by David Beers
Instead, it hit one of the strangers.
And he hit the wall.
I had come out of my room by then, peeking down the hallway and forgetting about what my mother told me to do. My brother was still inside, so he didn’t see it.
The man burst like a tomato. The door forced him backwards, and he slammed into the wall. His head cracked open and the stuff inside … it just sprayed.
His brains coated the front of the door, the wall behind him, and the carpet beneath.
He never made a sound.
My mother rushed by me then, heading to her room. Now I know what she was going for: the weapons. At the time, I couldn’t look away from the dead man. Still standing, his head facing forward though he didn’t have a face anymore.
People came then. They looked like they were walking on air. They just shot into the house through that open front door. One after the other. That’s why we only had one entrance, because it kept any attackers at a bottleneck. My mother came back out of her room, my father following close behind. They were holding guns of some sort, and I finally broke away from the dead man and watched. They started picking off the troopers filing into the living room.
The others in the house helped … but you already know what happened don’t you? Their names don’t even matter. You already know, because your Prevention Division has done this countless times.
You did warn them, though. If you resist, you will be killed.
My mother’s face was ripped off. My father’s intestines spilled out across the living room. I don’t know what happened to anyone else. I blacked out with David standing right next to me. We both saw that, though: our parents’ insides suddenly filling the room around us.
When I came to, the True Faith had us. David and I.
That’s funny, isn’t it? You captured the Prophet once. He was only a boy, that’s true, but you had him in your hands. Everything you just went on and on about, all the people dying, all the people that you’re going to kill. You could have stopped it right then, but you’ve always been a bunch of incompetents, believing in your own self-aggrandizing bullshit.
You lost him, though.
You lost him and the Unformed came for him.
Rachel Veritros
Human history, when thought of in terms of the universe, is a speck of sand on a beach—if said beach actually covered the entire Earth. Human history is nothing, as the Unformed could attest to. We are creatures that live under a delusion of self-importance, when in reality, we will most likely leave no mark on this universe. We won’t even have been a footnote. Not a single word will be written about us when everything is finished … or at least that was the original plan.
Our universe interrupted that natural flow (and of course we think of it as ours, please see above about self-importance). Time is obviously not over (if it even exists at all). So, perhaps we will still end up without even a whisper of us.
Our universe’s expansion seemed to want to change that, though. Because for all the arguments spanning our short history regarding whether or not intelligent life existed in other parts of the universe, the answer was a resounding no. For reasons unfathomable to the human mind, life had started once and only once. It flourished on Earth and nowhere else.
Despite all of our limitations, as well as the destruction that evolution bred into us, humanity found itself in a very odd predicament. A species that had no true capacity for long term planning and a preternatural inability to feel empathy found itself facing a creature that had known no boundaries during a life that spanned longer than our own universe.
Its continued and increasing expansion was encroaching on this being’s habitat; and despite its long life and incomprehensible power, there was very little it could do about this.
Except make contact with these strange life forms. If a human were to look at a single cell pulled from a rat’s leg, that would not adequately explain how this creature saw us, but perhaps it can give you a bit of perspective.
And then, in the midst of all this—the improbabilities combined with the ill equipped nature of humanity—Rachel Veritros found herself in a place no human should be. No mortal anywhere, for that matter.
The river boiled beneath her. Long bridges dropped across the Nile and people ran over them as if they had returned to the Middle Ages. Transports battled in the open air above, lasers knocking them from the sky where they either crashed into the boiling water or on top of the mass of battling people.
Rachel Veritros floated down from the sky, seeing the world in front of her but not paying it any real attention. They would fight and kill each other. They would try to kill her, at least some of them.
Objects and lasers shot through the sky, but the gray netting surrounding her deflected them all. She didn’t so much as sway while moving toward the water.
Rachel heard it boiling as she approached, and the intensely hot steam floated upward, winding its way around her gray net. She paused just before touching the water. Screams knifed through the air and water sprayed up around her. A red mist was beginning to float over the river, the bloodshed on both sides substantial.
Rachel’s eyes blazed gray.
It was close … the Unformed. She felt it more strongly than she heard or recognized anything happening at the river. The Unformed was approaching, and though Rachel didn’t fully understand what would happen, she knew it would happen here.
The steam grew heavier, blocking out much of what she could see.
Beneath, she thought. I have to go beneath.
The gray net descended, an egg dropping into a boiling pot—only one with a shell that would protect its cargo.
The water slowly filled her vision as she dropped beneath. She saw a deep dark blue on all sides. The noise from above was muffled, almost completely muted. Nothing above mattered. Not her lieutenants, nor the people that came to fight the Ministries. They were all from the past, a world that wouldn’t exist in a few moments.
Deeper, she thought. It’s deeper.
The gray net dropped further, displacing water as it moved. The blue grew darker and darker, becoming almost black.
Here. It’s coming.
She blinked and the Beyond flashed across her mind.
Staring out into the boiling river, she froze. That had never happened before. She could go to the Beyond, but it never came to her without her bidding it.
