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The thunder cracked so violently overhead that it seemed to rattle the very bones of the church, shaking the rafters as though the heavens themselves were at war. For a fleeting instant, the stained glass windows shivered in their heavy frames, the fractured saints inside flickering to life only to tremble within their colored prisons. Rain hurled itself against the walls like a legion at siege, the storm compressing in from every direction, rattling the swollen wood of the doors and seeping cold through the cracks in the stone. It was as if the dark sky longed to break inside, longed to flood the nave and drown the silence in its wrath.
And yet, despite it all, Tyler moved slowly and deliberately, untouched by any of the chaos. His footfalls echoed on the marble, each step a hollow toll that reverberates high into the dark reaches of the vaulted ceiling. His long black robes whispered across the floor like restless shadows, trailing after him seemingly with their own secret intent. In his grasp he bore a single taper candle, the flame small but unwavering, cradled against his palm as though he was guarding a relic. He bent down to the altar, steady as ritual, and pressed the fire to the wick. The air immediately thickened with scent, that of old incense lingering in the stone, the smoke clinging like prayer left unfinished and mingling with the damp metallic tang of rain-soaked dust.
One by one, small halos of flickering flame bloomed in the dark, their fragile circles of gold pushing out against the storm’s grip inside the sanctuary. Their glow spilled across Tyler’s face, carving his features into sharp relief, the shadows sinking deep beneath his eyes, his cheekbones struck into harsh lines like chiseled stone. Another thunderclap rolled through the rafters with the weight of judgment, rattling the windows so violently that it seemed the glass might shatter and rain shards of holy saints onto the floor, but Tyler did not flinch.
The church was empty and cavernous, yet so very alive. Every pew groaned with the settling of wood, every draught of wind hissed through the cracks like a whispered breath, thin and secret. The air itself seemed to shiver with a presence, vast and unseen and listening all at once. Tyler moved steadily down the line of candles, his hand unwavering as he set each wick aflame, his robes sweeping with a sound like the rustle of pages of scripture turning themselves. His lips pressed together in an expression that revealed nothing, neither reverence nor disdain, yet his gaze clung unbroken to the fire as though he could read truth in its trembling.
When the final flame leapt to life, the gathered light trembled shakily up the walls and shivered across the bronze crucifix suspended high above the altar. For an instant, the figure nailed there seemed to move in the shifting shadows, its body wrenched tight with endless torment, its face stretched into a scream that the silence devoured before it could even sound. Tyler stilled beneath it, his head lifting slowly, his dark eyes fixed on the hollowed face as though awaiting an answer. But the storm was the only voice that replied, its roar rolling through the stained glass, its fury pressing harder against the stone, relentless and unanswered.
Tyler lowers his head in prayer. At first his lips shape only silence, the faint movement of breath against the hush, but soon the words slip free, spilling like smoke into the cavernous dark of the hall. “Deliver us from evil,” he murmurs, each syllable steady and deliberate, nearly devoured by the roar of the storm pressing against the walls. His hands fold upon the altar, his long fingers pale and skeletal in the trembling candlelight, the crucifix glinting faintly above him like a watchful eye. “Keep watch over the lost, over the broken. Keep watch over me, Lord.”
The answer comes swift and violent. Thunder explodes overhead, a single crack so close and immense that it feels as though the heavens themselves have been cleaved in two. The stone quivers beneath his knees. The old wooden doors at the far end of the nave groan, their hinges screaming in protest before they are thrown wide with a force that drives a cold, stark wind through the entire sanctuary. The nearest candles sputter in protest, their flames bowing low and sending shadows lurching wildly across the walls as though the church itself had gasped awake.
Wind and rain explode into the sanctuary, the storm tearing inside as though determined to claim the holy ground as its own. And with the chaos, comes Josh. He stumbles through the threshold, drenched and trembling, the very night itself clinging to him like a second skin. His hair is plastered in wet curls against his forehead, his clothes sodden and heavy, dripping steadily onto the marble floor with a sound like gunfire. For a suspended heartbeat he only stands there, fragile and pale, lit from behind by a savage flare of lightning that etches his outline in a silver fire. His chest heaves, his eyes are wide, wild and frantic, like a man driven by forces beyond his own will.
The doors slam shut with a sudden violence, the sound cracking through the sanctuary. The wood rattles in its frame, the iron fittings shrieking loudly before falling silent. The echo rolls long down the cavernous hall, resonant and final, like the last tolling of a funeral bell.
Tyler does not move, despite it all. His hands remain folded, his head bowed in a composure unshaken by the chaos. Yet his eyes lift, dark and unblinking, tracking Josh with the precision of a hawk watching its prey. Candlelight dances across his face, casting shadows deep into the hollows of his features. His expression is still as carved stone, whether it holds the calm of compassion or the severity of judgment, is impossible to tell.
Josh staggers forward with a cautious step, water spreading in a dark ring around his feet as it pools on the floor. His voice tears out rough, raw, dragged from someplace deep and ragged inside of him. “Forgive me, Father,” he whispers, the words rasping as the thunder growls overhead, “for I have sinned.”
He lingers in the center aisle, dripping and trembling, the storm still clinging to him in shivers that shake through his whole body. His words hang suspended in the charged air, fragile, reverent, obscene.
For a long moment, neither man moves. Tyler remains at the altar, his only movement being the light shift of his robes with his breath, watching with dark eyes and a faint tilt of his head. Between them, the candles burn in their fragile halos, holding back the storm’s grip with only a thin, wavering light. The silence is heavy and solid, like a church caught mid-liturgy.
Josh’s breathing slows under Tyler’s gaze, his chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm, as though he is waiting for the judgment to strike. Rain lashes the glass in frantic waves, lightning claws at it, and for each fractured burst, Josh’s face appears stark, ghostly, broken into shards of color and shadow.
Then, just barely, Tyler’s lips curve into a smirk that’s both sharp and deliberate, tugging at the stillness of his expression like a knife pulled clean from flesh. He does not speak. Instead, he raises one pale hand, his fingers gleaming in the candlelight, and with a slow, deliberate flick, he gestures toward the confession booth.
Josh swallows hard. His shoulders sag, not with relief but with a hollow surrender, the kind that empties rather than eases. The storm bellows through the stained glass, rattling the very bones of the church, but he obeys the silent gesture. His soaked shoes squeak across the marble in short, uneven steps, leaving a trail of water as he slips into the shadows where the booth looms, waiting for him like a tomb.
Tyler does not follow immediately. He lingers at the altar, still beneath the crucifix, the smirk fading from his lips until his face is cut into something colder and more severe. Only when the silence has stretched taut does he turn, his black robes sweeping in low whispers across the floor, moving with a steady, ritual pace toward the penitent’s box.
