was utterly transfixed by what she witnessed. The remarkable individual no longer just possessed an ordinary human charisma, but a divine magnetism. She squinted, gravitating closer to the screen, yet his eyes did not strain, they did not blink and she wept.
Not the result of watching the video, but the video itself. Jesse attempted to turn his head, yet remained solely focused on the video at hand. A bellowing voice emanated not from the speakers of the phone, but instead radiated around her entire presence.
Jesse’s ears pricked up, attempting to distinguish between her own sense of discombobulation and the syllables being uttered directly into her consciousness. “Take the word of the Lord Jesse, and you shall receive eternal salvation if you are to act in ordinance with my name”. Jesse didn’t shake his head in cynical disagreement but twitched and ebbed and flowed, until his entire person was standing, no longer viewing what was once on his device, overwhelmed to the point of numbness.
His eyes squinted not more, the blinding light that previously persisted dissipated, and he slumped back into his chair. The monotony of the day resumed and he scrambled to open his messages. All 32 had now disappeared, the one he needed to hear had already been received.
This story was submitted as part of the Oxford Pilot Phase of the Gen Z Role Models Project.
“was utterly transfixed by what she witnessed” (S127) © 2026 by The Gen Z Role Models Project is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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