Page 87 of Godslayer
This is when I realize I’m on my feet, eyes are open, and I’m stupidly reaching for my Versi—which of course, is no longer on my hip—because there he is. The weird augment with the melting face.
Except… I tagged him wrong earlier. He’s not an augment.
I’m looking right at the fuckin’ god, Epsilon.
And he’s so out of my frame of reference of what a god looks like—I can’t move.
I can only stare.
Because Myra was right.
Memories come crashing back from when my team was whole—perfect—and still alive. Jast, Myra, Stepan, Kirt, and me. Sitting on the floor of the deploy train for the trek into the Outlands. I’m laughing, lookin’ at Kirt, because Myra is telling a ghost story to all the new kids we picked up at the Psi Outpost, the last human habitation before the dead sandy sea. They were all eighteen, only two years younger than us, and on their first deployment.
This was our third so it was our duty to put the fear of the god in them in the hopes they’d be careful, they’d think critically, and remember their training. Get them out alive so they could be sent back in for round two.
Myra’s story was about fight clubs in the dead space between Alpha and Omega. This dead space was somethin’ only people from Alpha actually believed existed.
The Dead Space fight clubs were run by the Corrupted God.
He was a myth. A rumor.
Myra came up in Alpha city and they are some superstitious fucks because they think the world is circular and if ya look to the north, you’re actually lookin’ south. Which means, if you’re a citizen of Alpha City, the Omega Outlands are always creeping up your backside.
One leads to the other, leads to the other.
Eventually.
The other guys fucked with her endlessly when her Alpha heritage came out during our augmentation—because that place is filled with fuckin’ ghost stories, conspiracy theories, and nutters who think death is a badge of honor, and dyin’ for one’s god is how they show respect.
Alpha, I guess, breeds his military for insanity. Because Myra was crazy as all hell.
Her Alpha City heritage, as well as being the only girl in the class, made her a target.
If she wanted to fight alongside us, she had to either take it and brush it off, or manage it and earn her place.
Myra didnottake it. She managed it. And she did this managing by scaring the fuck out of everyone with her crazy Alpha City stories. They were all insane. Especially the conspiracy theories.
Like the one she told our group about the Alpha Ghosts and how, if she ever got lost or died in the Outlands, she’d just become one of them and walk her ass home by heading deeper into the south because eventually it would become north again.
But it was the one about the Corrupted God running fight clubs in the dead space between Alpha and Omega that really got to people. And every time she started in with this story, we’d all moan, and complain, and tell her to shut up.
Which is sad, now that I think about it. Because shediddie out there. I blew her brains out. And every day, for years, I wouldpicture her out in the sand, wandering north. Trying to find her way home in the loop that leads to Alpha City, as a Ghost.
But right about now, I’m also thinkin’ that Myra was right.
Because I am looking the Corrupted God right in his ugly fuckin’ face.
And itisugly. Scarred, or burned, or something. He’s not charming and handsome like Delta. He’s… a monster.
I take a step back—not because I’m scared of him—I’m just…shocked. I wasn’t expecting to meet a god in this place, let alone a myth. And in this step, I trip over something.
Or rather,someone. Because it’s the asshole who was tryin’ to kick me in the ribs.
I fall back, once again crackin’ my head so hard on the cold stone, I black out, thinkin’…
I should’ve let Myra finish the damn story.
22 - FINN