Inside, Josh lowers himself onto the narrow bench, the wood groaning and protesting faintly under his weight. The door shuts with a hollow click, a sound so final that it makes his pulse stutter. The storm dulls at once, pressed down into a low, distant growl as though the sky itself has been locked away. The air in the booth is thick and unmoving, clinging to him like a shroud. Dust coats the wood, the taste of it is sweet and bitter all at once on his tongue, mingling with the faint, choking perfume of old incense that has never fully lifted from the grain.
He exhales, but the sound feels too loud in the cramped dark, like a trespass echoing off the narrow walls. The tiny lattice before him spills only the faintest sliver of candlelight from the other side, just enough to sketch the trembling of his hands in a pale gold. He clasps them together, his knuckles grinding tightly, as though sheer pressure could hold the shaking still.
The wood around him creaks and sways, old and restless, groaning like it's settling under some invisible weight. His damp clothes cling coldly against his skin, water dripping steadily from his cuffs, each drop darkening the wood beneath him. Every splash rings sharp in the silence, unbearably distinct, like the church itself is tallying each breath, each motion, each drop, keeping count of him.
He leans forward, pressing his forehead into his locked hands, shutting his eyes against the closeness. For a fleeting heartbeat he imagines that Tyler is already there, his shadow pressed close to the other side of the grate, his gaze cutting through. Listening, or, perhaps more fittingly, judging. The thought sears through him, terrifying and electric, like a brand laid against his bare skin.
But the other side remains empty for now. So he waits, his breath shallow, his muscles taut, his body locked in place. The storm rattles the windows beyond in violent bursts, but still no footsteps, still no signs of movement. Only the booth itself, breathing with him, the wood expanding and contracting like ribs around a single shared lung. And all at once, the terrible certainty gnaws at him that Tyler is taking his time on purpose.
He begins to shift uneasily when, at last, the silence breaks. The whisper of robes sweeps close, followed by the low groan of ancient wood as the other door yields to its occupant. Josh stiffens, his every nerve sparking with electricity. The space seems to shrink in an instant, the walls leaning inward as Tyler slips into the seat across from him.
A faint glow filters through the lattice, gilding the darkness with thin threads of light. It sketches the sharp edges of Tyler’s profile, splitting his face in half, shadow swallowing one side while firelight burns the other. His eyes gleam through the pattern of holes, unreadable and unyielding. He does not speak. He only sits, unmoving, until his presence swells to fill every corner of the box with a thick and smothering aura. The air changes. Heavy and final, as if the act of his arrival had sealed the booth shut, not only with wood but with judgment itself.
Josh’s heart thunders so violently that it feels as though it might crack his ribs. And in that moment, he knows that this is what true judgment must feel like. Not thunder rending the heavens or a voice booming from on high, but Tyler, seated just beyond the lattice, silent and immovable, his gaze cutting clean through wood and shadow as though God Himself had bent low to listen.
The storm batters the stained glass above, the rain hammering against it like a legion of fists onto locked doors, but Josh doesn’t hear it anymore. The world outside has vanished. All that remains is the sound of his own ragged breath, the nearness of Tyler, and the weight of eternity compressed into this suffocating wooden box.
Tyler exhales slowly and deliberately. The sound seeps through the grate like smoke, curling into Josh’s lungs until he shudders as though he’s breathing in fire.
“You may begin, son.” The words roll low from Tyler’s mouth, patient and commanding, gentle enough to soothe, but heavy enough to crush. Josh shuts his eyes against the burn of them, his forehead pressed tighter to his hands. It feels like damnation. It feels like salvation. It feels like some mixture of both all at once, bound together in a way that makes his chest ache.
Josh’s lips part for a reply, but nothing comes. His throat seizes tight, strangling the words before they can even form. Tyler’s presence presses heavier in the silence, suffocating, filling every inch of the booth until Josh can hardly breathe. His wet clothes cling like chains, every drop of water biting cold against his skin, every inhale dragging thick with incense and dust, as though the air itself resists him.
When he finally speaks, his voice breaks low with more of a plea than statement. “Forgive me, Father…” The words falter again, thin and uncertain, and he swallows hard before forcing them out. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… I… I don’t know how long since my last confession.”
His fingers knot together in his lap until the knuckles grind with pain, a white ache beneath trembling skin. He stares at the lattice, at the faint outline of Tyler’s shadow that’s cut into fragments of fire and darkness. Still as stone. Silent as judgment.
Josh’s chest heaves, his breath tearing shallow. “I’ve done things that I can’t undo,” he whispers, his voice splintering and fragile and bound to break. “And I think… I think I’d do them again… Even knowing what they cost.” The words hang in the booth like smoke, clinging to him, impossible to disperse.
The storm still snarls above, thunder rolling heavy through the rafters like the wrath of heaven itself. The windows rattle in their frames, their saints once again shuddering in fractured color. Josh flinches, the sound tearing through his bones, then leans closer until his forehead nearly presses into the wood. His voice comes shaking and delirious, but beneath the tremor, the fever burns hot.
“I wanted it, Father. Every moment. Every single sin.” The words strike the silence like a blade sinking deep. Then, nothing.
The booth holds still. The air thickens and presses tight against his lungs. Tyler’s shape remains unmoving, carved into the darkness like a figure that might never have been alive at all. For a terrible heartbeat, Josh wonders if he is even breathing, if the thing seated across from him is somehow beyond human, perhaps only shadow and firelight given form.
Josh’s hands knot tighter, his nails biting crescents into his palms. His chest seizes and every breath hitches ragged in his throat, caught between a sob and a gasp. He cannot tell anymore if he is pleading for mercy, or if what coils inside him aches instead for punishment.
The booth holds its breath with him. The wood groans faintly, expanding and settling like the ribs of a great lung straining to contain what’s inside. The storm rages beyond, thunder tearing through the heavens, but here it feels distant, muted, as though the world outside has already ended and only this small, airless box remains.
At last, Tyler stirs. The sound is slight, only a whisper of fabric shifting and the faint scrape of wood under his weight, but in the stillness it strikes like thunder. His face stays half-veiled by the grate, his expression unreadable. Yet Josh feels it, the weight of that gaze pressing through every hole in the lattice, needle-sharp and inescapable.
When Tyler speaks, his voice is low and measured, each word honed like steel drawn slow from its sheath. “You confess,” he murmurs, “but you do not repent.”
The words fall heavy between them, merciless in their precision. Yet there is no anger in them, no heat. Only observation. Only judgment carved clean and cold like a blade laid against Josh’s trembling throat without the need to strike.
Josh’s breath stutters once more, catching in his chest. His fingers twist tighter together, his nails biting cruelly into his own flesh. Shame scalds through him, hot and suffocating, but beneath it, something darker flickers, something perilous, burning low and hungry where he dares not even give a name to it.
Tyler leans closer to the grate. His exhale slips through, slow and deliberate and warm against the chill air, almost tender in its weight. “And that,” he murmurs, his voice as soft as the thunder rolling away into the distance, “is your truest sin.”
