"I am innocent!" she screeched, clutching the tattered remains of her clothes around her violently shivering body. "I have made no contract with the Devil! I am no witch! Thou hast falsely accused me! Reverend, I beg of you, spare me! I have committed no sins, I am good, I pray, I love God! You cannot hang me for what I am not!" She dissolved into hysterics, tearing at her hair as she screamed unintelligible words to the sky, falling to the ground as he signed the death warrant. There was nothing he could do.

"I'm sorry…" whispered words that meant nothing.

His vision warped, and he found himself standing in front of the gallows, three corpses still dangling from the nooses. Nausea rose in his stomach and he quickly stepped back to escape, but was stopped dead in horror. The middle corpse had lifted its head, an angelic face in the rotting body. "Thou shalt not escape me" it rasped, reaching a fleshless hand towards him. It was the woman he had condemned. He screamed inaudibly and threw his hands out to defend himself, only to see his skin falling off of his yellowed bones. Looking down, horrified, he saw maggots and other decomposing animals tearing at what remained of his body. Bile coated his throat and he panicked, eyes spinning wildly, head pounding as he could feel his body slowly coming apart. Blood poured from his eyes and his vision darkened, all the while the wretched shrieks of laughter coming from the old hag echoed shrilly in his ears. All went black.

Hands flew to his chest as he bolted upright in bed, choking on sobs, the nausea that had built up during the dream came back with crushing force and he threw himself over the side of the bad and retched. He emptied his stomach completely, and for minutes lay there, gagging on bile as his stomach continued to churn. Finally, exhausted and depressed, he shakily lifted himself up into a sitting position and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and pressing his fevered forehead into the cool material of his breeches. The acidic bile left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he cared little. He knew he would never be rid of his nightmares, not ever. Each night it was a new victim, a new life, a new death. He was going to go insane, he knew it, and he knew that he had to do something, anything. Saving even one soul from the gallows would make him feel worthy of being alive, but he was a coward. 'John Hale,' he thought to himself bitterly, 'you have no right to walk upon this earth anymore. Those people were innocent, thou hast known it, but have done nothing to stop it. You are to be pitied. You surely cannot be within reach of heaven now.'

He knew it to be true. At first, his intentions had been just, his intentions pure, but all had dissolved into nothing so fast that he could not keep up and was falling deeper and deeper into a pit of depression and desperation. He was condemning innocent lives for a false cause, he knew that now; there had never been any witchcraft in Salem, and there never had been. It was all just the juvenile, twisted revenge of small children. It had spread and festered until the whole town had been infected with it, and now there was no stopping it. Salem was a curse, and he was just as damned as the rest of them. All except a select handful who he knew to be honest, truthful, and still above all, pure. He could count them on one hand. Elizabeth Proctor, Francis Nurse, Rebecca Nurse, Giles Corey, and….John Proctor.

Hale reflected quietly for a moment before barking out a harsh, empty laugh. "You are a broken minister indeed, Mister Hale. There can be no doubt you shall go to hell. Especially not when you are like that."