Page 5 of Godslayer
Anyway, that’s not even the important part.
The important part is that the tower and words on my ceilin’ aren’t really here in this realm. It’s a glimpse into somewhere else. And I can’t tell if this is just due to my augments comin’ fully online again, or because of the synergistic bond between Clara and me, or because this sparktopia thing is following me somehow.
I can’t tell. I just can’t tell.
If that’s where it ended, I’d probably let it go. But it seems to just be gettin’ started because I can see all kinds of other places now. I don’t need Clara or Anneeta to do this. These places, they’re just… everywhere.
Even here, in this bedroom.
Overlays are controlled by subtle eye movements. Sometimes, very elaborate commands need a head gesture or even a hand gesture—but combination moves like that are mostly reserved for battle.
When you’re just lookin’ at somethin’, ya only use your eyes. A twitch here, a slide there, a blink or two, and it gets the job done.
Crossing my eyes in a certain way and focusing on a particular depth of field is what reveals the other side of the veil. Or veils, as it is. Because there are a lot of them.
So I do that and watch from the bed as people move about the room in another dimension. It’s a husband and wife this time, but they’re not the only ones. Or, I should say, that’s not the only place that exists side by side in this space I call the bedroom.
There are a lot of worlds out there. And while not all of them are like this one with a tower in this exact space that goes up this high, there are dozens—maybe even hundreds or thousands thatareexactlylike this one with just different people substituted for Clara and me.
Sometimes birds will fly by. Just fuckin’ flap their cyan-blue outlined wings and fly on by, not even six feet away from me. So there’s no tower with a penthouse apartment in that place.
When I go outside, it’s chaos if I let the veil bleed happen. All these other worlds start competin’ for my attention. It’s too much if I don’t filter it, and filtering it takes more energy than I care to expend, so mostly I just turn it off. Which is surprisingly easy to do because while I was messin’ with the ocular control panel, I found a fuckin’ button for it in a hidden screen called—wait for it—Sparktopia.
It’s a light blue tab labeled ‘extend’ when the worlds aren’t there, which then switches to white and says ‘reduce’ when they are.
A button that opens dimensional screens that I can use to interact.
And by interact, I mean steal spark. Because that’s all I’ve used it for, if ya don’t count spyin’ on people.
What a crazy fuckin’ world.
Stealin’ spark is how I saved Clara and Anneeta on the train ride to Delta City. I didn’t press the button, obviously. At that time, the augments weren’t working like they are now. But the moment we came up from the underground, the moment we crossed into the Alphas, the spark was pervasive enough to activate the ability to see through veils, I guess.
And then I just… drained those spark people. Took all their spark for myself. It wasn’t even hard. I didn’t even have to get up from the bench seat I was on, holding a dying Clara in my arms.
It just… came to me. Like it knew I needed it, so it just came to me.
I want to go ask Delta about all this shit and what it means. But if he knows it’s happenin’, then fuck him for not speakin’up in the first place. And if he doesn’t, it’s definitely in my best interest to keep it that way.
Because those last words of his kinda haunt me.
All gods need food.
He thinks Clara is my food.
And she’s not.
I mean, I’m a hundred percent certain Icoulduse her as food.
But I don’t think I’ll ever have to.
Not when I can steal it from anyone, at any time, from any goddamn place I want.
2- CLARA
Ever since I arrived in Delta Citymy dreams have been mesmerizingly vivid.
I don’t recall ever having thoughts about dreams back in my old Tau City. I know I had them, but I never woke up thinking, Wow! That was cool, or weird, or interesting. But every day—every single morning—I wake up in awe of the pictures, and thoughts, and stories running inside my head while I’m sleeping.
