by David Beers
Because she hadn’t been willing to take the Blood.
When the Prophet first approached the beach, Raylyn had walked away. She had an idea of what was to come, and to be near it was to invite death. So she had left and listened to the lunatic’s ranting and raving at his sister.
Eventually though, he had left, and Raylyn saw Rebecca Hollowborne still standing. No static wrapping around her, no life threatening wounds.
The weapon didn’t return, and Raylyn found her feet moving across the sand, heading toward Hollowborne. She still stood in the transport, not yet moving.
The conversation had been quick.
“I’m not taking any of his Blood,” Raylyn told her.
“Get in, then,” Rebecca said. “Otherwise you’re going to die.”
Raylyn had looked at Hollowborne for only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Because in that moment, she decided what mattered: her life or Manor’s.
No, her mind spat at her. No, that’s not true and you know it. That’s not fair. It wasn’t your life or his. It was your life or the Prophet’s. That’s what this was about. Manor could have given it up, told you he would go wherever you wanted, but he didn’t did he? No, he sat there on that beach and tried to convince you. Raylyn, there was no choice of your life and his, it was your life or the weapon’s, and there’s no choice in that.
You can’t trade one false god for another, not for anyone in this world.
Manor had contacted her shortly after she left, and Raylyn hadn’t lied. She could have ignored him, could have told him anything or nothing, but she told him the truth.
I left with his sister.
And he’d said nothing in return. Stunned silence, because both of them knew what it meant.
Tears sprang to Raylyn’s eyes as she thought of it now. She stood up, forcing the memory away. She couldn’t keep dwelling on it, because it only brought her to a single truth: she left, and Manor would die because of it.
She reached up and wiped at her eyes, then walked to the front of the transport.
“Where are we going?”
It was the first thing she’d said since getting in.
“To the One Path,” Hollowborne answered.
Raylyn stepped over the small barrier separating the front from the back and sat down in the open seat. “Why?”
“Mainly because I don’t know where else to go. But, that’s where the girl was heading, and so that’s where I’m going too.”
“What girl?”
Hollowborne looked over at her. “You don’t know?”
Raylyn shook her head.
“There’s a girl, a young woman really,” Hollowborne said, “and she’s like David. I don’t know how, not really, but that’s why we were in the One Path. It’s the reason we were in the One Path when you found him, because we were intercepting her.”
Raylyn leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and trying to take it all in. “There was a transport we were following, and we were supposed to protect it,” she said.
“That transport was what we were after.”
The two were quiet for a few seconds and then Raylyn said, “This is going to take me a minute to understand. Why would we go to her? Why do you care?”
“I don’t know where else to go. You can’t feel it, but David has started the Summoning again. People are dying in every Ministry right now, and he’s surely going to head to the Nile River.”
“I’m still not getting this. Why would you go to her?”
“Because I think she might be the only person that can stop him. The Ministries are useless at this point. They can’t do anything, and I’m not sure they ever could. I might have underestimated him, and the Unformed, because I really thought he was dead.”
Raylyn opened her eyes and looked to the woman next to her. “You’re still going to try and stop him?”
“It’s the only thing I can do,” Hollowborne said.
“Why are you different? What happened to change you? You say your blood still itches, because you swore yourself to him. Why are you the only one that wants to stop him?”
“You True Faith people really like learning about David, don’t you?” Hollowborne asked. “Your Priest had me talking for hours and hours about him. Now you’re wanting to know more.”
“Not about him,” Raylyn said. “About you.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Raylyn laughed and looked out the window to her right. Ocean lay beneath her and clouds above. Their ascent was slow and winding. “After all this … I’m not sure you could say anything that would surprise me.”
Rebecca didn’t want to tell her; she’d let the woman get in the transport, but that was only because death awaited her on that island. The woman was still an infidel, someone who spent her entire life worshiping at a shrine made to a false god.
Rebecca wasn’t even moved that the woman had risked her life to save them.
You two belong with each other, she thought. She gave up her lover, and you gave up your brother.
Brinson was staring out the window to the right, perhaps waiting on Rebecca to speak, or perhaps she’d given up on it.
Why would I tell her anything?
Why wouldn’t you? For better or worse, you two are together now; there isn’t a whole lot of time before the world ends, if you’re being honest.
“Everyone talks about truth,” Rebecca said softly. “David, Rhett, the Ministries. I’m sure your Priests talk about it, too. Everyone thinks they know truth, that if you just follow or listen to what they’re saying, then it will all work out. You’ll be safe. The people you love will be safe. And then there’s an afterlife waiting, where you’ll get everything you ever desired. That is the basis of the truth people talk about. David is no different. When the Unformed arrives, everything will be great for those that followed him. And I believed it.”
Rebecca felt Brinson’s eyes on her now, no longer looking out the window.
“Maybe there is truth. I don’t know. What I do believe, though, is that if any truth exists, it isn’t happily ever after. There’s no savior. There’s no life after death. There’s only what we can do for ourselves. And she showed me that.”
