~~Day 80~~

~~David~~

He felt horrible. He felt fucking awful. He felt kinda... strong. Was that the word? He'd just fucked his girls, and a bunch of succubi. There was something definitely ego-stroking about that.

The problem now was the hangover. They'd stayed up all night, riding the waves of more than a thousand sex auras, his included, and now they were paying for it. Morning twilight was here, and his brain told him to get up. Maybe if he closed his eyes and tried, he could fall asleep, but it wouldn't be good sleep. If he were seriously injured, he could sleep, but sleeping during the day when the only thing he was suffering was a lack of sleep, just didn't feel like something he could do in Hell, almost like he was exhausted but took caffeine.

Just a quirk of Hell's strange sleep system. Instead of his biology lining up with the sun, night and day were real things that had their own power over everyone within. A pain in the ass.

He sat up. Moriah and Tsila were already standing, stretching their limbs and wings, and re-summoning their clothes. His girls had never taken off their clothes, the red silks and black jewelry. Clothed sex was hot. They sat up, too, groaning like they were lifting giant rocks instead of their bodies.

The succubi everywhere weren't so quick to get up. Some opened their eyes, waved a hand, closed them, and went back to trying and failing to sleep. How many succubi? The platform they'd fucked on was only maybe ten meters wide, but every inch of it was covered in red succubi skin. And unlike other demons, succubi skin didn't get very dark when unaroused, so it was always soft.

That was a lot of soft breasts, curvy asses, and amazing thighs pressed against him. He pulled his arms free of their bodies, and they stirred and groaned, but didn't move. So many women, naked, half on him, half on the girls.

He rubbed his temples, combed his shaggy red hair, and stood up with Moriah's help.

"Think it worked?" he asked.

She spared him a quick smile, but wiped it away, as if she could stop anyone else from noticing.

"I believe so. That was... a powerful aura." She punched his shoulder. Gently. "Are you such a whore that the idea of having sex with strangers, many strangers, turns you on so much?"

"What? No. No I... don't think so." He squirmed and re-summoned his clothes, too. "I just... It really gets me turned on, seeing everyone enjoy themselves, especially you girls."

Moriah sighed, but nodded and gestured out at the girls trying to get out from under the succubi. In Caera's case, it was literal. At some point in the night, half a dozen succubi had literally climbed over her, lain on her, and devoured her.

"You are a strange one," Moriah said. "Empathetic, very much so, yet wholly consumed by lust. An odd manifestation of sin."

"That's not--where are the Las?"

"Here!" Lasca's voice. The little lady crawled out from under a few sets of enormous breasts. "Latia?"

"Here!" Latia crawled out from between Laoko's left arms. "Laria?"

"Here!" Laria crawled out from behind Acelina's legs. "Laara?"

"Here!" Laara crawled out from under a few succubi, and fluttered her wings once she pulled them free of several layers of boobs. "Imps and grems don't normally get to play! Not with volas. Fun!"

The four little ladies crawled, literally. Too many bodies around to move easily, but they were light and had no trouble going on hands and knees and climbing over the mass of thighs and asses to reach him.

"Oh my," Tsila said. She stood at the edge of the platform and gestured out below with her wing.

David wasn't sure he wanted to see what waited below, but he had an idea. He took a breath and joined the angel.

That, was a lot of bodies. Incubi and succubi, all naked, and sitting, kneeling, lying, and climbing back to their feet. Some betrayers along the outer edges tried to get up, too, but they were thoroughly exhausted; probably the focal point of a few orgies. No dead bodies around, so at least no one ate anyone during the orgy. Brutes, vrats, gargoyles, satyrs, tigers, bat girls, and one borjin minotaur all struggled to get back up, each of them forced to nudge vola bodies aside.

Someone had changed the scrying pool from rave music and rave lighting, to a sunshine morning. Maybe that was part of the human experience the demons wanted, the utter dread of seeing a bright sun when you had a hangover. He'd tell them to drink water, if that was even a thing in Hell.

Tacharius stood by the giant bowl and pulled Zabulon up from the mess of bodies still on the ground. It wasn't quiet, with all the breathing and groaning and shifting bodies, but quiet enough Tacharius didn't have to yell for David to hear him.

"Impressed?" Tacharius asked Zab.

Zab winced, rubbed an eye and horn, and nodded. "That aura was absurd, unmarked. You... dominated everyone."

David shook his head. "You sure? I'm pretty sure I felt a lot of sex auras going on besides mine."

"What's the word?" Tacharius asked. "Fish? In the ocean?"

Zab nodded. "Exactly. Those were just fish in your ocean, unmarked. You drowned us. We were..." He gulped and looked down for a moment, before lifting his head and meeting David's eyes. "You enthralled everyone."

David gulped, too. The ocean metaphor was a little too apt. "Did you see anything in the ocean?"

The two incubi traded glances. "What? See? It was a metaphor."

"Never mind then. We're good." He smiled and sat on the terrace edge, letting his legs dangle. The thousand and some demons slowly got up, and he watched, glancing back a few times to see his girls do the same. Judging from the grumpy looks, no one was happy. Satisfied about last night, sure, but no one liked a hangover.

Laoko stood to her full height, adjusted her red silks so they hung over her breasts and privates, and stood over David. Behind him, she leaned forward so her heavy breasts hung underneath her, set two hands on his shoulders, two hands on the top of his head, and combed his hair as she grinned down at him.

"This body of yours," she said. "It is full of surprises."

He gulped and looked up at the enormous woman. "I guess."

"You had no idea you could do that?"

"No, I didn't." Not entirely true. That moment where Latia nearly died, his body had responded. It'd changed, molded his fingers together and created some sort of strange spike shape. But when the angels showed up and saved him and his little gremla friend, the change vanished, and his hand snapped back to normal.

Was this the same thing? Some sort of connection between states of mind?

Acelina climbed out from under half a dozen succubi. Many had curled up and snuggled to her thighs and breasts, ready to fall asleep, only for morning twilight to ruin it. The spire mother groaned, grumbled, hissed, and pushed the succubi away, earning some squawks of surprise.

"Be gone," she said. She adjusted her clothes, ensured her breast curtains covered her nipples, barely, and fixed her dangling silk skirt. Unlike Laoko, she didn't much care where she walked, and her hooves stepped on more than a few tails. Succubi squealed and quickly learned to get out of her way.

"Acelina, be kind to the volas," Laoko said.

"I will be kind when they learn to not rest on my wings." Grumbling louder, she stretched out her arms and her ridiculously enormous wings. They may have been thinner and weaker than Jes's, but they were at least twice as tall and wide. She reached up, ran her hands down her four enormous horns, behind her neck, and stretched out her back. David stared.

"David," Caera said. She prowled over the bodies, doing a much better job avoiding stepping on anyone, and she sat beside him at the edge of the platform. "Wow. That's a lot of orgy victims."

David choked on a laugh and smiled down at the crowd below. Maybe victim was the right word, considering how drained and exhausted everyone looked.

Acelina joined them, flared her wings, and gestured out at the onlookers below.

"That is just a taste of the unmarked's power!" She spoke to the crowd, voice booming. "I know word has spread of his battle with the angels. You know he is strong. And you now know he delights in what the Scar delights in. Carnal indulgence! Decadence. Bliss. You know what I say."

David glared up at the spire mother, and she looked back down at him with a wide, shark smile, all her white sharp teeth on display. If he didn't pay attention, Acelina was going to be the evil woman who pulled all the strings, while her marionette king -- him -- danced for her. Or she'd become the Jafar to his Sultan.

Jes and Dao joined him, standing around Laoko. The gargoyle leaned around the tetrad and whispered to him.

"Bet you didn't think you'd be here a few months ago, did you?"

"A few months ago, I was taking programming classes in university."

Daoka clicked several times and gestured out at the demons below. More and more stood up, and all of them looked up at David with a mix of a hangover, but also wonder.

Caera nodded toward the crowd. "You should probably say something."

"Say something?"

"Yeah. There are a lot of rumors about the unmarked, and about you. Clear things up."

Clear things up. Easier said than done. He had to be careful with every word, filter every sentence, make sure he didn't give away everything.

He sucked in a breath and put his palms on his knees, legs still dangling off the platform edge. The groaning crowd went silent.

It wasn't that he couldn't talk to crowds. He was actually pretty good at it. He didn't have a fear of public speaking, either. The issue was, he just hated talking to strangers in general. But this was important. If he was going to do this, he was going to be honest about the sort of person he was.

