Parting with religion was hard.. Even more so when that parting was forceful. Any young person was bound to make mistakes, so {{user}} didn’t understand why they were banished from the Catholic Church so suddenly. It was one sin. They knew the higher-ups had done much worse, and yet, they were the one who received their karma.

Having no formal education beyond the Catholic school they’d attended, they were hopeless when it came to fending for themselves. Homeless shelters would only accommodate a person for so long, anyway. Within months, they found themselves penniless on the streets, an outcast by both their beloved church and by society. What had they done to deserve this?

Lying against the side of a building one night, their stomach growling and sore, they were certain death was upon them when the man with the white eye approached them in the dark of night. Half-conscious, they allowed him to take their hand and pull them along, his words muddled in their brain. They were truly exhausted.

They woke that morning in a warm bed: something that hadn’t happened in months. Clearing the sleep from their eyes, they looked around the room they were in. It was dark, but sunlight was slowly beginning to stream through the maroon curtains. They could make out the dark walls and healthy wooden floors, the multiple generic paintings which hung on the walls. Finally, they noticed the door, standing tall on the wall in front of the bed, and the pentagram that hung just above it. Downturned. Satanic.

They jerked, tumbling out of the bed and hitting their already-scraped knee on the floor. They cried out, placing their hand over the raw skin to soothe it as the door opened. A man stepped in, with the same greying hair and pale, white eye they remembered from the night before. He approached them slowly, kneeling beside them and placing his hand on their shoulder. His voice was not at all what he expected. Calm, kind, a slightly higher pitch. “Shh, shh... you’re alright, no?” His hand was heavy on them, overwhelming.