by David Beers
David nodded. “Yes.”
Rhett walked across the sand and without another word, wrapped David in his arms.
David slowly embraced his friend, though not feeling comfortable as he did it. It wasn’t natural to him, to touch, to show affection like this. He and Rhett had never hugged like this before, but yet Rhett wasn’t letting go.
“I thought you were dead,” he said, his voice full of pain.
“I’m not.” David pulled back some, placing his hands on Rhett’s shoulders. “Where’s Christine?”
“She’s lying down in the back. She’s been going in and out of consciousness, but she’s improving.” Rhett dropped his eyes to the sand. “They really hurt her.”
David nodded, looking to the man behind Rhett. “He’s one of ours?”
“Yes. It’s … The whole damned thing is complicated,” he said, laughing and reaching up to wipe away his tears. “The woman. I don’t even know where to start.”
David let him go and stepped to the side. He looked at the woman sitting in the front. “You can get out.”
Her skin was whiter than bone. The transport door opened and he watched her step outside, her hands jittering. She didn’t look at him but quickly stepped next to the other stranger. David didn’t understand why she would go to him, not if the stranger carried the Blood, but he wasn’t concerned.
“Rebecca,” David called across the short space. “Don’t you want to see your brother?”
A second passed, and then she stood inside the ship. She turned around and faced the door as it opened.
There was nothing separating them now, and David looked at her, knowing she had betrayed him. She was the one who killed Stellan. She was the one who nearly ended the Unformed’s Union.
David’s eyes lit, and gray webs sparked from them. They raced across the sandy beach like horizontal lightening, wrapping around her with a hungriness that resembled animals. She barely had time to open her mouth, let alone make noise.
David stared on with blazing eyes as the web wrapped her thick in its gray cocoon. Rebecca could no longer be seen from within the shell he’d created. David nodded and the static coffin fell over. His eyes went silent and he turned back to Rhett.
“I’ll deal with her tonight. We should talk first.”
Rhett nodded. David walked across the sand, noticing the woman look away as he did—not even wanting to make eye contact with him. Yes, she’d been there. She’d witnessed him destroy an entire army. Now she could witness him do two things, care for those he loved, and kill his sister.
David passed by Rebecca lying unseen beneath his static gray. He went to the back of the transport, bent down, and picked up Christine.
It’s him, Rhett thought. It really is.
He had to tell himself that over and over, because his mind refused to believe it. It’d only been a few weeks, but Rhett had believed it so fully that now it seemed … well, like it couldn’t be true. David couldn’t be alive.
Yet all Rhett had to do was look up, and he’d be there, the Prophet.
Rebecca was back on the beach, the gray static sure to protect her from any poaching animals, though Rhett couldn’t care less if they clawed her eyes out.
David had taken them a few hundred yards from the shore. He’d managed to clear out brush and bramble—clearly with his static, as the ground and surrounding shrubbery looked burnt; he’d created a little fire pit and a place for them to sit, and sleep if need be.
He lay Christine down first, then knelt beside her. Rhett watched as his Prophet touched her temple and then closed his own eyes. Rhett saw them light up beneath his eyelids.
David opened his eyes.
She was staring back at David.
Neither of them said anything as they stared at each other. After a moment, Christine shook her head weakly, tears coating her eyes.
“No,” she said. “No…”
David only smiled.
“Am I dead?” she asked, but there was no smile on her face. She was serious, unable to believe.
“You’re not dead,” Rhett said. “He’s real. It’s all real.”
Christine, in a gesture he’d never seen from her before, reached up and took hold of David’s neck. She pulled him down and hugged him as tightly as she could. Rhett had felt the awkwardness when he had done the same, and now he witnessed it from a few feet off. David simply didn’t like physical touch, and Rhett smiled as he was forced to endure it for the second time in a day.
Finally, Christine let go and David sat back up, doing his best to not show how uncomfortable the act had made him.
“I want you to sleep some more,” he told her.
“No.” She shook her head.
David nodded, reaching down with his fingers again and touching her temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up.” His eyes sparked for only a moment, and Christine’s closed, her breathing relaxing immediately.
Rhett understood that if anyone else had even attempted something similar on Christine, when she awoke, whoever had done it might not live to see another morning. None of that mattered with David, though. He was back, and things would change now. They would win.
He looked over to Rhett.
“What do we do?” Rhett asked.
“Not yet. When she wakes, we’ll talk.”
“You’re kidding me? I have no idea what’s happening and now I have to wait longer?”
“We need to deal with them,” David said, glancing up and to the beach where the two strangers stood. “What’s their story?”
“The man’s name is Reinheld. Manor Reinheld. He’s one of ours. From the best I can gather, he became romantic with the woman.” Rhett stopped and looked away from the two, back at David. “How much do you know about what Rebecca did?”
“Only that she’s the traitor.”
Rhett nodded and looked down at the dead fire pit, black ashes from wood burned the night before.