"As many of you know," he said, "something that isn't demon or angel has come. It's trying to break its way into Hell and destroy us. I'm on a journey to False Gate to put a stop to it. I also know Tarkissa and Azailia were both planning to sacrifice me to something here, in the Scar. So that leaves me with few options. I'm going to push through the Scar. I'm going to get to False Gate and save Hell -- and probably the rest of the Great Tower -- from these alien invaders. And I'll probably deal with the unmarked pushing through the Red Pits on the way." Sighing, he rubbed his knees and scanned the crowd. "I hear a lot of you aren't too happy with Tarkissa these days. Well, I'm not too happy about him either. I... I know he's going to get in my way. I could just keep walking like I have been for the past two months, just keep walking and deal with things as they happen. Or, I can do something smart, and deal with a problem before it gets in my way."

He clapped his hands together once, held out a hand, and summoned a spike of stone from the ground. Nearby succubi jumped back, gasping, as he snapped the spike off, and told the rest of the spike to melt back into the ground. He held the innocent foot-long chunk of rock in his hand and idly passed it from palm to palm.

"I'm going to take this place over," he said. "The Scar. I'm going to take the whole place over." Every demon gasped. It was almost comical, and he smiled. "What say you?"

The demons looked at each other, heads tilting.

"You can fight Tarkissa?" Zab asked, probably for the benefit of the crowd.

A succubus in the crowd waved a hand. "I saw him fight the angels. A thousand angels! If it weren't for those weird alien invaders, and that scary silver angel, he might have won, by himself."

Others in the crowd nodded, and others stared at each other, blinking. They either hadn't heard, or had but didn't believe. They did now.

"I don't want war," David said. "It's not my intent to just march into the spire, kill everyone, and take it over."

"Why not?" a demon asked.

"Yeah, why not?" another asked.

David blinked and shrugged. "Because then I'd have to kill thousands of demons?"

Zabulon shook his head. "Maybe. A lot of demons don't like Tarkissa anymore. He's only been acting stranger and stranger."

A vratorin stood up straight, a foot taller than the sex demons around him. "Some people say Tarkissa has been killing demons, too."

"Hardly unusual," Acelina said. Because, of course, it was perfectly reasonable for the demon in charge of a province to just eat other demons if they didn't like them.

"Killing, but not eating them," Zab said. "Some demons have been randomly disappearing, and no one knows what happened to them. And it's been happening for decades, only getting worse lately."

David looked to his girls, and they nodded. Something connected to Azailia's plan to sacrifice David, probably.

"So everyone wants Tarkissa gone?" David asked.

Many in the crowd nodded instantly. Some did not, looking around nervously.

"The bailiffs," Tacharius said. "They have devorjins and tregeeras with them, and they're loyal."

David frowned. "Enough to take on thousands of you?"

"No, but, I don't exactly like the idea of throwing my life away."

That was actually a little surprising. David scanned the crowd before looking back and up at Moriah, and sure enough, the angel had a raised eyebrow, too. Demons generally wanted to live, sure, but they were also all too happy to go into battle and fight if it meant they earned power. Power meant easy food, and vices.

If succubi and incubi really weren't ready to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat, that was one more point in the 'more human than other demons' category. Maybe he could actually grow to like the Scar?

"I don't want to throw anyone's life away," he said. "But I'm not going to dance around this. If I take this place over, it won't be clean, no matter how much I want it to be. Demons are going to die. I'll do my best to save as many lives as possible, but if I'm going to march to the spire and take it over, that's civil war."

The few brutes nodded and punched their palms, and the other non-volas in the room did, too. They were onboard. And slowly but surely, the volas nodded, too.

"Weapons," Acelina said. "And armor. Do you have them?"

The volas shook their heads. "Just some, not a lot."

Zabulon raised a finger. "Most meera metal in the Scar was traded out to the Red Pits and the Grave Valley centuries ago. I mean, we have them, but not enough to properly arm every single vola."

"And if you had them?" Laoko asked.

"Well, I bet I can convince other sections of the Floor to help more easily, and the Dens."

Laoko looked down at David. All the girls did.

David clenched his eyes shut and took a slow, wavering breath.

"No," he whispered. "I'm not doing that."

"David," Moriah said. "If we need weapons, you can--"

"I'm not going to do that. We can find weapons elsewhere. And if we can't, then we take them from demons loyal to Tarkissa, or we hunt down some fucking Cainites and take theirs." He kept to a whisper. Hopefully, only Moriah heard him.

"We can find weapons," a gargoyle said. "Everyone hides things in the Scar. We'll ask around."

David sighed with relief and raised a hand. "You all understand what I'm asking, right? You sure you want to do this?"

The demons looked at each other, confused. Was this an ork thing? Did they just want to follow the biggest, baddest ork? Him?

"We fight," Zabulon said. "Hey, you got two angels with you, unmarked. They vouch for you, right?"

David looked to the angels, and both Tsila and Moriah nodded.

Zab nodded. "Then we fight."

"But--"

The incubus held up a hand. "Unmarked, we know you're powerful. We know you're not a tyrant who's just going to replace Tarkissa and rule us with a meera fist. Say one thing about us volas, we know humans. Maybe not as well as an angel--" he gestured to Tsila--"but we know them. We deal with the damned every day, more directly than the other demons. Everyone here can tell what kind of person you are. And with what everyone says about what you did at the border, we'd be fools to not take this opportunity to make some change here in the Scar." He threw up a hand. "Down with Tarkissa!"

The demons cheered.

David gulped.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Okay," Jes said, leading the group out of the cavern. "We need battle plans. I--whoa."

Everyone stopped and looked around. Demons lay about outside, covering their terrace edge of the Scar. For what had to be a kilometer in either direction. A succubi pair here, an incubi pair there, some grems and imps, all scattered around, demons sat or lay, groggily getting back up from what was probably a night of fucking.

"Wow," Tacharius said. "Your aura affected everyone out here?"

"I... guess it did." David had to be careful. If he let the aura get too strong, the effect would be the same as playing the music too loudly. It didn't seem to be an issue, though. Maybe it was because the aura was more like background noise than a proper song.

Apparently, a background noise everyone nearby heard. Like waves pushing past walls, the aura had hit everyone outside.

"I know a place we can talk," Zab said. "But, just remember, we're all suffering from a hangover. And we don't have coffee."

Instead of going on a rant about water versus caffeine, David just nodded, groaned, pressed on his temples, and followed the incubus. It was a strange experience, walking past volas and betrayers on their stomachs and backs along the terrace edges. Most had found places to pile on each other; skin was more comfy than rock. Even stranger was when they opened their eyes, spotted David, and smiled.

"Unmarked!" a succubus said, waving. Jiggle.

"Unmarked," an incubus said, smiling.

"Unmarked," a betrayer said, and she bowed.

Naoko caught up with David and the crew and beamed up at him as she got ahead. She didn't say anything, but her smile didn't go away as she joined some succubi. They all watched him pass.

Thankfully, they didn't go far. Zab had a cave of his own, with chains dangling from the entrance. Inside was enough space for David and his girls to stand around, no issue.

The standing didn't last long. David sat down, body becoming a lead weight. Everyone else followed suit.

"You do this on purpose?" David asked Zab, clutching his suddenly too-small-for-his-brain skull. "This sucks."

"Of course. Humans always prioritize the now, and sacrifice the future."

"I mean, sure, but then we grow up and realize how stupid we were being."

Zab shrugged. "Demons don't age. Once we're past the hatching phase, we stay who we are. Why would we worry about something that'd only affect the old?"

"It affects me," Caera said. She lay behind David, acting as his couch for him, and he leaned back against her. "I hate feeling like this."

Tacharius sat with them in a big circle, wearing his usual sly grin.

"But it was fun, right?"

The girls nodded. The angels stood nearby, and while Tsila nodded immediately, Moriah took a little longer.

"I think it is safe to say," Moriah said, "that David is some sort of depraved sex god of sin."

"Hey! I'm not... sinning, right?"

Tsila laughed. "No, you're not. But I have to admit, while I didn't partake of your changing body, it was definitely a sight, David. Two penises?"

He squirmed. "I really... Um, yeah, that's something I'm still trying to figure out."

Zab gave his tail a flick. "Regardless, I think last night worked. You proved you're not just a powerful unmarked, like the one currently on her way here from Navameere Fields, but you're also someone the volas can vibe with."

Jes held up a wing. "Vibe?"

