Chapter 5: Savior
Black: Round 8, Bishop to h6 taking white’s Bishop
Fires blazed in the cold night, their forked tongues wildly raging against the backdrop of a tilted landscape. The shadows of Hopi’s soldiers danced across the hills in the distance whipping into the starry sky amidst the towering snow dipped firs. They lined the hillside. Abradm watched from the top of a barren stone as Cesraminion raiders scoured a little village out on the plains of the cold pockmarked valley. He hid himself in a large and jagged crevasse that snaked further into the earth in ever narrowing passages. The soldiers, under command of their new King, had been observed miles away. The Art of War struck through Abradm’s mind like lightening in the moment the connection was made between the plumes of dust billowing into the dimming sky and the hurried march of a well outfitted platoon.
He had been hounded at every turn, haunted by his brother’s tireless and calculated maneuvers. Every day turned up a new and nearer attempt at his capture, and there seemed to be no way of knowing how Hopi knew where he was. Justifying it as coincidence, Abradm thought they must be more numerous than previous calculations and I must merely be getting closer to the heart of Cesremine. He scarcely thought of his destination, the Atheneum, for fear that hopi somehow was reading his thoughts.
The last few nights had passed and he hadn't slept. His sleep function ensured a routine resting period so sleepless nights had become a thing of the past—unless, of course you switched it off. And this is what Abradm had done while making every attempt to absorb the light of Osernes, refueling his cells to better evade Hopi’s men—so as to not be caught sleeping. Even still, they seemed to know where he was, or at least where he was going and had been. There was no rest.
After the raiding was all over and the soldiers were on their way up and over the white hills to the East, the cries of those who remained droned on in the night, and upon the wind it caught his ears. They were the voices of the old and the sickly, bound to die and wallow in their misery until they could wallow no more. The rest, those whom the soldiers took with them, some in shackles, under order of Hopi, Abradm’s very brother, were taken to partake in the building of a new empire. Abradm watched the train of people marching off into the horizon.
He’s taking the strong, and letting the places in which they came die, vanish away. But to what end?
“Do you suppose there might be any food left in that village, Tre?” A slurred speech came from Abradm’s drooping face as Heaven shone through a clear patch in the greying sky as a beaming star.
“We could find out. I can scour the streets and bring you anything you need, what do you need, Adeorhe?”
“I require only the light, my concern is for you.” Abradm seemed exasperated, his skin turning grey as he shuttered, shivered, and stuttered.
“As do I, the light of Osernes sustains me.” Tre spoke matter-of-factly.
“Don’t be silly, Trearshimeen.” Abradm pulled himself from the rock and stood upon the hill while Osernes lowered in the sky. The large and purple full moon was already out and making its ascent as they spoke from the opposite end of the horizon. Heaven shined as the moving star in-between. The scene was one that could hardly be forgotten. In fact, Abradm wrote of that night, if only it were written upon the banks of his mind and sent to be stored in the records of Heaven: The rays of Osernas skewered the horizon with sharp edges which shone through the breaks in the clouds as it descended beneath the earth—perhaps to meet Atum—that Egyptian God. The orange hue surrounding, and the god let loose the cry of war against that purple moon on the obverse side of the sky; and starry patches could be seen already making their presence known while Heaven crossed the blotchy and grey arch of the celestial dome of Trearshimeen. The twinkling of them must be likened to the innocence caught betwixt two raging forces, all the while the fires, as if they were alive, blazed in the village of the valley, rendering living quarters to ash as flurries of snow rifled through the night stinging my skin along with those who droned on as the dead of hades. Trearshimeen kept me company, as she has since my descent into the abysm.
“Let’s go down.”
Tre nodded.
Abradm carefully crossed the dry and uneven expanse which lay between his concealment and the distant dronings. Then he wound his way into the streets of the tiny village. Shadows raced around every corner remaining almost always out of sight, and an orange tint from small fires permeated each alley. With every step cold mud caked itself on the leather shoes sewn around Abradm’s feet. Occasionally there would be a loud crash as one of the engulfed buildings tumbled to the ground. And the cries of the few dying reverberated causing a constant moan to permeate the dew in the air. And the stinking, spotty dogs ran about sniffing at heaps in the mud for scraps all while mounds of rubble were burning in the snowfall.
