Was There No Holy One? The Plague eats the lamb #9

The mosques stood tall, their minarets piercing the heavens,  

but the call to prayer could not silence the wails of the dying.  

The synagogues, with their sacred scrolls, trembled in candlelight,  

yet not even the Torah could script salvation in ink divine.  

The saints knelt in cathedrals, their rosaries clutched like lifelines,  

but beads of prayer unraveled, spilling into the dust.  

The imams whispered the names of the merciful,  

but mercy turned its face away.  

And the children—oh, the children!  

Not even their innocence was a sanctuary,  

for the plague did not pause at their laughter,  

nor did it bow before the softness of their skin.  

They fell like autumn leaves, breath stolen mid-giggle,  

cradled by the cold arms of the night.  

Blood smeared the doorposts, a desperate cry for clemency,  

but the wind carried no angel of exemption.  

No shadow passed over, no hand of God stayed the slaughter.  

The river swelled red, thick as prophecy fulfilled.  

The final plague came like a priest at the altar,  

lifting its blade with solemn precision.  

The firstborn fell, as if the stars themselves had collapsed,  

and their blood ran like that of a sacrificial lamb.  

Was there no holy one?  

No voice to rise above the silence?  

No prophet to part the darkness before it swallowed the land?  

Before the tenth and final plague passed through,  

why was there no warning,  

before they became the offering upon an altar unseen?