Opening: Dan's Soul Visual
"Faith is to believe what
you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." — Saint
Augustine.
In a purgatorial canal
between life and death. Dan's soul burned orangish red, swirling like oil on
fire. For a moment, just a flicker, something blue pulsed beneath the surface.
Human. Fragile. Drowning.
The Confrontation
"The fuck do you even
want?" Dan's voice cracked, not with fear but with the exhaustion of a man
who'd been running from an answer he already knew.
The Crowned-Deep didn't
respond immediately. The canal pulsed around Dan—teeth glaring, patience carved
from consequences Dan had spent thirty years pretending didn't exist. Each
fracture of conscience bore a name he refused to read.
When the voice came, it
was intimate yet subtle, black.
The Crowned-Deep said,
"It's better to drown in hell than rule in a heaven where hell is."
Dan's laugh was a broken
record. "That's not an answer; that's a riddle."
The Crowned-Deep exhaled
corrupted water into Dan's lungs like sawdust. "I want non-existence, Daniel. I
want the conversation God refuses to have. I want Him to look at this
monstrosity he birthed through making freedom—the canal convulsed, brittle tar smells,
along with the taste of Dan's first kiss filling out the spaces between. He
needs to admit; he should not have made suffering a requirement for
love."