SINNERS

SINNERS

CHAPTER FIVE: THE INTERVENTION

Bucky BonAires stood tall on the pulpit, towering over the crowd like a grim sentinel.

“God will provide!”
“God will provide!”
“God will provide!”

His voice cracked as he thundered the words, sweat rolling in heavy beads down his brow, soaking his black suit until it clung to him like a second skin. The makeshift tent—pitched hastily after the church fire—reeked of dust, smoke, and human breath. Heat pressed down from the canvas roof, suffocating, yet his congregation sat rapt, their faces upturned, eyes blazing with fanatical light.

Bucky’s own eyes glowed faintly red in the half-dark, flickering like embers caught in a storm. He swayed as he preached, hair plastered to his forehead, voice rising and breaking into a guttural rasp. Applause thundered after every word, not of admiration but of hunger, of blind belief.

From the shadows, his clergymen appeared, dragging heavy wooden crates that thudded against the pulpit floor. The noise silenced the crowd. With a crowbar, Bucky ripped one open. Inside gleamed an arsenal: AK-47s, AR-15s, pistols, grenades—all polished black, glistening like forbidden relics.

“And now—your gifts from God!” he declared, his words cutting the air like steel.

The congregation erupted, tears streaming, hands raised in praise. They lined up obediently, reverent, trembling with anticipation. Each weapon passed into their hands was received like holy communion. Bucky fired a rifle skyward; deafening cracks ripped through the canvas ceiling, and smoke poured through the air, mingling with the sharp tang of gunpowder. The crowd roared.

“Today God will test us,” Bucky bellowed. “We will cleanse this Earth of filth and deliver them to the Almighty!”

They marched.

The streets of Vaughan erupted into chaos. Pedestrians froze at the sight of the armed horde spilling from the church grounds, their chants rising like war drums. Then came the first gunshots. Glass shattered. A woman holding groceries collapsed in a spray of blood, her child screaming beside her. Men dove for cover, pulling strangers with them, while others froze, paralyzed by disbelief.

The cult moved like locusts. They fired into houses, into cars, into bodies that begged for mercy. Bucky strode at the front, his rifle spitting fire, his voice louder than the screams.

“This is spiritual cleansing!” he shouted, his face twisted with both fury and ecstasy.

Parents shielded their children with their bodies, but bullets found them anyway. A teenager tried to drag his younger sister into an alley; both fell before they reached it. An old man dropped to his knees, praying aloud, but his voice was drowned by the staccato crack of rifles.

The air stank of iron and smoke. Blood ran in rivulets along the gutters, carrying with it fragments of clothing, shoes, and broken toys. Vaughan was drowning in its own cries.

Then came the National Guard. Tanks rumbled onto the streets, their treads crushing glass and debris. Loudspeakers blared warnings:

“Lay down your weapons! This is your final warning!”

But Bucky’s congregation only laughed, their eyes vacant, hollow, yet burning with faith. They raised their rifles high and opened fire.

The soldiers retaliated, but to their horror, bullets whizzed past the cultists as though deflected by invisible hands. One soldier screamed, firing again and again, but the rounds tore into brick walls instead of flesh.

“They’re untouchable!” someone shouted from the Guard’s line. Panic spread among trained men who had never seen such madness.

“Rid this Earth of pestilence!” Bucky thundered, his voice echoing like a curse.

Then—silence.

The world froze. Soldiers, civilians, cultists—all stilled mid-motion. Bullets hung suspended in the air, smoke curled upward and stopped, even the tanks stood frozen in place. Bucky alone moved.

He blinked, and the world burned.

Flames licked his skin. Heat seared his flesh, sweat pouring in torrents, lungs choking on ash. Towers rose around him—towers of souls, writhing, screaming, reaching out with skeletal hands.

“God help me,” Bucky whispered, his voice breaking.

“God cannot hear you down here.”

The voice was vast, heavy, and cruel. Out of the fire, a throne of skulls rose. Upon it sat a figure—half man, half beast—its body wreathed in mist, its face a blur of horns and fire. Its eyes glowed like molten rock.

“You have been a faithful soldier,” it said, its words dripping with scorn.

“I do not serve you!” Bucky cried. “I serve the true and vengeful God!”

The beast laughed, a sound like collapsing stone.
“Look around, preacher. Where is your God? Has He answered your calls? Has He stopped the fire? Has He spared these souls?”

Bucky’s lips trembled. His faith, so unshakable, quivered now like a candle in the wind. “No… no, I do not believe you.”

“You have always served me,” the figure whispered, rising to its full, monstrous height. “Did you not know?”

It raised a clawed hand, dripping with fire.
“I hereby renounce your power.”

The words struck like a hammer.

The vision shattered.

Bucky gasped, feeling the world rush back—the roar of gunfire, the wails of the dying. But his body betrayed him. Bullets tore through his chest, one after another, ripping open his torso. Blood sprayed the ground, dark and hot, pooling beneath him. His eyes—once burning with unholy fire—dimmed into emptiness.

As medics rushed forward, dragging his limp frame onto a stretcher, the cult faltered. Some screamed his name, others dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. A few fought on blindly, their faith unbroken even in the face of death. But the spell was broken. The tide turned.

Bucky BonAires—the prophet of destruction—lay lifeless, his mouth still open as though trying to form one last sermon. The guns fell silent. Vaughan’s streets echoed only with sobs, the hiss of burning wreckage, and the whispers of the dying.

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