That same innocence. That same fragile light.
Now his eyes burn red.
So do Gene’s. So do the others’. But my red is gone. It faded with the last blood I gave. My glow is dimmed, cooled. Blue now. Like the sun after dusk. Blood overused.
And I, the one they call a deity—the one they believe in—I’m hollow.
A burden wrapped in myth.
“What shall we do, Eos?” Gene breathes into my ear, low and quiet, as if speaking any louder might break what’s left of me.
I’ve always had a plan. Always. But now?
I look at Cham again, and his silhouette flickers. For a moment, it’s not him I see—but Ren. Just Ren, standing in that same posture, staring up at me like I’m something more than I am. The image blurs, and I blink it away, squinting as if I can force reality to stay still.
Think, Elliot. Think. They don’t call you Eos for nothing.
The sewer stretches ahead, a long, narrow corridor of filth and stone. A straight path for a few hundred meters, then it curves, then splits again. I try to trace the route in my mind, see it clearly—each bend, each alcove—but even as I think, my legs have already started moving. The others follow, wet boots slapping into sewage.
The green is behind us.
The last one I faced had speed no red could match. Bullets didn’t work. Skin like armor. Movements like nightmares. But I killed one.
I remember its blood—how it gave it to me. How I drank it. How it healed me completely. And then how it exploded.
My skull pulses with pain. My vision warps. Images flash—pictures I don’t recognize. Voices whisper in tangled tongues. My stomach turns, and I retch mid-run. Nothing comes out.
The sound of running water mixes with our breath—flat, rapid, heavy. Gene is steady beside me. Cham stumbles but keeps pace—the sound of running multiplies.
The green is closer now.
He grunts and lifts his revolver.
“For Eos!” he shouts.
Panic seizes my lungs.
“Don’t!” I yell, spinning my head back, but it’s too late.
And the green steps into the flickering light.
It’s paler than death. Faceless, but for a grin carved impossibly wide into its blank head. Its arms and legs are long—longer than they should be—its bones stretched and twisted, like a spider forced into human shape. Cruelty made flesh.
The memory of the last one burns into me. The grin. The emptiness.
The gunshot fades into the dark. My mouth dries.
“Fucking run faster!” I shout, slamming my palm into Cham’s back. He stumbles forward, eyes wide. Gene surges ahead of him, his heavy build clearing the path.
The visions hit me again. The voice returns, buried deep in my bones.
I whisper it without realizing. Just breath, escaping my lips as I move faster—faster than most humans ever could.
Just the silence again.
I didn’t know Jimmy or the others for long. A week at most. But they followed me. Sacrificed for me. Believed I could be their salvation. Believed I was the one to bring meaning to this shattered world.
Maybe I led them to believe it.
But I can’t die here. Not in this pit. Not for a handful of names when the world above still suffocates under colored rule. Not while billions suffer. I must live.
And yet my hands tremble. My breath hitches.
Afraid of what it will do to me. To us.