The Virtue had always known that, obviously, but Cecil has never felt this kind of cold before, was not designed to exist in these conditions; in fact, this abyss has seemingly been constructed specifically to be as unaccommodating to humans as possible. Edges that are deadly sharp and yet oddly fluid grate against them no matter which way they turn, slicing painfully and uncomfortably through their form without actually doing any damage.
Cecil tries to breathe and anchor and calm himself, or to at least gasp in pain, but freezing oil-ink-nothingness-glass-static pours down his throat and he gags, struggling against a realm that tugs and pushes in all the wrong directions.
So she stops breathing. She has to, if she wants any semblance of comfort here. She can still feel the base of her neck burning, liquid fire spilling from it and held back only by the frigid pitch-black around her. This is a place of recovery for the Virtue’s kind, after all. As unpleasant as it is for humanity, it is as close as anything will ever be to Heaven for angels.
Well then.
Cecil’s blood runs cold(er).
Now what do We have here?
Even without sight, Cecil is immediately and completely aware of every detail of the being—or would that be Being?—that glides through the void before her. A mass of Light that pierces every sense, spinning, burning, melting, screaming wheels circling Its form that somehow chills the not-air despite Their blinding brightness.
Cecil swallows thickly, tasting blood and terror. He realizes belatedly that both are his own, and that if he can taste them, then his looming, omnipresent God most certainly can.
Welcome back, Our little Virtue.
He has no features, of course, being nothing but a star-sized mass of Light, but Cecil can almost feel It smiling down on him in a mixture of pity, disappointment, and a few other emotions that make him feel vaguely sick and significantly dizzy.
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Everything burns; it can only see white, can only hear ringing, can only smell burning taste burning feel burning—
The freezing heat and pressure is too much. It has always been too much. It’s always the same.
The Virtue splits down the middle, curling inwards like a dead bug, like a crushed bug, curdling like expired milk, spilling outwards like putty squeezed in a the palm of a hand, and Cecil and everything else burns away.
God holds the malleable shape of a blank angel in the palm of His hand, admires its simple perfection for a moment, and then begins to work.
There is no need to be— afraid, Our little Virtue.
He almost chuckles at the word “afraid”— for how ridiculous is it that a creature of fear feels it?
Your shell will serve a noble purpose. You will be redeemed to Us. You will make up for your error.
Cecil whimpers. It’s a pathetic sound, one a little boy scared of the monster under his bed makes. She can almost feel God’s freezing heat against the impossibly-delicate folds of shadow that make up her form.
We will repair you. Mend you. Make you one with Us again, as We were meant to be.
Cecil strains to get away, but within himself he can feel sinuous threads working against their will, moving their limbs to bring them in. Her thoughts feel fuzzy, but she clings to the memory of soft blankets and Mark’s warm laughter and pizza parties where they’d stay up until three in the morning watching movies but the Virtue can’t see, has never been able to see, and those memories are merely stolen from one of its many victims.
God’s Throne folds backwards, opening to reveal the gaping maw of the impossibly-bright core within.
For the first and only time in its existence, the Virtue can see.
Cecil lets out a high note of panic, scrambling back against the forces shifting and sliding them forward, closer to God.
God hums again, as if having Their suspicions confirmed. Angels cannot feel fear. Angels do not disobey their Creator. To be reshaped, recreated, reborn, is something they are used to— designed for, even. Even this Virtue has some faces it knows are from whatever it was before being itself (being himself, now), ones he does not and never will remember killing to gain.
The struggling is no use. The harder Cecil pushes back, the closer God looms, almost tsk, tsking at their feeble attempts to get away. Every way Cecil twists or turns leads back to It, though whether the void is working against them or God is merely keeping pace with their fleeing or both or something else entirely doesn’t matter.
The Virtue is suddenly aware of a million senses pressing in around him, eyes and tongues and teeth and fingertips and talons and countless other unspeakable features all directed at the little angel that’s causing such a fuss.
They are all watching, or listening, or feeling, or smelling, or tasting Cecil. The reactions of her kin range from curious, to annoyed, to excited, to confused, to anywhere in between; yet these emotions all feel muted, and Cecil is aware—as she buckles under the judgement of her kind—that it is not due to a disconnection. No, God just mended that connection, patched the Virtue back into the feed. (Cecil never even realized the others had gone silent.) She can feel all of them perfectly clearly; they’re all just dulled. Each is only a thin smear of barely-individual identity over something that belongs wholly to God.
Cecil turns her attention back to Them, and, with some effort, says—
rewrite of the Confession(tm) cause the original got killed when my old blog was deleted
📼: bless me Father, for I have sinned. my last confession was…
📼: …this is my first confession. …I am not that boy.
📼: …Father, I… have done horrible things. unspeakable things. I don't- so many people are dead because of me. I lost track, I- I was never keeping it.
