Machai

"The gods are angry!"

He had bellowed the words as he had done since he had first seen the sins of the city, wrathful and kind. The fools, the monsters who perverted the beautiful world they had been given. Did they not realize that the gods would one day lose their patience with the children who broke the world?

"Tear down the labs! Let Gaia heal her scars and forget the troubles we have caused her!"

They never listened though. Whether he stood on a street corner or burst into a tiled room, whether he wore rags that barely separated him from a beast or finery gifted to him by some groveling rich man, they would deafen their hearts and refuse him. Refuse the truth that he carried. But couldn't they see it, the gods had chosen him to be their warning, one last kindness before the fist came down?

"Remember who you were, who you were meant to be!"

Even now, those who looked at him with tears in their eyes did not do it for the suffering they had caused, for the pain they had endorsed. He could imagine the thoughts swirling behind wet eyes, not of repentance but only of concern for their own pitiful, broken lives. He hated them then, hated them as he had not done so when they had bitten and kicked, fighting to remain in their filth. But the gods had chosen him, and the gods had chosen them to be saved. This time he would see to it that they realized their mistakes, and remembered the gods were the ones to be worshiped, not the makers of unnatural beasts.

"Know they love you! That they shall forgive you! That you have been spared a much worse fate!"

The scientist he had taken was the prize of the group, though he know all of them were loved equally. He had caught the woman still in her white coat as she had left the lab, had managed to take out the beast that kept a watchful eye upon her with the aid of the Tainted One. She had not understood she was free, and he had dragged her back from the doorway to her hell, promising that she could still be saved. He had been forced to use another one of the Tainted's gifts, but he had no doubt his god would understand the need. Even now, she stared at him with glassy eyes, jaws and tongue working to slur gibberish that he liked to imagine was thanks. His heart warmed at the thought, and he gave a fatherly chuckle, dropping his tone to something more like a parent to a crying child as he glanced between the rope-bound forms.

"Be free, beloved."

And the fire burned bright.