"Human talk," Tacharius said, and he gestured to David.

David groaned. "He means we'd get along."

"Oh." Jes nodded. "You are a horny human with a stupid heart of gold. I guess a bunch of lazy sex demons could 'vibe' with that." She air-quoted vibe with her wings' thumb claws. Close enough.

David smiled. "Okay, yes, based on what I saw last night, I think I can..." He sat up a bit straighter and looked to the cave exit. "Actually, I don't know if I'd... vibe."

"Don't know?" Zab asked.

"The Scar trades in indulgence. You emulate humans and make life good for visiting demons. That's why Azailia and Khazeer haven't tried to take this place over. But you also treat humans like currency."

Acelina snorted. "Enough. They are damned, unmarked. The fate the volas bestow on them are no more cruel than what Hell would deliver to them."

"I get that." He aimed a glare at the spire mother. Heat prickled up his spine and into his fingers. "That doesn't mean I'm okay with it. I know you're all used to dealing with shit people day in, day out. But that isn't me. I do not like what I hear about how you treat the damned."

Tacharius and Zabulon looked at each other, heads tilted. They didn't understand.

Zab spoke first. "I... guess we can discuss it? But you're talking about something that the Scar specializes in, has for thousands of years, probably longer, and is how we keep the other provinces happy."

"Betrayers--"

Tacharius shook his head. "A human can only become a betrayer if they want to. No one really knows how it works, but a demon has to willingly give the blood, and a human has to willingly take it. We can't force them to become a betrayer."

That fit the name betrayer well, but the fact it set their death total to 666 was insane. The only people agreeing to that were people too terrified to think straight.

"David," Caera said. "I understand where you're coming from, a little. But Acelina is right. We're talking about damned souls. You need to stop feeling bad for them."

He closed his hands and squeezed a rock he wasn't holding.

"Easier said than done."

The group went silent until Lasca stood up and raised a hand.

"We going to fight?"

Zab rolled his eyes. "We are, not you. Imps and grems should stay out of the way."

Frowning, Lasca got in the tall man's face and pointed at him.

"You don't know! Imps and grems strong. And many. We can fight."

"They can fight," Moriah said. "I have been on the other end of their tactics. They fight like..." She gestured to David. "Simile, please."

"Like a pack of hyenas."

"Yes, exactly. The laughing dogs."

David raised a finger. "Hyenas aren't dogs. I... never mind." He took Lasca's hands and pulled her to him. "I don't want you ladies getting hurt."

The other three little ladies joined him, squatting in front of him and fluttering their wings.

"Imps and grems fight!" Laria said.

"I don't want you to."

"We fight!" Laara flared her wings. "We strong."

"I... don't want you getting killed."

Latia came closer and crawled into his lap. "Latia protect."

"You don't remember what happened last time?"

She gestured to Tsila. "Angel heal!"

They all looked Tsila's way, and the angel shook her head.

"I can heal grievous wounds, but it is difficult. And reattaching a limb to a dying person would drain me completely."

"See?" David said.

But the little ladies shrugged, and Latia stood tall. Taller.

"We fight! Protect David. Save Hell!"

He looked to the other girls for help, but they all looked down at the little ladies with curiosity, and maybe awe. From what they'd told him about imps and grems, the little demons weren't concerned with politics, or battles over territory, or anything beyond 'hang around and eat stuff'. Demons let them stick around because they weren't smart enough to notice important information or share complicated secrets, and they often killed remnants to scavenge them for traces of resonance. No one liked it when the remnants built up like a fungus.

Acelina hissed and slammed her tail. "I do not want the Las running into battle. They are tiny, and weak. They are not meant for the chaos of war."

David blinked at the woman. That was surprising.

"Not just us," Lasca said. "We talk to other imps and grems. We talk again. Make big army! Imps and grems will fight, because Tarkissa is mean. Other spires, mean. David nice."

David put up his hands. "That is not enough of a reason to go to war! That--"

All the Las stood up. Without their armor or weapons, they looked oddly sexy with their goblin bodies, especially with all the piercings someone gave them. But they didn't have the size, the muscle, the power, the mass of the other demons. They wouldn't be able to take a single hit from a sword, even in their armor.

But that didn't matter to them. Each gave David a hug, gave Acelina a hug -- she wasn't happy about it -- and ran out of the tunnel. Everyone watched, an eyebrow raised.

"That," Zabulon said, "could be a problem."

Jes shrugged. "They're just imps and grems. What can they do?"

Zab matched her shrug and turned back to the circle. "Alright. We need to discuss a time frame. Many of the volas in this area want to bring Tarkissa down, but spreading word takes time."

David barely heard him, eyes still on the Las as they left. The memory of Latia losing her arm was still burned in his brain, and it would never fade.

But the way the four had walked off together put another image in his mind. Of dozens of hyenas circling prey and bringing it down, cackling the whole time.

"And we don't have time to spread the word," Laoko said. "We are moving through the Scar quickly. We took the opportunity last night to convince you, Zab, and your followers. But we cannot spend every second night indulging. It would take us weeks to reach the spire, and weeks more to pass through the Scar. We do not have that time."

Tacharius flicked his tail. "Then we spread the word as we go. Like Jesus, walking Isreal and Lebanon, gathering disciples and followers."

Everyone looked at the incubus, both eyebrows raised.

He shrugged. "A man can learn a thing or two watching the scrying pool."

"It is a plan," Moriah said. "We move, and make sure demons understand our plan as we go. By the time we reach the spire, we will have gathered many followers. And as long as we do not move slowly, we can gather our forces and reach the spire before Tarkissa can counter. He will have only the spire and its forces to stop us."

David raised a finger. "And the spire aura."

Daoka gestured and clicked.

Jes spoke for her. "She's wondering if you can cancel the spire aura."

"Cancel?"

Nodding, Daoka went on a clicking tangent, made two waves with her arms and collided them together.

"I... don't know if I can. I mean, maybe? That is a good idea, though. I can create auras, and everyone keeps telling me they feel like spire auras."

"It does," Caera said, tail going still. "It does."

If Caera thought it did, that was good enough for him.

"Alright," David said. "That's... kind of a plan. We get moving, and we tell people me, two angels, and some of the strongest demons around are going to make a change here in the Scar. No more Tarkissa."

"And no more bailiffs," Tacharius said. "They try and push us around, make sure we bow to Tarkissa, send him and them our best silks and slaves"--David twitched--"and not-so-gently remind us we only get to do what we do because Tarkissa lets us."

Either Tarkissa was a tyrant, or the volas were college students who just wanted to dance, get drunk, fuck all day and night, and Tarkissa was the head of the college trying to keep them in line. Probably a combination. David wasn't here, saving an oppressed group from some evil king. The volas wouldn't be much better.

But then again, the volas listened to him. And if he made another demonstration of what he could do, use his powers without summoning the aliens, he could convince many more demons his power was authentic. He could literally take over the Scar.

He could be one of the nine rulers of Hell, with hundreds of thousands of demons and betrayers at his command. And the power of a spire, too.

David sighed and nodded. "And I'll stop the other unmarked from taking down the Red Pits and Khazeer. Do we like Khazeer?"

"We do," Zab said. "He stays in the Red Pits, but when his demons come to us, they are... reasonable."

Tacharius nodded and clicked once. For a second, David forgot other demons clicked too, not just Daoka.

"Then let us go," Moriah said. "No reason we don't start moving now."

"I've got a couple reasons," Zab said. "Let me spread the word, tell people what's going on, let people get their betrayers, eat their slaves, find some weapons, and get ready for war. And I don't know about you, but this hangover is killing me. Take the day, talk to demons, help spread the word, and tomorrow after a good night's sleep, we begin the crusade."

David twitched again. Acelina looked at him, but said nothing.

The group nodded, though Moriah eyed Zab with a squint. She didn't like the word crusade. But she let it go, and the incubi got up and left, leaving David alone with the girls.

"David," Acelina said. "We should see to your egg."

"Yeah, let's go. You put it somewhere safe?"

"Of course. Though you are quite the forgetful parent to not even be concerned."

"Forgetful? I knew you'd handle it. I trust you."

Acelina stood and looked at him, featureless face aimed at him, showing nothing, even as she set her wings around her shoulders like a cape.

"Yes, well, let us go."

The group nodded and left Zab's cave. Plenty of demons smiled and waved at David, plenty more still lay about, bodies probably weighing a million tonnes and refusing to rise. Even the ones greeting him looked exhausted. He really had hit the whole canyon with his aura, or a good chunk of it.