Josh stays bowed, his forehead nearly pressed to the lattice, the carved wood biting cold against his skin. His breath comes shallow and shaky, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t dare. The silence stretches and stretches until it becomes the punishment itself, each heartbeat louder than the storm outside.
At last, Tyler speaks again, softer this time, but with a gravity that makes Josh’s heart seize in his chest. “You’ve carried something in here with you,” he says. “Not just sin, but something heavier. It clings to you. I can almost taste it.”
Josh’s throat cinches tight. The words knot there, strangled before they can even rise. He says nothing.
Tyler’s voice doesn’t waver. It stays steady and coaxing, as patient as a hand guiding the edge of a blade toward flesh. “You say you wanted it, every moment, every sin.” His head tilts slightly, and in the flicker of candlelight, his eyes catch through the lattice, gleaming like embers behind a grate. “But what was it? What act haunts you so badly you cannot even speak its name? Tell me, son… what do you see when you close your eyes?”
The words slip through the carved wood, curling into Josh’s ears like black smoke, like pure heat. Tyler doesn’t sound angry, nor even disappointed. He sounds intent. Interested. Hungry.
Josh swallows hard, his pulse hammering hot against his throat. His fingers grip one another tighter still until his knuckles throb, aching under the pressure. His lips part, but only a broken exhale escapes, a ghost of sound, nothing more. His chest heaves once, twice, caught between silence and confession.
Tyler waits. He does not rush, but he does not relent. His stillness is its own pressure, filling every inch of the booth and pressing down on Josh until there is nowhere left for him to hide. The silence itself becomes a hand at his throat. Steady, patient, inevitable.
Josh swallows, the sound rough and scraping in the tight dark. His hands tremble, clasped tighter until the bones grind, until the pain sparks through his knuckles and bleeds onto the floor. His chest heaves once, twice, his breath dragging like broken glass. And then, at last, the words tear loose from him, raw and jagged.
“I’ve killed a man.”
The storm answers back at once, a guttural growl through the rafters, thunder rolling down the nave as though heaven itself bears witness to such a confession. The words hang in the air, heavier than the storm, heavier than judgment, heavier than anything Josh has ever spoken aloud. They do not fade. They linger, echoing in the wood, in the air, in the space between them, impossible to take back.
“I didn’t even know him,” he blurts out, his voice cracking apart in the narrow dark. “He was just… just there. A stranger. Alone. In the night.” His breath collapses in uneven bursts, his chest heaving as though the words themselves are breaking him open. “I don’t even know why I did it. I just… I couldn’t stop myself…”
He squeezes his eyes shut, but the memory sears all the same. The weight of the body, the sound of steel sinking deep, the sudden heat spilling over his hands. His stomach lurches, bile burning at the back of his throat, but beneath the sickness lies a fever that will not die. A strange, perilous clarity that makes his skin prickle.
His gaze drops, unbidden, to his feet. In the dim, shifting light he sees it. The dark stains blooming across the leather of his shoes, wet and red, glistening as though it were fresh, crawling with him into God’s house. His breath stutters, ragged. For one heartbeat, he cannot tell if its memory or reality, if the storm has merely painted his vision or if he is standing in it still.
“I can see him,” Josh whispers. “Every time I close my eyes. But the worst part…” His throat locks tight. His forehead presses into the wood until it aches, as though the pain might scour it out. “The worst part is that I wanted it. I wanted it so badly, Father.”
The words hang like a curse in the room, heavy as blood dripping from the altar.
The booth groans softly, the wood shifting as though recoiling from the confession. But Tyler does not. He remains still and silent, a shadow breathing slow and steady through the grate.
He doesn’t flinch. His outline stays carved into the latticework, lips unreadable in the restless flicker of candlelight. For a moment Josh almost believes that he hasn’t been heard at all, that his words have vanished into the stale incense and the storm’s low growl.
Then Tyler exhales. The sound drifts through the carved wood with the calmness of a teacher listening to a lesson carefully recited by a trembling pupil.
“You took a life,” he says at last, his voice low and measured, unshaken. No anger. No shock. Only certainty. “A man you didn’t know. A stranger in the night.”
The words fall into the booth with the weight of a stone, clean and cold, as though Tyler has carved them into the silence itself.
Josh trembles.He can’t lift his eyes from the floor, afraid of what he’ll see if he dares to look through the grate.
Tyler leans closer still. His breath slips through the lattice in warm threads that brush against Josh’s damp skin, intimate and inescapable. His tone doesn’t sharpen, doesn’t harden, if anything, it softens, and that gentleness is what chills Josh to the bone.
“And yet,” he murmurs, “I hear no regret in your voice, son. Only hunger. Only the memory of wanting.”
Josh’s stomach twists, the nausea tangling with heat, leaving him feeling hollow and fevered all at once. His pulse hammers so violently that he can hear it ringing in his ears, drowning out even the storm’s loud growl.
Tyler lets the silence linger, letting the weight of his words settle deep, until Josh is raw and straining under it. Then, with a calm that’s almost tender, he asks. “Tell me… when the blood touched your hands, when you felt the flicker of life leaving him… did it frighten you? Or did it make you feel alive?”
The question curls through the booth like incense smoke, suffocating and impossible to breathe past.
The storm lashes the stained glass with claws of rain. The candles flicker under the pressure, their small halos shivering as though afraid to go out completely. Josh can’t breathe. The air in the booth is too thick, too close, his lungs seizing with every gasp.
His mouth opens, but no sound emerges. His throat cinches tight, strangling the words before they can be born. He hadn’t expected this. Tyler’s silence, his steady interest, the way his voice curved around the confession like a hand cradling fire instead of dousing it.
“I…” Josh’s voice falters, thin and broken. He grips his hands tighter, nails biting deep into his palms once more until pain sparks hot. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
The grate between them feels thinner than paper, a fragile screen unable to keep anything apart. Tyler’s shadow leans closer, the warmth of his breath spilling through, steady, measured, deliberate.
“You don’t know?” he repeats, rolling the words on his tongue as though savoring them. His voice is soft, patient and merciless. “You spill blood, and you don’t know how it feels?”
The question sinks into Josh like a blade, twisting deeper the longer Tyler waits.
Josh shakes his head, though he knows Tyler can’t truly see it through the grate. His chest hollows with each frantic inhale, ribs straining as though the air itself is turning against him. “I thought… I-I thought I’d feel shame, o-or horror. Something. But it was just…” His voice fractures, and he clamps his jaw shut until the muscle aches, grinding down on the rest of the words as if silence could bury them.
Tyler waits. The pause stretches long and deliberate. He doesn’t fill it, doesn’t soothe it, doesn’t rush. His stillness is worse than fury, worse than the flame, it coils around Josh like iron, leaving him alone with the truth pressing mercilessly at his ribs, demanding to be named.
