored the kitchen quickly and found a butcher's cleaver.  He then ran after the two helpless ones.

            When the vision ended I felt a cold sense of stillness enter me.  The Crow looked in a certain direction and cawed, and I looked in the same direction that it was.  There was a picture on the wall, a family portrait.  The older man and woman were Daniel's parents and the little girl was his younger sister.  What evil could Daniel be thinking to destroy his own family?  I already knew that new victims would be entering the space of lost dreams tonight.  I walked across the kitchen and walked through the door.

            That door led to a hallway and some stairs.  The Crow flew off of my shoulder and went up the stairs.  I didn't run, but I walked with a fast pace up the stairs where I found myself in another hallway.  My attention was immediately grabbed by one of the doors.  There was a paper cutout of a teddy bear taped to the door.  The teddy bear was poorly colored, probably by the little girl.  I could hear the Crow cawing from inside the room and this time I ran.  The door was already halfway open, and I just gave it a simple push to open it.

            When the door opened I was lost in the sight of blood and gore.  It appeared to be the perfect room for a little girl.  It had pink walls with yellow bunny rabbits on the wallpaper.  There were toys and dolls scattered about everywhere.  The bed was small, just the right size for a child like her.  But unfortunately, all this was stained with blood.  Blood was splattered on the walls, on the toys, and the blankets of the bed soaked with it.  For on the wall above the bed the little girl was crucified.  Large kitchen knives stabbed through her little hands and pinned her to the wall.  Her eyes had been carved out, as blood ran down her destroyed face and down over her yellow dress.  On the ceiling above her, the words "SHE HAD THE EYES OF GOD" had been written in her blood.

            The Crow sat on the little girl's wooden dresser.  The Crow hadn't taken its eyes off the blood and gore that was now the lost child.  I looked at the Crow for a moment, for its black beauty memorized me.  Its golden eyes sparkled with rage and sorrow at the same time.  I turned my attention back to the lost child and immediately I grabbed my axe and pulled it out from under my cape.  It was then that the Crow turned its attention back to me.  It cawed and flew past me and back out into the hallway.

            I rushed out of the lost child's room and the corner of my eyes witnessed the Crow mysteriously fly through a door as if the Crow itself was a vapor.  I ran over to that door and kicked it open.  It was the master bedroom where the parents slept.  Once again, the room was stained wall to wall with blood.  The older woman, Daniel's mother, laid on the bed with the butcher's cleaver stabbed into her forehead.  It was forced down so hard that her head was almost split in half.

            The Crow perched on the corner bedpost and looked down at the dead mother.  I walked up to the foot of the bed and wondered where Daniel was.  I could still feel the evil oozing out of his soul.  I knew he was still in the house, I just couldn't tell where.  Slowly, I reached out and touched the dead mother's foot.

            Visions of blood and pain and anger flooded my mind.  All I could see was a disturbed Daniel beating and beating his mother with his fists with the handle of the cleaver.  She screamed and screamed, and deep down I could hear her thinking, "Why?"  She wondered where she had gone wrong as a parent that her child would do such awful things.  I could see the joy and pleasure in Daniel's face as he murdered his own mother.  And then I witnessed the final blow, as he arched back and slammed the cleaver down into his mother's skull.

            While I was lost in this vision, Daniel rushed out of the closet with a large knife in his hand.  He moved with lightning speed, a speed almost unnatural.  Before I could defend myself, he stabbed the knife through one side of my neck and out the other.  I elbowed him to the face and he stumbled backwards a bit, but yet he seemed to be unaffected by my move.  My blood squirted out in every direction as I grabbed the handle of the knife and ripped it out of my neck.  I threw the knife at Daniel, but he grabbed the knife by the blade before it could hit him, and then he turned it and threw it back at me.  I raised my axe and the knife ricocheted off of my blade.

            He just stood there, heavily breathing like some wild animal ready to feast.  His eyes had an eerie red glow to them.  I asked, "Why did you do this to them?  Why did you kill your own family?"  A sadistic grin came over his face.  He spoke, "I remember you.  I remember what we did to you.  I know why you're here."  Now the sadistic grin was on my face as I said, "I've come to take you away."  He looked down at the blood on his hands and on his clothes.  He stared back up at me with those glowing red eyes and then he just screamed.

            He charged right towards me and I thrust my axe down towards him, but he grabbed hold of the handle of my axe and snatched it away from me.  He threw it across the room and then he wrapped his right hand around my neck.  With a supernatural force he picked me up off my feet.  He grinned with his razor like teeth showing.  He said, "I'm going to rip you apart limb from limb!"  I kicked him hard in his stomach but that didn't even faze him.  He threw me across the room and my body smashed a large hole in the wall.  As I stumbled back up to my feet, he was already over me.  He used the back of his hand to slap hard across my painted face, and I fell down to the floor.  He then placed his black boot on the back of my head in an attempt to squash my skull.

