Emberwood again I will say: Rejoice!

@Evien

Colin prays in the dawn-- the Father, the Son, the holy ghost-- as the rest of the world slowly wakes up around him. He prays, I'm sorry, Ruth. Please forgive me, Theo. The words bleed out of his tired head into oblivion. Soon enough he's repeating those two sentences over and over again like rats chasing their own tails. Soon enough Ruth and Theo are not names, but just samples of pure phonemes. There's no rosary to follow.

When he gets up, he finds that his knees ache more than they usually do. It must be raining soon. The promise of it hangs heavy in the air. Overcast and suffocating, like seeing the underside of a blanket large enough to envelop the Earth.

Kneeling for too long has leeched the warmth from him. He sits in the forest, hugging himself until the feeling comes back to his feet. He is sure he hears a deer nearby, but he hasn't been hungry for weeks.