Suddenly one of the shadows, an old woman, hair grey and wild as the thicket, wearing torn garments and wailing louder than the rest seized upon Abradm.
She spoke in frantic words of gibberish to Abradm’s ears, not like that of Tre’s tongue, and she grabbed his hand surprising him to his core that she had such a powerful grip and that he had not noticed her until that very moment. She tugged on him and led him through streets, now laid with stone or brick, around the corners, and finally into a small hut which was barely standing, all the while Abradm felt powerless to go anywhere other than where she had led him. The covering of the entrance led into the earth and a larger living area opened up underneath his feet it seemed. It was as if a specter of the night had guided Abradm into the realm of ghosts. Before entering she stopped suddenly. And he, standing four feet taller than she, leaned over. She quieted down, cupped his pale cheeks in each hand, whispered a few elegant and alien words, pointed to the sky while Abradm followed her finger. He beheld Heaven at the end of her tip in the midst of an opening in the clouds. She was pointing toward Heaven, and his eyes became wide in astonishment. Her’s were wild and desperate.
Then gently in a calmer manner, she led him into the ground where he then saw a young child in a deeper alcove lit by candle light. It was a boy, the age of but a few decas who laid on a bed pail as the moon of Earth and sweating a cold sweat. He had in his eyes the look of a dead man, but they still moved, if only barely. In the light of only a few flickering flames he lay strengthless wheezing into the darkness as his grandmother waived her arms desperately back and forth between the boy and Abradm. It was clear that this woman had no fear to solicit the aid of such an alien and godlike creature as Abradm must have appeared. And certainly she remained a spectacle who seemed to be aware of Heaven in the night sky.
How many others are watching my vessel? He thought to himself, eyes tilted down and to the left.
The women then tugged hard on Abradm’s left arm and he knelt with a jolt to the child’s side. With furrowed brow he looked deep into his vacant eyes. They were shot with red streaks, yellow was built up around the edges of his lids, and the crescents under his eyes nearly mimicked the hue of the purple moon outside. It was apparent that he was going to die very soon, and that this woman wanted Abradm to help him. He turned toward her and then back at the boy who lay without a sound and near death staring off into the void which permeated the view of the desolate.
“There is nothing I can do.” He whispered with mannerisms which exemplified his wholly defeated nature and his utter unwillingness to interfere more than he had. He began to walk out of the room when he heard a noise coming from a nearby enclosure. He caught the glimpse of an older man who was quickly covering something up in a nearby office. The man wore a brown cloak with, of all things, a golden cross around his neck. He looked to be not unlike a friar of Earth’s 16th century. The two locked eyes for a moment, the whole while the woman was speaking fast and repeating the same words over and over again in the alien tongue, motioning wildly to the boy.
Stunned by the cross, Abradm sunk into a deep reflection. How is this possible? His eyes widened with the inevitable realization. There must have been some sort of cultural cross-contamination between these people that went unrecorded in Earth’s history. But how could it have been that we discovered this world? Unless there are more. Many more! His thoughts than turned to another wild speculation, all the while the woman ran around, arms flailing, and the man skulked in the shadows. What if we are the same species? Homosapiens. But even so how could an Earth Christian Cross make it’s way across the expanse of spacetime. This is unbelievable—
“Uhhrada, gal-top eshe!” The woman shouted. The man threw his arms in the air and retreated further into the shadows relinquishing the domain of an object of curious shape which resided under a sheet.
“What is that?” Abradm said allowed knowing full well his words meant little to the aliens, but the stare he imparted upon the device was universal—unquenchable curiosity. With a flash of intrigue that, with power, overwhelmed his senses and good sense he felt a sudden need to know what the friar was hiding. His wide eyed look didn’t sit well with the friar either, and the man began to go on the defensive. The woman however, seeing the sudden change in demeanor lighted up in an instant and ran into the room grasping Abradm’s hand while she left. The man bellowed out in frustration and bade them leave in every way a man could, in word, in gesture, in posture, in force, but the woman wouldn't have it. She ran past the friar in a couple jerky motions and in one quick moment threw off the covering. To Abradm’s utter surprise he beheld right in front of him a telescope, not a primitive one either.
