Sin 24 : A Christmas Tale

 Once upon a time there was a little town. Once upon a time there was a good and intelligent doctor. Once upon a time there was a little town so filled with sin that they sought the doctor's help in extracting it. The good doctor wanted so badly to help the people of the town to the best of his abilities. He examined each and every person in the town in the hopes of finding the origin of the sin that was spoken of. Despite not finding any new illnesses, he was told to work more and more. He found more and more funds, more and more demands. There was little the good doctor could do but continue his work.

 Soon, he was told that the sin lay completely within the children.

 Soon, he could see it. As strange as it may seem, as children shuffled into his clinic he found them overwhelmed with bulges and bruises on their skin. It was something he'd never seen before.. Concentrated sin, he was told. The good doctor believed the bulges to be tumors.

 Cut, cut, cut, he extracted the black lumps from child after child. The children seemed empty afterwards. They did not cry in pain. They did not cry at all. They smiled. They all smiled. Almost as much as their parents.

 Looking at these lumps he discovered they were not tumors at all.. They were solid black coal. After cleaning them up he found small numbers inscribed on the sides. The parents refused to answer any questions about the coal. The good doctor did not believe that they could explain it either. Simply, they said the sins were gone. A child with coal in his leg had stopped kicking his sister, a child with coal in her mouth stopped spreading rumors about others, a child with coal in her hand stopped fidgeting. The results spoke.

 Nothing else mattered.

 The last child entered his surgery, the only one in the town whose parents needed to scrounge up extra cash to pay for her operation. The good doctor even gave them a discount and yet they insisted on paying in full with delightful smiles on their faces as their poor daughter got sicker and sicker. She would not speak in the good doctor's presence. The sick girl would not look at him. In fact, the good doctor could not see where her coal lay. After a few scans he found the source of the coal.

 The good doctor asked "do you really want to extract this one?" and they said yes. He asked again. He asked again. Always the same answer. Always 'yes'. Dry. Simple.

 The sick girl lay on the operating table and would never wake again after being put under. The coal.. Dug into her chest, the black monstrosity dug so deep in her heart that the good doctor had no choice but to hack as a butcher would in order to pull it free. The number on the side was.. 24.

 When the good doctor told the parents what had happened they smiled with an extra delight, a reaction he had never seen before. "I knew it was twenty four!" The mother said, clapping her hands together. When the doctor expressed confusion, fear.. The father only looked confused and shook his head. "Twenty four.. Her sin. It was twenty four." The good doctor did not understand and only grew more and more confused. He had killed her.. For a sin no one would tell him? How bad her sin must have been. How truly terrible her crime for it to be lodged in her chest so deeply.

 "Doctor.." The mother's voice fluctuated wildly with elation, barely able to contain her joy. "Her sin is finally cured. I've been dealing with it for so long.. I couldn't wait for it to finally be pulled from her. Do you really not know? Twenty four.. It's the sin of being born." With that she patted her belly. Only now did the good doctor see that she was pregnant, very early on.

 "Please.. Treat our children again next year."