'Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.'
*****
The sound of blows exchanging echoed through the ugly alley filled with trash and shit.
"Yeah, fuck him up!"
"Take that bitch down."
Thugs with weapons in their hands were hyping themselves up, trying to take down a single guy, but the loud cheering didn't last long at all.
With every single new punch landed, the thugs' faces hardened.
Their confidence completely faded away as the crew members fell to the ground one by one, groaning and bleeding everywhere.
"How the fuck is he still standing?" a guy in the back muttered.
Amidst twenty passed-out bodies stood a single guy.
His shirt was torn to shreds, and his black hair was a messy style stuck to his sweaty forehead.
This was Ray, who stood there holding a massive bald man up by the collar of his jacket.
"You want more?" Ray asked as he spat blood onto the ground.
"Come on."
Bam.
Bam.
Ray's knuckles were already bruised, but he didn't care.
He pulled his fist back and drove it right into the guy's nose, hitting him over and over until the guy's face turned completely red and swollen.
The big man finally went still, not trying to resist anymore.
Ray opened his hand and let the body drop right to the ground.
"This guy's a monster," one of the remaining thugs yelled.
"Let's run!"
The rest of the guys finally realised they were totally outmatched and started backing away slowly, then turned and bolted down the street in every direction.
Ray watched them run.
"Fucking pussies," he said out loud.
His eyes darted around at the bodies scattered across the ground, and he felt a weird sense of pride looking at his work.
He walked forward, stepping right over a guy clutching his ribs.
Ray was twenty-two years old.
He was just a local thug like the guys he just beat up.
But he was a very strong one.
Just yesterday, he sat down with his boss and told the man he was going to break off and start his own syndicate since he wanted to run the streets on his own terms.
And now, barely twenty-four hours later, he found himself ambushed by twenty guys in a dark alley.
'Coincidence?' Ray thought.
'I don't think so.'
It started raining in an instant.
Large drops fell from the night sky, washing the blood off his knuckles.
Ray walked over to a brick building and leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
He looked down to see his stomach bleeding, a nasty stab wound from the fight.
The dark red patch on his torn shirt kept getting bigger and bigger as the blood spreads.
'So they really wanted me dead,' Ray thought.
'But they sent idiots to do the job.'
Walking to the club felt like it took longer than he expected.
Every step sent a sharp pain through his stomach.
He kept his hand pressed hard against the wound, trying to keep his insides from spilling out.
The rain soaked through his hair and dripped down his face. It was cold outside, but Ray's body ran hot with anger.
He wasn't going to die in some dirty alley, praying to god for revenge.
A few blocks away, inside a high-end room, guys wearing expensive coats sat around a large table.
They were drinking fancy wine, smiling, and joking about things no one else gave a crap about, thinking they owned the city and everything in it.
Ray walked up to the building.
He held his stomach with one hand to stop the bleeding.
In his other hand, he held a heavy pipe he found lying in the ground-floor hallway.
He walked slowly up the stairs, pushed the door open, and walked right into their private room.
Ray pulled out one of the empty leather chairs and sat down at the table.
He rested the pipe across his lap.
The bosses stopped laughing immediately as their faces turned completely pale.
They stared at him like they were looking at a ghost.
He was supposed to be dead in an alley right now.
Ray leaned back in the chair.
His stomach wound throbbed badly, but he ignored it and reached into his pocket with a bloody hand, pulled out a crushed cigarette, and put it in his mouth.
"Got a light?" Ray asked.
His voice broke the silence.
The frozen faces of the men quickly snapped out of their shock.
One of the bosses, a guy trying to act tough, nervously grabbed a lighter from the table. He reached over and helped light Ray's cigarette.
"Ray, you... You're still good. That's great," the boss stuttered, forcing a totally fake smile.
"We were actually just talking about the area you want to lead. We think we can work something out."
Ray didn't even let him finish his sentence.
He casually picked up a full bottle of alcohol from the table and smashed it directly into the guy's head.