            As he put pressure on my skull, I saw more visions of Aimee's demise.  Something very important was revealed to me, for Daniel was the driver of the truck that took Aimee to her grave.  I saw every turn, every twist of the path they took.  I saw how Daniel helped dig the deep grave for her, and I saw him putting the dirt back in over her dying body.  They had buried her alive.  And now I knew where her body rested.  I now knew where to find my beloved Aimee in this dark and brooding world.

            I screamed and reached back and grabbed Daniel's leg.  I thrust him away from me and I quickly rolled over on my back.  He was already over me trying to squash my face with is boot again, but I grabbed his ankle and boot and pushed him away from me.  As he stumbled backwards, I jumped up to my feet.  He drooled with rage and animosity.  His soul had become less human and more animal like.

            The Crow was perched on the bedpost above the dead mother.  It cawed and cawed trying to get my attention towards it and away from my deepening rage for what he had done to Aimee.  As my attention turned towards the large bird, so did Daniel's.  That voice in the back of my head spoke, "His eyes!  His eyes are the key to his power!"  Daniel turned his attention away from the Crow and then back to me as if he too had heard what they Crow had said. 

            I leaped and reached out towards him.  He grabbed my arms and used his strength to force me back.  He pushed me hard against a wall, causing another large hole to be formed.  My thumbs reached out to impale his eyes.  But his supernatural strength was holding me back.  I kicked and I kicked into his gut with all my rage.  This time he was showing signs of weakness under my strength.  He spun me around a couple of times and then he slung me through the door and out into the hallway.

            As I got back up to my feet, he stepped out of the doorway holding my axe.  I said, "I believe that belongs to me."  He laughed and thrust towards me.  The blade of my axe dug into the side of my shoulder, but I was able to grab the handle and rip it from his demonic hands.  I kicked him a few times to his gut and then to his face.  He stumbled back into the bedroom and fell down on the floor.  I stood over him and slammed my axe down into his stomach.  Blood gushed out but he didn't scream.  It looked as if he almost enjoyed it.  I slammed my axe down into his chest, his shoulder, and his arms.  Blood was splattering everywhere.

            He growled like a wild animal.  I turned my axe around so the butt of the handle was facing him and I aimed for his left eye.  He grabbed my arms in restraint, but I growled, "This is what you get for burying her alive, fat boy!"  My rage enabled me to surpass his strength and the handle of my axe pushed through his left eye.  He screamed with pain as his eye popped and exploded under the pressure.  I pulled my axe out of that eye and stabbed it down into his right eye.  He screamed horribly and I jumped back.

            Beams of red light shot out of his eye sockets as he continued to howl in pain.  His body shook and trembled in a seizure like manner.  Then his body caught on fire and his movements stopped.  The black smoke that emitted from his corpse spelled out the word GLUTTONY above him.  I looked over at the Crow who had stayed perched above the dead mother.  I said to it, "I know where she's buried."  The Crow cawed and flew past me and out of the bedroom.  I took one last look at the horror that was inside this quiet house, and then I left.

The Lost Child

I will seek that which was LOST, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

~Ezekiel 34:16

            Memories of the past flooded my mind.  I could still see her face clear as day in my mind.  I remembered when I first saw her, how her beauty struck me as a thing of grace.  Even beneath her black clothes and black makeup, I could still see the angel underneath.  I remembered our first kiss on a cold November night.  I remembered holding her hand while walking by the river.  I remembered every detail of our lives together.  But now it was nothing more than memories, just a thing in the past.  But I wasn't going to let it end that way.  No, I was going to give her soul peace.

            Outside of the house where I found Daniel, I found his truck.  The same truck used to take my beloved to her grave.  There were even still shovels in the back, the very ones used to dig and bury her.  I drove down dirt roads and through twisted paths of tall trees as I made my way to her grave.  I wasn't going to let the world remember her as a lost child, as just another victim buried in the cold night.  I was going to give her back to the world that spit her out, so that she could receive a proper burial; a respected burial that she so much deserved.

            The Crow flew high above in the sky just in front of me.  It kept up amazing speed as I drove wildly through the woods.  Occasionally it would caw to let me know of some obstruction ahead.  Sometimes there would be a fallen tree or a large mud hole that I knew this old truck wouldn't pass through.  Using the Crow's eyes I was able to find ways around these obstacles and get back on the right path.

            My hands clenched tightly onto the steering wheel.  I held back floods of tears behind my eyes as I tried to keep focused on the task at hand and not think about the past.  The moon above shinned brightly down on the corrupt earth below.  It almost felt as if the moon was trying to guide me on my journey.  Maybe the Heavens were showing me the light I needed to continue.  But no star in the sky was brighter than the love I knew that was buried underground. 

