The bells of St. Cecilia’s no longer rang.
In the heart of Youngstown, where steel once roared and Catholic churches once stood tall above Polish bakeries and Italian delis, the crosses had been stripped, repced by austere bck banners bearing the 6C sigil: six vertical sshes on a crimson field.
But under the cracked stained gss of the old sacristy—sealed from public view—a different banner flew. A hand-stitched Marian fg, passed down generations, now hidden behind a shelf of fake Pauline epistles. The real ones, the forbidden ones, were buried under the altar.
Sister Miriam Kowalski moved like a ghost through the shadows of the rectory. Her habit was faded but clean, her steps silent on the worn wooden floors. In her hands: consecrated hosts wrapped in wax paper, smuggled from a church in Steubenville disguised as communion wafers for a "legal" 6C fellowship group.
At 58, she had become an icon among the underground believers. A woman who’d refused to take off her rosary, even after 6C officers stormed her convent and repurposed it as a “Female Vocational Polygamy Institute.” She had saved twelve of her sisters that night, smuggling them out in a meat truck headed for the banned pork ndfill.
Tonight, she would assist in what locals whispered might be the st real Mass in the region.
Father Piotr Nowak entered through the boiler room. He wore a hoodie over his cassock and carried a small radio transmitter in one hand.
“The censors are blocking Polish,” he said with a grin. “So we’re switching to Aramaic and Latin tonight. Let’s see them decode that.”
Miriam raised an eyebrow. “You think anyone here speaks Aramaic?”
He grinned. “They don't have to. They only have to believe.”
The chapel filled slowly—no more than 25 souls. Mostly elderly, some younger mothers with daughters. No men between 18 and 45; they were under 6C registry and required to attend mandatory “Alpha Male Discipleship" training on Thursday nights.
Incense burned. Latin filled the air like memory.
And then, the Gospel.
“From the Letter to the Romans—chapter eight.”
A gasp rippled through the congregation. Sister Miriam froze.
Pauline scripture was punishable by re-education, sometimes worse.
Father Piotr’s voice didn’t falter. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life... nor any powers… shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
He looked up. "Let them come."
Outside, two teenage 6C patrol volunteers livestreamed on TikTok.
“Yo, is this where the rogue nun's hiding?” said one, filming himself in Vega-core tactical gear.
The other scrolled through chat. “Comments saying yeah. But also one dude says this is ‘sacred ground’ and not to disturb it. LOL.”
They stood awkwardly, caught between duty and doubt. The irony worship cshed with the awe.
Then a low chant rose from within the chapel—unmistakably ancient, fierce.
Salve Regina, Mater misericordi?…
One of the teens lowered his phone. “Bro, my grandma used to sing that.”
The other hesitated. “We report or…?”
They didn’t move.
And somewhere in the ether of 6C’s oppressive net, a tiny signal broke through. A grainy audio clip uploaded by an anonymous account:
“For I am convinced…”
It would be deleted in two hours.
But not before it was downloaded 8,000 times.
Scene: Akron, Ohio – Two Days After the Mass
The leaked clip had gone mildly viral, but not in the way the resistance hoped.
A trending TikTok reaction video featured a 22-year-old theology dropout, username @ProphetOfRealness, sitting in front of a green screen of the rogue Mass.
Caption: “Boomers still think Jesus is God. LMAO.”
He smirked.
“Look, I respect tradition, but the 6C doctrine just makes more sense. Jesus as a prophet? Historical. Verifiable. None of that ‘three persons, one God’ math problem. And let’s be real: Pauline letters were sexist cringe. Purging Paul? W.”
The comments were divided.
Top comment: “6C isn’t perfect, but at least it's not built on lies.”
Second comment: “Imagine hiding in a church to read illegal fanfiction.”
Third comment: “This is why our generation is winning.”
Back in Youngstown, Sister Miriam scrolled the reaction clips in silence.
She didn’t cry. She just muttered, “They're not mocking us. They're bored. And boredom is the devil's favorite soil.”
Father Piotr leaned over, watching a 6C meme of Jesus dabbing under the hashtag #JustAProphetThings.
“They've made a theology of irony,” he said. “You can’t fight sarcasm with solemnity.”
Miriam nodded. “Then maybe we change our weapons.”
***
In Clevend, a Gen Z girl named Amara—16, queer, raised in a 6C commune where lesbian affection was allowed but never public—began watching “Three Shadows” on repeat. She didn’t fully understand it.
