He moved his hand over the candles flame. Its heat scorched his hand and fingers burning his worthless filthy fless cleasing it. You see he was covered in sin wearing only it on his way to the Lady. She would take him soon and he would pay for his evil deeds to be worthy of her.

All he had ever wanted was to be worthy of her guidance, to be accepted as her servant, her knight, her messenger on earth. Yet he felt no real penance for his deeds. The humans were below him for he was a chimera, a beast made to obey and deal death and judgement.

Her heart, that giant organ placed over her chest was always surfaced so that people could see it beating and know that she too was after all just human and that her intentions and gifts came all from her overwhealming love to this world. She'd never commited a sin. Yes, she was pure in all the ways that even a child was a sinner. Bride of God - innocent.

Where was his bride?

She'd sent another innocent soul to him to make him feel for humans: teach him that emotions weren't a weakness but a strenght. Had he killed a saint by taking away her innocence for the sake of his own desires? Was that why the Lady wouldn't speak to him?

It was cold here, he realized. Somehow the cold outside made him shiver even though he was right next to the endless rows of candles that engulfed the House of God he'd invaded into light. Then again the feeling could be traced back to his insides, for he had become numb to all physical feelings that concerned this world. He decided to kneel down on the altar, pay his respect for this day, which was another day she used to give him her blessing.

The altar looked more glorious and mysterious under the flapping candlelight the endless rows of candles generated. Everything was golden and brown and dark red. His passion for everything else had died but she still remained. Her picture had held onto the bluegray shades since his childhood, yet now her heart was orangered.

Soon it'd be his time. Soon all his sins would be forgotten and he could fufill his dream as her messenger.

Behind him the sanctity of the church was broken as a careful figure came to the door and opened it barely enough to sneak inside. The eyes of a man who had nothing anymore looked through his hands work. Had his chimera lost his mind between hell and heaven?

Lydecker feared him - 493. Maybe deep inside he knew that by separating 493 from the civilian girl he'd been with he would break the remainings of his most passionate creation. Yes, in him Lydecker had always believed that he'd achieved the perfectness of a killer. 493's only problem had been his lack of concentration. He'd been unable to withstand anything for long and that had put his overactive imagination to use.

Lydecker had tested them all once by making them hunt down a man. It'd been 493, who'd lead the assault that had killed the man and later on he'd been the only one who'd had no trouble at all in handling the matter. So he alone burned the brightest among those children. 493 had injected the joy of killing to them all as well.

It had taken Lydecker ten years to recapture 493 and now he was only to find out that none of the psy-op sessions had been working and 493 was turning, if possible, even more psycotic than when they had found him six months ago near Salt Lake.

Maybe he'd done wrong by handling that civilian girl to Stormer? Lydecker wondered. Deep down he knew what he'd done: Stormer didn't have any nieces.

Lydecker moved closer. It felt as if he'd seen this scene too many times. He had actually. It was 493's fifth escape within two months. No, he couldn't call them escapes because 493 always came here, to this church, without even trying to run further. They had had trouble with 493 from the beginning.

The doctors suspected that the performed psy-ops had caused braindamage to to some areas in 493's brain, probably the area around his temples. Maybe a young trainee had given too many and too strong electrical shocks into his brain which had evetually lead into some braindamage. Now the damage caused him severe seizures of an unusual kind of epilepsy. These seizures appeared to 493 as certain kind of 'visions', that twisted his senses and without any reasonable explanation were interpetuated as divine signals.

Religional fanatism, that was the one thing Lydecler hadn't expected to take over 493 and slow down his (kuntoutuminen).