The Goddess was quiet for a moment, looking at him with those eyes that were too warm to be real. Then she smiled, and it was a smile that made Axel's skin crawl because it was so full of real hope.
"That fucking smile..." Axel felt even more disgusted in his mind.
She said softly, "You talk like your story is over."
"Don't worry. Every sinner still can get their own redemption as long as I'm in charge of it."
"I am the Goddess of Life. In my way of life, death is not the end."
"It is a change with a chance to grow and learn."
"Axel Graves, even the darkest soul can be made clean."
"You can be saved too."
"Yap this and yap that. All you can do is yap like a total bitch, huh?" Axel's face stayed the same. "Saved from what exactly?"
"From yourself. From the cycle of cruelty and emptiness that defined your life."
"From a path that only leads to more darkness and loneliness." The Goddess moved closer, and her presence filled the space between them with a warmth that felt almost too much to bear.
"I am giving you a chance to make things right."
"Redemption," Axel said again, tasting the word like bad wine. "Let me guess."
"You are going to bring me back to life, erase my memories, and make me a naive child who grows up to be a hero with a new beginning and a blank slate?" Axel already predicted what she's going to say.
The Goddess's smile grew bigger. "Not quite. Axel, I won't erase who you are."
"That would not be good for the journey of growth. Instead, I will bring you back to life with all of your memories, but I will be in charge."
"I will tie you to a system of virtue, which is a set of rules that encourages kindness, selflessness, and compassion."
"You will get quests that reward you for being nice."
"You will become stronger by helping others, protecting the weak, and living by the values you rejected in your past life."
Axel looked at her.
After that, he laughed and held his face in his hands.
"Hahahahahahaha...!"
It wasn't a polite laugh or a nervous laugh.
It was a real, full-throated laugh that rang out across the impossible space.
The Goddess's smile faded.
"What a fucking disgrace!"
"You," Axel said, wiping away a fake tear, "really think I would agree to that."
"Why wouldn't you?" There was a hint of confusion in the warmth of her voice. "I am giving you another chance at life."
"A chance to be more than the monster you were."
"And a chance to feel happiness, connection, and purpose beyond getting what you want!"
Axel's laughter faded into cold clarity as he said, "You're giving me a cage."
"You're saying you'll take away everything that makes me who I am and give me a puppet version that does what you want it to do."
"You call that fucking bullshit redemption, but I call it erasure!"
The Goddess's face grew a little more serious. "You talk as if your nature is something that should be kept."
"Axel, you were a predator. You hurt people just for fun!"
"You didn't think twice about ruining lives, and that isn't strength!"
"That is sickness."
"Oh! Is it?" Axel crossed his arms and relaxed, even though a god was standing in front of him. "Or is it being honest as a human being?"
"Open your eyes and ears wide, Goddess. The world is not a nice place."
"Every day, people lie, cheat, and betray each other. The only thing that makes me different from the so-called beneficial people is that I said what I was."
"I didn't hide behind excuses or justify my actions with noble intentions. I wanted power, so I took it."
"I wanted to have fun, so I took it."
"I was precisely what I wanted to be."
"And you chose the wrong thing!"
"I picked freedom." Axel's voice was calm and steady, like he was explaining simple math to a child.
"Freedom from any guilt and from the burden of what other people expect of you!"
"It was the kind of freedom from the lie that we all have to give up our lives for a greater good that only exists in the minds of people who are too weak to get what they want!"
The Goddess stepped back, and for the first time, her face showed something other than warmth. It was frustrating, but it also hurt.
"Do you really think that? You think that love, compassion, and empathy are signs of weakness?"
Axel said, "I like to think that they're mere tools that can be used as a manipulation."
"It's a useful thing for keeping people in line who need to think their pain has a purpose."
"You dress it up with nice words like 'virtue' and 'redemption,' but eventually, you're just another dictator trying to make people live the way you want them to."
The Goddess said, "I am not a tyrant," and now there was steel under the silk. "I am a guide for those in life who've lost their way! I am hope given form!"
