• The sound of rain echoed through the hollow church halls mixed with the soft sound of feet on the floor. The shadows danced on the walls like children at play until the large wood doors opened. A figure shrouded in shadows appeared in the door way a pitch black hound at its feet. The shadows scurried in fear as the lightning flashed through the window it illuminated the figure. The figure was of a young pale woman. The woman walked down the aisle her hound at her side. The woman sat on one of the rotting pews as her pale skeletal hand came to rest on the dogs head. Her long boney fingers scratched at the hound when she was just about to relax the screams of the damned beyond the walls and trees disturbed her. Standing the woman would gather the material of her black dress in her hands and left with her hound. In the Village they feared her and the pain she brought; but, with the pain also came a freedom they may never know. The people gathered with the bodies of the damned at the edge of the woman’s forest waiting in fear and wonder for her arrival. The woman emerged from the trees her hound snarling and barking. The villagers ran away in fear as the woman took her place among the damned. The woman’s gold irises looked down at the bodies of the damned. Putting her hands on one of the bodies she could read into their sins. It only took moments but she knew everyone of the body’s sins. The voice that left the woman’s lips was as cold as ice as she pasted its final judgment of damned. The damned soul would flee its body but her companion the hound in seconds devoured it. The second body of the damned was a young man. As the woman’s hand laid on him the man woke with a start. He’d back away from her in horror his voice shaky with fear. “W…who are you?” The woman’s head tilted as she replied with no emotion. “I am the Redeemer. I am the being that offers your final judgment. I am the difference between your damnation and your salvations.” The man would stand puzzled at her answer. “But, who saves you?” The Redeemer’s emotions never changed. “I can not be saved I am to damned to be saved and too holy to be damned. I can never be saved.” The man frowned upon her answer as he pondered for a moment. “Then one day I shall save you.” The woman would turn away from the man heading back into the trees with her hound at her feet saying, “I can not be saved.” And, the last thing she said only the leaves and shadows heard was, “You can not save me but one day I’ll save you.”