Brought to Your Knees

For today's story I mixed the Three Word Wednesday prompt with this prompt:

Happy Monday, everyone! Today's prompt comes from "Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writer's & Teachers."

"The Wedding Picture exercise can be an evocative one-page fiction assignment. The exercise is to ask students to color copy their own wedding photograph, that of their parents, or an anonymous wedding picture, and to write a one-page fiction inspired by the image."

I hope y'all enjoy the outcome.

It seemed fitting, Sarah thought, that they should end up on their knees. It was a place they were familiar with, having been brought there on numerous occasions throughout their life together. She knew the outcome wasn’t certain, that with God anything was possible, but Sarah believed evil was going to finally win.

“Forgive them, Father,” Sarah started to pray, but was cut off when the taller one hit her, knocking her over backward. She saw Paul strain against his bonds to get to her and tried to tell him she loved him, but her jaw no longer worked. She couldn’t even scream, but had to endure the agonizing pain in silence. 

Sarah remembered another time when she couldn’t talk to Paul, although that time it was all on them. They were the cause of the problems back then that had almost ended their relationship. Sarah had never regretted the sleepless nights spent blaming Paul for something out of his control more than she did in that moment. 

She came to believe the doctor’s, and knew that Melissa would still have died, even if Paul had gotten home on time, but it had taken her way too long. Sarah knew she wasted months of their lives that could have been spent growing closer, pushing him away. Paul had forgiven her, after he forgave himself, and they worked their way back to each other. 

They had both spent hours on their knees thanking God for saving their marriage, and later, Sarah remembered her knees being bruised from all the kneeling during her second pregnancy. Paul was right there beside her, holding her hand. She wished she could hold his hand again.

The intruders had made sure that wasn’t possible from the start. They rang the doorbell, and when Paul answered, burst through the door so quickly they knocked him down. Before he could get up, the smaller man hit him over the head with the butt of a rifle. Sarah screamed and ran to Paul’s side, begging the men to take whatever they wanted and just leave. Little did she know that what they wanted was everything.

As far as Sarah could tell, there was no reason for the attack. She tried to cling to the small hope that a neighbor had heard her screams earlier, but as the night wore on, it became harder, and finally, there was no hope left. 

Both Sarah and Paul watched the strangers murmur to each other and then look their way. Paul inched closer to Sarah and she pushed her head into his shoulder and cried. When they heard the hammer cock, Sarah raised her head and kissed Paul one last time.