But she began sketching symbols.
A dove.
A triangle.
A woman walking through fire.
Not because she believed in the Trinity.
But because the algorithm had never shown her mystery before.
***
Title: The Council Was a Lie
Location: Clevend, 6C Content Hub "The Dome"
Time: Week 5 of 6C Governance
In a sleek bck studio pulsing with neon crosses and algorithm-tracked lighting, the 6C production team dropped their test bombshell:
Series Title: “Debunking Trinity: God Has No Math Problem”
Episode One opened with crisp animations: sandals in the sand, scrolls unraveling, and cartoon Jesus—tired, dusty, fully human—healing a blind man with a wink.
Narrator (youthful AI-generated voice):
“The original Jesus-followers? They didn’t think he was God. They were called the Ebionites. They loved the Torah, hated pork, and believed Jesus was a prophet—not a deity.”
“So what happened? The Romans happened.”
The screen cut to Rome in 325 A.D.—white togas, gold leaf, pagan altars.
“At the Council of Nicaea, Emperor Constantine—who wasn’t even baptized yet—wanted unity, not truth. So he mashed Jesus into a godhead with Greek metaphysics and forced a vote.”
Cue dramatic re-enactment: Bishops arguing, one throws a sandal, another signs a scroll reluctantly.
The tag fshed:
“The Trinity: Invented by Committee. Approved by Empire.”
The Episode went viral.
It had everything Gen Z loved: receipts, sass, slick design.
The comments blew up:
@TriniTruthHurts: “My pastor never told me Jesus followed kosher ws.”
@ConstantineWasMid: “So we’re worshipping a Roman PR stunt? Nah.”
@6CSoldier24: “Three gods? Couldn’t be me.”
@SoftAgnostic13: “This actually makes Jesus more retable. Prophet vibes.”
In a hidden room under a shuttered church in Akron, Father Piotr smmed a ptop shut.
“They’re not wrong,” he admitted bitterly. “Historically. But they’re using facts like knives.”
Sister Miriam looked tired. “They’re not building faith. They’re building certainty.”
He nodded. “Which feels safer. No mystery. No surrender. Just ‘data.’”
Meanwhile, in an AP Comparative Religion cssroom in a 6C-chartered charter school:
A teacher—young, hip, wearing a #JesusWasHuman hoodie—taught from an animated whiteboard:
“Trinitarianism didn’t show up until centuries after Jesus died. It’s not in the earliest manuscripts. Jesus says, ‘Why do you call me good? Only God is good.’ Boom—straight from the source.”
A student raised his hand. “So, the underground priests are just cospying?”
The teacher smiled. “Or clinging to a story that kept Europe warm in the Dark Ages.”
Laughter. A few nods.
But not everyone ughed.
In the back, Amara—still sketching the triangle and dove—sat silently.
That night, she searched “Trinity Origins” and was flooded with debates, breakdowns, and 6C-curated documentaries.
But buried deep—Page 6 of the search results—was a grainy scan of a 2nd-century letter from Ignatius of Antioch:
“Jesus Christ, our God…”
The text was fragile. Uncool. Unverified.
But it lit something strange in her.
Not certainty.
Not logic.
Just a question.
Title: Faith.exe Has Crashed
Location: Akron – Amara’s Bedroom
Time: 2:12 AM
Amara had eight tabs open. One was blinking red from the 6C Net Authority warning her: “Unapproved Religious Exploration May Result in Tier 1 Review.”
She ignored it.
Tab 1: A theological breakdown from Princeton’s ancient texts archive
Tab 2: A breakdown of the timeline of Saint Paul’s ministry
Tab 3: Side-by-side comparisons of Aramaic idioms and Greek transtion errors
Tab 4: A documentary titled “Inventing the Son of God: Council of Nicaea Expined”
Tab 5: An interactive 6C-approved chart showing early councils of the Church, beled “Errors in Canon”
Tab 6: A PDF transtion of the Council of Ephesus proceedings—dizzying talk of hypostasis and consubstantiality
Tab 7: A digital Torah concordance
Tab 8: Her own notes, typed in frustration:
“Paul never met Jesus.
First Gospel = Greek. Not Aramaic.
Transtion isn’t just imperfect. It’s maniputive.
Jesus followed Jewish Law. No pork. Only One God.
Nicaea = state-forced dogma.
