Athazagoraphobic Sin

         The room was dark. It was thickly covered with some recent memories that my mind tried to lay to rest. My fingers coaxed the page to turn as my eyes glanced at the words of the book. A long day of work required a good amount of rest, and I found it with a good book. The only light in my study was from the fire blazing in the fireplace, the warmth flickering across my face.
         The windows shook softly with little gusts of wind. The sun had long set and the moon glimmered in the smooth glass and across the dark azure curtains. The wooden floor creaked with the constant settling of the old house, but the only sound I could hear was the soft breath that unconsciously escaped from my lips.
         The air in the room, warm and soothing from the fire, quickly turned to a bitter chill. Wind blew across my face suddenly as a loud bang echoed along the walls. I turned startled to the windows to see them swinging open in the night breeze. I placed my book on the table next to the chair and walked over to the windows. The wind was fierce, more so than I expected, but I was able to shut them tight. Strange, I thought. Another cold chill crossed over my body, and I turned around only to see the fire in the fireplace out.
         I began to walk towards it to light it again when I was suddenly blinded by an intense light coming from the doorway. I covered my eyes with my hands to dim the light, but I could oddly feel it tingling my skin.
         Shapes danced in the luminescence, and took the form of two women. The first was of an average height, with fair skin and golden hair that flowed over her shoulders. She wore a strange gown of deep purple with golden symbols marked across it. In her hands she held a black rod that swirled with soft mist. Grim arms of a demonic nature stretched out from her back, six in total, and reached through the air around them. They were smaller than her normal arms, but more menacing and haunting. The only thing that held my attention more than these inhuman arms were her eyes. They were completely black, reflecting the astonished look on my face. Her own face was expressionless.
         The second figure was very similar to the first. Her hair and height were the same, so was her outfit but only it was a deep crimson instead of violet. She held a black rod like her twin, and shared the same feature of impish and dark arms reaching from her back. Her eyes were normal, crystal blue or lilac, but she had no mouth, only a patch of skin that wrinkled slightly with the folds of emptiness.
         Before I could speak, the first lady pointed a finger at me and firmly stated, “Murderer.” I backed up as they slowly approached me, and then I fell backwards onto my footrest and chair. They loomed over me like some seraphs and demons. Her lips parted again, and she whispered “Sinner.”
         "Who are you? What are you?” I commanded, my breath scratchy with fear and concern. I was a believer of greater things, but never did my mind conjure such beings as these.
         The second placed her wand to her side, its long body easily touching the floor while her hand rested on its top. She stared at me coldly, her formless lips whispering to me fears and truths that she brought forth from my memory.
         “I am Judgment,” the first lady with the black eyes said. The gaze she gave, so vacant and blind, was more unearthly than any creature could pass onto another. “And she is my sister, Justice.”
         “Has my time...” I began, caught up in her words.
         “We are not Death,” she replied, giving me a moment to sigh in joy. Then she added, “nor Life.” She walked slightly closer, standing somewhat between me and her sister, and looked down at me fiercely. “We know who you are, murderer. We know what you’ve done.”
         “I have murdered no one,” I stated confused. In such a moment, truth is all one can speak.
         “No blood is on your hands,” Judgment said, “but you have murdered still. You sentenced a man to death. You have taken myself and my sister in your own hands and used our powers, powers mortals were not given, to kill a man. You have sinned.”
         “I am not a murderer. He was one, though. He had caused panic and alarm in the city. He had done sinful things, and he has paid for his sins. I have done nothing wrong.”
         “You dare question the words of Judgment itself?” she asked in a dark tone. I could not answer. “You have taken another man’s life in your own hand. Do you not agree you have decided this man’s fate?”
         “I was not alone,” I answered, fear swelling inside of me.
         “Hide all you want behind the walls of society, but you have sinned. Do you not think it wrong to kill?”
