children had fled, as I'd
ordered. "Why are you two still here?" I demanded.
"Because I hate going home," Danny countered.
"Or maybe, we couldn't let you die out here. You're kind of a
mess."
Thomas gulped and nodded.
I nodded, mental gears turning furiously.
They'd made their choice, and now it was up to me to protect them.
I kept shining the darkness beam down along the hill, vaporizing
row after row of oncoming corpses, but something in my mind was
screaming a warning…
I glanced up at the horizon.
The Blue Ridge Mountains.
We could see the mountain range from here.
We'd always been able to.
My eyes lit on a single orange speck high up
on the horizon - a campfire? The headlights of a car?
It didn't matter.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine…
Reacting with all the adrenaline my body
could spare, I thrust the darkness-bound flashlight into the
irregular rift just above our heads… and let it go.
My hand came back bruised and battered from
the tidal forces within, but… that portal was outgoing, to that
sunny grassy haven, and the darkness entity would not be able to
return. Hopefully, it was night and cloudy there, too, and the
entity would have nowhere to go at all. If not… well, now, we
couldn't use the portals as an escape ourselves, either.
One apocalypse down. How many more to go?
"What'd you do that for?!" Danny shouted.
Both he and Thomas grabbed flashlights from my pockets and shined
them around.
A crowd of half-illuminated corpses had made
it most of the way up the hill.
"What now?" Thomas asked, shaking.
Gunfire rang out from somewhere in the forest
to our left, and I saw red light sliding across the treetops. "Oh
my god, they're really doing it…" I realized aloud. The iWorker
hegemony had done exactly what I'd feared. I imagined that
organized men with guns were approaching from the left even as we
listened… and they were able to see the invisible corpses because
of the programming devices they'd brought. They could never defeat
the billions of rotting puppets flooding in through the portals,
but they could certainly present their own threat. "Don't let that
red light reach your eyes. It'll mind-control you!"
"Seriously?" Danny asked, starkly
terrified.
Thomas held his head in his hands.
To our right, gigantic columns of flame
suddenly tore up into the sky, shooting out in random directions as
the portals from the obsidian world fluctuated. "Time to go," I
ordered quickly, happy that I'd gotten rid of the darkness entity
at the right time. This situation was way beyond us, though, and I
feared all was lost.
And what was so special about this fucking
shoe I'd been lugging around? Why had the information demon
wanted its partner?
The two boys helped me up, and we slogged
away together, moving slightly faster than I could have on my own.
We no longer moved in darkness, but in fluctuating firelight, as
the forest acquired cleansing flames and spread them with aplomb.
That shifting light illuminated numerous corpses trailing us, but I
still kept my flashlight tuned around us, just in case.
Where were we even going? The suburb was no
safe haven, even though that was where I'd always told the children
to run. The iWorker battalions would reach it, or the legions of
the undead, or the cleansing flames would kill everyone
regardless…
As we limped away in grim panic, an
unexpected sight caught my eye.
Maybe a hundred feet away in the forest,
illuminated by firelight, several humanoid figures walked at a pace
I recognized. Sealed in black, they moved at just about four miles
an hour. There were two tall figures, and one small one - a
child.
I couldn't help but laugh. So there had been survivors on the obsidian world, after all, despite
the magnitude of evil humanity had perpetrated upon itself there.
How long had they been walking? Did their entire culture, now,
revolve around walking ever east, ever away from the
globe-encircling cleansing flames? How many times had they walked
the world
ordered. "Why are you two still here?" I demanded.
"Because I hate going home," Danny countered.
"Or maybe, we couldn't let you die out here. You're kind of a
mess."
Thomas gulped and nodded.
I nodded, mental gears turning furiously.
They'd made their choice, and now it was up to me to protect them.
I kept shining the darkness beam down along the hill, vaporizing
row after row of oncoming corpses, but something in my mind was
screaming a warning…
I glanced up at the horizon.
The Blue Ridge Mountains.
We could see the mountain range from here.
We'd always been able to.
My eyes lit on a single orange speck high up
on the horizon - a campfire? The headlights of a car?
It didn't matter.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine…
Reacting with all the adrenaline my body
could spare, I thrust the darkness-bound flashlight into the
irregular rift just above our heads… and let it go.
My hand came back bruised and battered from
the tidal forces within, but… that portal was outgoing, to that
sunny grassy haven, and the darkness entity would not be able to
return. Hopefully, it was night and cloudy there, too, and the
entity would have nowhere to go at all. If not… well, now, we
couldn't use the portals as an escape ourselves, either.
One apocalypse down. How many more to go?
"What'd you do that for?!" Danny shouted.
Both he and Thomas grabbed flashlights from my pockets and shined
them around.
A crowd of half-illuminated corpses had made
it most of the way up the hill.
"What now?" Thomas asked, shaking.
Gunfire rang out from somewhere in the forest
to our left, and I saw red light sliding across the treetops. "Oh
my god, they're really doing it…" I realized aloud. The iWorker
hegemony had done exactly what I'd feared. I imagined that
organized men with guns were approaching from the left even as we
listened… and they were able to see the invisible corpses because
of the programming devices they'd brought. They could never defeat
the billions of rotting puppets flooding in through the portals,
but they could certainly present their own threat. "Don't let that
red light reach your eyes. It'll mind-control you!"
"Seriously?" Danny asked, starkly
terrified.
Thomas held his head in his hands.
To our right, gigantic columns of flame
suddenly tore up into the sky, shooting out in random directions as
the portals from the obsidian world fluctuated. "Time to go," I
ordered quickly, happy that I'd gotten rid of the darkness entity
at the right time. This situation was way beyond us, though, and I
feared all was lost.
And what was so special about this fucking
shoe I'd been lugging around? Why had the information demon
wanted its partner?
The two boys helped me up, and we slogged
away together, moving slightly faster than I could have on my own.
We no longer moved in darkness, but in fluctuating firelight, as
the forest acquired cleansing flames and spread them with aplomb.
That shifting light illuminated numerous corpses trailing us, but I
still kept my flashlight tuned around us, just in case.
Where were we even going? The suburb was no
safe haven, even though that was where I'd always told the children
to run. The iWorker battalions would reach it, or the legions of
the undead, or the cleansing flames would kill everyone
regardless…
As we limped away in grim panic, an
unexpected sight caught my eye.
Maybe a hundred feet away in the forest,
illuminated by firelight, several humanoid figures walked at a pace
I recognized. Sealed in black, they moved at just about four miles
an hour. There were two tall figures, and one small one - a
child.
I couldn't help but laugh. So there had been survivors on the obsidian world, after all, despite
the magnitude of evil humanity had perpetrated upon itself there.
How long had they been walking? Did their entire culture, now,
revolve around walking ever east, ever away from the
globe-encircling cleansing flames? How many times had they walked
the world
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