III.
Sefgh stared, unblinking. "How..." they began, hardly able to get the words out, "How are you alive? Matt checked your pulse, you were... I mean, we all saw you get shot right in the head, and now you're..."
Indeed, I had been shot point blank, and the bullet had lodged straight into my brain. But it had then been expelled from my body, and the wound had healed, leaving behind only a scar which in about a week would also be gone. Streaks of my fur glowed a bright gray, and by that same time would have cooled back to their natural black, as would my irises, now shining a pure pale white. My body worked in mysterious ways. They stared, and I stayed silent.
"Maine... seriously, what the hell? How?" Matt asked. I still didn't say anything.
"Maybe it's an impostor. Should we ask it something only the real Maine would know, or just shoot it?" M-Bot asked.
"No! No. No shooting, for Al's sake!" Sefgh exclaimed.
"But what's something only the real Maine would know?" asked Matt.
Matt and M-Bot began to discuss this, and their words were faint noise to my ears. I did not process anything they said, and simply looked straight ahead. The look in my eyes was enough for Sefgh. Without saying a word, they ran to me and wrapped my body in a tight hug. The others looked on as they sobbed quietly into my shoulder, my shirt still bloody. When they pulled back their face was wet with tears, their hair messy with sweat, their pale gray eyes bloodshot and red.
"Come on, Maine... answer me. Tell me how you could possibly be here right now. I thought you were... I mean, I saw it, Maine!" Still hugging me, they lightly punched my back in frustration. "Come on! Answer! Say something!"
Ever since I was very young, I knew I had been chosen by Almendra. During my childhood I had what is known as a 'bicameral mind' - that is, my inner monologue was not my own voice, but was dictated to me down from god, or at least that's how I perceived it at the time. Eventually my consciousness split and I perceived a gap between my thoughts and hers, but at any given moment I was more likely to listen to her commands than to follow my own desires. Usually this was for the best - she would tell me to eat, work, play, and so on at the correct times to keep me the happiest and healthiest, regardless of my own impulses. I grew up in a small community which worshipped Almendra, a long-standing prototype of the cult which would eventually consume and recreate the Town of the Church of Holy Light as Alzeki converted to his new religion and brought the pre-existing town into his orbit. This community, the Gathering of The Pale Flame, on the other hand, had formed wholesale around the cult. It had then moved into the wild, and so it was much more sparse and rustic than the high modernity of the Town. My parents had been born into the Gathering, and so I was born into it as well. It had run for a hundred years, and become self-sustaining, a very rare feat and one which its founder would have been quite proud of. Life here was simple, but contradictory. They praised me as Almendra's chosen child, and yet treated me no different than any other. In fact, they seemed to care very little for me at all. It's not worth talking about; in the end, they all died. A hurricane tore through the Gathering and killed them all, down to the last, with the singular exception of myself, by the grace of god. The grief was too much for me to bear, and I tried to drown myself in a nearby river. At first I succeeded, and would have died at the age of fourteen.
At the time of death, I experienced a dark void. I had no sight, no sound, no smell, no touch or taste, no inner voice, no consciousness but for awareness of my own lack of consciousness. Time slowly crawled past in the blink of an eye. The next day, I woke up unharmed on the bank of the river, coughing up water. The voice of Almendra spoke to me, telling me that I could not die yet. I had been chosen, and my death would be so catastrophic that it could not be allowed.
In the time between then and arriving in the Town, I died several times, and each time I understood the process more. After my death, my consciousness was taken from my body and stored for safekeeping while my body was reconstructed. That first death, I had to wait for my body to wash up on shore before my consciousness could be placed back in it, but this is usually a very fast process. After that initial reconstruction, my body glows with her power as it reunites with my soul. I am, against my own will, a marvel of engineering.
That is what I told them.
Nobody said anything, and Sefgh got a strange expression on their face, like they were relieved but at the same time furious.
"Why didn't you ever tell us this?" They asked quietly.
"It's a hard story to tell, and you never would have believed me, anyways," I responded.
"But it's the most solid proof you could ever get that Almendra's real!" Matt exclaimed.
"It could be another god lying to me and using her name," I said.
"Screw that! That's Almendra, Maine!" He shouted.
"Maine..." Sefgh let go of me and started to speak, eyes pointing downards, "...why weren't you there with me when Bolthro attacked? I know it's a lot to ask to die for me, but..." They flexed their mechanical left arm.
"Almendra's a god, but she's not all-powerful," I responded, "It takes a lot out of her to do this. If my body keeps dying before it and my soul can finish being stitched back together, it takes longer and longer to reconstruct me every time. If I die again when I'm still vulnerable like this, it might take a whole day to bring me back, and again after that maybe a week. So if I jump in front of every bullet, suicide-bomb every target, it could add up fast, faster than we can afford - we're on a timer against Cardo, after all." I sighed. "But you're right. I should've been there, and I'm sorry."
Sefgh didn't say anything more, just brought me back into the hug.
