The Plot Calls #29 : "Truth Inherited"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Micah Goss never cared for his uncle Elmer’s sermons. The old man ranted about “chosen bloodlines” and “protecting the land.” About God’s borders and righteous legacy.

But when Elmer vanished and the Chapel of the Clear Cross passed to Micah, a new hunger bloomed.

Land.

Micah didn’t lust for faith. He lusted for ownership. Property. Acreage. The quiet, intoxicating satisfaction of seeing his name on deeds.

Expanding his kingdom under the guise of expanding God’s made his legs quiver, and his mouth salivate. Destiny was his to manifest. It was in his ancestry. His DNA was hollow, inbred greed. Generations of people with hollow relationships, poor hygiene habits, and a self-righteous belief that power and ownership were synonymous.

It started small—the chapel lot, the adjacent field. Then came the abandoned farms. The forgotten parcels. The dying churches. Each purchase dressed as charity. Each acquisition baptized as ministry.

But the hunger never left.

It gnawed. Quiet. Constant. Unholy.

Micah's persistent desire became the song of his soul. A frequency that called out to something beyond the veil.

Then, he heard a whisper without a voice. It hummed with a vibration that spoke to Micah's heart.

The whisper led him to the old chapel garden—overgrown, wilted, waiting.

Beneath the withered roses, the soil pulsed. Black-violet. Alive. It was a corrupted plot of soil.

A porcelain hand reached from the earth. Open. Beautiful. Expectant.

Micah didn’t flinch. He offered the deed to his latest acquisition—a struggling mission in the next county.

Tha hand closed. The hand sank. The pact was made.

Micah grinned. Good things were coming, he thought.

The next day, two more properties fell into his lap. Soon, dozens. Hundreds.

Churches. Land. Influence.

It lasted for weeks.

The plot called. Micah answered. He earned.

Then, one day, slow yet sudden, Micah had a thought: no matter how many properties he had in his inventory, it was never enough.

He never felt fulfilled. The hunger didn't stop.

"Is this what I am? This greed?" he asked himself, washing his face.

Then, Micah saw it. His skin was pale. His reflection blurred. His eyes and cheeks sunk.

The soil still called. The hunger still grew.

One evening, frail, trembling, gaunt as a withered weed, Micah returned to the garden.

An Idle Man stood beside the soil. Pale. Hollow. Neither waiting nor expecting. Idle.

The porcelain hand resurfaced. Hungry.

Micah kelt over the plot. He gazed into the soil.

H’s trembling voice cracked beneath the weight of generations as he said: “Uncle was wrong.”

The Idle Man said nothing. Neither waitng nor expecting, it stood idle. Then, it pointed at the porcelain palm.

Micah put something in the hand.

Over the next few weeks, he was on autopilot, feeding the plot. Offering keys to his homes, keys to his cars, deeds, and phottos.

Eventually, he forgot why. Anything that mattered was laid over the plot or into the porcelain when it appeared.

And still, it was never enough. That didn't matter anymore. Micah had. Micah gave. Micah got. Micah offered. Repeat.

Something in Micah dissolved. His breath slowed. His limbs hollowed. His eyes dulled.

Then, on a fateful day, Micah offered contracts and blueprints for new churches, whispering and muttering to the plot.

Micah's public appearances dwindled as did his church atendess.

His name faded from deeds, from records, from memory.

Micah spent his days gazing into the plot, whispering as though he was out of air or had a black lung.

Then, the wind stilled. Something in Micah went silent. Hollow.

The Idle Man beside Micah shook his head. He touched his hair, and looked at his palms. He glanced at Micah, who knelt idle by the plot, and shrieked, then ran toward a nearby street.

Micah didn't look. He didn't blink. He didn't breath. He wasn't there.

Only an Idle Man remained—praying where Micah knelt, cloaked in black. Pale.

Neither waiting nor expecting. Idle.

The porcelain hand extended from the center of the plot. Frozen. Hungry.

Micah—no longer Micah, but an Idle Man—simply gazed into the soil.

His hollow lips parted, and he whispered, “The Plot Thickens.”

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