Rollerskater: Apocalypse
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII
This instalment contains strong violence and sustained horror.
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There was not a corner of the world that the darkness did not touch.
Everywhere on the planet, people found themselves plunged, terrified and bewildered, into eternal night, beneath a starless, moonless, sunless sky, where all that was visible was a red circle in the firmament.
In every human society, there is one unifying thread, one essential element that makes the day-to-day toil of existence bearable. This thread is the illusion of control. Rationally, of course, every member of a human population knows that there are things beyond their control: the weather, the date of their death, with whom they will fall in love, if at all.
But people do not wish to feel that they have no control. The trick of most modern statecraft is to give the illusion of control, of the freedom to choose. From elections to breakfast cereals, if you give people the sense that they are having an impact on their environment in arbitrary ways, they will never feel a need to question if they are truly free.
The appearance of the Blood Moon utterly eradicated that notion within less than an hour of its manifestation. There was nothing that could be done, no prayer to the Heavens that was answerable, no weapon forged that could strike at it, no well-formed arguments could deconstruct it, no will strong enough that it could defy its presence.
A great and terrible god now held dominion over the world, and all humanity was cast into the pit.
And so, terrified and bereft of any rational course of action, humanity turned inwards, in desperate search for some control.
It was slow, at first – things thrown at glass windows, mindless violence, acrimony, all in the hope of retaining some sense of agency. This then expanded into group actions – lootings, beatings, robberies. In turn, this concatenated into crowd actions – the burning of buildings, open fighting with whatever weapons there were to hand, brutal murders.
Around the world, the sounds of screams reverberated in city streets, in rural townships, in tiny villages. There was not a single place that did not succumb to the Blood Moon’s evil influence.
And in the North Atlantic Ocean, staff aboard a nuclear-powered submarine carrying that most bloodstained of flags, the Union Jack, completed a series of grim calculations, contacted the militaries of other nations, and then, finally, put into place the sequence of events that would doom thousands to die.
A door opened, causing the waters around it to boil, and a bright light pierced the dark sea.
A specially adapted Trident missile, armed with a single warhead possessing a blast yield of one-hundred kilotons, surged out of the waters and across the sky, towards its intended target, a smouldering hole in the ground that had at one time been the village of Avebury in Wiltshire.
All the while, the Blood Moon watched with a cold and callous eye. Some would even claim that they heard laughter, echoing in some forgotten and overgrown corner of their minds.
*
The mud was hot and baked hard by the fires. Bricks and stones stuck out of the earth. That was how Liberty and Blake Parish found what remained of Avebury as they landed, surrounded by their most hated enemy, the false god, and all his worshippers.
K-Os’s eyes were wide with rage, but also anxiety.
Liberty had never seen her looking so terrified, and that terrified her, in turn.
“What are you doing here, you idiots?” she said. “Get away!”
“Ah, the prophesied time has come,” said Douglas Baird. “The progeny of Great Ur, come to die. I will give you one thing: you are, at least, not as cowardly as your predecessor.”
Blake Parish raised a finger, pointing it at him. He gasped under the pain that seared every nerve, but had strength enough to speak.
“We do not believe in making war,” he retorted. “But there are some evils that can only be faced by force of arms. We will strike you down, followers of Great Geb.”
Baird laughed, flashing his sharp teeth.
“You have already lost,” he said. “Great Geb is present with us, here, and all over the world. He has spent millennia growing larger, stronger and hungrier than you could possibly imagine. He has claimed dominion over the world, and all of you will perish in trying to stop Him.”
“That’s a lie,” Blake said. “It’s not over yet. And we will destroy you. I have foreseen it.”
“They have the Sword of Jerusalem,” K-Os said. She sounded utterly dejected and desolate. “There’s nothing you can do, Blake. It’s over.”
“No,” Blake said. “Enough of this!” He raised his arms to the sky. “Do you hear me, Great Geb? Don’t hide from me! If you want to rule the world, then fight me, you coward! Or otherwise, all you’re going to inherit is wasteland!”
The Blood Moon simply sat, silent in the sky, unresponsive.
