It was barely dawn when Ruth noticed the handprint.She had come early, as she always did on Saturdays, to clean the sanctuary before the Sunday service. The little country church, nestled at the bend of a gravel road, still wore the hush of morning, dew clinging to the chapel’s steps, the sun just stretching over […]
The eviction notice was folded neatly and stuck to the corner of her mirror, as if that made it less threatening. Mira stared at it each morning while brushing her teeth, a ritual now laced with dread. The pink slip had been taped there for three days. Ten more, and she’d be out.It wasn’t the […]
It was a Thursday, gray and drizzling. The kind of day when everything feels a little heavier, a little closer to the edge. Daniel sat in his car outside the hardware store, engine running, windshield wipers lazily pushing away the drizzle. In the passenger seat, a cardboard box rested — worn at the corners, taped […]
The hole was no deeper than his forearm, but Jacob stared at it like it went straight to hell.He knelt beside it with the Bible pressed against his chest, the leather worn smooth from decades of sweat, sermons, and secrets. The morning fog clung low over the field, and the frost had stiffened the soil, […]
The rain had been falling for hours, tapping gently against the windowpane like a soft, persistent knock. Inside the small cabin tucked along the Appalachian ridge, Elijah sat on the edge of his bed, staring into the shadows. He hadn’t planned to stay this long. The weekend retreat was meant to clear his mind, maybe […]
He had memorized the sound of gravel under combat boots. It stayed with him long after the war ended, long after the uniform had been folded and boxed away in the attic. But today, the crunch of gravel was real again. Not in the desert. Not in smoke and heat and sirens. This time it […]
It was spring when she saw him again—years older, slower, his face worn by time, but still unmistakably him. Ava stood at the back of the small church sanctuary, half-hidden by a pillar, her fingers tight around the edge of the wooden pew. She hadn’t planned to be there. Not really. The revival was just […]
The first time she prayed aloud in the jail cell, the others laughed. Not cruelly—more out of disbelief, like someone chuckling at a child who still believed in fairy tales. It was her third night in holding, the air thick with sweat, bleach, and the strange emptiness that clung to cinder block walls and metal […]
The neon sign buzzed quietly above the doorway, flickering between “OPEN” and a barely-lit halo of burnt-out reds. Inside, the bar was mostly empty, save for a few hunched shoulders and scattered murmurs lost in the clink of ice against glass. The scent of stale beer, fried food, and something darker hung in the air […]
He sat every morning at the corner of 5th and Ash, wrapped in layers of faded wool and denim, clutching a walking stick smoothed by years of use. No one knew his name, not really. Some called him “Elijah” because he once thundered about fire coming down from heaven. Others just called him “the Homeless […]