Page 99 of Godslayer
And now, Ireally doget it.
I look down at my empty, black body. It’s lit up with their names.Oh, I lament,I so hope I can find my way back to Tyse. He’s dying to know what these symbols mean and I can’t wait to tell him.
These symbols mean something else, though too. It’s not just a memory, it feels like… a promise?
I’m not sure. But meeting all these harvested women and girls feels like an exchange. Not just so they would be remembered, but so that they would betagged. So that I could keep track of them
Wow, I exhale. While I am flattered to be thought of so highly that I would be trusted with the memory and magic of billions of women, it also feels like a burden.
Something to live up to.
And I do not get the feeling that this will be easy.
Haryet’s spool of thread is suddenly wrapping around me. Glowing, undulating—and in this thread, I hear her message….
You’re not alone, Little Sister. You will never be alone again.
And now, neither will they.
We are all One with the Source now.
We are Creation.
I look at Haryet—miles upon miles of spark thread all around us—and let out a long breath. “I get it. But now what? What do I do with this—” I want to say burden, but I pull it back at the last moment. “This…”Gift, Clara. It’s a gift. “What do I do with it, Haryet?”
She points at me, spark thread spooling out of her fingertip at an alarming rate. It wraps around me, spinning me into a cocoon.
Survive, her spark whispers.
And then there is one moment.
One last, final moment when everything is good, and warm, and peaceful.
A single moment when the tilted, crooked universe is upright and steady.
And then I am ripped away—back into the coldness.
Back into the emptiness.
Tight, spun out,captured.
“Needles and thread!”
Cold emptiness.
I open my eyes to find myself face to face with a monster. A smiling, cackling monster. “Needles and thread.Needles and thread little dollll-eeeeee!” The Crooked-toothed mutant jumps up and down, clapping his hands as he cackles these words, over and over.
I’m so confused. My mind is… not right. I don’t know where I am.
“I’ve got you!” the broken man yells, delighted at his success. “I’ve got you!”
“Wh—What?” I manage to gasp. That’s when it hits me—tight, spun out, captured—I’m on the train line. Parts of the dream still linger in my mind—the women, made into husks from all the spark harvest. How they came to me and gave me a piece of themselves to hold on to. And how I gave them names to hold on to back.The shard! I force my head up so I can look down at my chest and… there it is. The glowing blue shard of Spark Source.
Frantic, my eyes dart to the twisted man. Can he see it? Does he know I was given a gift from the Source?
But if he can, he doesn’t seem to care. “Get her feet,” he squeals to the mutant beside him. “Unspooling time! Needles and thread.Needles and thread!”
Dozens of grubby mutant hands grab me. Claws digging into my arms and legs. I’m lifted into the air—hauled over their heads like a prize.A procession ofmonsters marching me off the train line and up onto the platform. Then I’m through the door, down a hallway, more hallways, stairs, down, then up. And finally, a dimly-lit room filled with screens, and machines, and…