Then there came a sound, a terrible sound, a sound that filled the air.
It was a sound that Liberty knew well.
HrrrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOOOooooooon!
HrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooon!
“No,” she uttered, more of a yelp than speech. “No.”
“That sound,” Blake said. “What does it mean?”
He wheeled on K-Os.
“Tell me!”
K-Os looked up at the sky, and at Blake.
“It means that the British government has just launched a nuclear weapon at these coordinates, to try and stop the Blood Moon. It means that many people will die.”
Blake’s mouth fell open. He turned to his daughter. She was sobbing.
“It’s the end,” she wept. “Dad…we can’t stop it.”
“I have to try,” he said. He looked to K-Os. “How many will die?”
“I don’t know,” K-Os said. “Hundreds. Maybe thousands.”
“Thousands,” Blake said. He turned back to Liberty, placing his hands on her shoulders.
“Liberty, listen to me,” he said.
She shook her head, trying to writhe out of his grip.
“Please, don’t do this,” she said.
“I have to,” he said, sadly. “You must not follow me.”
“Dad, don’t go.”
Baird cackled.
“Yes, Great Ur. Go to die,” he gloated. “We shall found our empire on your mouldering corpse.”
Blake ignored him, keeping his focus on Liberty, who was wailing miserably.
“Liberty, remember what I told you,” he said. “No crying until the end.”
“But it is the end,” Liberty said. “I can’t live without you.”
“Yes, you can,” he said. “You are my daughter. I raised you. I have watched you become a young woman. I love you, Libby. I love you more than anything. This morning, I thought I might die. And all I could think was if you were safe. Because you are my world. I would gladly go to my death for you, Libby. A thousand times over.”
Liberty gazed back at him, her eyes tinged red with tears.
She embraced him, and held him tight. She did not want to let go of him, despite everything, despite the burning world and the cackling of vampires around her and the smell of smoke and the stony quietude of K-Os, and everything that sought to destroy the world that she held so dear—
Despite all of it, she felt in that moment that she was a lost little girl, and she desperately did not want to lose her Daddy.
And then he was gone from her, and she was on her knees, watching him ascend on twelve wings to meet his fate.
*
Chelsea and Dolly didn’t wait around to see what happened next.
The Captain’s men were too shocked to know what to do. His corpse lay crumpled on the ground, cradling his handgun like it was some precious, sentimental object.
The soldiers, now utterly lost, simply let the two of them go. It was like a spell had been undone, and now they were wandering aimlessly, lost in some void of purpose, frightened and desperately seeking answers.
Across London, they could hear the sounds of fighting. An orange glow seemed to shimmer up into the dark sky, between buildings.
“London’s burning,” Dolly said. “It’s all…”
She felt her legs give suddenly.
“Babe,” Chelsea said. “I’ve got you. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Dolly said.
Her mouth felt dry. Unbearably dry.
“I just feel really thirsty all of a sudden.”
*
The thing that used to be a soldier howled and roared. There was still a gun strapped around its shoulders, but it no longer seemed to comprehend what it did. It wasn’t clear to what extent it still had a human mind. It only moaned in pain, beating its own head with its fists.
It leapt at Daisy first, punching her squarely in the chest. Before she knew it, she felt herself slam into the brickwork. Winded, she tried to right herself. Something in her left side popped and crackled. It hurt to breathe.
Her ribs were broken.
“Daisy!” Nas shouted, running at her, but the creature lashed with its fist, knocking her back.
Daisy looked at at the creature, her eyes filled with tears. Her left arm was useless, the shock of the impact had left it numb.
The creature keened, leaning over her, raising a club-like fist.
Gasping, she reached up to her chest with her right hand.
“Ella…” she whispered. “Jules…”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Please…help me.”
She felt herself fall out of the present moment as though the Earth had opened beneath her, landing on a half-collapsed charity-shop sofa in a living room. There was a CRT television that showed a fuzzy picture of her incoming death, but it was paused.
“Where…?”
She gazed at her surroundings.
It was a strangely familiar room, and yet unfamiliar at the same time.
