I was scared, cold and alone. It was the year 1349 in Paris and death has flowed through my once gorgeous city and changed it to place of sorrow and pain. I had been sleeping in my room when my mother had become like the others. You didn’t need to ask why a person was crying like she did because you know why and that it can’t be stopped. Her screams of fright woke me in the night and I ran to her aid but when I saw all I could do is pray. Praying is worthless now my neighbour told me; his son was a merchant that travelled and new the state of our home land. Entire towns had been deserted but it wasn’t that they were running you could never run from the great divine. They died slowly knowing their fate and journeying to the nearest church to be cleansed of sin. Only 5 out of an entire town made it to our church. The rest died fearing their punishment of dying with as much sin as a human would have. They died crying.
My mother was blessed to be born near the house of our lord. She ran to what she believed would be her afterlife’s salvation and confessed all sin. She stopped crying and told my father to keep me safe and our neighbours that she would pray for us in the afterlife. Her death was slow and I saw her tears of pain flow through her swelled purple face. She died a sad death where vomit was on her last night gown and blood flowed out of her mouth every time she spoke. Her last words were to me “Die by Gods hands and Die with my love” she said dearly. She died with a priest by her side.
It was my Father a month later that would face God’s anger. Nearly everyone in a town has died but faith was left in my heart as Gods messenger was still breathing and preaching. We had visited once more for my last relative to confess his faults and attempting to understand Gods curse of freewill, the ability to sin. He didn’t die like my mother or as himself, the devil had taken over his mind and he wasn’t the same. Many others died like him believing to be another and seeing objects that hadn’t existed. Yet his mind over came the devils curse of temptation in his last breath as he said to me, “ Free will isn’t a curse but a test for us to prove ourselves to God”. With those last words and the fall of his cold hand I truly became alone.
His last words had given me faith to live through this abysmal plague. I had walked through the street that was filled with children playing man gambling and the smell of my mother’s cooking. Now it is filled with the starved, faithless and dying neighbours with the stanch of the cremated and sick flowing through the city. I had prayed every day for my sins to be forgiven but then in the day where my test began. To climb out of an abyss of blasphemy. The unblessed had occurred. The priest had died as my mother and father did, with Gods curse to punish our sins.
A true member of god’s council had died and I had no way to pray to god. With all this pain I had forgotten of one whose love I’d dreamt of going to war for. Her name was rose and her heart had belonged to someone else and I hadn’t been brave enough to dream of having to ask her hand in marriage, but I will never grow old enough to gain a man’s courage to tell her my true feelings. My faith had been taken and hope destroyed. My trust in god was gone and a was alone. Then I saw the ultimately feared object on my body, a lump of the colour purple had appeared on my neck and arms… I vomited blood shortly after.
The pain wasn’t all visible though my insides began to bleed and I felt that I was melting in winter. I thought to myself if I had already died and reached hell but this wasn’t a dream to be woken from. I had closed my eyes to sleep and watching the prideful be dragged to their knees and the avaricious give all they had to the poor to show that their words were true but now we are all equal and no one is safe. Through I have learnt I had 4 days to live and one had passed.
When I woke up I saw those I had loved I asked myself out loud if my life had been taken, my mother had opened her arms and I had been drawn to her but when I reached her she appeared further away. I first limped then she moved further away. Then I started to walk to her but the she disappeared out of my grasp to reach her. Then I ran to her but remembered my father and his hallucinative words that had seemed he tried to reach an invisible entity. So I stopped and she disappeared for good but I was near the edge of a cliff face. I yelled in shock but then realised my mind had tried to trick my soul into taking his own life. But all hope had been gone and the desire of life had been lost so I moved closer towards the edge.
I then had felt a desire to rest it was so uncontrollable that I had fainted. I awoke and my 3rd day had arrived. When I awoke my body had been over hauled with black lumps and it had reached all areas of my body. My desire to do the forbidden of my once praised and loved religion had grown and I had reached the edge, I so the river below and tears had added to its flowing waves. I then saw the priest who saw me not with anger of disgust but with understanding. He said to me that faith will always be tested and the only true way to end the pain is to endure it with God’s love. I told him that his words were of lies and to stay away. He then turned into my father and mother.
They said only one sentence each. “Free will isn’t a curse but a test for us to prove ourselves to God” My father repeated and My mother quoted herself saying “Die by Gods hands and Die with my love” That wasn’t enough to stop me so I took my final step but I felt cold hands on my shoulder pull me back. It was rose’s father. He looked at me with sincerity and I knew this was truly real. He said to me Rose had caught the plague and it’s her fourth day and she requested to have me by her side. I accepted as tears of blood had come through my eyes.
I had reached back to what I use to call home. Her house was not near mine but not far enough to make me struggle to reach to her. I had reached her mother her had hugged me and told me of all their prayers for my parents. I then reached rose who had her eyes closed and wasn’t able to open them. I told her that I had 1 sleep left until my fate had been reached. She cried but did not a noise as she would die using that much energy. I made sure she couldn’t hear me crumble under the pain that I had been feeling. She then said to me slowly and I knew that this was all I would hear from her ever again. She told me she had loved me.
I dropped to my knees and held her hand saying slowly that I loved her back. She died with a smile. Then I woke up… it was hard for me to breath, vomit was all over me while blood had painted the bed sheets. Was it a dream, I didn’t know the feeling as it was surrounded by fear and pain but a light of faith gleamed through. I wasn’t understanding these feelings in my house It was rose’s and it was my fourth and last day. The joy was real so I had arisen back my faith and prayed for forgiveness. I said out loud so that all will here that I will finally reach my lords warmth and the cherishment of my family and rose. Yet as I felt my eyes closed the room began to disappear and take the form of an open field near a river. I had fallen but the fake joy kept me breathing. The hope that was given was a lie and yet I didn’t care. If Heaven was waiting for me I had experienced joy unlike anything else and now I know I will be engrossed with such felling for all eternity. So in the cold I summed up all my energy to thank god for this message to lift me through the abyss.
My last words were of our cursed free will; “Thank you for humanities curse as it has led us through a journey to truly reach salvation” I will now die alone and in pain but truly with god’s love, this is what it is to have humanities greatest asset. A cause to die in any way with reassuring faith to reach a place of true purpose…Heaven.
