There Are No Gods Here [ATEEZ Fanfiction]

Chapter 1

"You have sinned" Monotone. Lost. Stoic. That's how it always was. A tap on the shoulder while working on bread from a small, veiny and wrinkley hand. A disappointed sigh from a pair of dry lips that seemed to carry years to them. The walk of shame to the chapel. All to say those words with no extra air. No extra especticle. You knew what you had done the moment all your sisters stopped breathing. The moment all your sisters just looked away. The moment all your sisters said their silent goodbyes.

But at the same exact moment, it was a show. A stage filled with drama, silence, tension. All that you want in those specific moments of a play where the climax is yet to be reached. Where the characters' emotions are about to reach their utmost peak. The moment the woman would cry.

"You must leave" There. The moment of truth. An expected ending to something so repetitive. Right when the hero would say their words of honor. Or when the war would break out. Or when the monster turned into its full form. All to just throw one of many out the door for becoming human. For becoming something less than pure. Or something less than disciplined. Something less.

A silent bow. The one discrepancy in the script. The one thing not accounted for. The freedom.

It was said to taste sweet and bitter. It was said to feel like floating and drowning. It was to be hell or heaven. But Y/N couldn't really tell. Not with those eyes that had seen it all. Not with those hands that have felt it all. Not with the many times she had to witness the utter humiliation of being thrown out of the convent.

The mother of all stood by her place on the center stage, eyes focused on the lady taking her leave through the heavy doors and out into the world. But Y/N knew, she just did, that she was releasing a child to the wolves. A naive soul looking for something they didn't know existed. Looking for something made out of glass. Looking for something in the wrong place.

Why did she see evil in mother? Was that a consequence of growing up here? Was it a reaction to discipline? Because she had her own mother. A woman known to her as a distant but sweet woman. One that would love her and care for her, teach her all her needed knowledge in gentle ways. A woman she could trust. A woman she lost so long ago.

"May you leave" This was not her mother. This was a woman with no remorse. No love. Just a cold pair of hands used as strict signs of discipline. A discipline seemingly taking the life of each lady that found herself stranded by the doors of this place. Each one turning into a life doll of a system that so many trust.

Y/N knew that if her father had picked another church, one out of town or one on the other side of the city, she would have turned out much different. Much happier. A version of herself left outside to rot by the woman she now called mother.

The girls all stood up from their wooden seats, while others stayed. Y/N kept her eyes up. Stone. Wood. Gold. All sculpted to make that signature space where father would stand. Where father would speak. Where the real believer would believe.

She felt the dampness grip into her skin, summer making its rounds through the town this year. But it was also getting colder, as time ticked by season for the young women inside the dainty little church right out into the fields, just next to the town.

"She'll be okay" Abigail said, her smooth and melodic voice making its way into her ears. A woman of pure beauty in some eyes. A petite woman. Young features. Small movements. Perfection in some ways. Black hair hidden behind their headwear. All born and raised in the town Y/N grew up in. And yet she couldn't believe she was her friend. "Merissa is strong"

"I know" Did she? Wasn't that what they both said about Lauren? Or Yoona? The two women that went missing? Their two friends who were rewarded for their strength, suddenly became weak out into the world. Or maybe Yuri. Y/N may have been the only one to see her figure approach the chapel one rainy afternoon so dark where all people became the shadows they were meant to be. But she knew she was not the last to see the woman before posters and town folk began looking for her. "I guess it's just a natural worry"