In parts, it was the front room in her first house, the bungalow she had lived in with her parents in Suffolk until she was eight years old. The resemblance was close enough to induce a strange feeling of déjà vu.
Then, in others, it was the lounge in the home of her childhood best friend, to whom she had stopped talking in Year Nine, because all the people at school said she was a freak, and her friend, wishing to avoid their jeers, chose to join with them.
Lastly, it looked like Jules’s front room, the room where she had fallen in love with him, watching The Simpsons with him and eating Quorn nuggets.
So this was it, then. Her life was flashing before her eyes.
She wondered, was this what it was like for Jules? She had never really dealt with the fact that she watched him die. His blood soaking into her clothes. She hadn’t worn that outfit again. She’d taken it back home with her in a plastic bag that summer, amid all the tumult over the missing week, dug a pit while her parents were away and burned it.
Still, the image on the television did not move. Perhaps this was what death was; that final moment, stretched out into eternity, a quantum impossibility that for other observers took place in an instant, but for the person experiencing it, lasted a thousand lifetimes.
She turned her head.
There, sitting on the sofa perpendicular to her own, was Ella Foe, who looked at the television gravely.
It was deathly quiet.
“Where am I?” Daisy asked.
Ella looked at her. Even after so long, it never stopped being so disconcerting to see her own face look back at her.
“Held within the split-second before something terrible happens,” Ella replied. There was no trace of irreverence in her voice. “But I can’t tell you what it is. I’m sorry.”
Daisy looked at the television, and then twisted her face into a terrible mask. She felt hot tears on her cheeks.
“Fuck you,” she said, venomously. “You bitch. All you have ever done for me is offer useless fucking cryptic bullshit. Even at the end, you carry on like you know your arse from your elbow. Don’t you fucking dare do this to me when I’m dying. When we’re dying. You’re worse than useless.”
Ella bowed her head, closing her eyes as Daisy berated her.
Then, she raised her head, looking at Daisy. For the first time, Daisy saw that Ella Foe was crying.
“I have not always been clear with you,” she said. “I have often been flippant, unhelpful and aloof. I…I never did it out of malice, I just…there is so much that I know that you don’t, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
She bowed her head and wept.
“Please, Daisy, know that when I tell you something bad is going to happen, one second from now, that I use vague terms not because I want to hurt you. It is because I am trying to spare you the pain of knowing what is to come.”
Daisy turned away from her biting her thumb, and then back.
“What’s going to happen?” she asked.
Beside her, she heard a door creak.
She turned, and her mouth fell open.
There before her stood Jules, dressed in white. There was a hole in his shirt. His face was sad, but set.
“I made a promise to you,” he said. “I’m going to keep that promise.”
“No,” Daisy said. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.”
“Please,” Jules said. “I swore to protect you, Daisy. Let me do this.”
“I haven’t even finished grieving you yet,” Daisy said, crying.
“I know,” Jules said. “That’s why I haven’t left yet.”
Daisy fell to her knees, sobbing.
“Don’t do this to me,” she cried. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to lose you again. Don’t do this to me again, you bastard!”
“Daisy,” Ella said. “It’s alright. Everything is going to be alright.”
“How can you say that?” Daisy said. “You’re asking me to watch the man I love die in front of me all over again.”
“I’m sorry, Daisy,” Jules said. “But you can’t die. Not here. Not now.”
“The world is ending,” Daisy said. “There’s no hope. You’re going to let me live through all this? You really are cruel.”
Jules frowned, bowing his head.
“I wish there was a better way,” he said. “You asked for our help. We will help you. And now it’s time to say goodbye.”
Daisy looked up at him, then at Ella.
“Don’t make me say it,” she said. “Please. Let me stay here.”
“I’m sorry,” Ella said. “But I can’t hold this together much longer. You have to say it.”
“I won’t,” Daisy said.
“Daisy…” Jules said.
“I WON’T!”
Jules knelt down, placing his hands on her shoulders, meeting her gaze.
She looked back at him. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t care.
Gently, he pulled her into a kiss, and she felt his fingers run through her hair, and his arm surround her shoulders.
A few moments later, he let go, and she looked back at him, still tasting him on her lips.
