by Amanda Churi
“By You…” I snarled.
The granules settled. “Excuse me?”
His pause sent my nerves through my skin; they knew my error as well as I did, but I couldn’t keep listening to it… To all the filth that He put off as the truth. “To rule by You,” I repeated. “To be ruled by a dictator—one whose pawns could and would be pushed off the board the moment they grew a mind for themselves.”
His scoff pulled up my head as He came lumbering back to face me, clenching down on His rod. “That’s how lowly you think of me, Eero? After all I have given you?”
“GIVEN ME?!” My legs tried to stand on their own, but the shis yanked once more on my bonds, keeping my trembling, fighting body from achieving height. “Given… You mean stolen!”
He chuckled, flipping His hair in a wave. “And just what have I—?”
“EVERYTHING!”
The ferocity of my bark was so pronounced that even He was startled—jolted enough to slide a monstrous foot back. “What—?”
“Everything! We had a fine life in Heaven! Perfect as perfect could be! You went on spewing Your lies just because God didn’t choose You to be the savior of man! Because You were mad—burning inside, and You lied—made us all burn with You! You knew You wouldn’t win! You knew there was no chance, but You wanted to make sure You could be a god of Your own when You fell! That You would have people to rule!”
“E-Eero,” He tried, tripping up with my words and the narrowing eyes of the surrounding demons. “Where do such frivolous thoughts spawn from—?”
“From the truth! From the scars on our backs and through our bones! Our real names that we will never know! Our lives we will never remember because You twisted them all! Stole who we were!” My rushing adrenaline shot through my hands, trying to undo my laced cuffs in a hurry. “We were loved! Now, we’re just hated! We’re stories of nightmares—slave drivers of people we convicted!”
“Eero…” His composure was returning; His eyes were sinking farther and farther back until they began to resemble craters. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Irate laughter exploded from every pore. “I’ve never been more certain! I haven’t felt this sure in lifetimes!”
The life within His eyes died instantly. “Shis.” He flicked His wrist up, His slaves hauling me to my battling legs. His gnarly finger shot to the empty noose.
“That’s right!” I spouted, fighting their tugs every step of the way. “Get rid of the problem! Get rid of the truth so You can keep on living Your lie!”
“You’ve gone mad,” He grumbled under His breath.
“Mad with life! With the truth!” My feet touched the platform and began their forced climb.
I resisted harder. I grabbed those regained memories for myself and held them close before I knew it was time to push them away. “I’m not lying! Everyone! Think of our old home—our real home! What do you remember? Nothing but what you’ve been told! Go ahead! Get together and talk about it! You all have the same memory because it’s the same shit that He forced down our throats—!”
Korbu pulled back on my neck so hard that the barbs ripped through my skin, scraping my vocal cords. “Get his blockish skull strung and shut him up!”
“D-do it!” I gagged, knocking my head to keep the chains off my neck. “Think! Remember! It’s there! He’s deceiving us all! I can prove it! I CAN! WATCH!”
I stopped fighting with my voice and sent the energy to the cage around my wrists, yanking them apart. A wave of horror surged up from the crowd. I didn’t turn around and use my freed hands to attack—they were plunged into the satchel at my side, digging, spinning until they grabbed the remaining half of the fruit, yanking it into the light and holding it high for all to see.
Its reveal stopped everyone—even the executioners, even Satan. “I saved Maeve because I ate it!” I announced, my eyes finding Azuré’s horrified face. “I ate the fruit that damned mankind, and just like them, I came to know the truths—the good and the bad! All it takes is one bite!”
“EERO!” Satan snapped, trudging up to me.
I kept going—I would keep going, keep speaking the truth until He broke my vicious cycle of existence Himself! “Open your memories! Open your eyes! You have to fight, or this will never end! FIGHT! DESTROY SATAN AND ALL THAT HE BEGAN! AVENGE—!”
My cries ended with flying blood. My entire body was thrown off beat, panting, eyes tumbling down to the throbbing hole gorging my chest and going through my back. It was buried so deeply, had killed so much of me that I could only see the smoky rod of the staff.