Seconds passed with Rebecca saying nothing, then Brinson whispered, “Who?”
A small laugh—more of a hitch—rose in Rebecca’s throat. “This is where you won’t believe me. No one would, except maybe David, but I couldn’t tell him.”
She paused again, and in that silence, decided to go ahead.
“Rachel Veritros.”
Neither spoke for nearly 30 seconds, then Brinson said, “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”
Rebecca burst out laughing—real, hard laughter. She kept going and then Brinson joined in, as much nervous tension being released as humor, but it didn’t matter. Tears came to Rebecca’s eyes and she didn’t even try wiping them away. She just kept laughing, finally feeling good, if only for a few seconds.
When the laughter died, Rebecca was breathing harder, and so was Brinson.
“Well, it was Rachel Veritros that told me what I had to do,” she said, still smiling, though at the mention of the woman’s name, the entire transport grew serious. Rebecca understood what kind of feelings Veritros caused in people of any faith—any besides David’s. She was a monster, and to even speak of her could mean ostracism, if not outright death.
“I guess I’ll keep talking,” she said. “You don’t have to believe it, but I’m already this far along. It was a few years ago, though now it feels like lifetimes. I was only 24 or 25 then, and David’s numbers were growing rapidly. Our numbers back then. It seemed like a new transport was delivering people to the compound weekly, and David was different then too. The anger he has now, it was there, but not omnipresent. Things were … lighter, I guess, even if the situation we dealt with wasn’t.
“The Prophet, whether Abby, Veritros, or David, can always remember the exact moment when the Unformed firs
t comes to them. It’s the same for me with Veritros.”
Rebecca looked over at Brinson, wanting to see how critical her face was. She was leaning back against the opposite door, her brow furrowed, but it didn’t appear to be in condemnation … or any accusation of insanity.
“A transport had been arriving, another five people joining the compound. I was out on the platform, ready to welcome them. David was there, Rhett and Christine, too. His entire inner circle, because it was important to make them realize that they had finally arrived home. Five people exited the transport, and other members of the compound went to take their bags. Five. That’s all that had come, and yet I saw a sixth. She didn’t move off the transport, wasn’t walking toward us like the rest. She remained standing on it, behind the other five and looking at none of them. She was staring right at me.
“There are pictures of Veritros. I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but they exist, and I’d seen them over the years. I never doubted for a second who I was looking at. Rachel Veritros stood in that transport and was staring right at me.
“I looked over at David, then, but he was walking forward already, going to meet his followers. I looked back at the transport, sure she’d be gone and that I had hallucinated the whole thing. She wasn’t gone, though; she was still standing there staring at me.”
Rebecca closed her eyes, seeing the woman as if she stood in front of her now.
“She was beautiful. The world talks about her as a killer, and maybe she was, but she was also one of the most beautiful women to ever live. I was almost stunned by it … I opened my mouth to call David’s name, and that’s when she spoke to me.”
Rebecca had stood with her mouth open, her tongue flexed against the roof of her mouth to form the word David, and then Veritros spoke.
No.
A single word that didn’t venture from a mouth, but rather landed in Rebecca’s mind like a raindrop. A single one, bringing with it a freeze that all the winters in the history of the world couldn’t match.
Rebecca stopped, uttered not a single word, but only stood staring at the transport.
Veritros stepped off, just behind the crowd of people now meeting David and everyone else. Rebecca was alone, having not ventured forward at all.
Veritros shook her head, and Rebecca somehow knew what it meant. Don’t speak of me. Don’t say a word. Not now, nor ever. Just know that I’m here.
And then Veritros walked forward, around the crowd. She was heading into the compound and Rebecca’s head turned as she passed by, Veritros giving her no grin, no acknowledgement at all. She simply moved across the platform.
Rebecca turned completely and watched as the woman entered the door, disappearing as it closed behind her. Rebecca stood there, unable to move nor believe what she’d just seen. It wasn’t possible, yet there she was, turned around with her back to the arriving group, wondering what had just happened.
She nearly turned around and said something, but the word came back to her.
No.
It was spoken like David himself had said it, with no possibility of questioning or not obeying. It was spoken as if from the mouth of a Prophet.
Rebecca did turn around, but she said nothing. She moved to the group and went through the motions, barely managing smiles and not remembering a single thing she heard or said.
Eventually she went back into the compound, her head swiveling left and right, looking for some sign of the ghost she’d just seen.
Ghost.
The word sat in her mind, a word she hadn’t thought in years and years—not since she and David were children. It was a word she didn’t believe in, nor would any other rational adults.
Then what else was it? What else did you see out there?
A hallucination.
Days passed and Rebecca saw nothing. She met with David, with Rhett, with Christine. She went through her routine as usual, the planning and execution a constant day-in/day-out thing. The preparation for what was to come. Yet, she couldn’t fully focus, because she couldn’t shake what she’d seen in the transport. And even if she’d been able to, just dismiss it as a hallucination or some trick of light or her being tired—she couldn’t deny the word.
