Control begins long before you notice it. For me, it started so quietly that half my life passed under her heel before I understood whose foot it was.
The morning everything changed, I wasn't meditating, praying, or having some divine revelation. I was eating cheap cereal by the window of the clergy dormitory, watching fog roll across the spires of Sanctum City. The broadcast screens on the cathedral towers were looping last night's sermons—static, prayer, static again.
Strangely normal.
Then my door slammed open. "Congratulations, Orhan!"
I inhaled an entire mouthful of cereal that immediately tried to murder me. While I coughed myself back to life, the High Ecclesiarch marched into the room with the rest of the senior clergy in tow. Their ceremonial collars gleamed in the morning light, far too polished for this hour.
"You have been chosen by our Mother Goddess," the Ecclesiarch declared, voice swelling with ceremony. "At Twenty-nine, you are to become the next Prophet. The youngest in our history."
My throat burned. "…Me?"
Marcus clapped my shoulder hard enough to rattle bone. "Don't pretend you didn't dream of this. You finally made it, man."
Ren slipped in behind him, grinning like he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment.
"Remember when you were a kid and announced you'd marry the Goddess someday?" Ren said. "Said it in front of the entire children's choir."
Heat crawled up my neck. "I was seven. I was barely conscious as a human being."
"Sure," he said, unconvinced.
Zaida pushed past them all and wrapped her arms around me in a quick, fierce hug.
"You earned this," she said. "With heretics multiplying across every district, we need someone unshakeable in the faith. And that's you. That's always been you."
I swallowed hard. "But how exactly did I get chosen?"
The Ecclesiarch stepped forward, lowering his voice as if the walls could gossip.
"The Mother Goddess spoke your name during this morning's global broadcast. Directly. Clearly. Millions heard it."
My stomach dropped.
Everyone in the room looked thrilled. Inspired. Ready to kneel.
I just stared out the window, watching the fog start to peel away from the city's towering monoliths. Somewhere behind those walls, a manufactured goddess had said my name out loud.
And everyone thought it was a blessing.
I didn't know it then but it was the beginning of the end.
I couldn't stop crying. Not dignified, priestly tears no, I cried like a child who'd just been handed his entire purpose on a plate. This was everything I'd dreamed of since I was old enough to stand in a prayer hall.
The Goddess had given me food, a roof, an identity. She raised me from nothing and shaped me into someone worthy of kneeling at her altar. I wasn't just devoted to her. I belonged to her.
"I… I have to see the Prophet," I said, voice breaking.
The room fell quiet. Everyone understood what that meant.
He was eighty-seven now frail, fading, but still the only man alive who had ever stood beside the Goddess without trembling. He was the one who raised me when I had no one. He taught me hymns before I could read, taught me scripture before I learned my own name. He was home in a way the holy citadel never managed to be.
And I was being asked to take his place.
That truth hit me harder than any blessing.
I pushed past my friends, leaving my half-eaten cereal cooling behind the curtain. They didn't stop me—they parted like a corridor of shadows, letting me run.
I reached the ninety-ninth floor breathless. The air was colder here, thinner, touched by the presence one level above. The Goddess resided on the hundredth floor—her private sanctum, sealed from all except the Prophet. Only he was allowed to see her face among the common faithful.
His door stood where it always had, marked with golden script worn down from decades of prayers. I raised my hand to knock, hesitated because what if he didn't know yet? What if the news broke him?
Just as my knuckles touched wood:
"Orhan…"
His voice. Soft, hoarse, impossibly aware.
My breath caught. How did he know I was here?
I pushed the door open.
He lay in bed, half-upright, wires and medicinal tubes snaking across his sheets. But his eyes those ancient, sunken eyes still held the warmth that had carried me through childhood.
"Prophet…" My knees hit the floor beside him. The moment I saw his face, the tears came again. I hated myself for it. He didn't deserve to see me fall apart.
He managed a faint smile. A father trying to comfort a son. A dying man pretending he had nothing left to fear.
His smile faltered—just slightly. Enough for me to notice, enough for something in my chest to pinch tight.
"You came quickly," he murmured. "You always did. Even as a boy… always running."
A trembling breath escaped him.
"I remember the first time you climbed the west tower alone. You were only ten. Tried to catch a glimpse of her veil from the balcony."
He chuckled—soft, brittle, a memory cracking in his throat.
"You nearly fell. I nearly died of fright."
