Ragnarok: The Fate of Gods (34 page)

             
“Incoming!” yells a voice from below.  An automatic weapon spits out a hail of bullets. 

             
Then silence. 

             
Then the voice is much quieter.  “Holy shit,” says the soldier in a panic.  “Holy shit!  It’s a kid!  I killed a kid!  Holy shit, what did I do?”

             
Another voice, stronger, more calm, answers, “Nothing.  You didn’t do anything.  The boy probably didn’t have any family left.  It . . . it doesn’t matter.  We can’t do anything for him now.”

             
Zeke turns and keeps walking. 

             
He walks endlessly, trying to find something.  Anything.  Micah, Ariel, a resistance fighter, even a Theocratic soldier.  But most of what he sees is empty.  Fires burning in the ruins.  There are only a handful of survivors.  They’re all the same.  Frightened people, faced with the loss of their families, their homes, their health, their lives.  Confused soldiers, unsure of what to do or who their enemy is. 

Some people can
’t be helped.  Some people don’t want it.  Some people pray for it and don’t get it.  The handful of survivors will all live these hours in horror, unable to find relief. 

And most of them will die soon.

But there aren’t many.  Mostly he finds ruins and corpses—the only ones left with a sense of completion.  The only ones at rest. 

Zeke wanders through the fires. 

Something rustles on one side.  Nervous, he raises his gun.  It’s empty, but it’s his only option.  He backs up as a pile of burning rubble tumbles over.  A man steps through, carrying a limp figure. 

             
Micah and Ariel. 

             
“Zeke!” he yells.  His voice betrays his worry.  Even Micah Frostbane is not above fear and despair.  “She’s unconscious.  Help me get her to the camp.” 

             
The image darkens.  The astral Zeke watches in a grim silence.

             
The next scene begins hours later.  Sunrise.  Light creeps over the sea, warm and yellow.  Micah stands on a hill, under an oak tree, staring off at the distant beach. 

             
Zeke is behind him, approaching softly.  Quietly. 

             
But Micah knows he’s there.  “Everyone is dead.” 

             
Silence.  He stands in place, a few steps behind his captain. 

             
“Everyone,” Micah continues.  “Soldiers, civilians.  The leaders of both armies.  Everyone died.  And the world is in chaos.” 

             
“But we survived.”  He isn’t sure if that’s good or bad.

             
“Just a handful of us.  There aren’t many.  Not even enough to call it a victory.  No.  This was a slaughter.  An act of God.”  He spit out the last word with contempt. 

             
There is a pause. 

             
“You know, they’re looking for a king.”  Micah laughs.  A weak, forced laugh.  “Can you imagine that?  A king in this day and age?  After all we’ve been through?”  He pauses again.  Keeping his back to Zeke, he distinctly reaches up to wipe something from his face.  “I guess it’s just human nature to want to abdicate difficult decisions to someone else.  That’s why we set rules.  Regulations, policies, procedures.  That’s why we seek out leaders.  Everyone is afraid to think for themselves.” 

             
Both the astral and the ethereal Zekes know he isn’t concerned with government at the moment.  He’s retreating to his hobby, philosophy.  Something he knows well.  Something safe.  “We’ll get through this,” He says.  It seems like the right thing to say.  “We always have before.  King or no king  . . .”

             
“I think you should do it.” 

             
Even the astral Zeke, who should remember this, is caught by surprise. 

             
“What?” 

             
“You would make an honest king.  You’re a good person, and you always have the best interests of others at heart.” 

             
“Me?  I can’t be a king!” 

             
“And why not?”  He asks, still not turning from the view of the sunrise.  “I know you’ve always stayed in my shadow, but you didn’t have to.  You’ve always proven yourself an intelligent, capable person.  There is no one else I would trust to take care of these people.” 

             
They both fall silent, watching the sunrise.  The light grows brighter.  Warmer.  After several minutes, Zeke asks, “Do you want to know how she is?” 

             
Another pause.  “I’m afraid I already do.”  His voice trembles. 

             
“She’s in a coma.  They . . . they don’t expect her to make it.” 

             
“The power of God,” Micah spits out cynically.  “Hah.” 

             
It was not the reaction he expected.  “What was that?”

             
“Does God serve only a chosen few?  He killed the Egyptians to save the Hebrews.  No . . . he wanted to kill the Hebrews too.  In the desert.”

             
“What are you talking about?”  Zeke creeps forward cautiously, but stops after a moment. 

             
“People have prayed to and believed in a whole mess of gods since the dawn of time, but what good has it done?  This world is imperfect.  People have always suffered.  The faithful and the infidels alike.  What good is believing?  Our prayers?  All wasted.  Do you know why Ariel was in that church that day?” 

             
“No.  No I don’t.” 

             
“Her family was killed in the war.  All of them.  Her town was bombed while she was away.  She was at that small church to pray for them.  And to tell God she didn’t blame him at all.

             
“Most people
would
blame God.  Hold a grudge forever.  And why wouldn’t they?  It’s only human.  Does He exist only to fill our need to attribute fault?  Does a tragedy become an act of God only when we fail to find a human to censure?  Funny . . . knowing this, I can’t even find it in myself to blame him.  How can I be mad when I doubt he exists?” 

             
Zeke finds this philosophy unsettling.  “Please, don’t think about this.  Come back to the camp with me.” 

             
Micah Frostbane howls in rage.  He raises his sword and shoves it into the oak tree, embedding the blade deep.  He turns to Zeke.  His face looks terrible.  It’s wet, covered in dirt and blood.  An angry face, but weak. 

