The soldiers came each night, never caring that their boots were caked with blood soaked dirt. His church had become the only safe post for them to rest and eat. They often used it to sleep in their bedrolls and take meals, praying with whatever free time they had before they slept. These were not the soldiers he had seen in the movies. They were far different from the boisterous men who exuded truculence and testosterone.

The dirty work to be done in England was extensive. Long ago a king had formed his own church to invent divorce. The Church had not been too popular in England after that point. Initially they blamed the culling on the last vestiges of the I.R.A., renewed and angrier than ever. The world wouldn't discover the terrifying truth until it was too late. The men who kept camp and stood vigil in his church were mostly American. But these were different then the American stereotypes he was so used to seeing on the television. They knelt in prayer before the altar each night, and each morning, asked for communion before they left to perpetuate their distorted sense of righteous justice. When they returned they would confess to sins unrelated to the murder they were committing.

As the only Catholic Church in the area, and he its only priest, he was given the respect that most dignitaries would have held.

Fat lot of good that'd done.

The Captain had refused his cot. Most nights he lay on it restlessly, allaying suspicions of his guilt by feigning sleep while the soldiers did. When the sun rose again he would refute his guilt by offering barren blessings and holding meaningless mass upon their request. Sleep came sporadic amidst the constant cacophony of gun shots and explosions. The same image lay in wait for him each time.

The Captain stood with his bible open and recited a passage from the Book of Psalms. His men stood in a pristine row, their black rifles shouldered at the ready and stood with backs turned to the altar. His altar. How they could commit such an act while the Son bear witness was beyond him. Light sprayed from the muzzles of their rifles as several loud pops reverberated upon old stone walls.

They wore blindfolds.

His parishioners.

The youngest had wet his pants while his mother and father sobbed and pled needlessly for mercy. It was the look on the face of their oldest, his caramel skin still smooth, the face that of a young man just escaping boyhood, that haunted him. Resolute. Stone cold. Determined to meet his fate with dignity. Like he had predicted this day would come. "Our father, who art in heaven.." He began to recite, trying to drown the Captain's verse out with the strength of his voice. The gunshots rose in unison and spoke a terminal "Amen." for him.

Whether awake or asleep he saw their faces, executed before the rest of his parish, while he looked on and did nothing.

The memory of gunshots drowned out the crack of the captain's skull.

When his eyes opened again he saw Dunbar flop to the ground, striking his head loudly upon the stone floor. That noise woke him from his enraged daze and the brush once held tight in his grip clattered loudly over the gray stones. He could feel his heart against his tonsils. Any moment now he would vomit it out onto the floor. He retched and all that came out was a bilious froth of fluid. He felt paralyzed. On the other side of the door was an entire squadron of trained murderers, more than eager to pass judgment. Had they heard" The sound of his heart in his ears was deafening. Surely they could hear that. Had the Captain decided to take watch' Or was there a soldier stalking on the other side of his door" Nigel did his best to creep but the floor had begun to sway. He barely stopped himself from falling through the door by the time he had reached it. He gulped each breath hungrily, warring with the tempestuous perpetual thrum of his heart.

He pressed his ear against the door and couldn't make out any distinguishable sound over the constant drone of war outside. Were the soldiers moving from their bedrolls" Were they arming themselves and getting ready to burst through the door to find him standing over the dead body of their slain captain"

Moments ticked away and he heard nothing. He dared to turn and look at the crumpled form of Dunbar. Blood dripped from his ears and the man was rigid. Nigel stepped gingerly away from the door to make certain he was dead. The floor swayed beneath his feet and made it difficult to walk. But he finally lurched towards the motionless Captain, knelt down, and searched his carotid for a pulse. He felt none. The Captain's chest was motionless.

The man was dead.

He had killed him.

A priest.

A man of God.

The captain had not come fully unarmed. At his hip was a holster, the pistol that hung in it was black and the clip shoved into the grip extended a few inches past the butt. Nigel's hand acted imperceptibly and reached for it. The metal was cold and soothed the constant ache in his palm. He had been hunting many times with his father, but this was the first time he had ever handled a pistol. It felt more natural in his grasp than the brush he had used to hunt penance.

