The word sounded strange in his mouth, it felt like a language he had forgotten how to speak. Murphy's face changed right away, with concern shown in every line of it. Morgan realized that it was rehearsed, and he managed to perfect it over years of standing in front of groups of people and making them think he cared.
"Are you okay?" Murphy walked into the room slowly and on purpose. "You've been sleeping for almost twelve hours."
"I was getting worried you're going into a coma or something," said Murphy jokingly.
Twelve hours of sleeping made Morgan's mind race as he thought. His body must have been trying to get used to the regression if he had slept that long.
The temporal displacement alone should have killed him, but the Syndrome's effects had kept him alive long enough for him to stabilize. Or maybe it was anger that made him live on less before.
Morgan said, "I'm fine," but the voice that came out was wrong.
It doesn't sound mature enough, unlike the last time he faced the end. Right now he sounded like a young adult pretending to be tough, not a man who had spent years walking through dead bodies. "I just had a strange dream."
Murphy's smile got bigger, and Morgan had to fight the urge to grab a weapon that wasn't there just because he recognized the smile of someone who was pretending. He'd seen it in the moments before his father condemned whole cities to death while talking about mercy and salvation. Murphy had gotten very good at making genocide sound like kindness in the original timeline.
"At your age, dreams can be scary," Murphy said as he sat down in the chair next to Morgan's desk. He acted as if he belonged there and had every right to invade his son's space. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No... it's nothing important." Morgan wanted to grab Murphy by the throat and squeeze until he couldn't see anymore.
He wanted to save the world from having to deal with the snake before it bit people. One quick snap, and the First Apostle would be dead. The Almighty would never find the right shepherd.
But Morgan had learned to be patient over the years he had lived. People died when they rushed in without thinking, and he'd already died once today. That was enough to act careless, he needed a really perfect plan.
"Are you sure?"
Morgan said, "I said it's nothing," as he got out of bed. The awkward movement felt that way because his body was soft and untrained, just like it had been when he was seventeen. His muscles still remembered how to fight, but his body couldn't keep up. He felt like a soldier who had been through a lot but had no strength to back it up.
He saw himself in the mirror across the room and almost didn't recognize the face that was looking back at him. There's not a single scar nor permanent exhaustion etched into every feature.
Just a kid with dark hair and eyes that had seen too much. Morgan made himself look away before Murphy could see that something was wrong.
Murphy said, "You look pale," in a voice that showed just the right amount of fatherly concern. "Why don't you come down for breakfast?" Your mother made pancakes."
"Mother..." The word hit harder than it should have.
Sarah Paxton was one of the billions of people who died in the first outbreak of the Syndrome. Morgan had seen her change. The disease had changed her body into something that screamed with her voice but wasn't hers anymore.
He was the one who had hurt her. Murphy had seen it happen with that same gentle smile, as if it were all part of God's plan.
"Sure," Morgan said, his throat suddenly tight. "I'll be down in a minute."
Murphy stood still at the door. "Don't rush, son. I still have to finish getting ready for my sermon, and the service isn't until ten."
He looked back, and for a split second, something moved behind his eyes with a cold and calculating look that didn't go with his smile. "It's going to be about faith in things we can't see or understand."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Morgan alone. He started to breathe uncontrollably because of the panic attack that gathered in his mind and heart.
He sat there for a long time, his hands shaking from trying not to break anything. Murphy mentioned a service on Sunday, indicating that it was still early in the timeline, months before the first outbreak. He had some time, and it's not much, but enough to get ready. He had enough information to figure out how to stop what was coming without giving away what he knew.
Murphy was the problem. His father had been brilliant in the original timeline. He was not just smart, but exceptionally intelligent.
Before anyone else could figure out what was going on, he had turned the chaos of the Syndrome into a religion. Murphy Paxton stood in the ashes and told people it was divine fire while the world burned.
He had given them hope that was tied up in chains and salvation that tasted like poison. And they loved him for it.
Morgan remembered the sermons. How Murphy could turn any bad thing into proof of God's love.
Thousands of people are dead? This is a true test of faith.
Kids turned into monsters? There could be angels hiding in plain sight.
Is the world coming to an end? The start of heaven.
He built his church on the bodies of everyone who believed him, and he did it with a smile that never left his face. That was the man who was sitting downstairs, waiting for his son to come down for breakfast.
Morgan got up and walked to the window just to see the world outside, which looked normal. People were walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, and going about their daily lives without knowing that most of them would be dead or worse in a few months.
The Syndrome would spread like a disease, and only a small number of people would live through the change. He knew the exact day it would begin.
Valentine's Day, February 14th, was chosen because the universe has a sick sense of humor. The first cases would show up at the same time in big cities, and they would spread faster than any disease in nature. It would be too late for governments to stop it by the time they figured out what was going on.
He had four months to get ready. Morgan turned away from the window and saw his reflection again.
He seemed young and weak. The kind of son that a worried father would want to keep safe.
He could wear it as a mask, and he had spent years learning how to kill, so he probably would have to remember how to lie now.
He had trained his features to look almost normal by the time he got downstairs. His mom was in the kitchen, humming to herself while she made pancakes. She looked just like he remembered her alive, but she's completely unaware that her husband was a monster in a pastor's collar.
"There's my boy," she said with a smile as he walked in. "Are you feeling any better?"
"Yes." Morgan slid into his usual spot at the table, being careful with his movements.
He had to act like a young adult, not a thirty-something who had been through a lot. "I'm sorry I slept for so long."
Sarah said, "You've been working so hard on your studies," as she set a plate in front of him. "We are very proud of you, your father and I."
Murphy was already sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and his book in the other. He looked up when Morgan sat down, still smiling softly. "There's this interesting story of a man who loved God but couldn't say so when it was the most important."
"Fear makes us all cowards."
Morgan knew right away it was a test. Murphy was probing to see how his son would react. He was looking for a weakness, something he could use later. He used the same method on his congregation until he found their weak spots and pushed until they broke.
Morgan picked up his fork and kept his face blank. "I always thought it took a lot of courage for him to come back. Many people would have just run away."
"Yes." Murphy's eyes stayed on his face the whole time. "But he still failed when it mattered."
"Sometimes the hardest test of faith isn't being strong, but it's what we do after we fall."
The talk was like a game of chess, with each word carefully chosen. Morgan made himself eat so he could act like the innocent son who didn't know his father was going to feed the world to a machine god.
He asked about the sermon, talked about school, and acted like everything was fine. Murphy, on the other hand, kept an eye on him. Looking at him. As if he were trying to figure out a puzzle that didn't exist.
Morgan got up to clear his plate after breakfast. He was almost at the sink when Murphy spoke again, this time in a soft, thoughtful voice.
"Morgan?"
He turned around, making sure his face was blank. "Yeah?"
Murphy was still at the table, but he was sitting differently. His face had lost its warmth, leaving something colder behind. He tilted his head and looked at Morgan like a scientist would look at an intriguing specimen.
"Your eyes," Murphy said slowly, and there was something in his voice that made Morgan's blood run cold. "They weren't like that yesterday."
The only sound in the kitchen was the water running in the sink. Sarah kept humming, unaware of the sudden tension in the room.
But Murphy's eyes stayed on Morgan, holding him in place like a bug under glass. Morgan thought for the first time since he had gone back in time that he might have overestimated his father.