It was cold, dark, windy, and miserable. They stripped her of what dignity she had left by making her walk the forest naked, her blond hair covered in leaves, and her brown eyes a teary red. Before that, she was paraded around the complex to be shamed. Even the people she thought were her friends, became the very people who shouted insults and spat at her, some men groped her one last time. A way for them to say goodbye, a waste of goods.
Jessica didn’t have a choice to join the cult that her father established. She never really had a choice in what she wanted to be. Her parents controlled her like a marionette puppet, to move where she needed to move and obey what they expected of her.
She remembered what it was like being paraded around. The only time her father showed her affection was during her purity ball when she turned 12. After that, he became her worst nightmare, a man who demanded she take care of the house like her mother. To do what he saw fit and to his satisfaction. Whenever she met a boy, she was told to wave her purity ring at them. Jessica was never allowed to find love, she felt no one desired her or they would not have the approval of her father. She was even shunned from making friends, as her father feared Jessica would catch feelings for people of the same sex.
Her mother was no different, she would enable her father’s control and behaviour. He was the patriarch, a provider for them both. To her mother, it was a good enough reason to follow his orders. The mother would always find a way to punish Jessica, even if she was blameless. ‘Don’t bother coming back for Christmas!’ She would often say to Jessica when she said she was going out, even if she was going to school or meeting friends. When she brought a boy over who was her friend and not a romantic partner, her mother said in front of the poor boy, ‘I hope he knocks you up so you can move out.’ He refused to associate with Jessica ever again after that.
Jessica loved shooting, she loved the outdoors and one day desired to become a ranger or a pilot. But her father made her a baker so she could feed the cult. She wanted to finish high school and move out for college, yet her mother forced her to drop out to be a stay-at-home daughter. So she could one day be the perfect wife, a dream woman for whatever man her father liked at the time.
It didn’t matter, ever since her mother died, her father was driven to madness and worshipped what he called The Mouth of God. He forsook Jessica when she did the right thing. When she saw her friend, Faith, got knocked to the ground by her husband and kicked in the stomach. All because she didn’t cook the meal he wanted that day. Jessica called him out. She didn’t hit him; she didn’t threaten or report, she just told him that he shouldn’t hit his wife.
Jessica couldn’t imagine that the punishment for calling out an abuser was to be shot like a sick dog. Faith was not human, but property to serve her man’s needs. She was clearly in the wrong, it was why her husband had to beat her till she struggled to breathe. The reasoning of a tyrant and of a slave. She was one of the first people to spit on Jessica, the only person who stood up for her.
The two cultists forced Jessica onto her knees, it was the place where she would die. The middle of the woods, without a grave, or anyone to care for her. She couldn’t muster a tear; she had no strength left in her. Life never gave her the opportunity to be what she desired, it never gave her the chance to be free.
One raised a rifle to her head, she stared down the barrel of the gun to await her death. Perhaps things are kinder on the other side, she thought before she closed her eyes.
Liquid splattered all over her face followed by two loud thuds. She opened her eyes to a gruesome sight; the two men were dead. Blood seeped from their heads, one even wiggled from the shock. Jessica stayed there, unsure of what to do. She couldn’t speak a word or scream in terror. She had seen people die before, but their deaths were unnatural.
Emerging from the darkness was a reptile wearing an armoured trench coat, they stood over her with their silenced EF88 Austeyr smoking, and on the back of his belt was a bomb the size of a football. The reptile was quiet, their emotionless and scarred face looked down on her pathetic state. The reptile terrified her, even their blue eyes, the only human aspect of them was harsh and cold. They slung their rifle to their side and pulled out their knife. Jessica flinched, only to realise they cut her out of her binds. She shivered as an icy breeze brushed over her, the reptile responded by putting its armoured trench coat over her. It felt warm, like she was outside during a warm summer's evening.
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‘Speak.’ The reptile bluntly demanded, his tone harsh and deep. Jessica tried to reply, but her heart couldn’t find the right words. She didn’t understand why they cut her free, why they would even care. ‘Why are you here?’ The reptile said again that time with what sounded like a kinder tone.
‘I… I spoke out. I did what was not expected of me.’ She stuttered, too tired to formulate another sentence.
The reptile looked over the bodies of the cultists and started to strip them of equipment and clothing. ‘You’re a cultist?’
‘I was, I fed them, clothed them. I just wanted to do what was right.’ She looked over to the reptile with hope in her eyes. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?’
‘I’m Jackson, I’m here to destroy the cult.’ The hope in Jessica’s eyes died, and the reptile could see it as plain as day. ‘You could help me.’
‘What!?’ She blurted out, ‘I’m just a baker, I don’t know how I can help you.’
The reptile put down a pair of clothes for her to wear. ‘Get me inside, fight them. There are ways to help me.’
‘I shouldn’t fight. No good will come from anger, all I will do is just destroy. “He who is slow to anger has great understanding”, and I understand that I am not able to fight because…’
‘You’re underestimating yourself,’ the reptile replied as they put their ballistic shielding into one of the cultist's old vests that he scavenged from. ‘Anger is a tool, something to be used. It can destroy, only if you direct that anger to destroy what is rotten. It can also be used to build, only if you want to prevent the mistakes made by others.’ He threw down the ballistic vest in front of her.
‘No, no, I shouldn’t!’ She protested, ‘what you want me to do is get revenge. “I should not do unto them what they have or would have done unto me”. An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. I should be better; I should be an example for others to follow.’
‘Have they extended that kindness to you?’ Jackson questioned, but she couldn’t find an answer for there was none. ‘What I ask is not revenge, but justice. They’ve committed a crime against humanity, they planned to kill you and they’ve killed others already. I cannot allow them to walk away or continue.’ The reptile expected an AK-47 before he placed it down in front of her with a few magazines.
‘I’m scared.’ She admitted, saying what was really on her mind and why she didn’t want to help. She knew she had every right to be angry; Jessica knew it would be the right thing to fight back. The only thing she couldn’t do was find the strength to fight the fear that ate away at her. The fear that kept her in her place, forced her to obey the orders of her parents, to be a tool of others.
‘Be afraid! It is human to fear standing up, to do what you need to do. Use that fear, remind you of what it did to hold you down. Never allow it to control you but recognise why you are afraid.’
Jessica looked down, to see the clothes, the gun, and the armour. She wondered what to do with them, how she could even change the person she was carved into. ‘If I refuse?’
‘Leave.’
The response was simple, blunt and heartless. But it was all she needed to hear. What the reptile gave her was a choice, one she had never offered in her 24 years of being alive. She glared at the rifle and remembered her life with her father, the cult, and her mother. How they stripped her of choice, of freedom, on how to express herself. She frowned, not from sadness but from her untapped rage. The anger she never felt, one she was told to control at a very young age was finally free.
She put on her new clothes, equipped her vest, and readied her rifle. Without a word, she escorted the reptile to a hidden tunnel that led to the factory.