There was no other way out but past the soldiers who slept before the altar. Eventually questions would be raised about the captain who lay stiff on the gray stone floor. He hoped that the constant sound of war had concealed the angry conversation and ruckus that had resulted from it.

Hoped, but not prayed. Control returned to his near flaccid limbs. His breaths ragged, he felt himself gasp with each inward respiration, feeling as if he were aspirating, drowning on his own fear. He turned his back on the stained-glass visage of the Virgin Mary. The muzzle of the pistol made a ring of cold as he thrust it up beneath his chin and tilted his head backward. His eyelids slid closed and his finger caressed the trigger.

He imagined his blood baptizing the Mother as the Chowdhurys? had her Son.

His finger squeezed the trigger.

Wrath gave him the power to hold the heavy weapon aloft. He had grown gaunt and weak under the burden of his penance, still, he managed to heft the weapon before him in the darkness. His feet moved purposefully while he crept from his chambers back into the church.

The black and white frock felt cumbersome upon his shoulders. Where once it had been perfectly tailored to fit him, it hung loose, cascading in folds away from his emaciated form. It had been a gift from Father Nathaniel, his uncle, and priest to this parish before Nigel was raised to the cloth. Nigel could hear his words amidst the deafening crack of mortars against the earth.

"You'll have to lead a humble life Nigel, but you can still look good doing it."

He had tried his best to follow his uncle's guidance.

Then the War came.

The old church had been cast into thick darkness made opaque by stained-glass windows. He knew each stone in the floor from memory and moved down the aisle with slow certainty, his heart threatening to burst behind his ribcage. The soldiers voices rose in a cacophony of confusion until one shouted distinct over the din of battle.

"Captain's MIA, Higgins is in command!"

The Lieutenant Higgins was the most intimidating of the squadron. He towered over him a few inches and always spoke in a cold voice. The Captain was dangerous because he believed that what he did was right. Lieutenant Higgins just seemed to enjoy killing. Mortars made impact close by and shook the floor again.

Higgins waited for respite to give out his commands. "Lights on men." Nigel saw conical beams of light shine from beneath the muzzle of the soldiers" rifles. They used them to illuminate each other while the Lieutenant gave orders. Nigel ducked behind a pew to listen.

"Gomez, get on the horn with command. Tell them we have no position on those heavies."

"Command this is four-two, we have no.."

Higgins continued while Gomez relayed the information. "Callahan, I want you in the tower with the fifty cal. See if you can get position on advancing enemy ground fire or transport. Relay to Gomez. The rest of you with me."

"Lieutenant!" Gomez called out frantic. "Listen!" The radio crackled loud and a fuzzy voice squawked through the speaker. " ..-two we have enemy infantry and transport 2 clicks from your position, recommend you secure rally point Alpha for reinforcements, over."

Higgins placed his headset over his ear and spoke into the microphone. "Command, four-two is Oscar Mike."

"Gomez, hold here and stay on the horn with command. Callahan, double time to the tower. I need you to provide cover. The rest are with me. Grab some Claymores. We're setting up a perimeter in the streets. Relay your positions to Gomez. Gomez I need you to relay those positions to Hitman and Victor team. We don't want to blow up fellow Crusaders."

"You have your orders. God be with you." The men saluted then moved to carry out their orders faithfully. Nigel did his best to remain out of sight. Their boots and the beams of light from their rifles getting closer. Too close. He scrambled painfully on hands and knees to the opposite end of the pew and hid behind the armrest.

His breath reverberated loud in his ears. They passed close enough to make out their steps over the rain of gunfire and explosions. Confusion and chaos made good cover. That didn't stop his heart from beating madly when he stood again and approached the altar. Cracks resounded from the bell tower, signalling gunfire. Callahan's voice screamed "Contact!" simultaneously over the radio and through the halls. Nigel inched slow toward the remaining Gomez, the soldier's back to him, facing the radio and a map on a makeshift table they had set up with overturned pews.

