Behierre Omniverse
"Dude, have you heard the news? God, a molesting priest? He molested multiple children, and they just found out. Someone reported him, and he got arrested! Now people are blaming our religion! Why are they blaming the whole religion, all of us?"
"Yeah, man, it's so sad..."
A man in a cap approached them, his steps cutting sharply through their hushed conversation.
"All the more reason why your fucking religions should die off." His voice was a low growl, thick with contempt.
"W-what? How can you say this? Just one man doesn't mean—"
The man ripped his cap off, throwing it to the ground. His face, contorted with a primal anguish, turned to the stunned speaker.
"THE CORE PROBLEM IS YOUR RELIGION! THE REASON THOSE FUCKING BASTARDS CAN DO THIS IS BECAUSE OF YOUR FUCKING RELIGION! IF YOUR FUCKING RELIGION DIDN'T EXIST, THAT BASTARD SHOULD HAVE BEEN CAUGHT FASTER AND BEATEN DOWN TO DEATH! THOSE CHILDREN—MY DAUGHTER WAS ONE OF THEM! NOW SHE'S TRAUMATIZED FOR LIFE! SHE FUCKING WENT OUTSIDE BECAUSE MY WIFE COLLAPSED AND LOST CONSCIOUSNESS! AND I WAS FUCKING AWAY FOR WORK, AND SO SHE WENT OUTSIDE TO CHURCH, AND NO ONE WAS WITH HER! AND WHAT FUCKING HAPPENED, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!?"
His scream tore through the air, an unfiltered cry of pain and righteous fury, leaving nothing but stunned silence in its wake.
The man's raw scream hung in the rain-chilled air, a violent echo against the city's distant hum. The two men who had been talking stood frozen, their faces pale, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and dawning horror. The casual sympathy they'd expressed moments before evaporated, replaced by a desperate, silent retreat. They mumbled incoherent apologies, taking involuntary steps backward, away from the raw, exposed nerve of his pain.
The man in the cap didn't seem to see them. His chest heaved, each breath a ragged gasp of spent fury. His gaze, red-rimmed and fierce, swept over the filthy alley, over the grimy buildings, as if seeing the corruption of the world embodied in every shadow. His hands, still clenched, trembled with the aftershocks of his outburst.
He bent slowly, deliberately, and picked up his discarded cap from the wet ground. He didn't bother to put it back on. Instead, he simply clutched it in his hand, a crumpled piece of cloth against his shaking knuckles.
"You want to know why it's sad?" he rasped, his voice now lower, more dangerous than his scream. "It's sad because you'll go back to your churches next Sunday. You'll bow your heads and close your eyes and pretend this never happened. You'll keep giving them power." He spat, a harsh, guttural sound, not at them, but at the very ground beneath his feet, as if spitting on the concept itself.
Then, without another word, without a glance back at the two stunned men or the grimy alley that had witnessed his breaking point, he turned and walked away. His strides were heavy, deliberate, disappearing into the city's neon-streaked darkness, leaving behind only the chilling resonance of his truth and the heavy silence of complicity.
The two men remained, motionless, long after the cap-wearer vanished. The distant wail of a siren, previously just background noise, now seemed to twist with a new, unsettling urgency. The younger of the two, Ruben, finally broke the silence, his voice a strained whisper.
"He... he's right, isn't he?" Ruben's gaze drifted from the spot where the man had stood, to the grimy wall, then to his friend's face. "We always say it's just a few bad apples. But when do we stop pretending the basket isn't rotten?"
The older man, lotero, swallowed hard, his usual bluster deflated. He rubbed a hand over his face, the gesture weary. "It's not that simple, Ruben. It's... it's tradition. It's comfort. It's what we've always known." He looked up at the indifferent night sky, as if searching for answers beyond the neon glow. "Where do we go if we just... turn it all off?"
