Temperance lives by (verbumdomini) wrote in repose, @ 2017-02-01 11:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, claire johnson |
Narrative: Claire
Who: Claire Johnson
What: Prayers
Where: Chapel in the Catholic church
When: Recently
Warnings: An obnoxious amount of Catholic guilt.
Claire wept.
A crisis of faith is not anything people realize they are truly going through when they are in the throes of doubt. However, that is precisely what the young girl in the chapel with her heart-shaped sunglasses perched on top of her head was experiencing. The squat white candles flickered in their glass houses, every wick that she lit was a whispered prayer of penance and burning reminder of how she had failed.
One for Carver and how she had hurt him. How she had allowed him to be hurt by the flower woman. How she could not help in his recovery.
One for Leena and how she had been unable to stop what she had been going through.
One for Daniel and how she had put him through Hell. How she could not keep him from hurting people. How she feared her assistance would do more harm than good.
One for Louis and how she had not been able to solve his problem. How she may never be able to get rid of it.
One for Misha and how he'd been tormented by something she didn't know how to stop.
One for the boy at the Quiet Home that she didn't know how to heal.
One for Sam and how she could not help the young mother with her demon problem. How she had been unable to protect her friend.
One for Cris and how she had given him reason to not trust her.
One for Atticus and how she'd allowed him to suffer for so long.
One for Jude and how his injury and fear for his brothers well-being was entirely her fault.
One for the flower woman and how death should have not been the answer.
One for the woman the Hellhound had dragged away and how she should have been there to help her through her problems.
One for the person, anonymous as they still were, that was the target of the Hellhound and how they deserved help she could not give.
One for each of the people that had died at the Hellhound's hands because she had put her faith elsewhere.
One for the Hellhound and how she had let him be taken.
It continued for members of the congregation drugged by demons, people hurt by the town events, and those innocents that had now seen too much. One by one every candle in the chapel was lit, shadows growing longer in the space between surrounding vivid blaze. She fell to her knees before the looming crucifix, lost in the storm and desperate for anything to cling to.
She had failed them all. She had failed the town. That was the lesson, wasn't it? That she couldn't save anyone. That she could never be anyone's savior, no matter the lifetime she'd spent being told otherwise. They had to save themselves. There would never be peace. Her path was wrong. God was not good. God was sadistic and cruel. How else could He allow so much pain in the world?
Claire wept.