He tried to lift the pistol again but his arm defied him. He could not bring the muzzle of the gun up. He struggled with it at his side.

Gomez turned and shined his light on Nigel suddenly, the muzzle of the rifle leveled at his chest. "Father!" Nigel's blood ran cold through his veins. "We have enemy contact. You should hunker down somewhere safe!"

He approached the soldier, his arm still uncooperative. Gomez's gaze slid to the black pistol and he grinned. "You know." He screamed so he could be heard. "We all really admire men like you.? The men he referred to were priests who had taken up arms and aided in the culling, the ones who fell in battle given spurious sainthood. His eyes closed for a long moment. Behind the lids the oldest Chowdhury son genuflected before the altar of his church. He had looked at him, somehow, accusingly through the blindfold he wore.

Just before he was shot.

Just before he was killed.

Nigel nodded, raised the pistol, and fired.

The soldier grabbed his neck and fell to the ground, blood siphoning through his fingers. The gurgle deep in his throat sounded his death rattle, his terminal gasps for air damning him to a fate better than he deserved.

The pundits were calling these men Soldiers of God's Army. A title they had never earned. A title they would never earn.

A title that brought only death in its wake.

Granted when the posturing began the lines had been drawn starkly. With those who remained faithful to the Lord on one side, and those who remained loyal to their country on the other. After so many years of being misled with lofty claims of heaven sent orders, it was easy to see why so many soldiers and high ranking officers decided their cause was most righteous. If the President wouldn't act with the fire and brimstone required to end the insurgency then brave men, under the grace of God, would have to act for him.

That's when the bombs were dropped. The Middle-East was first hit, including its reaches in northern Africa, the fallout decimating the entire continent.

They had waited for condemnation to come down from the Vatican. Both Nigel and his Uncle huddled around an old boxy TV-set, awaiting the decree from His High Holiness.

Instead, in an act that stunned the world, the Pope decried that those men acted with his expressed blessings.

Later there would be more nuclear strikes. This time in Asia, wiping out India and China with a flare of light brighter than the sun.

Half the world's population wiped out in the blink of an eye.

All in the name of a god that had forsaken his creation.

The men responsible and all men who wished to join given sanction and asylum by the Church.

The Catholic Church's Holy Defense Force.

Soldiers of God's Army, doing their damnedest to bring about the end times.

So he felt no guilt when Callahan's skull blossomed and showered him in blood.

On the other end of the marksman's ear-piece the remaining soldiers shouted their positions over explosions and gunshots. Nigel rolled the soldier's body aside and assumed his post. He had never used a weapon with this sort of power, but had been hunting many times, and was familiar with rifles. Numb, he plucked the ear-piece from the slain man's ear and placed it in his own.

?"the corner of St. Paul and King. Setting claymore."

The bell tower was one of the highest points in town, the view it gave of most city streets perfect. Prone, he swiveled the massive rifle and pressed his eye to the sight. Most of what he saw was in shades of gray aside from the distinct ivory outline of a man kneeling just in front of the former tram stop on the corner of St. Paul's Road and King Street. Thermal imaging, a deadly accurate tool in the dark.

"Gomez, this is Moore, I'm at St. Paul and King, do you copy?"

Specialist Moore. The man had often confessed the sin of hesitance. Each moment he hesitated before killing one of "the wicked", each lingering doubt, sin to him. And not the murders he committed on a daily basis. He would be redeemed by Nigel's haste. The Priest's finger squeezed the trigger and the rifle bucked devastatingly. The noise it made gratifying. The bullet missed Specialist Moore entirely.

Instead it struck the mine Specialist Moore just set into the street.

The explosion was blinding through the sight but Nigel watched the resulting rain of blood and limbs devoutly.

Hours had passed. Yet he was still on his knees, enthralled in quiet, reverent prayer before a candle lit altar. He prayed to the Lord to give him strength. He prayed to the Lord to guide his hand justly. He prayed for penance. He prayed for redemption. Most of all, he prayed that he would make a godly knight.

