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I don’t know why he’s rambling, but I have no true cause to stop it. His voice is a lullaby at this moment. It might as well be God himself talking to me; I listen, enamoured.

“Whatever plagues you should plague any good Christian. But the state of our world demands such things. Think of yourself as a Crusader. An Agent of God.”

This talk might have worked, if I wasn’t so aware of how eagerly my body wishes to sin. I can’t pretend I was made perfectly, but neither can I pretend that God instilled desire in me he did not wish me to follow. I reject the belief that I am being tested. It should not be my fault that God made men so beautiful. In the same vein, I cannot pretend that the University is God.

He did not make these trials. He did not set teras loose in this supposed haven to kill us. Those were men. Humans.

“Dean Drearton,” I begin, and then stop myself. This priest belongs to the University as much as he belongs to God.

I don’t think I can trust him, so I say nothing.

Father Veer sighs with an understanding he doesn’t actually possess. “Yes. The dean did tell me of the incident, as you settled. And if it is an absolution you come for, child, you have it. As I said: the state of our world demands such things.”

I realise he thinks I am here for the almost-suicide, and not for the general terror and rage I hold for what is happening here.

Limbs at awkward angles, half his skull caved in—

No, don’t think about him. But it’s too late, and I’m already speaking, soul craving the absolution the priest spoke of.

“He jumped. He would have been a suicide, in hell. But I shot him. I made him instead the victim of a murder. Does this liberate him? Make him worthy of heaven? Was my gun an extension of God’s hand and will, Father?”

I sound snarky, and desperate, and pleading all in one. What started as a rejection of the priest’s words became something else: a wish for his approval. For any exoneration he can pass on to me.

“Of course. You freed him from pain and from the gates of hell alike. Truly, you walk in our Lord’s image. And I imagine you will continue to do so, both through these trials and beyond. You will bring God’s justice to the creatures of Satan.”

I turn to look at him, half thinking he’s taking the piss. How broken a soul would I have to be to hear this drivel and think it righteous? I’m almost glad to be cynical. But I figure I can’t afford to make an enemy of the church, not when I so often need the comfort of God. I smile, I sit for as long as I can take it, yet my mind is elsewhere, already on tomorrow.

“Do you know. . . what comes next?” I say, in my best approximation of a dutiful son of Christ. “If I pray, will God reveal to me the trials, and what I must do?”

The priest smiles at me, but only with his lips. There’s a deadness in the eyes, a grey-storm of something I can’t name. I shiver when he reaches out to touch my shoulder.

“Pray, my child,” he says. “God will give you strength.”

My question goes unanswered, which is an answer in itself. I thank him without meaning it, and leave.

* * *

The cigarette is sweet and biting. I love the bitter burning of it and breathe deep and slowly. Leaning against a pillar outside of the chapel, I watch as the rain falls. From here, I can see the disconnected accommodation buildings, and the patch of grass where I killed a man. The body isn’t there anymore. I squint, thinking maybe the shadow of his flesh has blurred into the darkness, but when a flash of lightning cracks overhead, he’s gone. It’s as if he was never there. And the rain has aided this spectacularly; all the blood and viscera is being washed away.

Stop thinking about it, Cassius. Stop fucking thinking about him.

A shadow stumbling towards me snaps me out of the memory. I stand as relaxed as I can make myself, smoking slowly, trying to not look out of place. The shadow is someone tall and broad, wrapped in a raincoat. They stop when they see me, mutter something, and then storm forward under cover. When they shuck the thing, I curse—it’s Peter Drike, because of course it is, God has it out for me.

He manages to make me feel like I’ve just done something incredibly stupid. Gloating, obnoxious leer. Roll of his eyes. He’s a little shite. He greets me with a raise of his chin and a sneering, “Sodomite.” Then he shoves forward—goes well out of his way to walk into me, so he can spit at my feet and shake off half the water on his coat.

But he’s here for church and God and I find the dichotomy between his actions and his faith exceedingly funny.

“Love thy neighbour and all that,” I mutter.

He shoves me, very easily, against the stone. I have to bite the end of the cigarette to keep it flying out of my mouth.

“Keep scripture out of your filthy cock-sucking mouth.”

“Why? There’s plenty of room for both.”

He shoves me harder against the wall and then seems to realise he doesn’t know what to make of my reaction. I really don’t mind men stronger than me shoving me against walls. So we stare at each for a long time, and then he spits again—on my shoes this time—before decoupling and stalking into the chapel.

I look down at my shoes, which are probably still blood stained, probably still harbouring the gore of the suicide I killed—The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him—and now I have Drike’s saliva mingling with it all. I move and hold my leg out in the rain until I assume it’s washed away, smoking until the cigarette is pure ash, then I hastily light another, covering the precious flame from the wind. I smoke that one more slowly, more sullenly, trying to savour the taste of it and its burning. I attempt to lull myself to a false sense of peace. Of course, I fail.