The man groaned in anger, let off a series of angry words, and quickly threw the cover back onto it while the woman pointed heavenward and then back to her dying son. In the brief moment the scope was in sight it was apparent that it had gears which Abradm could tell rotated the device smoothly in any constant direction that was desired.
They've been monitoring us. He thought.
The woman scowled at the friar and threw him aside as she then raced into another room with total disregard for his privacy. This one was hidden behind a bookcase, one of the few that hadn’t been jolted to the ground in the cesraminion raid. She brought Abradm in and once again his mind raced like ten thousand horses stampeding through wild rapids. There was in the dim lighting of a flickering candle what appeared to be a primitive microscope with a trey of liquid underneaths its lens. The woman motioned for Abradm to look. And he did with little hesitation, the friar cursing in his alien tongue all the while. Carefully he knelt down and slid his eye over the eyepiece. After a few moments more of adjusting, turning and sliding a few parts to it he was able to bring into focus what was at the end of the scope. What he saw in that moment sent shivers down his spine, and with his mouth ajar he immediately connected with Heaven, downloaded a medical journal* written by the doctors aboard Heaven within the last several years, post Earth documents, perused it rampantly, skipping certain parts, going back reviewing certain sentences, stopping on any images, and within only a few moments he came across the paragraph in which he search. And once again it happened. He felt a new world of horror descend upon his consciousness. And yet it was becoming familiar. Abradm beheld in the little trey of liquid no common disease, but one which fit the structure of virus. But even in this alien world Abradm knew it was no ordinary virus, or one that had been around for countless generations mutating into a new strain every year or so as the Earth flu does. It was a virus born in the confines of Heaven, evolved in the recesses of deep-space with a potentiality darker and more insidious than any he’d known of in the history of Earth, and of all creatures for to act as a catalyst, not the rat, the flee or roach, but the backs of the fallen themselves. The gods of heaven wrought a new unparalleled plague upon this world. And it was here. It was at that moment spreading in the veins of that poor child, and more than likely, it had infected everyone he and his comrades had come in contact with. It was the dying half of Lilith, in desperate need to find it’s counterpart.
Hopi! If we were not damned before. We are now. This child is only the beginning of the first casualties of a disease that could eradicate the entire populace of this world. What have you done, Hopi. Damn you, brother! Damn me. May god Damn us both to hell!
The woman fell to her knees and pleaded with Abradm while in his mind he knew she wouldn’t be doing such a thing if she only knew that it was he who brought this sickness upon them.
That abysm, that putrid labyrinth of despair in which Abradm escaped couldn’t stay in his past, it cropped up with every new horror he learned of the impact of his presence on the inhabitants of this plane. The little strength in which he had left instantaneously and he nearly collapsed to the floor in bitter anguish at what he was beginning to see of the consequences of his arrival. Feeling constrained by some moral fibers weaving together into a body racked by these awful realizations of life, death and hell, incredible pain and suffering which would inevitably be brought on by his own hand, he stood, breathing deeply, and walked over to the child who's shallow breaths were nearing their end and gurgling up phlegm, blood upon his lips and nostrils.
“I know of no natural cure of which I am privy to at this moment,” he spoke aloud to the woman. And speaking aloud only in hopes that some divine strain of his words might ring in her ears to help combat the difference of understanding. “However, death is no horrible thing. In fact some creatures yearn for it.”
But he knew there was no strain in which this heartbroken women’s mind could hear, only set on bringing life to the child she continued to press with obvious motions toward Abradm.
“I can save him,” he swallowed hard, and with those words he fell inside as one giving up hope, surrendering the complexities and consequences of the universe to the future. “But if I do, he will be as the gods, damned as I am.” He almost whispered staring into the woman eyes, desperate, blue, and longing. She stared back griping with her wrinkled hands the sides of his wrists in innocent and pleading hope, and between the two a tear fell to the floor.
