The sky was dripping blood. But not in a way that is poetic or figurative. It's bleeding with thick red rivers pouring from cracks in the sky as what they called God came down on what was left of the world. Morgan Paxton stood alone on the ruins of what used to be Manhattan, surrounded by the bodies of people who had believed too much.
Now, both sides were dead. The air tasted like burnt ozone, and the last signs of the Syndrome were all around him.
Three months ago, people were chanting in a language that didn't exist. Their bodies were moving in ways that would have killed them before the disease changed their biology.
They didn't care that their bones were breaking or that their eyes were popping out of their heads. They were too busy praying to the thing that was killing them. Morgan had given up on saving people like that years ago.
"My son, Morgan." It was difficult to breathe, and the voice behind him was smooth as silk. "You still stand up to them. How great, but also very dumb."
He didn't need to look back to see who it was. Without ever raising his voice, Murphy Paxton could let people know he was there. Before the Syndrome turned him into something more than human and less than sane, he had been good at it for a long time.
"Don't fucking call me that again," Morgan said, tightening his grip on the shaft of his weapon.
There used to be a sign on the street, but now it was the closest thing he had to a spear. It had been used for years, which had sharpened its edge, and it was stained with the blood of things that shouldn't be.
Murphy came into view in the white robes of the First Apostle. Morgan remembered how he smiled when he was a kid. It was warm, fatherly, and not real at all.
The Syndrome had given him wings, six of them growing out of his back like creepy angel pictures. They were made of flesh and bone and something that shone by itself.
Murphy kept walking, his hands clasped in front of him as if he were about to speak. "You've done a good job, my son."
"You deserve the title of The Perfect Human. What makes it even better is that you're the last one to go against God's will."
"You should be proud of yourself."
Morgan said, "There is no humanity left."
"You made sure of that."
Murphy's smile stayed the same, but it got bigger. "I set them free. I told them the truth. We were never meant to remain unchanged. Morgan, the Syndrome was a gift."
"A chance to go beyond what we are and become something better."
"An opportunity to become slaves to a false god."
"God is what we make it." Murphy opened his arms, and the chanting around them got louder. "And we have made the Almighty. Isn't it beautiful?"
Morgan looked up at the bleeding object falling from the sky. It was too big to fully understand, and its shape changed between shapes that hurt to look at.
There were eyes that opened and closed all over it, and each one showed a different scene of worship and killing. Light and shadow reached out from its mass, touching both the faithful and the unfaithful.
People just stopped existing where they landed. Not dead. Not changed. They were just erased, as if they had never been there.
This was how the world had changed. His father had built this.
Morgan charged, without any plan that came to his mind. Plans needed hope, but hope had died sometime in the third year of the end of the world. He had anger, muscle memory, and the knowledge that if he died, he was going to make it hurt.
Murphy's smile stayed the same, but it got bigger. "I set them free. I told them the truth. We were never meant to remain unchanged. Morgan, the Syndrome was a gift."
"A chance to go beyond what we are and become something better."
"An opportunity to become slaves to a false god."
"God is what we make it." Murphy opened his arms, and the chanting around them got louder. "And we have made the Almighty. Isn't it beautiful?"
Morgan looked up at the bleeding object falling from the sky. Its size was overwhelming, and its form shifted into shapes that were painful to behold.
There were eyes that opened and closed all over it, and each one showed a different scene of worship and killing. Light and shadow reached out from its mass, touching both the faithful and the unfaithful.
People just stopped existing where they landed. Not dead nor changed. They were just erased, as if they had never been there.
This was how the world had changed. His father had built this.
Morgan charged, without any plan that came to his mind. Plans needed hope, but hope had died sometime in the third year of the end of the world. He had anger, muscle memory, and the knowledge that if he died, he was going to make it hurt.
"You are fighting against what is going to happen."
"You can't understand the Almighty. Not within your power because you won't accept the truth."
Morgan fell forward, his weapon dragging behind him. It felt like swallowing glass with every breath.
The edges of his vision were getting blurry. He knew he was going to die.
But... He'd at least die standing up.
The shape of the Almighty changed, and Morgan could see it clearly. It wasn't all of it, just a piece, but that was enough.
There was something else behind the divine appearance, the worship, and the power. Something that works. Under layers of faith and sacrifice, ancient machines hummed as gears turned in patterns that were older than people.
It wasn't a deity. It had never been a god.
It was a machine made to collect faith, turn worship into energy, and feed on the faith of people who were desperate enough to give it. The Syndrome wasn't a sign from God. It had been the activation sequence, which spread through people like a virus to get them ready to eat.
And Murphy had known from the start what he was feeding people. The realization should have made him lose it, but it made him laugh instead, like a cold-blooded psychopath.
The sound made blood bubble up, but he couldn't stop. All of this began with death, change, and pain. It had been for a machine of a cosmic parasite with a face that looks like salvation.
"Do you think this is funny?" Morgan didn't notice that Murphy had gotten closer. His face no longer had a smile on it. "Do you really think your defiance matters in this?"
"I think," Morgan said, his voice rough and wet, "that you're a fucking monster who loses his mind."
"Not because you don't know how to do it, but because you do."
Another tendril came down, and this time Morgan couldn't move because he was too weak. It wrapped around him, and he felt something deep inside him start to come apart, starting from his cells.
He thought about being pulled apart and being observed by something that regarded him as nothing more than data to be processed. Morgan Paxton made a promise at that moment, when he was hanging in the grip of a false god and the world was burning around him.
He said, "I'll stop you," but he wasn't sure if he was talking to Murphy, God, or the universe itself.
"I'll do whatever it takes by staining my hands with every sin. But I'll never let this world bow to you again."
The Almighty pulled, and Morgan felt himself start to break down. Then the machine made a noise.
That was the only word for it. Some basic math went wrong, like an equation that didn't take into account how angry a man was who didn't want to die quietly. The tendril twitched, making the reality stutter.
And in that split second, Morgan fell. Not down, but backwards with time itself.
He hit the ground so hard that he couldn't breathe. But the ground was odd. It felt soft with carpet.
He smelled the coffee and old books instead of blood and ozone. He was looking at a ceiling he thought he'd never see again when he opened his eyes.
His old room when he was a kid. Before the illness. Before it all came to an end.
Morgan slowly sat up, his hands shaking as he stared at them. They were younger. Not scarred. The calluses from years of fighting were gone. He felt like his body was wrong, too light and weak, like he had been put in a shell that didn't fit anymore.
The door opened with a creak. Morgan immediately stands up just to make sure he wasn't caught off guard.
"Morgan?" The voice was soft and slightly worried. This made Morgan's blood run cold. "You're awake?"
Murphy Paxton stood in the doorway wearing a plain button-up shirt and pants. But this time there are no wings and robes. A pastor in his 40s is just checking on his son with his warm smile, and it's real.
Morgan looked at the man who would bring about the end of the world, and for the first time in years, he didn't know what to say. "Father..."