𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇

EIGHTEEN

ANTON' S POV

The world was dirty.

It needed a savior. Someone to bring them out from the depths of hell—to cleanse them. After all, was that not what the texts read? Was that not what he had learnt, ever since young? Was that not what had been instilled in him since his very birth? Luke 15:11-32. The wayward son who squandered his inheritance but was welcomed back by his forgiving father—Anton had marveled at it when he was young. To think someone would have such boundless grace; such forgiveness for a foolish person...

The oracle. Anton saw the oracle as a gift—a symbol from God. It had been delivered to him when he was young, naive, and careless.

Anton remembered very little about his childhood. Extremely little. He remembered his mother, his father. But that was it—but oh, how he hated them. Anton did not remember why he hated them, why the portrait had been torn out. He regarded life then, and now, as the beginning of the end.

Something fleeting, something ephemeral. Something tragic. Life was a wonderful tragedy.

People look at me with such endless wonder; such spellbound eyes and widened mouths. They see me as God—they see me as a deity above them all.

And that was true, Anton thought. That was very true. Sinners. Wretched, dirtied, horrid sinners, all of them! Anton despised humankind; they were worthless—made of brittle bones with flesh. He did not even see them as humans. They were just mere vessels in need of salvation.

"Father Anton!"

"Father Anton, would you please help me?"

"Bring me to the path of salvation!

He was anointed by a divine purpose to purify the soiled souls of the world...

Yes, that was his purpose.

It was relieving and calming to have a purpose. To drift in the vast expanse of the world; the universe without a tethering purpose is akin to being a feather in the breath of the wind. Useless, damaging, lonely. Anton could see—it was very easy for him to see who were those who were aimless in life, compared to those who had the bright, bubbly life shining magnificently in their eyes.

Oh, Mother. Anton would stand before her grave. Again, he did not remember much of what he believed was to be a mundane, boring childhood, but his mother's name left a bitter taste on his tongue, horrid and painful. Somehow, he did not feel a single bit of...remorse, or guilt when he gazed at her tombstone. He expected to feel guilt for something he was quite sure he didn't do.

But his lips would always curve into a smile when he saw the words etched on the grave. She was dead, he would remember. Dead. Occasionally, snippets of memories would come to him—her shrill voice, her messy, jagged hair, her crazed, crazed eyes. The way her fingernails felt on her skin when she scratched at him wildly.

Clearly, she deserved to die. How did she die, though? What exactly transpired? What kind of person was she, and what kind of person had she tried to make Anton into?

Anton found, to his surprise, that he was bothered about this. Detachment was something he prided himself on: he would never venture too close.

To have attachment with someone would be detrimental. Annoying. Haunting.

There were times—many, many times when Anton had awoken, hollow and void.

The oracle.

The oracle.

When is it coming? When is it coming? Have the gods lied to me?

The oracle—his lifeline since he was young—was the very proof that this world had a chance, to live on, to heal.