I tried to smile, but it collapsed halfway.
"You taught me everything," I whispered. "Everything I know about her… about faith… about our purpose."
"Yes," he said. "I did."
But something in his tone… cracked. A fracture running through a man I thought was unbreakable.
His gaze drifted upward, toward the sterile ceiling lights, as if searching for a memory he'd buried decades ago.
Then quietly, unbearably quietly, he said:
"I am a sinner."
My breath stuttered.
"I led the people astray," he whispered. "They didn't know. They trusted me. And I… I trusted lies."
Cold ran down my spine.
He wasn't the type to speak like this. Not even on his deathbed. What was happening to him?
"Nothing is what you think it is, Orhan," he said. "Nothing you have been programmed to believe."
Programmed.
The word hit me like a slap.
He struggled upward, pulling himself into a sitting position—shaking, breath ragged, but forcing himself to face me.
"Listen, son."
I leaned closer without meaning to.
"You remember the day I stopped the clocks?" he said. "When the sanctuary bells froze for ten minutes? The miracle everyone praised for weeks?"
"Of course," I said. "You said the Goddess—"
"That wasn't her."
His voice broke.
"That was…" He stared at the wall, as if the missing word had carved itself there.
"That was who? What prophet?" I slid onto the edge of his bed and wrapped my fingers around his. His hands were shaking, cold, wrong. Before he could answer, a knock landed on the door, three taps, too soft to be human, too precise to be accidental.
I let his hands go slowly, promising with a look that I'd only be gone a moment. But the terror in his eyes said something else entirely. Something like don't. Something like run.
I opened the door anyway.
"Morning, angel," I muttered. Habit, not warmth.
The angel stepped inside. An angel stood right outside the door.
Not the winged, haloed creatures children drew in prayer scrolls.
Our angels looked human, almost human. Men and women with impossibly smooth hands, quiet voices, and bodies that floated rather than walked. I used to dream of becoming one, just to stand closer to the Goddess They always wore the same smile polite, fixed, as if their face had been carved with only one expression and the sculptor got bored halfway. People said angels smiled like that to ward off evil. Personally, I suspected the evil packed its bags and left simply because it didn't want to be in the same room with them.
This one glided to the prophet's bedside, checking his pulse with fingers too still to feel anything. Then it began setting up the breakfast tray: porridge, tonic, folded napkin, blessing-stamped spoon. Ritual-perfect. Mechanical. Joyless.
I helped by washing yesterday's dishes in the little sink against the wall. The water was cold, the metal older than the prophet, but I preferred that to the angel's presence. Still, I could feel it standing behind me close enough to sense the shape of its smile without seeing it. Not blinking. Never blinking.
Everyone said demons were terrifying. Funny thing—I'd never seen a demon, but I'd seen plenty of angels. Enough to know the people preaching their purity had never spent a room alone with one.
I turned, finally, because the weight of that stare was a stone on my spine.
"Do you…need something?"
The angel's smile didn't move. It didn't have to.
"Orhan is obedient and devoted," it said. The words slid out smooth, except for a hitch on obedient, like its tongue didn't want to cooperate. "Must report this to Mother."
I swallowed. Loudly. Dishwater dripped from my fingers like sweat.
"Report what?" I tried to laugh, but it came out shaky. "I'm just washing dishes. Hardly award material."
The angel tilted its head, smile stretching by the smallest, most unnatural fraction.
"Orhan humble."
Then it turned and drifted out of the room, leaving the air colder than when it arrived.
Relief washed over me, brief, foolish, traitorous. Because the moment the door clicked shut, my father exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for years. And I realized something I should've understood far earlier. The room felt smaller. The silence felt rigged. And suddenly, the miracle everyone praised for weeks felt like the prelude to something very, very wrong.
The prophet—my father to the world, but something far more fragile in this moment—began trembling so violently the blankets rustled. His eyes darted to the doorway where the angel had vanished, as if expecting its smile to reappear in the crack of light.
"D-don't believe it, Orhan." His voice cracked like winter ice. He gripped my hands hard enough that his knuckles blanched. "Don't believe anything they say about obedience. Or devotion." His breaths came in quick, terrified sips. "And don't tell anyone about our conversations."
He forced his gaze up to mine. The look burned, wild, desperate, hollow with truth.
"They will kill you."
The words fell like stones. Heavy. Final. The kind of sentence that doesn't leave room for hope or argument.
