Confessions of an Unholy Burden

I'm not proud of my actions. I'm a terrible person, I've done horrible things, and despite my previous notions, I am no better than those who I hurt. I'm just a vile excuse for a human.

I should preface this with how I came from a loving home. My father passing at 13 was the most adversity I had to overcome growing up, and frankly it was harder on my mother. She and my 3 Brothers did their best to show me nothing but love, being the baby of the family, they always protected me and raised me in a way that would make our father proud.

I write this not to exonerate myself from my crimes, but to give an explanation to those who still feel the pain of my actions.

I tortured, humiliated and subsequently murdered innocent individuals, under a false pretense that I was doing something righteous.

Many will wonder why I did what I did, try to use various forms of psychology to study my actions and the underlying meaning behind it all. I hope this will cease any speculation and therefore harassment that will most likely befall my family.

I am responsible for my actions, and they don't deserve the anger you feel towards me.

I didn't do what I did out of selfish desire, rather a calling I couldn't ignore.

All of this started with one recurring dream, a truly beautiful moment of peace and serenity. I’d be standing alone in a dark field, nothing but tall grass and a large moon to accompany me. I could feel the gentle breeze wash against my face as birds danced across the sky.

Then, it changed. The peace being replaced with unease and tension. I was aware my feet felt cemented to the earth, the scent of freshly tilled dirt was now almost suffocating. Everything felt damp.

I would begin to panic, trying to move but ultimately being consumed by the thick mud as the earth began to devour me. I would scream but no sound would escape, the harder I tried keeping my torso above the unrelenting drag the more I would slip. It would squeeze the air out of me, cracking and breaking each rib slowly.

Every volatile reaction plunged me deeper and deeper, clawing and digging at the neverending muck, cracking my fingernails as I sobbed in complete silence, inevitable to my fate.

Once fully engulfed, I would wake up. I would be in the same dreary bedroom, covered in sweat and dehydrated. Around the end of the week, It was getting longer. I could now feel the dirt filling my orifices, breaking my limbs at the joints as my skull began to throb from the unrelenting pressure.

By Monday, I was desperately trying to stay awake by any means necessary. I would feel my head pop, my teeth shatter against themselves and my jaw dislocating. It was unnaturally surreal, beginning to blur the line of regular night terrors and reality.

After two solid weeks of restless nights and countless visits with doctors and therapists, I decided to go against all natural reflexes and suffer in silence.

The medication had proven useless, every shrink I visited told me the same thing about guilt and grief manifesting in various ways; or how stagnant lifestyles can result in a bored subconscious. I was tired and desperate, and with each failed visit, I could see commitment was imminent.

All I knew then was if I didn't fix this on my own, I'd be medicated and forced to spend a lifetime in limbo of assisted living and a muddy grave.

That night after coming home, I tried to drink myself to death. A mix of sleeping pills and Cuervo seemed like the easiest escape. You could understand my disappointment when the cocktail proved useless.

The moon was gone, replaced by a grey, desolate sky. The field was now full of garbage littering the ground, and for the first time, my legs weren't stuck. Slowly I walked forward, feeling a deep sense of remorse and pity fill me in place of the normal agony.

That's the first time I heard IT’s voice, bellowing from deep in the tattered nothingness. It called me by name, before lighting the sky with flashes of fire.

I followed, not knowing if it came to redeem me from the terrors or if it were the cause.

The scent of dirt was slowly being replaced with the subtle tinge of oil and machine. The garbage grew more grotesque, I remember low rumbling, rising louder and louder. Groans of agony and ecstasy filled the air before IT unveiled the unholy display laying in wait for me.

In the middle of the field was a deep pit. Inside was an amalgamation of flesh and what can only be described as the embodiment of gluttony. These creatures were clawing and ripping at one another, making the mass move like a lake of sin.

Then IT spoke again.

“Condemned are the souls of the damned, eternally festering in filth and misery. You my child, You shall be set free if you do my bidding, free from the agony of a rotting world that consumes you. I have seen what your kind is capable of, the hate and lust that drives you forward. You must cleanse a path for the righteous one, their flesh shall bind him to this mortal world.”

The ground fell out from beneath me, slipping into a vast black void of nothingness. The darkness wrapped me in a thick blanket, being suspended in the air by unknown forces.

For a moment, I was alone.

But only for a moment. An immense heat cut through the nothingness, lighting the world around me in deep red. I was in a cavern, unfathomably vast and deep.

The walls of the pit were crawling with those creatures, writhing and pulling their disgusting mass on top of one another. The scent of burning fuel and filthy machinery was overpowering, making my eyes water as I tried to comprehend what I was being subjected to. Forming from the middle of the mass was a black tower rising from the mounds of rotting skin.

As it rose, a metallic screaming noise could be heard grinding as its jagged edges cut and ripped through the bodies of the abominations, causing them to scream and bleed as they desperately tried to avoid its path. The more they screamed, the more they bled, the more they fed this thing.

“You must feed the citadel sins of the flesh, only then can you be redeemed.”

