Author Games: Red Room

Task Eight: Vanity Morey

"And so, remember the trials of Vanity Morey, the woman who sought to be free from sin. She found that she could not escape, could not change her nature, and this is why we do not fight. We understand, like she did not, that our nature is to sin. The Lord created us flawed and left us vulnerable; whose fault is it but his if these flaws come to surface?"

Murmurs of approval chant from across the crowd. She stands before a series of hooded robes, but she knows their faces. Each one is as scarred as her own. These are her people. Her flock. It has taken years to gather them, but she doesn't regret it. Lit by a series of flickering flames lining the cavern's walls, they look like a long, charcoal wave, each one connected to each other. In a singular fluid motion, they remove their hoods, and she sees each of their lovely faces. Their mouths move in perfect synchronicity.

"For only a sinner can wipe out sin, she declared. So let me sin, let me take the world's evils onto my soul. Only then will I be free – for the worst sin of all is knowledge."

The woman has read her bible. She knows what she preaches. The apple of knowledge brought with it the notion of sin, but what damned Adam and Eve, she thinks, was not the disobedience. It was the sin. They thought of evil as an entity, and in so doing they deified a second being. They betrayed God. But the Church of the Apple will make no such mistake. Sin exists, yes, but it is no holy rival. It is a dull notion, as much a banality as repainting the house or taking out the garbage. Actions are actions, and they do as they please. They are not Evil. They are not Good. They simply are. Let God be the judge of their value.

Her knees creak and her back aches. The Church has taken decades to build, but it has grown into as proper a religion as any. It hides underground, yes, but it spawns nations and makes millions off the entertainment it distributes. They are hard to find, and harder still to leave. The freedom she offers is intoxicating and impossible to give up. Once man has tasted the forbidden fruit, they can't turn back. Even half a pomegranate's seeds can tempt you to the Underworld.

The grey wave parts before her as a collection of initiates arrives. Each one wears a white dress or tunic which would billow in the wind but hangs perfectly still in the airtight space of the cavern. They have come to be baptized; they don't know what's to come. They'll regret it. Later, they'll be thankful. It takes each person a different amount of time, but eventually they understand. Only through pain can we find meaning. We must willingly face cruelty, voluntarily embrace atrocity. Then, and only then, does the world become clear.

"For a week, she suffered of her own volition. She sought pain to find truth, and she held on until she found it. She rose from the cave baptized in her own blood, bare as Eve but without shame. For shame is righteousness, and we are not righteous. We are not gods. We are beasts awaiting the culling – and so, we sin."

She loves the sound of her voice mixed in with the choir of her followers. It booms, bounces around the cave's walls and harmonizes with its own echo. It hurts to smile and nobody can see it, but she does so nonetheless from under her mask. Each grin stretches her scars further, and she remembers her therapist's reaction when she refused reconstruction.

You have to move on, he'd told her. Let go. Part of that includes letting go of these scars.

He hadn't understood. They never do. At first, her followers were drawn to her by the lure of faithlessness. They'd longed for sin, not understanding that freedom required a faith of its own. It wasn't until after their baptisms that they'd seen the truth. Freedom is long-suffered and it is never guaranteed. Pain must continue. It must live as a constant reminder of the baptism's trauma. If she forgets, she will unlearn everything she has since realized. But the Church will go on. This, at least, brings her comfort. It doesn't need her anymore.