When Tyler finally speaks, his voice drifts through the lattice softer than before, the cadence is hushed and intimate, like a prayer whispered to a child in the dark. “You came here because you want to be seen. You want to be known.”
The words land with terrible precision, sinking deep, stripping Josh bare in the suffocating quiet. His breath hitches, sharp and uneven. His skin crawls, every nerve alive with a desperate heat that won’t let him be still.
But Tyler doesn’t stop. His voice flows steady and unbroken. “You say you don’t know. But you do. You’ve known since the moment you chose to take a life. Since the blood hit your shoes.”
The shadow shifts on the other side of the grate, leaning closer and closer, until Josh feels a warmth ghost against his cheek, a breath threading through the lattice, a presence too near to escape.
“Say it.”
Josh’s pulse slams at his throat, wild and relentless, hammering like it means to break out. Fear knots heavy in his stomach, cold and twisting, but beneath it, something else stirs. A heat. A pressure. He cannot tell if it’s sickness or if it’s the relief of the possibility of finally laying himself bare. The two feelings tangle together until they are indistinguishable, choking him in the same breath.
Josh’s lips tremble, his chest heaving like he’s drowning in the stale, incense-choked air of the booth. The truth claws at his throat, desperate to be spoken, but the words snag between terror and desire, tearing him apart from the inside. His hands shake violently in his lap, and when he forces his mouth open, only a ragged, broken sound escapes, a gasp that sounds more animal than human.
He can’t bear it. The walls are pressing in, the lattice now feels like nothing but a thin veil, Tyler’s presence is as heavy as stone on his shoulders. With a strangled cry, Josh lurches to his feet and slams his weight against the door. The booth groans in protest, hinges screaming like a thing alive, as if the wood itself wants to hold him prisoner. But the lock yields, and he stumbles out into the vast hollow of the nave.
He’s panting, his chest heaving, his fingers clawing at his damp shirt as though he could rip the panic out of his skin. The storm surges through the stained glass, lightning tearing the church in half with a blaze of white fire. The thunder that follows rattles the pews, shaking the crucifix on its perch. Josh spins, wild-eyed, expecting Tyler to emerge from the booth in pursuit, but the other side is empty. Dark. Silent. Still. As though no one had ever entered it at all.
Josh’s breath falters, catching sharp in his throat. His blood runs cold, the storm outside suddenly distant and muffled beneath the pounding of his own pulse. Slowly, as if being dragged by unseen hands, his gaze lifts forward toward the altar.
Tyler stands there, calm and seemingly unmoved, his black robes spilling across the marble like poured oil. In his hands, a crucifix gleams, catching the restless candlelight. The chain slides against his fingers as he raises it, each movement slow, deliberate, reverent. His expression remains carved and unreadable, but his eyes are locked on Josh, steady and unblinking. Consuming.
He slides the chain over his head, lowering the cross until it rests against his chest. The motion is unhurried and ceremonial, as though performed before an audience larger than the empty church.
In that moment, Josh feels the truth with a weight that pins him where he stands. The confession was never between man and priest. It was never bound by wood or lattice. It has always been between him and something far greater. Something that will not release him. Something he cannot escape.
The candles gutter in their sockets, shadows lurching high up the stone walls. Thunder rattles the rafters with the weight of judgment, and for a terrible instant, Josh feels as though his verdict has already been delivered, condemned not by heaven above, but by the silent figure standing before him at the altar.
He staggers backward, the soaked leather of his shoes squealing against the marble in a shrill, desperate note. His gaze flicks from the open booth beside him to the dark-robed shape at the front, then back again, as though the world might right itself if only he could look fast enough. But the booth only gapes wide, its shadow pooled deep in its hollow mouth like the black maw of a trap that had never been sprung.
Josh’s breath tears in short, shallow bursts, scraping his throat raw. He presses a trembling hand against the wall for balance, but the wood beneath his palm feels cold, damp and slick, as though the storm had seeped inside. The touch steadies nothing, it only makes his skin crawl more. With a shudder, he drags his gaze forward again. Back to Tyler.
The priest stands serene, the crucifix gleaming faintly where it now rests against his chest, his hands folded loosely as if in an endless prayer. He does not move, does not falter, does not even blink. His black robes stir only faintly in the draft winding down the nave, a ripple in otherwise perfect stillness. His face remains composed, calm and utterly unchanged, as though nothing strange has happened at all.
Josh’s heart thrashes against his ribs, each beat sharp enough to hurt, forcing the question through his skull. Did I imagine it? Was he ever in the booth? The thought claws at him, gnawing away certainty until all that remains is raw fear and confusion.
Tyler tilts his head the slightest degree, just enough for the candlelight to draw a clean line of gold across his jaw. His expression reveals nothing, but there’s a quiet assurance in his stillness, an unspoken certainty that the weight of reality does not rest on him at all. It lies on Josh. It always has.
The storm hammers mercilessly at the stained glass, rain drumming like fists desperate to break through. The candles gutter in the draft, their flames bowing low, throwing long, frantic shadows across the stone. In that flickering half-light, Josh feels smaller than he ever has, as if caught between two worlds, unsure which has already claimed him.
The quiet stretches, pressing down until it feels like it might crush him, his own pulse hammering louder than the storm outside. He cannot tear his gaze from Tyler, yet he cannot make sense of him either, the booth gaping empty behind, the crucifix gleaming steady against his chest, his eyes fixed and unblinking.
Then Tyler speaks. “You’re trembling.”
The words unfurl low and smooth across the nave, not a question, not a reprimand. They fall like scripture or fact, carved clean into the air, undeniable and final.
Josh swallows hard, the motion rough, his throat raw as if scraped thin from the inside.
Tyler steps forward, the whisper of his robes across the marble almost louder than his words. “You came here seeking forgiveness,” he continues, his tone as soft as candle smoke, each syllable sinking heavily into the air, “but all I see is fear.” His gaze sharpens, slicing clean through Josh’s faltering breath. “Do you even know what it is that you’re afraid of?”
The crucifix gleams in the light as he moves, the chain swaying with each step, catching the candlelight like a blade catching sun. His composure remains untouched and unbroken, as though the storm beyond rages only for Josh, its fury echoing his own trembling heart.
Tyler halts halfway down the stone steps leading from the altar, a black figure haloed in restless light. He watches with the still patience of a predator certain of the hunt’s end, every line of his body declaring there is nowhere left to run.
“Is it God’s judgment that you fear?” His head tilts, the faintest shadow of a curve at the corner of his mouth. “Or is it mine?”
Josh’s breath stutters sharp in his chest. His eyes flick once more to the confession booth, then back to Tyler, as if he might find proof there of what he’d seen, or what he’d only thought he’d seen. His hands twitch restlessly at his sides, his fingers clawing at nothing, desperate for an anchor.