He could feel the weight in the white cloth that draped his expansive shoulder line. The burden of promise within the simple cotton was overwhelming. Few men had been raised to this station during the war, and even fewer still from his background. But Brandon Higgins had been redeemed by the blood of the wicked and spared by none other than the hand of the Almighty. Surely it had been His divine influence that spared his life when the fallen priest had decided to turn his back on God and murdered the other men in his squadron. The memory of the man's gaunt face and haunting blue eyes etched itself permanently in his mind.

Whenever he felt the urge to submit to his war weary exhaustion he would recall it behind closed eyes.

The prayers changed in those moments. Giving him renewed vigor to complete his night long vigil. Now he prayed the Lord to lead him to the former priest. To find him and damn him, personally, by his hands. How a man who claimed to speak for the Lord could ever side with the filth they cleansed from the earth was beyond him. Holy confession would never redeem them. They had always been beyond its forgiveness. Guilty of sloth and greed, always searching for charity they didn't deserve, tainting the devout by furtively forcing their way into the more pure bloodlines. God's grace was never for them, not with the way their sins were scrawled in the tarnished tones of their very flesh.

He would stand the next morning, blessed by Pope Pius XIII himself as Sir Brandon of God's Kingdom.

And he would bring redemption to them all.

Nigel Alder first and foremost.

The Humvee rattled. Pain jerked him from dreams again. The dim gray seen from forced shut eyelids the only evidence it was daylight. He couldn't stop that last sob from escaping his tightly bound jaw. He saw them constant.

And they would never leave.

"I should let you suffer." He recognized the slight lilt of New York as the Lieutenant. "I should let you ride all the way to Sierra Hotel in pain. Maybe then you'll see that we don't %$#@ around." The needle tore a hole. An old, familiar sting, by now. The burn lasted only a moment. The pain was gone. And so was that desperate hold kept on consciousness.

Ashes.

Their first son, Jonathon, was barely a teenager that Ash Wednesday. Nigel took the reins from his sick and infirmed uncle early in his days after seminary. His first Ash Wednesday. Vishnu and Sipa were the only two long time parishioners who held no disproval in their gaze when they approached the boyish priest who held mass. He marked their foreheads with crosses of smudged gray. Never knowing they would end up bulls-eyes. Targets.

Never knowing he marked them for his greatest sin.

The black meant night. They were traveling far. But he couldn't tell how much time had passed. Not with the Morphine induced stupors that took him multiple times a day. The last of his cries echoed. When he woke, he felt none of the rhythmic gyrations that meant they were still on the move.

This one was quiet. Deathly so. The stalwart breaths could only be the one called Minnow. He preferred silence while he kept watch, where the other men had been more than willing to confess. All he ever did was whet his blade. Back and forth. The scrape of metal over leather ominous.

It stopped.

"You know I'm white." It was an odd way to start a confession. Words seemed a curious aberration from that voice. Soft, with the hint of stolen youth at the borders. His accent marked him from the States. The region was elusive.

"I can trace both my parents" families back to the Mayflower. So you and me are pretty much from the same place." The blade sung while it moved over the belt again.

"My parents were both deaf. When you pieces of &%$ swept through New York and New England, blasting it over loud-speakers that you were only looking for the "wicked". They couldn't hear it."

"Did you even stop to think about the people who couldn't leave their homes?" The blade paused in its torturous drag. Blame was thick in his voice, leveled at the tarnished cloth still wringing Nigel's shoulders.

"After that, me and all my brothers enlisted. You brought more trouble than was worth down on you?"

He wanted to stay awake. He tried to focus on those words. But they eluded his grasp.

Ashes.

The "wicked" were not allowed proper burial. Instead dead bodies were dumped in the street by the score. The soldiers poured a high density accelerant over them to hasten their cremation. Piles of ash populated the streets that surrounded his church. They were given their own that day. Offered one last dignity, and burned as a family. As the flesh burned and crackled he uttered silent prayers. His last funeral.

