Agnostic By Default, Awakened By Design

Chapter Eight: The First Prayer

Somewhere between that moment and the weight of everything I had already lost…

I broke.

The door had slammed. My hope was gone. I couldn’t breathe right.

Everything inside me cracked wide open.

I remembered what Elijah used to tell me about God and prayer.

It echoed in my head like a whisper trying to cut through the panic.

I had never really prayed before—didn’t even believe in it.

But this wasn’t about belief anymore.

This was survival.

I tilted my head up toward the stained ceiling of that freezing cell, and with my voice shaking and tears choking every word, I cried out with everything I had left:

“Bruh… please—somebody, anybody! I just need to know what happened to Elijah!”

It wasn’t a prayer, not like I’d ever heard.

It was a scream. A demand. A wounded howl.

It came from somewhere deeper than language.

And the strange thing?

Something shifted.

Not in the room, but in me.

It felt like something heard me.

I’d been in jail before—more than once.

And never—not once—had I gotten a visit.

No money on my books. No one checking for me.

But not even thirty minutes later, the intercom cracked open.

“You got a visit. Ten minutes. Be ready.”

I just sat there.

A visit? From who? Why now?

I was in the hole. Wearing a turtle suit.

You don’t get visits when you’re invisible.

They gave me instructions.

“Take the stairs, go up the ramp, and you’ll be at Window 3.”

My legs barely worked as I walked.

When I got there, I saw him—Ace.

A street connection. Someone I never expected to see in that place.

There weren’t even phones, just a thick piece of glass with small holes for sound.

“Tab, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft.

“I came to tell you what happened to Elijah.

They pulled the plug. He didn’t make it.”

I stopped breathing.

Everything around me blurred, but the words stayed sharp.

I had just screamed for an answer—just begged to know.

And now I had it. Delivered through a man I would have never picked to carry it.

Ace said he’d drop a few dollars on my books, and then he left.

But I couldn’t move. I stayed right there, locked in that moment.

It didn’t fix anything.

But I knew something real had just happened.

That was the first time I realized something had truly shifted.

Something I couldn’t unsee, unfeel, or ignore.