Chapter 14:

She pushed the two large oak doors open and dim candlelight was all that lit the church hall in front of her. She took a deep breath and walked into the church. The woman next to her was also just as nervous as she was feeling right now. Rachel Jessop looked to her left at Tracey Lader, the one who suggested they came. Tracey looked down slightly at her shorter friend and spoke softly.

"Come on Rach, just here." She gestured to the empty pew to Rachel's right. The two girls sat down and picked up the white book on the ground in front of their feet. Rachel looked at the front cover and more specifically the logo at the front. A golden insignia she had seen all around the county the last few months. She opened the first page and looked at the title page. Joseph's Word. She smiled to herself and turned the page and looked at the first page, it had some kind of quote on it. 'Faith in us. Faith in all.". Rachel heard the sound of heavy steel toed boots on wooden boards. She looked up and a tall and broad figure was standing in front of the lectern. The man had red hair and an even larger set of facial hair. He spread his arms out to silence the murmuring crowd. The man stepped forward and spoke in a gruff but soft tone.

"We are all here for a reason," he said. "Some of us, like our Father, believe that the Collapse is upon us. Some of you will be searching for a change in your life. While others seek salvation in our family." Rachel nodded and listened intently at the man in front of her. "But no matter what brought y'all here, we all have the same thing inside all of us. Loyalty. But for the last hundred odd years, we have been putting our faith in people and organisations that are bringing our society and our planet to dust. But there is something that can save you. That something is a someone, and that someone is Joseph Seed." The man finished speaking and gestured behind him into the shadowy back part of the stage where a tall and dark figure appeared. He had his arms spread out like he was trying to give a giant oak tree a hug and his head was tilted towards the roof.

"Thank you, Jacob." Joseph said indirectly as he lowered his head and his arms. He looked at the group of people in front of him and smiled. "I want you to all picture what a normal week in your life looks like. What do you see?" He said as Rachel shut her eyes. "Do you see a world that treats us with kindness and love," he said before pausing. "Or do you see loneliness. Hatred and deception. Unkindness and unsympathetic people surrounding us, at our work, or at our schools, even in our family." Rachel nodded her head along to everything that Joseph said. It was as if he knew exactly how she was feeling, how her life treated her and what hardships she has to endure. "I know what this life and the world we are exposed to is like. I have endured hardship after hardship and after years of struggle and pain, God showed me the vision. He told me to get my family back together and to save as many souls as physically possible. God has brought you here to our family not be chance, I know you all have your reasons." Rachel felt captivated by this man and his words. Even though she wasn't overly religious herself, something all this just made sense. "You are all here because you all wanna believe in truth, and the truth is that something is coming. And you can feel it, I know you can. We have been creeping closer and closer towards our destruction for decades, and we didn't even know it. In the last century we have had two wars scar the humanity of civilisation, bullies and the sinful in Congress ruling without compassion, but ruling with greed. We are too busy caring about ourselves and our individual lives to worry about the world and others around us. We race to our phones and pads to scroll or upload mindlessly through the pits and traps of your Instagram feed, just to have the chance of getting approval from people who we hardly know and hardly care about us. That is what's happening, and God isn't happy. He created this world in his image, that we'd love one another, but there is a hatred brewin' and we have forced God's hand. He will wipe the sin from our world to recreate that image he had for us. Innocent and pure. Y'all have two paths as of now. You could continue living your pointless and meaningless lives, or you could join our family. Give up all of your possessions and souls to the Project and we will keep you clothed, fed and protected from the coming Collapse. We love you, for everything you're not and for everything you are. I have faith in each and every one of you, you could all be special, because there's no place in our family where anyone ain't special. I am you Father, and you are my Children. And together we will march to Eden's Gate." He finished his speech and raised his arms to the heavens once more and the church stood up and applauded wildly and passionately as if he were the saint they never had. Rachel also stood up and clapped too. She looked to her left to Tracey and saw that she remained seated and had a harsh look on her face. Rachel tried to get her attention but Tracey got up and hustled out of the church. Rachel didn't even try and stop her. She just looked at Joseph and was stunned to see him look directly at her. She nervously looked at her feet and Joseph tilted his head in curiosity.

Faith? Faith? A hollow voice rang out from Rachel's right, but no one was there when she looked over. She felt her getting lighter and lighter and she felt her head ring. She felt her vision go black and straight away, a pair of large hands on her shoulders. As she regained her vision she could make out a figure, he had a slim face and decent stubble on his face. She looked up in confusion but the man just put a hand on her cheek. She blinked hard before reopening her eyes. She was in a dark room in a bundle of some kind of white cloth. Above her, with a concerned look on his face, was Tyler.

"Faith!" He hissed as quietly as he could. "You ok?" Faith nodded and looked around blankly. Seb was asleep in his bundle and then the memories came back to her. They were in the Convent and they had just finished running from Tyler's allies. Tyler relaxed his breathing. "You basically threw yourself onto my stomach, did something happen?" Tyler asked with nothing but concern in his voice. She felt her heart flutter slightly at his affection and his care.

"Just a dream," she said softly. "Did I wake you?" Tyler shook his head.

"No," he said. "I was on lookout and I felt your head just come crashing in at my stomach." Faith blushed slightly.

"Sorry." She said softly.

"Hey, it's no big deal." Tyler shrugged. "Just had to make sure you were ok."

"Holy shit." Tyler muttered to himself. "They really went all out to get some top notch shit didn't they?" Seb appeared next to him and looked at the musical instruments and equipment that the cult had kept in their church hall. An acoustic guitar, five microphones, a keyboard and stacks upon stacks of sheet music were all bundled together. Tyler reached for the guitar and put the strap over his head. He went to tune it but found that all six strings were perfectly tuned. He thought of the song he plays non-stop on his phone to calm him down. He found the capo attached to the head of the guitar and placed it on the third fret and started whistling and strumming that same chord pattern. Seb had heard this song so many times that he had memorised the lyrics by now. Tyler finished the intro and without needing to think, started singing.

"The way your fingers fit in mine it's five plus five not rocket science, this day in time that's hard to find is true. The road we're on in a traffic jam it's a sunny drive on a piece'a land. It's paradise as long as I'm with you." Seb smiled at Tyler's predictability and started singing the chorus with him.

"It's like 1, 2, 3, just as easy as can be. Just the way you look at me you make me smile. Ain't no need to complicate it, we both know that's overrated, we've been there it's safe to say it ain't our style." Tyler saw Faith walk in through the side door and looked surprised at the sight in front of her. "It's just simple, S-I-M-P-L-E, simple as can be it's just that simple S-I-M-P-L-E simple as can be." Faith continued listening and moved to sit next to Seb. Tyler continued singing by himself and smiled at Faith as she sat down.

"We used to live on Instagram, worried 'bout who all gives a damn 'bout 'a where we been and where we ended up." Faith really got that line, it was like the Father had told her many years ago and up to this day. "The I met you and you met me and all the rest is history in epiphany that all we need is us." Tyler continued to sing and Faith listened intently to each word that he said. It all meant something and she could feel it. As good as the tune was, the lyrics meant something. Tyler obviously had some kind of stuff emotional connection to the song, maybe that could be a contributing factor for Tyler joining her family and surviving the Collapse together. She had to try.

Note:

Hey y'all. Sorry this took forever. I was a pretty this week but I'm happy to have gotten this short chapter out there. For those of you who don't know, the song in this chapter was Simple by FGL. I would listen to the acoustic version ti get an idea of what that scene may have sounded like. Sorry this was short, I'll try and get back to decent length chapters soon.