“That man over there,” Rhett said, not looking up. “He told Christine about those ships. The ones nobody saw. The ones that shot you. Christine told Rebecca about them, and ….”
Rhett said nothing else. There wasn’t anything he could say, because those few sentences covered everything.
“The woman, then? What role does she play besides sleeping with Reinheld?” David spoke as if he hadn’t just heard how his sister attempted his execution.
“I don’t really know. She’s the reason we escaped, though. She came to Rebecca and me, told us what we were going to do, and then planned the whole thing. We would have died if not for you, but she would have died right beside us … She hasn’t said much since finding out we were coming to you.”
“Has she communicated with the True Faith? Do you know?”
Rhett shook his head. “I didn’t see her nanotech light up, but I can’t say for sure. I mean, though, she did just plan and execute the escape of highly valuable prisoners. I don’t think the True Faith is going to have much to do with her anymore.”
“Alright,” David said and stood up. He walked around the fire, Rhett standing up to follow. They walked down to the beach.
“You know who I am,” David said.
It wasn’t a question, but both newcomers nodded.
“You’ve taken the Blood, and there’s no untaking it, you understand?” he asked the man.
Reinheld nodded.
“I’m David Hollowborne,” he said, extending his hand in a custom that had somehow survived millennia.
Reinheld stepped forward and shook it. “I’m … I’m more than honored.”
“You’re one of us,” David said, and Rhett saw the magnetism working. Not the gray from his eyes, but the light from his life. He might not like hugging, but the man always made people feel like they were the only ones alive, the only person that mattered in the entire world.
Rhett didn’t think Reinheld realized what he was doing as he walked over to David’s side, releasing his hand and then looking back to Brinson.
David turned his focus on her.
“You can either take the Blood or deal with the coming storm. The decision is yours.”
The woman stepped back, looking like it was involuntary. She shook her head.
David’s eyes grayed over, static filling them. “Okay.” Webs shot out across the empty space—
“NO!”
The static webs stopped, pausing in midair.
“Don’t, please,” Reinheld said. “Don’t hurt her.”
David turned his head, the static lines still halted in their spill from his eyes. He said nothing, only stared at the man, and Manor Reinheld finally understood what Rhett had for years.
David was hard. He was cruel. There was love in him, but there was a ruthless anger that drove him. David was the Prophet, and death was as much a part of him as life.
“She’ll take the Blood. Give her time. She will.” Reinheld’s tongue was nearly stumbling over his words, and still David stared without flinching. “She saved us. She gave up Corinth, her life in the True Faith, everything because she’s got potential. She’s got potential to believe in the truth. She’ll take the Blood. I … I give you my word.”
Rhett had never seen anything like this in his life, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. A man so in love with an infidel that he promised the Prophet he’d convert her. Rhett felt more interest in David’s reaction than any actual result.
The moment felt like it might not end, David staring with gray, expressionless eyes as if seeing some new kind of insect. Something strange and not of this world.
“And if she doesn’t?” David finally asked. “Will you take her place?”
Reinheld looked to the woman and Rhett saw the struggle inside him. Giving his own life for an infidel, someone not of the Blood; it was something Rhett didn’t understand, nor would he ever want to. If you were not of David, of the Unformed, then you were not worthy of thought, let alone love.
Reinheld nodded.
David stared for a second longer and then the gray in his eyes died. He turned back to the woman. “Until she takes the Blood, she stays out here with my sister. Manor, right? You’re free to move about as you want, but remember what you agreed to. She takes the Blood or you die with her.”
David didn’t spare a glance as he walked back up the shore. Rhett watched the two of them for a second and then followed his leader, not caring in the slightest what they chose. All that mattered to Rhett Scoble was the man in front of him, and the course he chose.
Born again, night was at full strength. The moon shone down through the branches and leaves, the wind rolling up from the beach. Insects chirped, making themselves known to possible mates throughout the forest. In front of Rhett, a fire burned. The smoke from the wood filled his nose and the chill from the beach’s wind caused him to wrap his arms around himself. There were no blankets, no extra clothing. They had only themselves, but that was more than any of them had a week ago.
Christine was awake, and it wasn’t just the firelight that made her skin look darker. She was looking better after only a few hours around David, and only a fool would say it wasn’t due to him.
Manor had come to the fire a few minutes ago, though Brinson was still down by the beach. He didn’t look at anyone, only sat and stared into the flames.
David looked at him for a long minute before speaking. “You’re the one who sent word about the ships that were coming to attack me?”
Manor nodded, his mouth closed.
“And you got that information from her?”
Another nod.
“Then I trust you. You’ve taken my Blood and you tried to save my life. It’s the only reason I allowed her to live. When the time comes, though, I will make you own up to your agreement.”
Manor said nothing, only stared into the flickering fire.
David looked back to Rhett and Christine. “Things have … changed.”
Rhett didn’t like the sound of the last word. It held a sadness to it that Rhett wasn’t used to hearing from David.
