[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-517056-105":59,"doc-detail-517056-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","the-last-church-graham-mcneill-midnight-services","The Last Church - Graham McNeill - Midnight Services","","Midnight services once drew people to a sanctuary called the Church of the Lightning Stone, but decades of war and ridicule have left it nearly empty. Uriah Olathaire, the remaining caretaker, moves through his cold, candlelit church preparing for prayer during a storm while fearing a silent, tarnished clock tied to doomsday. Recalling past battles, lost timepieces, and the collapse of empires, he senses that something momentous is near.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":10,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-last-church-graham-mcneill-midnight-services/517056/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-last-church-graham-mcneill-midnight-services/517056.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Riley","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-23","2026-10-07",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why was the midnight service once popular?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Fear of the darkness drove people to seek sanctuary when daylight could not. Uriah’s promises of a benign divinity drew them to the midnight service.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What object dominates the altar during the service?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"A broken timepiece of tarnished bronze with a cracked face sits among unlit candles, and Uriah’s fear centers on its long-silent fate and possible chimes.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the clock’s origin and curse suggest?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Uriah stole it from an eccentric craftsman who claimed it was counting down to doomsday and would chime at mankind’s end, a dread Uriah still carries.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},517056,1791404729,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":8,"category_name":10,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":41,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},1374391975076,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/14000253ca4ec9f6853?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1783305029341752051","THE LAST CHURCH  \nGraham McNeill  \nMIDNIGHT SERVICES HAD once been crowded at the Church of the Lightning Stone. Fear of the darkness had drawn people in search of sanctuary in a way the daylight could not. For as long as anyone could remember, the dark had been a time of blood, a time when raiders attacked, monstrous engines descended on wings of fire and the violence of the warlike thunder giants was fiercest.  \nUriah Olathaire remembered seeing an army of those giants as it marched to battle, when he had been little more than a child. Though seven decades had passed since then, Uriah could picture them as though it were yesterday: towering brutes who carried swords of caged lightning and were clad in plumed helmets and burnished plate the colour of a winter sunset.  \nBut most of all, he remembered the terrible magnificence of their awesome, unstoppable power.  \nNations and rulers had been swept away in the dreadful wars these giants made, entire armies drowned in blood as they clashed in battles the likes of which had not been seen since the earliest ages of the world.  \nNow the fighting was over, the grand architect of this last world war emerging from the host of toppled despots, ethnarchs and tyrants to stand triumphant on a world made barren by conflict.  \nAn end to war should have been a wondrous thing, but the thought gave Uriah no comfort as he shuffled along the nave of his empty church. He carried a flickering taper, the small flame wavering in the cold wind sighing through the cracks in the stonework and the ancient timbers of the great doors to the narthex.  \nYes, the midnight service had once been popular, but few now dared come to his church, such was the ridicule and scorn heaped upon them. Changed days from the beginning of the war, when fearful people had sought comfort in his promises of a benign divinity watching over them.  \nHe held his gnarled claw of a hand around the fragile flame as he made his way towards the altar, fearful that this last illumination would be snuffed out if his concentration slipped even a little bit. Lightning flashed outside, imparting a momentary electric glow to the stained-glass windows of the church. Uriah wondered if any of his last remaining parishioners would brave the storm to pray and sing with him.  \nThe cold slipped invisibly into his bones like an unwelcome guest and  \nhe felt something singular about this night, as though something of great import were happening, but he couldn't grasp it. He shook off the sensation ashe reached the altar and ascended the five steps.  \nAt the centre of the altar sat a broken timepiece of tarnished bronze with a cracked glass face, and a thick, leather-bound book surrounded by six unlit candles. Uriah carefully applied the taper to each candle, gradually bringing forth a welcome light to the church.  \nAside from the magnificence of the ceiling, the interior of his church was relatively plain and in no way exceptional: a long nave flanked by simple timber pews and which was crossed by a transept that led to a curtained-off chancel. Upper cloisters could be reached via stairs in the north and south transepts, and a wide narthex provided a gallery prior to a visitor entering the church itself.  \nAs the light grew, Uriah smiled with grim humour as the light shone upon the ebony face of the bronze timepiece. Though the glass face was cracked, the delicate hands were unscathed, fashioned from gold with inlaid mother-of-pearl. The clock's internal mechanisms were visible through a glass window near its base, toothed cogs that never turned and copper pendulums that never swung.  \nUriah had travelled the globe extensively as a feckless youth, and had stolen the clock from an eccentric craftsman who lived in a silver palace in the mountains of Europa. The palace had been filled with thousands of bizarre timepieces, but it was gone now, destroyed in one of the many battles that swept across the continent as grand armies fought without care for the","cbCaimyyuaxzI19J","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimyyuaxzI19J","pdf",271759,"English","# Setting and decline of the last church\n## Uriah’s preparations and the storm\n## The broken clock and its ominous curse\n# The church’s isolation in a changed world\n## Memories of war and lost timepieces\n## Faint hope among remaining parishioners","[{\"question\":\"Why was the midnight service once popular?\",\"answer\":\"Fear of the darkness drove people to seek sanctuary when daylight could not. Uriah’s promises of a benign divinity drew them to the midnight service.\"},{\"question\":\"What object dominates the altar during the service?\",\"answer\":\"A broken timepiece of tarnished bronze with a cracked face sits among unlit candles, and Uriah’s fear centers on its long-silent fate and possible chimes.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the clock’s origin and curse suggest?\",\"answer\":\"Uriah stole it from an eccentric craftsman who claimed it was counting down to doomsday and would chime at mankind’s end, a dread Uriah still carries.\"}]","The Last Church - Graham McNeill - Midnight Services | PDF",1791334895,46]