Faith
by Frankie'N
Roy didn't believe in a god.
He was an alchemist— a scientist, through and through— and although his convictions were by no means religious, he took great pride in them.
He didn't believe in the unexplainable. He couldn't. Or perhaps, he wouldn't.
Roy didn't believe in heaven.
When people die, they die. That's what he'd seen firsthand, death by his own hands, no less, and so that's what he believed.
People live. People die. They expire, just like anything else on earth. That's what Roy believed.
Roy believed in life and time— that you could try to keep both, stretch them for as long as you dared. In fact, on days when he felt invincible, he believed there would always be enough of life, of time. Those were things he believed in.
He believed in himself.
He believed he could save others.
He believed he could save her.
But he had been wrong.
She withered and faded away, like so many other things he'd ever known. Expired.
But he'd sooner go to hell and back— if hell existed at all— than believe that she was completely gone, that there was nothing left of her. He'd deny it until his last breath, because he could feel her. Not faded away, not expired, but alive.
Alive in every rifle, every book, every dirt road— alive in every little thing that reminded him of her, and everything reminded him of her. To him, she would never be gone.
That's what he believes now.
People don't expire. They don't even die, not completely. Dying means nothing is left to those who had known the deceased. And he knows now— oh, how he knows—that could never be true. He couldn't escape her if he tried.
People don't fade away, they don't disappear, just like that.
That's what he believes.
They move on to a better place, where they can look upon those they have left behind.
If that better place is heaven, then so be it.
If she is in heaven, then please be it.
Because if heaven is something he can hold onto, something he can see when he closes his eyes— if he can clearly picture how he'd see her and be with her again, then by all means, please.
Suddenly, it becomes all too easy to throw away his non-religious convictions. He allows himself to feel vulnerable, to hope. Pride holds nothing against his faith.
He finds himself believing in a god, believing in heaven. Because heaven is the only place he could get to be with her again.
That's what he has faith in.
That's what he believes.