Easter Retribution - Alpine Fellowship 2020 Submission

Written by Stephanie Harrison

Word Count: 2180

“I owe you nothing.” I said as I breathed in and exhaled; my heart hard and angry. “Do you

hear me? Nothing!”

He stood there, next to me, looking at me. His gaze was indescribable,

and inspired in me such a rage that my head felt light. My lungs could not get a full

breath; every muscle in my body was rigid with the sheer depth of my fury. My

fingers curled into my palms, nestled there into fists as rigid as the rest of me as I

stared at him.

“Stop looking at me like that!” I screamed at him, my voice as powerful as the

storm of ire that pounded through me. I stepped forward, bringing my fists up as I

did. He didn't speak. He didn't try and move away from me. He made no move to

block me or to stop me. I pulled back. Tension rolled along my muscles and into the

power behind the fist I threw as I aimed for his face.

I heard his neck snap as his face flew to the side beneath the power of my

fist. Pain flowered in my knuckles where my bones had connected with his cheek.

Blood blossomed on his face where I had struck him and stained my knuckles with a

pathetic line of red. I barely noticed.

“I don't owe you anything! Go away! I don't need you! I don't need anything

from you! Stop looking at me! Go away. Go away! GO AWAY!” I screamed in his

face as he brought a hand up and touched his bleeding cheek. His eyes sought mine

again. I could see the pain in them. I could see the deepness of a hurt that went far

past the surface of the physical pain. I could feel the echo of that pain as  it lanced

through me, pointed and sharp as a double edged sword. It welled up within me. It

shone a light on every crack, every scar, every wound, that I had ever experienced,

physical and not.

I hit him again. I could not stand that pain. I could not hear again the words

that had been spoken over me my entire life. I could not stand it. I hit him again, and
again, and again. I beat him with my fists, my flesh pounding into his. I beat him

with my feet, with my words, with anything I could find. I beat him until he lay

bleeding and broken on the ground before me.

His blood covered my fists. His body lay helpless before me. It wasn't enough.

I wasn't done, I couldn't be done. Not with what he had done. Not for all he had

done against me. He moved, twitched, struggling to get up, struggling for each inch

as I panted and stared at him. Bruises were already forming, deep and purple. The

places where my fists had torn his skin bled sluggishly. I watched his painful

movement, panting from the effort of trying to destroy him, yet still he moved, still

he attempted to rise. He tried to speak, he reached a hand toward me even now,

struggling, striving to reach me.

My soul screamed for justice! It wasn't enough!

How could just this be enough for all that he had done? I didn't owe him

anything. I didn't owe him mercy. I didn't want him.

It just wasn't enough to satisfy justice.

I stepped back, staring at him and picked up a whip. He deserved to die, I

knew that much. But not before he had suffered the way he deserved. He had

earned every single flick of the whip, every single burst of pain that would tear his

flesh. He deserved this and worse for what he had done and I was going to make

sure that righteous retribution was meted out in full. It was the only way that I could

satisfy the wrath that he had earned for what he had done.

The first blow of the whip fell. The metal barbs at the end of the lash bit into

his skin. Blood instantly beaded up and something in me sung with rejoicing at the

sight of it. This was it. This was right. This was proper retribution for all that he had

done. I pulled the whip back and watched red lines form as his skin came away,
latched onto the barb that had caught it and kept it. I heard him cry out in pain as

the lines became open channels bleeding freely into oceans with each strike.

I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. He had earned it. His actions were so grievous

that every strike, every tear, every drop of blood lost, was justice fulfilled. I knew that

to the deepest depths of my being. That was truth, beyond anything else that I

knew. He had earned this retribution. He had not earned forgiveness.

When I could not raise the whip any longer, when my arm ached from the

repetition of the beating that he so justly deserved I stepped back. His blood stained

my clothing, nothing human beyond the shape was recognizable in the form that lay

before me. I stared at him.

Surely he was dead now? Surely he would finally cease to be… surely his debt

to me had been paid in this death that was so richly deserved.

I stood trying to catch my breath. I was dripping with the spray of his blood,

staring at the raw lump of flesh before me that was barely human and he moved.

Still, still! Even after all that! I thought I had been angry before. With that

movement, no matter how weak a twitch, madness overtook me. He still breathed.

He still lived!

It wasn't enough.

I knew it wasn't enough. What he had done was beyond unforgiveable. It

was beyond even what he had already suffered. Only death was left. Only death

could satisfy my need for justice to be done, for retribution to be fulfilled. Wrath

overtook me beyond anything I had felt before. I stepped forward and dragged him

to his feet. I could feel hot rivulets of blood from still bleeding wounds that I had

caused pouring over me, covering me, soaking me through until nothing was left

that was not covered with it. I could not hear his groans as I dragged him forward. I

could barely hold him, his body slick with the grease of his own blood.
 He had done more to me than anyone could ever have done. He was the

cause of all pain, of all suffering. He deserved death but somehow even after all that,

he still lived and breathed. Death was the only thing left that would finally see my

rage satisfied.