"Why?? They asked silently from behind blindfolds.

They all fell down.

A foreign face regarded him in the mirror. The sneer subtle. The hollow haunt constant whenever he tried to find them somewhere in warmth that had receded. The waves had lapped constant for three years now, the War eroding any semblance of the life had before the world was left warped.

"I'm sorry."

The priest's words resounded somewhere. In those bits left bereft when he had abandoned his family. The spots now dulled to anything but this everlasting task he had taken.

His education had been a gift, the more devout in his family had told him, from God himself. A calling, to those that taught him. And it was this that had earned him the rank of Lieutenant upon completion of Basic.

Still, he barely believed he was worthy of leading his brothers into battle.

Zachary Karimi had been young once. In fact, according to reports on the priest they had captured, only a few years separated them in age. In the days since his surgery the disarming man had confessed constant, forcing the words through his wired jaw. But only to he and Tunde. Even the best of Sierra Hotel's interrogators couldn't get a word from him. Zach thought the man was doing this on purpose now, keeping Tango Squad close and safe from deployment.

They had shared quiet words on faith over tea. Nigel, that was his name, had refused the small concessions and rewards they offered for his cooperation, preferring the barren and desecrated walls of his cell to any secular comforts.

But he never refused tea or a cigarette.

Tunde claimed he had taught him to smoke, taking credit for corrupting the priest. But with the way he exhaled small coursing streams through his nostrils, Zach knew better.

"Like I said before, while they let me know everything Command told the Captain, I wasn't high enough up on the chain to know much else." His lips parted needlessly, although his teeth remained tight together. "I know the positions of check-points to Southampton." Briskly, he pointed them out on the map, following the M27 and A27 in forked branches. He had to exhale from his nose, since there didn't seem to be much space between those pristine, stacked rows of ivory.

Zach nodded. "Thank you, Fa—, Nigel." He corrected himself. When he had been lucid enough, the former priest asked that to be called by his first name, instead of the title. It held no meaning to him anymore. Not after he confessed to watching his parishioners slain while he did nothing.

Zachary could understand why. He never forgot the faces of his own flock killed in action.

"It will take a few years. But I'm sure she'll understand. And know exactly what kind of man her father has become." Smoke was forced from his nostrils as he pushed the words past the wall his teeth formed.

Rising, and turning to leave, the Lieutenant paused, mouth agape as he shot a glance over his shoulder.

Nigel simply nodded.

That night, Lieutenant Karimi slept amongst deafening lullabies of war-time, forgetting the faces of his slain soldiers, and saw them again.

The Wicked had stolen his only chance at glory.

Disobedient and unrepentant, they had started this, refusing to lay down their weapons or their struggle before the will of the Almighty.

Years before the troubles had started he had been just a boy. A boy with a dream. Given the size and strength that made him capable of great power, he was also blessed with the ability to cut across the ice in a way that defied gravity. In his last season, before he was draft eligible, he dominated his much smaller peers.

He remembered the last game fondly. Streaking up the right wing boards he moved unperturbed, driving through defenders and forwards alike. Protecting the puck, he turned, swung his stick backward so the blade hung momentary above his shoulder, and leveled a devastating slap shot that rattled beneath the crossbar like a gunshot. The foghorn sounded, and his teammates celebrated another game winner that had left his Holy hands.

Memories he recalled whenever he doubted risking his life for the righteous. A time when he had the opportunity to drag his family out from the constant till of oil from the earth. A time when he had the opportunity to give them a better life.

The war had come and tore that opportunity, his most sacred hopes, from his giant grasp.

"Sir Brandon." Uttered reverent when men genuflected before him now, with that same adulation he had hoped to see in the stands. But for a different reason. They saw his ferocity. His unerring piety in the way he cut a swath through every town they stopped in. The Wicked spared their sins with a graceful swing of that bastard blade.

The youngest of the New Knights Templar, and already given a treasured task.

"His High Holiness." He was the one genuflecting now, seeing his staunch height as a curse. Brandon had to scrape low as not to dwarf Pius XII even on his knees.

