The Unwritten Sin

Chapter 45

Wilder awoke with a start. October was sleeping across the room, and Bee had also dozed off.

He took a deep breath. "How long was I out?" he asked in a panic. James smiled down at him. "Only a few hours," he said. "I think I have learned most of what I came here for."

Wilder kissed his cheek, and rubbed his eyes. "And?"

James sighed heavily. "They plan to not only destroy us, but the machine too. And I'm understanding why."

"They're all piled up," Bee said sleepily. "All filling that room with fresh ones. People are reincarnating faster than they can die." She rolled over. "Sorry for eavesdropping."

James shook his head. "That....sadly, makes a lot of sense. We have to contact the Terrens again. Get back on that ship, somehow."

"Why?"

"We made our case. It wasn't received well, and the lying they have always been doing to us isn't going to stop. Not when people like Theodore exist in the world. It's probably better this way."

Wilder saw the look on James' face, and didn't press him.

Despite having his mind made up, James continued reading through the night. Wilder fell in and out of sleep, his hand on his pistol the whole time.

"You know," James said, lying back with his hands folded on his stomach. "Maybe we could make a nice home again, in the underground. Wait out the end there."

"That would be nice," Wilder said, glancing over at him. "I'd go anywhere you wanted to go."

"I've never really known a home, until I found you."

Wilder gave him a shy smile. "I feel that way too."

They knew the sun had risen because the cannon fire started up again. 

"I want to take these books with us. We will have to cross the river again, but we can manage somehow. I want to keep some history. Some of the real history. For when the world gets wiped clean."

"I didn't really have any other plans for my life," Wilder said, packing his bag. "I'm being serious."

He glanced at October, whose eyes were open. They looked miserable. "Both of you are of course welcome to stay with us," he said. "They plan to make the world a clean slate, but we are scrappy. We know how to survive."

They packed up, and trailed up the stairs to the memorial. "I'm claustrophobic," October said. "I need to get some air."

They trekked back the way they had come, trying to avoid the dust clouds as they fell from the ceiling every minute or so. After an hour, someone remarked that they might be lost. Indeed, they still had not come to the canal, in far more time than it took to get to the Great Hall.

"I'm not feeling so good," Wilder said, clutching at his head. "I think someone else needs to lead the way for awhile."

"Wil, what's the matter?" James asked, handing the flashlight to Bee. He put an arm around his shoulders, and touched Wilder's chest to steady him.

"I think it was from those things yesterday," he confessed. "I know we haven't seen one yet today, but I...." he glanced up and let out a tiny gasp. "Oh. That's why. They're all around us."

He wasn't wrong. The tunnel ahead of them and behind them were a black mass of swirling smoke shapes with plasma colored eyes. 

"Oh Lord in Heaven," James uttered. He pressed the others behind him against the wall. "Wil," he whispered. "Come here. Come here!"

Wilder looked back and forth between the two mobs of black misty figures, and fell to the ground, unconscious. 

"Wil! Wake up! Wake up!" James screamed until his voice was hoarse. The aliens moved closer and closer and closer. "Get away from him!" James rushed towards his fallen lover, and tried to cover him with his body. He was thrown against the wall, and watched, through blurry vision, as the creatures hovered over Wilder, hissing and conversing with one another. Their long tendril like arms reached out to him, and the second they made contact they screamed, and their bodies evaporated like mist in the sun. James watched, open mouthed, as creature after creature screamed and vanished in the tunnel, trying their best to pick Wilder up, tear pieces of his soul from his body.

"My Father, Lord in Heaven," James began to pray, crawling across the bricks towards Wilder's limp body. "Hallowed be thy name..." he sat on his knees over Wilder's body, praying louder and louder. As he prayed, Wilder's body lifted off the floor, surrounded in a great golden light that lit up the entire hall. The entities retreated, further and further. The remainder of them vanished, and Wilder's body lowered slowly to the ground.

James fell on top of him, crying.

For once, October didn't have a stupid comment to make. Wilder was unconscious for a long time. The others stayed silent as James wept. Wilder had a heartbeat, and that was all he knew.

James cried himself to sleep in the hallway. Wilder didn't even stir for hours. 

October and Bee had left to figure out a way to other parts of the city, and James was alone, eyes red and itchy in the darkness. He had turned off the flashlight to save the battery. The city was still being battered above, but he didn't move, his body draped over Wilder's lifeless one. He switched on the flashlight to ignite one of the chemical fires for a little light, as the battle overhead was settling down. Their new way of timekeeping.

James stroked his dirty blonde hair back from his head, and regarded his peaceful face. "Serenity," he said under his breath. "I will sit here as long as it takes, my love."

At that moment, Wilder shifted his position. James gave a gasp of relief.

"Wilder? Wil?"

Wilder rolled over, and blinked once, saw James, and snuggled into his robe. "It's cold in here, Father," he said. "Can I have a blanket?"

James gave a silent prayer of thanks, and covered Wilder in his robe. "Can you get up, my love?" he asked after a moment. We can move you somewhere more comfortable and I'll get the blankets out of the bag."

Wilder yawned. "Yes, okay."

James moved him against the wall, and covered him in the emergency blanket. "What happened? Did I fall or something?"

James nodded, "Yes, I mean....there were psychonauts coming at us from both directions; I knew were were outnumbered. I tried to protect the others but they came to you so fast."

"Well, I mean, I don't feel much worse for wear....I wish I had been here to see it.....wait....did the prayer, the holy water, do anything?"

James gave him an embarrassed smile. "Oh my god! It did!" Wilder hugged him tightly. "I knew it would work! I knew it would!" 

"I guess you're right," he said. "I just needed to believe in me. Wait." He rifled through the books and opened onto the art depiction of Abel ascending, surrounded in golden light. "Maybe this isn't what it looked like. Wilder, you were surrounded in a golden light I have never seen in my life."

"So what do you mean, I was ascending?"

"No, I don't believe so. But I am wondering, if Abel was able to rise like that, perhaps it was of his own power. Whether he was able to control reality, or it was an outside source through prayer...I don't know. But I do know that holy water we created was powerful enough to not only keep those entities away from you, but to dissolve them entirely."

"Okay....that sounds like another few long nights of reading," Wilder laughed. "All I know is that you saved my life. And you, are more powerful than you believe."