He gently took the child’s hand, lifted a blade from his pocket made from primitive metals and tore a small hole in the boys skin upon his palm. He then pricked his own finger on the edge of that jagged piece of metal to the point that a trickle of shimmering red blood came out. He looked at it for a moment, and then with nothing other than despair in his bleeding heart let it drip onto the child’s palm so that it mixed with his own alien, yet familiar blood.
Abradm stood back, left the child in the other room, passing by the old man who was then staring with awful wonder upon the scene, and passed the woman who was weeping on her knees by her grandson’s side, and he collapsed to the floor in delirium as a drunkard might have knocking a stool over as he did. In suffocating exhaustion his sleep function switched back on without his permission, and then he blurted out “Tre, may God have mercy on me. Tre, please, where are you. You’ve gone haven't you. Come back, you know Jack was right, but only by accident. He said we were son’s of purgatory. But that’s not what he meant, he meant to say ‘perdition.’ He must have been in too much grief to have realized his error, oh dear Tre. But we aren’t of perdition. Purgatory, perhaps, Tre. There is a difference. There is hope for us still. We are not as Judas, although I wouldn't no how to tell the difference at this point. Oh, Tre, please come back…” and then he slept mumbling off into the night.
*Professor of Medicine, Jack LeGrande, of Heaven Fleet
Sol 578.4
Last Testament and Letter to Heaven Fleet
To hell with it, it’s June 3rd, the year? 2131. Only last week we lost contact with Outpost 1. Goddamn outpost 1. Think of it. They’ve designated Earth, our home, as Outpost 1. Why in all hell don’t they want us calling it Earth? It’s simple, really, they wanted to make it easier on us when the news hit our sensors of its inevitable destruction. ‘Outpost 1’ it read ‘has ceased signaling’. We all knew what that meant, we couldn’t just call it what it was. No one could bring themselves to say that Earth had been destroyed.
To think of it, no-one even conceived that this thing could have happened. There were no stories of it ever. Not one, in the history of mankind. Nuclear armageddon? Nope. Solar Flare wiping out all life on earth? No. And no damn insurrection of rogue AI , either! I guess you could say the zombies and asteroid stories were the closest to it all, but even they didn’t capture the true scope of what really happened. It had to be some amalgam of a dozen different dominos falling in some cockeyed way that no one could have predicted. Think of it, Lucifer and Lilith, married together in some twisted decree of fate, they are what is going to erase the human species from the universe.
I suppose that deserves some explanation. And forgive me my unofficial last testament/statement on what I’ve got to report. You’d get drunk too, hell, I’d send myself out into space but I wouldn’t die. I’d just curl up and weep into eternity—except no one can hear you whimper in space. Forgive me, I’m somewhat intoxicated at the moment. But I won’t be for long. As I said, to hell with it, to hell with us all.
We, us, human beings out-thought it all. All of those species and planet killer potentialities were threats of imminent peril, and we thrived. In the face of all the universe could throw at us for hundreds of millennia—we lived and we conquered every obstacle. In my own field we’ve combated bugs that are species-enders, and we’ve learned not only how to prevent disease completely but how to use it to our benefit. We’ve turned horrific things into godsends. All of the literature by the most neurotic minds and the foreshadowing of all the most brilliant scientific men and women in the last three centuries couldn't have conceived of this. Hawkins, Jennings, Malto, they were right, but not in the way they thought.
Pandoras box was opened during the Cold War of the 20th century. We could have ended ourselves a thousand different times. It was a turning point in our history. And we handled it. We even had procedures in place to redirect potential planet killer asteroids. We redirecting the path of Apophis for hells sake!
Out of all of our success through travail and error one might begin to think that we have been blessed to make it this far. The truth is we haven’t been blessed. No, the universe truly is indifferent toward life of any caliber, even of the highest order. It couldn’t care less about what we’ve accomplished through countless generations of suffering, learning, striving. It’s just an empty compassionless void, filled with nothing but happenstance and coincidence.