The glass shattered everywhere, some of its pieces going inside the guy's head.
The boss instantly collapsed to the floor.
The other two guys at the table jumped up from their chairs.
One was fat, sweating through his expensive shirt, and the other was an ugly guy with a scarred face.
That ugly guy was Ray's own boss, the man he talked to yesterday.
"You're making a big mistake, Ray," the fat guy said as he stumbled backwards, his eyes fixed on the bloody pipe in Ray's hand.
Ray stood up and dragged the heavy pipe across the floor as it made a loud, terrifying screeching noise.
He wanted them to feel scared.
To know what was coming for them.
"The mistake was your part," Ray said.
He swung the pipe and hit the fat guy right in the kneecap.
Crack
A loud crack echoed in the room.
"Gahhhh!" the fat guy shouted and fell hard to the floor, grabbing his broken knee.
Ray stepped over him and brought the pipe down hard on his face.
Smash.
The fat guy stopped moving completely.
He was dead.
Ray slowly turned around to face the ugly guy.
"Ray... listen to me. I raised you," the boss begged as he put his hands up.
"You can't do this."
"I can," Ray said.
He lifted the pipe and swung it straight into his boss's face.
The impact broke his teeth, and the man fell against the table, but Ray didn't stop.
He smashed the pipe down again, and again, and again until the guy's head was basically minced meat.
"Whooo"
Ray dropped the pipe on the floor and stood there panting.
He looked at the massacre in the room and felt pretty good about it.
'Debt repaid in full, you fucks.'
Then his legs gave out, and he crashed to the floor.
The stab wound had finally taken its toll on his body.
Ray lay on the floor, listening to the rain hit the windows of the club.
The fancy room smelled like wine now.
His chest felt heavy, and breathing was getting harder and harder.
Every time he inhaled, his lungs burned.
He tried to move his hand, but his fingers wouldn't respond.
His vision started getting blurry as he stared at the ceiling.
"From an abused foster home to a dead thug," Ray mumbled.
Blood dripped in his mouth.
"What a fucking life."
His pupils slowly widened as the room faded out.
'Maybe this is it,' he thought.
'One less scum from this world. I guess the world is better off without us.'
Everything went totally dark after that.
He thought about whether he would get to see the entrance to heaven.
Ray knew he didn't belong there, but maybe he could at least get a glimpse of the gates before going downstairs.
But there were no gates.
And there were no pits of fire.
Ray slowly opened his eyes.
He was standing in a long, completely dark room where, right in front of him, stood seven massive doors.
The room was so dark he couldn't even see his own hands.
But the seven doors stood out clearly.
They didn't glow, but he could somehow see the structure and iron handles.
Then a blue screen popped up in the air right in front of his face.
It looked exactly like the menus from those old role-playing games he used to play when he skipped school as a kid.
[System Initialising]
[Which Sin Defines You?]
Ray stared at the floating text and blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
'A game screen?' he thought.
'I get to choose my afterlife? Well, I definitely can't choose just one.'
He looked back at the seven doors.
They were totally silent.
He figured each door stood for a different sin.
[Pride]
[Greed]
[Lust]
[Envy]
[Gluttony]
[Wrath]
[Sloth]
He knew he was an asshole in life since he did pretty much everything wrong.
"All of them," Ray answered out loud.
The blue screen glitched for a second.
Then, new text appeared.
[System accepted the answer]
[Candidate possesses the quality of a monarch]
[Transmigration in progress]
Ray crossed his arms and waited patiently for whatever this process was to end.
He felt a weird pulling sensation in his chest.
Then he saw the transmigration in process screen again.
'What the fuck?' he thought.
'I don't get to rest? I literally just died. Give an abused guy a break, God.'
Another message flashed on the screen.
[Live a life you always want to.]
[If you could, in the world of Sinners.]
Before he could complain again, everything went black.
Then, a final voice echoed in his head.
[Welcome, host.]