“He would destroy for the sake of destruction!” There was jeering in response, curses thrown at his name. “He would spit in the face of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ! The risen son of God Almighty!” True, Erik couldn’t argue with that. The audience did, however. Simon went on. “He must know the pangs of the son of man - the passion of the Christ! He must suffer as our Lord did, so as to know that even such darkness as he aspires is overcome with endurance! With obedience!”
His hypnotism was blatant; it confounded Erik that others could not see it. Simon twisted and turned their knobs like a master programmer, making no mistakes, at least none that had borne fruit yet. Erik pondered how he might escape the situation. It seemed inevitable that he must.
It was possible that Shiloh had ignored his order that she leave the City of the Alamo, and had re-grouped with Elronde outside of camp. Although it would be in defiance of his orders, it seemed the preferable hope.
For a moment, he almost prayed.
5. Crucifixion
Pope Simon yanked the hood from Erik’s face. The sheep neighed at him, laughing like pigs before slaughter, about to cannibalize one of their own kind. Erik was helpless - his arms were tied behind his back, his legs shackled together. Simon grabbed his hair, dragging him to the very front of the crowd, staring into their eyes with mad power.
“This is our Satanist, our nihilist!”
They spat on Erik, slapped him, pulled his hair, cracking shards of LSD into his spine. He felt himself dragged up a set of steps onto the execution stage. He turned his head, and saw the intended method of his execution. A large cross hovered over him, a dark angel.
“You…” he whispered to it. No one heard him. He swung his head to the audience, staring at their faces. They gaped in animation, walking portraits, hissing and spitting in his direction; but one face was different. Erik noticed first his familiar frown, then his grey eyes, and knew him immediately: Elronde Dalmati. He knew then that he was saved. Elronde scratched his nose, his head, and popped his knuckles. He didn’t have to speak for Erik to get the message: “Give me the word.”
Erik looked around, hoping to see Shiloh, Pixel or Morgan. They were nowhere in sight. He wondered what the plan was, but Elronde had no way of indicating.
“Have you any last words to say before you suffer the passion of our Lord and Savior?” the absurd Qabalist Pope barked at him, grinning like a hungry wolf. His eyes were like saucers, and although his head moved, his pupils seemed to hover like diamonds in the air before him. “Would you finally repent of your transgressions, so that you may go to Hell with a clean conscience?”
“My conscience could not be further cleaned,” Erik replied. “Filth is for the world of flesh.”
“Let these be his last words!” Simon demanded. Large arms lifted him from behind, and he nodded at Elronde.
Immediately, a sphere rocketed out of the audience, hovering in mid-air. It began to bleed light for a moment as all stared at it. Only Simon seemed to understand the seriousness of its demonstration.
“Get out of here!” he commanded the sheep. Some ran, others ignored him, transfixed by the spectacle. Within seconds, fine mists of LSD shot out of the sphere, coating everyone in the audience within a three-hundred foot radius. Erik felt it soaking into his skin, he tasted it with his pores and recognized this most potent form as well as his own blood, through which it always flowed.
Simon began to shriek like a woman, breathing erratically.
“What the hell is happening?!” he shouted. “What…” He suddenly calmed, staring at the ground, being overtaken. Many in the crowd began to panic. Elronde pushed his way through them, seemingly immune. Erik wondered how it was possible.
Simon saw Elronde’s eyes focused upon Erik, and in spite of his emotional shock due to the unexpected turn to events, seemed aware enough to realize this new stranger was the cause of said turn. He withdrew a knife from inside of his robe and stumbled toward Erik’s comrade. The crowd, largely in a state of heightened fear due to the unexpected shift in their perspectives, ran for their homes or other realms of security. Some stuck around shrieking or whimpering, although a few lay in fetal positions in the muddy streets, their eyes closed and quivering. Only Simon had focus, and it was upon Erik’s savior.
Elronde turned to face him, withdrawing a large revolver from a holster upon his side. He aimed it at the Pope, whose hat fell off, tumbling into the dirt, muddy with liquefied dream. Erik watched the scene like a cosmic play, and could see their attached puppet strings, yanked by the fingers of the goddess of chaos.
“Satan!” Simon shrieked at Elronde, “Daemon! You Muslim traitor!” His eyes shifted to Erik. “Silas! Silas, you bastard!” He waved the knife in Erik’s direction, looking back and forth between him and his comrade. Erik grinned like a fool, unable to suppress his smile as the LSD soaked into his skin. Without warning, Elronde shot Simon in the foot. The Pope shrieked in agony and began to cry like a babe, collapsing to the ground and curling up as the others whimpering.
Elronde approached, withdrew a syringe from his pocket and jabbed Erik with it. He felt himself drifting for a moment, sinking away, and then he was suddenly yanked back into the world. The LSD mist coated his lungs, his flesh, broke into his brain from its crystal, and yet the dream was, for the first time in months, no longer upon him.
He stared at the howling Pope Simon before him, and then finally gazed upon Elronde.
“It is good to see you, my friend,” Erik said. “What have you done to me? And how are you lucid?”
“Science, comrade.”
“Bore me with it another time.”
Elronde nodded, handing Erik his revolver. The leader of the Negatives stared at Pope Simon, bleeding out through his wounded foot. He saw Erik looking and his sobbing increased dramatically.
“Please…” he begged. “Make the nightmare go away. Make it go back to how it was.”
Erik shared a glance with Elronde, and then walked to his pathetic opposite.
“How was it before?” Erik asked, holding the revolver so that Simon could see it plainly.
“I don’t…”
Erik said nothing, watching him squirm.
“I don’t remember…” Simon finished. “Help me…”
“It was always this way,” Erik said.
“No!” he shrieked. “No! Make it go back!”
“It was always this way,” Erik repeated. “And it always will be.”
“Satan!” the Pope shouted. “You’re Satan!”
Erik leaned down, took Simon’s face in his hands. The lunatic’s make-up was smeared, soaked in blood from a wound obtained on his forehead when he collapsed to the ground. His eyes now belonged to the child hiding within, behind his fractured ego.
“I am the devil,” Erik told him. “And you have everything to fear from me. You’re on the wrong side of the equation. Fate is against you - order returns to chaos, and not the other way around. My god eats yours every time.” He held the gun near Simon’s face, letting him gaze down the black barrel, into the darkness from which his death could emanate at any moment. “This darkness,” Erik continued, “would for you be a gift.” Elronde walked beside him and Erik handed him the revolver. “If we meet again, you had better turn and head in the opposite direction.”
“You don’t want to destroy this place?” Elronde asked, slightly astonished.
“No,” Erik answered. “Our operation remains as it was before the incident in New Mecca.” He turned to face his comrade. “Perhaps you can explain to me what has transpired in my absence, and we can decide upon our next maneuver; but first, let’s get out of here.” He looked around the camp. There were many sets of eyes hovering in the darkness, terrified and blood-shot. He gave one final glance to Simon, and delivered to him a prophecy. “Make no mistake. I am your shadow, and you can never escape me.”
The Negatives left behind the City of the Alamo and its absurd Pope in quiet madness.
METEO
>
The Senior President knew about the meteor for years. He was approaching his sixth seven-year-term, and final, before he finally told everyone about the new star sending billowing waves of rainbow radiation throughout the evening skies.
On his 24/7 webcast, internet channel 4444, he peered into the screen giving us access to his every detail, and told us what was left out during what had been previously believed to be live streams. Truths, left on the cutting room floor, tossed by the genius hand of an editorial mage. Somehow replaced. He revealed them live, for all the world to see, the broadcast quickly becoming an electronic virus which took over all holographic streams in the continental American States within mere seconds.
“Our death approaches,” he announced. “On a direct path with earth, destined to collide in ten years, is a meteor the size of Jupiter. We have no chance of survival. Prepare to die.”
The date was Sephiroth 33, 2301.
The next day celebrities and politicians alike were planning a death-knell final party on the eve of human destruction. Their channels received more views than ever before as people watched them discuss what they would wear, who they planned to have sex with, the different sexual positions that would be involved, and the drugs they would most definitely like to overdose upon.
The Junior President shot himself in the head.
Within weeks, although tainting nearly every aspect of social interaction, the true importance of the meteor, simply named METEO by the media, had been forgotten. Although it was discussed openly and with great optimism, the seeming finality of the collision had not yet seemed to dawn on its inevitable victims.
A FOX NEWS syndicate, channel 1566, ran this interview with famed Psychosurgeon Jeff Mahler. The interviewer was Bill O’ Reilly the eighth.
“Jeff, can you believe this liberal wing nuts want to lower the age of legal adulthood to ten now? Isn’t twelve low enough? Haven’t we decided, as a society, that we cannot sexually think of children until they turn twelve years old? Why fix what ain’t broken, am I right, Psycho Jeff?”
“Indeed, Mr. O’ Reilly, I know that I would find it perverse to think of having sex with anyone under even the age of thirteen. Twelve, I feel, is too young. But thirteen… we all know what this is really about. This is an attack on our great Republican President Romney’s revision of the age of consent fifty years ago - this country was behind Romney on lowering the age to twelve. We knew as a country then that fourteen was just not appropriate, that children were able to make adult decisions about having sex at a younger age than that. But now… ten? These Democrats are doing this to piss on the legacy of our late, great President. You wanna know what I have to say to them, Bill?”
“What’s that, Psycho Jeff? We’re all ears.”
“Hey, you liberal pieces of shit! GO FUCK YOURSELVES! Cock-suckers!”
“I think that’s a sentiment we can all get behind. How do you think our impending doom as a society affects this? Any thoughts on METEO? Does it even really fucking matter? Some silly cunts over in Washington are saying it doesn’t matter, but I think we all know, just because God is going to obliterate us with a rock the size of some country none of us have ever heard of doesn’t mean we don’t still have to obey!”
“AMEN BROTHER!”
Together they tossed back a shot of vodka, and then GOOGLE broke into the program with an advertisement. METEO was the harbinger of great deals on web ware, which needed to be cleared out for new inventory.
A new religion formed, worshiping METEO. It was called METEOROLOGY. Some suggested a similar religion had existed two centuries ago, but most considered it to be a sham ideology, invented by antiquarian “weather people” to boost ratings on their shitty local news television shows.
METEO was not a god of potentials or abstractions. It was clearly visible in the night sky, growing brighter each year. Waves of rainbow broke through the black, obliterating stars in colorful effulgence. The world tripped on death, even in denial of it.
Over time, the denial became affirmation.
Some scientists suggested trying to stop METEO, but they were quickly lynched. No one cared to try, it seemed too impossible. All religions of the world, five years before the impending strike, decided that they could finally agree upon one God to worship. “The same God all along,” they said. And METEO was his final judgment, hanging high for the eyes of every man, woman and child to observe, a visible manifestation of all shame, wrongdoing and evil done by the hand of man over the long-span of his existence.
Bill O’ Reilly the eighth decided that he had nearly had his fill on marrow-laced cocaine and murdered hookers. He dropped the corpse of his nineteenth murdered hooker for the night over the edge of his enormous, stone mansion. It bothered him that prostitutes still legally had to be sixteen. He would have to see about getting the age of consent lowered for prostitution through network lobbying. A few people still owed him favors.
The world began to shake and he looked up at the moon.
Shit. He had totally forgotten about that.
It first cracked, a large, zigzagging bolt of lightning splitting from the center toward the top and bottom of its lit portion, before suddenly splintering into millions of shards, each breaking away into the brilliant rainbow sheen of the sky, now greater than ever as METEO neared the planet. Chunks of Luna, small and large, blasted toward the planet, flaming through the atmosphere, breaking it apart. Hardened stardust shot through O’ Reilly’s right eye, sniping him from the void, and his body tumbled over the edge of the mansion, down toward his corpses.
Fire rained first upon the West.
Shadowless
1 -- (Gone to Ground)
EXT. CITY STREET -- NIGHT
Watched ARLOW wash away in the rain, clay rivulets running down into the gutter, following his shade into the muck soup of the sewer below. He was headed down-stream, feeding the tree. Had that look on his face like he was caught, at least until it melted away. My eyes stared out as the rain took chunks off him, cutting holes in the trunk of his self.
He hadn’t wanted to die, but decided to dissolve in the down-pour rather than face Pinkerton and his fucking mouths. He would return to the shadowless tree, back through the artery, better washed away than put on ice.
My own SHADE leered at me as I watched the target melt, slide down through the grates into the dissolution below, a vein of the sick streets.
--‘You should have been faster,’
the shade said to me.
I tried not to listen to it. The shade never said anything worth hearing.
--‘Pinkerton will have your eyes,’
it added maliciously.
--‘I can fashion more,’
I replied, catching myself
only after the words
had fallen out,
plopped on the dirt below
like filth out of a gut.
--‘You are running out of clay to shape them with,’
the shade answered.
By the time our conversation was over, Arlow’d gone to ground.
FADE TO BLACK
2 -- (The Arena)
INT. ARENA -- NIGHT
The SAVAGE pulled through his collar, taking his own head clean off; his body ran in aimless circles, his arms flailed wildly, confused. His shade bore witness, shrieking in delirium, until its caster’s head was stomped flat by the OPPONENT, mashed to the mat. The decapitated body fell lifeless, and the referee hosed his clay to nothing, spilling muddy remains into the gutter surrounding the ring, feeding the artery of the tree.
The savage lifted his arms in victory, and the REFEREE hosed him down until only the stain of clay remained on the mat before following suit and turning the water on himself. His hand gripped the hose for a few moments after the rest of him had joined the erased competitors.
The crowd around us cheered the dissolution.
I looked at my watch. 9:25.
--’Oh, God,’
I thought.
‘
I’m still alive.’
Tomorrow was coming fast, along with an appointment I didn’t want to keep.
A flash of Pinkerton’s mouths.
Rain was due -- I pondered the quick way out.
FADE TO BLACK
3 -- (Cracked Clay)
INT. HOME -- NIGHT
Held my clay over the fire, felt my fingers growing hard, numb, listening to the rain patter outside. My digits crackled in the heat, and my shade flickered on the wall, focused on me with malicious intent. If it had lips it would have been smiling, grinning like one of Pinkerton‘s mouths.
--‘Wasting your time,’
it told me.
--‘No such thing as waste or time,’
I replied.
I feel less guilt about answering my shade in privacy, as most do.
--‘You cannot stick around,’
it continued.
‘You cannot bake yourself into permanence.
Ash, clay - in the end its all the same.
Muck for the artery, headed for recycling.
You’ll follow me through the sewer grates.’
--‘Not if Pinkerton devours me.’
--‘I’ll get you eventually,’
the shade chided.
‘Wherever I go, you follow.’
A finger cracked, broke off of my hand and fell into the flame. I watched it blacken, breaking apart into gray ash.
The shade said nothing else.
FADE TO BLACK
4 -- (Touched by God)
INT. PINKERTON’S WAITING ROOM -- DAY
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