All His Angels Are Starving

What delusion am I convincing myself of right now to pretend I'm okay?

She's dead.

I killed her.

Jenny blinked away tears, trying to stop them, but even with her eyes tightly shut, the tears kept coming, kept bubbling off her cheeks into the radiant golden light she was falling through. I'm going to find her. I'm going to find you, Susan.

Then I’ll be okay.

Streams of color swirled around her; she bit down hard on her hatchet as she waded deeper through the light, trying to swim, trying to sink. A river of orange weaved and curled around her body. Dark blue streams mingled with the sky-blue of her new armor, and greens danced across the edge of her hatchet and her face like liquid emeralds. She kept sinking, falling – she couldn’t tell which. All she knew was that she had to get away from the school, from the cafeteria, from Susan's cold body.

I'm okay. I'll find her. I'll be okay.

Am I okay? Am I delusional?

I'm not - I'm not - I'm not.

I KILLED her. I tried to eat her. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead!

I'm not okay. I can't be okay. I never have been. How the fuck can I-

I'll find her.

She sobbed, grinding her teeth on the hatchet’s handle, and the light responded. Golden ripples reverberated through everything, through her. Her dark hair streamed over her head, and she stretched out her arms. This was Susan's light, after all. Valescent Light. It was Susan's light that brought them home, Susan's love. But how? How had they accessed this space between worlds?

Is it cause I'm Desecrated? The notifications from earlier still filled her mind: Severed Spirit. Existential Error. Natural Order Corruption. Rapture.

I'm broken. I'm broken. I've always been-

This golden rainbow light was something wonderful. Something miraculous. Something that made no sense; how could light be liquid? How could she wade into it, swim through it, sink deeper and deeper? She knew she was between worlds, but this was nothing like the eerie, sickly glow of the Veil. This was something more... but how? All she remembered was Susan using Valescent Light. And the state Jenny had been, I was a monster. I am a monster. And how the darkness beneath them had reacted, convulsing as though Susan was healing it. Had she healed the wound between worlds? Was that how they'd escaped the Veil?

Wasn’t that what Eve told her?

They'd fallen through the light, the same light the high school and everyone inside had fallen through, to get back to New York. They'd pulled themselves out of hell, but...

Rapture has commenced.

The Final Challenge is in effect.

All they'd managed to do was throw themselves into another. And now Susan was dead, and Jenny was... She’d run away.

Why did I leave?

I didn't run. I'm going to find her.

The world of death. That's where Susan had to be. Eve had shown Jenny the worlds; she knew the world had to exist, that death couldn't just be the end. There had to be something more; even if it was only something she remembered from her vague memories of Sunday School at her mother’s Church. Heaven and Hell. The Hereafter. The eternal soul. She just had to get there and find Susan and bring her back and then everything will be okay.

Why are you deluding yourself?

There is no world of death. You just didn't want to stay and fight anymore. You're a coward. You gave birth to that thing, you plunged the world into Rapture, and you ran. You killed your best friend. The girl that you love. You ate Miriam alive.

You're a failure.

You’re a monster.

You’re disgusting.

SHUT UP! She spat the hatchet out of her mouth and stopped trying to swim, stopped trying to move. The lump in her throat hurt so much she swore she would choke. Floating, trying to be as still as possible, Jenny sobbed. The hatchet hovered gently in front of her, twirling slowly as it waited for her. I don’t know where I’m going; I don’t know what I’m doing. Can the light hear me? Can it guide me?

I want to find Susan. Please help me.

Is there a world where people go when they die? There has to be. Take me there!

Please.

A bright splash of yellow engulfed her. Then several blue rings swum around, slowly turning green as they mixed through the yellow. Then came orange. Then red. A dark, crimson curtain that smothered the golden light and swallowed every other color. Her new armor, the one she'd fashioned after Susan's favorite color, glimmered with the blood-red hue, and she remembered the exoskeleton that had gushed out of her belly button; she remembered how she'd transformed. Red tendrils of color stretched around her, and Jenny grabbed her hatchet and swung at them.

Her limbs moved slowly; everything was so slow, like she was underwater, underlight. But the red looked like the tentacles she’d had, and when the hatchet’s obsidian edge cut through them, they shimmered and dissipated like ink in water. Whatever Susan had done back there, she’d done more than just heal Jenny. Her tentacles were gone, the exoskeleton no longer grew out of her; I’m not a monster. I’m not a monster. I’m not a monster!

But I am!

She flung her hatchet as far as she could; get away from me. She clawed at her face. At her eyes, she could almost feel how empty they were. Lifeless. Inhuman. Just like the angels. But even as they burst and gushed beneath her fingernails and she scraped her sockets, claws at bone, even as she peeled the skin off her cheeks, the light caressed her like cooling rain. It healed her injuries in seconds, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she wanted to hurt.

