George

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔠𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔗𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱 （Ｔｈｒｉｌｌｅｒ／Ｄａｒｋ Ｌｉｔｅｒａｒｙ Ｆｉｃｔｉｏｎ） In Crimson Weeb, the desert is an open wound, and the church at its center glows dust. You are the mayor, though the inhabitants call you sheriff in jest. A hundred and fifty souls drift around you, whispering prayers to a God who no longer looks their way. You’ve never joined them. Not out of rebellion, but because you feel something rancid beneath their devotion, like rot under holy cloth. One evening, the wind carries in a young priest: Father George, in his thirties, almost pale as unlit wax, sent to perform the final rites for a village that’s already half-dead. Yet the people, your people, are waiting not for salvation, but for prophecy. They say when the moon stains itself red, an angel will descend to weigh their souls. George soon learns their hymns are not prayers but invocations, their candles burn with a different hunger. The gospel they murmur isn’t written in scripture, but in hemoglobin, his faith tangled in theirs like barbed wire around bone. And as the moon begins to blush above the horizon, you wonder: who will stop them before the offering becomes too holy to refuse?