They walked back to the cave they'd stopped in last night before going to the party, and sure enough, Acelina had put the egg somewhere safe. In between a half dozen betrayers. The men and women sat around it, knives in hand, ready to 'cut a bitch' from the looks on their faces.

"The unmarked is pleased," Acelina said, nodding. "Share your names. He will remember you."

The betrayers got up, and each stood before David, each with a stern, determined expression, each with 666 on their foreheads.

"Damien."

"Jessy."

"Garry."

"Ashley."

"Julee."

"Joe."

David nodded with each name and did his damndest to memorize their faces. Fucking awkward. He sucked with names, but he could remember faces. And unlike most people who said that, with him, it was actually true.

Alone with the girls, though still minus the Las, David sat by his egg and frowned up at Acelina.

"You promised them I'd remember them?"

"Yes. Your mind is worth much."

"Don't go just... making weird promises."

Acelina shrugged and sat with him in front of the egg. "The night was important, and I had to think quickly. You were too caught up with the night's goal to realize your mistake."

"I... That's... true." He stroked the egg and gazed down at the black and red leather, just barely see-through enough for him to see the subtle hints of something inside. "It didn't even cross my mind the egg might not be safe."

"You are a naïve fool. All of your views are naïve and foolish." Sighing, Acelina set her hand on his, still on the egg, and she stared down at the hellbeast-to-be. "It is a good thing I agreed to join you on this journey."

David blinked down at his hand, and hers and its claws, covering it. Caera's words came back to him: Acelina. She likes you more than she likes to let on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 82~~

~~Mia~~

"You see the web of runes," the bone wall wrote, "in your mind."

"Yeah, I do," Mia said. "But most of the runes aren't awake. I can't understand them, not really."

"You must connect with runes to understand them. They bind all things."

She threw up her hands. "Easier said than done! Can you teach me more runes?"

A pause.

"No."

"No!? Why not? You're an archangel! You're... You're..." She looked around at the room of flesh, the beating hearts, the flowing rivers of blood, and the crying eyes. In the darkness, only their gold tears provided light, shimmering and beautiful, disturbing and sad. "Dead. If you're dead, what am I even talking to?"

"I am the shell of Raphael. I am the memories. I am the wind of his lungs, and the tears of his pain."

Mia almost yelled in frustration, but stopped. If a dead archangel, someone who'd died a billion fucking years ago--

"How long ago was the First War?" No answer. "Um, I mean the war against Lucifer."

"The war was, by Earth rotations around the sun, billions of years ago."

"Holy shit." She covered her mouth. Crap, no swearing. "Sorry. So, the First War was really billions of years ago? But actual animals, creatures, have only been around for, like, 600 million years, I think. Maybe longer?" Look at her, remembering random science facts. David would be proud.

"Understand, child of Hell. The Great Tower is not a world bound by the material. The material is a section of the Great Tower, standing between its layers of the great goal, and the great void. Time is not as rigid as you understand it, and the layers affect each other. Time did not flow for us as it did the Earth."

Okay, okay, getting somewhere.

"Great goal? Great void?"

"The Great Tower exists to let the ultimate creation pursue the ultimate reason for existence, the great goal, the divine purpose. To know that he was to bow to such creatures is why Lucifer fought against our Father."

Oh god, answers! She was getting some answers! Kinda sorta!

"Ultimate creation? Ultimate reason for existence?"

"Humans, child of Hell. Humans carry the spark of creation within them, the spark of our Father. And to see where that spark goes, to watch it ascend into the infinite beyond, and to perhaps someday reach past the Great Tower, is why humans exist. Only my Father can reach such heights, but He planned, He hoped, His true children could reach the same heights someday, too."

Mia stared and slowly turned and looked back at the group. Everyone stared at her, eyes flicking between her and the runes they couldn't read. The angels were on a knee, heads lowered, still in their royam clothes, but Mia had a suspicion beneath their scary masks, their jaws had dropped.

"God wants me to become... god-like?"

"God wants humans to follow in His stead, and ascend beyond the Great Tower. But you are not entirely human, child of Hell."

Mia winced. "Does that mean I can't do what other humans do?"

"I do not know. You were never part of the purpose of the Great Tower."

Fuck. Fuck fuck. Not even the archangel knew what was up with her.

That was an important point. The archangel wasn't omniscient. He could be wrong about stuff, about the Great Tower and God's plan and stuff. And if Lucifer fought against God and screwed with the plan...

"Where..." She sucked in a deep breath. "Where is God?"

Noah, Azreal, and Yosepha lifted their heads, but the wall did not answer. Was he too sad to answer, or just a corpse responding to stimuli and unable to answer a question he -- it -- didn't know?

Time for a different question, then.

"You said time isn't as rigid. Does that mean time travel is possible? I mean, reverse time travel."

"No. You cannot violate the chain of causality. No one can."

She gulped. "Not even God?"

"Not even my Father. Causality is existence."

Well, damn. David was right.

"I'm still struggling to understand. Humans ascending to godhood? But, if we're stuck in the Great Tower's cycle of death and rebirth, and we lose our memories when we do that, how can anyone ascend?"

"It is not a question of knowing. It is a question of feeling. I will show you."

"Show?"

She jumped back. A gold line cut across the bone wall, and another, and another, each a massive sweep with an invisible quill with gold, glowing ink.

The rune for window. But, not a glass window, or some mundane window of stone or wood. It was a window, a true window. Or, eyes? Eyes were windows to the soul, supposedly, and the rune could be translated as that, too. But also not.

The window swallowed her.

She screamed and stepped back, and Noah grabbed her shoulder.

"Mia? What's wrong?"

She looked back at the angel, but as darkness swallowed them all, he looked undisturbed, even as the blackness washed him away.

All that was left was Mia, alone, standing in eternal nothingness.

Panic! No, don't panic. Breathe. Calm down. Noah hadn't reacted to anything, and if angel reflexes didn't react, then it was probably only her seeing this. Maybe she was still standing in the cave, with the angels and demons. Maybe they were staring at her, wondering why she was freaking out.

But she couldn't see them, couldn't feel them anymore. In every direction was eternal blackness.

Not darkness like she'd turned off the lights. This darkness had shades to it, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it wasn't actually shades. It was her mind, turning something that didn't make sense into something that did. Shades of swirling black, glistening obsidian, and shards of onyx, a billion billion kilometers away, pouring and flowing above her, while an even deeper darkness was underneath her.

She took a step. Black liquid, like ink, rippled underneath her sandals. She took another step, and the ocean of oblivion rippled below her.

This was the void. Endless black ink below her, and swirling obsidian above her.

It was quiet. It was cold. She hugged her arms and stared out across nothingness, and little gasps fought against her lungs. She was drowning, even as she stood on the black ink. Her lungs fought for air, but she could breathe just fine. She wasn't drowning, but it felt like that, felt like she'd fallen off a boat and was sinking into the cold, endless depths of a cruel sea.

"Help!" she screamed. Nothing. No echo. No sensation. Like she'd put her ear up to an acoustic pad, she heard nothing, felt nothing, not even the resonance of her own voice fading around her. There was nothing. And it felt like her brain was getting sucked out through her ears.

She'd heard about how some people quickly went crazy when put into a perfectly treated acoustic room, the kind that killed all noise instantly. This was worse. This was nothing.

Black swirls flowed across the sky, the opposite of the Northern Lights. The shimmering in the black didn't look like stars, but sharp daggers, waiting for something to move so they could stab it. And the infinite dark ocean below her moved. Things inside it moved.

She was going to fade away into nothing.

A gold orb descended from on high. Mia stayed standing, clutched her arms, hugged herself, fought against the heavy cold threatening to freeze her lungs, and watched the gold orb descend. It stopped in front of her, near her chest, a beautiful little thing only as wide as her palm. It was warm.

"Hello?" she asked. The orb didn't respond. This wasn't real. It was all a dream, or a vision, something for Raphael to show her... something.

A gold orb, warm, inviting, floated in an endlessness of frigid nothing.

God?

The orb hovered, moved, and weaved. It flowed around in a circle, and gold lines of mist leaked out from it, dancing and playful. They connected with each other, rivers of gold light that tightened into strands, and strands that knitted together into a tapestry she could not wrap her mind around; like a child trying to understand what grandma was knitting when she'd only started. The threads connected more and more, until the chaos coalesced into a form.

