Heretic God Part 3
Mark sits down, looking haggard and worn. John is already sitting across from him, his eyes fixed on Mark's face.
“Mark-”
“Let me do the introduction, John.”
John's eyes twitch with what could be concern.
“Of course.”
“Interview with subject #106, the ‘Heretic God’, archivist Mark Friday interviewing.”
“Are you okay, Mark?”
“No, John, I don't think I am.”
John watches Mark for a few moments, then nods.
“But you want to finish the interview.”
“I believe I have to at this point, John.”
John studies Mark for a while. Then he smiles that crooked smile, but it's colder than it was before. It looks like a mask rather than an emotion.
“I believe you do.”
“So after you escaped the Church.”
“I got dragged to the cult's current hideout, and I was told about the Heretic War.”
“It was my understanding that you were an active participant, based on the records.”
“I was, later.”
“But it began after your third encounter with It?”
“Right after, the cult members that had survived split into two factions, one still worshipping me, the other worshipping It.”
“Didn't most of the members you brought with you die, go mad, or exclusively speak the unknown language?”
“Apparently just because It… gives them that strange language, doesn't mean they can't speak English.”
“So they were recruiting?”
“Big time.”
“And the results after twenty years?”
“An intensely terrifying three way war that MY cult, AND the Church, were losing despite having more resources and connections.”
“How were they winning?”
“Assassinations, forced conversions, and, somehow, with charisma.”
“Charisma? Really?”
“Oh, yes, the bastards were surprisingly good at convincing people to do them favors.”
“So what did you do?”
“Basically turned my cult into an assassin death cult dedicated to fighting It's cult.”
“So you ignored the Church even though they were hunting you?”
“I never said that.”
“So the records ARE true?”
“Yes, I did in fact massacre a meeting of bishops and Cardinals.”
“And sent your assassins after the pope and other cardinals with varying degrees of success.”
“Yes, but I PERSONALLY massacred at least three hundred priests and bishops, with a handful of cardinals.”
“I'm noticing a pattern, John.”
“Yeah, that's because it's obvious.”
“You really don't see any issue with the sheer number of people you've killed?”
“Of course I see an issue, Mark.”
“...”
“The Heretic War lasted another five years.”
“The casualties are fairly well recorded.”
John laughs coldly.
“I imagine so, the Church didn't fare too well in a two front war they thought was one front.”
“They never realized the other cult was devoted to It?”
“Even I had trouble figuring out which was which sometimes.”
“There are fragmented records that detail a second cult, but it's difficult to decipher where one ends and the other begins.”
“Yeah, I have no idea what It did to them, but the ones who converted from my cult were already used to hiding within other organizations and once they converted they turned it into an art form.”
“So you spent a century fighting.”
“A century, two, three, I can't even remember anymore.”
“The Church kept records of an additional four purges including two separate occasions where they believed they burned you alongside a large number of your followers.”
“They only got me one more time, and two of those purges were actually the other cult, if I remember right.”
“So what finally ended the Heretic War?”
“It never really ended, it just became more intrigue and assassinations than active fighting.”
“When did you personally stop fighting?”
“When I got tired of it all, being worshipped, being hunted, dealing with It's minions.”
“What did you do?”
“I took a vacation.”
“I'm sorry?”
John smiles for the first time in a while.
“I became a privateer.”
“... a pirate?”
“Nobody embodies work hard, play hard quite like a pirate.”
“And the others didn't have an issue with an immortal man?”
“I don't know, I was only a pirate for five years, and by then I looked old enough people took longer to notice.”
“Why only five years?”
“Because the ship sank in a storm and I washed up on a small island in the middle of nowhere.”
Mark looks concerned.
“It was kind of nice actually, I spent ten years there.”
“Ten years alone on a deserted island?”
“Before I walked into the ocean, yes.”
Mark looks surprised once more.
“You walked into the ocean?”
“It was the only way to go anywhere.”
“Well that's certainly… pragmatic.”
“Call it what you will, but at that point drowning barely bothered me.”
“Where did you go?”
“I'd heard about a new land to the west, so when I found civilization again I made my way there.”
“Why?”
“Exploration, escape, novelty, who knows anymore.”
“And what did you do when you got there?”
“I went exploring the new world, got scalped a couple times, hung out with some fur trappers, and generally enjoyed the era.”
“Isn't scalping specific to certain Native American tribes?”
“I didn't say the Native Americans scalped me every time.”
“I see.”
“Eventually, there was nowhere left to run from modern civilization.”
“So that's what you were really doing, running from civilization?”
“Mark, I'm immortal and I have three–count them, three— religious organizations looking for me for various reasons, of course I was running.”
“So what did you do?”
“I adapted, got pretty good at forging documents and various professional trades.”
“You got jobs?”
“The industrial revolution was inconvenient for many reasons, paperwork and jobs are my least favorite.”
“So you started working during the industrial revolution?”
“I always worked, Mark, I just started learning skilled trades again because no way was I gonna work in some sawmill.”
“Why?”
“OSHA was not a thing, Mark, you know how quickly I would have had to explain my inability to die?”
Mark looks at the ceiling for a few moments.
“Somehow I keep forgetting the part where you're immortal.”
“That's because I'm charming.”
“You're certainly not boring, John.”
“So I dodged the rubber-stampers for another few decades.”
“And what happened in a few decades?”
John's face takes on a dark fury.
“Fucking social security numbers.”
“The retirement program?”
“The number.”
“John, it's just a number.”
“It's a fucking indignity.”
“How?”
“Because they kept track of the damn things!”
“You had just spent a century learning how to forge documents as needed.”
“Yes, but I didn't have to do it often.”
“And now you did?”
“Jobs, land, fucking BANKS, all of it started connecting with numbers.”
“So what did you do then?”
“I kept at it for a while, but some people started sniffing around and it was time to move.”
“Where to?”
“I joined the military.”
“That seems counterintuitive.”
“The Nazis were a thing now, everyone was gearing up to fight them, it seemed like a convenient way to move back to Europe and fake my death at the same time.”
“So you considered the Nazis a problem too?”
“No.”
“...what?”
“The Nazis were just the latest bullies, picking on the kids who look different because things weren't great at home, mainly I needed to move out of the States.”
Mark drops his pen and puts his face in his hands.
“Fuck, John.”
“I never said I was a good guy, Mark.”
“You don't even treat the damn NAZIS like a concern, John!”
“I'm an asshole, just usually not the biggest one on the block.”
Mark picks up his pen and jots down a few notes.
“So you went off to ‘die’ in world war two.”
“330th infantry regiment, 83rd division, it was a damn good war.”
“...meaning?”
“How about we finish after some lunch, Mark?”
“I don't mind.”
<Recording Ends>Posted Aug 12, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC