Second sin

Congratulations!

It's hard to believe you managed to achieve such a feat. You should be given an award for setting the bar below the ground.

Seriously, how does one screw up so badly?

You worthless, pretentious imposter.

No matter how fast I ran, it was impossible to escape from the voice of my harshest critic.

The ground splattered with every step, muddy water reaching all the way to my waistcloth, forming stains that might last forever. At some point, the natural puddles I was running through had been replaced by rice fields, meaning that with every step I took I was crushing and ruining seeds—damaging the livelihood of people who had nothing to do with my problems.

Despite knowing that, I continued my sprint. My ankles were growing sore from the uneven ground and the fatigue was starting to pile up—the huge load on my back making it all the worse.

The weight of what I'd done.

The weight of Oscar's body.

I kept going nonetheless, blindly rushing through the mist in pursuit of the red light on the horizon. Soon, the fog parted to reveal the thick hardwood walls of a watchtower, atop of which sat the bonfire I'd been using as guide—a beacon to help the lost back to civilization. If I wasn't in such a hurry, I'd question if I deserved to enter at all.

The bridge stood ahead—the only way to access the city from this side of the river. Naturally, the guard knights wouldn't just let any mysterious guy cross without identifying himself first, particularly in this weather. Yet they all stepped down after recognizing me—only asking if I needed a physician for Oscar. When I declined, none of them questioned me further. They trusted my judgement.

The fools.

Thanks to the awful climate, the streets remained emptier than usual, but not quite empty enough. A few passersby still lingered around for whatever reason. They stared. Murmured. Moved out of the way. Yet unlike the knights, none of them dared ask if I needed any help. Of course they wouldn't. Why would they even worry?

I followed the all too familiar path to my current residence. As soon as I stopped in front of the door, my sight blacked out for a moment. Only then did I realize how frantic my breath had become and how nauseous I felt after racing on such a humid day. My entire body was ablaze, from the depths of my throat to the tip of my toes—drenched in sweat, mud and blood.

Kneeling down, I placed Oscar next to the wall. His open, blank eyes met mine for a moment, threatening to fracture something inside me. But I couldn't afford that. Not yet.

My fingers fumbled inside my satchel, searching for the seal that would unlock the door. When they finally got ahold of the piece of agate, they decided to loosen at the right moment to drop it in the water canal.

I watched it get washed away, swimming toward someplace at the outskirts of the city, where it would sink at the bottom of the river never to be seen again—away from the chaos that would soon overtake this place.

How wrong can one single day go?

Curse it all!

I kicked the door with more strength than I knew I had, which produced a double crack—one of which came from my own leg. The pain should've been enough to bring a tear to my eye, but I'd run out of those already.

Well, the door was open now. Good enough. I didn't care to heal myself so I skipped straight to lifting Oscar back on my shoulders and heading inside, ignoring the screams my ankle produced with each step.

Not losing a moment, I headed straight for the stairs to the basement and—on my way there—took the clay lamp from the table. Even with its light, the basement insisted on remaining unseen. It barely allowed me to make out the shape of the stairs, leaving me no choice but to take each step with as much care as I could despite being in a hurry. I knew I'd reached the bottom when I heard a splash and felt the coldness of stale water creep up my legs. This place always got flooded during Mist Season.

At least it helped alleviate the pain in my broken foot.

A few tall shadows awaited inside the ancient room: shelves stocked with clay tablets—all of which I could recite aloud. I placed Oscar down, whispering an apology for submerging him in this foul muck, then approached the shelf at the end and started pushing it. My leg protested, but my stubbornness was louder, and eventually the piece of furniture complied and moved away at my insistence. Behind lay a hole in the wall no bigger than a window, storing two tablets: one of them so ancient I feared it would come apart if I touched it, and the other a copy I'd made myself, its writing uneven and twisted like cursed texts. They might as well have been cursed.

I took the copy and started reading. Aloud, for some reason.

"A true Paladin should never attempt such blasphemy. You are about to commit a sin against the Divine themselves, who never intended for the Blessings to be used this way."

But then it followed with: "I still leave this knowledge for future generations, because I know the pain you must be going through if you're reading this. Nevertheless, think it over before making the final choice."

I turned to look at Oscar's silhouette, barely recognizable in this dark, forsaken and soaked tomb. Think it over? As if there was anything to think over. My actions were past the point of forgiveness. I'd sunken all the way and was drowning in my own guilt. There was nothing left to lose by going deeper, and I needed a pocket of air to breathe even if it meant committing a second sin.

Yet as I rearranged Oscar's body for the ritual, I couldn't avoid hearing his voice.

"This wasn't your fault. You didn't mean for things to turn out this way."

It was tempting to agree. To make up excuses, to justify my mistakes behind my good intentions. Alternatively, I could also blame it on circumstances, on bad luck, on Betta not listening to me, or on Oscar being too noble for his own good.

But none of that could deny the most essential truth of the matter: all of this could have been avoided if I'd just followed sound judgement. Even kids knew better than to interact with the Cursed. What was I thinking by trying to find common ground and meet halfway when the distance was a chasm? Paladin of Prudence? What a joke.

So what now? Do you believe your only option is to cover your sin with a worse one?

No, this wasn't me trying to hide my mistake, undo it, or even ask for forgiveness. This was me being too weak to face the guilt alone.

Do you think he would've wanted this?

Probably not. But I also knew that, if there was anyone in the world who wouldn't blame me for what I was about to do, it was him.

And I was fully aware I was taking advantage of his goodwill by thinking like this.