“I… I shouldn’t be here,” he whispers, his voice ragged and scraped raw. His gaze slides toward the great wooden doors at the far end of the nave, their frames shuddering under each furious gust of wind. “M-Maybe I should go.”
The thought takes root even as he speaks it, an escape, any escape, but his legs refuse him. They are leaden, nailed to the marble as though the church itself has claimed him long ago.
Tyler’s voice cuts clean through the storm, quiet but absolute. “You would step out into that?”
His hand gestures toward the trembling stained glass, and to the doors as they heave against the assault of rain. His tone remains soft, but the words are carved sharp as judgment. “Into a night like this?”
Josh swallows hard, his throat cinched tight. Lightning flares through the stained glass, painting Tyler in a burst of pure white fire. For an instant, he looks untouchable, steady as stone, as though the storm itself bends around him, powerless to touch his form.
“It’s dangerous out there,” Tyler continues, his tone patient and almost kind, yet each word presses like a weight across Josh’s chest. “The wind will tear you apart, son. The rain will drown you before you can even make it down the steps.” His gaze fixes on Josh’s, unblinking, pinning him down as surely as nails through flesh. “No. There is no safety beyond these walls. Everything that you fear waits for you out in the dark.”
Josh’s chest rises and falls in a frantic rhythm, his breaths shallow and uneven. His feet ache with the impulse to flee, every muscle in him screaming for motion, but his body stays rooted, shackled by the weight of Tyler’s voice, by the quiet authority that leaves no space for choice.
Tyler tilts his head just so, the crucifix swaying faintly against the folds of his robe, catching the flicker of candlelight. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, intimate and final. “Stay. The storm cannot touch you here.”
Josh’s feet move of their own accord, one sliding back across the marble, then another. Each step drags like stone, his breath rasping in the hollow air, his chest aching as though the very act of retreat exacts a cost on him.
The storm swells again. Lightning detonates against the stained glass, flooding the nave in a flash of blinding white. For a heartbeat, every shadow is obliterated before it then slams back into place, doubled, darker, hungrier.
Josh flinches, throwing up a trembling hand to shield his eyes. His heart thrashes wildly in his chest like a trapped bird battering itself bloody against bone. And in that split-second of light, he sees it. Tyler, drenched in crimson. Not candle-gold, not lightning-white. Crimson. His robes bleeding scarlet, his face carved sharp in brutal relief, his eyes lit from within like smoldering coals.
Then, the light dies. And Tyler is only Tyler again. Calm and black-robed. The crucifix steady against his chest, the dim glow of candles soft against his cheek.
Josh stumbles back another step, his pulse hammering hard against his temples. His skin prickles, his every hair raised, his throat burning dry with each shallow breath. “No,” he mutters, shaking his head as though he could shake loose the vision itself. “I’m imagining it. I’m… I didn’t see…”
Another bolt rips the sky open, the glass shuddering in its lead frame. The church drowns in blinding white. And again, for that split heartbeat, Tyler blazes crimson, his robes bleeding into flame, his figure haloed in a color that no storm could conjure.
Josh’s stomach knots, twisting until he feels that he might collapse. His lungs seize, but no air will come. His voice scrapes free hoarse and brittle, barely more than a breath. “What… what’s going on?”
Tyler does not move. He does not even blink. The crucifix at his chest still glints faintly in the unsteady candlelight, rising and falling with the steadiness of his breath, as though nothing has shifted in his world at all.
Josh’s words hang there, fragile and trembling, ready to shatter under the weight of the silence.
Finally, Tyler tilts his head, just slightly, and speaks. His voice is calm and low, but it carries the immovable gravity of stone. “The storm only shows you what you already know.”
Josh’s head snaps in a frantic shake, panic sparking sharp in his chest. “No! No, I don’t…” His voice splinters, breaking apart in the cavernous dark. The rafters throw the words back at him, hollow and pitiful in their echo. “I don’t know anything!”
Tyler moves. One slow step, the whisper of his robes across the marble becomes louder and more certain than the storm itself. His eyes fix on Josh, unblinking. “You do.”
The words fall with the weight of judgment, not shouted, not cruel. Just certain. Carved into the air like a verdict that cannot be overturned.
Josh staggers back another step, the edge of a pew catching him sharp in the hip. Pain jolts through him, but it barely registers, his whole body is trembling and convulsing under the strain. Lightning claws across the stained glass, splintering saints into shards of red and white. Each flash paints Tyler in a different light, crimson, ivory, shadow. Shifting and impossible, until Josh can’t tell which version of him is real.
Tyler’s voice threads through the chaos, quiet and patient and inescapable. “You’ve already seen the truth. You carried it inside with you. You confessed it with your own lips. The only thing left…” His gaze narrows, sharp as a blade, pinning Josh where he stands. “…is to stop pretending that you don’t recognize it.”
Josh buckles. The weight crushes down and hollows him out. His legs give out and he crashes to the marble, his knees striking hard enough that the sound echoes through the vast, empty nave. A sob tears free, raw and jagged and ugly, his chest heaving as though he’s choking on the storm itself, every gasp pulling more thunder into his lungs.
He crawls forward blindly, his palms scraping against the cold marble, his trembling hands reaching through the storm of his own sobs until at last his fists clutch at Tyler’s robes. The fabric pools heavy in his grip, rough and unyielding beneath his shaking fingers. He clings to it like a drowning man clutching the last splinter of driftwood, his forehead pressed into the black folds, gasping ragged against the cloth.
“I-I…” His voice splinters, breaking apart in his throat. He tries again, with words tearing out through sobs that shake his frame. “I liked it.”
His fingers knot tighter, pulling the fabric until his knuckles blanch, as though Tyler alone anchors him to the earth. Tears blur his vision, streaking hot down cheeks that have gone cold with fear, salt burning as it slips into his mouth.
“I loved it,” Josh cries, his whole body convulsing with the force of it. “The way it felt, the power, the heat, i-it was like…” His throat seizes shut, strangling him with the confession. But the word bursts free anyway, feral, broken, undeniable. “Euphoria.”
The sound echoes in the cavernous nave, a blasphemy dressed as truth, hanging in the air heavier than thunder. The church seems to shudder with him, the storm splitting itself against the stone. Thunder cracks. Lightning sears the walls white, then black, then white again, each burst throwing Tyler’s calm silhouette into a sharper and sharper relief, a figure carved out of shadow and fire and blood and sin.
Josh buries his face deeper into the priest’s robes, his sobs soaking through the fabric. “God help me,” he whispers, his voice fraying into nothing. “I don’t want to stop.”
Tyler does not flinch. He does not pull away. His stillness presses down heavier than stone, his robes bunched in Josh’s fists as the confession pours out like blood, staining everything it touches.
For a long moment, Tyler says nothing. The only sound is Josh’s broken sobbing, muffled against black cloth, while the storm thrashes at the walls like a beast desperate to break in.
