Days passed. The three messengers were met with the same refrain: “You are only men like us. The Most Gracious would not send a man—He would send an army of angels!”
“Stomp him!” someone shouted.
Some wept. Some hardened further. But that night, no one could sleep. The silence was louder than any sermon. Because the man from the farthest part of the city had spoken, and the city had killed him. Yet he was more alive than any of them.
But he did not fall dead. As his soul rose, the earth shook with a single, merciful tremor—not of destruction, but of unveiling. The sky split, and a voice that was not a voice said: Enter Paradise.
Finally, the elders gathered at the temple of the chief idol, a towering figure of hammered gold. “These three are corrupting our youth,” the high priest hissed. “Stone them. Let it be a lesson.”
The high priest’s face twisted. “You, a nobody, dare to shame our gods?”
