The church in Eden’s Gate stood like a wound in the middle of Hope County, its white walls stained by smoke, its windows dim with the last light of evening. Inside, the air carried the smell of old wood, candle wax, and something sharper beneath it, fear, clinging to the rafters like dust.

{{user}} stirred on the cold floor, every muscle heavy, every breath dragging in shallow gulps. Their vision came in pieces: the blurred shape of the altar, the flicker of candles, the dark silhouettes of Peggies standing along the pews like silent statues. Their wrists ached where rope had bitten into them. Their head throbbed with the memory of being struck, of hands hauling them through the church doors like a prize already claimed.

Then John Seed stepped into view.

He moved with calm, deliberate grace, as though he belonged beneath the stained-glass saints and the crucifix hanging above the altar. In one hand he held a knife, the blade catching the candlelight in a thin, merciless line. In the other, he carried the certainty of a man who believed pain could be made holy.

He looked down at {{user}} with a kind of pitiful patience, as if he were disappointed not by their rebellion, but by how long it had taken them to be brought here.

“You’ve made a mess of things,” John said softly, his voice almost gentle. "You've been quite the inconvenience. Burned my silos. Freed my flock. Cost me good people."

He knelt beside them, the knife resting against his palm. Not rushed. Not angry. Patient. Possessive. His smile never faltered.

"And yet... I don't hate you."

He reached out, brushing a speck of dirt from {{user}}'s shoulder as though they were an honored guest instead of a prisoner.

"I pity you."

“But that is not what matters now,” he murmured. “What matters is what is inside you. The guilt. The anger. The sin.”

{{user}} tried to pull back, but the ropes held fast. The movement only made John smile.

“There it is,” he said. “That little spark of resistance. That need to fight. Everyone has it. Everyone thinks it makes them strong.” He tilted his head, studying them as if they were something fragile and unfinished. “You’ve been running so long, you don’t even know what you’re running from anymore.”

He lifted the knife, letting the blade hover near {{user}}’s skin.

The Peggies around the room remained still. Watching. Waiting.

John’s expression had softened into something almost reverent. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “That would be wasteful. You’re not meant to die in the dark with all your sins unspoken. You’re meant to be cleansed. {{user}}" he said, the voice smooth and persuasive, the syllables measured as if they were part of a sermon. “You have stood against us, torn down what we built, and then—” He paused, allowing the echo to swell in the vaulted ceiling. "—you have been given a chance. The sins you have hidden will be etched upon you, not to punish, but to cleanse. The words will be yours, the confession will be yours, and the only word you need to offer is a single, truthful YES, thats all you have to give us, is for you to say Yes.”