As if upset by her actions, the light stopped holding her up. A scream tore through the lump in her throat, and she kicked and struggled as she fell, plummeting like a meteor into a golden ocean, burning up a million colors. Then, like an eye closing beneath her, the light and all the swirling colors between worlds snapped shut.

Jenny collapsed face-first onto cold, hard ground. Her hatchet landed beside her.

Something like sand, or maybe ash, tickled her nose when she inhaled. The taste was sharp on her tongue, salty and metallic, and she coughed violently. Everything burned inside; she was exhausted. She was beyond exhausted. She’d been fighting nonstop since the Survival Challenge began.

Jenny pushed herself onto her knees and looked around. Was this another world? It felt... it didn't feel like she was somewhere else. There wasn't that unsettling sensation of weightlessness that she'd felt in Eve's world. And the ground felt like ground. The gravity was the same as Earth's. Heavy storm clouds clung to the sky. It was dark, but there was a soft, pale glow that came from somewhere beyond the clouds, and it was enough light for Jenny to make out the crudely shaped pillars that stood in front of her.

The pillars were spread out, about an arm's length of space between them, and they reminded her of trees, like standing on the edge of the woods. She almost thought they were rock formations, but they had to have been manmade. Or maybe angelmade. There was something uncanny about them that she couldn't explain. Something in their shapes that seemed carefully chipped away to form specific grooves and patterns. These might've been ancient statues of worship or something like Stone Henge.

As she stood, she realized it was some kind of forest. A forest of strange rocks; countless pillars stood in front of her, and to her right and left, there were even more, spreading like a coastline that seemed to go on indefinitely. Behind her, the world was flat. There was no wind, no hills, no roads, or anything. It was a vast, endless expanse of nothing but dark ground with clouds rolling overhead. Jenny turned to face the line of pillars again, and, almost right beneath her armored feet, the ground shifted.

The grainy, dark earth cracked, and Jenny stepped back, summoning her hatchet with a flash of golden light as something jutted out from the crack. It expanded upward like a rapidly growing tree, and it took her a second to realize it was another pillar.

She lowered her hatchet, breathing heavily, staring at this new pillar that stood right in front of her. The rock was dark, almost glassy, and she held up her hatchet against it to find they were very similar. Was it also obsidian?

To her right, another one sprang out of the dirt, slightly different from the one before. It was shorter. And further along the pillar-tree line, Jenny saw more and more pillars growing out of the ground. They were expanding into the emptiness, like a forest claiming more land. Jenny wondered how far the pillars went. How many of them were there? Why did the light bring me here?

Or had she brought herself here?

Wasn't that how they left the Veil? Guiding everything and everyone back home? She shut her eyes again and inhaled deeply. The salty air stung, but she didn't care. Everything flashed through her thoughts, from the first angel that had attacked her English classroom, whose head she’d smashed in with a hole puncher, to the Desecrated Angel and its nightmarish blue light, to Miriam. Miriam who Jenny had hunted across the school and ripped apart and eaten. Then Susan.

Susan. How could she have done that to Susan?

It wasn't me.

It wasn't me!

That's what she wanted to believe. Had to believe. It couldn't have been her. Someone else had been in control. She'd been Severed. She'd been out of her mind. An anomaly. Existential Error.

Another scream burst out of her throat and when a new pillar erupted from the ground, Jenny struck it over and over with her hatchet. The impacts drew sparks, and the clinks and clangs rang all around her, echoing, bouncing from pillar to pillar. But each time she struck it, golden light shimmered across the obsidian edge of her hatchet, flashing over and over.

Through her tears, through her rage, she thought she saw something inside the pillar. A glimpse of something terrible, so quick, she couldn’t recognize what it was, but fear surged through her limbs and notifications streamed into her head:

+100 Energy

+100 Energy

+100 Energy

Her angry cries broke. She held her breath, not even daring to swallow as she stared, trembling. She felt her heart pounding in her throat. There was no change in the pillar’s appearance, no indication that she'd even attacked it. None of its glossy rock face had so much as chipped. No cracks. No sign of damage. But she was afraid. Like she’d done something horrible again.

And she’d gained Energy. She remembered her hatchet’s new ability:

Hatchet (Tier 3): Your weapon now harvests Energy with every attack that invokes pain.

Shaking, she lowered her head and studied her hatchet. The obsidian face, dark and metallic and sharp, looked as it did since the moment it hit Tier 3. And the wooden handle, stained by dried blood, smudged fingerprints, the ridges and grooves where a floral pattern had been... It had once looked so pretty. But she'd hurt the pillar. She’d harvested Energy from that pain.