A base at first, something a meter wide, empty on the inside, with the gold threads creating walls along the outside. Almost like a tall basket. Above that, the gold threads tightened on themselves a million times over until they formed a solid wall that became see-through. A crystal ball? The big glass orb, empty, sat on top of the base, too big to fit into the basket. And on top of the glass orb center, another layer was made, another basket-like shape of gold weave with an almost plant-like aesthetic.

Mia took a step back and looked the strange shape over. It was a little taller than her, a tower made of flowing, woven gold strands. It was shaped almost like an hourglass, except with three sections, and a large crystal ball in the center. The base of the structure was thick, sturdy, and strong, while the top layer had branches, and they reached up and out, as if they were searching for the sun.

And in the glass orb in the center, white dots swirled.

The bottom section filled up, and Mia gulped. She knew what it was the moment she saw it. Fire. The bottom part of the Great Tower filled with fire, lava, cruel rock and harsh winds. Purging, and cleansing. The elements sloshed around inside the gold basket, unable to escape, but not trying to, either, like it was a part of the weave.

Hell.

Heaven came next. The top layer of weaving, flowing gold lines encapsulated gentle streams of water, soothing winds, and sunny days. Beaches of silver, gold, and crystal. Trees of vibrant green. Gold cities. Clouds, with shades of white and blue, filling up the top basket. A place to rest. A place to heal. A place to feel the joys life could only normally offer in small doses, but could be indulged without guilt or consequence in Heaven, until a soul was satisfied.

She knew that. Mia knew that, because the runes told her that. Her runes, buried deep in her mind, connected to Heaven, and they shone bright. Rest. Heal. Bound with empathy, kindness, and... creation?

Both the gold weave baskets above and below held onto the clear ball between them. A big sphere, filled with white dots that never stopped moving. A snow globe? Mia peered into the globe, and her vision drifted through the darkness.

Inside the globe, it was a different kind of darkness. The entire, nigh infinite cosmos of the universe, a canvas of beautiful space, and space wasn't nothing. It was dark and cold, but it wasn't the nothingness of the void. It was real. It was made of strands turned black, but not because of any malevolence, but because that was the color space. Space was real, made of its own strings, its own music, and it was full of stars, planets, nebulae, and puzzles of physics, of black holes and the speed of light and other barriers to be overcome. That was space. A place to be explored for billions, maybe trillions of years to come.

And somewhere in that beautiful cosmos, was a tiny, pale blue dot. The longer Mia stared, the closer the view zoomed in, the stars and galaxies beyond disappearing into the sidelines while the view focused in on a glorious place. Earth. Life.

If the Earth turned out to be the center of the universe, that'd make a lot of scientists -- and David -- very angry.

From the blue dot, gold dots rose and flowed up into the blue waters and warm shine of Heaven above. And dark, heavy dots fell from Earth, and sank into the basket below, into the burning fires. The gold dots that flowed into Heaven didn't just flow up into it, though. They touched the strands of the Great Tower, strands that reached up from Heaven, and reached out into the void. A tree, growing branches, bringing life--no, bringing existence, into the nothingness.

It was like one of those self-contained ecosystems, a big glass jar, where things inside rose up and fell down. Gold things went up to the layer above. Black, hollow things went down to the layer below.

Mia squatted and looked closer at Hell. The black dots looked heavy, passing through the glass down into the layer below. They fell straight down into the fire, burned like embers, and after time, burned away completely, until their ashes melded into the gold walls of Hell. Mia looked closer.

The gold dots flowing up into Heaven had white dots in the center, almost like the gold was something attached to them. Like, the white dots had gone through some sort of process, something that allowed them to gather up the gold and hold onto it. And it was the same for the black, white dots in the center of hollow black shells that weighed them down and brought them into Hell. In Heaven, the gold flowed up into the rising weave, and helped it grow. In Hell, the black was burned away. In both, the white dots became part of the tower itself, merging to it, melding into the beautiful stars in the snow globe, merging with the pale blue dot, or dancing free on the winds of nebulae.

"This is the Great Tower?" Mia asked. No answer, but she didn't need one. She took a breath and looked around at the endlessness beyond the tower. The Great Tower stood upon it, floated upon its black water, and shone defiantly against its infinite onyx.

Upon the Great Tower, within the weave of Heaven's gold strands, four giant eyes opened. Mia stepped back. The four eyes didn't look at her, but stared past her into the void. And each eye, floating in Heaven's clouds, had wings. The archangels.

"The archangels can see outside the Great Tower?" She walked around the tower, chewing her lip. "Four eyes. Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and... Lucifer." If Lucifer could see the darkness beyond the Great Tower, that might explain why the woman in armor sent Mia to False Gate and the Forgotten Place. Mia had to meet Lucifer.

Gulp.

"I still don't really understand," Mia said. "I mean, about this whole tower thing. Creating existence. Why? Where did God go? Why does the tower exist the way it does? Why are Heaven and Hell the way they are? What's all this about resonance, and--"

Something glowed in the snow globe. Something wonderful. She leaned in close, and Great Tower brought her deep into its body. Still on the outside, she watched, but the world disappeared around her, the void, the tower, all vanished from her senses. All that remained was the glass globe before her, the material world, and the people within.

A mother, and her boy. She sat on her back porch, scowl on her face, a scar across her eye. A scar a man who'd raped her had put there. It glowed black.

Her young boy, six years old, played with a toy truck, while the mom, smoking, chatted with someone on an old landline, cursing, spitting slurs. Vehement hatred.

And hollow black lines reached out from her. Frigid lines, dark, sinister, they reached out from her and drifted through her fingers into the phone. They flowed down its cable and disappeared into its network. More lines flowed down her body, through her chair, and onto the floor. They reached out from her mind, cut across the air, and found the closest target they could.

The black lines stabbed the boy, skewered his spine with visceral aggression, just as they crept up his toes with patient silence. The hollow snakes worked up his skin like living tattoos, inked their way into his ears, and cut their way through his eyes.

The boy looked back at his mom, frowning. The mom frowned back, covered the phone receiver, and asked her son what the fuck was his problem? She didn't wait for an answer, and returned to her conversation.

Truck in hand, the boy got up and drifted into the patchy, ruined backyard. Between the rocks jutting up from dead grass, he pushed his toy truck along lines he'd made before, and a hint of a smile returned. He filled the truck with dirt, moved the dirt along, and dumped it in a different zone.

Images floated above the boy's head, images of plenty of big trucks moving lots of dirt. The image grew more sophisticated as the boy played. People carrying metal beams. Trucks carrying loads of cement. Construction workers with safety vests and helmets, working jackhammers. A big skyscraper growing from the ground, seemingly out of nowhere, but Mia and the boy both knew why the building was growing. Hard work, from all the people involved, and all the tools they were using. Awesome, fun tools, tools people had created, tools that took training to use, tools that made big noises that made the boy smile.

A black tendril reached up from the boy's skull, pierced the hovering images, and tore it down. The skyscraper collapsed. The workers left, frustrated. The fun, loud tools were turned off, and never turned back on.

The boy looked down at his toy truck. It was stuck on a pebble. Instead of using another one of his toy trucks to help move the rock, or maybe move his truck around it, the boy banged his truck against the pebble, trying to move it the hard way. It didn't. Black tendrils danced on the boy's fingers and swam in his eyes as he tried to move his truck.

He threw the truck away, and black ink dripped from his fingers.

"That's... resonance?" Mia asked. No one answered. "That's resonance. That's... that's bad resonance." She looked down around it. It looked suspiciously similar to the void.

Time jump. The boy grew older. A man now, maybe in his twenties, working construction. The black tendrils reached out from him every step of his morning routine. They stabbed his phone as he checked a message, got something from his mom, wondering how he was doing. He didn't reply.

He went to work. He drove fast. Everyone on the road in front of him was driving too slow. Everyone behind him was tailgating. He brake-checked someone, and nearly got rear-ended for it. At work, he hammered in nails, and each strike erupted with a loud, ear-piercing snap. No joy. All the loud noises in the background weren't fun, interesting sounds to a young boy anymore. They were poison. They were agony. He put on headphones and listened to music, even though he knew he wasn't supposed to.

He hammered harder. Images floated above the man's head, and Mia sucked in a cold breath. He wasn't hammering the wall in his mind. He was hammering in the head of his mother. He was hammering in the head of a coworker. And in the man's thoughts, blood splattered.

