Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
She gets drained of her lifeforce all the time, Tyse.
She’s a pro.
And she is.
But this is it. It ends tonight.
It took days for her to wake up last time. She hasn’t even gotten her memories back. It’s gonna kill her. You’re gonna come back too late this time, and—
Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!
I kiss her, she kisses me back, and this is when she loses it. It’s a moment. A single moment when a soft, small, sob escapes her well-polished fortitude.
It kills me, this sob.
Fuckin’ kills me.
“Dolly!” Luther screams. “Come here now, Dolly! I need to thread you with the needles!”
I want to kill that little monster. Drag his soul out through his throat and braid it into a leash. Lead him around like a dog beggin’ for mercy.
Just FYI, Luther—I don’t grant mercy to anyone.
“Later,” I mutter.
“What?” Clara asks.
“Nothin’.” I take her hand, squeezin’ it one last time. “You take care of you, Clara.” And this time it’s me pokin’ her in the chest. Then, and only with my eyes, I say, Please.
She nods like she heard me. Then she turns on her heel and walks into the lab.
Luther slams the heavy, metal door in my face.
And then I’m alone.
You take care of you.
I start prayin’…
I am the executioner and the death.
I walk over to my own lab, find the Corrupted God hovering in front of a panel of screens, cacklin’ softly to himself.
He hears me, turns, smiles. Gestures to the threadin’ table. “Welcome home, Tyse. Let’s get started. I have big, big plans for you tonight.”
Moments later I’m strapped in. Threaded. Dyin’.
And then the sweet, sweet spark enters me for the tenth time.
I wake in the cage maze.
I am the dark soldier, standing in the blood of the fallen.
Once again, at the bottom of the arena. Immediately, I’m on my feet. Unreal eyes scannin’ the place. Thousands of lines of code are fallin’ down my field of vision like rain. Every number, every letter, every symbol is decoded before I even see it.
The spool of Source, the thread of Spark—I am the machine made flesh.
This is what it means to be workin’.
My eyes are glowin’ so bright, it lights the place up red.
Red.
Red.
Not blue.
Red.
I walk the hush that follows ruin.
I utter no prayer—for I am the override.
A weapon of the sandy sea.
What am I? What has he done to me?
In the image, I am made and in the image, I will unmake.
For thine is the kingdom made in sand.
No time to care. I move.
And thy rule was made in wind.
And in the wind, as in the days of dark imprisonment, the new gods rose as tall as the hollow towers.
The cage wires rattle under my grip. Steel twists, groans, gives. I don’t climb—I rise.
And in this rising, they conquered.
Swept the land of everything and left it clean like a bone.
One hand. One boot. One pull. The metal’s a blur beneath me.
And on that bone, was born I.
The executioner and the death.
Below, the mutants scream. But they don’t matter. Not yet. They won’t touch me.
I’m already gone.
The arena shifts around me—grids of rusted wire, warped scaffolds, spikes where the old walls caved in. My boots don’t slip. My hands don’t falter. The maze knows me now.
Above, the crowd pounds their feet in unison.
Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!
The rhythm echoes down through the cage stacks, like blood in a throat.
Not cheering. Not chanting.
Calling.
My blood vibrates with the sound. My limbs sync to the rhythm.
Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!
Each stomp is a pulse. Each pulse is a command.
I obey.
My breath is steady. My vision floods with targeting overlays, proximity heatmaps, exit vectors. But I ignore them. I’m not calculating. I’m ascending.
My hands tear through the last grid. I stand on the top of the cage maze—above the arena, above the pit, above the screams.
The crowd roars. The drums of their boots shake the world.
Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!
I open my arms. Let them see me. Let them think I belong to him.
The first one reaches me and…
I’m somewhere else. Peace. Quiet. Dark.
The space between worlds.
The silence so loud it roars like a memory.
I want to stay. I want to grab Clara from that lab, bring her here, and let this peace be our ‘good world’.
But I can’t get to her. Not from here. Not empty.
I need to be able to fill her back up.
So I sift. Ignoring the peace. I sift. Scanning the frequencies, dippin’ in, backin’ out when I don’t find what I’m lookin’ for.
Because I can’t use a cave filled with monks now. I need more than the diggers under the ground buildin’ tunnels.
I sift. Again. Again. Through broken timelines and threadbare cities.
I need fodder.
The kind of sacrifice one only finds in war.
I find it.
Not a battlefield. A slaughterhouse.
Blown-out buildings in an underground city, fire in the streets, men fightin’ with pipes and broken glass. Screamin’ in three languages. Limbs twitchin’ in the gutters.