Death to Power
Copyright© 2025 by TheSmartOne
Chapter 46: A Smile of Sorrow
Inside a beautiful church, a girl knelt in front of a statue.
But to call it merely beautiful would be an insult.
It was a stunning structure—a perfect blend of ancient architecture and modern construction, both divine and oppressive, sacred and suffocating. A place carved from reverence and something darker.
The walls were painted a dull, lifeless grey—a color so bland, so cold, so utterly wrong for a church that it felt like a mistake. Like a void. Like something that had been drained of soul.
But then again ... it all depended on what kind of church it was.
And what a funny question that was, really.
A church, after all, was supposed to be a place where people came to find peace. Where they could stand in the presence of their god and find clarity, comfort, and meaning.
That was what a church was meant to be.
So what, then, was the purpose of the Church of Sorrow?
‘Bunch of lunatics,’ Rea thought to herself, head bowed beneath the statue of a woman with a weeping mask and shadowed eyes.
Anyone looking at her now would think she was deep in prayer. That she was a loyal worshipper offering reverence to her goddess.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Rea was not a woman of faith.
She didn’t believe in gods simply because others did. She didn’t kneel for the unseen, didn’t pray to the unknown.
She believed in what she could see. In what she could understand.
Was that wrong?
It depended on the context.
But that wasn’t the point.
The point was—
‘How can this even be called a church? This is a damn masochist cult,’ Rea thought bitterly as she stood up, having finished her so-called morning prayer.
She began walking slowly through the halls.
And as she did, the air was split by screams.
“Aaahhhhhh—!”
“No ... no more! PLEASE!!”
Pain. Fear. Sorrow.
That was all you could hear in this place. That was all you could feel.
And what she saw...
Disturbing didn’t even begin to cover it.
You’d think all these people were here against their will.
But no.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
‘I don’t understand,’ Rea thought, gaze sharp. ‘How can you believe in something like this?’
‘How can you willingly subject yourself to pain and suffering just because some god said it was the path to salvation?’
She couldn’t grasp it.
And yet...
That wasn’t even the most disturbing thing about this place.
Because then—she saw her.
Rea froze.
An old woman stood ahead of her, dressed in the same grey garb as the others, her hair grey and long, her eyes just as grey—lifeless, bottomless.
She looked frail. Wrinkled skin, curved back, leaning heavily on a wooden cane inscribed with faint grey runes.
You’d think she was just a sweet, old grandmother.
But every time Rea saw her...
She shivered in fear.
And that was saying something—because Rea was someone who manipulated fear itself. And yet, in this old woman’s presence, a deep, instinctive dread bloomed inside her chest.
That alone was enough to set every mental alarm off.
The old woman turned her head.
And she smiled.
It was a smile Rea had seen before—and still couldn’t get used to.
A smile made entirely of sorrow.
“My child, Rea,” she said, voice as soft as paper.
Rea bowed her head immediately. “Mother Esmere,” she answered respectfully.
Esmere’s smile deepened. “You are always so respectful, my child. I like that. I like you.”
Rea offered a small, polite smile.