"I have led many people through the dark and into the light!"
"I have helped the broken become whole, the lost find their way, and the sinful discover grace."
Axel asked, "And how many of them really wanted to change?"
"How many came to you broken and desperate, ready to do anything to stop their pain?"
"Remember this, Goddess, you didn't save them."
"You took advantage of their weakness and called it salvation!"
The heat was gone now. The Goddess's eyes burned with something harder, something that made Axel remember that he was standing in front of a being of cosmic power that had been around long before his ancestors took their first breath.
"You are mistaken," she said, and her voice was full of certainty. "Redemption is not taking advantage of someone!"
"It is love and hope!"
"It is the refusal to give up on the most broken person. It is the idea that change is always possible, that growth is always possible, and that no one is too far gone to be saved."
Axel asked, "Then why does it need a system?"
"Why do you need to tie me down with quests and rewards if this change is real?"
"Why not just bring me back to life and let me choose?"
"Because you have already shown what you want!" Axel could see the raw emotion behind the Goddess's calm exterior when it cracked, just a little.
"You choose to be cruel and selfish! You hurt other people to get what you want!"
"But here I am! I'm giving you structure because without it, you'll just keep doing the same things, causing the same pain, and ruining the same innocence!"
Axel grinned, though his smile lacked warmth.
He said in a low voice, "So you finally admit it, huh?"
"You really don't think people can change."
"You think you can make them act right."
"There's no point to debate this bullshit then. Hahahahaha!"
The Goddess opened her mouth and then closed it again. For a brief moment, she looked almost human in her anger.
Then she stood up straight, and the area around them seemed to shake with her presence. "I have offered you salvation," she said, and her voice was no longer warm.
It was rather cold and formal, like a judge giving a sentence. "I have reached out to you with kindness and mercy!"
"I have given you a chance that many people would kill for. And you have thrown it back in my face with mockery and contempt!"
"Well, yeah. What are you going to do about it, bitch?" Axel said simply.
"You leave me no choice, then." The Goddess raised one hand, and the air around Axel started to get darker, as if the light was leaking out like water through a sieve.
"If you don't want to live and grow as a different person just to become something better than the monster you are, then you will get what you say you want!"
"Being free of any hope that I can give and any freedom from my advice, kindness, and hope itself."
The ground under Axel's feet started to crack, and spiderwebs of darkness spread out from where he stood.
"I cast you into the abyss," the Goddess said, and there was real pain in her voice, like someone who had to give up a deeply held belief.
"Into the depths where life has no meaning, with souls going to be forgotten, and where light cannot reach."
"If you won't accept redemption, then stay in the place where it doesn't exist!"
The gaps got bigger. Axel could feel something big and hungry pulling him down, something that wanted to pull him down into endless darkness.
He smiled as he looked up at the Goddess and saw the tears forming in her impossibly beautiful eyes.
He said, "You know what's funny?" just as the ground gave way completely. "You think you're hurting me, but all you've done is back up what I fucking said."
"You showed me how much your compassion is worth the moment I said no to you and refused to follow your orders."
"It was true that there is nothing, and it was always based on something! Always depending on me to become what you wanted."
"You are mistaken," the Goddess whispered, but the sound of the abyss opening below him drowned out her voice.
"Well, fuck you, Goddess..."
"Smell ya later..." Axel fell down.
But he didn't yell and didn't ask for anything.
He didn't reach up with desperate, grasping hands toward the fading light.
He fell with his arms outstretched, his head thrown back, and laughter pouring out of his mouth like wine from a broken glass.
The darkness swallowed him whole. The last thing he saw before the light went out completely was the Goddess's face.
It was beautiful and terrible, and she was completely sure that she had done the right thing.
Axel's laughter echoed through the void long after the light had gone out.
And in that dark, something heard him.
Something old, forbidden, and easily amused.
For a very, very long time, something had been waiting for a soul like his.
Axel Graves fell through the void and smiled.
He welcomed it with open arms because it was damnation.