“How can you make me say goodbye after that?” she asked.
Jules withdrew from her and smiled, sadly.
“Because I am a memory,” he said. “And that kiss wasn’t real. You only had to remember. That is what has kept me alive for so long. That is how some part of me will survive in you, long after this moment. But you must be prepared to let me go.”
Daisy stood, looking at him.
“Okay,” she said, quietly.
Jules nodded, turned to leave.
“But before you go…” Daisy said. Jules turned. “You should know – I really did love you, Jules. I do love you. And I’m sorry you had to die to prove you felt the same way.”
Jules smiled.
“I died in the arms of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met,” he said. “I can’t think of a better way to go out.”
Daisy laughed, then bowed her head and covered her eyes, crying.
“Is it time?” she said.
“Yes,” Ella said. “I’m sorry, Daisy.”
“Alright,” Jules said. “Hey, Daisy?”
She looked at him.
“You live a long, happy life, okay? No matter what happens. You live the life you want to live. Don’t spend the rest of your life hoping I’ll walk through the door. When I’m gone, I’m gone. And the best thing you can do for me, and for yourself, is to live every day. Don’t live in the past. Promise you’ll do that for me?”
Daisy closed her eyes and nodded.
“I promise,” she said, softly.
Jules smiled one final time. He really was beautiful.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“I love you,” Daisy said.
“I love you too,” Jules said.
And then there were two.
*
Nas struggled to her feet, winded by the beast’s attack. She watched in horror as the creature raised an arm over Daisy’s head, preparing to bring it down. Daisy’s cheeks were streaked with tears. She seemed almost frozen.
“STOP!” Nas shouted.
A concussive pulse of fire blasted from her mouth, catching the creature in its side.
Enraged, it wheeled on her.
That very instant, a blazing pillar of white light silhouetted the creature.
Nas had to cover her eyes at first, but as they adjusted, she saw Daisy standing, despite her injuries, and clutching her bass guitar in her hands.
The creature roared and charged at her, raising its arm. Daisy held the guitar readily, and Nas gasped as she saw what was going to happen.
Daisy smashed the guitar against the creature’s head, sending it reeling.
The guitar was instantly rendered into a tangled mess of strings and splinters.
In the same instant, an explosion burst from the guitar’s body as if something trapped within had been cut loose. The monster cried out in a low, guttural scream, as some invisible force cut it to shreds and scattered the pieces to the four winds.
In the space of a second, the wretch was utterly obliterated.
Daisy collapsed to the ground, and Nas ran to her side.
She was crying.
“D-did I d-do it right?” she stammered, through sobs.
Nas looked, and beheld a spectral image of a man with a body of sapphire, speckled with stars. He smiled at her and walked out of the alley, vanishing into the air.
“Yeah,” she said, embracing Daisy. “Yeah, you did it right.”
*
“You can’t win, you know,” Baird said, over the din of sirens.
K-Os turned to him.
“I know that,” she said. “But they don’t. They’ll keep trying to stop you until you’ve killed every last one.”
Baird smirked.
“Do you understand why the Blood Moon affects people in different ways?” he asked.
K-Os did not answer.
“Some are unaffected by His influence. Some are affected, but transformed into mindless beasts that scream and kill. And others still become like us. Are you not interested in the secret?”
K-Os grabbed him by the shirt. Baird laughed.
“It wasn’t until recently that we understood,” he said. “It’s the blood, you see. The more your blood resembles that of Great Geb, the more His influence affects you.”
K-Os threw him to the ground, and he swiped a leg, taking her feet out from under her, then stood, kicking her in the stomach.
Weakened by the loss of the Sword, K-Os felt pain for the first time in a great many centuries.
“Would you credit it,” he said. “Of all the possible blood types Great Geb could have had, it was AB-positive. The universal receiver.”
He smiled, gazing up.
“Imagine it, K-Os. More than six-hundred-thousand people in this country alone have AB-positive blood. They must be so thirsty.”
He smiled.
“And more than six million will be transformed into beasts. That leaves more than fifty million as our prey. And how we shall feast!”
K-Os tried to get to her feet.
