Page 2 of His Collateral Wife

I'd make it quick and painless.

They'd fall asleep and stay asleep.

I'd be doing them a favor since they'll finally be safe and free from pain and starvation.

Yes, yes, yes.

A voice inside my head would eagerly express its approval whenever I thought of such things.

And it was a voice that even a heathen like me had known was not human.

That voice had terrified me.

And I knew that I had to do something to shut it up.

Anything!

And so my desperate search for protection began.

I didn't have access to a phone or the Internet. I didn't have anyone to ask. But what I did have was an entire island to explore. Abandoned homes to poke around in. And other people's belongings to rummage.

I searched and searched without fail because it was all I could do.

I didn't stop searching because I knew.

The voice inside my head was still there.

And I didn't want to hear it again.

Ever.

I would've killed myself if I thought it would allow me to escape hearing it.

But even then, I somehow knew that taking my own life would only cause me to hear it for all eternity. And I think that's when the idea first came to me.

If the voice could torment me for eternity, did I have anything to lose if I considered the possibility that the other side of the coin also existed?

The answer was clear.

And so I just did it.

For the first time in my life, I tried that thing that many of the people whom my father killed did with their dying breath.

Are you real, God?

Because I already feel crazy talking to someone I don't see or hear.

So if you're real...

'Show yourself' is what I had planned to ask.

But God being God, He had already known what I wanted to ask.

And so He had answered my prayer by sending me the biggest and scariest-looking rat I've ever seen in my entire life.

Is this a joke, God?

It had stared at me before scurrying away, and all I had been able to do was stare.