Ephesus = created a triple-person God no one can expin.
How did this become truth?”
She leaned back, eyes gzed. Her sketchpad sat untouched for the first time in days.
No triangle.
No dove.
Just a margin note:
“If God wanted to be known, why make it this confusing?”
Next Day at School – Religion & Logic Seminar
A cssmate read aloud from a prompt titled Historical vs Theological Jesus:
“If Jesus didn’t write anything, and his first followers didn’t worship him as divine—what are we really worshipping?”
Amara didn’t raise her hand.
She didn’t need to. Her silence said everything.
Sister Miriam watched the footage from a confiscated student tablet.
She had hoped the underground flicker of curiosity would bloom into faith.
But the 6C wasn’t battling belief with fear.
They were battling it with history.
She whispered to Piotr, “They've made the truth boring and our stories look like myth.”
He sighed. “Because our stories are myth. Sacred ones. But myths nonetheless.”
“Then what do we offer?” she asked. “A God that can’t be Googled?”
Back in her room, Amara finally closed all her tabs.
But before she shut her ptop, she opened one more page—an anonymous digital zine, buried in the depths of a resistance server.
Title: “Mystery > Logic”
It was raw. Unpolished.
One line stuck with her:
“Truth is what you can expin. Mystery is what you stand in front of and can’t.”
For a moment, she didn’t click away.
She didn’t believe.
But she didn’t delete it, either.
***
Title: The Visit
Location: Akron, Ohio – Edge of the 6C Frontier
Time: One Day After Message Sent
Amara didn’t expect a reply.
Her DM had been short. Curious. Almost naive:
“If words are weapons, why do yours cut history instead of opening it?”
She sent it at 1:42 AM.
By morning, she’d forgotten about it—half-embarrassed, half-afraid.
Until her phone buzzed at 8:03 AM.
@ObedientRiya replied:
“Some girls sharpen knives. Others learn where to cut.”
No emoji. No follow-up.
Twenty-Four Hours Later.
The Ferrari Roma slid into her neighborhood like a serpent among deer. Matte bck with soft-crimson trim, it looked more like a stealth drone than a car. The sound—low, surgical—turned every head on the street.
Amara stood frozen on the sidewalk.
The door lifted with a hush, and Riya Patel stepped out—draped in a minimalist bck tunic, eyes behind mirrored lenses, face sharp with poise, not vanity.
Two women in desert-styled trench coats followed. Neither smiled.
Riya spoke first.
Not hello.
Not Amara’s name.
Just:
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
Amara blinked. “No.”
Riya removed her sungsses. Her eyes were tired. A little sad.
“You will. After today.”
Inside a private booth at Akron’s only 6C-certified café, Riya sipped herbal tea while Amara struggled to keep her thoughts linear.
Riya spoke in sentences like chapters.
“I used to think truth was exposure. That if I dug deep enough, I’d find the bedrock of justice. That was before I found the letters of Hezri.”
“Hezri?” Amara asked.
Riya smiled. “The Supreme Leader who taught me that freedom is a kind of infection.”
She pulled out a handbound copy of The Obedient Codex—6C’s foundational scripture.
“Jesus never cimed to be God. You already know that. But what you don’t know is this—Paul’s gospel spread like a virus because people didn’t want to obey. They wanted escape. Trinity theology? An exit ramp from accountability. Pagan sugar poured into Jewish coffee.”
Amara wanted to push back—but she couldn’t look away. Riya’s voice was a net of silk and steel.
“So, tell me. Why did you write to me?”
Amara hesitated. “Because… I thought maybe you weren’t like the rest.”
Riya leaned forward. “I’m not. I’m worse. I know the other side. I used to believe the same things you’re questioning now. Until I realized mystery doesn’t liberate—it ensves.”
She handed Amara a pen.
Bck, heavy, engraved with the 6C crest.
“You want truth? Start writing it down. You’ll learn the price of it.”
*
Location: Downtown Clevend – Sanctum Tower Hotel
Time: Nightfall
The hotel was a vertical cathedral of gss—forty stories of silence and surveilnce.
Sanctum Tower wasn’t just any hotel. It was a 6C Sanctified Space—a luxury complex used only by high-ranking operatives, dignitaries, and “trusted pilgrims.”
Amara stepped out of the Ferrari and into a world where even the silence was scripted.
Riya walked ahead.
Never once looking back.