Baird knelt down beside her.
“Do you hear it, K-Os? Do you see it? One by one, your allies will die by the hand of a superior race. The world shall soon be ours for the taking. And you shall watch us do it, in the knowledge that it was your aid that brought us to this point.”
He reached down, grabbing K-Os’s top in a clawed hand, tearing it, and punched her.
“We live once more, K-Os!” he shouted, throwing her across the field. “Fight me, bitch. Let me see how weak you truly are.”
She stood, meeting his gaze.
She would take his challenge and win, or die trying.
Saying nothing, she lunged at him.
*
Under the gaze of the Blood Moon he made his lonely ascent.
The sky to which he had always been devoted had been turned against him. Where once there had been rainclouds, sunlight, now there was only shadow, and the blood-red Eye of Geb that hung in the celestial zenith.
He knew that he was going to his doom. He did not care. The sirens bellowed out their warning below him, urging him to return to the burning Earth, lie down and die with thousands of others. He did not heed them.
He had a job to do.
*
Monica was scared.
They followed the roads along, her father occasionally stopping to retch. There was a steady trickle of blood running from his nose. He could see something that nobody else could.
She was scared not for herself, but for him. She was made of penumbric, this she knew, and that was one of the hardest objects known to humankind.
But still, she was scared.
Weaving through the roads, they came out just a short distance from the place Harri-Bec called Tottenham Court Road.
The roads were filled with police officers and soldiers, confused, wandering around as if in a daze. Their gazes were cast up at the sky.
“You can’t come this way,” an officer said.
“Go fuck yourself,” Socks replied.
“Excuse me?”
They walked on. The policeman didn’t even attempt to arrest them, only put a hand to his head. It was like he didn’t know what to do. Like he had no purpose. Monica could relate to that feeling quite a lot.
They descended into Tottenham Court Road.
“We’ll be safe here,” Harri-Bec said.
“No,” Socks said. “It’s down here, too. It’s everywhere.”
He moaned in pain.
“Come on, Dad,” Monica said. “We’ll be alright.”
There came a terrible scream from across the ticket hall. Monica wheeled.
A creature made from rubric came barreling up an escalator with the words “Northern line” written on a sign above it, clutching in its arms the body of a woman it had killed.
“Oh, God,” Harri-Bec said.
The creature was followed by another, then another.
There were six of them, in total, their appendages dripping with blood. They roared and moaned, their bodies wrapped in tattered fabrics.
“What are they?” Socks asked.
“They’re people,” Monica said. “They used to be people.”
“Let’s move,” Harri-Bec said, turning to an escalator labelled “Central line”.
There came another roar, and up that escalator came yet more of the creatures, bringing their number up to ten.
“No,” Harri-Bec said. “No, there must be something we can do.”
“There is,” Monica said. “I was made for it.”
“Do it, Monica,” Socks said.
Monica’s green irises flashed with white pinwheels that spun around her pupils.
Brrrt-clunk.
And then she saw it.
And she was not afraid. But she was sad.
“I don’t have enough energy,” she said.
The creatures were drawing closer, backing them into a corner.
“What are you talking about?” Socks asked.
“I’m powered by gravity,” Monica said. “I can’t reserve enough energy to kill them all.”
“Shit,” Socks said. “Then what…”
“We do have an option,” Monica said. She bowed her head.
Her irises went red. She raised both her arms to the creatures.
“What are you going to do?” Socks asked.
“You and Liberty gave me a base pattern,” Monica said. “I have a spark of chaos in me that I can convert into energy.”
Socks’s mouth fell open.
“But…that’s your soul!” Socks said.
He looked from her to the creatures.
“Monica, don’t do anything stupid. Do you hear me?”
“It’s not stupid,” Monica said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Monica, listen to me.”
But she would not listen to him.
“Don’t do this!”
But she had to.
Her arms transformed into long, hollow tubes. They began to glow, as she diverted all the energy within her body into her guns.
“Don’t!”
And she remembered.
Remembered Trafalgar Square, and Harri-Bec’s home, and the confrontation at the pub.
Remembered the battle against Lucy, and how excited she had been to ride the train.
