At The Edge Of The Grave (x20.y9)
Contributor: J. Ogden
"Daddy, did God lie to you?"
"What's that?" A hurt look crawled across Harold's weathered face as he looked into the innocent eyes of his tiny, angelic daughter.
"God told you that if you came and built this town, everything would be okay, didn't he?" Tears welled up in her blue eyes.
"Sometimes it takes a little time for things to be okay, Jenna." Harold shifted onto his haunches, dropped beside her and took her soot-streaked face in his hands. "I built New Jerusalem because God told me to. He told me that the land here was good, that people would come and by the sweat of our brows we would build up a new holy city that no evil could corrupt or stand against." He hesitated for a moment. "But even Rome wasn't built in a day."
"So God didn't lie, daddy?"
Like a tired old soldier, Harold limped back to a tall stance that was as strong as his creaking bones could manage. His face hardened with resolve for a moment, fingers tightening against the stock of his rifle as he unslung it from his back. All around them, all around the rusty metal walls of the sprawling, broken camp he'd carved out of the wasteland that had once been a lush and beautiful world, the smoking, blasted ground stretched on, wastes of ash blowing in, blowing out, lingering against blackened rocks. Almost like a prayer, he whispered to himself.
"He didn't lie. I hope he didn't lie."
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