LIBERATION

A priest, wounded and covered in blood
walks into a church. He limps his way up to the alter. Collapsing at
its base he looks up towards the ornate golden cross and in a harsh
whisper he began his confession to his god.

“Oh lord my father in heaven, I have
acted in horrible ways in your name and in the name of my own mortal
power”

As the words finished leaving his lips,
the church doors flew open and in out of a dark and stormy night
stepped a group of soldiers. One soldier stepped forward and
addressed the priest, barely keeping the anger in his voice under
control.

“Stay right where you are father.
Make a single move and it will be your last.”

In a sudden rage the soldier's face
twisted up in anger, making the scar that ran across the right side
of his face twist into a grotesque shape. The words that burst out of
him were filled with a primitive rage.

“ Father your time has come. Payment
for your sins! Do you hear me father? You my friend are a dead man!”

The soldier waved his hand for the rest
of the men to follow and began to move up the isle towards the
priest. The rest of the soldiers followed tightly behind. Each face a
mask of hatred and rage. Each set of eyes were dull and lifeless. As
they move past the first few rows of pews at the back of the church a
lone man stood up out of the shadows where he had been quietly,
waiting for that moment to happen. At the exact same time as he
stands up a large bolt of lighting flashes outside and thunder
rumbles the building. He draws two pistols from holsters under his
shoulders and with incredible speed begins to fire. Three of the
soldiers at the back of the group go down before the others have a
chance to swivel their guns towards the threat. Before they the have
a chance to open fire, the man has already ducked down and rolled
away. As a hail of bullets rips the spot where he just was to shreds,
he pops back up again and fires off a few more precisely placed
rounds. Two more soldiers drop dead, leaving only two men and the
leader left standing.

Dropping back down behind a pew, the
man from the shadows press a button on the screen of a device
strapped to his wrist. Out side, to the left of the church a large
explosion erupts. In the shock of the blast, the man from the shadows
pops back up and shoots the remaining soldiers. They fall to the
floor in a heap with the rest of the dead. In a blink of a eye, the
man from the shadows moves to the bodies of the soldiers. As he
reaches them, one of the soldiers springs up with a weapon. Before he
has it fully raised, the man from the shadows, with blazing speed
puts a bullet between his eyes and the soldier falls dead. Before he
leaves the mass of bodies he pauses a moment at the body of the
leader and fires a few rounds into the soldier's head, whispering
something to him self. With the soldiers taken care of, the man form
the shadows turns his attention to the priest. Walking up to the
priest he reaches out his hand.

“ Father I believe it will be safer
for you if you came with me.”

the man from the shadows helps the
priest to his feet and then helps him walk towards a door on the
right of the alter. The man from the shadows opens the door and the
priest finds him self staring in to bright sunshine. In a stammer the
priest jesters towards the light streaming out the door and asks

“ Am i dead and is that heaven.”

The man from the shadows speaks with a
voice that sounded far away, like he was remembering something long
ago in his past.

“No father were not going to heaven,
I don't think you should see that place, but that's not for me to
judge. I'm just taking you some place safe, your work is not done
yet. You have caused much suffering and must fix what you have done.”

The men walk through the door in to the
sunlight. The door shuts behind them leaving the curch quiet. the
only noise comes form the crackling blaze, started from the explosion
out side. On the other side of the door the priest find him self in a
sun lite hospital ward. The man from the shadows lays the priest down
on one of the beds and lays his hand on him.

“You father, are a evil man. The
death and pain you have caused in your quest for power, has unleashed
a great misery upon the world. People with more integrity then you,
have decide your going to fix your mistake and destroy the machine
you manipulated those scientists into building”

The priest struggled to protest but
the man from the shadows firmly pressed him back down into the bed.

“ Lie down and be still father, the
nurses will be here in a moment. Don't speak, for if I hear your
voice again I may kill you my self.”

With that the man walks away from the
priest towards the double doors at the other end of the ward. Just as
he reaches the doors, they open and two nurses walk into the room.
one pushing a trolley of medical supplies. The man stops and speaks
with them gesturing towards the priest for a moment before leaving.

When the nurses reach the priest, they
begin to tend to his wounds in silence. The priest tries to speak
with them and ask questions. With no reply to his questions , other
then the sharp prick of a needle in his arm as one of the nurses
injects him with something, the priest falls back agist the pillows
and pass out.