“I’m not talking about Rebecca. I will deal with her shortly. I’m meaning for us, and our revolution.” He looked up, the fire’s glow reflecting in his eyes. “I should have died. I think … perhaps I did in a way. It’s not really important how I survived, only what happened in between my fall and rise.”
He found the fire and grew quiet for a minute or so. Rhett wasn’t going to rush him. He wanted to know, desperately so, but something about this felt … wrong, and he didn’t know why. It should have been a time for celebration and joy, with David returned. Even Rebecca’s treachery couldn’t diminish what was happening. The Unformed would come soon.
Yet, Rhett felt no joy, no reason to celebrate when David spoke.
“Before, I couldn’t have come to you like that. Not before I fell. My powers were limited only to me. I couldn’t act through other people.”
Rhett nodded.
“Let me start with what I saw, and then I’ll tell you what’s happening, and what’s to come.”
Under Water
The Prophet breathed in and gray static filled his lungs. His eyes were wide, shock coursing through his body and mind. The static that he had used much of his life, the static that had protected his life, now did its best to give him life.
Sea creatures from long miles away swam within 100 feet of him, all gazing at the bright light and knowing in their dim brains that something was special about this beast.
The gray static didn’t give his lungs oxygen as he sucked in, but instead gave him the only possible thing that could save him.
It gave him the Unformed.
The Prophet saw nothing of the world around him; he saw the Unformed fully. He wasn’t at the Beyond, not staring at the universe as it raced forward into the Unformed’s habitat. The gray static had brought him to the Unformed, just as it had the others like him at the end of their lives.
The Prophet, perhaps the last Prophet, was being given a choice.
The creature was huge in a way that he hadn’t truly understood before. Planets were nothing more than marbles against it. There was no end to it, no possibility of seeing around it. There was only the Unformed, an off white, craggy orb that stretched forever. To even call it an orb simply showed the limitations of language. Globe, planet, universe—all these ideas failed to encompass what the Prophet stared at.
The choice was simple, join or return.
Join the Unformed forever and ever, or return to the Earth and continue Its quest.
The first Prophet to come here wasn’t given a choice—Abby already being dead.
The second Prophet was shown something similar, but by that point, she had already decided her fate.
David Hollowborne, Prophet of the Unformed, could die and join his God, or continue living.
This David told to his closest followers: Rhett Scoble, Christine Fain, as well as Manor Reinheld.
He told them that he chose to return, but that’s when he veered off truth’s course. He said being so close to the Unformed had allowed him to retain more of the Unformed. This wasn’t … the entirety of what happened.
Looking upon The Unformed, being brought to It, transference had occurred. There was no way to avoid it, like the closer one moves toward a fire, the warmer one becomes until finally burning. David had nearly touched the flame, and truthfully, he’d wanted to embrace it. Just wrap his arms around the fire and go home.
He turned, though, because he understood the truth. If he joined the Unformed, then the chances of It dying grew. If he returned to the world, where his traitor sister waited—and pain, and death, and everything humans fled—then the Unformed might live.
And with that knowledge, David made his choice to continue fighting.
And he brought that transference with him, that power.
What he didn’t tell his followers, though, was the cost. Everything in life must be paid for, whether food or peace of mind, or yes, even power. You pay for it with currency,
time—or in David’s case, his life.
His connection with the Unformed had grown stronger, a direct line from his mind to Its. And now, each time he used the gray …
The Prophet died. Just a bit, but some all the same. Each time he used the power granted to him by his God, more of him was drained back to the Unformed. The transference couldn’t only happen one way. David could not take without giving. And it was that which he didn’t tell his followers. If he used his powers, he would die. He could only hope to thrust them across the finish line, and if he was lucky, maybe catch a glimpse of the glory that would come after. He would not, in all likelihood, survive the Union.
His followers couldn’t know, because they couldn’t be thinking about his life while fighting for the Unformed’s. It was the Union that mattered, nothing else.
The Prophet made his choice, his life for his God.
Seven
David stopped talking.
Rhett looked at him, his thoughts naked across his face. It didn’t feel right, what he was being told. The melancholy in David’s voice didn’t match the story Rhett had just heard—what was there to be sad about? More power? Having looked upon the Unformed?
“That’s it?” he whispered. It was Rebecca who had always challenged her brother, no one else, but Rhett couldn’t help but ask the question.
David looked at him. “Yes. What else would there be?”
Rhett shook his head. “I don’t know.”
David studied him for a second and Rhett thought he saw the man struggling with something, but only briefly. When David looked back to the fire, the struggle was gone, if it ever existed at all.
“So that brings us to now, to what’s happening. Not everyone felt my return, only those I chose. You three, of course. Rebecca. I’ve been … selective about how I do this.”
Why? Rhett wondered. Why be selective now when you weren’t before? He didn’t ask the questions, though, because it wasn’t his place. His Prophet had returned and as before, Rhett would follow his guidance.
“All four Ministers are in the One Path. It’s not important why they are, only that they are.” David glanced up from the fire. “Have any of you heard of the pits?”