Of course it was I who had buried him. God had spoken to me. I would lead the creation of the book that would turn darkness into light. Of the twelve of us, it was I and I alone who was deemed worthy.
And yet, I feel I've been corrupted somehow.
"There is no Hell as you suppose, nor Heaven that people talk about." That is what he had said before I silenced him forever. Before I shoved his detestable form back into the floorboards from wince it emerged and sealed the crack with boiling tar. I had buried him once already, and it was my duty to do it again.
It had been a lamb we'd buried first. Scared and bleating. The younger brothers begged me to slit it's neck before we laid it down, but I knew that was not the way of things. It had to be done right. We dug a hole of the appropriate size, and built the floor above it quickly the next day.
Looking back on it, I remember feeling gleeful, giddy with anticipation of beginning our task in earnest in the church we were building on heathen land. Bringing light to the darkness of Iona, purifying this land that was once crawling with pagan belief and showing our fellow man the righteousness of the Lord: nothing could be more honorable.
The walls crumbled the next morning, and I heard the lamb scream the floor collapsed in upon it.
I received the message that evening, when sleep found me lying beneath the branches of the tree which I had made my shelter.
In the dream, I found myself back in Ireland. I was standing in a field near my childhood home, watching the wind dance across the grass when the sky broke open, tearing the very fabric of heaven into the shape of an enormous cross, revealing strange clouds of what appeared to be shining, colored dust traveling around a pitch black sky which lie behind. From it emerged a being of terrible beauty, the likes of which I had never seen. It was as if a thousand birds had decided to travel as one, their wings a thousand different colors, and unceasing in their movement.
From this shape came a voice, and it relayed a message from our Lord, that the walls of our chapel would not stand until the body of a living man has been buried beneath. I needed no clarification on who that man should be. In my heart, I knew. There was only one other who was my equal, only one.
I made sure all our brothers were within earshot when I told him of my dream, and Odran did not protest.
We buried him under a full moon, not out of some godless pagan tradition, but simply because the light had been best. I implore you to remember that I was kind then, I even allowed him to chose where he would lie, and it was he that chose to lie next to the body of that worthless sheep.