Ruben shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "Maybe nowhere. Maybe that's the point. Maybe we just stop pretending that a place that protects monsters can ever be holy." He looked at Lotero, a nascent defiance hardening his features. "I don't think I can go back to church next Sunday, Lotero. Not after this."
The alley remained, cold and wet, holding the echoes of raw pain and a newly awakened doubt. The city breathed around them, oblivious to the small, profound shift that had just occurred.
The father, whose scream had torn through the night, walked away with heavy, deliberate strides. The rain had softened to a persistent drizzle, clinging to his clothes, but he felt none of it. The city's distant hum, once a background drone, now felt like a dull throb in his skull, each beat a reminder of his raw, exposed nerves. His hands, still clenching the cap, felt cold and dead, yet the phantom weight of his daughter's small hand lingered in his memory.
Every step was a silent curse, a bitter echo of the words he'd just unleashed. He replayed the scene in his mind: his wife, collapsed, unconscious, the unbearable helplessness. His daughter, innocent, trusting, sent to a place that should have been safe, only to be utterly violated. The rage, though spent in that alley, still simmered beneath his skin, a burning ember that would never truly die.
He walked aimlessly, the neon signs blurring into streaks of indifferent color. He wasn't heading home, not yet. Home was where the quiet torment of his daughter awaited, where his wife's fragile recovery hung by a thread. He couldn't face that silence, not with this storm still raging inside him.
Finally, he stopped beneath the inadequate shelter of a bus stop awning, the plastic bench cold beneath him. He stared out at the passing traffic, at the faces rushing by, oblivious. How could they be so unaware? How could they continue with their routines when such monstrous evil festered beneath the surface of their comfortable beliefs? His jaw was clenched so tight it ached. He didn't know what he would do next, or how he would live with this unbearable truth. But one thing was clear: he would never be silent again. The rage was a wound, yes, but it was also a fuel, an unyielding resolve that demanded more than just tears. It demanded an end.
Matt's heavy, deliberate steps finally led him home. The front door, usually a simple barrier, felt like a monumental weight, a final passage into the heart of his pain. He pushed it open, the soft click echoing in the oppressive silence of the small house. The air hung thick with an unspoken grief, a chill that had nothing to do with the night outside.
He found her in the living room, slumped on the worn sofa, a crumpled tissue clutched in her hand. Her face was swollen, streaked with tears, and her eyes, when she lifted them to him, were red-rimmed and vacant. The television was off, the silence amplifying the quiet, ragged sobs that still wracked her frame.
"I'm so sorry, Matt," she choked out, her voice a fragile whisper, barely audible through the fresh wave of tears that overtook her. "I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have... I should have been watching her. I just... I just collapsed." Her words dissolved into a heartbroken wail, a sound that tore at Matt's very soul.
He moved to her side, the anger he'd unleashed in the alley replaced by an overwhelming weariness and a shared, profound sorrow. He sat beside her, the springs groaning softly under his weight, and pulled her gently into his arms. Her body felt small, fragile, trembling against his. He could feel her tears soaking into his shirt.
"It's not your fault, Nina" he murmured, his voice rough with unshed tears. He held her tighter, pressing his face into her hair. "None of this is your fault. Don't you ever say that. You were sick. You couldn't have known."
But she only shook her head, pulling back slightly, her eyes pleading with him for a absolution she couldn't give herself. "But she... she went to church, Matt. She went to where she should have been safe. And I let her. I should have been there. I'm so sorry. Our little girl..." Her voice cracked, shattering into raw sobs.
Matt could only hold her, their shared grief a suffocating weight in the small room. There were no words, no comfort that could mend the gaping wound in their lives, no explanation that could make sense of the monstrous violation. There was only the unbearable reality, the sound of her endless apologies, and the crushing knowledge that their daughter's innocence had been irrevocably stolen. They sat there, two broken figures in a broken home, the world outside continuing its indifferent spin, leaving them trapped in their own personal nightmare.