Granted. You are visited in the night by a higher being that calls Himself God. He tells you that He has chosen you to be the new saviour of humanity from sin and evil. He blesses you with the power to see people’s virtue and morality, to know how, by His standards, is a good and noble person and who needs purged of their sin.
When you wake, you expect it to be a dream, but in the morning, your vision turns your lips to ice with fear: you see your mother (substitute in whoever you live with/normally wakes you in person) has a bar over her head. As you try to grab it, the thing dissipates into the air, then reforms when you retract your hands. When she asks you why you did that, what there was, you lie to her to avoid worrying her. Immediately, you feel a burning shock run through your veins, and hear His voice again:

“You must remove sin from this world, not create it!”

You explain to her the truth. She does not believe you, and you quickly realise she never will. As she turns to leave, the fear steps back to the fore of your mind.

Her bar is red. Short. Blackening.

“She is Sin Incarnate.”

You protest to Him that you cannot be expected to battle your relative on the first day, especially as she is ‘Sin Incarnate’. He will allow you this one moment of forgiveness, but just this one.

Within the hour, you wish you had more.

Everyone’s bar is a blood burgundy colour, flashing, glowing. Without exception. Beholding such sin burns the very cells that make up the skin on your scalp. You collapse to the floor in unspeakable pain.

“This is your fate. This is your job. This is humanity.”

After a solid ten minutes of misery, a stranger helps you to your feet. His bar grows and lightens, but barely. You tell him the situation. Miraculously, yet confusingly, he is a pious man himself, and listens. You ask him about his life. Every action he undertakes burns you. You can barely listen to him while He screams at you to “Heal Him. Save Him.” Yet the things you hear him talk about are not awful, by your standards or by your expectation of His. He has never broken a law in his life, he has never cheated on his wife. In his youth, he went to church on his skateboard. Now, he visits every Sunday by bike. All his desires, wishes, actions, history, likes, dislikes: they all seem normal. They all seem religious. They all seem good, yet his words create metaphysical rashes on the very fibres of your being.

“This. Is. Humanity,” you hear Him bellow at you.

“Save. Them.”