Sinner (Children of the Corn/Malachai)

Chapter #1: Stuck

A/N: Made by request of my great friend Alien_girl_champion! Hope you like it, buddy! :) And hope the rest of my readers enjoy it as well! This has been sitting in my drafts for awhile now so I figured I'd post it while getting through my bout of writer's block! Hope you are doing well!
💖-Katie-💖

*MALACHAI'S POV*

Another stormy night -- dark clouds massed over town and unleashed their fury down onto the streets. The pounding of the rain and thunder was all that could be heard from inside the small church on the far end of Gatlin. When mixed with the ringing of the building's bell, it almost sounded eerie.

I stood in the back of the church, leaned against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, my usual spot for sermons. Sighing and swiping my long ginger colored hair from my eyes, I observed the other children in the room.

They were all sitting in the rows of pews facing the altar, tightly packed together. All of them were waiting intently for the young preacher to start his evening sermon.
Isaac Chroner, the preacher, stood up at the podium at the altar reviewing a few pages of his bible that he kept with him. His stony blue eyes were fixed on the words and his mouth a tight line as he read. Ugh, could we please just get this started already?

I cleared my throat loudly, gathering the attention of several of the kids and Isaac. He glanced up from the podium and shot me a knowing smirk, his way of thanking me. Isaac then set his bible down and stepped out from behind the podium, grabbing his corn crucifix staff as he did. He smiled out at the kids and I.

"Good evening brothers and sisters. Tonight we are here to discuss the quickly coming harvest of the corn, but also revel, for we are in His presence on this evening. Praise be unto Him!" Isaac began.

"Praise God! Praise the Lord!" Everyone in the church chanted. We almost managed to drown out the sound of the thunder outside.

After that Isaac began discussing the importance of the harvest, not that he really needed to, we all knew what must be done. Everything we did here in Gatlin was like clockwork, nothing really needed to be explained to us anymore. I felt like Isaac still did it mostly to hear himself talk. I just tuned him out most of the time now, unless he was talking about something very important. For this though, I leaned my head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, letting the rain on the roof speak over the 12 year old preacher.

Believe it or not, I had been doing this a lot lately -- zoning out during the sermons and had actually begun to feel bored during them. No surprise why. I was stuck in a routine -- I had been for awhile. Every day it was get up before dawn, get dressed, morning sermon, breakfast, hours of work in the field, lunch, more hours of work in the other half of the field and sometimes the barns, dinner, evening sermon, go home and shower and go to bed. Then the next morning it was wake up and do it all over again.

I ran a hand through my hair in a silent frustration -- there had to be something I could do to break myself of this rut I was in. Maybe a walk in the corn after the sermon would help clear my head, or I could pray to Him for a change of pace in my life. We always looked to the Lord for the answers to our problems and all other things as it was. After what happened last year, I was actually surprised Isaac hadn't made it mandatory to speak with He Who Walks Behind the Rows more.

A shiver crawled up my spine as thoughts of last year came into my memory. My neck hurt just thinking about it...
I had been lucky, to say the least, that the Lord hadn't dragged me down to hell after what happened. When the two outlanders Burt and Vicky showed up in Gatlin....