Rituals, Regrets, and Really Dumb People

Chapter 5: Badly Done Children's Art, Part 3

All the monks dropped to their knees in front of their radiant god. I did not.

"Don't you 'hello, Mathias' me. You owe me an explanation."

"I owe you nothing," he told me quickly, looking down to those kneeling to him. "Please, stand up, all of you."

He was so peaceful, so nice. Made me sick how he basked in his weakness. How he thought this was the right thing to be.

"You plotted this against me," I accused.

"Not necessarily true, just partly."

"I want to be fixed. Now."

"Do you now?" He asked as he walked amongst his followers. He looked up to one of his statues, one which displayed him as an old man with muscular features. The way He looked was different from the fatherly, wise sage of the artists. "How do you think it'd be fixed?"

"Stop bullshitting me," I roared. "Get your priestess here. I want an answer to this."

"What makes you think I'd do such?" He asked, turning around to face me.

"If you don't—"

I could feel the room sweltering as I watched the god in front of me stand tall. His face contorted; his calm, placid expression changed fast, into one of virtuous anger. He was righteousness incarnate and he did not accept commands from me. My blasphemy and rebelliousness were met with Dimitri pulling the arm of my robes. He wanted me to cool it; they all did. They did not want God's wrath on their heads.

"Do not forget who you are talking to, boy! I do not take orders or commands from you, and you will learn your place fast," He bellowed out with a thunderous voice. He did not sound like his teenager self; this was an ancient's voice, someone of venerable wisdom and age and power. With that said, and a moment to cool off, he slowly closed his everglowing eyes, breathed in deep, and began to smile. He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers together. "But since you insist, here she is. Just for you, Mathias."

An image bleed into reality in front of my very eyes, some flicker from another plane of existence. The luminescence came from reality tearing itself apart to make a gateway, and it was funny on the eyes; it stung a little at first, but it eventually dissipated for a figure to emerge. This figure was a woman, one who wore all white. I could barely see her; I had busied myself with rubbing the searing light out of my sockets.

As I dropped my hands from my eyes to get a better look at her, I began to find her a familiar face. It was Jessica, bleached blonde hair and all. She didn't have her fangs or sharp ears either. Of course, she was dead-dead, she couldn't be a vampire anymore. She had been dancing, some sort of hand-wagging conga line dance it seemed. Guess she found the rewards of the afterlife pleasant.

"Jessica!" Thimble exclaimed, the first one to run up to her. "And you're cured!"

"Cured?" she asked, her arm slowly lowering and looking around. "Ain't cured, I'm dead. Where the hel am I?"

"I hate to bother you, Jessica," the Radiant said, "but someone wants to see you."

One would think it was all the monks, who'd rushed up to their priestess with their puppy-like eyes. She had garnered their love and admiration in life, but I wasn't one of them and I didn't go for that folly. Me and Dimitri stood away from the crowd, separate.

"Who?" she asked, looking around between her followers. She was petting on their hands, nodding and smiling at Thimble, her gentle ways apparent to anyone with eyeballs in their head. If I was my old self, I would have found this sickening. "Who calls me from the grave?"