... This is creepy... o.O

It's for The Village Square's contest, to which the theme was 'The Seven Deadly Sins'... hence the creepiness...

I hope you like it.

Haunted

It haunts her everyday.

Sometimes, when she's kneeling for her prayers her skin burns because she's dirty and she doesn't belong in this place, where the Goddess is closer to the land than anywhere else. She's tainted, and not even all the holy water in the pond could wash the taint from her skin.

Nothing nothing nothing.

She doesn't own a mirror. She doesn't own much but a tiny, stiff cot in a bare room in the back of the Church. She doesn't have much because possessions are temptations and she's already too tempted by the voices inside her to add more to her burdens.

When she looks into the clear, beautiful water of the Goddess Pond, she can see it though. She may not own a mirror but the very nature of her penance makes her look at her reflection in the beauty of that clear water.

And she can see it.

The taint. It mars her face and makes her skin black with ugliness and dirt and evil and she gasps and shudders in revulsion because it's a demon staring back at her and she's that demon.

Others can't see it, though. When others look at her they tell her how beautiful she is. How fair she is. What a devoted woman she is. How pure, how good.

And she smiles and thanks them because the Goddess says that modesty is a virtue but all she can think is that the true nature of evil is to deceive others into thinking you're good, so that they follow you into evil.

It's a trick!, she wants to scream, I'm not good I'm bad. Badbadbadbad!

But she doesn't because she's afraid they'll believe her and burn her like a witch. And even though she knows she deserves it she's still afraid. So she claws at her skin instead under her habit as she smiles.

The voices. They tempt her.

Every second of every day they whisper tantalizingly into her ear-- you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're perfect, why waste away here, forever?

One more cup of wine never hurt anyone. They won't notice. Drink some more, eat some more, maybe if you do it enough you'll forget.

Stop that. You work too much. Wouldn't you rather sleep? You deserve it. Stop caring about it all. Everything will always be dirty, just like you. So sleep a while, and wallow in the filth.

Don't you want more than this? More? Are you really satisfied? You could have it all and more. You can and you did. Why pretend? You're not fooling me, girl.

Look at him. Isn't he a hot piece of ass? Look. At. Him. Who is she to keep him from you? Don't you crave that? Lookathim lookathim. You know you want him. Inside you, all over you. You want him. LOOKATHIM.

Hate them. Hate them all. Those stupid insignificant bastards that made you give everything up. Damn them Damn her for keeping her from you. Slit her throat in her sleep, that bitch. You can do it. She deserves it.

They have more than you. They have love and money and lives. Damn them. You know you hate them for it. Admit it.

They never stop. They whisper, all at once, driving her insane, making her remember who she was-- who she is-- and she bites her lip until she tastes blood and begs the Goddess for forgiveness.

Missionary work should have been enough, she'd told herself. If she said she loved the Goddess with all her heart and soul they would send her somewhere far. Far from all the bad things in the world. A pure place. Somewhere she could start fresh and repent and maybe when she was done the taint would have been overpowered by the place's purity.

But nothing is enough. Not even the pond's purest holy water could wash the taint off. The Goddess herself would balk at her dirtiness. Dirtydirtydirty.

She's driven insane and she deprives herself all the more until one day the voices turn to screams and she can't contain them anymore and she hears them all around her and she just gives in.

Yes, that's right. You are beautiful. Better than all of them. You love it.

Yes, doesn't that taste wonderful? Wondrous, isn't it? More. More never hurt anyone. More.

Yes, forget it all. Why care? Give in, feel the comfort of sleep.

Yes, isn't it wonderful to have money? But it runs out. Get more, more more more more.

Yes. Feel the heat? Feel his heat. Your heat. Faster, harder, and you may feel it some more.

Yes. Hit her. Hit her harder, choke her strangle her KILL HER. The bitch, she can't keep you from him. No one can.

Hate them, Alisa, hate them all. They still have more than you. Can't you see?

"Yes, yes I can see," she hisses, blood on her hands, all over her habit and her skin and everywhere. Now everyone can see it. Now everyone can see the taint and she laughs because she doesn't have to hide anymore.

They'll know if you don't wash it off.

"I know. I have to wash it all off before they find me. Before they burn me..."

She wanders aimlessly through the town until she reaches that little Church that chained her all those years and the pond just beyond it. She laughs and laughs as she steps out of her clothes (you're beautiful, dear) and steps into the pond.

It turns red with her blood, that pure water, and she stares at it in some twisted sense of satisfaction. Look at what she's done, she thinks, I've tainted this holy pond all by myself. She stares at what she's done until she can see her reflection in the crimson water.

Beautiful, see? Not a demon, you fool. Not dirty.

"W-what...?" she stutters staring at the wide-eyed woman staring right back at her. It's her. Her reflection.

You were never dirty. But now... now you are...

And the woman turns to a demon once again, teeth barred and skin melting from its own crimes and she shrieks as it reaches up and pulls her down, down down down until the purity burns her insides and fills her lungs and she's finally purified.

–...--

Poor, foolish girl. She faded before she could feel the arms of the Goddess hold her shattered soul...

Cursed are the pure, for they will be besot with temptation hundredfold worse than those of the sinner.

A/N: O.O

Hee hee... (looks away) I hope it has the effect it was intended to have...

To clear up the voices... you could say she was delusional. She cheated with a married man in town and when his wife walked in and found them she killed them both, hence the blood. And as for the 'sinful past' that made her so dirty to herself it was just a normal life. If you look around a lot of people commit these 'sins' everyday, and she did and she got a condition that made her quite fanatical so she became a nun/missionary to repent.

Poor Alisa... :(

Well, I hope you liked it. :)

Review?