Prophecy’s End

After leaving the train station, I once again entered Drewville. The town was dead silent. No matter how much I looked around, I couldn’t spot a sign of human life.

Maybe I should just go back to the lady in the station’s ticket booth… ha ha.

Sighing at the mediocrity of my own joke, I proceeded to Iscari Inn. Technically, I still had a room booked, so I could stay in Drewville overnight if need be; however, my intuition was telling me that this would likely end one way or another soon.

After walking through the empty town, I finally arrived at Iscari Inn. I bit my lip in thought before entering the hotel. As expected, nobody was there. Where is everyone? Don’t tell me…. Realising that there could be a larger problem than I had initially anticipated, I left for the town centre, knowing that it was the largest open space in Drewville, and thus the most likely gathering place in it. When I arrived, I saw something horrifying.

“No! Stop!”

Jude was screaming, her face red from the effort as spittle left her mouth. Tears filled her eyes as she determinedly struggled against the men dragging her out of the town centre. But she couldn’t fight back.

“Please calm down. There is nothing we can do.”

The balding man was trying to cool the situation, but I knew that the mistake they had just made was unrecoverable. Thankfully, I had arrived just as they were leaving. If they weren’t so distracted by Jude, then things might have turned for the worse. I rushed forward to get to Noah.

Noah was lying unnaturally still, breathing raggedly. His face was pale and lips were tinged blue. Just as I reached him, a brief spasm crossed his body. Immediately, I deduced he had experienced a severe arrhythmia – likely induced by the stress of the interaction between the blue patch cult and his mother.

He had an artificially regenerated heart that was probably weak. I kneeled down, only to realise that he had stopped breathing entirely. I put my finger to his carotid artery and found no pulse. Noah was dead.

I wept.

For the first time since I had been in Everywhere, I truly began to cry. Tears fell down my face as I realised that, through the consequences of my actions, a child had died. My spirit had buckled under the weight of guilt ever since I had recalled ‘my’ past, and this was the breaking point. There was no excuse of differentiation between myself in this ‘human’ body and ‘myself’ in the theological sense. I had to resolve this on my own. I called on the Spirit, and time came to a halt.

“Revive him.”

“I cannot.”

I stared at the Spirit for a moment, my eyes narrowing.

“Why not?! ‘I’ resurrected a man before. It should be doable.”

“We do not have the resources.”

I immediately glared at the pigeon.

“Fuck resources! We’re already doomed, just save the kid!”

“That’s not how it works.”

I wanted to yell at the Spirit more, but I realised what it meant. I took a deep breath and thought for a moment. The problem was that Noah wasn’t a believer. We could only collect the consciousness of believers upon death. Otherwise, they would simply return to the Abyss. It is debatable whether having your ‘soul’ collected is beneficial, considering that most of them are simply cached and used as divinity batteries (hence the reason God could exist despite having no believers whatsoever), but that is beside the point. At that moment, something my father had said to me surfaced in my mind.

“These days, a lot of them can be revived by human technology.”

I glanced at where the Spirit was, only to realise that it had vanished, and that time had resumed. I immediately set to work on CPR.

…

Thump… thump…

After a terrifying thirty seconds of work, I could hear Noah’s heart once more beating. I called on the Spirit.

“Fix his heart, and properly this time.”

I couldn’t see it, but I could understand its general response. It sounded something like:

“This will cost almost all of our resources, you know?”

“… It’s fine.”

My tears dried as I watched as Noah’s chest slowly rising and falling.

“You! Mod!”

I swivelled my head, only to see the balding cultist screaming at me. My other emotions had dried up with my tears, leaving behind absolute, perfect hatred. I could only release a murmured growl at him.

“… You did this.”

I watched as more and more blue-patched people ran out into the town centre, most approaching me. My vision was darkening. My heart began to pound. My face contorted into something indescribable.

I want to hurt them.

My heart rate increased at the thought. Flashes of my fights with Michael came to mind. I wanted to crush them. I wanted to prove how insignificant they were.

“Get the Mod! She hurt the boy!”

But I couldn’t do anything.

“Elysia, above all you must be kind.”

Hands grabbed me and started to drag me somewhere. I was vaguely aware of Jude running to Noah. She glanced at me, tears still in her eyes. She mouthed something before running off with Noah. It’s likely that she immediately fled from Drewville from there.

… I get it. She must’ve tried to use me to buy time to leave, right? That’s fine… I forgive you, Jude.

My lips curled into a bitter smile for a moment, before I turned to the people dragging me along. It looked like I was at a cliff. My sense of time had definitely been broken. The people around me yammered about getting rid of “the Mod”, but it was obviously a cover to eliminate witnesses. They didn’t seem to have realised that Noah was alive.

I looked into the sky.

“I’ll die for real, won’t I?”

The Spirit’s response was prompt.

“If the vessel dies, then it will be over.”

So, I’m going to die if I don’t do anything? What are my options? I can’t use miracles anymore, and if I fight back, then I’ll end up caught in lengthy legal issues. No matter what, I’ll die eventually. If I die now, though, then it would probably turn me into a martyr. I would be able to be used to motivate action on the East Coast. Adam would appreciate it, I suppose.

I laughed. I couldn’t think of what else to do.

“Are you mocking us, Mod!”

A woman from the blue-patched cult was yelling at me. I grinned.

“Yeah, I am.”

She slapped me. I didn’t feel much. From the way she grabbed her hand in shock afterwards, it probably hurt her more than me.

“This little…!”

The bald man stopped her and backed me up to the edge of the cliff.

So, this is Jackson Cliff, huh? I can see the docks down there.

“Do you have anything else to say?”

I looked him in the eye. Given his kindness in giving me last words, I had to oblige.

“Always look on the bright side of death, I guess?”

And then, I was shoved off the edge. I felt an immediate sinking in my gut as my body began to accelerate.

… I don’t like this.

But no matter how I felt, the ground kept adamantly approaching. I could process information immeasurably faster than the average person. I’m not being conceited by saying that, it’s simply how it was. In fact, here, that was only a disadvantage. From my perspective, the harder I thought, the slower time went. I spent the equivalent of hours slowly approaching the water. I mentally ran through my entire life leading up to this.

I guess I’ll never know how much of my friendships were my choice….

And then I hit the water. Even at terminal velocity, a fall probably wouldn’t be enough to kill me, so from this height I had to wait until I drowned instead. It didn’t particularly register as painful, frankly. This level of pain was something I had experienced before with Michael. I simply continued to think things over.

I wondered how Sarah was doing. I was still wearing her glasses, actually. It was a shame that they were going to waste, considering their quality. Connor was probably going to do well at university, given his studious turn.

I also thought about how Mark was doing. His civil service work should have been wrapping up, and Lily had said he was succeeding with flying colours through the internship, so he would likely be taking on a major role at some point. Lily herself was probably taking charge of the Bellons soon.

And, Adam… well I could only hope he’d be able to capitalise on my death in his work to have the East Coast adopt fusion.

I smiled. Finally, I was able to conclude my thoughts.

I forgive you for lying, Father. I just… want to see you again when I return to the Abyss.

At last, everything went blank.

Was I kind?