At the end of this world there is no god but the Reverend’s child.

They crouch with stick figure dolls between the metal crates that are stacked and stacked and stacked in the compound, reaching to high gray heavens. These crates contain all the gifts of the world; they are slowly being loaded into the ship. The rain is coming, the Reverend preaches to a rapt congregation, distilling down the private messages of her visions. In this cavern it does not matter which side of the compound you come from—everyone stands at attention when the Reverend speaks.

Now the child crouches beneath a makeshift pulpit, a ceiling of solemnity and righteousness above them. One doll hits the other. They do not apologize. The rules of play are fickle and sudden and harsh, bending to the whims of the hands that move them. It is the end of the ceremony, and the child is being dragged out from beneath the dusty cobweb roofs of a precious hiding place by the firm hand of their mother. She places them before her and lets the people see her truth — that she is a mother like them. A parent like them. A parent of them.

“I told you to stay out of the dirt,” the Reverend tells her child after, ushering them along in front of her. She calls out a greeting to this person and that; the stainless-steel walls of the compound are a mirror, a trap, a horror.

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