            Finally, the headlights of the truck gazed upon the ground that I had seen in Daniel's mind.  I slammed on the brakes and the truck came to a sliding stop.  The Crow swooped down and landed on a tree branch just above Aimee's grave.  I slowly stepped out of the truck and just stared at the ground.  My mind imagined that at any moment she would rise up from the grave just as I did.  I imagined what it would be like to be in her arms again, both of us resurrected from Death's door.  But no such thing was going to happen, and I reached into the back of the truck and grabbed a shovel.

            At first my strokes into the ground were slow, because I was afraid of what I was going to find.  Did I really want to see my beloved decomposing under mud and dirt?  But then the anger and rage filled me again when I remembered what those bastards had done to her.  Faster and faster I dug into the earth, making my way closer to the woman I loved.  The Crow watched above with anxious golden eyes.  Lightning flashed above, lighting up the world from the blanket of darkness for a split second.  Thunder erupted and crashed into the night to warn of yet another approaching storm.

            I didn't know how much time passed and I didn't care.  I would have spent the next thousand years digging for her if I had to.  But then, when I lifted up a shovel full of dirt, I saw a glimpse of her hair.  My mind froze.  I threw the shovel out of the hole and started digging with my hands, slowly uncovering her dead body.  Without really looking at her, I grabbed hold of her body, held it close to mine, and lifted us up out of her grave.

            It started to pour down rain again.  I laid her body down on the ground by her grave and watched with my crying eyes as the rain washed the dirt and mud from her body.  I knelt down beside her, cradling her legs in one arm and her head in my other hand.  I pressed my face down onto her stomach and cried with the misery of a thousand mourning lovers.  I whispered, "I'm so sorry!  I'm sorry I couldn't save you!  I'm sorry I couldn't have been there to help you!"

            I lifted my head up and gently rubbed my hand across her face.  It was then that I noticed she hadn't decayed or showed any signs of death.  Instead she looked as much alive as I remembered her, almost as if she wasn't dead, but just sleeping.  The Crow cawed and I looked up at it, still perched on the tree branch above her grave.  That voice said, "Her soul couldn't leave this world without yours.  She absolutely refuses to pass onto the other side without you holding her hand on the way.  Her soul remains trapped here, and that has been keeping her corpse fresh."  I looked away from the Crow and back down at Aimee.  I said to her, "Baby, I love you so much.  Don't worry; I'll be joining you soon.  There's only one more left!"

            Seth's face popped into my head.  The leader of the satanic seven that did all this to us.  Anger tried to show its face beyond my tears, but my misery buried it deep.  I looked back down at Aimee and kissed her forehead.  I then stood up and took off my cape and hood and used it to wrap around her body.  I lifted her up off the ground and laid her down in the back of the truck.  I whispered to her, "I'm going to see that you get what you deserve, baby."

            The Crow took flight back into the air and I got inside the truck and took off.  There was only one place that I knew of where it would be safe to leave her and that she would be found and given the proper burial.  I drove furiously towards the Church, the very place where all this pain began.  Again, I drove by towering trees on dirt roads until finally I reached the roads of the city.  That voice said, "Just drive.  I'll take care of the rest."  As I drove, I noticed that no traffic interfered with me and no cops dared pursue me as I sped through the streets.

            From the distance I could see the steeple of the Church.  I remembered how happy I used to be to be working there and doing God's work.  Somehow it seemed that I was still doing God's work now, but I wasn't happy.  I just wanted all this to be over with so I could be back in Aimee's arms.  More tears flowed down my face as I tried to drive through the pouring rain.  I didn't want to ever be without her again.  This time apart was killing me.

            I pulled up into the Church parking lot and got out.  The Crow circled above as I took Aimee into my arms and carried her body into the Church.  I walked down the center aisle of the chapel and just stared at the large Cross on the wall before me; the very Cross that I had been crucified to by Seth.  Water dripped off of us as I slowly walked to the altar.  I laid her body covered in my cape and hood down on the floor before the altar.  I pulled the hood back and kissed her forehead.  I said to her, "Forgive me baby for leaving you like this.  But I have business that needs to be done so we can be together again."

            "And what business is that?" a voice rang out from behind me.  My eyes widen with fear as I realized I wasn't alone.  I slowly stood up but kept my back to the person.  I looked over my shoulder and saw that it was Father Cure.  I said, "Please sir, see to it that this lost child receives a proper burial."  He said back to me, "Do my ears deceive me or is that the voice of Jacob?"  I turned around to face him and I said, "Jacob is dead, sir."

            "But yet I see him before me now, resurrected.  Jessica told me you saved her life from those satanic cultists," he said.  I replied, "I did what I had to do."

"The Church has terribly missed you in your absence, Jacob," he said with a polite smile.

"Please, Father, just see to it that Aimee's body is given proper burial."