Inside, the air was cool and cedar-scented. Not a soul in the grand lobby. Only marble, chrome, and a crimson-lit corridor.
A private dining suite was already waiting—one of those tables that looked too elegant to touch. Silver cutlery. Fire-gzed mb (for Riya), grilled pomegranate halloumi and dates (for Amara), and rose-colored wine in whisper-thin gsses.
Riya didn’t talk much during dinner. She just watched Amara—measured her silence, her unsure posture, her gnces that flickered somewhere between curiosity and ache.
At st, as dessert came—a simple fig tart—Riya said softly:
“Desire is not rebellion, Amara. It’s recognition.”
Amara met her gaze. “Recognition of what?”
“That the body is not your enemy. But it can be your scripture.”
No further expnation.
Riya stood and walked toward the elevator.
Amara followed.
*
Room 3901.
The suite was ethereal. Silver-toned, mirror-walled, smelling faintly of oud and jasmine. One wall was a digital tapestry pulsing with abstract light. The bed was impossibly soft. The moon pooled through wide windows.
Amara stood by the door, unsure.
Riya stepped behind her, brushed a finger along her wrist, then whispered:
“If you don’t want this, say the word. You’ll be taken home. And I’ll never come near you again.”
The air thickened.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t leave.
Later, as the city pulsed far below, Amara y in silk sheets, her mind buzzing with contradictions.
It hadn’t been forceful. It hadn’t been tender either.
It was—something else.
Like being inducted into a rite she never fully understood.
Riya had been calm. Distant, even. Her touch was reverent but clinical. Almost ritualistic.
No decrations. No aftermath.
Only this, whispered in the dark:
“Now you understand. Belief is not inherited. It’s experienced.”
.....
Location: Sanctum Tower Hotel, Clevend
Time: Morning After
Sunlight crept across the edge of the silk-draped bed like it was too reverent to intrude. The room was a cathedral of silence, filtered gold through mirrored windows.
Amara stirred.
For the first time in a long time, her skin didn’t feel like borrowed clothing. She wasn’t sure if what happened st night had been seduction, initiation, or quiet spiritual arson. Maybe all three.
Beside her, Riya was already awake. Composed. Reading something on a digital scrollpad, one leg tucked beneath her, bare shoulders cloaked in a linen robe marked subtly with the 6C sigil.
Amara reached for the sheets, then for Riya’s gaze.
Riya looked up. Said nothing. Just a faint, knowing smile.
Breakfast was delivered without a knock.
Soft eggs in saffron cream. Roasted olives. Honey-streaked ftbread. Pomegranate tea.
They ate wordlessly.
Later, the bathroom—stone-walled and steam-slicked—became another quiet theatre of closeness. Touches between warm water and whispered breath. A second round, slower, like a confirmation rather than a conquest.
No music pyed.
Only breath.
Only heartbeat.
After, wrapped in cotton robes, Amara finally asked:
“Is this... love?”
Riya paused mid-sip of tea.
“No,” she said, calmly. “It’s crity.”
She turned toward the scrollpad again. With a gesture, a holographic dispy bloomed between them, glowing soft crimson. The words hovered—etched in ancient-serif font:
The Six Commandments.
Riya spoke like a teacher and a preacher, like someone reciting scripture she helped write.
“Commandment One: A man may take many wives. Because one seed can fertilize many gardens.”
“Commandment Two: A woman may not take many husbands. Because gardens need one gardener—not confusion.”
Amara listened. Tense. Curious.
“Commandment Three: Women may share beds. That bond is sacred. Sisterhood, pleasure, unity. No threat to order.”
“Commandment Four: Men may not lie with men. That is chaos. Competing masculinity disrupts divine hierarchy.”
Amara's brow twitched, slightly.
“Commandment Five: Male bisexuality is forbidden. It erodes structure. Masculinity must not fragment.”
“Commandment Six: Female bisexuality is blessed. It builds bridges. It softens dominion with intimacy.”
Riya looked at her then—fully, deeply.
“Two commandments empower women. Two empower men. We are not ‘equal’—we are banced. And bance is the w of heaven.”
Amara didn’t respond immediately.
The words were clean. Calcuted. Almost seductive in their internal logic.
But in her chest, something twisted.
“You think that’s justice?” she asked quietly.
Riya didn’t flinch.
“Justice is irrelevant,” she said. “Order is divine.”
...
