memory was gone, and I was in another time, another place.
The California sunset was pale pink and bloody red over the ocean. My feet dangled over the edge of the pier, swinging above the water. I stared down at the swirling foam, at the waves crashing against the pillars of the pier, and imagined sinking into those dark depths. I imagined that if I went deep enough, everything would be silent. In the back of my mind was the constant feeling that I had forgotten something, that there was something incredibly important I was meant to do and yet, no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t know what. I was restless, so restless. Maybe if I sunk beneath the waves, maybe if I went deep enough, the restlessness would stop.
My head split wider. It was unbearable, overwhelming. I knew my body was violently twitching, and I was screaming, then seizing, but I couldn’t stop.
My parents were talking about Spain again. They wanted to move, they wanted to buy a house and retire by the coast. My dad looked at me and asked, “So what’s the plan, sweet-pea?”
I knew, right then, that I wanted to go home. Home, to Abelaum. Home, to the trees and the rain, to my childhood ghosts. Home, to the place that had never stopped calling me. Maybe if I went back, the restlessness would stop. Maybe I’d remember what I was meant to do.
I’d fallen to my knees. The stones were so cold, and I was sobbing, my tears mingling with the puddles of water at God’s feet. It was agonizing but it was joyous. It was the deepest, truest terror I could imagine, so awful I wanted to die.
It all made sense. I was meant to be here. I was meant to come. Every step I’d taken, every choice, had led me here. Even when I’d been fighting so desperately to get away, I’d run back into danger.
My sense of self-preservation hadn’t just been bad — it had actively driven me to this place, to this cold cave deep underground, to fall at the feet of my God.
“You see, my child? Your soul is mine, to be bound into an eternity of exquisite suffering among all those who have come before. Marcus Kynes, Victoria Hadleigh, and now you, Raelynn Lawson. The sacrifice is complete. As I escape this place, and the world changes beneath my hand, you will see it all. You will feel the agony, the pain, the righteous fear of humankind. Such is the fate of my chosen ones, to be blessed to suffer for me forever. To feel such pain is beauty. It is the final, ultimate purpose of your soul.”
I looked up, into the face of God, through the watery haze of tears. “Am I going to die?”
“Never,” It said. “Your flesh will rot, consumed by my servants. But you will go on, with me, forever. There will be no end. There will be no rest. There will be no respite nor comfort. Only perfect, holy suffering.”
In the shadows beyond God, I could see the Eld waiting, I could smell the deathly stench of them. They watched me hungrily, thick saliva dripping from their jagged teeth. I wouldn’t even be dead yet when they tore into me. I’d die slowly, ripped apart until my soul abandoned this body.
God grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze back to Its beautiful, awful face. “You are mine. Forever awaits you. The time has come.”
The sensation of my head being split again made me scream. It was as if cruel, cold fingers were pressing into the cracks of my skull, pulling it apart. But it wasn’t memories that I was forced into this time. The swirling colors that made up the God’s being had surrounded me. I didn’t know if I was falling or floating, if I was being pulled into pieces or compressed so tightly that I would soon cease to exist. It hurt to look, it hurt but I couldn’t close my eyes. Within the myriad of colors, I could see shapes, structures made of iridescent light. It was so blindingly bright and so cold.
Then came the screaming.
Not mine, but the screams of dozens, if not hundreds, thousands of voices. Screams of true agony, the kind of sound that made me sick just to hear it. My screams melted among them, and I realized that it would never end. This raw feeling in my throat would go on, this pain would go on,