If you ever found yourself in “Saved & Slaying,” you’d think you’d stumbled onto a digital revival. The group chat’s icon was a gold cross overlaid with sparkles and the occasional fire emoji. Twelve people, all supposedly tight with Jesus, but on Sundays their halos looked suspiciously like ring lights.

Tom and Stacy were the influencers of the crew. Tom had a closet full of designer sneakers, always posing with his phone angled just right, while Stacy’s wardrobe could have fueled a thrift store for a year. They looked picture-perfect, the couple everyone envied, but nobody really liked. Their captions were scripture, but their DMs were pure hustle—Tom flipping stolen goods, Stacy swapping authenticity for likes.

Sasha was the opposite: earnest, almost painfully so. She’d pop in with “Good morning, saints!” and drop a prayer request before breakfast. She ran the group’s weekly Bible trivia, always winning, always out-praying everyone. If you’d asked anyone who the real Christian was, they’d point to Sasha, even as she hovered at the edge of every inside joke.

The rest of the chat was a carousel of personalities:

Marcus, the ex choirboy turned crypto bro;

Deja, who never met a selfie she didn’t like;

Mikal and Josh, the twins who answered every question with a meme;

Auntie Pam, who only posted chain prayers and warnings about “the enemy;”

Bri, the quiet one who never left the group but never said much;

and Darius—the beautiful one.

Darius was the kind of man who could make a pastor’s wife blush. He was tall, caramel-skinned, with a voice that made even “Happy Sabbath!” sound like a pickup line. If there was a group hangout, Darius was there, always late, always laughing, always flirting. The only person he never seemed to notice was Sasha, who loved him loudly, obsessively, with a sort of tragic, puppyish devotion.

Then one Saturday, Darius vanished. He stopped replying to texts. His Snapchat streaks died. Stacy was the first to notice, and soon the group chat exploded.

“Did Darius get snatched by the Lord?” Marcus joked.
“He probably eloped with temptation,” Josh replied.
Sasha replied with a single, cryptic heart emoji.

Days passed, rumors spread. Tom posted a boomerang of himself and Stacy at a new club—anything to change the subject. But Bri, whose silence was legendary, broke it with three words: “I’m calling cops.”

When the police showed up at Sasha’s apartment, they found Darius—hungry, shaken, but alive. He’d been lured over for “prayer and fasting,” only to end up locked in Sasha’s spare room, surrounded by scented candles, Psalms written on the mirror in lipstick, and a playlist titled “Godly Seduction.”

The group chat was never the same. Sasha was gone, and everyone pretended they hadn’t missed the red flags. Tom and Stacy posted a selfie from church that Sunday, all white teeth and filtered light, with the caption: “Storms make us stronger. #faith #family #forgiven.” The group chat, “Saved & Slaying,” still exists, but it’s mostly memes and unanswered prayers now—a digital shrine to secrets and self-delusion.

A Poem for the Group Chat Sinners

We prayed for blessings, posted grace,
But hid our secrets, masked our face.
Our halos bent, our filters bright,
We sinned in silence, typed in spite.

A holy chat, or so we claimed,
But lust and pride can’t be contained.
Saints and sinners, all alike—
Confessions lost in late-night likes.

So heed this tale, ye group chat crew:
The devil’s closer than you knew.
For even those who pray the loudest,
Can harbor hearts that beat the foulest.

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