{We open to a flickering candle burning low atop a weathered altar. The light casts ghostly shadows across cracked stone walls. Graves stands alone in his chapel, his black robes hanging like mourning veils. The only sound is his breath.}
“Ashes to ashes… dust to dust.”
{He speaks softly at first, like a man reading last rites.}
“So goes the ancient rite, the covenant of the end and now it tolls for you, Harold.”
{He raises his eyes to the heavens, the fire reflecting in his gaze.}
“You emerged from Death Row a specter, a man scraped from the jaws of the grave. But I’ve seen what returns from the ashes not rebirth… not salvation… only wrath. You came back, not for redemption, but retribution and I ask you, whose blood will cleanse the stains on your hands? Who among the living is holy enough to absolve the sins that carried you into the fire?”
{Graves walks slowly, his boots echoing like bells of a funeral procession.}
“They call you a ghost, a shadow… but I call you by your true name: Forsaken. You were once the hand of Zeus, his hammer, his silence in the dark. But now, stripped of your chains, cast into the wild—you think vengeance makes you righteous. You think pain makes you pure.”
{Graves reaches the pulpit and places his hands on the ancient wood.}
“But pain does not save you, Harold. Pain does not redeem. Pain only reminds you that you still breathe.”
{His voice tightens, sharp and chiseled.}
“And I am here to take that breath away. At Warzone, there will be no judgment. That came long ago. What awaits you now is the burial. The procession. The rite. Because when you stepped back into Arcadia, you did not return to life. You stepped into your own grave, freshly dug and patient.”
{He looks down solemnly.}
“They ask what you’ve become. They ask if you’ve changed. But I do not ask. I know. The flame has not purified you, it has hollowed you and what stands before me now is not a man… but kindling.”
{He kneels before the altar and draws a cross across his chest.}
“This is your funeral, Harold and I—Reverend Ezekiel Graves—am your final sermon.”
{He stands, extending a hand to the empty chapel.}
“The Disciples shall carry your coffin. The candles shall mourn you and the fire…the fire will make you clean.”
{The camera begins to pull back.}
“Ashes to ashes, Harold. Dust to dust. You don’t rise from death. You don’t cheat the fire. You simply burn slower.”
{Fade to black. One last whisper beneath the breath.}
“Amen.”