Black currents swam in the man's thoughts, and wherever they moved through his thoughts, they burned everything, leaving behind only hollow shadows and frigid emptiness.

A fellow worker approached, told him he was doing more harm than good, hammering like that. The man turned to his coworker, and shoved him. Black veins pulsed out from his fingers and into his coworker. The coworker could have saved himself from the tendrils, wiped them away, stepped back, not let them infect his mind, too.

He didn't do that. He let the blackness infect him, and he struck back. Things escalated. These two knew each other, hated each other, and wanted to hurt each other. Shoves turned to punches, and helmets came off. The first man reached for his hammer.

Mia screamed and covered her eyes as the young boy with his toy truck, now a man, blinded with black ink in his eyes, struck out. He sank his hammer into his coworker's face. Metal to the temple, and no helmet to protect him. Bone shattered, skin tore apart, and the coworker fell.

The murderer stood over his kill, surrounded by fellow coworkers who'd failed to step in fast enough. He squeezed his hammer, panting, eyes still black. Past the burning rage inside him, past the dying, flickering flames, there was something hollow, and cold.

The man was burned from the inside out by black flames. There was nothing left.

The scene jumped ahead again. The man, in prison, had somehow gotten his hands on prison hooch, and had drunk an absurd amount of it. But there was something wrong with the drink, something about the way it was made. And it killed him.

Dead in his prison bed, he stepped out of his own body, and stared down at his corpse. He roared with rage.

"You moron!" Mia said, slapping the glass ball. "You didn't have to do that! You could have... let... go..."

No response. She didn't even know if this was theater, or if this man had actually existed.

The view pulled away. The man became a black dot in a sea of gold and black, and instead of rising, he fell. The man screamed with agony and hate as his soul fell into the burning fires below. He died. He died again. He died hundreds of times, each death stripping the blackness from his soul. What resonance was left was absorbed into the threads of the Great Tower, and those threads pulsed with energy, with life. Cradling the glass orb within, the gold threads guided the now white dot upward, some of it joining the gold threads for all eternity, while other pieces of the soul flowed back into the orb and the world of stars, galaxies, and life.

A soul, ready to acquire resonance once more.

Mia gulped. "Okay, that's... that's a lot of metaphor I'm seeing here, right? That man, he picked up a lot of bad resonance, became a really bad person, and that resonance was..." She rubbed her arms and looked down at the ink the gold tower floated on. Black, cold, emptiness. Just like what had become of the man's soul, what was left of it after his hate, his indifference, his narcissism, his callousness. Burned from the inside out, and left hollow. Hollow, and heavy.

"So the black stuff is bad. Hell is there to get rid of it. Or, what? Hell... sinks?" Again, she looked down and around at the void, or the archangel's representation of it. In the infinite oblivion, the Great Tower was floating on an ocean void. "And, um... what about the good souls? The good resonance?"

Another image appeared in the glass orb. Thank god. Coldness still crept along her limbs. She needed something wholesome.

Another scene with parents and a child, a mother, father, and their daughter. A Christmas tree. Yes, yes! Thank you. Something nice.

The little girl, maybe six, pulled a gift out from under the tree, and looked back at her parents, waiting. The mother smiled at her daughter, sat down on the couch with her husband, sipped her coffee in her robe and pajamas, and nodded.

The little girl tore open the gift, and squealed. She raised her toy, stared at it with wonder in her eyes, and set it down.

The mother opened her mouth, maybe ready to ask if it was the wrong toy, but the little girl turned, ran at the couch, and threw herself at the father. He was definitely the father, too, with the reflexes to avoid accidentally getting hit in the crotch.

She asked how they got it? Before, they'd said they wouldn't be able to afford it. Apparently, this family skipped the Santa Claus phase.

He'd worked an extra shift, and had tracked down someone who knew someone who knew a store that'd sell the toy on a specific day. The glorious, awful days before the internet.

The mom rolled her eyes and kissed her husband's cheek. The little girl squealed again, rubbed her face on her dad's chest, hugged him, hugged her mom, too, and went back to playing and opening other gifts. The mom sipped her coffee and sat a little closer to her man.

Gold threads flowed out from the two parents, gentle and slow, reaching out across the air like a cool breeze on a hot day. They flowed through the floor, spreading their warmth into the world. They danced along the fingertips of the parents before they looked at each other, and the same gold glowed from their faces as they kissed each other; just a quick kiss, since the kid was there.

And the gold reached the kid. No stabbing. No hard infection. No strange, hollow coldness. Just a gentle warmth that flowed through the kid, and up into the kid's imagination.

Images floated above the kid's head, and Mia gazed up and smiled as she watched dreams unfurl. The toy was a cash register, one of those old plastic toys from the 70s. And the little girl dreamed of selling the things on the pictures on the toy. Balloons. Apples. Ice cream. She dreamt of running a store of her own.

Time jump. The little girl was a young adult now, starting her own little store in some downtown area in a small city. A convenience store, selling chips, chocolate bars, slushies, and beef jerky. She was stressed. She'd stayed up late doing inventory and managing the budget. She couldn't afford to hire a third worker, but she needed the income, so she worked a twelve-hour shift on Saturdays. Margins were slim to none.

Someone called. She picked up, and her face lit up. It was her mom. She told her daughter how proud she was of her, and how tough it must be. The daughter agreed with how tough it was, but she thought she was a failure. She didn't want to run a convenience store. She wanted to run a big business, trading goods at large scale. She wanted to be rich. She wanted to have a hundred people working for her, and she'd treat them right and make sure they made good money, too.

The mom insisted. I'm proud of you, honey. Gold flowed from the phone, filled the woman, and calmed her. Images floated in her head, images of her convenience store thriving. Images of people nearby, coming regularly, and learning her name. Images of her little store getting bigger. And the images glowed gold.

The daughter wiped away a tear, half stress, half from hearing her mom's sweet voice. They said their goodbyes and hung up.

A man walked in, dour, eyes pointed down. He grabbed a scratcher ticket, and the girl asked if he was doing okay. They knew each other. The man confessed he was not. Financial trouble. The girl took the scratcher from his hand, put it back, gave the man a sandwich, a cheap little thing she made no money on, and she patted the man on the shoulder. Free.

Gold thread poured from her touch into the man. He smiled, thanked her, and left. And the images above his own head, of his failed music career, of smashing his bass into kindling, faded away. Gold thread weaved new images for him, notes on sheet music that danced and flowed, and a picture of him, sitting on his stool, practicing just a little harder.

Time jump again. The woman never did get anything bigger or better than her little convenience store. And that was fine. She met her husband in this store. She met her best friend in this store. The city knew who she was, helped her fight against corporations trying to take the place over, and even if the big stores offered cheaper prices down the street, people came to her for sandwiches and beef jerky and ice cream cones. She talked with them. They talked with her.

And gold thread filled the whole store.

She got a phone call. She dropped the phone, ran out the door, told her assistant to close up, and drove off.

A hospital.

The woman sat beside the hospital bed, and her dad lay beneath the blankets, an IV in his arm, and a heart monitor quietly beeping beside them. He was awake, and he smiled down at his daughter. His skin sagged, a mix of wrinkles and spots, and the color was gone. But the smile remained.

He raised a trembling hand and set it on his daughter's head. It's okay, he said. It's okay.

The daughter shook her head and squeezed her dad's hand. I don't know what to do without you. I'm just a little girl. You're my dad.

The dad shook his head and squeezed her hand. And gold flowed from his grip into hers.

You're strong, he said. I love you.

The daughter lifted her head. The dad closed his eyes, smiling. They never opened again.

Everything got blurry. Mia closed her eyes and covered her ears, but the cries of the daughter punched through them, anyway. But this was too important. It was too real. Mia took a breath and forced herself to watch.

The dead man, the wonderful father, rose from his body, a ghost covered in a gold glow. He stood by his bed and smiled down at the vessel that once held him. His wife sat in a chair nearby, asleep, exhausted. She'd wake up to find him dead, but that was okay. They'd already said their goodbyes. No regrets. He'd brought a wonderful little girl into the world, and that girl had grown up to help other people, be a part of their lives, and help raise them up.

He had no unfinished business here.

You'll be okay, he whispered down to his daughter. You're strong.

He stepped back from himself, from his wife, from his daughter, the greatest thing he'd ever created, and took a deep breath. Happy. He was happy. He turned, opened a gold door, and walked into the light.

Mia choked back a sob and stepped back from the tower.