"Aimee?  Where did you find her?  She's been missing for over a month now."

"I had my ways.  But I've found her and I've brought her here.  So please…"

"Yes, Jacob, indeed I shall," he smiled.

            I walked towards him and then as I passed by him he placed his hand on my shoulder.  He said, "No man should have to ever endure what you've been through, Jacob.  But even now, you're life is still in God's hands, and he will take care of you in your time of need."  I grinned slightly and replied, "Yes, I know, Father.  Thank you."  He took his hand from my shoulder and I walked towards the exit.

            Before I could leave, another familiar voice rang out.  "Jacob!  I knew it was you!" Angela screamed from behind me.  I quickly turned around to see Angela running towards me with her arms wide open.  She ran up to me and hugged my cold wet body very tightly.  I gently placed my arms around her and said, "Go to bed, Angela.  I can't stay here any longer."  Angela looked up at me with her tear filled eyes and said, "But you're back!  You can stay here and be the Youth Director again!"

            I shook my head and said, "No, Angela I can't.  After tonight I will be gone.  I'm sorry, but I can't stay."  I gently pushed her away from me and turned around to walk out.  She said, "Since I saw you at your old house, I haven't done anything.  You know, drugs and all.  I'm trying to stay clean.  Father Cure has been letting me sleep here.  I'm in the youth group again.  Aren't you proud of me?"

            I turned around and faced her again.  I kissed her on her forehead and said, "Yes, I'm very proud.  Now go get some rest, tomorrow is a new day."  She smiled slightly through her tears and she said, "I miss you."  I rubbed my fingers through the side of her hair and said, "I miss you too."  She then slowly stepped away from me and then turned and ran into Father Cure's embrace.  I took one last look at the place of my spiritual home and the place of my destruction before I turned around and left the Church building.

            The rain continuously poured down.  I sat down inside the truck and just stared out into the cold abyss of the night.  The Crow flew down and perched itself on the hood of the truck.  I said, "Where is he?  Where is Seth?"  The Crow cawed but there was no voice to tell me anything.  I was a true lost soul of the night.  I looked down at the passenger seat where my axe laid.  "Just one more…just one more," I mumbled out.

            I looked back out into the endless night of rain and in the distance I saw a figure standing there.  The image became clearer and who I saw it couldn't be.  It was Aimee, standing radiant and as beautiful as ever.  She stood in the rain yet the drops of water just flowed through her.  She blew me a kiss and then disappeared.  I got out of the truck and ran in the rain towards where I had seen her, but there was no one there.  But what I did find was a red rose on the ground.  Fresh blood was dripping off of the thorns.  I picked up the rose and I was taken back to world of beginnings.

            It was many years ago when I first met Aimee.  There was a big rock concert coming to town that was catching a lot of negative hype from the media.  The lead artist was wildly known to be satanic and incorporated satanic practices in his stage act.  The Church tried to protest the concert and try to get it canceled, but it was to no avail.  The concert was just going to bring in too much money for the promoters to stop it.  So, Father Cure sent me in to go "undercover" to investigate what all the hype was all about.

            I just wore ordinary black clothes and showed up early to get a good eye on what kind of people were going to show up.  The concert was being held in one of the city's oldest buildings, which used to be an Asylum in the old days.  I stood just outside of the building and just watched all the people line up and crowd towards the entrance. 

But there was one person who caught my attention early on.  Even though she was dressed in all black with black make up covering the details of her face, I found myself in a trance when I looked at her.  There was just something beautiful hidden beneath all the black and the makeup.  When I looked into her eyes briefly, I saw something truly unique.  But she noticed that I was staring at her, and she stuck her tongue out and gave me the finger.  I looked down at my feet, embarrassed.

            After a large crowd had already formed, the doors finally opened and the large crowd slowly shifted its way inside the old building.  I took my place in line and walked with them.  I was lost in a dream world when suddenly something hit my feet and I tripped.  I fell face down onto the sidewalk, scraping the palms of my hands.  All I could hear was laughter emitting from all around me.  I stood up and immediately looked behind me to see Aimee and her friend pointing and laughing.  Aimee said, "That's what you get for staring, asshole."  I said, "I'm sorry," and took my place towards the end of the line.

            After over an hour of waiting the first band finally played.  The crowd erupted with power and screams.  I just stood in the very back of the room towards the bar and just watched what was going on.  I watched as a sea of people in the middle starting thrusting themselves together, pushing and shoving everyone in the circle.  It was an act of violence that I didn't quite understand, but I watched with curiosity nonetheless.

            My eyes happened to glance upon Aimee again.  I watched from behind as she mingled with the people with a beer in her hand.  Even after what she had done to me, I was still in a trance when I looked at her.  I wasn't sure what, but there was defiantly something special about her.  I questioned myself for these feelings towards someone who was obviously on the complete opposite end of the spectrum than I was.  But there was something in the back of my mind telling me that it was alright, that this feeling was supposed to be.

