Satan to God
Then.
November 1999, I remember it as if it were yesterday. Thoughts flooded through my mind as I clenched the gun harder and harder. I faced a pitiless, inescapable decision. A war transpired in my head, a death match between my fear and my conscious. As one callously stabbed the other, my fingertip grew firmer against the trigger.
My time was ticking. My eyes shut in hope to disconnect from the vision of my victims fate, she was so defenseless yet so accepting. She showed no fright but revealed her disgust towards the gods- her posture remaining strong and her head high. She looked down upon the gods, even though she was on the floor. Her face captured anger; her attempts of resistance were hopeless as two of the men forced her on the ground. She was restricted of all movement, her hands tied behind her back; there was no escape from her reality.
I bit my dry, hungry lip to remind myself of my reality if I disobeyed my master again, agonizing pain. I pressed harder. My vision became blurred form my swollen eyes. I pressed harder. I tried to slay these evil thoughts invading my thoughts wanting me to shoot her and spare myself the pain. I pressed harder. I tried to stop the devilish notions constructing termism in my own mind. I pressed harder. I couldn’t stop the devilish thoughts terrorizing my brain with the illusion that I could back out. I pressed harder. My conscious was fading, angelic whispers of innocents leaked into my ears, but the demon inside my soul drowned and pure thoughts heartlessly. Silence grew. I pressed harder. The gunshot cracked into the air as loud as thunder but without the raw power of a storm. I could hear my sanity slip away along with my mother’s last breath.
Killing for the first time automatically makes a person immune to death; it becomes a game, an addiction. My mother’s death was a ritual that had to be completed, a sacrifice that had to be made for my survival. The rebels that I once feared, I became and now call my family. Drugs became a religion to me. Shooting up and injecting juice was like a penance to me, it makes a person complete and gives clarity to do what the lords say to do. I became fearless. The coke, meth and dope that I was fed made me numb and save me from my sins.
My violence grew faster than my addiction to coke and I became a strong and exceedingly valuable to the warlords of Uganda. I received a full holy blessing ceremony. I paraded in front of all the soldiers and clapped by all those who envied me as I was awarded with a new gun that had been blessed with holy water. I was brought together with my gun when I was anointed and with my new family.
Days later the reality of my new life set in, jungle warfare and battle. The smallest boys are placed closest to the enemy, that was me. In war, they are said to be fearless. Children are often less demanding soldiers than adults. They are cheaper to keep as they eat less and are easier to manipulate. Both sides believe the unpredictability of small children makes them better fighters. Within 12 years I killed 3,900 innocent people, in the name of God and what is right. Raped hundreds of women and girls. Wedded 14 different brides. I became a cannibal warlord only existing off the victims of my crimes and the high of coke and meth. May 2012, I would have nightly conversations with the devil, until one day I received a blinding vision of Christ who said to me to end the killings and follow me. The epiphany caused me to hate myself, everything I had ever done flashed before me, the killings, the rapes, the drugs, and I had become a bad man, a man that I was not meant to become. On the verge of death I look back at how it escalated to this to convince me not to make the wrong choice as I had done before. That memory among many other dark ones remained as clear as see through water. There were two ways out of this life. 1, I end my life now. Or 2,