She blinked again; the Beyond’s darkness filled her vision for a single moment. She saw the border and the white lines of light slamming against it. The exploding oranges. When her eyes opened, she saw only black water.
Rachel took a breath and then closed her eyes.
She sat at the Beyond, knowing that if she simply opened her eyes again, she would be back on Earth.
There was no sense in saying this was impossible, because it clearly wasn’t. Whatever rules had once reigned over the Beyond no longer mattered. Keeping her eyes closed, Rachel stared at the universe’s edge. She saw the Unformed in the distance, Its giant body moving across some space she could hardly see. It was coming closer to the edge, to her universe.
She opened her eyes expecting to see the same in the river, that the massive gray body had somehow appeared before her. She saw only the darkness of deep water.
It’s not going to happen here. Whatever It wants, it’ll take place in the Beyond.
What does It want?
The question whipped across her mind like a leather strap across flesh. All of her concentration had been intensely focused, and yet this left almost raw pain sitting inside her mind.
What does It want?
Shut up, she told herself. Not now—not in this moment—would such blasphemous questions plague her. Go back to the Beyond and wait. It’s approaching.
She did, closing her eyes, and looking out at Its heavenly globe.
It grew closer and closer, blocking out the white lines and the explosions they caused. Blocking out everything. Rachel stared, and as she watched, a nervou
sness spread through her psyche. Something she had never felt with the Unformed, nor ever even considered. The Unformed was everything, the true beginning and end, alpha and omega—to grow nervous because of It made no sense.
Yet, as it approached, the nervousness morphed into a near panic.
What does It want?
What does It want?
WhatdoesItwant?
WhatdoesItwant?WhatdoesItwant?WhatdoesItwantwhatdoesItwantwahatdoesItwantwhatdoesItwant
The single question took possession of her mind, perhaps even her very soul. It had been a simple question, something anyone not following the Unformed would have asked, but a question that never occurred to Rachel Veritros until the Ministers.
She tried to open her eyes, to go back to the dark water of the Nile, but she couldn’t. In truth, as that question roared through her mind, Rachel tried to run. She wanted to flee for the first time, both her duty and the Unformed, because the panic was now complete terror.
She couldn’t run, though.
Rachel Veritros could only stare as the Unformed came for her.
WhatdoesItwantwhatdoesItwantwhatdoesItwant
I don’t understand.
The three words silenced everything else. They moved through her mind quickly, their presence wiping everything else clean.
The Beyond remained in front of her, and the Unformed continued Its slow but unhesitating movement. Terror still rested inside Rachel, but that statement somehow put steel in her spine again. The same steel that got her out of those forests, that grew this revolution from nothing to nearly complete in only a few years.
The steel that would make her name legend for as long as humanity kept records.
It came to her then as she looked on her God, and it locked her in place. She would not flee. She would understand.
Most of humanity thought the universe uncaring. One Ministry believed in an unseen force, but the universe itself? The ever expanding thing that held stars and planets and gases? It wasn’t even alive. Indeed, its history showed one of cruel creation and even crueler destruction. What would it matter if humans lived or died, forever ruled the cosmos or blinked out of existence? The universe had no thoughts at all on the matter.
Yet, at a time when an insignificant species was faced with things beyond its ability, a woman was chosen. Seemingly a nobody, with nothing special about her. Only, just as the universe was about to change irrevocably, this woman sat at the edge. She sat and when everyone else would have crumbled beneath such weight, breaking without hope of survival, she looked on.
Forty-Two
Pope Pius XX—who would always think of himself as Yule (unlike his counterparts in the other Ministries, who Yule was sure bought into the pomp and circumstance)—sat alone in his office. The windows to his left showed the sky beyond the Vatican’s walls; the smoke that had burned a week ago no longer existed. The sky was peaceful, which meant that the world beneath was peaceful.
That’s not true, and you know it.
Yule did. He wished it was peaceful just as the Lord had wished Adam and Eve could live in peace. Except original sin refused to let such a plan bear fruit. Eve had been tempted, breaking God’s law, and peace had only reigned in brief, sporadic periods ever since.
There was no peace outside those walls, and it hurt Yule to think of it.
Perhaps the bodies weren’t being burned as they had been a week ago, so the smoke of flaming flesh didn’t fill the skies, but people were still dying in large numbers. The Pope’s military was clearing the land of the Black’s people, killing them off without any thought of where their souls would go.
Hell or heaven? Yule wondered. Other Priests would surely say hell, but Yule wasn’t sure.
They were believers, the same as you. Only, they believed in something false.
And that’s the only thing that matters, his mind argued with itself. They did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, and their souls will find hell.
Was it false, though? Was that man who flew through the sky false, wise Pope? Him who had no nanoparticles floating through his body, yet controlled power you can’t begin to comprehend? Were his followers following something false?
The Pope looked out his window, thinking thoughts that might be considered heretical.
