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"Forgive me father, for I am surrounded by sin."
A curly haired young man with a broad forehead lounged casually on his wooden seat, spreading himself to occupy as much of the cramped confessional booth as he could. He was dressed modestly in a long black hoodie and a pair of comfortable looking sweatpants and looked quite out of place in a church.
"How long has it been since your last confession, my child?" came a solemn voice from the other side of the confessional barrier. The young man smiled queerly at that question and adjusted a crystal monocle that sat securely on his right eye.
"I have never truly done this before," he said glibly. "Though my father was a fairly religious individual, he always deemed it too troublesome to wrangle me into coming to church as a child. But now that I am older, I finally felt that it was time that I came here to confess under the eyes of God."
"Is that so?" The priest hummed noncommittally. "That is all right; God gladly welcomes all those who wish to enter his embrace. Tell me, my child, what exactly do you wish to confess here today?"
At the priest's words, the young man straightened up from his slouch and his face lost its mirthful expression.
"It is a long and complicated story, father," he said. "One that I wish you do not interrupt me during unless absolutely necessary." The priest did not have any response to that statement. Taking the following silence as tacit approval, the black haired man started his confession.
"Forgive me father, I am surrounded by sin. To properly understand what exactly I am trying to confess, it would be best if I were to give you some context for what exactly is happening to me."
"It started three years ago to this day. My father, may he rest in pieces, passed away quite suddenly, leaving myself and my older brother with quite a sizable mess. You see, my father was the head of quite a few large conglomerations, all of which were helped managed by his group of loyal and trusted subordinates. But after his extremely sudden death, they all descended upon his life's work like a bunch of starving vultures, picking it clean. They would have left us orphaned and penniless if it wasn't for the efforts of my brother, who had barely just graduated college himself during that time. He was the one who managed to secure, through their greedy, voracious fingers, a sizable chunk of father's fortune and rights over his decently successful psychiatric practice. And even then, through the fierce legal battles and desperate arrangements to maintain custody over myself—who was a minor at the time—my brother still managed to send me off and welcome me back home every day with a smile."
The young man's tone did not convey any sadness or warmth when he said this, but the manner in which he was speaking made it seems like he had not really thought of what exactly he would say after finishing his statement, making his words sound unusually discounted and disorganized.
The priest made a sympathetic noise. "Perhaps you should try to organize your thoughts a little," he suggested gently.
The young man seemed to notice that as well, and remained silent for a longer time to prepare what he was going to say next.
"I should probably tell you more about my father's subordinates."
"There were six of them that he worked closest to. My father, in all his narcissistic glory, used to refer to them as his kings of angels and himself as their God." The priest made a soft sound, as if disapproving of that blasphemous statement, but the young man just ignored him and continued talking.
"The closest to him was Sasrir, his deputy. A solemn and morose man, he was usually the one who used to take care of my brother and I during the nights that my father had to stay over late at his company. Even though he and my father were pretty different physically as well as in behavior, they always seemed to be very similar to me when I was a child. That led me to making some quite out of pocket theories when I was younger in regards to his identity." He chuckled softly to himself, but the sound seemed to lack any sort of real emotion and, instead, came across as a hollow imitation of something that he had only heard previously. "Though, the fact that he disappeared without a trace after my father's death does seem to add more weight to that theory of mine."
"The next was Ouroboros. A waif of a man truly, with his long white hair and silent temperament, he always seemed to be more of an artist than the sort of person who would be involved in the world of business. He used to come over to paint portraits of our family every year since I was an infant and is pretty good at it actually. His temperament, along with the obvious affection and loyalty that he had towards father, made what he did later even more distressing. It was during the first and only time I visited his studio after Father's death that I saw it. He had managed to procure a complete human skeleton and mounted it on an inverted cross. He seems to regard it with a near fanatic devotion, kneeling beside it in prayer, presenting offerings to it, and, I swear this is true, as I left his house that day, I even heard him call it by my father's name. Soon after, my brother forbade me from visiting him again."
The young man's voice had started shaking with repressed emotion. It was very obvious that that scene had left a lasting impression on him. Unlike the last time, the priest didn't react to the blasphemy of the young man's words. Instead, it sounded like he had simply shifted closer to the partition.
"And then there's Medici. I'm sure that he had some sort of position in father's company, but as far as I was concerned, he was simply our nanny/maid. Every day he'd drop me off and pick me up from school and keep watch on us till Father or Sasrir returned back home at night. He was such a temperamental man—bullheaded, always trying to pick a fight, and had the most terrible temper truly. Why, I remember once when I played a harmless prank on him, and he retaliated by burning my hair off. I was only a child when that happened!" The young man sighed. "But I suppose he was at least loyal. A very strange individual for sure. He still wears around that collar that my father gave him once as a joke and refers to him as 'My Lord.'"
"And what of the other three subordinates under your father?" asked the priest kindly, his voice betraying nothing of what he felt that that moment.
"Leodero, Aucuses, and Herabergen," the young man answered, his voice wiped clean of any prior emotion. He was silent for a long moment, gathering his thoughts and deliberating what to say.