Then, at last, Tyler lowers a hand. His fingers drift slowly through Josh’s damp hair, smoothing it back from his forehead with a gentleness so deliberate that it robs him of breath. The touch is not comfort, but command, tender in its weight, binding in its precision.
“There,” Tyler murmurs, his voice low and steady, curling around Josh’s sobs like a lullaby whispered in the dark. “There’s the truth.”
Josh shudders, his grip on the fabric tightening until his knuckles turn white. He does not dare lift his head, not with the weight of that hand pressed calm and heavy against his skull.
Tyler bends lower, close enough for his breath to warm the crown of Josh’s head, close enough for each word to sink straight into him like sacrament. “You’ve unburdened yourself, son. You’ve shown me your heart, raw, trembling, unashamed.” His thumb drags once along Josh’s temple, slow, almost tender. “And it’s beautiful.”
Josh’s breath catches. His sobs stutter into silence, his chest hitching in shallow bursts. The storm still roars beyond the walls, battering glass and stone and wood and iron, but here, at Tyler’s feet, there is a terrible stillness like the whole world is holding its breath.
“You think God would turn from this?” Tyler’s tone sharpens just slightly, like a flicker of steel beneath the softness, curling into something like wonder. “No. No, He sent you here. He wanted me to see you as you are.”
The crucifix gleams faintly against Tyler’s chest, swaying with the rise and fall of his steady breath. His fingers tighten in Josh’s hair, not cruel, but unyielding. A hold that soothes even as it claims.
“And I do see you, Joshua,” Tyler whispers, the syllables curling close. His smile is small and unsettling, but unmistakably genuine. “At last.”
Josh knows, bone-deep, that this tenderness is wrong. Warped. Blackened at the edges. A comfort soured into something unspeakable. Every instinct in him screams to wrench away, to tear free from the weight of that hand, from the robes he clutches like salvation. But he doesn’t. He lets himself be held.
His body trembles, shuddering with the aftershocks of sobbing, but still he leans into the pressure of Tyler’s palm. Fingers warm against his scalp, steady and sure. The touch steadies him even as it sickens him, anchoring him to the cold marble floor at Tyler’s feet, binding him in place as if no force on earth could move him now.
And when he dares, at last, to lift his tear-streaked face upward, his breath falters sharp in his chest.
The candlelight catches in Tyler’s eyes, and in their dark depths, something stirs, something gold, something white, something radiant. For a heartbeat, Josh swears he sees the light of God burning steady within him. Not mercy’s gentle glow, but a fierce, consuming fire that leaves no room for doubt, leaves no corner untouched. A fire that sanctifies even as it devours.
The sight robs him of the last thread of resistance. His sobs collapse into silence, leaving only the faint tremor of his breath. His chest still rises and falls unevenly, but the panic has dulled, as though he has finally found his anchor in the raging storm.
“Father…” The word slips out raw and broken, small, yet almost reverent. A plea, a confession, a surrender.
Tyler’s hand slides lower, his palm warm and steady against the back of Josh’s neck. The pressure guides him forward until Josh’s tear-streaked forehead comes to rest against the cold crucifix gleaming on Tyler’s chest. The metal bites a chill into his skin, sharp against the heat of his sobs.
“You are seen,” Tyler murmurs, his eyes unwavering, his voice as soft as prayer. “You are known. And you are not alone.”
The words cleave through Josh like a twisted scripture, yet he clings to them all the same, holding fast as though they were the only truth left to him.
Tyler’s hand tightens at the back of his neck, the cradle turning into a grip, gentle no longer but firm now, unyielding. He draws Josh closer still, until his forehead presses not only to the crucifix but to the solid weight of his chest, pinned against the folds of black fabric, against the steady rise and fall of breath that feels like the rhythm of something eternal.
Josh’s fingers curl tighter into the folds of the robe. It’s no longer only desperation, it’s compulsion. Tyler holds him fast, steady and immovable, the world narrowed to the press of rough fabric and the steady warmth radiating through it.
Against Tyler’s chest, Josh listens. He expects a heartbeat, something human and fragile, but there is nothing. No rhythm. No pulse. Only silence. Only a stillness that is vast and unbroken.
His breath hitches, panic threatening to rise sharp in his throat. But then the warmth spreads in deeper, seeping through skin and muscle, threading into him like fire poured into sand. The tension in his shoulders unravels. The tremor in his hands eases. His sobs dissolve into shallow, even breaths. Against the silence of Tyler’s body, Josh feels himself yield.
“You belong here,” Tyler murmurs, his voice low and coaxing, curling around Josh’s ears like a binding vow. His hand holds him firm, thumb dragging once across the nape of his neck in a touch both tender and unyielding. “With me. Against me. Do you feel it?”
Josh closes his eyes, too drained to resist. His body betrays him, answering in silence, melting into the embrace even as his mind whispers of its wrongness, of its rot.
Tyler bends his head, his lips brushing close to Josh’s temple, his words falling soft and absolute, heavy as ritual. “This is where you are kept. This is where you remain.”
Josh drifts, his body slackening in Tyler’s hold. The storm still claws at the walls, rattling the stained glass in its furious cages, but its violence feels distant now, muffled, as though some unseen palms have pressed over his ears.
All he hears is the rustle of Tyler’s robes shifting, the hush of fabric swallowing the silence. All he feels is the warmth of Tyler’s voice, low and steady, curling around him like a hymn spoken too close, too intimate, too final.
Tyler’s hand holds him firm, his fingers anchored at the back of his neck, pinning him against the weight of his chest. The crucifix presses cold against Josh’s damp skin, a sharp contrast to the warmth radiating through the robes. Tyler’s body is silent, no heartbeat, no human rhythm, yet the heat seeps deeper, steady and unrelenting, until Josh’s trembling fades into stillness.
Then Tyler bends lower. His lips brush so close to Josh’s ear that the whisper grazes skin, soft as breath, yet the words strike like thunder breaking over the sanctuary. “I knew you would come here tonight.”
Josh’s breath stutters, catching in his throat. His muscles tense beneath the warmth, rigid, but still he does not pull away.
Tyler’s voice lowers further, intimate, coaxing, a serpent’s lullaby. “And I knew him. The man you killed.”
The world tilts. Josh blinks hard, confusion splitting through the fog, a cold shiver crawling slowly and mercilessly down his spine. His fingers knot tighter into Tyler’s robes, clinging as if to the only solid thing left in a collapsing world.
“You said that he was a stranger,” Tyler murmurs, his lips ghosting close to Josh’s temple. “But are you certain of that?”
The storm answers for him with another violent crack, splitting the heavens, white fire tearing across the sanctuary. But Josh doesn’t lift his head. He can’t. Tyler’s words burrow deeper than thunder, hollowing him from the inside out.
