A Serial Killer’s Redemption

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley.” Those were Malachi Grey’s last words as he lay strapped down to a cold operating table. Cold can be used to describe him too. Cold blooded. Cruel. Calculated. Calloused. And a convicted serial killer with 13 murder charges.

It was a dewey spring morning at Morton Penitentiary. Birds were chirping, and so were the small mob of protesters collected outside the barbed wire fence. For the past couple of days, the number of people slowly started to grow as the anticipated death day of Malachi grew closer. Now it was here.

The layout of the execution room was quite simple. A small beige rectangle in the basement of the facility. A heavy bleak energy plagued the room, and washes over anyone entering. The room was divided in half by a glass panel. On one side sat two rows of chairs. Each seat stained with the tears of past families and friends watching someone they love slowly slip out of their lives. The other half of the room Malachi was on involved a simple clock, a cross, and a small window sill where two birds can be seen playing in the grass.

Reverend Brown was the advising faith minister for the prison. A minister, who after he retired wanted to work specifically with inmates on death row. He was an elderly gentleman in his late 70’s with soft, kind eyes and a warm smile. He had combed over white hair, and was seen grasping his wooden cross so tightly that his knuckles turned white too. His hands have deep and complex grooves and lines from years of countless prayers. He was seated in a chair next to the prison’s warden, and Malachi’s only relative who chose to show up, his sister Malori.

Rev. Brown proclaimed, “I pray for mercy on his soul. His path was dark and complex.” He slowly looks at Malori, “and I know our Lord forgives, but Malachi has made no attempt to forgive and make amends”.

Malori responds,” I know he was not a good person. My heart now belongs to the families of those he affected, not him”.

The reality was she gave up on him. She looked worn out. Dark bags under her eyes, and deep wrinkles in her forehead. For only being 36 she has lived lifetimes of anxiety, fear, and worry that has scarred her forever.

This was the first time she saw her brother in years. Malori never tried to contact him, especially while he was institutionalized. Malachi looked different than the older brother she grew up with. Right away she realized how much more confidence he had while walking into the execution room. She always knew him as a shy and quiet kid, innocent too. As if killing people gave him the power to be himself. He looked paler too, but his eyes were the giveaway. When she looked at them, she did not recognize the brother she knew. He changed. Forever. He was still around 5’11, and had an athletic build. His eyes were still the same light maple syrup coloring that she was used to. Malori always thought his eyes were so sweet, like honey. He grew out a full grey beard but all of that hair could not hide the pure despair. Prison was not nice to him, and the years were not nice to him. She saw some grey hair poking out his side, and noticed the overgrown high and tight haircut. Malachi was 39 years old, but he did not look at it.

She tried to fully take in seeing her brother for the last time and that is when she noticed all the scars on his forearms. She thought it was self harm marks from being in prison, but then discovered that they were grouped in fours. They were deep claw marks from his victims. Being Malachi’s brother she was numb to his behavior, but this gave her a feeling of pure shock.

The story of Malachi Grey is dark, and complex. But as he sat there the day he died, he felt proud of himself. He wasn’t worrying about his pending eternal fate. Instead he was proud of the pain he caused people. He thoroughly enjoyed it. The fear his presence caused, the power he had, and the love he gave himself for it.

He was precise too. Malachi could not afford to make a mistake, so he always took extra precautions. How to scope out victims, how to remain hidden, how to grab victims, and even how to escape. Everything was meticulous, because it was necessary. That’s who he is.

On his last day alive, no one would expect his last words to be about dragons. A man who makes everyone believe his life is more important than others, does not put anything above himself. But before anyone could process that sentence effectively, the execution already started.

Malachi Grey’s death was the beginning of the rest of his life.

At first he felt nothing but the cold needle that was pressed into his arm. A flick of the switch, and a steadfast liquid soon began making its way up Malachi’s veins. By the time an ounce of fear overcame him, he could already feel himself start to drift.

He looked up to see Malori one last time. Looking one last time at his sister, he saw her looking at his scars. He was proud that she saw them. The pure look of horror on her face made him feel euphoric, and the last action from Malachi Grey on this Earth was giving his sister a smug smirk.

He never believed in anything anyways. No afterlife. No redemption. He thought he would join the emptiness because that’s the perfect word to describe him, empty. But he was wrong.

His death felt like a blink. As if the reality in front of his eyes changed from lightness to darkness in a quick flutter of the eye. A cosmic flip of a light switch. Just like that the life he knew disappeared, and Malachi was surrounded with pure emptiness. He felt his old life slowly slip away, as there was an increased feeling of loneliness that was washing over him.

