few books, only one of which she recognized: The Manifestation of Impossible Wants.
On one of the built-in desks near the front were neat piles of screws, wires, metal plates. In a box under the desk were old siphons in various stages of disrepair—one missing all the plates that would cover the palm, another missing all the fingers. A variety of screwdrivers were in a jar nearby, handles up, waiting to be used.
This was where someone lived.
She didn’t know much about zombies—or whatever the proper term for the Resurrectionist’s soldiers was, since they seemed too intelligent to be actual zombies—but she doubted they needed to sleep. So if this was anyone’s bedroom, it was the Resurrectionist’s. Which meant she couldn’t have chosen a worse hiding place.
She heard voices again. Sloane slipped into another room that had clearly been a meeting space, judging by the long rickety table and the abundance of windows. These weren’t boarded completely, giving her light to see by. In fact—
She was fairly sure she could open one.
Sloane wiggled the window by its handle, testing how loose it was in its frame. It shifted back and forth. She looked over her shoulder and paused to listen to the voices. They had gotten louder. She made out a few words:
“Stitch it back on, but—”
“Fuck,” she whispered, and she shoved the window up as hard as she could. It slammed up in its frame, and she stuck her head out. She was two stories up. High enough that she would break a leg if she jumped.
She looked over her shoulder again. She couldn’t see anything, but the voices had stopped. Sloane held her breath as she waited. There was a whine, the pressure of a foot against an old floor. The squeak of linoleum.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Okay, okay, okay.”
She put her legs through the window and positioned herself on the windowsill.
Then, bracing herself for pain, Sloane jumped.
Sloane didn’t look down at her right ankle. She didn’t want to know.
Her eyes swam with tears. She bit down on her fist and limped as fast as she could, leaning against the alley wall for support. In a few yards, she would run out of wall, and she would have to put all her weight on her right foot.
Sloane stopped to wipe her eyes. She felt like someone was stabbing a knife repeatedly into her right leg. All her thoughts pulsed in time with the aching. She stepped away from the corner and screamed.
One more step, she told herself, gasping, even though she was at least one hundred paces from the river, where there was a railing she could put a hand on. She looked behind her, through a haze of tears, to see if any cars were coming. She saw nothing. Sloane stepped again. And again.
She walked all the way to the river, where she finally saw headlights.
EXCERPTS FROM
At Long Last: A Collection of Essays About the Chosen One
From the essay “Like a Dream”
by Laura Bryant
And it was there, watching my groceries spill across the street—
the onion rolling into the gutter
a bottle of milk broken and spilling into the cracks in the sidewalk
—that I first saw him.
The Resurrectionist’s destructive gale had begun, the pull, the shredding, chewing of matter. And all around it, people screaming, screaming,
running.
Running for their lives.
I had toppled, twisting my ankle. One of the weaker ones of the herd, now vulnerable to attack by our world’s most horrific predator, our would-be destroyer, our devil-made-flesh. My death was certain—
And yet.
Like a dream—
The Chosen One came forth. Golden hair glinting in the sun. The seal of the Army of Flickering beneath his shoulder, a tribute to his fallen comrades, his massacred men. A simple metal cuff around his throat, his siphon, his sword. A whistle clamped between his teeth, his shield. A new army, rebuilt on the ashes of the dead, at his back.
Our defender.
The Chosen One of Genetrix.
From the essay “My First Thought”
by Xevera Ibáñez
I saw a picture of him in the newspaper the day after the attack on Cordus. He had fought, sung powerful workings into being, shaken windows, rattled doors in their frames, but he hadn’t won, and he hadn’t lost. He was still among us, so we were glad, but we were disappointed too. That he had not saved the world with one whistle.
It meant that more anguish awaited us. More streets split down the middle, more stonefaced mothers, children walking alone, men sitting on curbs and staring at nothing. More buildings torn apart by