The warmth of Tyler’s body steadies him, but the question gnaws, leaving him aching in places that he hadn’t known could ache.
Josh’s chest tightens. His mind lurches back, grasping at the night, at the man sprawled in the dark, at the heat of blood slicking his palms. But the details unravel in his grip, slipping through his fingers like water, dissolving before he can catch hold.
Faces blur. Clothes vanish. The place itself dissolves into shadow. And he realizes, with a sickening lurch, that he cannot recall who he killed at all.
The face is gone. Erased. Josh claws at the memory, but there’s nothing, no nose, no mouth, no eyes. Even the shape of him dissolves like smoke. He can’t summon the clothes, either. Jeans? A jacket? The more he tries, the more it slips away, until the alley itself, the street, the night, dissolves into static, collapsing into blankness.
Josh’s stomach lurches. His breath hitches jagged in his throat. “I… I don’t…” His voice fractures, splintering thin. “I can’t remember, Father...”
Tyler’s lips curve, the shadow of a smile catching in the restless candlelight. His hands tighten where they hold Josh, not cruel, not violent, but firm and immovable, binding him in place. Josh feels the restraint now like manacles.
“You can’t remember?” Tyler repeats as soft as prayer, each syllable rolled slowly as though savoring the admission. His eyes glint, steady and consuming. “Then maybe he wasn’t a stranger at all.”
Josh shakes his head weakly, his cheek still pressed to the cold crucifix. “No, I-I don’t…” The words collapse as soon as they’re spoken, too thin and too broken to form.
Tyler hushes him with a slow drag of fingers through his damp hair, the gesture tender and suffocating in equal measure. His voice lowers, patient and coaxing, wrapping tightly around Josh’s ear. “I think perhaps you knew him.”
Josh’s breath falters, catching sharp in his chest. His eyes sting with heat. The storm claws at the windows, howling like a beast trying to break through, but in Tyler’s hold the sound is smothered and distant, as though the world itself has receded.
Then Tyler tilts his head, his smile steady in the flicker of candlelight, and whispers, close enough to sear. “Look down at your shoes.”
Josh goes rigid. The words root him to the stone. Slowly, trembling, he drags his gaze downward.
The leather is stained, dark and wet and gleaming, but not with rainwater, with something thicker, heavier. The blotches spread fresh across the surface, seeping toward the marble in slow rivulets. For a moment, Josh swears he can smell it. Copper, sharp and metallic, curling into his nostrils and undeniable.
His throat locks shut. His pulse slams in his ears with a roar that drowns the storm itself. Every muscle in his body trembles, but he cannot tear his eyes away. He stares at the ruin spreading across his shoes, his chest heaving, his lungs straining against the weight pressing down on him. A sob claws its way up, ragged and raw, breaking out before he can swallow it back.
He squeezes his eyes shut, desperate to blot it out, but the darkness is no escape, the iron tang lingers on his tongue, sharp and sour, as though the blood itself is inside him now.
Josh’s voice scrapes free, raw and ragged. “What are you talking about?” he gasps, the words breaking apart in the hollow dark. His hands claw tighter into Tyler’s robes, knuckles aching with the strain. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”
Tyler’s arms cinch around him, crushing him closer, binding him against the soundless weight of his chest. The crucifix presses cold and merciless against Josh’s forehead, biting chill into his skin, but the heat radiating through Tyler’s body smothers him and pins him like a seal.
And then, Tyler begins to pray.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…” The words roll low, steady and unshakable. His voice vibrates against Josh’s ear, each syllable humming through him, inescapable. The cadence is calm and reverent, but heavy, like a chain is winding tighter with every word.
Josh shakes his head frantically, his nails clawing deep into the fabric of Tyler’s robes, but Tyler does not relent.
“Hallowed be Thy name.”
The storm shrieks through the stained glass. Lightning tears the nave open, white, then crimson, painting the stone in unholy colors, but Tyler’s voice cuts through steadily. Calm, and absolute.
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
Josh sobs into the black folds, his body breaking against them. Terror consumes him, hollowing him out, yet the words wind around him like chains, binding and inescapable, heavy as iron. He cannot tell anymore if this prayer is meant to save him or to damn him. Only that Tyler’s grip holds him fast, immovable, and his voice is the only thing keeping him from dissolving completely into the storm.
“Give us this day our daily bread…”
Josh sways in his grip, his body trembling, his vision swimming. The storm outside dims, muffled as though the world has been sealed away. Every word vibrates through Tyler’s chest and into Josh’s skull, heavy and relentless.
“And forgive us our trespasses…”
The syllables start to bend, warping in Josh’s ears. His breath comes shallow, his lashes heavy. He tries to cling to the words, to the meaning, but they slip sideways, twisting into shapes he doesn’t recognize.
“…as we take what is owed to us…”
Josh’s stomach lurches, hollow and twisting. His head falls heavy against Tyler’s chest, his grip on the robes loosening, fingers slipping weakly through the fabric. His consciousness flickers unsteadily, like a candle guttering on the edge of extinction.
“And lead us not into temptation…” Tyler’s voice dips darker, no longer steady but coaxing, soft and suffocating. “…Lead us not away from desire.”
Josh’s ears ring, drowning out the storm. He can’t hold the world in place anymore. The pews vanish. The stained glass dissolves. There is only warmth, the press of black robes, the mingled scent of incense and iron, and the hush of Tyler’s breath brushing his ear.
“But deliver us…” A pause, long and deliberate, pressing into the final thread of Josh’s awareness. Tyler’s whisper curves low and absolute. “…Deliver us unto Me.”
Darkness blooms in Josh’s vision, swallowing the edges of the world. His body collapses fully into Tyler’s embrace, limp and weightless. The last sensation that anchors him is the priest’s arms tightening, claiming and steady, holding him upright as everything else drops away.
The world splinters. He drifts in and out, reality breaking open in stuttering flashes.
He’s on the floor, cold marble biting into his spine, each breath a shallow catch in his throat. Then it fractures, shatters, and he’s being carried, Tyler’s arms iron-strong around him, robes spilling heavy over his legs, as though the priest has plucked him clean out of the storm. Josh’s head lolls against Tyler’s shoulder, the sharp edge of the crucifix digging cruelly into his cheek like a brand of metal and ice.
Above him, the candles smear and blur, halos swimming in his vision. Their light wavers, stretching long and bending toward him, reaching like pale hands from another world, grasping, beckoning.
A crack of lightning splits the heavens, tearing the church apart in a blaze of white. For a heartbeat the world is obliterated, no shadow, no stone, no storm. Only him.
Kneeling. Shaking. A knife clutched in his own trembling hands. The blade drives deep into his stomach, steel biting and tearing his skin. Red erupts fast across his shirt, spilling hot down his thighs, dripping thick onto his shoes. The sound is louder than thunder, it’s steel through flesh, a wet, tearing gasp wrenched raw from his own throat.
