Chapter Seven: You Will Never Take My Soul.

Sometimes it’s hard to walk away, and this was one of those times. Everyone always says that I have such a hard exterior- but maybe they should stop and consider what would happen if I didn’t. If I was anyone else, If I was different- I don’t think I would be able to handle a life like this. The truck revs to live and I navigate my way back out of the forest, back down the forgotten backroads. In a few years, I probably won’t even be able to distinguish the pine tree that I buried them underneath from all of the others. I won’t be able to go back even if I want to- which is good, because things of the past ought to stay there. You can’t change it- so why try to go back to it?

I can never tell Clayton where his sister and brother’s graves are, I can never fully explain to him what happened. But I feel like he already knows- he already knows that something inexplicably evil happened that night. I just hope that he doesn’t pin me as the cause. I hope that he realizes that I was there to stop it. Humans are easily misled- give them a reason, or someone to blame- and they will latch onto it for the rest of their lives. True, I am human too- but I seek nobody to blame. I blame only one thing- and that is God. For demeaning our lives and watching as they crumble and wither away.

Trees and buildings whip past me in a blur as I roll down the street. Closure is what we always seek, our ultimate goal, everyone’s ultimate goal really, is to obtain closure before their life ends. The ultimate challenge. And I’ve closed this chapter- haven’t I? It should be- and yet I don’t feel like it is. It feels open, and raw, and uncomfortable. I don’t like it. But Pa taught me- he told me that all wounds close with time. Even the toughest of injuries. Hopefully that means the ones inside too. Did pops ever heal after Ma left him…? I can’t help but wonder….

I pull up the gravel path to my house and click off the engine, I manage a tired smile for Dean and Jayce. They don’t ask an explanation. So of course- I don’t give one. Ripper wanders off somewhere, at this point, I don’t really care where. I’m so drained, physically and emotionally. I just need some rest. I’m so tired I don’t even care about my ‘cousins’ that broke into my house. I know in the days to come, my life will only get harder, more difficult, and will no doubt make me want to rip my hair out and beat Dean with a pole. But I won’t. Know why? Because I’m more fabulous when I don’t beat grown men with poles. Or so I’m told. ….By every man I’ve ever beat with a pole.

“Three months….” I tell myself, rinsing and scrubbing the blood and dirt off of my body as though I could scrub away every impurity there was beneath that skin, within my soul. The body is just a house for the soul, that was what Pa always told me. What you do with that house is up to you, but in the end it isn’t your body that is important- it’s what sleeps, what lives inside it. Many hunters are scarred, burned, maimed to hell- but they have kept the one thing intact that is most vital to their existence, they have kept their essence, what makes them them……..

The Soul. The essence of a person. And everything they will ever be.

It is the one thing both people and demons will always covet. Demons, we don’t see many of them, but a soul is the one thing that will always capture their interest. Because they don’t have one, and to them a soul is the sweetest thing that has ever been created. Demons are dangerous, the most fearsome creatures there may ever be. They feed off of human fear, and offer tempting deals in exchange for just one, tiny little thing you won’t even miss- your soul. But without a soul, you are nothing. You are a hollow shell. Trapped inside your own body as the demon torments you inside and out. All you become is a useless torture toy. And no person should be condemned to that sort of hell, and then exiled to it even after death, forced to watch as the demon devours that soul once they have lost interest with it.

Humans covet souls because it is the one thing that cannot be replaced nor replicated, no matter how broken, twisted, or black their own has become. You can’t rip your soul out of your chest and just decide to start over. A soul can never die, it can be devoured, it can be tortured, it can move into the afterlife, it can leave a body after that shell has died- but it in itself does not die. That is one of the basic laws of hunting- a soul does not die. A soul will never die. A soul can live in eternal bliss or eternal suffering, but it will live on infinitely. So even if a soul has been stolen by a monster, there is still a reason to fight. You fight for the sanctity of that soul. Like Missy, an Akuma had merged itself to her soul so completely- but still I fought, because it would not be able to follow her once her soul left her body. She would be able to escape, and live in an afterlife that I seriously doubt would be as hellish as the existance she was living in. Because Missy was good. Missy was pure. And Missy didn’t deserve to die.

I gasp and open my eyes, shaking my head as I try and chase away these thoughts. The steaming water from the shower leaves the faucet a pristine clear, but it pools at my feet a dirty red color. It runs like rivers, and for an instant, I scramble back against the walls of the shower in surprise, for a moment, the thought crosses my mind- ‘This is hell.’.

‘No.No this isn’t.’ I close my eyes and take a deep breath. ‘I’m just tired. That’s all. I’m just washing off…..’ I open my eyes and can see the dirty red water running down the drain. I take deep breaths. The mind of a hunter can be a fragile thing- But I don’t want to be like that. I will not go crazy. I will not bend to the will of the creatures…..

Hunters go to hell. It’s a fact. And all that we will have down there is the knowledge that we saved countless others from a similar fate. And today….today I feel like god is actually telling me, with that little panic attack, that my fate is sealed. I killed Missy. I pulled that trigger. And I can never take that back. Life is different, it is more than a soul, but just like a soul- it can never be replicated or repaired. And I stole a life today. An innocent life, a life that was pure and sweet, and did not deserve to be terminated so soon. Missy, and Quinton, shouldn’t have died. Missy- only 23. And Quinton, only 19. And although I didn’t pull the trigger on Quinton, I wasn’t there to save him. They were counting on me and I couldn’t save them.

I hug my arms to my naked body as water runs down and the sobs work their way up my chest. Who said that hunters loved destruction and death? We hate it it- and yet we fight anyway. What contradictions we are……

Missy and Quinton would have grown old and had families, but now, it’s all over. Life is so fragile, to be destroyed in less that a day, an hour, a minute. I grit my teeth and force the sobs back down. I will not cry, If god himself has to smite me for it, I will not cry. That sick twisted deity can banish me to hell himself- but I will never cry.

“You can take everything I have-” I say between grit teeth, “But I will not bow to you. I hate you, for everything you’ve done. For the life you’ve exiled me to, and all of the innocent lives you have let be destroyed. I will never forgive you- and when you banish me to hell, when you kill me. I’m going to laugh. Because that’s the only damn card you’ve got…” I wrench the water off and wrap myself up in a towel. I know my fate is sealed today, and I know that, even though I dug that grave, even though I pulled that trigger, even though the blood covered me like a second skin-

I will keep fighting. Even as this memory haunts me forever. Because this is a chapter that will never be closed. This chapter will go on forever and ever, until it is suddenly cut short mid sentence, with the moment of my death.

They can destroy my life. But they can never destroy my soul.

It’s one of the basic principles of hunting after all…...

Reviews

[Silent Wolf]

Wow. S.O.B. This is a really deep chapter, and I really liked it. I really got a little bit more of v's personality.

[Catherine Frain]

This is a fantastic chapter, and it shows a lot of V's personality that is hidden a lot under the surface. I love this chapter and it is very awesome. Can't wait to read the rest.

[EmaleighLynn]

As always, utterly fantastic. You have a talent for taking scary, dark, and somewhat depressing things and making them almost beautiful. I'm glad to hear from V again. :-)

[RedRozeNinja13]

I wrote this after being out of story-writing mode for a while. So it'll probably be.....well....ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Still looking forward to reviews though, as always, I love feedback ^ ^