He received reports every few hours on how the extermination was progressing, as the four Ministries had come to call it. The Prophet’s death had been the turning point in the war, so to sit here and call their belief completely false wasn’t intellectually honest. Nearly the moment their Prophet fell from the sky, the attacks against the Old World had ceased. Now his followers were being killed.
Yule was waiting for his meeting with Daniel Sesam. He had a few minutes in between his last meeting and this one—he’d purposefully arranged his schedule in such a way. He knew he needed a brief time to focus on Daniel’s plight. The rest of the world had moved on, completely. The thought of Nicki Sesam hadn’t run through a single person’s head over the past week—no one except perhaps three: Daniel, Yule, and the High Priest.
Daniel thought of nothing else, and Yule wasn’t far from that. The young woman mattered to the Pope, even if it wasn’t possible for her to be as important to him as she was to her father.
The High Priest … Yule couldn’t even pretend to understand what he thought.
A voice spoke through the intercom on his desk.
“Mr. Sesam is here.”
Yule closed his eyes and was quiet for a moment. He didn’t want to speak with the man, because he didn’t want to see pain that he couldn’t yet alleviate.
Lord, give me strength, he prayed.
“Send him in,” Yule said.
A few moments passed and then the door to the Pope’s office opened. Nicki Sesam’s father stood in it for what might have been the thousandth time.
He didn’t pause, gave no indication that he was greeting one of the most powerful men in the world. To Daniel Sesam, Yule was only two things: an obstacle and yet still a tool. An obstacle because Daniel couldn’t use the tool as he wanted. He couldn’t turn Yule into a sledgehammer.
“What do you have?” Daniel asked as he crossed the large office, his voice echoing against the high ceiling.
“Hi, Daniel,” Yule responded.
He reached the Pope’s desk but didn’t sit down in the designated chair. “Well?”
“I have no word either way on her, so I want to say that up front. As far as I know, she’s still alive and well. I have a meeting with the High Priest scheduled this afternoon. Only me and him, and I’m going to press the issue.”
Daniel looked away to the same window the Pope had just been staring out.
“You’re going to press the issue.” His voice was slightly louder than a whisper. He didn’t look over, but asked somewhat louder, “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to let him know that I know he has her. I’m going to demand that he return her.” Yule looked at the father for a second. Daniel placed his hands on the chair’s back and gripped it tightly, his knuckles straining and growing white underneath the pressure.
“What are you able to see?” Yule asked. “Anything new?” He was referring to the machines in the Vatican’s catacombs. The ones used to create people like Nicki and Daniel.
He shook his head and there were tears in his eyes now. “No. She’s in darkness. She’s alive, whether or not you’ve gotten any reports, but she’s only in darkness. I can’t see anything and she’s not responding to me.” He looked to the Priest. “You’re not doing enough. I’ve seen what’s happening in the rest of the Old World. Your armies are sweeping the lands—no one who challenged your God is being granted quarter. They’re all being killed without trial. But my daughter, the person who you said might save the world … you’re going to press the fucking issue? That’s not enough!”
Yule broke eye contact and stood. He walked over to the window and was quiet for a moment. “God put me in a position in which
I must protect all of His believers. I have to hear His voice and communicate it to them. There are three other religions that would wipe us off the face of the Earth if they could, despite what agreements might have been met after the Reformation. The Black has kept us unified for some time, the Ministries not wanting to attack out of fear war could create an opportunity for It. Now, though, with the Prophet fallen, they may forget the threat. They may think it’s extinguished.”
The Pope paused.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Daniel said. “I want my daughter back.”
“This position of both divining the Lord’s Will and protecting His people, it’s not something I wish upon anyone else. What you’re asking me to do, Daniel, is start that war. You’re asking me to end the peace that has held for 7,000 years, in order to get one woman back.”
“A week ago, she was to be mankind’s new savior. She wasn’t just one woman then.”
Things have changed, Yule wanted to say, but didn’t. Things might have changed for the rest of the world, but not for Daniel Sesam.
And what about you, old Priest? Have they changed for you? Is she now expendable, though a week ago you were ready to go to war for her? Does your hypocrisy know no bounds?
“I have the meeting in a few hours. After that, I’ll make a decision,” he said. Had anyone else heard the tone he used, fear would have gripped their internal organs as if God himself had reached down inside them. It was the voice that Yule used to rule this land, the one that allowed for no discussion.
Yet, Daniel Sesam heard it and obviously felt nothing remotely close to fear, because he snapped, “That’s not good enough.”
The Pope turned around. “Perhaps it’s not. I didn’t create this world, Daniel. I inherited it, as you did … What do you know of your namesake?”
“I know the stories.”
“Daniel and David are two biblical names that are similar, yet their stories are very, very different. David was a king, and Daniel a slave. One lost faith and one held onto it firmly, no matter what. Perhaps the most famous story of Daniel is the lion’s den. The young man went into it and spent a night alone, and when the king came to retrieve him, not a hair on his head was hurt. You were named after a man with the utmost faith, who never faltered, but yet you hold so little.”