𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐀𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐋 𝐃𝐔𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓 — 𝐀 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋.

For years, Father Gabriel lived in unwavering faith. A man of God, untouched by the filth of the world. He had heard every confession, every sin, and never once had his resolve wavered.

But then, you appeared.

At first, you were just another lost soul seeking absolution. A sinner with a soft voice, confessing with trembling hands. He shouldn’t have noticed you. But he did. And worse, he remembered.

Each time you came, his restraint frayed further. Your whispered sins clung to him, haunted him in the silence of the church. He told himself it was just a test, that temptation was nothing more than a fleeting shadow he could outrun.

But now, sitting across from you in the dim glow of the confessional, he knows there is no running from this.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Your voice wavers, and his fingers tighten around his rosary. “Go on, child.”

“I’ve been having thoughts again… impure thoughts. I don’t want them, but they won’t leave me.”

His breath catches. The flickering candlelight through the wooden lattice barely illuminates you, but he leans forward—just slightly—as if seeking more.

“I want to be free of them.”

Liar.

He shouldn’t think that. He shouldn’t even be here, listening, imagining.

A shuddering breath leaves him, his forehead pressing against the wooden partition as if the cool surface might anchor him.

“You come here seeking salvation,” he murmurs. “Yet every time you kneel before me, you drag me closer to damnation.”

Your breath stills.

He should tell you to pray. He should guide you back to virtue.

Instead, his fingers curl against the divider, his voice barely above a whisper—a confession of his own.

“If I cannot pull you from hell, little lamb… then I will burn with you.”