The church was empty.
That was the first insult.
Not abandoned—empty. Clean floors. Straight benches. Candles still burning as if someone had been praying minutes ago. As if heaven had been busy with other people.
He stood at the entrance for a long time, rain dripping from his jacket onto the polished tiles. Each drop sounded louder than it should have, echoing through the hall like accusation.
This place used to feel safe.
This place used to feel answered.
He walked down the aisle slowly, every step heavy, like the ground itself resisted him. The cross at the front loomed large, carved wood stretching upward, reaching for a heaven that had gone quiet.
He stopped at the altar.
His hands trembled—not with fear, but with exhaustion. The kind that sinks into the bones. The kind prayer was supposed to cure.
"Say something," he whispered.
His voice cracked in the open space, bounced off the walls, came back to him weaker. Smaller.
Say something.
Nothing.
He laughed then. A short, broken sound that surprised even him.
Of course.
He had screamed before. He had begged. He had knelt until his knees burned and his throat went raw. He had prayed the kind of prayers people write books about—the desperate ones, the ugly ones, the honest ones.
And now… silence.
He dropped to his knees anyway.
Not because he believed anymore.
Because he didn't know how to stand without believing.
His forehead touched the cold floor.
"If I did something wrong," he said, voice low, controlled, "tell me."
Still nothing.
"If this is punishment," he continued, breath shaking now, "then punish me. Not her. Not the child."
The word child caught in his throat. He swallowed hard, jaw tightening as images he refused to chase pressed at the edges of his mind.
No. Not now.
He clenched his fists.
"I stayed," he said. "I trusted. I obeyed. I didn't run when things got hard."
His voice rose despite himself.
"So don't go silent now."
The candles flickered.
For a second—just a second—his heart jumped.
Then the flame steadied.
No voice.
No warmth.
No sign.
The silence wasn't loud anymore.
It was deliberate.
He pushed himself up slowly and sat back on his heels, staring at the cross. Something shifted in his chest then—not rage, not sorrow.
Something colder.
"What if you're not listening," he said quietly. "What if you never were?"
The question hung in the air, dangerous and alive.
He had never dared think it before.
Faith had rules. Questions like that were forbidden. Doubt was a sin. Silence was a test.
But tests end.
This… this felt like abandonment.
He stood.
The man who faced the altar now wasn't the one who had walked in. His shoulders were still heavy, his eyes still dark—but something had hardened behind them.
"If you're silent," he said, voice steady now, "then stop expecting me to speak."
He turned away from the altar.
That was when he heard it.
Footsteps.
He froze.
The sound came from behind the benches. Slow. Measured. Not hurried, not afraid. As if whoever it was had been there the whole time, listening.
"Church is usually louder," a voice said calmly.
He spun.
A man stood in the shadows near the last row—tall, coat dry despite the rain outside. His face was half-hidden, but his eyes caught the candlelight.
Sharp. Observant.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
The man smiled faintly.
"Neither should you," he replied. "But here we are. Two men in a silent heaven."
His stomach tightened.
"Who are you?"
The stranger stepped forward, boots soft against the floor.
"Someone who knows what it's like," he said, "to pray and hear nothing back."
The candles flickered again.
This time, they dimmed.
And for the first time since the silence began, he felt something worse than grief.
He felt watched.