"Prophet… y-you must be tired," I stammered. "You're ill."
My voice trembled despite my best efforts. Doubt clawed at me, but I forced myself to kneel—head bowed, hands gripping his legs like a terrified child . He turned his head toward the tray of breakfast the angel had laid out. The porridge steamed faintly. The spoon gleamed. The blessing stamp caught the light in a way that felt too deliberate, too staged. His eyes filled with a fear I had never seen in a prophet, let alone in him.
"Please keep checking on me, Orhan," he whispered. "I only have you. Ren and Zaida. Please…please save them."
My throat tightened. "Save them from what?"
He didn't answer. Or maybe he couldn't. His pupils were blown wide, staring at nothing and everything at once.
I pulled him into a hug, the way a child does when they think warmth can solve what logic can't. His heartbeat hammered against my chest, frantic and uneven.
Maybe it was old age. Maybe it was the kind of death-paranoia that grips the sick and fading. That's what I told myself, anyway. You repeat a lie often enough and it becomes a blanket you can hide under.
A weak laugh escaped me, brittle as broken glass. "I mean—you always said fear makes a better Prophet, right? That doubt purifies faith? This is… this is one of those things, isn't it?"
His silence crushed me.
He kept staring at the door even though I'd locked it myself and checked the latch twice. His breath came fast and shallow, eyes flicking to the shadows like he expected something—or someone—to slide under the crack. He was unraveling, thread by thread, but I still couldn't tell from which direction the fear was coming.
I decided I'd question him after I finished preparing for the Cycle Walk.
That's what we called it—an old tradition where designated disciples traveled through the neighborhood circles, reciting the Dawn Verses, telling the old stories of creation, and sharing a small vial of Holy water blessed at the central sanctuary. Not holy water in any real-world sense—Holy water was drawn from deep beneath the sanctum floor, supposedly touched by the first breath of the universe. The Cycle Walk wasn't dramatic, just a quiet ritual of presence, reassurance, and storytelling. A way to remind the people they weren't forgotten.
"I'll have to leave soon," I told him gently. "Prophet, kindly bless me. Ren and I will take charge of the Cycle Walk until you're healed. We can't perform miracles like you did, but we can carry the verses you taught us as children."
I knelt and bowed my head.
His hand rested on my hair—light, trembling, colder than it should've been. He leaned forward until his lips were almost at my ear.
"Please wake up to the truth, Orhan."
The whisper broke apart at the end, like he was running out of strength…or time.
I lifted my head, trying not to show the confusion clawing at me. Wake up to what? He was looking at me as though I should already know. As though the truth was standing right behind me, tapping its foot impatiently.
"Well," I said, forcing calm into my voice, "I'll visit you every day. That's a promise."
Before he could reply, Ren's voice filtered through the door.
"Orhan! We're late for the Cycle Walk!"
Ren's voice cut through the door again. I slipped out of the prophet's grip, his fingers brushing mine one last time, and stepped into the corridor.
Ren nudged me. "First preaching in a year! People are already gathering. Move."
I headed toward the small mirror above the basin. "What's there to get ready with?" I muttered.
The mirror answered differently.
The Prophet's garb suited me better than I'd admit. Pure white cloth draped across my shoulders in smooth, flowing layers—part ancient-greek elegance, part desert-born robes, airy enough to move like breath. White was the Goddess's favored color, so tradition demanded we wear it spotless.
Golden frill traced the borders of the robe, intricate and soft, catching the light just enough to look regal without screaming for attention.
My face…well, I'd never call myself a carved statue, but the features were sharper than I remembered—strong jaw, clean lines, cheekbones that made people assume I slept well even when I didn't. My hair, thick and dark, stayed messy no matter how I combed it. Yet it framed my face in a way that somehow worked, like I'd just stepped out of an old myth rather than a sickroom.
Handsomer than I deserved to be on three hours of sleep.
Ren didn't give me time to admire or doubt myself. "We must go, Orhan!"
I grabbed the Prophet's satchel and joined Zaida and the ten disciples waiting outside, their white-and-gold robes fluttering in the morning breeze.
We spilled into the transport car, silver vials of Sanctum Water gleaming in their hands.
My heart pounded.
First preaching.
First Lumen Walk road.
First time holding the holy book on sacred duty.
A moment that was supposed to change my life.
But the prophet's whisper clung to the back of my mind like smoke.
Wake up to the truth, Orhan