             
“Don’t you see?  It doesn’t matter.  Whether God exists or not?  Who cares?  It is the belief in him that is ruining the world.  People are wasting their lives for him.  Why do they subject themselves to the will of a divine ruler who torments them so?  A God with a cruel sense of humor, handing out a few vain promises of paradise, telling us of some divine plan we can never understand?  He promises Abraham he’ll be the father of a great nation.  Then he wants the man to kill his son.  Abraham is long dead by the time his grandson becomes the father of a nation, and
that
is a nation in bondage.  So God tells Moses to free them from the Pharaoh.  But the job isn’t easy.  Why?  Because
God
makes pharaoh refuse.  That
bastard
wants to make sure Egypt sits by and suffers through every last plague He has planned.  Then the slaves get out.  He leads them into the desert, where they screw up.  They worship the calf.  God is upset.  He wants to kill them.  Who saves them?  Moses.  The human.  But God still makes them wander around lost until every last one of them is dead.  Then there is Job.  The man he torments and destroys, just to show the devil how much the sorry bastard loves Him.  He promises them a land of their own.  Thousands of years later, they get Israel, but spend another two hundred years fighting the other religious factions who live there.  And then the High Theocrat comes into play.

             
“Ariel is dying.  She’s
dying
.  She’ll soon be in the hands of this vicious psychopathic entity, and He is doing nothing to ease the worries of his believers.  Surely not everyone is faithful . . . I know even I spend a good deal of time wondering . . . but Ariel . . . she
believed
.  She believed in God with all her heart and never doubted him for a minute.

             
“
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,” he recites, mocking the ancient prayer.  “Well, I can’t accept this.  I can not live this way.  Either God exists, and he is a madman who must pay for his crimes, or there is no God . . . and there’s no hope for any of us.” 

             
He falls silent and turns back to the tree, unmoving.  The sunlight reflects harshly off the water.  The warm light of dawn starts to fade. 

             
“Micah?” 

             
“Here me out.  I swear I will hunt down God himself, and he will bow to me and do my will.  And if there is no God, I will create him myself.”  Micah Frostbane takes one step toward the sun, then calls quietly over his shoulder.  “Take care of Ariel, Zeke.  See that she’s comfortable . . . to the end.”  He walks off, toward the sunrise.  Toward the beach.  The sun is bright, and he disappears quickly.

             
Zeke turns to the oak tree.  He grabs the hilt of the sword and pulls.  The blade holds fast.  He strains.  He places a foot on the trunk of the tree for extra power. 

             
It moves.  Slowly at first, but the tree soon releases the blade all at once.  Zeke falls backward, onto the ground.  His katana falls on top of him. 

             
He picks it up and stands. 

             
“I will, my friend,” he whispers into the sunrise. 

             
The visions cease.  The images fade.  Zeke stands in a starry void.  As if he were suspended in the night sky, standing on a floor painted to match.  Except there is no floor.  He is simply standing in nothingness. 

             
The ethereal plane of existence. 

             
The visions are still fresh in his mind.  He clenches his fist.  A flood of anger rushes through him.  An old wound opens.  “He left us.  He abandoned us for
ten years! 
He ran out on me.  And Ariel.  Ariel  . . .  she recovered.  She didn’t die.  And he abandoned her for ten years of her life!  He left us all alone!”

             
He bellows into the darkness, not sure if anyone was listening.  Not caring if anyone hears him. 

             
“And for what?” he continues.  “Some futile beef with God?  How could he!  He was my friend . . . my brother!” 

             
One of the starry points of light turns blue.  It seems to come unfixed in the void.  It dances around like a star-turned-fairy.  It speaks with the all-too-familiar voice from Zeke’s dreams.  “Painful though your past may be, on one thing you are mistaken.  Micah Frostbane’s fight is far from futile.” 

             
“Who are you? 
What
are you?”  He seethes at the point of light.  This now-unwelcome entity that made him relive the horrors of Rome.  The thing that made him watch Micah leave again.

             
It answers calmly.  “I am the collective consciousness of all that is alive in the universe.” 

             
Zeke pauses, trying to understand.  “Are you . . . God?” 

             
“God?” repeats the voice as the speck hovers above Zeke’s left shoulder.  “There are those who might call me that.”  The tiny point of light flies over to his right side.  “And there are those who would call me Buddha, Brahman, Allah, Zeus, or even Jade Emperor.”  The light speeds into the void, vanishing completely.  “And there are those who would be wrong to think so.” 

             
“Then who . . . or what . . .
are
you?”

             
“Perhaps I am like a crystal.  Just as a single molecule of ice fits perfectly into the form of a snow flake, so do all living souls fit perfectly into my being.  I am all things alive.  All life exists as a series of individual organisms, but all those organisms together make up me.” 

             
“But you’re
not
God?

             
“You humans place too much emphasis on creator and creation.  The universe was not formed by such means.”  The blue light rises up from beneath him and hovers in front of his face.  “Perhaps it, too, is like a crystal.” 

             
The light stretches and changes into an image.  A painting, hanging in the void in front of him.  It depicts a mess of reds and yellows, swirling in space with no direction.  “One day there was chaos, and the chaos came together.”  The reds and yellows of the painting change and become black.  The canvas now resembles the ethereal plane.  The night sky.  It slowly fades to reveal the exact same image behind it, although not on canvas.