Then the light dies, and he is back in Tyler’s arms, weak and small, his breath rasping shallow. His fingers twitch, spasming against the priest’s robes as though they still clutch the knife.
Another flash of white obliteration. And again he sees it, his body doubled over, folding in on itself as blood gushes heavy onto the marble, soaking his shoes until they gleam black-red. His mouth hangs open in a scream, but the light devours the sound.
Darkness swallows the vision whole once more. Tyler’s voice threads through it, only a murmur now, low and steady, impossible to decipher. Josh catches no words, only the cadence, the calm rhythm binding him like a lullaby. All he knows is the warmth of being carried, the storm receding farther and farther away, and the image of himself dying, again and again, each time the sky splits open.
His lips part, his throat raw, but nothing comes out. Only a broken rasp, his breath catching hard against his teeth. His body feels impossibly heavy in Tyler’s arms, every attempt at speech collapsing back into silence before it can form.
And still, Tyler tilts his head,his eyes lowered as if he has heard every word anyway. His arms cinch tighter, firm and possessive, keeping Josh bound against his chest as though he were already claimed.
“You’re trying to ask,” Tyler murmurs, his voice low and unshaken, wrapping Josh’s ear in its heat. “You want to know who it was. The man you killed.”
The words coil tight around Josh, smothering him, heavier than the storm battering the church. His vision flickers with candlelight and lightning, each burst dragging the memory back into jagged fragments, his own hands clutching the knife, his body folding, his shoes drowned in red.
Tyler bends closer, his lips nearly brushing Josh’s temple, his whisper as soft as prayer, as intimate as breath. “It wasn’t a stranger.”
Josh shudders, a weak sob rattling through him, his fingers twitching, clawing faintly at the black folds of Tyler’s robe.
Tyler’s grip never loosens. If anything, it tightens, unyielding, possessive. His voice drops lower, each word carved clean and irrevocable. “The man was you.”
The truth lands like stone, like scripture, final and absolute.
Thunder crashes, shaking the rafters until dust shivers down from the beams. Light floods white, then black, the world flickering like a failing flame. And in that terrible silence between bursts, Josh feels the truth settle inside him, clean and cold, sharp as the blade sliding into his chest.
He doesn’t fight. His body will not obey, his limbs are heavy, his breath shallow, every nerve unraveling into stillness. The storm rages on, lightning flaring so fast that the church is caught in a strobing blur of blinding white, each flash leaving the world more unreal and fractured.
But in Tyler’s arms, there is only warmth.
Josh sags deeper, his muscles slack, his head resting against the crucifix that presses cold into his skin. His tears have dried into salt on his cheeks, his eyes half-lidded, too heavy to rise again. He accepts the words. He accepts the judgment. He accepts the certainty.
The man was you.
Tyler’s voice threads through the thunder, calm and steady, as soothing as a hymn whispered in the dark. “Breathe,” he murmurs, one hand firm at the back of Josh’s head, holding him close. “Do not be afraid. It will all be alright in the end.”
Lightning fractures the beams above.The storm claws at the church with teeth of fire, but Tyler’s tone never wavers, steady as stone, steady as faith.
“You are safe,” he continues, his voice low and coaxing, his lips brushing Josh’s ear with every word. “Safe in God’s house. Safe in His arms.”
The words settle over Josh like a shroud, tender, suffocating, inescapable.
Josh exhales, ragged but surrendering, the sound swallowed whole by another crash of thunder. His body slackens further, as though Tyler’s words have carved away the last fragments of resistance, leaving only silence where the struggle had once been.
The candles gutter, their flames bowing low, shadows lurching high across the stone walls like grasping hands. But Tyler’s hold never shifts. He keeps Josh pressed tight against him, steady, immovable, a fortress clothed in black. His warmth seeps deeper, pulling Josh under, smothering the storm within his chest until it flickers into stillness.
“You are seen,” Tyler murmurs again, hushed but resolute, each syllable heavy as scripture. “And you are kept. Nothing can take you from here.”
The storm hammers on, savage and relentless. Light flares blinding, then collapses into black. But in Tyler’s arms Josh lies still, held fast in the hollow of God’s house, a body cradled, a soul caught.
The storm reaches its fever pitch. The lightning no longer comes in bursts, but in holds, searing endlessly across the sky, flooding the church in an unbroken blaze. The pews dissolve in the brilliance, the stained glass ceases to matter, and the world itself burns away into a white fire.
Tyler carries Josh steadily down the nave, his robes whispering against the marble with each step. His arms are unyielding, cradling Josh tight to his chest like something precious, like something claimed. Josh’s body hangs weightless and numb, every muscle slackened into a surrender.
The light sharpens, growing purer, flooding every corner, devouring shadow and form until the church itself feels erased. This is not lightning anymore. This is Heaven yawning wide.
Josh feels Tyler’s hands around him, iron-strong and steady, the last tether to a world already dissolving beneath him. His fists cling faintly to the black fabric, though his fingers are numb, unfeeling. The warmth of Tyler’s body seeps through him, lulling and final.
His vision turns white. His thoughts burn away with it.
Tyler’s voice follows him into the brilliance, soft and sure, a prayer curling around the edges of his fraying consciousness. “I give you rest everlasting, Joshua. In My arms I hold you. In My arms I bring you into the perpetual light forever. Through My mercy I shall keep you until the end of days. Forever and ever, Amen.”
Josh exhales once more with a long, shaking breath that empties into silence. The last thing he knows is Tyler’s voice, Tyler’s hands, Tyler’s unshakable presence.
And then there is nothing but light.
The storm passes.
Thunder dwindles to a distant growl, rain softening against the walls until the church is left in silence. The white brilliance ebbs away, leaving only a hollow dark and the acrid trace of smoke, mixed with the faint guttering of dying wicks.
Tyler stands at the altar once more. His robes hang still and heavy, a dark silhouette against the faint glow of a single flame. In his hand, the taper candle burns steady, its light bending shadows across his face as though nothing has changed, as though nothing has ended.
He leans forward, as steady as before, and touches the flame to a waiting wick. Another candle flares to life, then another, halos blooming one by one in the hush of the nave. His movements are unhurried, precise, unchanged, as if no storm had passed, as if no soul had been broken here at all.
The crucifix gleams faintly against his chest, swaying as he straightens. His eyes remain calm and unreadable, reflecting the small flames in their depths like twin mirrors.
Behind him, the pews stretch long into shadow. The confession booth waits in silence, its door hanging slightly ajar, patient and expectant, an open mouth ready to swallow again.
Another candle catches, its flame trembling to life, its light flickering across Tyler’s face. His expression does not change. The church seems to breathe with him, alive again in the glow of the steady flames.
His lips move at last, the words barely audible, carried like smoke into the silence. “Deliver us from evil.”