Wheeling Gull Isle faith

Set just after the worst of Ana’s symptoms set in.

He is being petulant and dramatic ... sorry! The drowning sequence was heavily inspired by (and partially lifted from) the game "Faith: The Unholy Trinity".

He knew that he was being tested. JESUS holy redeemer, oh yes, he had been tested.

The deepest shadows of the densite eclipsed his crouched form as, night after night, he banished the Devil's posession from mind and body. With nothing but the cross between his eyes to protect him, he commanded the evil spirit within him to lay down, devil, lay down.

He did not understand how this evil could take root in him, or why he was tasked with the most unholy tribulations. He was a good boy, he bothered no one, nothing, wanted for little, asked for less. He stayed out of the way while his siblings wove in and out of trouble. But now Ana was hurt, and Ava had turned her back on him. Maybe she didn't even realize it. But Abel would have forsaken everything, including his faith and the love of GOD himself, just to be the only one in her favor.

Please.

Nobody seemed to care — or even notice — when he was hurt because he kept it hidden. If he carried it quietly, shed no blood for his pain, it could not be used against him, it could never be seen at all.

That's what Mother had wanted, right? That was the twisted lesson she taught her children at the threat of violence, with the measured clip of her fangs. She pruned these seeds — these children — just after they had started and did not bother to bear witness the brokenness she had cultivated.

Abel had thought he had forgotten all about that, but now when he slept — and sometimes even when he was awake — her face rose unbidden from every crevice and shadow, and all he saw was the glimmering threat of polished ivories and a single yellow eye looming larger than the moon. Maybe even larger than GOD.

Heda had once told him that the scripture said to make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy, but the dagger in his heart wept for the boy that was left behind — first, by his mother, then, by the only person he had ever truly loved.

So while he knew that he should forgive them and love them both the way that he was taught, instead he felt hatred bloom within. For Ana. For Ava. Mostly, for himself.

And it was then he knew that the Devil had won him over; that his heart was rotten and his meat was, too — soul and sinew, it was black and festering all the way down.

He could only hope that redemption wasn't beyond him yet. He lifted a prayer to GOD and asked that HE close Abel's eyes in eternal slumber, and to allow him the grace to wake before the pearlescent glow of the Heavenly gates.

---

For we were all baptized by one Spirit as to form one body. . .

can't breathe

lungs assaulted by tongues of fire

burning, mind, burning, dark

Please. I don't want to die. Help me. Someone,

tricked by light, he named it GOD.



I HEAR THEE.

WHAT DOST THOU WISH?

This is too much for me. I can't breathe. Help me. Please.

IF I LEADEST THOU TO SAFETY,

HER FATE SHALL BE SEALED UPON THINE HEAD.

Please. I'll do whatever you want. Just take me away from here.

SWEAR IT.

The cloth of fate had frayed and unraveled until the only possibility available to him was a single, tenuous thread.

I swear it.

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When he awoke on the mainland, it was nothing short of a miracle.