"Sir Brandon." The sinewy, short man held out his hand and his ring was graced with a kiss.

"There are much more important missions for one with your talents. Word has gotten out of your..ordeal." Disdain crept into Pius" rattling voice.

"What would the faithful think if word spread of this"Priest?" The word spat like a curse. ?"killing ordained soldiers" What would those who exact the will of righteous God have in their heart to hear of this Father Alder living, and paying no penance, after such a transgression' "

Pius shook his head while he paced and spoke.

"We cannot allow our brother's faith to falter, Sir Brandon. You have done well in your short time as Knight. But now the Almighty asks that you bear a great burden." The Pope's fingers formed a steeple before his age worn face.

"Find this false Father."

With a practiced motion, Pius' hand formed a cross over the kneeling Knight.

"Bring him penance.?

"Bless me father."

Faces masked by a wooden confession screen they sat. A young and fresh faced Nigel just out of seminary with Bible and rosary wrapped in hand, praying for guidance.

His uncle was still the monsignor of the parish though his health was failing. The Church did not send another full priest to act in his stead. It simply raised Nigel. This was his first confession sitting on the other side of the booth.

"For I have sinned."

Vishnu, with his dark skin, and even darker curly hair, had no accent but one native to Great Britain. He was as British as Nigel and his family. As was his wife. As was their sons.

Silence was best in this moment, Nigel had discovered during his own confessions. No inquiries. Just allow the person to air their transgressions.

"My sons are growing taller every day. Jonathan is nearly a man grown." It must have weighed heavy on the man. His shoulders sagged wan, and he hefted a sigh that came from his soles.

"And I have missed out on the best years of their life. I have done my best to make a good life for the four of us. I have worked almost all the days of the week I can. Worked over time. Bought a house for us here in Portsmouth. Went to school at night to get a better job. I thought I would spend more time with them once I was bringing in more money and working less. Instead our expenses grew. Instead I just worked more. And now" I find that I may not know my sons as well as a father should. I fear?"

There was nothing in the Book or scriptures that Nigel had read or studied that deemed this sin. Pride" This had nothing to do with the Chowdhurys keeping up with the other residents of Portsmouth. It was about a father making the best life for his family as he could. There wasn't Envy or Sloth. Definitely no Lust.

But Nathaniel, his uncle, and priest to this parish before him, had wisdom where scripture gave none. In his waning days, when Nigel held catechism and passed out wafers while Nathaniel could still hobble to the pulpit to lead mass. "Some of the parishioners will come to you to advise them spiritually. Some come to you for other issues." His uncle told him after a monthly confession once. "But in these they rely on us for lessons on how to lead their life. On clarity amidst a murky mire that we all wade through. Even the most devout. I have had parishioners come to me to ask what would be proper to do in etiquette situations. Business situations. All that matters is that it is their own personal struggle.

"Sometimes the Lord's word will not suffice." Nathaniel said this without shame or pause. What a blessing he had passed before the first nuclear strike.

"Sometimes scripture cannot tell you how many Hail Marys or Our Fathers to make them say. Sometimes you have to look for something you know, as a person, as a man."

"I fear they will be just like their father when they grow up." Vishnu continued. The memories all merged while he finally slept; his cheek cold against a metal table in an interrogation room.

More silence. But this would be perceived as judgment. Or doubt. So Nigel spoke.

"There is no sin here. Nothing that the Bible says you have done that is wrong. Your guilt speaks of your abilities as a father and a devout man who gives to his church. Your guilt speaks to the kind of person you are."

Vishnu sucked in another breath, but this time it was drowned in relief.

"I have known Jonathan since he was a lad. You have had him attend catechism when it was I who taught the children's and adolescent's class. If the quality of his character is any reflection on whom you have raised him to be as a young man' Then you have committed no sin. You have done nothing wrong."

The words settled and resounded within the ancient and lacquered oak booth. "Thank you, Father."

