<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 13pt;">The last entry (which also happens to be the first) in my diary closed with the hopeful thought of the infirmities of my soul turning to empty husks. Looking back, I see that was an unfortunate choice of wording considering a good percentage of my patients are nothing more than ruined husks themselves. They are bitter, empty shells of men and women; they are automatons mimicking the basic functions of human life, yet they have lost hold of their true humanity.<br/><br/>Those walking wastelands are the lucky ones.<br/>Their eyes are vacant; their gaze is dull. Their souls long ago paid Charon his silver coin and crossed the Acheron. It seems that their bodies and minds simply forgot to die.<br/><br/>It is the group of patients who are still in the process of damning themselves that I truly pity.<br/><br/>However, as Dante made his arduous trek through Hell, Virgil had to chastise him not to pity the damned soulstrapped in its bowels. Righteous indignation is the only proper way to react towards Sin. Christ Himself said as much, so I have steeled myself against pity, tempered my soul against feeling sorry for the victims of sin. My pity and my sympathy have been replaced by disdain and downright loathing.<br/><br/>I loathe the sin, but should I not also loathe the sinner? Irrespective of whether or not I should, I must confess that I do. The twisted minds and dark hearts that fill my halls sicken me. Walking through the Asylum, I am again reminded of Dante and how it must have felt to walk through evil’s final resting place; though here, the damned know no rest. I watch the loathsome sinners in their cells. I see them writhing in agony as though God has seen fit to forgo waiting until their death to begin his retribution. I must also confess that I have, on more occasions than I care to admit, added my own strength to the Lord’s holy lash.<br/><br/>Please do not misunderstand me. I am not yet so delusional as to believe that I am some sort of Chosen One. I know that I am not empowered to rain divine vengeance upon these unworthy souls. (In the margins of this page, it is written: though I did recently have a dream in which I parted the waters of Lake Heart with a Rod of Asclepius so that a mob of my patients could flee from an oppressor too shrouded in darkness for me to properly identify.) <br/><br/>Unfortunately, that knowledge has done little to deter me from trying. Certain patients cause the bile to rise in my throat and the righteousness to surge from my soul. In the Fall, I met with a woman so meretricious that she attempted to seduce me in the hopes of winning a reprieve from her scheduled electrotherapy. To show her the error of her ways, I clamped the metal clasps of the machine onto her nipples, pumping more voltage through it..through her..than I have ever risked before. Her bare breasts erupted in flames as though the pit fiends of Malebolge had come to claim her prematurely. The blood-curdling screams that resulted from her torment pierced the air so sharply that they seemed to stab my very brain. Once I was finished putting out her charred, melted mammaries, I shoved the extinguisher’s hose down her throat to silence her harpy’s call. <br/>She died from nitrogen poisoning, but I know that it was the wicked tendrils of Sin which had wriggled their way into her heart that were at the heart of her true poisoning- her spiritual poisoning that sounded her death knell.<br/><br/>Was it my place to mete out such dire punishment? I know not, so I offer it to the Lord to decide. My first confession thus is made through this diary, the instrument of God’s Will.<br/><br/>I do not feel as unburdened as I hoped I would. I suppose that is because of the legion of <del>demons</del> confessions still welling up inside of me, begging for release; yet all I can think of is the memory of the her breasts turned to ash, ember-laden husks of their former selves.<br/><br/>I started this with husks, and so shall I end it.</span></span><br/><br/><div style="text-align: right;"> <span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Vivaldi;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 21pt;">Ignatius</span></span></div>