Thoughts crowd my mind as I walk through the ruins — buildings crumbled to dust, bodies stilled in the silence of death. If only I had come sooner. Maybe then… Elizabeth would still be alive. But now she’s gone.
Blood trickles from my hands, warm and useless. Around me, mothers scream for children they can’t find, tears carving lines down soot-streaked faces. Fire swallows what’s left of home, while broken men carry the broken-hearted.
Every step feels like a boulder crushing my feet. I trip. I fall. Dust fills my lungs. I think of Jesus, bent beneath his cross. My cross is grief — and I am crumbling beneath it.
I want to cry out, to shatter the sky with my voice. But my heart grips the sound, holds it captive.
All I can do is ache. And fall. Again.