)
[Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/photos/search/no%20salvation/)
The preacher continued to promise it. Every Sunday same sermon with different words: salvation is coming, salvation is here, salvation is yours if you just believe hard enough, pray long enough, sacrifice the right things on the right altar.
She waited for her. Stood bent until her legs were numb. Prayed until the words lost meaning, she started to create sounds her lips made by rote. Tithed funds she lacked. She confessed crimes she wasn't sure counted as sins. Did everything the handbook instructed to do?
There was no salvation.
No instant when everything clicks into place and from oneself, from your situation, from the unrelenting mundanity of living in a hurting body in a world that doesn't care, you are saved.
No salvation means either you save yourself or you are not saved. Means the cavalry will not be coming. Means that the rock bottom everyone discusses is only that and you can stay there or claw your way up with only your own bloody nails.