         “It is wrong to kill, that is why the murderer must die.” My answer haunted me as Judgment raised her wand high into the air, the head glowing with some blazing light. I thought for sure I had sealed my own fate then, but she slowly lowered it to her side in the same manner her sister was standing. “I am no murderer,” I whispered.
         “It is wrong to kill, you agree,” she started, “and you are right. For you did not create, nor can you destroy. For Laws above us govern such things, and as a mortal you recognize such things exist, do you not?”
         “I agree that such things exist, for you are standing before me, and there is no other
explanation as to why you would be standing here if not by some unearthly power.”
         “And you agree that mankind did not create itself, that mankind was created by forces unexplained?”
         “This is also true. But Lady Judgment, and Lady Justice, why do you stand before me just to ask such questions? Why do you interrupt my life and not the murderer’s?”
         “You do not believe yourself to be a murderer?”
         “I have done nothing wrong in society.”
         “But naturally, you have broken the rules, for you yourself agreed that it is wrong to kill. And you said so with no exceptions. So are there exceptions to kill? Would you find it right under certain circumstances?”
         “If I were to be attacked by a murderer, than surely it is right to kill him in self defense.”
         “But the one you have sentenced did not attack you. Why then is it right he must die?”
         “He could attack me. He is a danger to society. He has murdered.”
         “The world is not governed by if’s and could’s,” she replied harshly. “The man is indeed a danger to society, but what gives you the right to judge him and seal his fate. You did not create him, so how can you be justified at destroying him?”
         “Society...”
         “A man ruled by society is not a complete man,” she chimed in. “If you can not reply from your heart, then you have no reply at all. How can you be justified at destroying him? Did he judge you so cruelly as you did him?”
         "I had never met the man.”
         “So your lives did not cross. And how can you so easily pass judgment onto another mortal? Would you find it right that another man condemn you for your beliefs or lifestyle?”
         “But murder and beliefs are not the same. Though a man can murder for his beliefs, it is not the beliefs that truly make the man murder. A man murders because he truly wants to, whether there is a reason or not.”
         “I agree that murder and beliefs are not the same thing,” Judgment stated with a slight smile. “But you did not create this man, nor his beliefs, nor the knowledge that he would indeed murder. And the man who would condemn you for your beliefs did not create your nor the beliefs. In both cases, the one judging can have no power of judgment for they have no knowledge of how the thought of the judged works. How can one man say onto another he is wrong for his beliefs and actions? For they are of two different entities, and do not share the same beliefs and actions.”
         “I think I understand you, Judgment, but why then is your sister here? Is it wrong to punish a man in the name of Justice in hopes of making the world better?”
         “My sister, Justice, takes many forms, for who can say what is true Justice? For would not your own teachings and beliefs create your own morals? What one can say is moral, another can say is immoral. You do find it immoral to murder, do you not?”
         “I do, hence I had sentenced the man to death.”
         “But in that you have broken your own morality, for you have sinned against your own virtues, and in doing so sinned against the same virtues that made you. For one who finds something immoral, how can you pass this onto another regardless of the situation? Do you not fear death?”
         “I do fear it.”
         “But yet you turn this fear into reality for another, just under the belief he was immoral. Did Justice ever tell you it was right to sentence him to death?”
         “I have never met you or your sister before.”
         “So what told you it was right?”
         “Society accepted it as a beneficial procedure to rid the world of those immoral.”
         “But if immoral and moral are dependent on the individual beliefs, how then can there be acceptance of what is true morality? Punishment is subjective, indeed, but immoral actions as punishment bring no better answer. By using what you believe to be a sin as a punishment for that sin, you have become no better than the punisher. In fact you have become worse, for you have judged and said that the sin is acceptable in benefiting the world, in return breaking all the bonds of reason and truth that have been sewed into you by creation. You forgot the Laws, mortal; that is your sin.”
         And with a blink of my eyes, the two figures were gone. The fire was still blazing, and my book still in my hand. I sighed and closed the book, the page marker falling to the floor.