No.
Unmovable and unbreakable.
At dusk on the third day, Rachel Veritros came to Rebecca Hollowborne again.
Rebecca had ventured out to the platform on her floor, walking to the edge. She was alone, at least on this platform, though she knew people were above and below her. She was trying to put what she’d seen behind her, wanting to quit thinking about it and to focus on the tasks given her.
I’m going to tell David, she thought, hoping that if she got it out in the open, the whole thing would disappear. She’d be mocked a bit, but then realize how stupid her entire thinking was on the subject.
The voice spoke again, the exact same word. No.
Rebecca didn’t move, only stared out over the platform, looking at the SkyLight in the distance slowly growing darker, preparing for night.
You’re not real, she thought, not knowing if she was conversing with herself or an actual other being.
You know me, the voice said. The words—their phrasing—were short, as if conserving energy.
Rebecca shook her head, thinking, This isn’t possible. I’m losing my mind. I’m going insane, right here on this platform.
No, it said again, with more force, silencing Rebecca in a way that only David had done before.
Rebecca stood silently, not thinking nor moving. She stared, because it felt like the voice was struggling to communicate with her. Despite the strength the words delivered, nothing about this felt easy. Rebecca didn’t know what to do, but she knew the voice wasn’t hers—or if it was, then it was some separate part of her mind, blocked off to her, and she truly had gone insane.
Listen, it said finally.
And Rebecca did.
“At first,” Rebecca said, “it hadn’t been about stopping David at all. It wasn’t traitorous in any way, listening to that voice. It was reverential.”
She looked across the transport to Brinson, trying to see if she understood. Brinson nodded a couple of times.
Of course she gets it. If anyone in this crazy world understands anything, it’s reverence for myths.
“Over time, though, she told me her truth.”
“But not the truth?” Brinson asked.
“Only hers, but like all truth, some of it was right.”
A few seconds passed and Rebecca thought she knew the question Brinson wanted to ask, but also that she was afraid to.
“You want to know what she said, right? What could make me turn on the Blood flowing through my veins? What could make me believe my brother must die?”
Brinson looked away, out the front window. “I do, and I don’t. I’m … I’m struggling even to believe it happened. You were right about that. How? How could someone dead 1,000 years contact you?”
“I don’t know for sure. The communication with her is never … thorough. But, I don’t think the Prophets die like you and I do. I think their connection with the Unformed brings them back to It. I think David will go there eventually, too.”
“Okay,” Brinson said, still looking forward. “Tell me what she said.”
“That’s the let down. She told me the same thing everyone is already scared of. The Unformed doesn’t care about us, about the human species. It doesn’t truly care about Earth or this universe, only that its own habitat is about to be pushed out of existence. This is only survival for It, and when the Union happens, we’ll be discarded. In all honesty, I’m not sure anything in this universe will survive the Union. I don’t understand the physics. Perhaps It simply replaces our universe, and everything in it. I don’t know.”
She paused, thinking.
“The point is that It doesn’t care about us. That we’re being used. That in all likelihood, It looks at us like insects, because that’s what we are in comparison. Unthinking creatur
es that react on instinct and habit. Like I said, this isn’t revolutionary. It’s something any thinking person would ask—what is this creature going to do when It gets here. What are we bringing here?”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed as the crux of the whole thing came to her.
“David won’t stop. No one beneath him will either. Rhett wants me dead, and I was closer to him than I was even to David. When Veritros laid it out for me, why she lost, I didn’t have a choice. That’s what the Ministries don’t teach, what they might not even know. Veritros lost because she realized all of this at the last moment. She recognized that this thing we worship would only destroy us. At best, it might simply absorb us like it did her.
“She was special, though. If David were to realize all of this right now, I still don’t think he’d stop. She saw it and ended the Union. She chose death and that humanity—that the universe—kept going. David wouldn’t. He’s obsessed. He’d kill everything for his union.”
She looked at Brinson, eyes still narrowed.
“And don’t you judge him for it. Because that’s the whole damned point. Every one of us, myself included, were ready to give our lives and the lives of everyone we knew for something we didn’t understand, something we hadn’t met. All because It did what? Gave David some powers? Showed him some things he hadn’t seen before? Is it any different with you, though?”
Brinson said nothing, looking uncomfortable at the anger running through Rebecca.
“It’s not,” she continued. “It’s not different with any of you. Your God makes you feel peaceful, that someone loves you; that there is something waiting for you when you die. When you go to service, and you send those little coins into the air and your nanotech amplifies the group think? Is that so different? The only real difference is that there’s no evidence of Corinth, or the Old World’s God for that matter. Yet, all of you give everything to it, the same as we did. And until days ago, you were the same. So don’t you judge David. Don’t you dare.”
Rebecca looked forward.
“We’re all just pack animals, looking for someone to serve. Something that loves us.”
