I don’t talk about Oved anymore. Not in the way the other women whisper about their husbands during grain-pounding or water-fetching. I used to. Before the silence. Before the dust.

When he first told me he’d “heard from the Lord,” I didn’t argue. You don’t question a man when he says God spoke to him — especially not in our village. I remember the way his eyes looked that morning. Not soft like they used to be. They were burning. Almost… haunted.

He kissed my forehead like he was already gone. Packed nothing but a goatskin and that cracked scroll he always carried. Said he was being “called to the wilderness.” Said it with a voice that wasn’t entirely his.

That was eleven moons ago.

People stopped asking about him after the third. My father told me to stop wearing his sash — that I was embarrassing the family. My sister said I should pretend he died. But I knew in my gut he wasn’t dead. Just… different.

Then, last week, the boy from Ashkelon came limping through the village with a story. He said he saw a man raving near the cliffs outside Zin. Said he was half-starved, muttering prophecy, carving strange things into the rocks with bloodied hands.

I didn’t want to believe it. But part of me already knew.

Oved wasn’t lost. He was searching for something. Or someone.

And the worst part?
I started hearing the same voice two nights ago.

It whispered the same word over and over while I slept.

“Come.”

At first, I tried to ignore it. Covered my ears, prayed louder, even slept outside on the cool stone hoping the wind would drown it out. But the voice didn’t come from the wind. It came from inside.

It didn’t feel evil. Just… urgent. Like something needed me, and the time was running out.

By the third night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up before sunrise, packed some dried lentils and figs, filled my water skin, and wrapped Oved’s old sash around my waist. My father saw me as I passed the goat pen. He didn’t stop me. He just looked away like he didn’t want to know.

I didn’t have a map. Just a feeling. The voice didn’t tell me where to go. It just kept saying “Come.” But every step I took into the dry land felt right. Like my feet already knew the way.

The first day wasn’t bad. Hot, sure, but I’d grown up in this land. I knew where to walk, when to rest, how to ration water. It was the second day that tested me.

I saw a vulture circling overhead. Then two more. I followed them with my eyes and spotted a small dark lump in the distance. My legs shook. I didn’t want it to be him. I ran anyway.

It was a sheep carcass. Nothing more. But seeing death like that — open, bloated, picked at — reminded me how real the danger was. And yet I kept going.

By the fourth night, I was blistered, dizzy, and barely holding myself together. I found a rock wall that shaded me from the moonlight and collapsed under it. I wasn’t even sure I was awake anymore.

That night, the voice changed. It wasn’t just “Come.” It said my name. Clearly. Soft, but so real it jerked me upright.

“Serah… come.”

I cried. Not from fear. From something else. I don’t even know how to explain it. I just knew I couldn’t turn back.

The next morning, I followed the cliffs east, the same direction the boy from Ashkelon had described. Around noon, I saw something move — slow and unsteady — near a cluster of jagged stones.

I thought it might be a goat. But as I got closer, I saw the figure crawling. Crawling.

It was him.

Oved.

Or… what was left of him.

He was thin. His beard tangled with dirt and dried blood. His robe hung in tatters, and his eyes—his eyes weren’t haunted anymore. They were empty.

He didn’t recognize me. He just kept murmuring something, scratching symbols into the dirt with trembling fingers.

I dropped to my knees and touched his shoulder. He flinched like I’d burned him. But then his gaze met mine and something flickered. A moment. A second of memory.

“Serah,” he whispered.

I nodded, tears running down my dust-covered cheeks. I tried to feed him water, but most of it just spilled down his chin. He clung to my wrist like I was a dream he’d been waiting for.

I built a small shade from the shawl I carried, gathered what little food I had left, and stayed beside him. For two days, he drifted in and out of lucidity. Sometimes he called out names I didn’t recognize. Other times, he wept and begged God to take the visions away.

On the third morning, he spoke clearly.

“I was never supposed to come back,” he said, voice hoarse but steady. “But He brought you.”

“What were you looking for?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the rising sun, like it held the answer.

“I wanted to hear Him again. To matter. To be used.”

I understood that hunger. The need to be chosen. To feel like your life had meaning. But I also saw what it had cost him.

“You were already enough,” I whispered. “To me.”

He closed his eyes and smiled — just for a second.

That night, Oved passed in his sleep.

There was no lightning, no voice from heaven, no parting sky. Just quiet. Stillness. Like the desert took him back.

I buried him beneath the stones. Used his own hands’ carvings as a marker.

And then I did something I never expected.

I stayed.

Not forever. Just for a little while.

Each morning, I sat where he used to sit. Prayed where he prayed. Looked at the same sunrise he had stared into while crying out to God.

And one morning, I finally heard it. A new word.

“Return.”

It wasn’t loud. But it was enough.

I made my way back home. Slower this time. With less fear. Less weight on my back.

When I reached the village, no one cheered. No one cried. They just stared, wide-eyed. I looked different, I knew that. Worn, yes — but lighter.

My father didn’t say a word. But he pressed a palm to my forehead and turned away quickly, wiping his cheek. My sister hugged me that night without asking a single question.

A few weeks later, the elders called for me. I thought they were going to scold me for leaving. But instead, they asked me to speak.

Not preach. Not claim prophecy. Just… tell the truth.

So I told them what I saw. What I felt. Not just about Oved, but about how easily we chase meaning outside of ourselves. How desperation can dress up as holiness.

And how sometimes, when someone walks away claiming it’s “God’s will,” it might just be fear. Or pride. Or pain they don’t know how to carry.

Oved wasn’t wicked. He was broken. And no voice from heaven could fix that for him. But love could’ve. If he’d let it.

I think about him every day. But not with anger. Not even with sadness.

He searched for God in the desert, and maybe — just maybe — I was sent to remind him he was never alone in the first place.

If you’re reading this and you’ve lost someone — not to death, but to distance, to obsession, to some mission they claimed mattered more than you — I hope you know it wasn’t your fault.

Sometimes the people we love choose the wilderness. But that doesn’t mean we’re not worth coming home to.

Hold on. Keep loving. Even from afar.

Because sometimes, the voice isn’t for them.

It’s for you.

To bring peace.
To bring healing.
To bring you back to yourself.

And when that moment comes, I hope you listen.

Because there’s something holy in surviving what others ran from.

And something sacred in returning with your heart still soft.