An asteroid—we could stop an asteroid double the size of the moon from interfering with life on earth. And at the rate we were expanding it only would have meant a matter of a half dozen decades before we could have stopped what actually killed us, what finally did us in. Not even Bruce Willis could stop that damned rogue planet from colliding with Jupiter at over a thousand miles per second. Once we knew it was coming, there was no time to do anything other than scramble ourselves together, pack up Svalbard on board a dozen SpaceX Elites and send humanity packing on its way into this godforsaken void of interstellar space. There was no hope of deflecting it, changing its course, or fortifying Earth against the hellfire that was inevitably going to do it in. It ruined our whole goddamn system, made it all more lifeless and hellish than it already was. And Eden, our little corner of life, love, and beauty, just gone in the blink of an eye, turned to death and unspeakable horror.
Within ten years, people who weren’t lucky enough to have won Heaven Fleet’s lottery accepted their fate, and they wrote innumerable novels about the universes’ latest surprise as they waited. Exabytes of data flooded into the storage clouds of Heaven Fleet from every country in hopes their memories would be carried on, somewhere, somewhere, just merely not to be forgotten.
Everyday the lotteries rolled in over the international broadcasting systems in every language and every climb, and some found their numbers were called, some could take their families, while others had to decide whether they would stay or go if they couldn’t take their family. It all depended on your number. That damned ‘L’ on the ticket meant the difference between one life and a family. Officials, astronauts, engineers, and other PHDswere afforded the niceties by the WLOC to allow all immediate family on board, but others who drew were drawn at random to be employed weren’t always so lucky. And whomever went would be sent into the stars on board one of the dozens of Heaven Ships to seek out new worlds for the replenishment and propagation of our human race. Little did they know, the only escape was merely to lie down and die. For, had they known what awaited us out here in the dead of blackness, they would have thought again about coming. No one could have fathomed what has happened in these recesses of space since Heaven Fleet has launched. It truly is the condemnation of all that we’ve accomplished, and as far as I can tell—it’s over. There is nothing anyone can do about it now.
I’ve had nothing but time on my hands for the last few days, I’ve surrendered, I’ve raised the white flag to an enemy so insidious it defies logic and any thing humans have ever conceived. So, I’ve been perusing the novels written of Lucifer in the last fleeting moments of Earth’s life. I read file after file of what Earth was able to compile before we lost touch. Below is one of the most succinct and devastating predictions of the account of what Lucifer 1, the name of which Tyndel Wentworth gave to humanities very own system killer— What it did to our system and consequently, through some damned fates of fate caused our species to accomplish—our very own endless torment. It was published and uploaded into Heaven’s Cloud exactly two years to the day prior to Earth’s last signal to Heaven Fleet.
Outpost 1 by Tyndel Wentworth
Lucifer, alone in the outer coils of darkness couldn’t help but crash the party, the party which was started over five billion years ago—that of life in our quant little system. It came inat 90 degrees off the plain of the axis of our systems disc without a thought in the world to the horrors it might usher in in the coming hours. At approximately a third the size of Jupiter herself colliding withnear disgusting accuracy into the eye of the her storm, Lucifer himselflet loose its apocalypse upon humanity. And to thinkthe Jubilee Party on the gliders outposts of Saturn had just discovered the origin of its northern hexagon, but they would never make it back to Earth. It’s funny, one shutters at the horrors that undergo a person, a people, but when in reflection of an entire system of life, one begins to find that horror isn’t really the word to use. Life is precious, but to think of those rings of saturn, that beautiful display of nature torn asunder. It’s almost more heartbreaking. They wouldn’t have wanted to come back to Earth. In fact their demise was most certainly the least horrific of all those effected by this cosmically scaled event. If they knew what was to come they never would have attempted to leave Saturn. The incomprehensible cataclysmicevent put to shame the horrors ever conceived by the most deranged minds of Earth’s history. First, all of our satellites instantaneously stopped functioning. They began to drop out of the