Doubt

by Glory

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He would die here, but still he would fight. Thus was the will of God.

This Father Tim thought as he took up Joel’s own scythe in his paws and stabbed the satanic beast with its blunt end, feeling blood spatter all over him and soak his fur. He then held the weapon at chest level, and snapped it in two, an inky enigma flying from its broken parts like blood, as though the vile thing was sinfully alive, and he had caused it grave injury. Feeling himself grow weak, the raccoon knew that the end of their ethereal battle was near, and that he would not be the victor. He sank to his knees, coughing blood into the pad of his right paw.

"If you’re so powerful, why can’t you get the job done without hurting anyone?" he asked, feeling himself grow dizzy as he clutched at his wounds. He looked to the demonic form that still held a vaguely wolfish silhouette with disgust. "There are plenty of people in this world who get powerful and successful without murdering people. Those with power are certainly not the most moral people in the world, but you are just sick." The black wolf pushed himself to his hands and knees; he too soaked through in blood, his shoulder blades jutting where he pressed his paws firmly into the ground that staged their battle.

"What about your friends? Your loved ones?" Tim asked as he began to push himself shakily up again. "Don’t you have any regard for their well being?" the wolf’s voice came to him, distorted by malice, and yet eerily calm.

"I don’t have friends." He said. "I have only tools to exploit and enemies to destroy." The Father was now standing unsteadily, slumped slightly, his hair falling into his face, as he grasped a wound in his stomach from which copious amounts of blood were spurting.

"And what about Matt?" the holy man asked in a near whisper. "Is he no more than that? Just a tool for your thoughtless use?" he saw the wolf bristle, and knew that his end was near. However, he would not die before he planted that last seed of doubt. The seed that could well influence the future of the world he had served in a very big way. "What would you do, Joel, if it came time for you to choose? If you had to choose between your plans and intentions, all of these events you’ve orchestrated for years, somewhere in the backdrop, and Matt? Would you give it all up? Or, is your heart really so black…that you would kill the one person…that ever truly mattered to you…the only person that ever truly loved you?"

Joel rose to his feet and whipped to face Tim with lightning speed, drawing up his arms and smiting the despicable vermin with all the unholy power that was vested within him, obliterating the disgusting creature whose words were anathema to him. He watched as his enemy was torn apart with a rush of satisfaction, but this rush was marred by a feeling far stronger.

Doubt.

If the time came when he did have to choose, he would destroy Matt; annihilate the creature that was the only true threat to the fruition of his plans just as he had done the raccoon. He would never let anything get in his way.

And yet… as Joel turned and began to walk away, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure…

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