In the end, the shape of your life comes down to two questions.

What do you want?

And what are you willing to sacrifice for it?

Weak ambition will temper the impact of dark desires,

while wholehearted devotion to bright purposes

leaves the world enriched.

But a person who wants evil and will give anything to get it, there's will be a bleak tale indeed.

This is a story about out-of-control desire and its common bedfellow self-delusion.

It's a story about truth in all of its magnetic, repulsive glory.

And it's a story about a God who assures us anything we want more than him is destined to become a curse.

I'm Justin Gerhardt.

Welcome to Holy Ghost Stories.

Music I'm going to be. I'm gonnae. A crimson creek traces its way across the soil, running out from a man's cratered head.

The liquid draws a line in the sand.

Stones lie scattered around the body, each about the size of a fist, some the exact size

of the depressions on the motionless skull beside them.

A terrible way to meet your end, being stoned to death.

Worse when you're guiltless, framed by a powerful person who wants what you have.

The river of fresh blood runs red, but as gravity coaxes it onward, a tongue interrupts the flow, paints itself scarlet, retreats into a hungry mouth, returns.

The tongue belongs to a dog. The dog belongs to a pack.

The pack consumes the blood of Nebath.

Ahab's teeth clench, his lip curled into a snarl as he watches Elijah approach, interrupting

...