"I saw them, you know," he said gravely. He could hear the priest straighten behind the partition at his tone. "They never officially allowed us to see father's body after his death; the funeral and embalmment were all planned and arranged by his subordinates. But on the eve of his funeral, as I snuck into the funeral home to catch a glimpse of my father before they cremated him, I saw them. They were hunched over my father's corpse like the vultures they are, ripping into him, stuffing their mouths with his raw, bloody flesh."
By that point, the man's voice had raised in agitation quite drastically. Hearing the priest starting to get up, he quickly lowered it to a softer, more normal tone.
"I tried speaking up against them and holding them responsible for the heinous thing they did. But when I did so, they condemned me as if I were some sort of blasphemer and tried to have me admitted under pretense of delusions and psychosis. It was only through my brother being a licensed therapist with a successful practice that I was able to escape that fate."
"Despite all the struggles and misfortune that has befallen you, you must still count yourself very lucky to have such a reliable and caring elder brother to support you," the priest commented gently. The young man simply laughed emotionlessly in response.
"Oh no, father," he said between breaths, "you are most mistaken. Out of all the people I've mentioned, my brother is the one who I would claim as sinned against me the most. I will admit that I was not in the best state mentally right after my father's passing. I became prone to hysteria and had to be put on medication and surveillance for my own good. My brother—he's an excellent psychologist, even better than my father was, during the rare times he would practice. He took over a mediocre clinic and turned it into something wildly successful. His patients all claim to find him extremely comforting and soothing, always guiding them through their problems and ensuring that they always leave more mentally balanced than when they entered. And this is definitely high praise, especially considering that he has a penchant to decorate his office with bones and human skulls."
The priest let out a soft snort at that, causing the young man to pause.
"Are you alright?" he asked with concern.
"Mild dust allergy," the priest explained apologetically. "Please don't mind me and continue. You were talking about your brother?"
"Yes. During my period of hysteria, he took complete control of my life. What time I get up, what time I go to bed, what meals I get... even when I take a shower all required his approval. You might say that this is just a guardian's controlling nature, and that my brother was probably traumatized by our father's death, and if that was all, I would agree—but my brother's definitely gone insane."
The man took a deep breath. "Even after I recovered from my hysteria, my brother continued to control every aspect of my life. He deemed me unfit for interacting with the public and pulled me from school to tutor me at home. I was fine with that, as I didn't enjoy interacting with my so called peers anyway, but soon after that he suddenly pulled me aside and told me that I should start reffering to him as 'Father.' Which is crazy!!! At first, I just thought he was just joking because he missed Father so much, but then I realized he was serious. From that day on, I don't know what he did exactly, but he changed the family relationship on all our social documents to show that he's actually my father and has started telling people to address him as such."
The young man took a breath, overcome with emotion. "Of course, no one wanted to see Father leave, and most of us would be overjoyed if he returned—the traitors not included, of course—but just because my brother resembles my father a lot, both in stature and temperament, and has always been complimented as such, doesn't mean he can attempt to replace him like that. Isn't it a grave disrespect to our father's memory, to pretend as if he never died in the first place and that my brother never existed either?"
During his whole monologue, the young man had lifted up both his legs to his chest and curled in on himself. His shoulders shook with barely repressed emotion. His body trembled, and he breathed in small, shallow gasps.
The priest, who had been listening without judgment till then, was silent for a moment before he spoke.
"You aren't actually bothered by any of this, are you?" he asked the trembling young man, his tone perfectly indifferent. "In fact, I'd rather say that you find the whole thing absolutely hilarious."
Just as he said that, the black haired youth started trembling more, his small, shallow gasps turning louder, first resembling sobs before being revealed to actually be large, bellowing guffaws. He laughed with all the melody of a murder of crows, tinged with relief at finally having to stop pretending. Any sort of feigned grief and fear were replaced by joy at being figured out.
"Wow, you really are a good listener, aren't you?" he said with absolute delight.
The priest ignored his praise and continued speaking.
"You weren't traumatized at all by the behaviors of your father's subordinates, other than perhaps feeling vengeful against the ones you believe to have cannibalized him. You, in fact, are probably quite pleased with Ouroboros's perverse fanaticism towards his remains and Medici's continued loyalty. For all you claim that your brother has committed the greatest sin against you, you actually think that your brother fashioning himself to be your father is actually a pretty amusing development and are looking forward to seeing how far he would be able to take it, and whether he genuinely believes it. The whole facade you put up till now of being horrified that your father's memory is being disrespected is simply a ruse that you've come up with to further your own amusement."
The black haired youth simply laughed louder at his words. "I'm honestly impressed that you've figured out all that from just my short, rambling story, father!" he said, his voice dripping with admiration. "If I didn't know any better, I would say that you were a trained psychiatrist as well. But alas, as it is, I do know better. It really isn't all that impressive to interpret things that you are already aware of, is it? Adam."
The sliding door of the confessional booth slid open and revealed a pair of limpid blue eyes that resembled that of a child. Staring fondly at the person who was now sitting on the floor—after having collapsed there during his laughing fit—and smiling up at him, Adam responded to his provocation with a simple, chiding, "What have I told you to refer to me as, Amon?"
Amon's smile stretched wider until it looked like it was cutting his face in half.
"Forgive me," he said, dropping his voice into the parody of a repentant confessing at the altar, "Father, for I have sinned."