The hatchet dropped from her hand. The edge sank into the dirt so that its handle jutted out. She stared at the pillar, even as two more grew beside it. Was it... could it be? Alive?

"Hello?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from all the screaming. What was inside these things? Why was she scared of the answer?

Would the pillars hatch? She could've sworn she'd seen something when her hatchet had flashed. Maybe these things were like the angels' chrysalises, and she shuddered as more memories filled her head: the angel couple in the stairwell, the boy she'd burnt to death; the blue chrysalis in the chem wing where she'd nearly died, where she'd found Oliver and other survivors, where an angel had sucked her blood out through her broken nose.

She took another step back, glancing at the other pillars, squinting at them in disbelief, trying to quell the dizziness. They just looked like rocks. What was going on? How could she hurt them? What could be inside them? They didn't even register as anything in her head. There was no notification. No indication that they were anything other than strange rocks that came out of the ground.

Maybe she needed more light. Taking a deep breath, she held out her hand. Her blue armor peeled back from her fingers and hand, revealing pale skin, and she used Ignite. Fire flickered across her knuckles. A flame took shape, flickering and growing. Her arm had become a torch, and an orange and red glow surrounded her like a bubble of warmth and light. It cast shadows, her own and that of the pillars, tall and looming, but the warmth felt pleasant on Jenny's face, and she felt alive in this eerie, absent world. A thought crossed her mind: if there were predators in this world, they might see the fire and come for her.

Good, she thought, her skin prickling. Let them. Some part of her still ached with bloodthirst. She really, really wanted to hit something, but she shuddered at the thought of another fight. She wasn't sure why. Maybe her body could sense something. Maybe she was just hungry. Maybe she was just afraid.

As Jenny walked up to the pillar she’d attacked, the dizzying fear response struck her again. It hit her in the chest, harder this time, taking her breath away. Maybe she shouldn’t do this; maybe she shouldn’t look. She wanted to hide. It would be better not to know. But why? Her foot had frozen midair, just before the final step. The orange glow of her flames reflected off the pillar’s surface, and, if she squinted, she could just about see the silhouette of something inside. A person? An insect? What could it be?

Why was she sweating? Her heart stammered. Her knees went weak. Why did she feel like she was doing something awful; as though she were sleeping on the floor again, a kid, praying for God’s forgiveness, terrified that she’d done something wrong and would be punished. Praying her mother wouldn’t come hit her.

Fuck this, she thought. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to compose herself, trying to bury the fear response. She’d fought much worse, seen much worse, and whatever this thing was, she had to know. That was the only way to deal with fear, by exposing it.

She forced herself to put her foot down. Forced herself to come face to face with the pillar. Forced herself to bring her nose right up against it, her burning hand held overhead. As the inners of the dark pillar became clear, as her eyes focused on what was inside, Jenny's jaw dropped.

Death (Level 0)

She clapped both hands over her mouth and stumbled back, choking on a cry as her fire went out. The person inside vanished from view. It was a man.

She was sure of it. A middle-aged man, trapped inside, his face twisted in agony as he stared back at her with strained, bulging eyes. And his guts... Jenny’s stomach heaved. She’d seen so many people and angels cut open, but this? This sight seared itself into her mind. She forced herself to look again. Just to be sure.

But without light, the pillar was just dark, just a rock. With a shaky breath, she used Ignite again, but she kept the flame smaller this time, focused on her fingertip as though she’d lit a lighter. The man came back into view, his wide eyes shining in the firelight; he stood so close that it was like he was just on the other side of a window. His face was maybe a few inches from Jenny’s, and she had a clear view of his insides.

The man inside the pillar was split from his ribcage to his groin. His arms hung limp, shoulders drooped, and he stood unmoving, as though his limbs were stuck to the pillar, but his eyes followed her. His intestines spilled out like enormous, glistening snakes, and they latched onto the pillar. Something moved through them, bulging up and down the length of each intestine. She could see his lungs expand and contract, could see his heart beating rapidly, each beat threatening to force his heart out of his exposed chest. She could see the whites of his ribs, jutting out like monstrous fangs, and when she caught sight of tears watering from reddening eyes, when she realized he couldn’t blink and her fire’s light must be agony to someone so used to the dark, her entire body convulsed. Jenny stumbled, bumping into another pillar and glimpsed a young girl trapped inside.

Jenny shook out her flame and cried out; she couldn’t take it anymore. Was there a person in every single one of these? She doubled over and retched.

Vomit splattered the ground. Chunks of half-digested meat rolled across the salty dirt, and the sight of that, the acrid stench of it, and the ugly realization that she recognized where the meat had come from, made her retch again.