People sang at the front of the Christian mass as they prayed to their one their savior, their god. The crystalline glass walls shined brilliant lights within the hallowed halls as they sang, as they laughed.
It didn't matter that it was only them isolated from the outside world, ignoring cries for something to be done that wasn't just prayer. All you needed was god, all you needed and wanted was god. Let it take over your soul, they would say.
That's how it was every Sunday, with a giant statue of Jesus hanging above everyone, hanging from his cross, his eternal public gravestone of the pain he suffered, for all to see, for all to understand as the message that he is blessed by the thing he was murdered on.
And they were happy.
One Sunday, something different happened. The pastor for the day didn't come in, and in the time of waiting, something strange happened. Everyone stood in the mass as soon, the statue above them cried blood. No one could explain it. The smell of roses filled the room. People claimed that their aliments were gone.
Joy was had.
Joy was had.
Joy was had.
The next Sunday, the statue had stopped bleeding. People came to see what the ruckus was. Some came to disprove it. One man, determined to find the truth, climbed up to it on a ladder high, high up, higher than me and you and our towering structures; and had put a drill to the statue's head and tried to get underneath the concrete.
No one could explain what happened, but at the moment he stuck the drill between Jesus' eyes, the ladder split down the middle.
The statue cried further once the man hit the ground. The room smelled of roses again.
This happened every week. Anytime someone checked on it, got close to it, or said anything disparaging about it, they would be struck dead. They could've stopped it, the mass and the other pastors, but they didn't. They wanted it. They wanted god's praise, that's what the blood meant. A life given, and it gives back to the flesh. That's what was believed.
One Sunday, an earthquake shook the entire church and tore it down. The statue fell, hitting the ground with a thud, splitting it into pieces. Within the statue, though, when the damage was checked, when people looked, was something bizarre.
The pastor that disappeared when the statue cried blood was within it. His skin was dry, sullen, the whites of his eyes a dull, black color. His hands had holes in them.
He was crying still, begging.
He didn't ask for this.
He was innocent.
The worship that was in that church died.
He soon followed.