            As the thunderous music rattled the old building, I noticed dust showering down from the large rafters above.  Occasionally I would look up and watch as the rafters would shake and tremble with every thump of the music.  It was then that I started to question the promoter's choice of establishments for this type of loud music.  I even watched as a cloud of dust slowly rained down onto Aimee's shoulders.

            After over two hours of music I was beginning to get tired of being there.  I didn't want to be apart of this crowd any longer.  But there was something telling me to stay, something deep inside me was telling me to keep my eyes on Aimee.  When the main artist came onto the stage, everyone went wild and crazy.  The loud thumping of the music and the stomping of the crowd was beginning to be too much than what the old building could handle.

            I happened to look up and see one of the large rafters in the ceiling cracking.  No one else saw what I saw, but I was lost at what I should do.  I didn't see any officials around to tell this to.  I looked down below and saw Aimee standing directly under the cracking rafter.  I quickly made my way towards her, but before I could get to her to warn her, the rafter cracked and broke and fell towards the floor below.  I rushed with all my speed and might and leapt towards Aimee.  I took her into my arms and forced her away.  The rafter came crashing down into the floor and the music stopped, people screamed, and everything then went quiet. 

            I was lying on the floor with Aimee in my arms.  I asked her, "Are you alright?"  She said, "Yeah, I'm fine."  I helped her back up to her feet and she asked me, "Why did you save my life after what I did to you earlier?"  I replied, "Because it was the right thing to do.  And because I didn't think God wanted a beautiful creature like yourself to get knocked off this early."  She kind of smiled a little bit and then she kissed me on my cheek, leaving an imprint of black lipstick on my face.  She reached into her purse and pulled out a small notepad and pen.  She wrote down her phone number for me and handed it to me.  She said, "Call me, hero." 

            The concert came to end after the rafter fell and people started to leave.  I walked Aimee and her friend back to their car.  After that night, we would talk for endless hours on the phone and meet at coffee shops around town.  It was then that our love started to blossom and I was able to pull her away from the darkness that consumed her life.  Through time and perseverance, I was able to save her soul from the satanic forces that controlled her life.  It was then that I fell in love with her.

            With the memory over, I looked up at the dark sky and let the rain pour down on my painted face.  I looked at the moon and imagined I was speaking to Aimee.  I said, "I love you.  I'm so glad I was able to meet you.  I'm glad we were able to be together."  I placed the rose in the side pocket of my shirt and walked back to the truck.  The Crow had stayed perched on the hood.  I looked deep into its golden eyes and said, "It's time."

            The Crow cawed and jumped into the cold night air.  I rushed into the truck and proceeded to drive off.  As I left the Church, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw Father Cure and Angela standing in the doorway of the Church.  Angela waved goodbye to me and then my eyes shifted back to the road.  My eyes shifted up to the Crow leading the way to my salvation.

Greed

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

~James 1:15

            Winds of the powerful storm caused the truck to vibrate under the pressure of the weather.  Several minutes after I started the drive, small balls of hail came crashing down upon the earth.  I could barely hear myself think over the sound of thunder, the pouring rain, and the clanking of the hail bouncing off the truck.  But I continued on with my journey.  I was determined as ever to finish what had begun.

            The Crow led me deep into the darkness of the city.  We had found ourselves in the darker more run down part of the city.  It was the part of the city where all the whores, pimps, drug dealers, murderers, and rapists committed their acts against God.  I watched as the Crow seemed to be unaffected by the terrible weather that crashed down upon the doomed city.  Around twists and turns through pot-holed streets and damp allies, the Crow finally led me to an old abandoned warehouse right in the heart of the city.

            One of the large windows of the warehouse had been broken and the Crow used that as entrance into the place.  I parked the truck around the side, grabbed hold of my axe, and stepped out into weather.  The hail caused no pain against my already cold flesh.  The gloomy weather that the rain caused only seem to fit my mood and encouraged me more to finish what had started.  I walked over to the front door of the warehouse and kicked it open.

            Inside I found signs of destruction and satanic rituals, just as I had at my old house.  There were paintings of demons on the walls.  There were many bloodstains on the floor.  Bottles of alcohol and ashes of cigarettes and joints littered the floor.  I took slow steps into the place.  What lay before me was just a large wide-open area.  There were no doors to other rooms, just large open space.  The Crow circled around in the air and then swooped down and landed on my right shoulder.

            I continued to look around at all that was before me.  I wondered how many people had suffered in this place.  I wondered how many victims had been made out of the misery of this awful place.  I tightened my grip on my axe.  I was expecting an army of occults to just come running out of the shadows to attack me.  But nothing of the sort happened.  There was just the coldness of the silence.