The door opened. "I know others may make the occasional comment about your age. How since the church was built by your family you were given the frock and title instead of an older priest transferred in from another parish. Some may whisper about doubting your abilities. They are wrong. They made the right choice to stand in your uncle's place."

His face was a wavy dream behind the wooden screen.

It wasn't as sharp as it was when he remembered it behind each blink. Not as sharp as it was, lying lifeless, in profile on the stones, mouth agape, a halo of blood gathering at his head where the bullet had torn out the back of his skull. The words he had wanted to say Nigel spoke for him in every nightmare.

"Why didn't you do anything?"

The world was a jumble and became unsteady beneath his perception. Rattling. Clanging. He sprang from the table with a jump. When had he fallen asleep" It didn't feel like long ago. They asked him again and again and his only answer was that he was the one wielding the .50 cal the entire time. That he was the one who had killed those soldiers. An eye for an eye. But Nigel only had two to meet this debt.

"WAKE UP WANKA!?

They sat and spoke. Sharing their tales beside a fire of many logs with embers glowing. Bodies beaten and exhausted from the training they endured.

The men all wanted to tell their stories. To recount the reasons why they wanted to fight. Most had lost someone to a nuclear strike or an invasion in North America. Some could not stand the atrocities that the Church was committing.

No one knew Nigel's reasons.

Because now he wouldn't speak.

The men all shared and joked but Nigel said nothing. When the sergeants screams grew louder he would punctuate by mouthing "Sir, yes sir!" as emphatically as the other men screamed. But not a sound left his lips.

Fatigues and face drowned in mud. Razor wire above him in an intersecting pattern. They fired blanks from fully automatic weapons to drive them forward. To accustom them to the sounds of this war. Nuclear fallout and EMPs had rendered most advanced methods of war ineffective.

Nigel found that they threw the term around too easily. Even though he knew, for fact, that the concept was a lie. Hell wasn't pushing yourself to your bodies limits then through them night in and night out while they broke you down and built you back up.

In fact it was the zen of newfound penance. Another new world of suffering he could endure for his sins.

At the beginning he had a hard time keeping pace due to the limits of starvation he had pushed himself to. That had been his first attempt at penance. Gut searing hunger. Refusing food even after his jaw had healed. But after those first weeks the weakness and lethargy felt like a drug.

So he had arrived to Basic white as a sheet. A ghost that he sometimes thought was Nigel whenever he saw his own reflection. Another freed prisoner of war the Lieutenant had told the men who entered his information into the records for Basic training. The story was not far from the truth.

The Beast had been baptized in ammunition and blood. And now Nigel fed him food from the mess. Nurtured him in complete, resounding silence. When the other men would finally collapse from exhaustion Nigel remained awake to poke Him. Feed His muscles. Whenever he so much as blinked he was witness again to his greatest sin. In every ragged breath was the rage he needed to nourish the Beast's cries for murderous vengeance.

If he saw them behind every blink. In every dream. Then this would be his penance.

So the other men rested. And Nigel wrapped a folded piece of cloth around his eyes and went to work.

Jonathon wore his as well but alternated between standing at the altar sobbing and lying on it while a halo of blood gathered at his head. The nightmare skittered and chattered whenever he dared let his eyes fall. This would be his penance now.

"Do you hate yourself Father?" Jonathon. Always Jonathon. Confirmed by Nigel's own hand. Taught catechism before Nigel had finally gained priesthood. He would have grown into a good, Godly man. Just like his father.

Nigel pushed harder. Faster. Hovering his chest until it almost touched the cement floor.

"It's not enough." Jonathon's eyes were accusatory behind his blindfold. Nigel knew and saw the boy's face behind his own. As devout as his parents, he would have raised a family just as devout. But he would never get that chance.

"It's not enough now." Raven hair and dusky skin, a face full of disappointment, the words hissed in hallucinatory whispers.

"It's not enough ever."

Hating himself would never be enough.

Nigel's blindfold soaked through. He grunted and cried out with the strain but never let his body fall.

And he wouldn't rest until they had been avenged.