Those words echoed in my mind long after I woke, the scent of death was still fresh in my nose. After that night, I didn't dream anymore, but IT’s voice never left me. I could hear its distinct tone, speaking an unknown dialect softly when I would wake.

I wasn't a skeptical person. I didn't dabble in the occult or the strange. I had a very dry, rational perspective that bordered on irreligious. Before all this, I had aspirations and goals.

After seeing what I saw, so vivid and lifelike, it frightened me. All sense of understanding had been stripped away and what was left in its wake was an empty, cold feeling deep in my psyche.

I tried going back to the same mundane routines, but the voice at the back of my head kept reminding me this was something more.

It kept saying those words over and over again.

“You must feed the citadel sins of the flesh.”

I couldn't even begin to fathom what that meant, so with the advice of the new therapists, I reached out to my mothers church, scheduling a meeting with Reverend John Glarience.

This of course came at the cost of joining my family at a Sunday service.

It wasn't memorable by any means. My brothers were worried about me and mom kept giving me the ‘are you strung out?’ look from across the pews, it was the last remarks from the preacher that stayed with me.

The entire service, call it ironic, was on how the modern person doesn't feel a need to step in and do their part anymore. Something dealing with the indifference of good men being no different than the wicked.

After it was all over, the Reverend met me in his office. I told him about everything, giving great detail in how important it was to keep these things from my family.

When I was finished, he stayed quiet for a while. He taught me a small prayer if I ever felt like I was being overwhelmed, and said to seek medical help if the auditory hallucinations came back.

He explained that what I was experiencing could just be bad dreams and nothing more. I asked if it was ‘God’ and he told me God doesn't offer redemption at a price.

Apparently the only thing needed for my eternal soul to be free was to give myself to God and live a life that reflected his teachings. What the voice was telling me, was a mockery of those basic principles and laws.

I had left with more questions than when I arrived.

That night, while laying in bed trying to drift off to sleep, IT came back. This time, in a physical form. The familiar scents of grime filled the air as I heard it approach my bed, joints creaking as it lowered itself, softly breathing against my face. I felt the cold lips mere inches from my ear, whispering incantations as I laid paralyzed with fear.

Tears softly streamed down my cheeks as I attempted the prayer, only to be stopped by its warm, oily hands covering my mouth and eyes as it continued.

“The council of man knows not what the creator has in store. The mystics of your time have lost their devotion, turning their backs on the one who gave them their faith. He has chosen you, and yet you still wish to deny his blessings? You will be a savior amongst them, a king on the throne of brimstone and judgement, you will bring about the new age. You must feed the citadel, he will guide your hands.”

After IT spoke, I was left alone. Drenched in sweat and shaking violently as I sobbed.

I was told to collect pieces for the vessel, finding those worthy of sacrifice. I didn't know any of them personally, but it showed me things they did. Told me of the vile and horrid things they did in hiding. How they walked around, smiling and carrying on as if others didn't suffer.

It hated their waste of freewill.

I follow them home. They were mostly women and teens, spending their days alone waiting for loved ones to come home to, they held no real challenge. I would force myself in and assault them, usually attempting to incapacitate them. If they did die before making it home, I would be forced to find another.

The brashness I did these crimes in has been attributed to ego and pride, when in reality, I simply believed The Creator was protecting me, justifying the false ideas of grandeur I was experiencing.

I would drag them into the basement, binding them to a bedframe as I waited for further instruction. Around then they would wake, either enraged or defeated by the situation they found themselves in. I held pity for their cries of help, wanting nothing more than to let them free and rid myself of this unholy burden.

But I had been chosen, I couldn't fail at my task.

I would skin them, poorly, as I attempted at harvesting their contribution to the vessel. Some were lucky, swiftly bleeding out as I worked, while others lingered for hours after, begging to be put out of their misery. IT never allowed the wicked swift release.

“If The Creator wished for them to suffer, we must abide by his wishes.”

For months, I lived with pieces of them rotting under my floorboards. Nights filled with their pain as they wept and wept. The suffering was spreading, and I began to doubt our cause, but IT wouldn't let me rest. Not when we were so close to perfection.

I worked tirelessly sewing and stapling the contents to the desired form, and as I fashioned the last pieces the creator wanted for his vessel, I felt a great ease wash over me.

I would be rewarded for my suffering, The Creator would raise me to his ranks and save me from utter damnation. Finally the sleepless nights and self hatred that persisted would finally leave me be, I could become something great and never fear the loneliness again.

Then, nothing.

I sat there, covered in blood as the mound of flesh I had created sat there lifeless. I waited and waited but nothing came. I screamed and threw myself on the ground, praying and begging with all my might, to no avail.

The mass softly bubbled as its contents leaked onto the cement floor.

I kicked it hard, splitting my shotty work and sending its contents across my wall.

Now, I sit here waiting once again, alone. I write this in an attempt to reason with how my life wound up this way. A part of me thinks this was all a slip, a mental break that led to horrifying consequences. Another believes I can still hear IT talking to me, telling me the path is open.

I feel something terrible is coming. God forgive me for whatever may come, but for the first time in my life, I think I may be at peace with it.