            As I approached the center of the warehouse, the Crow hopped off my shoulder and landed on the floor before me.  It took several steps forward and then stopped.  I stared at it and asked, "What are you doing?"  The Crow then started to peck its large beak into the floor below it.  I just looked at the floor for a moment, and then I sent my fist crashing down into it.  The cement floor crumbled and broke to reveal an opening below the warehouse.  The Crow flew out of the way as I smashed open the floor and jumped down into the dark abyss below.

            I fell about twelve feet before I finally reached the ground.  There was nothing but complete darkness before me.  The Crow flew down into the hole with me and landed on my right shoulder again.  It's golden eyes were able to pierce through the darkness and I allowed my vision to become one with the Crow's.  Using its eyesight, I walked down the dark corridor towards whatever destiny was laid before me.

            As I walked, I found dead decaying bodies sprawled on the floor or nailed to the walls of the tunnel.  Some of the bodies looked old as if they had been left here for years, while others appeared to be very fresh and new to the environment.  I noticed that the bodies had vicious markings on them, as if wild animals had attacked them.  There were fresh puddles of blood on the floor that I stepped through as I walked.

            After many twists and turns in the dark tunnel, I noticed a small amount of light emitting from what appeared to be the end of the tunnel.  I held my axe close to me with both hands.  For the first time since my return from the grave, I actually felt a small amount of fear in my veins.  I was uncertain of what I was going to find, all I knew was that I had to move on.  I had come so far on this journey.  There was no way I was going to turn back now.  I had to end this.

            At the end of the tunnel I found the source of the light.  I now found myself in a very large underground chamber lit up by hundreds of black candles.  The walls and ceiling were crafted from skulls.  Some of the skulls appeared to be human, while others appeared to be from animals.  I took slow cautious steps into the large chamber.  The Crow stayed on my shoulder and I was able to see on my own now.

            At the very far end of the large chamber was a massive throne crafted of bones and heaps of garbage.  I mumbled out, "What in God's name is this place?"  I felt an eerie sense of evil come over me.  I could feel the presence of a great evil in this place.  If these walls could talk they would have screamed the sin of ages.  The Crow cawed as I approached the throne.  I asked, "What devil is he that would call this place home?"

            Without warning, the Crow shrieked as it was sent flying backwards.  A large silver dagger stabbed through the Crow's right wing and pinned it to the wall of skulls.  I felt an incredible amount of pain overcome my right side.  I almost collapsed to my knees, but I was quickly able to regain my balance.  Then there came a loud hideous laughter that bounced off the walls.

            A large silver dagger shot out of the shadows and stabbed into my left shoulder.  I screamed from the pain and grabbed the dagger.  I pulled the dagger out and dropped it to the ground and I noticed that the wound did not heal.  Another dagger came flying towards my face, but I placed the palm of my left hand towards it, and the dagger stabbed through my hand instead of stabbing into my face.  Once again, I felt an incredible amount of pain.  I yanked the dagger from my hand and dropped it along side the other one.

            In the midst of the dark shadows I saw two glowing red eyes.  The eyes stepped out from the shadows and revealed themselves as Seth.  He said, "So, we meet again."  I looked deep into his demonic eyes and screamed, "You!  You did this to me!  You killed her!"  I roared with anger and charged towards him.  But he waved his hand and I was magically sent flying through the air where I crashed through black candles before finally slamming into the wall.  I collapsed to the floor, but quickly got back up to my feet.

            "You're such a disgrace, Jacob.  You really are.  Do you really think you've been doing God's work by killing all of my men?  I have to give you credit for taking out some of my best, but they were all expendable anyhow.  Its not too hard to find dark souls these days, as I'm sure you know," Seth said with a large grin across his face.

            I yelled, "I'm going to send you back to Hell!"  He laughed his hideous laugh and then said, "Oh is that a fact?  I don't think you're going to do much of anything.  Except for suffer, I'm going to make you suffer so much you'll wish you had stayed in your hole."  I started to take slow steps towards him.  I asked, "Tell me why.  Why did you do this to us?"

            He just laughed again and then said, "You took away my ever so precious jewel.  Aimee was such a unique soul, as well you know.  I had great plans for her.  She was going to be the mother to my new army of demons.  I was going to fuck her and plant my seed in her so a new breed could be born that would destroy your pitiful little God."  I continued to approach him ever so slowly.

            I said, "She did the right thing by coming with me.  At least I gave her a new chance on life when all you promised is damnation!"  He grinned, "Damnation?  Damnation?  Oh you must be kidding me.  I could have given her the world.  I promised her so much.  Any man she wanted, any amount of money she desired, any jewel or diamond could have been hers.  But she gave it all up to join with you.  And I hate you for that."

