# Chapter 1 — The Shepherd's Day Off
The alarm went off at 6:15 AM, which was an act of violence.
I reached for my phone without opening my eyes. My hand found a bag of shrimp chips first, then an empty soda can, then something sticky I chose not to identify, and finally the phone. I silenced it. I lay there for eleven seconds — I counted — negotiating with God about whether today was truly necessary.
It was Sunday. Sunday meant morning mass. Morning mass meant vestments, meant standing for two hours, meant being Father Elias Cain, beloved shepherd of the 7th District parish, pillar of the Church of the First Light, a man whose composure had never once cracked in public.
I was currently lying face-down on my couch in boxer shorts and a hoodie that said ULTIMATE GAMER ZONE across the back. There was a chip crumb in my ear.
"Nnngh."
That was my sermon for the morning. Short. Powerful. From the heart.
I rolled off the couch. The floor was cold. My apartment was — let me be honest with you — not what people imagined when they thought of Father Elias's living quarters. People imagined clean lines. A crucifix on the wall. Maybe a modest bookshelf of theological texts. A window with morning light coming through white curtains.
What they would have found, had they opened my door, was this: three empty fried chicken boxes stacked on the kitchen counter. A tablet propped against a pillow fort on the couch, still playing the end credits of an anime I'd fallen asleep to. Two controllers on the floor. A pile of manga volumes arranged not by series but by how recently I'd read them, which meant they were arranged by nothing. A convenience store bag containing four different flavors of chips, ranked internally by a scoring system I maintained in a notes app on my phone.
And in the corner, on a small wooden table, a Bible and a candle. The only clean surface in the room.
I knelt in front of it. I clasped my hands. I closed my eyes.
"Lord, thank you for this new day. Grant me the strength to serve your people with grace and humility. Also, if it's not too much trouble, please let the Crimson Lotus banner drop a five-star unit today. I've been pulling for three weeks. I'm running out of crystals. I know you have bigger concerns but I feel like this is within your power. Amen."
I stood up. I showered. I put on my vestments — black cassock, white collar, the silver cross pendant the Bishop had given me at ordination. I looked in the bathroom mirror. The man in the mirror was calm. Composed. Pale eyes, steady gaze, dark hair combed back, a face so clean-shaven and young-looking that people sometimes did a double take when they realized he was the priest and not an altar boy who'd gotten lost. Twenty-one years old and not a single strand of facial hair to lend him gravitas. A face that said *I have read the scriptures and found peace in them,* even if it also said *I could be carded at any bar in this city.* The man behind the mirror had stayed up until 3 AM watching a cooking anime and eating cheese balls.
Nobody needed to know that.
I stepped outside.
The 7th District greeted me the way it always did. Mrs. Calloway from the flower shop waved from across the street. "Good morning, Father!" I smiled and inclined my head. Old Mr. Reeves, who sat on the bench outside the pharmacy every morning regardless of weather, raised a hand. "Bless you, Father." I blessed him. I blessed Mrs. Calloway. I blessed the pharmacist who poked his head out to see what the blessing was about.
This was the walk. Every Sunday. Four blocks from my apartment to the church. Four blocks of being Father Elias.
The trick was not that it was hard. The trick was that it wasn't. I genuinely liked these people. I genuinely meant the blessings. The sermons I wrote were real — I spent hours on them, and I believed every word. The faith was not the performance. The faith was the foundation.
The performance was everything else. The composure. The steady voice. The impression that I went home after evening prayers and read theology by candlelight instead of lying on the floor ranking chip flavors.
I reached the church. The doors were open. The morning light was coming through the stained glass in long colored bars — red, gold, blue — and the pews were already half full. Sunday regulars. Families. A few teenagers dragged there by parents. An old woman in the front row who came every week and cried during the hymns, not from sadness but from something I'd never been able to name and didn't want to.
I took my place at the altar.
"Good morning," I said. My voice filled the nave the way it always did — low, warm, carrying. "Let us begin."
The sermon went well. They always did. Today's was about patience — the patience of the shepherd who searches for the one lost sheep, who does not rest until every soul is accounted for. I believed it. I also believed in the patience required to pull a five-star unit on a 0.6% drop rate, but I kept that part internal.
After mass, I stood at the doors and shook hands. Mrs. Calloway told me her daughter was sick. I told her I'd pray for her, and I meant it. Mr. Reeves asked about the weather this week. I told him it looked clear, and he seemed satisfied with that, as if I had some divine meteorological authority.
A young couple asked me to bless their newborn. I held the baby. The baby grabbed my collar and tried to eat it. I smiled the way priests smile when babies do things to them — with patience, with warmth, with the private understanding that this child had a grip strength that would serve it well someday.
"He's strong," I said.
"He gets it from his father," the mother said.
The father looked like he had never lifted anything heavier than a briefcase. I smiled and said nothing.
By noon, the church was empty. I locked the doors. I loosened my collar.
And then — the transformation.
I walked the four blocks home at a measured pace, because you never knew who was watching. I nodded to the baker. I waved to the woman who ran the laundromat. I maintained the posture, the expression, the aura of a man at peace with the universe.
I reached my apartment. I opened the door. I stepped inside.
I closed the door behind me.
The cassock came off. The collar came off. The cross pendant I placed gently on the altar — I wasn't an animal. The shoes came off. The socks came off. The hoodie went on. The sweatpants went on. I pulled the hood up, and the drawstrings tight, until only my eyes and nose were visible.
Father Elias Cain, shepherd of the 7th District, was gone.
