The Seventh Confession
Father Michael’s fingers trembled as he lit the candle in the confessional. The old church was silent, a cavern of shadows and lingering incense. It was past midnight, but the call had been urgent. A soul in crisis, the voice on the phone had whispered, a soul needing the final sacrament of penance.
The grate slid back. In the dim light, he could see the silhouette of a man, head bowed.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the voice began, calm and measured. “It has been one week since my last confession.”
The man proceeded to list his sins. They were small, venial things. A moment of anger. A white lie. A fleeting impure thought. Father Michael offered the standard words of absolution, his mind still uneasy.
“Is that all, my son?”
“No, Father,” the voice replied, its tone shifting, becoming colder, flatter. “There is more. Six days ago, I killed a man. His name was Arthur Finch. I stabbed him in an alley behind a bakery. He begged for his life. I enjoyed it.”
A cold knot tightened in Father Michael’s gut. The seal of the confessional was absolute, a sacred vow between man and God. He could do nothing. He could say nothing.
“For your penance—” Michael began, his voice strained.
“There’s more,” the voice interrupted. “Five days ago, a woman. Sarah Jenkins. I pushed her in front of a subway train. The sound was… cacophonous. Four days ago, an old man in his home. Three days ago, two teenagers in a park.”
The voice continued, a relentless, chronological catalog of horror. Six murders. Six confessions, each more brutal than the last, each described with a chilling, clinical detachment. The air in the confessional grew thick and foul. Father Michael felt the weight of the sins pressing in on him, a toxic burden he was powerless to shed.
“I… I absolve you of your sins,” Michael stammered, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. “For your penance, you must turn yourself in to the authorities. You must end this.”
A soft, humorless laugh came from the other side of the grate. “Oh, Father. That’s not my penance. And those weren’t my real confessions.”
The man leaned closer, his face pressing against the screen. Michael could see the faint outline of a sharp, predatory smile.
“Those six were just practice. A rehearsal to see if I could get the words out. To see if the stories would feel real.”
Father Michael’s blood turned to ice. “What are you saying?”
“The sin I came here to confess, the only one that truly matters, is the one I’m about to commit.”
The door of the confessional burst open. The man stood there, no longer a silhouette but a stark reality. He was dressed in black, and in his gloved hand, he held a long, serrated knife.
“The seal of confession is eternal, isn’t it, Father?” the man said, stepping inside. “Nothing I say here can ever be repeated. No cry for help. No final plea.”
He closed the door, plunging them into near-total darkness, lit only by the single, flickering candle.
“This is my seventh confession,” he whispered, his breath hot against Michael’s ear. “And you, Father, are the sin.#usmanwrites#usmanshaikh#usm
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