Father Gabriel knew that if he did not get out, he would surely burn. How Ironic, he thought, that I will burn in the house of God, just as I will burn in the house of Luther. He should have been more frightened, he knew that. After all, the end of his life just meant the beginning of his eternal suffering. Still, as the fire roared and licked the old oak of the church, all he felt was drained. Gabriel had spent his whole life devoting himself to God. Trying to live up to God’s expectations. Never missing a day of Sunday church. Preaching and doing just about everything to guarantee is access to Heaven. He felt genuinely hopeless, for he knew it had all been for nothing.
It was getting hard to breath now, every inhale felt like the fire had taken up residence in his lungs. It was when tears started to fall down his cheeks and the coughing stared deep in his lungs that he heard it, very faint at first, but it was there. A voice. Still, Gabriel continued to crouch on the floor, flooded with grieve, sadness, hopelessness. The voice began to become louder, clearer.
“Is anybody in here? I can help you!”, the voice rang out.
It was too much, the smoke, the heat.
“I’m here,” Father Gabriel, croaked out, his throat feeling like sandpaper.
The voice boomed throughout the slowly disintegrating building, “I hear you! Keep on calling out,“
So that's what Gabriel did until, after what seemed like forever, he was hoisted onto strong shoulders and carried out of the flaming church.
It was after Gabriel had been tended to that he recognized the firefighter that had saved him. Recognizing the firefighter had made Father Gabriel's already weak lungs fight for air and his heart to sputter close to a stop. It was the man, the father, of the two children that had died in a car accident two weeks prior. The car accident that Father Gabriel had caused. The same accident that ripped his ticket into heaven to shreds. When the firefighter