“Peace at last”, he exclaimed as there was a huge sigh of relief felt from his shoulders to his toes.

After killing all those people, he finally felt like he could rest.

But something soon grabbed his attention, as he felt the presence of another being.

Startled for sure, but extremely sure of himself he stated, “Who’s there?”

No response.

Again he asked, “Who’s there?” but there was an uneasy feeling overcoming him.

Trying to overcompensate he snarled, “whoever is there bow down to me! Reveal yourself! I reigned over my last world and I will do so again”.

Something snarled back.

There was a cosmic shift, and Malachi found himself spinning. Only problem is he isn’t moving, but the environment around him is. Nothingness starts to unravel slowly and Malachi is taken back. Form is starting to take place in this void as scales. Black at each base, but slowly shimmering to gold at the end. Each scale slowly comes together to form a long and winding tail.

Layers of tails now appear around Malachi, twisting and turning around him as each time they hit sound like a crackle in a blazing fire. Never touching him though, they form a cosmic tornado of scales around him.

Completely overwhelmed in this structure of universal doing, he tried to speak but cannot hear his own voice. What began with a sound similar to crackles in a fire has now multiplied to violent, wavering, and untamed noises that make a forest fire sound like a rodent’s chirp.

Mustering a deep, primal roar he screamed, ”WHO’S THERE?”

“I know who you are, Malachi Grey”.

That tornado of scales is pulled back, like a matador’s cloak from a charging bull. A dragon is revealed, epic in proportion to Malachi. An incredibly threatening creature to anyone who looks at it, but just as beautiful too. A combination of black and gold scales covers the entire body, and the eyes are mesmerizing. The richest color of gold imaginable, making any greedy king lust for even an atomic amount.

Malachi is in awe, and feels extremely emasculated. He should’ve paid attention to the ground beneath them, because he soon found out they were scales too. As the scales below his feet were pulled back, he suddenly realized he was not standing on anything. And so he fell.

Cursing, and screaming followed next. As he started to pick up instant velocity, he noticed he was not surrounded by nothingness. He was instantly surrounded by color. Otherworldly color. Color that could not be described in words because there are no words to describe it.

Malachi has never seen such beauty. It was like looking at the world again with a new set of eyes, because these colors could not be perceived in the third dimension. The screaming stopped as he was simply an observer of this scenery. Color constantly crashing with different hues, all vibrant, and all of it felt alive.

As soon as his screaming stopped, he realized he was not falling anymore. Malachi looked down on his feet, and a substance the same texture and consistency of water replaced the scales. It was not water because he was floating on top of it, his feet slightly skimming the surface. He looked up, and was still in awe of what he saw.

It was like his whole life he was trying to see color through a keyhole, and that door was violently flung open. He was mesmerized as he was staring into the cosmos. Galaxies crashing into each other that sparked inter dimensional fireworks that birthed new galaxies. Beautiful color combinations all moving around, all alive, and all looking back at him. The cosmos was moving in unison like a swarm of birds, all working together to create a unique beauty before Malachi’s eyes. He saw bright flashes of light as whole solar systems transformed into massive black holes. Stars of different colors, some cold and metallic and some brighter than the whitest white. All giving life to different planets in the ever growing universe.

Malachi was drawn into one area in particular. A black hole at the center that he felt pulled too. He could see a combination of stars, meteors, and space time entering a void that he knew nothing would return from. Circling this black hole were an infinite amount of galaxies. None were slipping into the event horizon, but instead all structures were going counterclockwise. Each galaxy was more beautiful than the last, everyone a different color and size, everyone exceptionally unique. Deep rich purple, and scarlet begonia red sparks unite as galaxies pass over each other. Metallic cold blue, and green are rarer than emerald too. Every single imaginable color and more igniting in an endless display of beauty. That was not all though, as Malachi soon realized a slowly milky texture he could only describe as space fog slowly surrounding the entire mega galaxy but not entering it. This fog was constantly rolling over itself trying to get inside but could not. He soon realized this gigantic structure above him resembled an eye, and that is when it blinked back.

There was a multidimensional fabric weaving everything together. Life and everything in the universe seemed to be interconnected. Malachi realized this universe was bigger than he ever could have imagined.

“Ironic. Your name is Malachi. Isn’t it?” The creature behind him spoke, emerging from Malachi’s shadow. “A name divinely guided by light. A name so pure, a name gifted to someone to be a messenger from God. Instead it was given to you. An absolute waste of a person, who has only destroyed everything he touched. You have no light in you, you only spread darkness. Pathetic really.”

