The Prophet: Death: A Sci-Fi Thriller

by David Beers

  The massive screen in front of her reverted back to looking at a long view of the High Priest’s house. The True Faith’s ships were visible now, their camouflage vanished, replaced with the same green light that she’d seen lining the inside of their walls.

  Are we too late? she wondered.

  The One Path’s ships were still hidden, the High Priest unable to affect their technology. Trinant could only see them by the yellow dots that lay over the screen—for a moment at least.

  Bright red circles pulsed to life across the screen. Hundreds of them, all circling around the massive building in the center, the camouflage unable to conceal the lasers warming up.

  The black swirled in front of Nicki’s vision, growing larger and slowly covering the world like flowing ink.

  Nicki knew where she was going, back to that black space. Somehow, this machine and the ‘Disciples’ were thrusting her to it, with those exploding lights and that huge hazy globe.

  All of this—the men and their nearly incomprehensible conversation, the sight, the goddamned box surrounding her—it had all been about control … using her to … to what? All of these people around her wanted to control, to take her freedom and use it for …

  And Nicki understood it didn’t matter what they used it for.

  The Black. The voice. These people. Those that had chased her since the sight arrived. All of it had been about control. And now she hung inside a machine that had taken everything from her. Two men she didn’t know and a voice she didn’t understand all wanting different things from her.

  Use it, the voice said, still trying to whip Nicki’s thoughts in line. Use the gray.

  The black ink had nearly filled her vision, and she was beginning to see the orange explosions—though they were much closer now. Before they had been far away, as if she’d sat a far distance from them. Now they felt like they were right next to her face, and if the black ink completely filled her vision, she might be inside the explosions.

  “It’s working,” someone said, though Nicki couldn’t see who.

  Everything depends on you, the voice told her, just another in the chorus of people wanting to use her. Right now. You’re out of time.

  Nicki didn’t know what the voice was talking about—how anything could depend on her. All she wanted to do was survive, to somehow make it out of here alive.

  No more thinking, the voice said, sounding as if it was near the point of pleading. Use it. The gray.

  Nicki could barely see any of the room anymore. The steady beat of explosions filled her senses, and just behind them, she saw It.

  The Black.

  That’s what she’d been staring at before, unable or unwilling to actually say it aloud.

  Yes, the voice said. Yes. And now you’re almost at It. They’re going to force you to It. Use the gray, or It all ends.

  And Nicki knew the voice wasn’t lying. Everyone in this room might be using her, the voice included, but it was the only one giving her an option for life.

  The gray.

  Fuck them all, Nicki thought and reached down deep. She dropped both hands into that gray well of static inside her.

  And as she did, she heard her father shout.

  “Nicki!”

  For a moment, and no more, the First Priest understood what was happening around him. It was a frightening—no, terrifying—moment.

  He heard the hum of the box. He watched the air inside it start shaking, making the girl look hazy as air molecules vibrated around her. The High Priest stood in front of the box, not moving at all.

  Another, louder noise began outside. The First Priest didn’t turn his head to look at it, because he didn’t need to. It was the One Path’s lasers coming alive, and he knew that in a few seconds, this entire place would be reduced to a flaming wreckage falling from the sky.

  Urine leaked down the side of his leg, and the First Priest felt that too. Hot—almost strikingly so.

  The lasers’ power was growing, and the whole building vibrated with it. The First Priest’s legs shook, the floor beneath letting him know exactly what was about to come.

  With a horrible moment of clarity, the First Priest saw the hazy girl inside the box, and he had a moment to think, This is what we were all so scared of. This right here.

  The First Priest knew with Corinth’s certainty that the world was over, because her eyes were full of static gray, sparking alive the same way the Prophet’s had.

  Someone shouted, but the First Priest couldn’t make out the words. He could only see the blazing gray inside the hanging woman’s eyes.

  And then it shot forward, and the First Priest no longer had to worry about understanding anything.

  Twenty-Two

  The Prophet had fallen from the sky.

  Those who loved him had watched with horror. Those who feared him had stared on with hope.

  His name had been David Hollowborne and he brought a war to the world, in service of a creature only he understood.

  He fell through blue sky, and then through puffy, white clouds wherein he disappeared from view.

  The Prophet continued falling, his back facing the world beneath and his arms and legs trailing upward into the sky. His long black hair rushed around his face, whipping with the wind.

  Unconscious, the Prophet had no idea death was approaching him—coming to claim him as it eventually did everyone, Prophet or not.

  Ten thousand feet turned into five thousand, and then two thousand, and finally at a thousand feet from death gray light rippled behind his closed eyelids.

  Small and without ferocity, energy trying to spark kindling, but having almost no time.

  It grew though, from the Prophet or the creature he served, the gray light slowly replaced the natural color of his eyes.

  And still he fell, growing closer and closer to the bone crushing ocean beneath.

  At 500 feet, the Prophet’s eyes opened and gray light spilled out. It spread quickly—desperately—around his body. It created a thin membrane and could do no more.

  Time was up.

  The Prophet slammed into the water, huge geysers shooting into the air. He barely slowed, but sank deeper and deeper. The gray light around him pulled tight, creating an almost second skin. The Prophet’s eyes remained open, though no life besides the otherworldly light shone in them. He kept falling further and the black ocean water enveloped him.

  Deep, deep, the Prophet went, until his momentum finally halted and he stopped miles underneath the surface.

  His nearly dead eyes stared endlessly up, seeing nothing. The gray light continued circling around him, flowing from his eyes and wrapping him in that protective cocoon. From miles around, lifeforms swam to it, not understanding the new light in their home, but watching it helplessly.

  The Prophet had fallen from the sky, and then he had sunk into the ocean.

  The world continued on above, with few concerned about the fallen man. Days passed and the Prophet did not move—neither alive nor dead. Somewhere above, a voice whispered that nothing was finished, and that things were just beginning, but the Prophet could not hear it.

  Days turned into a week.

  On land, decisions were made—some horrid, some good—but none touched the Prophet.

  And finally, nearly at the same place where he’d fallen, gray light ripped across the sky. It stretched for miles and miles around, so that nothing else could be seen.

  And in that moment, when those above saw gray death sweeping for them, deep beneath the ocean, the Prophet’s mouth opened and he breathed in. The gray light surrounding him flowed into his mouth, his lungs, and life was granted to David Hollowborne once more.

  The Prophet awoke.

  To be concluded in The Prophet: Resurrection

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