I have to confess. I have to confess or my sins will weigh doubly the next time. I make one last journey to my berg’s shrine. I follow the cuts in the sides of the prefabs, touching each one and reciting the twenty-three canticles. My joints ache as finally surmount the shrine’s stairway and enter the first hall. The smell of scat and sweet infections floods my nostrils as I kneel beside a corpse at the first of my row’s shrine. I recognise the corpse from my row, and judging from its hue they finished their journey some days ago. I wonder if we’ll still be on the same row when I get back there.
The first week without disease, still fresh from rebirth, is always an adjustment. I miss my old pains. I join the other flagellants after rounds to open fresh wounds for anointing with corpse water. I think I’ll be able to make it to the shrine again. Maybe even to the end, where all sin is burned away and the journey is allowed to end.