            He threw another silver dagger towards the Crow and it stabbed through the Crow's left wing.  It shrieked with pain as so did I.  I collapsed to me knees with a pain weighing heavy on my shoulders.  Seth said, "I told you, I'm going to make you suffer for what you did.  I'm going to really show you the true face of Hell.  Then we'll see how much your God truly loves you then.  We'll see how your God will deliver you from evil."

            I stood back up on my feet and continued to walk towards him.  I spoke, "I love my God enough to know that I can be delivered from evil.  Unlike you, who chooses to dwell in this tomb of sin.  My God will show you the true face of punishment."  He laughed again, mocking my words.  I got close to him and he slapped me hard across my face.  A squirt of blood shot from my mouth.  I held my axe tight and I swung it towards him.  But before the axe would slice into his flesh the axe just stopped, and I was unable to push it further.  He grabbed the axe and snatched it from my hands.

            "Is this what you used to kill my people?  The blood of my men is stained on this simple blade.  And do you know how many souls you've sent to hell these past few nights?  Do you know how much blood you have shed?  You're no better than me or the people you've hunted down, bird boy.  You're just as much of a demon as I," he said.

            I looked deep into his glowing red eyes and said, "The murder I have committed is just.  You and your people deserved to die and go to Hell.  Through the hand of God I have acted as an avenging angel.  I wear the mask of irony.  I shed the blood of sinners.  I am the Shadow of Death."

            He growled and threw another dagger towards the Crow.  This dagger stabbed through the Crow's chest, and a large amount of blood came exploding out of my chest and splashing on Seth.  I collapsed to the floor in a large puddle of my own blood.  I screamed with misery and pain as I felt my connection with the Crow dwindle and die.  I watched with terror as the Crow took its last breaths and died.  An overwhelming sense of fear and terror came over me, for now I knew I was very vulnerable to death once more.

            Seth licked his lips of my blood and said, "How sweet the blood of my enemies tastes!  I have been on this earth for over four hundred years and never have I tasted anything sweeter than your blood!"  He reached down and grabbed me by my throat and lifted me up into the air off of my feet.  He said, "How pathetic you are.  You're still nothing more than a stupid human.  A pathetic stupid little dying human."

            I couldn't say anything.  I had grown too weak and I could feel what was left of my life slowly leaving me.  I felt as if the end was near again, and then I realized that I might never see Aimee again.  I realized that she would never reunite with my soul and her soul would stay trapped in this realm, never to know true bliss.  Several tears flowed down my face as he continued to hold me by my neck.

            "You know, when I'm done with you, I'm going to go find Aimee's corpse and rape it just to put the final touch on the misery of your soul.  I'll let you die knowing that," he grinned.  He let go of my throat but I remained in the air.  I floated in the air by seem unseen force.  He took a couple of steps back and I shot up into the air towards the ceiling. 

            A dagger flew out of the shadows and stabbed into my leg.  Another one flew out and stabbed me in my shoulder.  Again and again more daggers flew out of the shadows and pierced my dying flesh.  I was beginning to become full of holes again, just as I had died the first time.  The pain swarmed around me as I felt my life slipping away.  And all I could hear was his hideous laughter, mocking me, teasing me, killing me.

            My head slumped down and tears fell off my face and dripped onto the floor below.  It was then that I looked at the rose I had in my shirt pocket.  When I looked at that rose, I was reminded of all the good things Aimee and I shared.  I remembered the sound of her innocent laughter, the look in her eyes when she would tell a joke, the feeling of her warm hand holding mine on a cold winter night, the way she would smile while singing in the shower.  All these things came rushing back into my mind, and I felt the warmness of love and hope creep its way back into my heart and soul.

            I ignored all the pain I was feeling, I ignored every new sharp pain I felt as more daggers stabbed into me.  I could only think of the love Aimee and I shared.  It was then that I realized the Crow wasn't the one who had given me my power; I was brought back by the power of love.  Love was my power.

            I screamed a scream so loud that the walls of skulls vibrated.  A dagger shot towards my flesh, but stopped before piercing it.  The dagger lost its power and fell straight to the floor.  The rest of the daggers stabbed into my skin slowly oozed their way out of my flesh and fell to the floor below.  I screamed again and I was sent shooting back down to the floor where I slammed into it, my feet breaking holes into the cement.

            I looked up at the confused Seth and said, "Love is my power.  And God thrives on love!"  Seth screamed with anger and charged towards me.  As he approached me, I kicked him hard in his stomach.  It stopped him briefly, but he was still able to slash me across my face.  I punched him hard across the face, which sent him stumbling back a few steps.  I ran up to him and wrapped my hand around his neck.  I picked him up off his feet and threw him backwards into his throne.  The force of the fall caused the whole throne to collapse on top of him.

            I walked forward and picked up my axe that Seth had dropped.  The bones and garbage of the remains of the throne shifted and moved and Seth came shooting up out of the remains.  He was cut and bleeding.  The business suit that he wore was tattered and torn now.  I charged towards him and raised my axe ready to strike.  As I swung down on him, he raised his left arm to block my move, but my axe sliced right through his arm and chopped it off just below his elbow.