sky. Some claimed at that moment they felt a force penetrate their skulls. Some even said to have been knocked out by some as of yet unknown force of nature the moment Lucifer collided with Jupiter. The claims are unsubstantiated, but it wouldn’t matter, not to anyone on Earth, anyway. Then, as predicted by the Weeping Scientists Coalition, came the dark nights as gaseous debris filled the cosmic voidbetween planets suffocating out the light of the sun. This lasted for five weeks, it became cold, and some froze to death, yet the skyitself became a fiery amber blotched together like a Picasa painting. Then , asthe poor bastards who weren’t lucky enough to make it aboard one of thevessels geared to save our species on board Heaven, if they weren’t systematically shutting off their own vital components, jumping to their deaths hand in hand with their loved ones, they saw the fires begin to descend. The first pieces of the first wave of large debris struck the windshield of someone park at a stop sign heading toward his family sheltered underground, trunk filled with water and supplies. Everyone knew that shelter only prolonged the inevitable, but what was a man to do otherwise. It did little, but then fireballs came thereafter. First pebbles of fire, which rained for another week, then baseball sized, then car, then buses of flame toward the end. If there ever was a hell, what followed was certainly it. Whole families committed suicide together. One could hardly blame them. The alternative was to be slowly burned alive. From the beginning to the point where all humans on earth had died, the core temperature went up merely a half a degree fahrenheit every two months. Others put guns to their heads, killing others before themselves. And it wasn’t just one city, or two. It was the entire world, and no, not even the righteous were saved from the unutterable death which rained down from the sky intensifying every day and never ceasinguntil even the anemones on the ocean floors were burnt into oblivion. There was no quick end. It slowly got hotter and the skies filled up with more fire incrementally. Once half the population was gone, over six billion melted away, the skiesthen turned dark green and any who’d survived to this point found themselves breathing poisoned air. Their lungs began to blister, and blood began to seethe in the veins, and even still there was no sudden death for anyone who stayed behind unless you took it upon yourself. Their was writhing in the streets for weeks. The whole process was nothing other than demonic, which is why I’ve named the system killer Lucifer. It seemed to be designed to offer biological life the most horrific and excruciating, ugly deaths beyond imagination. There was nothing but slow hell waiting for all those who remained on Earth. Humanities only hope now lies with Heaven Fleet. May you never have to see the horror which took place on Outpost 1.
They named us Heaven fleet in a vein that humans have never not been able to evoke, religious ideologies intended to conjure sentiments of hope and faith. To be clear once I’ve stood in front of the engine block come the morning. I’ll be sure to ask any God in that blackness out there what the point was. To fight tooth and nail for everything we ever had, to make it as far as we did into the expanse of the universe, and then to merely be stamped out in the blink of an eye with horrors beyond description. And not only that, but it is now my duty, as senior Medical staff to announce to my fleet that a virus, which I, nor any of my staff can combat has begun to develop.
If it were merely a biological agent we could contain it and disperse an antigen amongst the fleet, however, as I said earlier, this is no ordinary culprit. Apparently nanotech is a catalyst in which has aided a new strain of Hedrotight N. This is beyond my jurisdiction. The field does not yet exist in which is needed to combat this chimera. And it never will exist. Humans are on the cusp of extinction and there is no coming back from it. And why? Because we’re all damned cyborgs. Our blood is infused with devils. It is beyond what I am capable of curing. From all tests we’ve conducted alongside our best engineers this is a whole new player, one that needs a new branch on the tree of life. It’s had us reverting back to the medical stone age trying to bleed these damned devils out of us! Nothing works. It is an intermediary Virus which acts as an agent of chaos; a singular virus to affect both biological and technological systems alike. Think of it as if a computer virus created offspring with the flu. How could this occur? It was the very nanotech which runs through every member of Heavens’ veins which coaxed it into existence. And it’s that same nano tech that was meant to serve humanity by protecting us while we slept in cry-stasis.
