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When it comes to picking out the exact moment of his life that Alastor became certain that he’d go to hell, well things tend to get a bit muddied.
There is of course, always the simple answer. The obvious answer. That the certainty came over him the day he took his life into his own hands and decided that he should have a little… fun with it. After all, there is no better way to condemn oneself to eternal damnation than murder. It’s a classic, a sin as old as the tale of Able and Cain and Alastor has always been more sympathetic towards the later. Even if he did decide to add his own little twist to the script.
There is simply just something about spilling your own blood with your own two hands. Something in the rush before it happened, the silence afterwards. Standing there, with only the beating of your own heart to keep you company, as you watched the soil beneath your feet grow wetter and wetter. To draw in breath, the iron tang in the air so thick that you could taste it on your tongue.
To this day Alastor still remembers the way his chest had expanded as the cold rush of air had filled his lungs. It had felt like the first breath he had ever truly drawn. Like every breath before had been a lie. Had been untrue and meaningless.
If given the chance, Alastor would do it again. He would use less force. Create shallower cuts with a duller blade. He’d draw it out. Watch those familiar eyes – so similar in shape to his own and yet the color oh so different – go dull. Feel the breath leave that cursed body.
Alastor would be the last thing he would see. His last sight that of his own greatest sin. And just as he would think himself free. Think it the end. Alastor would revive him and do it all over again.
He’d do it until he was satisfied. Perhaps, Alastor would do it forever.
However, by that point in his life Alastor had already been certain of his place in hell. And perhaps that certainty had been a gradual thing instead of sharp moment of realization. Like the rotting of his own soul since the day he realized why his skin was lighter than his peers – understood what that meant for his unmarried mother and the man he had been taught to call the master of the house.
Perhaps his soul had been darkened the day he looked at the priests and nuns, their words of love and community lost at the sight of him and thought that he would much rather burn in hell then have to spend eternity in heaven with the likes of them. And perhaps his soul had already been as black as tar at seven, when the master of the house told his mother to run. Before he hunted her through the woods with his rifle and his dogs who ripped her to pieces as Alastor watched. Until the only thing that made the corpse recognizable to him was the shape of the calluses on her hands.
There is of course something to be said about the blood that runs through his veins. Like father like son – perhaps Alastor was destined to go to hell the day he first drew breath. But no. That would simply be too unjust.
After all, who is he to deny himself any credit in his own damnation when it was he who decided to take life into his own hands?