Alec Satchwell is a 24-year-old hitman's associate with a life that couldn't be less exciting. Until one day his life takes a drastic turn when God himself tasks Alec with a mission to kill fourteen other targets in order to inherit God's title. Wha...
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【1700 BCE 】
LIGHTNING FLASHES THROUGH the crevices of the obscuring leaves above. What had first been intermittent droplets is now an obnoxious chorus of vigorous downpour, as buckets of rain slip through the tree's leaflets and smack to the mud below his feet. Little pebbles of hail peck his bare shoulders and head, bouncing off and melting with the water on the ground. He dares not look up, but to keep his focus trained forward on the parting trees out yonder.
With each step he treks through the mud, the heaviness in his limbs only grows. Pain throbs his aching back; the bag slumped over his shoulder sagging within the dampness of the rain. While the night in New Hampshire lingers cold as a winters wasting sky, it phases him not. He has forsaken all care.
Ba-dump... Ba-dump... Ba-dump. His hefty heart, a-pounding. Drumming. Like a piledriver in his chest — the beating of his heart louder than the breaths of thunder above him. Perhaps it is from the adrenaline pulsing through his veins. Or the burning of his stagnant calves. Or perhaps it's his cold concentration upon the path afore him, aiding in tuning out the frantic clamor of mother nature.
As he trudges through the pulpy grime of the umber-brown, ancient woods, a rather strange sense of calmness awashes him. As if the night's tempest has draped a gauze of sereneness over his clouded mind. Nothing ought to change this decision now. His mind has been made up, and he is ever so sure of it.
So silence! Think not about it, Zacharias. Perhaps if he may realize the measures of what he is about to do, he may cower. Falter yet again. And continue to live in suffering longer.
His feet scuff to a stop; vacant eyes hovering over to the sight before him. A grand, sturdy oak tree, with a trunk so thick and branches so high. Glamoured in rain. Its gnarled roots dip in and out from the ground, almost like a hook in a pond. Wood sorrel and grime flecks the bottom of its trunk. And sprouting out from the branches over at the top is a lustrous, blooming bush; its leaves are broad and embracing underneath the moonlight, as rivers of water pluck down from the tips of the fronds and run down the thorny trunk.
"I'm sorry," is all he is able to croak out. "Yorrah beautiful tree."
Re-adjusting the straps of his bag on his shoulder, he reaches out to the tree, feeling around the trunk for a secure grip. Its bark is spinoise, formed with chips of wood that splinter his fingertips. Gripping onto a chunk of the bark, he pulls himself up the tree, and one arm after the other he begins to crawl up. Rain and icy pebbles of hail pour down over his face, blinding his vision in water as he struggles to climb up. The wetness of the rain makes it harder for him to grip the bark, and for a moment he loses his grasp - but he is able to catch his weight, as the toe cap of his only pair of leather boots scrapes the bark of the trunk and secures footing.
He wipes his face on his soaking shirt, blinking out the water in his eyes; his vision unblurred just enough for him to make out a thick, twisted tree branch protruding out from the left side. He locks onto the branch with both arms and pulls himself over until he's lying stomach-first on top of the branch, downpour slapping his back like a powerful punch.
He slugs the back off his shoulder and onto the branch before him. With one tug he rips open the sachet, pulling out a mangled nylon rope he had stolen from a blacksmith just near town, and kicks the bag off the tree until it hits the ground, sinking into the marsh and roots. He makes work of tying the knot. Taking the firm rope, he loops it around the branch once, twice, three times. He tugs the coil, securing the bind. Then running his fingers across the rope until he reaches the end, he ties another loop. It's only until now the weight of it all begins to settle on him. Fear starts to crawl along his skin.
His breathing picks up in his chest; the air so cold his rapid breathing forms clouds of condensation over his face. Once he ties the loop, barely big enough, he throws it over his head until it sits around his neck over his shoulders. Sitting on the branch underneath the rain, the fear numbing his skin had turned into panic. His hands begin to quiver, trembling as they hold the rope around his neck.
For the first time that night, he looks up to the sky, contemplating; his eyes ascending to the ancient skyscraper trees of the woods reaching timelessly out into the canopies of the dark night skies. Rain patters and moistens over his face, his hair and clothes dripping in the soaking water. A flash of lightning in the distance — followed by another booming thunder.
Something pricks the corner of his eye, leaving him helpless to the solemn tear that trickles down his damp cheek. O'God. Why? Why must you have made my life so miserable?
A whimper chokes from his lips, and then all at once the pent up fear, rage, frustration, and grief cooped within the recesses of his soul escape in tears, rolling down his glassy eyes.
"Why must you be so cruel to me!?" he cries out through wracking sobs into the night. "Not even in my final breaths would you let me feel a' peace! For a' least once in m'life! Curse you, God! Blood and wounds, bugger your damned soul to 'ell!"
The words tear from his throat, burning, like he had swallowed a lump of fire. His shrieks into the night are drowned out and deafened by the deluge of downpour. All he had begged for was to feel peace; serenity in his final moments. But instead all he feels is rage burning like wildfire in his chest, and an awful, gnawing fear pulsing through his veins.
"This wretched God. I loathe him. I loathe you, more than I loathe anything else in this scum world. Gracious and good, my bloody arse. You're the devil, that's what yorrah. The buggin' devil."
He weeps harder, head in his trembling hands, his gut wrenching wails louder and vocal. Through spluttering coughs and sobs, he howls, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry ma' and pa'. I'm sorry, for nevah bein' able to be the son you want'd. I was God's ms'take — everythin' 'bout me was. But it's okay. I'll b'gone now. Fo' good. Fo' bloody good."
Swallowing his sorrow, he screws his eyes shut once more, letting the torrents of waters wash away his tears and hatred. Hands on the branch, legs dangling, with one final push he slips light as a feather off the tree. He doesn't blink; He doesn't breathe; He doesn't think, as he lets his body fall with the rain.
He wakes up in a cold sweat, eyes snapping wide open. He's no longer outside anymore. There's no rain, no forest, no rope. The only thing he's met with is his ceiling, stained with slight water damage from several years ago. A sigh of relief escapes his mouth.