“You’re the one who is pathetic” Malachi snapped back, proud of his belittling. “Whatever your agenda is will not work on me, my mind is too powerful”.

“Your mind is the one that awakened me”, the dragon retorted.

Confused by his response, Malachi then asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean when you were strapped to that table, and you muttered the phrase ‘There weren’t always dragons in the valley’ you completely changed the trajectory of your awakening process”.

Malachi feels the lack of control he has on this situation, and quickly tries to gain it back, “What a minute, what awakening process? Where are we? Who are you?”

“Call me Oz, I am a protector and guide here in the Cleansing Plane, helping others on their path to higher consciousness”.

“The Cleansing Plane? Are you serious? That’s what you call this place? This is the afterlife?”

“Not quite right, but you’re going to get used to being wrong on a multitude of things” Oz calmly assured him.

“So where am I then? There is no Hell? No Heaven?” Malachi asked genuinely as he brushed off that insult.

“Humanity is funny that way, they think they can fully understand a higher dimension. They worry too much about a place impossible to perceive, and struggle to love the life laid out in front of them”.

“You still did not answer my question” Malachi is quick to point out.

“I know”, Oz breathes in deeply, “No religion can possibly know what happens after death, just know every soul returns home. Souls that are worthy to escape reincarnation enter a place full of unconditional love, compassion, bliss, and happiness”.

“Yea I don’t get that feeling here Smaug-y” Malachi cockily quips, “Now before I let you get back to napping on your big pile of gold in The Lonely Mountain, I have one question to ask”.

The tone quickly changes in Oz’s face to stern and serious, as Malachi soon regrets being so egotistical.

“What pathetic question do you have to ask me?” Oz asked staring directly into Malachi’s eyes. The intensity is easily felt through Malachi’s spine as he slowly gulped.

“I was a convicted serial killer and I gave up on love a long time ago. How could I spread so much hate and have the universe still treat me with this so-called”, Malachi air quotes “love and compassion”.

“Well let me explain-“, Oz was about to start before Malachi cut him off.

“I mean I was definitely one of the worst people on the planet, and somehow I made it here just fine! Me, of all people, deserve to be burning for eternity and here I am without a scratch.” Malachi continues to brag.

“That’s funny how you admit it-“ Oz tried to chime in but was interrupted by Malachi’s spontaneous burst of laughter.

“It’s funny really”, Malachi is now laughing uncontrollably but in between breaths he says, “it’s like the universe encourages and promotes people to go on killing sprees and murder each other without punishment”.

That clearly crossed the line.

And just like a snake wraps itself around its prey, Oz’s tail wrapped around Malachi, constricting him, and slowly raising him up to his eye level.

“Let me make this perfectly clear”, Oz pauses to speak clearly and concisely, “the pain you caused will come to fruition. You will suffer as you have made those suffer. That is my guarantee to you. You are going to pay your karmic debt to those you have hurt, and you will feel every consequence from every single one of your actions”.

Malachi tries to talk back but cannot due to the pressure he feels on his chest.

Oz continues, “Since you’re finding this amusing, let me tell you something funny about dragons”.

Malachi tries to stop him, but can only let out a tiny whimper.

Oz says, “We are such beautiful beings, each one more beautiful than the last. But the thing is you tempt one of us with something petty, and we have no hesitation burning your whole foundation to the ground”.

He continued the lecture, “Your spirit was chosen to undergo an intense transformative awakening. Normally, we let reincarnation kick you around for multiple millennia so you yourself can understand the gravity of your actions. But, I’m forced to hold your hand through this whole process because I cannot go back to sleep until you’ve survived all your lessons”.

“Survived?” Malachi asked concerned, as if he is slowly starting to understand how serious the consequences of his actions will impact him.

“Yes” answers Oz. “I don’t think you realize that this plane of existence operates outside the dimension of time. Meaning you will spend eternity here until you succeed”.

“I would rather be burning right now,” Malachi slowly admits under his breath.

“For once, you’re right” Oz responded. “It is easy to punish something. It is even harder for something to heal”.

“What am I healing?” says Malachi.

“Everything” says Oz obviously. “All the pain you caused, all the hurt, the trauma. You caused a serious amount of pain and you’re going to relive all of it”.

“That’s not possible,” Malachi adds.

“Not through you of course, but by reincarnating through everyone you murdered. So you can fully experience just how painful of an impact you made in these people’s lives”.

Malachi seemed completely shocked by this statement. His heart started beating faster as he anticipated just how painful this experience can be.

