Empire's End

Twenty-Three / The Stuff of Being

“The pain that I take from others, when I heal them — I’ve learned to channel it through my body and direct it like a weapon. But only for protection.”

The woman in white sat atop the roof of her cottage with Adam, watching a hazy sunrise. She’d given him some men’s clothes to wear — not that it really mattered, but for the sake of appearing human. As he gazed at her, he found himself wondering what was under her cloak.

She caught his eye and smiled, a bit slyly. “It takes time for it all to return, but it does.”

“What does?”

“The soul.”

“But… I don’t have a soul. I never have. Like you said, I was made a Reaper.”

“Remade, really — reborn, Adam. It’s complicated. I’m not trying to be cryptic. I just don’t think you can handle it all at once.”

“I appreciate your confidence.”

“Sarcasm.” She beamed at him through the gentle snowfall. “I like that. That’s good.”

“I dreamt about her again.”

“The girl?”

“I see her covered in frost. She’s terrified. I have to reach her soon.”

“There’s some of that power I was talking about,” the woman said. “The power that still exists in you. The bond you’ve forged with her is unique.”

“Do you think she dreams of me?”

“I think she might.”

“I hope she knows I’m looking for her. She—”

“Damn.” The woman in white grimaced.

“What?”

She pointed toward the sun. There were a half dozen rotters standing out in the snow.

“They come from that town, sometimes.” Rising, she shook the flakes from her cloak. “This is your forte, Adam, not mine.”

“I’ll get the scythe.”

Wearing a sweater, slacks and winter boots, Adam exited the cottage and stood on the white lawn. Though his pain had been eased considerably, he was still blackened and cracked. The clay of his flesh was hard at the edges of the yawning fissures that covered him from head to toe. He hadn’t seen his face yet, but he suspected it was the same: he no longer possessed a pale, benevolent countenance but a patchwork of angry scars.

Because of them.

The rotters were a few hundred yards off. The cold seemed to have slowed them a bit, but it would not stop their hunger, and they did not yet know that they were dealing with something as inhuman as themselves.

Adam readied the scythe and beckoned.

We’re not just clay. There is still power within us… it’s just a matter of channeling it.

What power resided within this broken body of his? She said his dreams were a sign of it. How could that help him against the undead?

The first pair came at him. He sank the scythe into the side of one’s head, kicking its companion back before yanking the blade free and positioning himself for another strike.

The first rotter slumped to the ground. The second took a step back. Now it knew.

It lurched at him. He threw his left arm out to knock it back, but it caught the arm and sank its teeth into him.

He shook his head. “No good.” Split its face from crown to chin.

Four more and they were coming fast. He could try and take two out with one shot. He crouched, tensed.

The rotters suddenly stopped and looked up. A brilliant light swept over Adam and engulfed the undead. He saw them briefly frozen, as if enclosed in a bubble outside space and time, jaws agape — and then they simply blew away, turning to ash and dissipating before his eyes. Just like that, all four were gone.

He looked up to see the woman in white standing at the edge of the roof. “I couldn’t bear to keep watching,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he snapped. “You took pity on them?”

“You can’t let hatred drive you,” she said.

“You don’t understand,” he retorted. “You didn’t have to serve through this nightmare. You didn’t have to see all that I saw.”

“I’ve seen all of it and worse,” she shot back. “Do you know how old I am? Do you have any idea what I’ve witnessed? I have walked this globe a thousand times and I know things you may never learn. And I know you aren’t going to last through this if it’s nothing but anger driving you.”

“I’m not just angry!” he roared. “I’m afraid!”

They both stood in silence.

“It’s her,” he whispered. “I don’t want them to get her.”

“They won’t,” said the woman. “You won’t let them. Because that’s who you are now. I’m coming down.”

He waited on the lawn for her, staring into the gray sky. She touched his shoulder. “‘And you are but a thought.’ It’s a line written by my favorite storyteller, a man named Mark Twain. And it’s true. But we give our own lives meaning. She is your purpose.”

She was right.

“You go through so much in these first years after the fall,” she said. “But I think love is already overcoming anger.”

“Then what?” he asked. “After I’ve found her?”

“That’s up to you.”

Her face grew serious. “There is one thing, however, that you must do after falling, and I don’t think you have done it. You must decide on a replacement.”

“I thought — wouldn’t God just… make one?”

“That’s not how it works, no. Like I said, you were reborn into this form. The stuff of your being was changed, rearranged, and you entered into your role as Reaper with no memory of what came before. But you were once human.”

Adam could only stare at the woman in white. Human? It wasn’t possible. How?

No, not how — why?

“I don’t know how to answer your question.” The woman just shrugged. “The agents who watch over mankind are culled from humanity itself. We rise — and then, some of us fall back down. Seems to be our nature.”

“But I’m not human now. What am I?”

“If you live long enough, Adam, you might come closer to reclaiming your humanity. You’ve already begun the process.”

That was why she was so different from him. So real… so human.

“How long has it taken you?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s different for each of us.”

“Is there anything I can do that I haven’t done?”

“Decide on your replacement, Adam — and live.”

He paced in the snow. “How do I know who?”

“You’ll know when you know. And they’ll bee ready and willing.”

He asked quietly, “So it was you, wasn’t it… you picked me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you gave me faith in Man,” she said, and went into the house.