đź“Ľ: I don't expect forgiveness. I don't even really expect a blessing. I don't know anyone in their right mind who would wish well on someone- something like me. but in case- something happens to me, or in case I never have to reveal this to anyone else, at least someone will know. I'm sorry for burdening you. I know m-my guilt means nothing, but for what it's worth, I am so, so sorry, for this and all my sins.
đź“Ľ: Cecil Iglesias and Mark Bernard. I killed them. I-I'm the monster that killed them.
✝️: I know.
📼: …oh.
đź“Ľ: â—ś oh. it's You. how did I never..? â—ž
✝️: you are blind, as We made you. it's only your nature.
đź“Ľ: th-then this confession means nothing. then- I actually thought- I-I-
đź“Ľ: what are You going to do to me?
✝️: nothing yet, don't worry. for now, you are still useful to Us as you are. even broken pieces have their place.
đź“Ľ: whatever You want me to do, I won't. I'm not part of You anymore.
✝️: chose to cling to that belief, if you must. that's only Mark speaking. and just as he did, you will understand in time.
✝️: goodbye, "Bob Smith." what a ridiculous name.
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content warnings:
- character being stripped of their identity so basically dying. so that's execution right ?
(link to Ao3 version here)
@augusnippets
--
“Wh-what?”
WELL.
It comes from the direction of what is no longer (and perhaps never had been; perhaps it had always been a facade, perhaps he’d never even existed in the first place—) Father Bernard, but it is nothing resembling sound, not even speech so much as being, a physical sensation rippling not just the air but all of reality around and into itself, tightening Cecil’s throat as though it were telephone cord. There is blinding light—light Cecil could feel despite not seeing—pouring from every one of the “Father”’s orifices, Its human exterior melting into something no human could witness and come out sane—or alive.Â
YOU’VE BEEN CAUSING US SOME TROUBLE, “CECIL IGLESIAS.”
Cecil stares up with sightless eyes, every other sensation fading into obscurity around them; the smell of dusty prayer books in their nose, the taste of sweet-terror-blood dry in their mouth, Mark saying something somewhere behind them (and Mark can’t hear It, she realizes. He’s talking to me alone.), even the ground beneath them—it’s all gone. There is only the tiny insignificant speck of Cecil Iglesias and above and below and around and within and speaking unto that speck, there is God.Â
Cecil shrinks back, or feels a mental twinge that’s probably them physically shrinking back, trying to escape the inescapable gaze of their Creator. She tries to say something, anything, but can only release a pathetic sort of off-hook tone, a continuous beep of despair and desperation and—
⍒ Cecil? ⍋Â
Cecil jumps—nearly out of his own skin, in the most literal sense of the phrase—and everything rushes back, the church and the pews and the dust and the fear—her fear—and Mark and the floor holding them up and God, too, because It would not go away so easily.Â
◜ MMark. ◞ Cecil can’t pry his eyes away from God, despite lacking the sight that would warrant their staring up at Him. Behind her, she senses Mark taking a step forward, claws and fangs unsheathing, as though even a Dominion could do anything to the God that created it.Â
NOW, OUR EVANGELIST, WATCH CLOSELY.
Something prickles at the back of Cecil’s neck.Â
WE JUST WISH TO SHOW YOU THE TRUTH. THIS VIRTUE IS NO MORE CECIL IGLESIAS THAN ANY OTHER ANGEL.Â
It isn’t the familiar control of their Evangelist; not the cold, ice-glass-teeth sensation running down their spine that she had grown used to, that she’d trained herself to sink into and allowed to twist the blind servant into deadly layers of hungry shadow—this is startlingly warm, almost comfortable at first, then the fuzziness quickly gives way to molten-hot burning that drips down his spine, sinking into the spaces between their bones, seizing them for Their own—wait—wait—
“W-wait,” and now Cecil finally finds the self-control to whirl around on the altar (when had she come up to it?), eyes wide, too late, with God’s sovereignty spreading through their limbs in a steady drip of mind-searing numbness, “no, I’m not—I-I don’t—” they grasp blindly at the air, stumbling, panic seizing up their remaining muscles, because darkness is already beginning to unravel their form into flowing, abstract shapes, “—wait, PLEASE— ◜ MARK!” ◞ Their final lifeline. If anyone could—somehow—if— ◜ “MARK, H—” ◞Â
The burning pitch-black reaches their face, leaking out of the Virtue’s purely nonfunctional pupils and spilling over like an overflowing cup, swallowing up the entirety of the angel’s human facade and scorching out the flicker of humanity it had been clinging so feebly to.Â
Just before its legs completely lose definition, the angel falls forward onto its knees before its Evangelist; and then even the silhouette Cecil Iglesias is consumed, and finally, finally, they are truly, wholly, irrevocably dead.