My link was singeing—smoldering. My words had most certainly been severed as Satan took His free hand and put the noose around my neck Himself, tightening it until the rings were pulling apart my trachea. “Eero, Eero… I didn’t know you were stupid enough to be deceived by that pitiful excuse of a creature.” He plucked the fruit out of my hand like a toy, giving the half-eaten miracle a thorough inspection as the shis rebound my arms to my sides. “This was clearly forged by Maeve; it is not my work.”
My wheezing nostrils screamed with pressure, calling Him a liar in every tongue I could remember. He chuckled with my thoughts, shaking the fruit like a rattle above the heads of His souls. “Poor demon…” He said loud and clear, with that smooth, sly charisma of His. “Deceived by Maeve into such lies… Trusting the other side over his own…” He squeezed His fist, a ball so tight that His claws ripped His flesh as the remains of the fruit went up in white smoke, fleeing through the cracks in His fingers. “I think this act of treason is not worthy of death… Nothing that I could give, at least. I think a simple release of existence is a bit too tame for what we have witnessed here today, correct?”
There were hesitant nods and blurbs of agreement. Nobody wanted to give the wrong answer.
“That’s what I thought.” He leaned over and caressed my dripping face with His curling talons, stroking my flesh with just enough pressure that He carved shallow trails into my skin. I winced but could do nothing more, staring into His empty, all-hungry eyes that would never be satisfied by what He had, always wanting more…
“You like to rebel, do you? Well, fine, let’s let you keep fighting—forever and ever. And since you sympathize with humans, how about you do it in the body of one, hm?”
I tried to tell Him to kiss my ass, but all that came was a flatulent airwave of defeat.
He grinned wide at my insult never to be spoken. “Ah, ah, don’t be so rude when I am being far too kind.” His free arm turned into a blur, and then, there was a burst of pain so excruciating that my voice returned as a frail, pitiful wail filled with blood and tears. He brought my tail up before my face as I sputtered like a pot, watching Coruscus’ darkening face and draining cord swing back and forth like a metronome before my tremoring body that could hardly stand.
“Since I’m a generous king,” He proclaimed, His eyes one with mine and His voice pushing out around Him, “let’s use this as an opportunity to pardon those who have wronged me past—to redeem themselves, like you believe they should. Their lives freed in exchange for the conquering of yours, hm? The life that I will gladly let them shred apart, as slowly as they would like. How does that sound?”
Like a ruler desperate to keep His followers, I boldly thought, getting a little jolt of excitement when His smile crashed into a frown.
He stepped away from me. “Let’s see how long that cocky attitude of yours lasts. Until then, enjoy your nightmares.” He jerked His staff free from my gut, sending me stumbling. He threw Coruscus over His shoulder, turning away. “Hang him until he’s on the brink. I will take it from there.”
“YES, SIR!”
A click. A free fall and a tug on my spine so harsh it would have broken a human’s neck five times over. The gallows groaned and bent under my massive weight, my legs swimming to free my bound body as mindless, sheep-like cheers rose around me.
I gagged endlessly, tried to snap the ties and reach for the cha
in, but I remained their kite. Shis lined the top of the gallows, keeping their reins tight at all times, but not enough so to take even a morsel of pressure off my snapping throat. Korbu said nothing while staring down; his purple eyes were as dark as the smog creeping into the rims of my vision.
No… Don’t let Him win! I said it again and again, screamed it and tried to shove that order through my body, but every thrash felt weaker… Even the command was getting harder to send. Fighting quickly turned into pathetic, futile flapping that knew flight was impossible.
But I didn’t want to believe it…! I didn’t want to play another stupid game of His…! I would rather those black wisps of death come faster—race into my eyes before they could lower me, because like Heaven I would let Him win again.
My fluttering eyelids stayed open just enough to let my blurring sight fall upon Azuré as she bent down, cupping the slice of fruit in her thorny fingers. She looked at me one more time, a frown that I knew I would remember even through nonexistence, before her peaking spine was to me as well, and she vanished through the crowd.
