AU: Missionary to the Damned |
[10 Dec 2012|04:08am] |
Hell was all wrong. Ruth had been raised to respect everyone else's search for truth and interpretation of the divine, but this was a blasphemy she couldn't stand. All these countless souls weren't searching for truth. They'd given up. It was the only explanation, because God didn't do this to people. Not to anybody. If there was one fact at the core of Ruth's being, it was that anyone could be helped, any soul could be saved. No one, no one is damned for all time. So if all these people were staying in Hell indefinitely, it was because Hell was being done all wrong.
And that's why she refused to leave. She ignored the heat, the cold, every other extremity these masochists and their incompetent demon caseworkers could come up with for the place. The loneliness was harder to ignore, but she ignored it the best she could. This was important.
And one after another, she'd shove her canteen to another set of lips, sometimes for the first taste of ephemeral water they'd experienced in centuries, and explain, "Now we're going to talk. We're going to talk about who you are, what you did, why it was wrong." She'd talk until she knew them. If she knew them, she could love them. If she could love them, she couldn't let them get away with this nonsense. "We're going to talk until you come to terms with it." And then maybe they'd get out of here, to get reincarnated or go to Heaven or some other form of quiet rest, whatever it was, as long as it wasn't an affront to everything Ruth had ever wanted to dedicate herself to. She'd keep making her rounds, one after the other, until this happened like it was supposed to.
How could she not?
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