Remembered meeting Jonathan Mellors in a shabby little bookshop in Swindon, where he told her of his favourite books, and then they chatted for hours.
Remembered meeting Dolly.
Remembered waking up in that field for the first time and knowing herself.
Remembered towering over the landscape as the man who would one day be her father hung on to a rung in her shoulder.
Remembered throwing K-Os through a wall, remembered taking the bus to Chelsea and Dolly’s, remembered choosing her name by looking at her own face in the mirror.
Remembered being activated for the first time by a young man named Socks, who didn’t know that one day, he’d need her more than anything in the world.
She remembered all of it, and quietly let it go.
Her gun glowed with memories.
She could feel her internal machinery being torn apart. What she was doing was destroying her own hardware. On her arms, glowing cracks began to spider-web their way out from the barrels.
Somewhere, her father was shouting at her. Maybe he was crying. But she was disappearing, now, and could no longer tell him not to worry about her.
Thanks, Dad, she thought. For everything.
She could hold on no longer.
She let herself go with all the passion of her father and the grace of her mother.
And there was silence.
*
Socks shouted wordlessly as white light ripped from Monica’s arms.
The ticket hall burst into flames, incandescent lightbulbs burst and shattered. The creatures, who had lunged for the kill, were utterly destroyed by Monica’s attack, as a wave of light, brighter than any he had ever seen, tore through the room.
When it was done, there was a smell of smoke and burning plastic.
The area was purified, the marauders banished.
Monica stood, silent, for a few moments, then lowered her arms.
She collapsed forwards, smashing the tiles in the floor.
“Monica!” Socks shouted.
“Socks…” Harri-Bec said, gently.
Socks ran to Monica’s side, rolling her over on to her back.
Her irises were flickering with a faint white light. She did not appear to see him.
“Th…” she said, quietly. “Th…th…th…th…”
Socks recalled that time in the field, when Monica had almost been destroyed by the rubric homunculi.
“I’m here,” Socks said. “You’re going to be alright, aren’t you?”
“Th…th…th…”
He heard Liberty’s voice in a shadowed corner of his mind.
She’s dying, Socks. Her brain is going out.
“God,” Socks said, tears running down his face. “God, no.”
“Th…th…th…”
The light flickered a final time.
“…thank you,” Monica whispered.
The light in her eyes went out.
There was a bright flash of light.
And on the ground where a girl had once been, there was a small white crystal.
Beside it were three books: Melisande, The Hobbit, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Socks stared at it for a few moments, reached for it, then held it in his hand.
The crystal was no longer singing.
He looked down at it in his palm, tiny and inert.
Everything he had been through came rushing over him like a great torrent, and he wept.
All for naught. It had all been for naught.
“Socks,” Harri-Bec said, again, gently. “I’m sorry. We have to go.”
Socks looked at her, and in that instant, just for a second, he felt like he wanted to scream at her. Instead, he took a deep breath and recollected himself, placing the crystal in his pocket.
“No,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Socks turned away from her, and stood.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He vanished from the ticket hall in a flash of light.
Harri-Bec stood, surrounded by flames and smoke, alone once more.
She fled.
*
Rising higher, now, Blake could feel the air starting to turn. Yet the Blood Moon seemed to move farther and farther away. No sky, no weather, no birds, just the endless expanse. It seemed almost as though the Earth were shrinking beneath him into a point behind. Like an event horizon. He could never go back.
He thought of his father, more than twenty years ago, his grey beard running down his chin. He had only felt like a boy, then, himself. He must have been the age Liberty was now. He was not prepared to see his father in that way.
He remembered his father’s eyes, sparkling with tears.
He had promised Blake that he was not in any great pain, but Blake could see that these were merely words of empty comfort. His face was prematurely aged, sallow and emaciated. He had been wracked with the agonies of death for some time. He knew his time had come.
“Do good, my son,” he had said. “I have raised you well.”
“Please, don’t leave me,” Blake had said.
“I will never leave you,” his father had said.
At the time, Blake had promised that when the time came that he had a son – foolish as he was to assume it would have been a son – that he would do his best not to leave him.