After all that, we sat on the couches and talked about what to do with Delth's body. Sefgh was ready to let it rot where it sat, but Matt thought it was best to dispose of it. I had no strong feelings, and ultimately Sef thought that if the person killed didn't particularly care, they shouldn't hold such a strong grudge either. Matt and M-Bot dug a grave outside the cave-home and buried Delth there. It was shallow and unmarked, but better than nothing, I suppose. The home was left bloody and wrecked, the violence haunting its empty rooms like a specter. It was already sunset, but the whole place felt terrifying, so we quickly made our way back through the wooded patch to our vehicle and camped by it.
My body was in the process of restarting. My arms and legs twitched and spasmed, and I'd needed help getting up some hills as we'd ran away from the scene. I could feel my blood slowly speeding up as it recirculated, my body temperature and heartrate steadily climbing back to their usual positions. I had a headache like I'd gotten hit with a sledgehammer and my limbs ached like I was about to fall apart. When something touched my forehead, it shrieked in pain. My body had been reconstructed fast enough to spare me the indignity of soiling myself, but those functions had been thrown off in such a way that, upon reaching camp and excusing myself, a couple days of waste came out at once. My fur was oily and unkempt, my vision was foggy, and basic things seemed past my understanding. I had watched Matt's shovel hit the dirt with the quiet curiosity of a child, and lost the skill of intoning my voice, speaking instead in a dull monotone. Very few people had seen me in this state before, and I felt vulnerable in a way they likely would not have understood. I was, after all, invincible.
It was now, as sleep veiled the eyes of the others, that Maine ventured into the plain.
It was lit by the moon, and wore a shade of deep blue as though it were beneath the water.
Maine ventured here to carry out a conversation with Almendra as She spoke to him,
Away from the others that might judge their dialogue.
Maine was the first to open their mouth, saying:
"Almendra, what have you wrought? What hell have you placed upon me?
What are your plans that I am shot through the head, and forced to tell my siblings of our circumstance?
Why do you put me through these things when we know both well what lies at the end?"
Almendra responded from the heavens, saying:
"You ask me this, Maine, but you know well the answer, and simply seek a new one.
The designs of the world are outside my control alone; I can only carry them out.
You and your kin must arrive to face off against the demon who ends all things."
Maine exclaimed, "And let the demon end all things! It matters not to me.
Were I to have never woken up from my first dark sleep, it would have pleased me so.
Now I am forced to shamble on this Earth against my will, and it displeases me,
Especially when I know full well, no matter what you say, that we shall fail."
Almendra spoke, "You shall fail, but you shall succeed as well;
This has been written down already, and will be echoed continuously.
Your true fate is oblique, even to myself, if you so choose to believe it;
And if you do not, it disappoints me, but this is not new either."
The Moon with its gray light is beautiful from a distance, idyllic and shining,
But seen up close it is barren and scarred, a mere hollow reflection of Earth.
This is how Maine saw the world, in all its complexity and glory,
A ruined and seething mass, a mere hollow reflection of something which should be.
At one time humanity in fact stepped atop the Moon, climbing the moutain's peak,
And yet we never returned.
It has often been said that when we arrived, we felt this effect,
Of hollow feeling where achievement should be, leaving us unchanged in rapture.
Each man on Earth thought that at that moment our thoughts would themselves change;
That each man would become a cosmic being, ascended to the heights of the Moon;
But this height was unattainable, and they were unchanged in rapture.
The disappointment reverberated, shaking and shattering our very bones.
The technology developed was used instead for warfare, and the mountain was abandoned.
Plots to climb once more were thwarted, as we were slain by our own failures.
The moment replayed before us, but it had lost its promise;
And many, even, no longer believed in its reality.
As this history became subject to debate, the spiritual aspect was left by the wayside.
By the wayside, indeed, was the spiritual aspect altogether.
This, too, was how Maine saw the world; it was stripped of any magic,
For all its effect, in its power and mystery, was to prolong his miseries.
Maine saw as a phantom in their periphary the world as it should be,
And cursed it for failing to live up to this phantom in its horrid imperfection.
He often thought to himself that he did not desire to step foot upon its shores,
And cursed the demon Almendra for forcing his continued march.
And so he said, "I do not desire to step upon your shores; I curse you for my continued march;
I wait impatiently for the day where we fail and the great darkness of Z overtakes us all.
I care not for the circumstance of this, whether it is by the work of the demon Cardo or no;
My only relief is in spreading this gift to others who may enjoy it where I cannot."
Almendra spoke, "But you do not truly think this; it does not match your actions.
If this was truly your relief, you would go about as a killer, and not bother with any of this."
Maine groaned, "And what is your place in all this, you dictator of thoughts?
How can I trust that you are not puppeteering my thoughts and motions right now?"
Almendra spoke definitively, "I am an unsubtle god; you would feel it if I did as you say.
You should know that I am a patient god as well, and could choose any number to carry out my will, as indeed I have in the past.
I speak to you, sustain you, because I love you; why do you not believe me?
There is nothing more I can do to prove my love; and so I shall wait until you are ready, as you will be, to listen."
Maine tore at his fur and shouted, "I will not!", but the connection had ceased.