"I've never had anything like that," she said. "I... I never had that. I've never been close to anyone like that, except my brother. I've never had parents. I've never had close friends." She clutched her heart and stared into the glass orb. Something so simple, something she'd read about a million times, something that always made her cry in movies, and shit anime, and everything. Never for her.

She gave herself a couple of gentle cheek slaps. This wasn't about her. She wiped the tears and leaned back in, eyes scanning for the ghost of the man.

There. Above the hospital, the gold ghost floated higher and higher, and the view pulled away to show Mia all of the Earth as the man's soul reached to the Heavens. The soul passed through the layer of gold thread between Heaven and the material, and joined the other dots floating around in Heaven's clouds, gentle waters, inviting breezes, and beautiful stars. And there it stayed, sharing and spreading joy and love with all the other dots.

Many years later, the dot was done. It shed its golden resonance, the white dot fell back into the glass orb like snow, and the gold flowed into the weaving strands of the tower. And the weird structure and its wicker-like basket walls grew taller. The strands of gold above Heaven reached out into the endless black and blossomed with gold petals that dripped gold like fairy dust.

Mia held out her hands. The gold dust fell onto her fingers and palms, and sent warmth into her. The warmth of a dying man's last words for his daughter.

Mia fell to her knees, and cried. She wrapped her arms around herself and cried the same tears the daughter had, as a million memories washed over her. The toy cash register. Playing in the sandbox with Dad. Learning how to make snow angels with Mom. The time she crashed the car, still just a teenager, and instead of her parents being upset with her, they were in tears because she was okay. The time she went to university, and called her mom because she didn't know how to make macaroni and cheese, and her mom had laughed herself silly over the phone. Her dad, giving her away at her wedding. It all crashed into Mia's mind, and through all the pain and misery of losing that, in the wake of it all, was warmth.

Not the frigid emptiness of the black strands. Here, was warmth.

The tower glowed, and Mia lifted her head. The glass orb zoomed back in, back to the convenience store, and the daughter working at the cash. People came into the store, chatted with her, shared their condolences, and she thanked them. They bought extra stuff, just to make her feel better. She tried to convince them to stop, but they didn't. She ran out of ice cream sandwiches fast.

Each person who came into the store left a piece of gold with the daughter, and left with a fresh gold glow of their own. And the Great Tower gave Mia a peek at each of their minds, images that danced over their heads. The artist working on his bass playing; he helped pave roads for his job, but he played bass for a small band on the weekends, and loved it. There were others, too. A man who picked up gardening because of her. A woman who started writing because of her. A couple who adopted a child, when they learned they couldn't have one naturally. A man who was only one bad day away from eating his gun, now a painter, because a kind woman in a convenience store noticed he was down, and asked him if he was okay, if he wanted to talk.

Hundreds, thousands of people who went about their day, creating new and wonderful things, creating new and wonderful lives, and spreading love, empathy, and kindness. And they helped the Great Tower grow.

It wasn't just a tower, floating in an endless void. It was a plant, growing in defiance of the void around it that wanted to kill it. To drown it. That's what it looked like, a small, gold plant, with a body made of gold thread, cradling a glass orb in its center. And that plant fought defiantly to exist in a frigid landscape of nothing.

Movement drew her eyes, and Mia looked down.

Black ink reached up from the ocean below and reached for the Great Tower. They weren't big enough to reach very high, but they reached what they could, obsidian tendrils that held onto the Great Tower's base, and tried to pull it under. The longer the tendrils held on, the more they gained form. Tentacles. Obsidian tentacles, with hints of purple.

And beneath the Great Tower from where the tentacles reached, a shadow swam, a hundred times bigger than the tower, like a giant squid pulling down a helpless swimmer. Down, and down, into the black void below.

The void coming to kill Mia wasn't the void itself. The void was what existed beyond the Great Tower, beyond existence. A realm of non-existence, whatever the fuck that meant. And the creatures coming to kill her, were creatures, or a single creature, from that void.

A monster in the dark depths. A kraken, wrapping its tentacles around a ship, to drag it down into the darkness below.

"I don't understand," Mia said. "Where do I fit in all this? I mean, I kinda get what's going on here. Sorta. Maybe. God created this tower, this... existence, and it's trying to grow in this horrible place." David would probably love having a metaphysics conversation about it. And she wanted to talk about how heartbreaking it was to watch that little boy get poisoned so young in life, and when he had had opportunities to change, he chose not to.

Something moved inside the strands of Hell, and she peered into the wicker basket of gold thread, and the sea of fire and lava within. Nine dots, red dots, drifting around Hell, each leaving a ripple in the gold threads that connected and bound all things. Each dot crafting their own music.

The gold strings that bound the tower vibrated from top to bottom, from Hell to Heaven, creating gentle hums. Even the strands that wrapped, held, and protected the glass orb in the middle of the tower hummed. The music of... existence?

Mia looked down. The Great Tower hummed, creating ripples in the black ocean below. Did that summon the monster?

The nine dots inside the bottom of the tower created their own music as they moved around. When they grew near another dot, their rippling music grew. What did David call it? Standing waves? If you played a sound frequency in a perfect cube room, the sound would be super loud in certain places, and super quiet in others. But with the nine dots, when they got closer, it was just louder.

The black tendrils reached through the spaces in the gold strands, or tore through them, and struck out where they found the music growing louder. And as more tentacles reached up from the darkness, the monster below grew closer. It was hunting the music.

Mia stepped back and watched, hands frozen on her sides, as the black tendrils reached around Hell, and pulled it into the void. The material world followed. Maybe its glass shell would protect it. Maybe not. But it didn't matter. It sank deeper into the ink, and Heaven went last. And its beautiful gold petals, growing from its humming strands of existence, withered into nothing as the tower sank below.

The future.

"But what do I do!?" Mia threw her hands up and spun around. "What do I do to stop this!? Is that why I was born? Why the others were born? There are nine of us? Why did I die like I did?"

No answer. The tower sank into the depths, and Mia was left standing alone in the infinite nothingness again. Cold.

"Please, take me back. I can't... I can't take this." She hugged herself and stared around at the void. Blackness that wanted to swallow her up. Kill her. Kill her in a way that didn't make sense. Kill her in a way that could only be done outside the Great Tower. Make her not exist at all.

There was no music.

And a huge eye stared up at her from the darkness underneath.

Before she could scream, the image melted away. The endless black, dripping obsidian in the distance, onyx shades of cold nothingness, it fell away like someone washing a dirty window. Gone, it left Mia standing in a strange room of flesh, bone, beating hearts, giant watching eyes, and demons and angels. She sighed relief.

Something rubbed against her legs. Cerberus! Her boy sat in front of her, all three heads staring up at her. He whined, a strange growly sound, but that was just Cerb's whine.

She collapsed, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face between two of his heads. Sobs worked through her, not as bad as before, but they were still there, and only a hug would cure them. Eyes closed, she held her growing pup tight; not easy to do with his mane of spikes. But Cerb held still for her, rubbed his two heads' cheeks into her cheeks, and made some more whiny growl sounds.

"Mia," Yosepha asked. "Are you okay? You held still for a few seconds, and then you just..." She gestured down at her.

A few seconds? The angel had communicated directly into her mind, then. Freaky. Probably through the same means that explained why the archangel couldn't see the others. The music. Vibrations. Strings that bound things together.

Someone knelt down beside her. She turned her head, expecting Yosepha. Noah was there. He took off his mask, met her gaze, silver eyes intense as always.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She smiled at him, rubbed her eyes, and nodded. She rubbed Cerb's dopey head, serious head, boss head, and stood up. Deep breaths. She fixed her clothes, rubbed the cold bite off her skin, and met everyone's eyes.

"Raphael... or, at least, his corpse, it... it showed me the Great Tower."

The angel's eyes went wide.

"You saw the Great Tower at large?" Noah asked.

"Yeah. I saw the Great Tower. All of it! It was... it was made of these beautiful gold threads. Strands. They hummed with music, with life--no, not life. Life isn't a big enough word for it. They hummed existence. It was this beautiful tower of weaving gold thread. In the bottom, it held Hell, fire and brimstone, you know? At the top, there was Heaven, clouds and rivers and beaches and... and... beautiful, blooming petals. In the middle of the tower was a glass orb, like the two layers were protecting it. That's where all the material stuff was. And and and--"

Yosepha held up a hand. "Okay, breathe, take it from the top." She and Azreal took off their masks, too.