“No no no, you can’t do that” Malachi started to plead with Oz “I will not accept that”.

“And what made you think killing all these people was at any point more acceptable?” Oz quickly zapped him.

For once, Malachi stood still without a thought to say.

“Your whole life you have been selfish and narcissistic and you will see the impact of your actions”. Oz proudly boasted.

“I will never change”, Malachi proclaimed confidently as he found some wiggle room and fell in front of the dragon’s grasp.

Malachi lands feet first, and immediately starts gaining distance from Oz.

Oz rolls his eyes.

“You cannot avoid what is destined to happen”, He belts. So loud that Malachi even feels the vibrations in the cosmic liquid below him.

Malachi ignores him and continues to run away. He does not have a plan on where he is going, he just wants to escape. Escape everything. His life, his responsibilities, but most importantly his consequences.

Oz is quick to follow him, like his shadow. He readies himself by planting his claws, making a small splash beneath him. He jolts, and jitters as if he is shaking off an eternity of rust as he gets ready to launch. He lunges his legs back, and slowly pushes off. By flapping his monstrous and majestic wings, Oz is able to quickly catch up to Malachi and his stumpy short legs.

The sound that his wings make rival heavy drapery being pulled back to reveal sunshine. Oz continues to beat his wings, more rapidly now to gain a higher perspective.

“Now why do I always get left with the human scum?” Oz asks, like he knew someone else was listening. “Doesn’t matter” he says, before nosediving directly at Malachi.

“Keep running”. That’s what Malachi thought. Unbeknownst to him, like a skydiver with his parachute, Oz deployed his wings and is slowly coasting behind him. Gradually falling towards the ground he pulls up before he collides with the surface, and charges up heat in his core. Momentum is moving from his belly to his throat as he opens his mouth, and unleashes a fiery burst of flames. An array of different colors were violently expunged, each more beautiful and violent than the last.

Malachi felt the heat from behind him, but instead of directly striking him the blast hit the liquid below, completely showering him in steam. This did not stop him from running as he continued to sprint. At first pleasant, that feeling quicker surpassed as Oz’s distance between them drastically decreased.

Searing, burning pain followed. Like he was standing right in the blast point of a hot spring. But that feeling quickly surpassed and was replaced with a skin melting heat from the liquid. Like a volcano erupting and all magma being magnetically drawn and hitting him all at once. He was forced to stop running, and that was when the fire struck him.

Shrieking and screaming, otherworldly pain is how he would describe it. A violent amount of fire moved it’s way up his feet, legs, and to his hips leaving a searing mark that a grill master would call well done. He immediately fell to the surface, as the fiery blast just missed his head.

Malachi let out a roaring scream, clutching his burnt skin. He continued to try and crawl away as Oz set down right next to him.

“I understand now how you like inflicting pain on others, it’s quite enjoyable to see you suffering” Oz says.

“Please make it stop, it’s too much” Malachi whimpers.

“You know what you have to do to make it stop,” Oz gently reminds him.

“I don’t want to heal” Malachi forcefully says, still seething in pain.

“You’re in denial then. A part of you wanted to be saved. Wanted you to be here”, Oz tried to console him.

“Even if that is true, it is too late for me,” Malachi admits.

“Hmm”. Oz sharply exhaled, and put his left claw on Malachi’s burnt legs.

“Ow!” Malachi screams in agony, as Oz moves his head closer. Fearing that Oz might make him his next meal, Malachi fears what happens next.

Oz instead bows his head near Malachi’s legs, and turns him fully over. He takes a big deep breath, and Malachi fully expects to be entirely cooked to a crisp but that does not happen.

Instead Oz releases a soft, warm, green mist that instantly has healing qualities. The mist slowly starts to work its way toward Malachi’s burns and immediately starts feeling better.

“What if all we need to change is a realization that we do not want to be the same person anymore”, Oz states wisely. “The human body is in constant change. One million cells die every second, yet humanity thinks change is impossible. Change is constantly happening”.

Malachi is silent as he allows those words and the green mist to sink into his skin. He does not try to rush to say anything, he enjoys his surroundings, and the friendly dragon next to him.

A perplexed look came to his face.

“What is it now?” Oz states, trying to ready himself for whatever game Malachi wants to play next.

A brief pause is followed up with, “I don’t know how to start” Malachi finally says.

“Well that realization is a good start”, Oz excitedly states as he starts to rise up. “You have had plenty of dragons in your valley throughout your life, Malachi Grey, but we shall start with the most powerful and daunting one of them all. Your father”.