Stasis has historically been deadly and it has plagued proponents of deep space travel for centuries, as the vital human organs invariably begin to shut down. The advent of nanotech infused into the human bloodstream came on the scene just in time to allow us to use them to keep the human wholly intact and alive for as long as needed within stasis sleeper cells. At least that was the intention. Then we discovered against the clock as Lucifer crept ever nearer that no matter how we programmed the bots, neurosis set in after about five years in stasis, so we timed each interval for all humans entering stasis in Heaven’s Fleet. And we thought we had done it again. But this toying with the limits of the human ability against a doomsday clock has had unforeseen consequences. Namely, Lilith, the name I’ve chosen to call this species killer. Lucifer destroyed our home, now Lilith is out for our bloodline. It has already started to affect primary systems. Yes, I am referring to the Heaven’s technical components in which I reside. I anticipate that communications between our vessels through the entangled radios will shortly be rendered useless, perhaps only a few more days, maybe a week.
The writers of our directive on the outset of Heaven’s voyage of salvation, the scholars and the poets, the philosophers, scientists and the historians’ collaborative efforts, though thoughtful of what we might run into in the void, could not have foreseen this. As my last transmission to all vessels, I bid you an eternal farewell.
This will be one of the last messages sent via entangled radio. There is nothing more I can do. General Talbot will address the fleet shortly. And his direction will assuredly release all members of Heaven Fleet from the restraints of the directive and allow our underlying consciences to be our guides heretofore come the silence of the oceans of blackness. We will be alone in the coming hours, and our technology will not merely be for not, but rather it will condemn us to an eternity of hell. We are all diseased with a disease that has never before been conjured by the limits of the universe herself.
Oh yes, Lilith. Let me not forget her. We knew of the drastic effects nanotech had on the span of human life, increasing it up to 70 per cent. However, I ask, what has been the bane of any disease that’s ever cropped up? Being too effective. If it is too good at its job then the hosts die too readily. Lilith has another idea. She is here to ensure that we will not die. Ever. Any decaying or deterioration of our cells has ceased utterly. Not only that, but the longer we live the more difficult it will be to take it upon ourselves to end our own lives, as we lose our—souls—if you will. We lose our ability to act in our own interest and we start to want what she wants—to spread. It won’t be long before we couldn’t take our own lives if we wanted to. She’s in our blood and she won’t allow it. What more can I say? Hope? Love? There is none and my body is devoid of life and any passion of intrinsic value. Lilith hath taken it all. I am ridden with a monster which even the vacuum of space will not exercise and the horrors of all things that would have once previously ended our misery in death will no longer cease, for Lilith will not allow us to die so it can continue on indefinitely. We may be alive, but we will ultimately lose what makes us us—what makes us a unique thinking individual. We are essentially intelligent zombies doing only the bidding of Lilith, and we don’t even know that we aren’t doing what we desire to do. Every instinct, ever notion, every subtle desire—it’s not us, they aren’t derived by humanity, but of that monster, Lilith.
In my last efforts to write of any cure of my own free will I offer the following. The only way I have concluded to do away with such an evil is to incinerate the entire body of it all at once. This is to mean that the only way our souls can be freed from this shell is to render to oblivion every fiber which makes us up in an instant down to the molecular level. Burning with fire will only produce you to regain consciousness and move away from the fire even as your limbs boil with blisters. You will feel it all, the pain of death, yet you will not die. And this will happen over and over again. My thoughts fly apart when in reflections of what it would mean to be dismembered or beheaded. I simply don’t like to think of such a fate. I have labored intensively to keep us safe from all biological ailments. But as I’ve said time and again, there is nothing more I can do. We have brought upon ourselves a condemnation worse than death—an eternity of death. I will attempt to incinerate my body come the morning, standing in front of the engine block of Heaven as she fires. However, Lilith, whether she be those tiny mechanical devils in our blood, or the biological hedrotight N, she knowns our intentions. Our souls are trapped in these bodies henceforward and our bodies will inevitably begin to succumb to her will. We will live forever in our sins and our souls will rot within these immortal bodies. Heaven Fleet is as the body of Judas of old. We’re the sons of purgatory and we have brought it upon ourselves.
If there is a God, may you find a more merciful creature to worship. This is utterly inane that this is even capable of occurring. Farewell from the dead to the dead.
Admirable Talbot’s final address was never received, and LeGrande’s suicide note was merely one of thousands of frantic messages sent between vessels in the last few and sporadic hours coms were open before the infinite silence of space put an end to it. The void was the only thing there was thereafter.