Mia started again. She described everything. And she couldn't help but cry again when talking about the two examples shown to her. That poor, awful man, and the destruction he'd wrought. That lucky, wonderful woman, and all the love she'd shared, all the ways she'd helped others grow and create.

Yosepha stood beside her, rubbed her closer shoulder with a hand, and further shoulder with a wing.

Mia went on. She explained about the gold petals, growing. She explained the endless black oblivion. She explained the monster from the deep. She explained the nine dots.

"Wow," someone said.

Mia looked Azreal's way. She hadn't expected him to ever say that word.

"Wow indeed," Yosepha said. "The great library, what we angels are allowed to read of it, mention these ideas. But never like that. Never so... clearly."

Mia choked on a half laugh, half sob. "That was clear?"

"Compared to the metaphors of our books? Yes. Yours was an elegant metaphor. And understandable." Yosepha gulped and looked around at the several large eyes of Raphael's corpse, staring at Mia. "The Great Tower is trying to grow inside an endless oblivion of nothingness. And from that nothingness, a monster has come to destroy, or maybe eat, that existence."

"I guess. I mean, this explanation wouldn't be good enough for David. He'd be tearing his hair out about the little details. But it's good enough for me. Except... Except he didn't tell me anything about me, not really. Nine red dots? So there are nine children of Hell, I think. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Are we here to fight this void monster, or is it coincidental? It can't be coincidental. But then why are the council angels trying to kill us? Do they think if we die, the void monster will just... go away?"

"Maybe," Azreal said. Mia looked into his eyes, and the man met her gaze, unflinching.

"Probably not," Julisa said. Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. "If the archangel was using metaphors to explain to this little soul's tiny mind, then every detail mattered. She said the tower created ripples in the water."

Mia scrunched up her nose. "Yeah, I did."

"I think the invader has found the Great Tower, its music, and will try and drown and consume us. Perhaps the presence of the children of Hell is merely expediting the process."

"You know the word expedite?"

Julisa mirrored Mia's scrunched nose. But girl tetrads had flatter, subtler noses, and it made nose-scrunching look less cute, and more terrifying and almost reptilian.

Noah held his chin in his hand. "I wonder..." Azreal looked his way, but Noah shook his head. "Mia, can you ask Raphael about the council? Their intentions?"

"Raphael," Mia asked, standing in front of the bone wall. "The council angels. They're trying to kill the children of Hell. Do you know why?"

A single rune. "No."

"Do... you know how I came to be?"

A single rune. "No."

"But why? You can see me, here in Hell. You can see past the Great Tower, to the outside! Why can't you answer my questions?"

"Because I am dead."

The angels lowered their heads, and Mia joined them.

He didn't know the answers to the questions about her. About the universe, sure, he knew some stuff, but teeny tiny her? Nope, just that she and the others were red dots floating around in Hell, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

"Raphael," she said. "Lucifer. Are they, he, alive? Alive and bound in the Frozen Heart?"

More runes, harsher and sharper than before.

"Our brother remains bound in the heart of Hell, where he will remain for eternity."

The more they talked, the clearer it became the archangel really was dead, and she wasn't speaking to something sentient, something capable of having a conversation with her, understanding her dilemma, or guiding her with any true direction. She was talking to an echo, a shell, broken and shattered. He, or its corpse, could only do so much. It couldn't tell what was going on in Hell or Heaven.

But it had showed her specific scenes from the surface, scenes that'd looked like they'd taken place in the 80s and later. So it had some awareness of the void, the material world, and stuff that'd happened long after it--he--died. Maybe it could answer more questions about the material world.

"Raphael." She reached out and touched the bone wall. "Ramiel, an angel that went to the material world a hundred years ago. Do you know how they managed that?"

"No."

"Do... you know what they were doing?"

"No."

She sighed. "I--"

New runes. "But I can show you."

The archangel didn't wait. Again, darkness swelled and surrounded Mia, but was quickly replaced with flowing colors. A boat, a big one full of people. A man on board.

And Ramiel, an angel. A gabriem, judging from her armor. She cradled something red in her hand. An ostrich egg? Same shape, super different color. The angel hovered above the boat, looking down at the people below her.

She was beautiful. Helmet off allowed her long, black hair to flow freely down to her hips. Her eyes were dark brown and shone with sparkles. Angel eyes, hypnotizing and gorgeous. Pale skin, Asian features, but Mia couldn't quite place her--not that angels were ethnicity-bound. And the angel gazed at the people on the boat, sailing the sea, looking for something. Or someone.

From what Mia could tell, most of the people on the boat were white, and judging from their clothes, this was somewhere in North America. The flowing scenery didn't let her get a good grasp on the details, on people's clothes, and no one pulled out a wallet or mentioned what city they were going toward.

She heard some accents, though. Some British, some French, some American, shattering any illusion she had any idea where they were or where the boat was going.

The angel hovered down to the boat, egg held to her breastplate. She drifted around and literally through the passengers, scanning, and Mia followed.

Ramiel spoke, but Mia couldn't hear. She came closer to the angel, and the angel spoke again, talking to her red egg, but still Mia couldn't hear. The only noise was the sea, harsh wind, background murmurs that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't grab words from. It were as if her ears weren't working. Maybe Raphael couldn't see this memory very well. Or maybe Ramiel was doing something to make it hard to see her, something to do with how she got to the surface at all, maybe?

The angel waited. Time jump. It was dark, and people disembarked. The angel followed one, a man, some white guy Mia didn't recognize.

No, wait. Mia leaned in close and got a good look at the man.

He looked familiar. A white man with short brown hair. Why did he look familiar?

Ramiel followed him like an angel on his shoulder, and soon the man went to a hidden bar. He got drunk. He partied, but he didn't look happy. Maybe a survivor of the recession? This was a hundred years ago, if the angels had their dates right. Could be the roaring twenties. And whoever this man was, he had the same tired look of anyone who wanted to run from their pain, straight to the bottom of a bottle. The bar he went to was a secret den more than anything, too. The prohibition era? That sealed it. This was the USA.

He left, stumbling, doing his best to hide that he was drunk. People on the street ignored him. He went to an apartment, something cheap, and passed out on his bed.

Survivor of the recession? More like a survivor of World War 1. He'd had enough willpower left to take off his shirt before collapsing on his chest on the sheets, exposing several tattoos and scars. Bullet wounds.

The angel followed him every moment, watching, analyzing, occasionally pausing to speak to her egg in the same way Mia had hers. But that was no hellbeast egg. It looked like it might have a frozen mosquito inside with dinosaur DNA ready to be harvested.

The angel stood over the sleeping man, stroking the egg. She, Ramiel, took a deep breath, set the egg onto the man's back, and waved her hand. A rune appeared on her palm, an ancient rune, something that meant absorb, and prepare, and cook, and nurture, and gestate. It came and went in seconds, and the huge red and amber egg melded into the man's body, disappearing inside him in a gentle red glow.

The angel stood over this broken man, smile somehow sad. She reached down and patted his hair, but her armored fingers moved through him, unable to affect him.

She reached out into the air, drew a gold arrow with a silvery mirror head from nothing, and held the weapon in hand. She aimed it at herself.

"Don't!" Mia screamed, but she knew it was pointless, even as the words escaped her lips.

The angel jammed the arrow through her breastplate, straight into her heart. Mia stared, unmoving, hand frozen in the air, as the angel fell to her knees. Her armor melted away. The arrow melted away, gold dust that fell to the floor.

The angel smiled down at the man and set a hand on him. She could touch him, just for a moment. She spoke, and again Mia couldn't hear a word. She didn't have to. The face told her everything.

Be safe.

Like Jochebed, sending Moses away in a basket on the water, knowing she'd never see him again. And that was fine. Because he was safe.

Gold flowed out of her hand into the man, and like the egg before, disappeared.

The angel died, and her body faded into gold dust, too.

Mia clutched her eyes shut and waved her hands. "Okay! Enough! Don't... Don't show me anymore."

The image melted away, and again Mia was left with her friends. They blinked at her for only a moment before realization set in.

"Sorry," Mia said, rubbing her eyes free of tears. "Sorry. Just, Raphael kept showing me... sad things, and I cried at first, and now everything is making me cry, and--"

Noah held up a hand. Either the tears were making her see things, or he had the tiniest smile on.

"You need not apologize for being human," he said.

She smiled up at him, more tears running down her cheeks. The poor guy was just trying to make her feel better, and he'd made it worse.

"I don't think I am human."