            His eyes widened with disbelief as he beheld his bleeding arm.  I swung my axe again and stabbed it into the right side of his ribcage.  He raised his hand in attempt to magically force me away, but I remained where I stood.  His powers had lost their effect under the power I now had through God's love.  He growled, "You sonvuabitch!  Do you really think you can destroy me?"  I said, "I want to see you suffer."

            I backed away from him and stood in the center of the large underground chamber.  Seth screamed, "Come back here!  Face me!"  He approached me, leaving a trail of blood behind him.  He screamed again, "Face me!  I want to have your head as a trophy!  I'm going to eat your heart and feed your remains to the dogs of Hell."

            The chamber started to shake and tremble like an earthquake.  Seth was about to charge towards me again, but something stopped him.  He could sense something evil coming his way.  I pointed my axe towards him and said, "They're coming for you, Seth.  They're coming to take you home.  There, I know you will suffer."   A skeleton hand broke out from the floor and grabbed his ankle.  Another skeleton hand broke out and grabbed his other leg.  Several more then proceeded to explode from the floor and take hold of his legs.

            "No!  No!  This isn't how it's supposed to end!" he screamed.  The floor beneath his feet collapsed into a red fiery hole.  Seth screamed as he was pulled down into the flames of Hell.  He screamed and screamed with misery and suffering, and that brought a sense of peace to my undead soul.  I watched as Seth was pulled completely under and the large fiery hole closed itself.  Written in ashes where the hole once was the word GREED appeared.

            I walked over to the dead pinned Crow and pulled the daggers from its wings and chest.  I took the dead bird into my hands and kissed its large beak.  "We did it.  It's over now," I whispered to the large black bird.  Life was restored to the Crow and it came alive in my hands.  I lifted it up into the air and let go and watched it fly in circles above me.  That voice popped into the back of my head and said, "Yes, it's over now." 

            The large underground chamber continued to shake and tremble.  Parts of the skull walls began to collapse and fall.  The Crow and I quickly made our exit back to the dark tunnel.  I watched from the safety of the tunnel as the large skull chamber collapsed upon itself and was destroyed.  The Crow and I exited the dark tunnel and made our way back into the abandoned warehouse.  I noticed then too that the warehouse was shaking under the pressure of an earthquake.  I watched as the Crow exited out through a shattered window and I made my way back into the stormy night.  I watched as the abandoned warehouse, the home of the satanic occultists, collapsed and fell.

            The smoke cleared and the dust settled, and everything was set right.

Corpse Candles

            The storm finally passed after trying to cleanse the city of all its vile and disgust.  The ground was still damp and muddy for the days of rain.  The dark clouds that once filled the sky with darkness had now passed, allowing the light of the sun to once again shed its glory down upon the earth.  The cool wind breezed by giving whomever it passed a slight chill.  But it was the kind of coldness that made you glad to be alive.

            Father Cure led the pregnant Jessica and the young Angela through the large cemetery.  They passed by an endless number of tombstones as they searched for just two.  Jessica held Angela's hand to give help give her comfort.  Angela would just look straight down at the ground, just barely looking forward to see where she was going.  Father Cure pointed and said, "Over there.  There they are."

            They changed direction and approached two large tombstones.  Jacob's grave had been refilled, no longer the empty hole that it had been for several days.  Father Cure had seen it fit to bury the remains of Aimee right next the Jacob.  He felt that it would be the right thing to do to keep them together even after death.  Because deep down he knew that they were together in some beautiful place.  They were in a place without murder or bloodshed or even without misery.  They were together in a better place.

            Angela knelt down over Jacob's grave and reached out so the tips of her fingers touched the engraving of his name on the tombstone.  She let out a deep sigh and whispered, "I miss you.  I hope you're happy."  She reached into a small bag she kept by her side and pulled out two white candles.  She stood back up and said, "These are for you and Aimee.  I'm going to light a candle on this day every year to remember you both."

            She placed one candle on top of Jacob's tombstone and then another on top of Aimee's.  She then reached back into the bag and pulled out a small cigarette lighter.  She lit both candles and stood back in Jessica and Father Cure's embrace.

            For the first time in a very long time, Angela was able to look up at the world and at the deep blue sky.  For the first time in a very long time, she felt the need to be alive.

            I shall remember Jacob well.  The lost soul, who still in the end, found that love can triumph over any dark evil.  He found that there is no greater force on this dying planet than the power of love.

            Spreading out my wings and taking flight, I The Crow took soared into the air to search for another lost soul who would need my guidance.  But never would I ever forget the Shadow of Death, Jacob and his eternal lover, Aimee.  Never.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

~Psalm 23: 4-6

The End