God Leaves Strait

Sarah Murphy wasn’t good at understanding other people’s problems. Just ask Connor, he’d… well, he wouldn’t tell you outright, but he was a good example of it. When it came to those she cared about, she had a bad habit of imposing her own assumptions onto their conditions and then running with them no matter what. At least, that was the case until she finally got over her long-running dispute with her husband, Connor.

‘I wonder if Elysia is home….’

On this day, she had just finished work, so she decided to leave and get some air. Connor was away at university, so she didn’t have much to do. Perhaps driven by the red string of fate, as she left, she did indeed see Elysia. However, Elysia had a self-propelled suitcase following behind her. Immediately, her blood ran cold.

“Elysia, where are you off to?”

Sarah couldn’t tell what it was, but her intuition was screaming that something was wrong. When Elysia turned around and Sarah saw her expression, that feeling only deepened. Sarah had recently noticed that Elysia’s expressiveness had been growing since she had first met her, but, in this case, this was far beyond the pale. Elysia was giving a dazzling smile.

“I’m just on a trip for a while, Sarah. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

The smile framed by her face could only be described as a divine work of art. If there was a picture taken of that moment, then it might well have been bought up at an exuberant rate by a gallery. To Sarah’s mind, the only word that could be used to describe it was “angelic”. Nonetheless, it felt wrong. Sarah, who had known Elysia for months, couldn’t help but feel something was screaming in pain under that face. This wasn’t some kind of reading of micro-expressions, but rather a purely immaterial gut feeling. As Elysia turned to leave, Sarah realised.

‘This is the last time I’m going to see her, isn’t it?’

Sarah didn’t want to lose her friend like that. She didn’t want to fail to help her when she was in pain, like with her failure for Connor. But still, as she looked at Elysia’s slowly shrinking back, she only felt an inexorable helplessness.

‘Can I even do anything?’

Yet, defying her own thoughts, Sarah ran.

===

“Wait, Elysia!”

I turned around, to see Sarah rushing to catch up to me.

“What’s wrong, Sarah?”

“Just before you go on your trip, I wanted to give you this. I was planning on giving it to you later this week, but I may as well do it now.”

Sarah handed me a pair of metal-framed, tinted sunglasses. They looked reasonably expensive.

“I’ll miss you, Elysia. Don’t do anything reckless… please.”

“… Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate it.”

I began to turn to walk away, but Sarah interrupted me one more time.

“Bring me a souvenir!”

My lips tugged upwards instinctively. Even though I knew it was an unfulfillable request, I appreciated Sarah’s sentiment.

“… I’ll try.”

I know you can feel something is wrong. I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, I suppose. I’ll miss you. You were my first friend in this world… no, you were my first true friend in any world. Goodbye, Sarah.

And, with that, I left for the train station.

===

The scenery passing me was a blur. Trains in the modern era could easily move at supersonic speeds, so, even for my kinetic vision, it was hard to make out much detail unless I paid substantial attention. My interest, however, was not on the scenery. Rather, it was on the deserted train. The rows of seats, designed for hundreds of passengers, had one person per car at best. Naturally, this was a consequence of the lack of desire for anyone to visit the ‘primitive’ coast.

I glanced out the window once more, sighing lightly. I still had thirty minutes left stuck in the train before my arrival. On top of that, the accommodation I had scouted was going to blow most of the money I had been paid by the Bellons. The coast was so unreasonably hostile to outsiders that, while it didn’t tend to outright ban temporary accommodation, it did impose severe taxes on non-residents using them. The hatred went to the extent that I had even heard of violent attacks on civil service workers on outreach programs to them – especially the town I was visiting, Drewville, which had several such cases. So, in summary, I need to go and convert a horde of people who will want to shoot me on sight. I’m thrilled. Maybe I can try preaching to the alligators?

At the thought of preaching, my expression contorted a little. Even my father, Apollyon, had been concealing my true purpose from me. To say that I felt betrayed would be an understatement. On a logical level, I understood what they were doing, but I simply couldn’t fundamentally accept. While I had accepted the plan at the time, that wasn’t me. No matter how divine my ‘true’ nature was, I was still in a mortal body (more or less). As a result, my self-perception in that moment differed from the self I recalled in my memories of being God the Son. It’s not like I had suddenly become a man because I remembered my previous time on Earth; frankly, those memories were a dysmorphic experience to recall. I glared at the window and muttered in frustration.

“Who am I even supposed to pray to for help now?”

Maybe a mortal? Ha… that’s a good joke. ‘I’ revoked that right when ‘I’ wiped them out en masse repeatedly.

So, I continued to stare at the blurry scenery blankly. The plant life’s greenery and the afternoon sky’s darkening blue blurred into bands, resembling a bicolour flag. The train was airtight, so it wasn’t possible for me to smell the scenery itself, but I felt an urge to do so. With this being the first time I had left the bubble of Strait, I was eager to take in nature in more ways than just pictures and vegetables. I began increasing the intensity of my staring. My eyes were rapidly adjusting to the train’s speed, and I was quickly becoming more and more capable of making out details… but I stopped focusing. This damn body… what’s the point. I sighed once more and closed my eyes. I tried to zone out and shut off my attention to it.

Rattle, rattle…

Is something loose in the train’s frame? I was distracted from my efforts to zone out by a soft rattling noise. I opened my eyes and glanced around, before confirming that there wasn’t anything nearby. I closed my eyes once again, before….

Creak…

I was distracted by a slight creaking sound. This repeated every time I tried to relax. Some minute noise, or some irritating light kept distracting me. I simply couldn’t focus. This blasted train must be breaking down!

In the end, I was continually bothered by the train until the moment it arrived in the Drewville station. I was the only one getting off at this stop.

===

A short-haired woman was managing a ticket station at the end of the line, which was notable since a human was manning something that most certainly did not require human management. As a matter of fact, ticket checking could be done entirely without human involvement, so the fact that I had to manually use my E-watch to bring up a ticket was certainly indicative of the state of the coast. I walked up to her, and she gave me a curt smile, before ushering me through the process.

Finally leaving the almost-empty station, I walked out into town, only to be greeted by a buffet of not-particularly-friendly stares. Walking down the street, I noticed that parents were pulling their children away from me as I walked past them. Especially odd was when I saw some men with blue patches on their jackets whispering to each other while glancing at me. I’m not that scary…. But, regardless of my thoughts, the clear fact of my reception remained. Prophet or not, this town was not going to accept me easily.