He had been forced to break that promise when the men in black cars came for him. The beast they called The Captain and his cohort, the Director, and then, Emily Bush, the underling.
He hoped, for a moment, that Emily Bush would never feel her sacrifice had been made in vain.
It was not in vain. He would make sure of that.
He thought of Emily, of Liberty, and of the thousands, currently gazing up at a red sphere in a dark sky. The thousands that would die, if not for his intervention.
One man who could, for helpless thousands?
That was fair.
As he reached the apex of his climb, he saw it, a black sphere falling towards him.
He opened his arms wide and spread his wings, closing his eyes in quiet acceptance.
“Despite everything,” he said, tears in his eyes, “I forgive you.”
A second sun blazed in the dark sky, just for an instant.
There was no fire, there was no blast-wave, there was no radiation. The awesome power of the atomic weapon boiled in the air, but something held it back.
At its epicentre, a figure whirled and tumbled. It ravaged him. For a few moments he was plunged into Hell. He felt his skin blister and crack, his bones shatter, his flesh destroyed. He did not scream.
He absorbed the deaths and injuries of more than five-thousand people, counteracted them, diverted them into his body. He died five-thousand times, each time more painful than the last. His flesh absorbed it, every potential wound, every would-be tumour, every lesion and burn and scar. He was marked with the stigmata of deaths that never were, each one of them a person who could continue to live.
He experienced more pain in a few moments than any person might experience in a lifetime, and when it was done, he felt a great relief.
A hand touched his shoulder.
“You have done well, my son,” his father said. “It is done.”
The light died, and Blake Parish fell to Earth.
*
Liberty followed him as he fell, catching him before he had even hit the ground.
Even in the dark, she no longer saw someone that she recognised.
Her father had been burned and mutilated beyond recognition, his skin scourged, lacerated and charred. Yet, even this had not been enough to kill him instantly.
“Dad,” she said. “I’m here.”
His eyes had gone milk-white, and blood oozed from his ears.
“I’m going to help you,” she said. “Don’t worry, okay?”
He did not speak. His face looked like a skull, the lips peeled back to reveal teeth, the flesh gouged and scorched.
As she came down to Earth, she set him down gently on the ground, her eyes glowing faintly blue.
“Help me,” she said, calling to the strings. “Save him.”
But there came no reply.
“Don’t ignore me!” she shouted. “Save his life!”
Yet, still, the strings remained silent.
She pressed her hands into her father’s chest, trying to heal him, but her skin became sticky with blood and melted fat. She wanted to be sick. How could it be that this obliterated figure was her father?
“Stop it,” she murmured. “I can do this. I can save him.”
It is time, the strings seemed to say.
“Don’t do this to me!” she shouted.
It began to rain, in big heavy droplets that fell from the sky. As the water soaked into her hair and her dress, Liberty felt the droplets pass over her lips, and her mouth filled with the taste of salt.
Her father could not speak. He raised a hand, feeling for her. She took it, and he felt past her arm, towards her chest. His palm touched her heart.
I’m sorry, said a voice in the strings. It’s the end.
“You can’t just leave me! Please, Dad!”
I will never leave you, said the voice.
“What am I going to do without…” she said, in disbelief.
She felt warmth pass into her chest, filling her stomach. Something glowed inside her.
“What did you just…?”
Her father gurgled, coughed, then exhaled.
He did not inhale again.
As he went limp, Liberty let go of him. Her dress was stained with his blood. In a few moments, a thicket of brambles had grown up around his body, and his corpse was entombed. Liberty stood, backing away from the brambles.
“What…” she whispered, looking down at her hands. “I don’t understand…I don’t…”
I am not there, Liberty, the voice said. I am here. Do you understand?
We…
…are…
…here.
Liberty opened her eyes wide, straightening her back.
“Yes…” she murmured. “Of course…”
And from her back, there spread not six, not twelve, but eighteen wings.
Under the dark sky, Great Ur flew back to the ruins of the Great Seal, towards the final confrontation.
Another time, another place…
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Illustration created using elements of an image by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash. Additional elements used of a public domain image courtesy of NASA.
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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII