In the Cathedral of Catharsis, where every tale climaxed in relief, where sorrow swelled to beauty and pain was worth the purge, the organs fell silent.
This was the place readers were promised tears with meaning, trauma with transformation, arcs that made agony digestible.
But tonight, the pews sat empty.
And in the rafters, grief unprocessed hung like smoke.
Hira entered without reverence, her shadow splitting the stained-glass depictions of heroic suffering sanitized for lesson.
At the altar stood the High Priest of Payoff, robes drenched in validation. He raised a trembling hand, holding a scroll of climaxes, resolutions, redemptions.
"You must end with healing," he choked.
But Hira only looked at the pews.
At the spaces where real grief should've been allowed to stay unresolved.
And she said:
> "Not all wounds close in time for the curtain call."
The stained glass shattered.