I threw his body down and dragged him into place along the wood that I had

gathered and fashioned together with nails. I positioned his hands and drove the

nails into his flesh, into the wood beneath him and reveled in his pain.

He deserved this. He deserved all of this. I repeated the action with relish as I

drove a second nail into his other side. Something in me rejoiced as I meted out this

retribution. I knew that he deserved this. I knew that this was wrath properly placed,

properly spent, and never more deserved.

I placed his feet and took an especially long nail. With every stroke of the

hammer I drove it further into his flesh, through it, until it bit into the wood beneath.

Finally, I raised the wooden structure and let him hang there. I screamed at him. I

listed his sins and made sure he knew them all. I spit at him, starved him, denied him

water, threw his transgressions in his face as he suffocated slowly, bled freely, and

finally, finally, he died.

He breathed his last. His body went slack. I knew I had to be sure. I knew that

to satisfy my wrath, to satisfy my rage, to ensure that his transgressions were paid,

my retribution demanded his death. There was no other payment that would come

even close to repaying what he had cost me. I took a spear, close to hand, and

thrust it into his side. One more wound amongst a body that barely had flesh left to

spare. His flesh parted easily and bled the last of his lifeblood to the ground.

I slid to the ground as I stared up at him, knowing that he was dead, my rage,

my wrath, my anger, spent on the ground with his blood. I didn't owe him anything.

I had finally made him go away.

 I was alone.

A feeling I could not name began to fill me as I stared up at his body. Without

the furor that had filled me I could now feel what had always been underneath. My

own pain welled up in grief so sharp that my skin prickled with the pain of it. A

despairing wail tore its way out of me. I howled to the sky with the pain and loss

of it. I was alone, totally alone, as I had always thought I wanted to be and I finally

saw the truth.

I had enacted retribution on him, when the only thing he had done was love

me.

I didn't owe him anything. I owed him everything.

And now I had murdered him.

I was lost.

Alone.

As I wailed and sobbed with grief, bowed on my knees before the instrument

of his death and destruction, I finally admitted what I could not say before.

“I'm sorry...” I could barely get the words out between my sobs, my breath

locked in my chest with every laboured pull of my lungs. “It should have been me. It

should have been me. Please... forgive me. Forgive me for what I have done. Forgive

me for all I have done since the beginning, since the very beginning. It should have

been me! Why? Why did you let me do this? Why did you take my place? I deserved

this, and yet you paid the price, why?”

“Because I love you.”

His voice before me was sweet, gentle, full of kindness and the love of which

he spoke. The love for which he had taken my place and received the retribution

meant for me in his own flesh. I was afraid to look, afraid to see what I had done to

him. Afraid to see the ruin I had made of him, the ruin that had been meant for me.
 “Fear not, beloved.” He spoke again as he knelt before me and reached out.

His hand touched my shoulder, the wound from where the nail had pierced him

healed but the scar visible. “All that you have done that deserved my wrath has been

paid. My blood has been shed for you so you might be reconciled to me.”

“I do not deserve forgiveness for all that I did to you. I am so unworthy. It

should have been me, not you.” My grief increased as I took his hand between my

own and kissed the place where I had pierced him with the nail. Tears ran freely

down my cheeks, stained pink with his blood that still covered me.

“You speak truth. You have not done anything to deserve what I have done

for you in taking your place. You deserved every lash, every strike, every wound, and

death. Yet I have taken your place, that your debt might be paid and that the

righteous wrath of God that was poured out on me would not touch you.” His voice

was filled with a joy beyond any I had ever known. Joy that transcended the meaning

of the word into a beauty I could not describe. I could not help but look up  into his

eyes, as I had at the first. His face was radiant, his joy, his smile, his beauty, beyond

the words that sought to contain them, to define them, to describe them.

“Why? Why would you do such a thing for me, when we both know I did

nothing to deserve it? Why take that wrath on yourself so I might be forgiven right

and good punishment for my own deeds?”

“I have loved you from the first; from before the creation of the world. I knew

what you would do against me, and I knew what it would cost to redeem you from

death. I have willingly laid my life down and paid your debt because I love you.” He

held my gaze, absolute truth, absolute beauty, and absolute love, so far beyond

anything I could ever have earned, so far beyond anything I had deserved. “Will you

accept what I have done in your place out of love for you? Will you walk with me for
eternity, forgiven, redeemed, and loved without end? Will you put your faith and

trust in my love for you?”

Will you?