Azuré…! Please… Don’t… Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t—
The black arms shot forward and over my eyes; a cool bubble of air floating from my mouth came with it, and for a brief moment, I felt myself falling, spinning in a dizzying blackness toward the ground that I never remembered reaching.
Thirty-three
Forget Me Not
“Don’t… DON’T LET HIM WIN!”
I awoke in a panic with whirling arms, ready to hit the ground and fight those bastards before they could string me up again, but my claws snagged innocent air.
I blinked hard, trying to settle my eyes that were surrounded by a cascade of blending and juxtaposing grays. I spared a moment to breathe, feeling my pulsating chest beat the metal drum of my armor. My muscles felt like stretched threading… Sore and worn, and the thumps of my chest sent the gongs straight to my brain—it almost felt like they shook me in place.
Everything felt off and out of reach… I let my head hit the wall I leaned against in hopes the fog would clear, but my delirious eyes were crawling, still looking for Satan, for Azuré, for any demon. But all I found were the modern terrors of the Earth—the Haxors lying face down, face up, some without a face, but all nonfunctional. Their broken bodies of wire and metal hiccupped sparks of light in the dark chamber, their remains strung about like festive decorations.
I looked to the center of the cavern that I had blasted away from. The legendary crystal was no more—not even a fragment. All that lay there was that girl—the Deceiver. Her pulse had long been finished; she was just a heap of busted skin and tattered rags, still fixed in her final moments, but freed.
Right… It was all coming back. I was resurfacing from that traumatizing blackout of the past.
When that frigid blast came over me, I remembered Tah, and she forcibly shoved her memories into me too. It also made me recall my last, terrible moments in vivid detail.
And Azuré… I finally knew the “how.” She became an Essence because of that sole slice I threw her way; because she took a bite too. She supported my mission and followed me to the end.
I sighed. Who would have thought that crystal would be not just important to the mission but to me? How closely my lives intertwined with so many? Mabel actually—
“MABEL?!”
How could I have forgotten?! How could I have wasted even a moment scanning a pointless room without considering what renovated it in the first place?! My head flew around so fast and with such succession that my muscles screamed at me, but I kept turning, using my brightening eyes as lanterns in search of her. No, nowhere in sight. And she wasn’t buried either—couldn’t have been. Her scent was frighteningly faint.
“Mabel! Mabel!” I wriggled around and threw my chest to the wall, piercing it with my claws and hurling myself up. My body had a massive drag… It took far more effort than usual to stand. That explosion—was that her who blew up?! No, it was just the crystal; I would have picked apart the scent of her remains from all those in the room. The only blood seen was that from the Haxors and their suits leaking creeks of red. Oddly enough, there were no Elites or their remains either… How was I the only one left?
A far-off groan debunked my suspicions. I threw my eyes around, tracking the sound until I found a crumpled lump lying toward the entrance of a narrow tunnel, struggling for air.
“MABEL!” I began to run, but the first step made me aware of the oddity at my waist. A set of unfamiliar chains was locked snuggly around my hips, two loose arms clanging and banging against my outer thighs and trying to cut through my skin with their rusty grapples. I had never seen them before—had no idea how they even got there—but another groan deterred my perplexion, and I scrambled over to her, the added weight and off-put balance nearly making me eat snow with every step. “Mabel! Hold on, I’m—!” I stumbled hard, impaled with surprise. “V-Virgil?”
He coughed in reply, trying to pick himself up. He could not open his eyes—could hardly lift his head. He was burned all over, his night-locked skin tattooed with rosy scores and frills. Unwilling convulsions shook his bones, keeping him grounded, handicapped, but he seemed like he would live… Just not looking too pretty.
“Eero…” he gagged. He reared his neck toward me but could still not look. “Mabel… Go save her…”
My muscles turned to concrete. “Where is she, Virgil?”
He coughed again, each word a struggle. “I don’t know… I saw a blast from above… And once I climbed down… When I got here… Gannon was dragging her away. I tried… I tried to stop him—”
I bound over the crippled hurdle and immediately took off through the lightening dark. That was all I needed to know. He had her.
I ran and ran, my breaths so fast that my chest burned with ice. Where could he have taken her?! Why did he drag her away to be killed when he could have just as easily done it right then and there? Why—?
I screeched to a halt, my arms flying up to shield my eyes once I broke free from that tunnel. The underground passage awoke at the surface, exhibiting to me a world of ruins—one with an odd sense of peace in the middle of the world’s end. Some Returned were shifting in the background—a few Bots and Encryptors were pursuing one another over the capsized buildings and vessels, but aside from them, there was a queer silence… And even more odd, the opposing armies were standing shoulder to shoulder. Just still, fixated to the sky.
And the sun.
No ice. No Elites. All that came from Reeve’s crystal left with it. Still, it was cold. I couldn’t feel the sun’s natural heat that I had been deprived of for centuries, but the sun was definitely there, definitely shining. And there were no clouds before it, no obstructions, just a globe of blue so moving that, for a second, everything was right.
No. I didn’t have time to stand here and gawk. Mabel… Where was she? The ruins just rolled over one another—an endless plain of graves and dismemberment—and the structures left standing were few and far between, rapidly on their way to coming down with everything else. There was no place they could hide here, too many people would have seen them, yet even amongst all those puny, stationary ants, I couldn’t see the one I knew so well.
Think… Think! Where would that bastard go?! How can I—?!
It hit me like a mountain of clay. Shit… Is that really my only chance?
I glanced around, making sure nothing was coming for me from the tunnels or hiding amongst the tumbling death mountains that couldn’t even support themselves with all they bore. Everyone was still entranced by the sun’s grand revelation, so if I was to do it with as high of a success rate as possible, this was the best scenario that I would get.
The hands I put before my face were foreign—my whole body was as I looked myself over, finally understanding. That bracelet… The necklace, the tattoo, and now, the chains…
My knees hit shredded gravel. I clenched down with my fists until the rock
s turned to powder, making the daring decision to close my eyes and look within—to travel the pathways and peer at my subconscious.
“Please…” I begged. “Please, let me in. I need to find her…”
Laelia’s eyes found me first, but her body remained fixed to the crumbling purple cage of my subconscious—one so fragile that the energy could merely skip across its faded roads; a normal run would have spelled destruction. Aponi and Ryze bid me no attention, scampering to and fro, checking to make sure the chains binding the fledglings would hold.
There weren’t merely goliaths looming beyond my subconscious. A few had gotten through since my last trip in, astonishingly staked down and cocooned with golden chains that heaved with each of the creature’s breaths, but there were far more fledglings waiting beyond, holding back on the final attack. Only their golden, revived eyes could be seen, carving suspicious, hungry crescents into the night, and beyond the backdrop, a faint haze of red was dawning as a sunrise. The enslaved fledglings cackled and howled, slapped their hands, feet, and tails down in a horrific rumpus, urging the unseen sun forth. Ryze and Aponi ran harder, faster, doing their best to secure those they could, but Laelia didn’t step in to help. She just kept glaring at me, her eyes extinguished of life.
“Please!” I tried again. “Do you want Mabel to die?!”
“Of course not,” she coolly replied.
“Then path me to her, goddammit! Connect me to the Eyla! She will die if you don’t!”
Her face of stone suffered not a crack; she only turned slightly, exposing a fourth Eyla I had never seen amongst my world.
The gray eyes immediately attuned me to her identity. And unlike Laelia, she did not come off as tired, passive, but in her troubled grin, there was a sliver of graciousness.
“Tah…”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “And Reeve… Said ‘thank you’ as well.”
I didn’t know how to reply. My vision whirled, continuing to evaluate the oncoming, growing chaos, while I kept my tongue against the roof of my mouth, counting the seconds they wasted, whittled off Mabel’s life. But if I didn’t stay calm, listen, they wouldn’t let me through at all.