Terrorforming || Yandere!Harem X F!Reader

Instructive Cruelty

this is your final warning! in this chapter, I've decided to tackle purity culture and how that affects survivors of SA. if that's triggering to you, you might want to stop reading now. I won't blame you. you have nothing to prove to anyone. stay safe.

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Another day, another sermon... Today's was on the importance of purity.

"God says we are to keep ourselves pure," Nurse Thorne begun. "To be pure means to be unmixed with any other matter, to be free of anything that would taint. God expects us to be holy, separated from anything that would defile us. We are to be like Him. We are to have pure minds, pure hearts, and pure hands."

She sighed, "The problem is that we live in a time in which Christians, as the Bride of Christ, have allowed our wedding garments to become soiled and allowed ourselves to be defiled. Our three great enemies --the world, the flesh, and the devil-- have amassed their attacks seeking to defile us and make us dirty."

Here, she paused for effect before continuing, "It's amazing how much people love dirt. That's why so much of the news is about dirt. You hear it, you see it, you take it into your mind, you picture it, you imagine it... Now your own mind has become dirty as well. And from a dirty mind springs dirty acts."

And, boy oh boy, did Nurse Thorne have a lot to talk about dirty acts... The dirtiest act being that of sex.

What struck you the most was the rhetoric. Losing your virginity or messing around before marriage was compared to a menagerie of things.

Unchaste girls were compared to chewed gum, a candy bar with bites taken out of it, a gift with torn wrapping, a rose with all its petals pulled off, or a piece of tape that has too much dirt or fuzz on it to be sticky anymore.

It was horrible, and you weren't the only one who thought so. You heard more than one girl weeping throughout the sermon as they were essentially told they were no longer wanted --no longer of any use-- if they so much as hugged a boy.

You supposed that spelled out hell for you, who had given an experimental kiss to another girl. That didn't come as any surprise, though.

Nurse Thorne's quiet but explicit threats of eternal damnation were interrupted by a sudden cry. It was somewhere between a wail and a shriek, followed by the rapid pitter-patter of ballet flats hitting wood as one of the campers fled the chapel.

You waited a minute or two to see if anyone was going to go after the girl, but, when no one did, you stepped out of line and started down the aisle towards the door to do so.

Rosasharon caught your elbow before you could exit the Faithful's pew, asked in a whisper, "Where are you going?"

"Bathroom," you lied.

"Can't you hold it?"

"For another two hours? No."

Her face was twisted with conflict, but she eventually let you go. "Okay, then. Hurry back."

You found none other than Jezebel in the same position you had been after Nurse Thorne's sermon on God's conditional love, on her hands and knees, puking her guts out in the surrounding garden.

"Jezebel, are you okay?" You asked as you approached.

When you moved to put your hand on her shoulder, maybe hold her hair and veil out of the way while she threw up, she flinched away. "Don't touch me!" She all but screamed. "I'm dirty!"

You thought back to what Nurse Thorne said last night, that one of the girls had been very badly spiritually hurt. What could possibly hurt one's spirit?

Why... A dirty act.

"Did you mess around with one of the boys last night? I'm not judging. It's completely normal for kids our age to experiment."

"You don't understand! I was drunk, I was high, I couldn't have-- Even if I wanted to--" Another sob racked her small frame. "But none of that matters. Nurse Thorne said that it's all my fault, that I shouldn't have partaken, that I should have been more careful, that boys will be boys, that--"

"Jezebel, what happened last night?"

"It's all my fault! It's all my fault! It's all my fault!" She screamed.

You didn't know what to say, too shell-shocked, in horror of what you just learned. Of course it wasn't her fault. What kind of monster would even insinuate that it was? And then it dawned on you.

"Y/N," Nurse Thorne said as she exited the chapel behind you. "Thank you for tending to Jezebel, but I'll take it from here. Service has ended early today. You can head to the Ark with the rest of the Faithful."

"You--"

"Y/N. Jezebel needs me now more than ever. Whatever you want to discuss, we can do so at your next pastoral counseling session. Rosasharon, please escort Miss L/N to the Ark."

...

"You knew." Those were the first words out of your mouth as you entered the director's office. The cottage door had just barely swung shut before you spoke up.

"Knew what?" Nurse Thorne asked, feigning innocence, hands folded on the desk in front of her.

"You knew that Jezebel was-- that she'd been--"

"That she engaged in premarital sex?"

"She was an unwilling participant! What about the boys who did that to her? Will they be held accountable for what they did?"

"Of course! They're repenting as we speak."

"Not by you or by God. By the law," you hissed.

"Oh, no," Nurse Thorne said, gently shaking her head. "No, no, no. Do you know what kind of damage allegations like that could do to those young men's lives?"

What about the damage they had done to Jezebel's life?

"You knew, before you ever held that sermon."

"It wasn't designed to hurt her. It was designed to prevent other girls from ending up like her."

She essentially called Jezebel trash in front of the entire camp, yet she obviously felt quite justified in doing so.

"You're so cruel."

Nurse Thorne tilted her head to the side. "But is it not cruel to banish your children from a perfect garden? Or drown your flock under an ocean of water? Cruelty can be instructive... And what is Camp Bethel, if not the schoolhouse of the Lord?"

You shuddered, your frame shaking under the weight of all your rage and sorrow, before finally giving in and bursting into tears.