He tore at the grass and dirt, screaming and kicking against the threads of existence.
He looked up at the sky and spoke aloud, for anyone that would hear, his message's end;
"O World!"
The night spiralled around Maine, the Moon, the field, the stars, all a swirling vortex into the center of his forehead, drilling its way in with the echoing words of the goddess, piercing his mind and burrowing into his subconscious the undying lessons of eternity and abandonment, for indeed eternity was abandonment, the body rotting into earth and the soul rotting into void, at least as he would have guessed it. His pale eyes rolled back into his head as he passed out from stress, and so Maine was sent to sleep with a leaking brain, and sustained the dreamless void.
Following this the cultists entered back into their mechanical horse, and galloped once more for another week. The days and nights in this time melted into each other, and those days and nights melted into days and nights previous and yet to come, crowded around in the belly of the beast, chewing on the world's knowledge at day and meditating on the world's mistakes by night. The Sun and Moon danced with each other around the Earth, and the Pale Flame burnt on. The cultists cut their path through the Komekrat'r Plains, through the grass and grain and birds and bugs and the endless flat horizon where the air kissed and embraced the earth, clouds passing by in silent vigilance. The horse bumped along the dirt path, stuttering and screeching, and the cultists went out to find that it was in need of a repair, and so they fed and watered it so it may continue, this food and water contained separately within its chambers already and having come from a far-off time and place, indeed far longer ago than any of them were aware; it was, after all, the lifeblood of a long-gone order, and the flesh of a long-gone domination. But this is not so relevant yet with our current scope of knowledge. Following this they met a woman wearing blue traipsing along who claimed to know the future, met an ordinary man wearing gray idling by who claimed to know the present, and a fool wearing green running who claimed to know the past. They entered a great field of flowers and swam around in them, stole from a farm, and burnt a windmill. F.P. recognized the miracle, and was initiated through the standard rites of the Pale Flame. All of these events mixed and mingled together, and failed to commit to memory.
Matt ventured alone into a field and held his arms to the sky, and was met by a mysterious other, and they ascended together. M-Bot ate lightning as food, and so Maine and Sefgh were left alone, and they went into an empty farmhouse and had a moment alone, where they embraced each other and slept in the same bed, for Sefgh was so relieved at the return of Maine; their emotions were not yet resolved, however, and so this did not recur, and instead the next night, when Matt again ascended with the other and M-Bot again ate lightning, they slept in separate beds. These incidents were not written down in their books of record and so the details are lost, but we can imagine, as I presume, that each had walls built up around their minds, and so their minds were not able to meld together but instead stayed sheltered within their bodies, sole points of consistency in the crawling chaos around them, the minutes and hours and days blending together and shifting around as drops of water or bugs in a swarm. Many moments continued to pass in this great swarm, revealing themselves for but a second before being brought back into the fold and passing from our sight, but many were of little note; the Chorus peeked their heads in and out through sleep, and passed comment without fanfare or notice each night, and Almendra whispered sweet words to deaf ears, and agents moved in the shadows without notice.
We must pull away from these minute details and see the shape of the storm, now, and as we do we see its horrific size, and see that we are in simply one tornado among many, all tearing through the land. These tornadoes were all a part of a larger system; but this system is beyond our comprehension for now, and so we must zoom back in to just the one, already nightmarish as it tears through the plains, sending up earth, destroying homes, and sending countless people towards the eternal night, where the Sun and Moon forever go out and you are abandoned by the stars, your body and mind separating for a final time as your body is eaten by worms and your mind is eaten by void. The grass is soaked in blood, and the air screams out in pain. And yet even this is not enough. The storm has no taste for restraint, it is self-sustaining and cyclical; when one tornado dissipates, another will touch down and take its place. The atoms of the plains become scrambled, and all is forgotten in the chaos. We must close our eyes now before the storm tears apart our very minds; what do we make of all this, the chaos and the destruction, the blood and the pain, the worms and the void?
You must realize that there is no place for you here; that the desire of the soul is to transcend these things, and yet that its attempts are foiled; that the body and soul desire separation, but yet this separation is impossible, and that when the body dies, the soul dies with it, and likewise. You cannot escape by the destruction of the body; you cannot escape by the destruction of the soul; both of these attempts will simply bring you to the worms and void, and then you will be sent clawing back into the storm. This desire may only be fulfilled by the breaking of the storm, by the moment where the winds cease, the floods dry, and the holy Sun peeks again through the damning clouds; it is only at this moment that the soul may integrate once more into the body, and they may pass peacefully again into the ether upon death without the harsh winds tearing them from their path. This epiphany has not yet reached our cultists, whose torn minds stay siloed in their scarred bodies, and so they stay in the chaos of the storm, embrace it, whipping up the winds and enraging the swarm, contributing their memories as raindrops to the endless flood which drowns all land and smites all life. We open our eyes back up, now, and descend back down to the material plane, lining up our vision once more with the vision of Sefgh, inhabiting their body, seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears, and feeling through their skin; at this moment the week has gone, melted into air, and they stand outside the home of the target Ethae.