When he next awakens the priest finds
himself strapped in to a chair, unable to move even his head. As his
eyes adjusted to the light, he finds in his field of vision, a
darkened screen floating a few feet in front of him. The room around
him appeared to be a white operating room. With out any warning the
screen comes to life and starts to play recordings of aftermaths of
battles. down the right side of the screen, a stream of data scroll
scrolls form top to bottom displaying dates,places and names of the
dead and wounded. The images on the screen flicker from mothers
wailing and crying over the bodies of the dead children , to images
of burnt out and scared battled fields. Faces scream towards the
camera in endless agony. The voices of the dead and dying echo
through out the white sterile room. Until its like the priests mind
is being buffeted by waves of sound in a sea of pain. The priest
yells out loud into the empty room trying to make his voice herd over
the echoing screams.

“What is this? Why do you show me
these things?”

A voice that seemed to come form every
and nowhere,began to speak. The voice was loud and without a hint of
feeling. It sounded to the priest like it was inside his head as well
as outside.

“These images are of the violence
you have set loose on the world with your meddling. Did you not
consider the evil you would unleash building that machine. You
manipulated so many people to get it done and now you will now pay
for your sins.”

As the voice finished speaking a green
gas began to billow out from vents high up on the wall. In moments
the room was filled to the ceiling with the heavy green gas. The
priest tried to hold his breath for as long as he could but he was
soon over come by the hallucinogenic properties of the gas. Soon he
is screaming and struggling in his restraints, as seance of death and
torture endless plays out on the screen in front of him. After hours
of the endless scenes of violence and the intoxicating gas the priest
finely passes out. When he next woke up he found himself back in the
hospital ward, and the man from the shadows standing beside his bed.

“Its time we went now father”

“Yes I believe it is. I see what I
must do now and why it must be done. I just thank my lord almighty
for the chance to set it all right.”

The priest did not know exactly how
long he had spent in the hospital but he did now it was longer then a
few days. The drugs and reeducation had made time slippery in his
mind. After getting dressed the priest and the man from the shadows
left the hospital in a military armored vehicle. They traveled a long
while in silence before reaching the front lines of a battle raging
around a large white building in the center of a field. The building
had a large blue beam of light shooting out the top reaching up in to
the sky. The field around the building was a mass of dead bodies.
Their was small pockets of men still standing, entangled in hand to
hand combat. Leaving the safety of the armored vehicle the priest
takes a moment to shake the hand of the man form the shadows.

“I thank you stranger for this chance
at redemption”

“I did not do it for you father. I
answer to higher forces then you will ever know.”

Having nothing else to say to the man,
the priest begins to walk toward the white building. He walks slowly
as bullets fly around him leaving him unharmed. As he passes one of
the small groups of men fighting hand to hand, he stops for a moment
to lightly touch one of the men. As he touches him, a blue light
seems to jump from his hand into the soldier then form one solider to
the next till all the men near by stop fighting and begin to laugh
and huge each other. With a smile on his face the priest continues on
to the white building. As he reaches the building he walks by the men
that were manning large machine guns, the blue light that first
entered the soldier he had touched had spread to these men and now
they were hugging each other crying.

upon entering the building the priest
is is confronted by three heavily armed men, yelling at him to stand
still. The priest simple raises his hands and the men drop their
weapons and fall to their knees weeping. The priest walks by them and
up a winding stair case in the center of the room to the top of the
building where the beam of blue light was coming from. As he reaches
the top of the stair case, he enters into a lab with men in white
coats franticly running around form computer terminal to computer
terminal yelling things to each other. Around them warning lights and
sirens were blaring some sort of warning of impending disaster. In
the center of the room was a large mechanical device that emitted the
beam of blue light up throw the ceiling into the night sky. The
priest simply walks by the lab techs almost unnoticed. Only one of
the techs notice him and yelled, rushing towards him. Before the tech
could reach him, the priest had reached the device and lifted himself
up on it and stood inches form the blue beam. With out hesitation the
priest simply walked into the beam of light with his arms
outstretched. He spoke out loud a few last words before being
consumed by the light and the machine exploding.

“I see. I see”