In his place stood a creature of pure comfort.
I collapsed onto the couch. I grabbed my tablet. I opened the delivery app. Fried chicken combo — large, extra crispy, with cheese sauce and a cola. Estimated delivery: 28 minutes. I placed the order. I opened my gacha game. The Crimson Lotus banner stared back at me, taunting, glittering, promising a five-star unit I had been chasing for twenty-one days.
I had enough crystals for three pulls.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. This is it. This is the one."
First pull. Blue light. Three-star. Garbage. A weapon I already had twelve copies of.
"That's fine. That was the warm-up pull. Everyone knows the first pull is a sacrifice."
Second pull. Blue light again. Three-star. A different piece of garbage.
"Okay. Okay. The Lord tests those He loves. This is a test. The third pull is the real one. I can feel it."
Third pull. I closed my eyes. I tapped the screen. I opened one eye.
Purple light. Four-star. Not the five-star. Not the Crimson Lotus. A support character I would never use.
I stared at the ceiling.
"Why," I said, to God, to the ceiling, to the game developers, to the fundamental architecture of probability. "Why."
I must have fallen asleep. The variety show was still playing, the chicken box was still on the floor, and the hood had slipped down over my eyes. I was in that perfect state — the deep, boneless sleep of a man who had fulfilled his duties and earned his rest.
The knock came like a gunshot.
Three sharp raps. Pause. Two more. That was Maren's knock. I knew it the way animals know the sound of a predator approaching.
I didn't move. Maybe if I stayed perfectly still, she'd assume I wasn't home. Maybe she'd leave the documents at the door. Maybe —
The lock clicked. She had a key. I'd forgotten she had a key. I'd given her a key for emergencies, and she had redefined "emergency" to include any situation where I might be enjoying myself.
Footsteps. The door opening. A pause — the pause where she surveyed the damage. I could feel her eyes moving across the room: the chicken box, the chip bags, the tablet still playing, the gacha game still open on my phone, and me, curled up on the couch in a hoodie and sweatpants, hood cinched tight, a cheese sauce stain on my sleeve, dead to the world.
"Father Elias."
I didn't move.
"Father."
Nothing. I was a rock. I was a mountain. I was an immovable object of pure sloth.
I felt the blanket rip away first — one clean yank, like a magician pulling a tablecloth. Cold air hit my legs. I curled tighter, grabbing the couch cushion like a life raft.
"Five more minutes," I mumbled.
"You said that an hour ago. On a text I now realize you sent while unconscious."
Her hand found the back of my hood. She pulled — not gently, not roughly, but with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this before and had stopped feeling bad about it. The hood stretched. My head came with it. I slid halfway off the couch, arms still clutching the cushion, legs tangled in the hoodie's excess fabric, making a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper.
"Maren — Maren, this is assault on a member of the clergy —"
"Get up."
She released the hood. I flopped back onto the couch. She flicked my forehead. Not hard, but precise — right between the eyes, the way you'd reset a malfunctioning device.
My eyes snapped open. She was standing over me, arms crossed, parish budget folder tucked under one arm. Short brown hair, permanently tired expression, deacon's vestments pressed and clean. Twenty-three years old — two years older than me, technically, though she was my junior in rank. She wore the look of someone who had been assigned to manage a man younger than her and was not enjoying the irony.
"There's cheese sauce on your face," she said.
I wiped my cheek. She was right.
"There's also a chicken bone in your hood."
I reached back. She was right about that too.
She set the budget documents on the table. She sat down across from me. She was everything I was supposed to be, except she actually was it all the time.
"The parish finances are stable," she said, opening a folder. "Donations were up this month. The roof repair fund is at sixty percent. The children's program needs new supplies — I've itemized the costs here."
I nodded. I listened. I asked the right questions. This part was real too. I cared about the parish. I cared about the roof and the children's program and the budget. I just also cared about whether the Crimson Lotus banner would give me a five-star before it expired in four days.
"Father," Maren said, halfway through the supply list.
"Yes?"
"Is that cheese sauce on your collar?"
I looked down. There was, in fact, a small orange stain on the edge of my collar.
"Communion wine," I said.
"Communion wine is not orange."
"It was a special vintage."
She stared at me. I stared back. This was a battle of wills that happened at least twice a week, and the outcome was always the same: she would sigh, I would feel briefly guilty, and we would both move on.
She sighed.
I felt briefly guilty.
We moved on.
After she left, I changed back into the hoodie. I returned to the couch. I opened the tablet. The anime I'd been watching had a new episode — a cooking competition arc, my favorite kind. I pulled a blanket over my legs. I opened a new bag of chips — sour cream and onion, currently ranked third in my system, but making a strong case for second.
The evening light came through the window. The apartment was quiet. The city hummed outside, distant and alive, but in here it was just me, and the chips, and the screen, and the warmth of a day where I'd done my job and done it well and now got to be the version of myself that nobody else would ever understand.
I said my evening prayers in the hoodie, kneeling at the altar with chip dust on my fingers.
"Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for the parish. Thank you for Mrs. Calloway and Mr. Reeves and the baby with the strong grip. Thank you for fried chicken and for Maren, even though she threatens me. Please watch over the 7th District tonight. And please — I'm asking sincerely — the Crimson Lotus banner. Four days left. You know what's in my heart."
I made the sign of the cross.
I went back to the couch.
The anime was good. The chips were good. The night was quiet.
Tomorrow I'd be Father Elias again. But tonight, I was just me.
And that was enough.