Chapter 1 : The Wondering Soul

As I wondered the earthly realms, searching for a reason... I look back now to the actions taken, thoughts risen & influences given into. Has purpose of my being really slipped away through the fingers I hold in front of me, stained with sin & cursed to be a reminder of mistakes bared? My feet are heavy, pulling behind me chains I locked on during my journeys... my breath slow, a fight to gasp clean breathes of chance, perhaps.

As I walk the ground beneath my soles, I think back to how I spent my life alone... hiding everything deep inside. Has my loneliness been self inflicted? Or inflicted upon by others? Dare I blame society? Culture perhaps? Maybe influences faced..... I drown now in these thoughts... gasping for air....

A stranger approaches, from a distance... no one I know or want to remember.... My eyes grow attached to his silhouette as my mind wonders who could this other be... wandering the grounds I so pray to be lifted away from. Closer & closer this figure of curiosity gets when finally lips and eyes are all that emerges visible from the hood he wore. "Hello there!" Says the stranger... "You look like to are in a dire state to belong..."

I stare in awe, questioning the possibilities of how he could come about guessing, no... KNOWING my deepest wish. "How did you know? Who are you?" I ask, all the while fixated on figuring out who this mysterious stranger was...

"I know many things, I know your sorrows... your pains... regrets... I know you tire from your journeys which you consider pointless.... May I offer you salvation perhaps?"

A smile fights to put itself across my face, "Yes... Yes... I want salvation! I want a sense of belonging! Please oh stranger! Can there such hope? Give it to me! Deliver into my hands the answers!"

Suddenly a shiver escapes from under my skin... the once seemingly calm stranger now glows with an aura I fear was my doing... it feels cold... The relief I felt moments ago is know exchanged with fear... A voice, unlike the one which came from this "stranger".... is now deep & menacing.

"Give?! Deliver?! How dare you!!! You lived a part of your life adding more & more weight to your conscience, you committed sins that has stained your credibility... tarnished a reputation you could have had if you did what was necessary to achieve it. When you decided it was a "lost cause", you ran away... alone... taking pity upon yourself which you did not deserve! And when finally someone offers you a way to something better, you assumed it was a gift which required no effort on your part?! You expected to be given rather than to earn what you apparently prayed for?!"

I fear my life has now come to an end... As the "stranger"  looms over me, I shut my eyes awaiting some sort of judgment, the last thing I shall ever hear for a long time from anyone was spoken... "Your soul belongs to me now, since you have no reason & lost all purpose to have one. I shall keep & do with it however I so choose."

Now, every time I open my eyes, all I see is darkness.... an abyss banished to. For all eternity to suffer like how I lived my life... alone.

Who was this mysterious stranger? Is this a lesson? A sentence? I waste not much energy trying to figure it out... since I am now... & forever.... his to control.