this one goes out to @hoodedhuntrcss, @earlygraave, and @sanctemony. remember: you started this.
no one will speak of today. no mind will speculate, and no hushed tones will carry rumors of what happened in this church. and certainly, no one will forget it: when the father, once fully immersed in a calm dissection of the book of job, fell to the ground of his own chapel. they will remember how he gasped and coughed; hands grasping for his chest, the nearest pew, the hands of the faithful; anything that may help to harbor him. the distant panic in his eyes will HAUNT them well past collapse—how they pleaded for life and death at once. and his voice...
‘ —don’t, ’ was all he could manage, and his mind screamed like a lost child, not her. not her. he could shout with it, argue m o r t a l i t y with god until his voice breaks and all that comes out is the raw taste of blood, but it will do no good.
THE LORD GIVETH ; it gave him something most can only dream about, something so pure and altogether holy that even the father felt unworthy at times. it gave him more than a man with his background deserved, more than he could hold steady, more than he could protect, and he felt the burn of that knowledge in a searing chill settled now between every joint. he would later find his hands bleeding from the forced curl of his fingers into his own palms, and his glasses crushed somewhere between his fall and that of someone’s shoe. these were nothing compared to what mortal sin stripped of his family.
he saw it. with his forehead pressed to the floor of his sanctuary, he bore witness to the cruelest test of faith yet. he gasped with her in blinding, uneven breaths. he fought with her, as though he could do anything all these miles away. the almighty knew his own devoted could no more pull him from the floor than he could p r o t e c t her. and until his eyes refused to open, until his throat ached and his mouth could no longer articulate more than a quiet, ‘ please, ’ until he felt darkness lead her away to safety, he sobbed for her.
radio chatter buzzed outside the doors, not from the guards outside, but a message for them. his breath came in heaves, even as he allowed himself to be pulled back to sit. the world was dark, made of no more than dim light and shapes. even when the doors finally opened, joseph’s comprehension of REALITY was as distant as her. still, though his chest ached with the weight of what would come next and the struggle to pull his soul back in, and his voice carried like a lead anchor, he told the first shadow in the disjointed daylight,
‘ take me to see her. ’
