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Chapter Twenty Four

“Sounds to me like Aeon is playing God down there.”

“That is false, Senator. We are only correcting for His errors.”

–Dr Ava Sherman. Arlington, Virginia. 5 Years Before.

* * *

Liam opened his eyes.

For a moment, the world was buried in a haze and his mind was at peace, but then a heavy burn coursed through his veins. Liam moaned and rolled, but the pain did not recede. His skin was on fire from the inside-out, and his limbs were so weak. Oh God, make it stop.

He blinked through the nebula of torment, and his eyes formed recognition again. There was a creature in front, its face a motley of rotted flesh and scars. A single beating red eye stared into his own, the other buried beneath cloth.

“You alive for real this time?” it asked before flicking him in the face.

Liam gasped. “What the bloody hell, Kurt!?”

“Yep. Definitely awake now.” He stood up. “Hey, Leah! Liam’s alive! See for yourself.”

Liam grumbled. His head felt like it’d been thrown under a truck, and his body wasn’t much improved. He tried to breathe deep, but a sharp poker of agony tore through his chest. What the hell had happened!?

Like water in a brook, the memories of his anguish came dribbling back. Liam remembered going to Leah after Buttercup’s funeral, and getting jumped by that hollow. He remembered the insignificant scratch on his arm, and the sting it left behind. He remembered the look in Leah’s eyes when he said he felt fine, and the panic that followed when his fever started to grow. He remembered being told to lay down. He remembered them saying that it would all work out. He remembered knowing the lies for what they were…

Then there was nothing.

Liam again studied his environment. He’d been taken into a bedroom. The sheets of the bed were immaculate, and the shelves were freshly dusted where the sun tore through. An IV bag had been strung onto a beam above, with blackened liquid dripping down.

“Back to the land of the living, huh?” Leah said as she staggered into the room, an arm to her abdomen.

“What happened?”

“What do you think? You almost died.” She leaned against the wall and coughed. “Do us a favor, and don’t do that again. It’s been a long night.”

Liam rubbed his scalp. “I don’t understand. How’d you cure the infection?”

“Wasn’t easy. We tried everything to bring the fever down, but none of us are doctors, and even if we knew the exact type of meds you needed, they’re all expired.”

“I thought you said there was no cure for the Hollowing.”

“There isn’t. You wouldn’t have lasted more than a few hours had this been that.”

“Then what created the infection?”

She pointed to his chest. “You were shot, genius. What? Did you forget about the piece of lead that tore through your gut?”

Liam looked to his stomach and felt the fool. His bandages were drenched in red and the smell of pus was overwhelming, yet somehow, some way, the fear of turning into one of them had overridden every other concern in his life.

“But I was scratched,” Liam pointed out.

She shrugged. “Turns out that was just a scratch. Soft cells don’t grow under fingernails, so the only way the Hollowing spreads is if they’ve been picking their teeth before swiping. It happens more often than you think. I’d say that maybe one-in-ten scratches leads to infection, give or take.”

“All the trouble you’ve been putting me through, and you’re telling me that the risk was that low the whole time?”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t know, Liam. If I told you that every time you fell off a cliff, there’s a ten percent chance you’d die, would you want to hang out on the edge?”

He went mum. She had a point there.

“Anyway,” Leah continued. “When we realized that you were going septic and not hollow, I came up with my own dumb idea. Way I figured it, the infection must have come from some foreign bacteria, and there’s nothing that kills microorganisms better than rezzer blood. Damn near spent a gallon of my own on you.”

Liam noticed the IV again. He traced the dark liquid that lay within, down the tube, and straight into his veins. Had they gone mad!?

He yelped and tried to claw the tubing free, but Kurt anchored him in place.

“Relax,” Leah said. “I’m O-negative and we pasteurized the blood before use. Vaughn taught me the trick. If you cook it at the right temperature, Soft cells die off, leaving only Hard cells. Makes for good weed killer, though it probably would’ve murdered you outright if we’d left it alone, so Mastermind took my bad idea and made it good. He did some math and guesstimated the right amount we had to dilute my blood to keep your own from becoming too toxic. Next thing you know, we’d created our own homebrew antibiotic.”

Liam considered the miracle that had occurred. “Do you have any idea the medicinal properties your blood must have to cure sepsis this quickly?”

She waved a hand. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It was still a terrible idea. What we did was on par with injecting bleach to fight the flu. We could’ve fucked up the distillation and infected you anyway, or you could’ve died the moment my blood entered your veins. I don’t think that Hail Mary would work a second time.”

“Christ.” He fell back into the pillow. All his energy was drained after thinking so much, and Liam wanted to go back to sleep. His eyes closed and he felt the world fade again.

“Yeah, yeah, rest up,” Leah ordered. “We need you to get better so we can keep m-m…” She paused, her tone suddenly tense. “Moving. We need to keep moving.”

* * *

It was days before Liam could stand again, and almost a week before he could walk on his own. They had been fortunate enough to get him on his feet before his muscles could atrophy. He was in far from stellar condition, but with the aid of a team of immortal superhumans at his beck and call, his recovery had gone far better than could be expected.

The same couldn’t be said for Leah, however. Draining her blood had created more problems than she had first let on, especially since she’d been wounded badly herself beforehand. What had started as a rare stutter became more frequent, and there was something particular unsettling every time it occurred. Liam had known his fair share of people who stuttered. This was different, as if her mind was seizing mid-sentence. Her once confident march had also slackened into a stumble the longer they walked, and her skin had blanched whiter than normal where it wasn’t wrinkling in rot. With each passing day, she looked less human than the one before.

But it was her eyes that really gave Liam pause. Where Leah had once had bright magenta irises that burned with ferocious intensity, they had thinned out like watered down wine. The fire was down to embers, and only a glazed, withered soul remained.

It didn’t take a genius to see what was happening. The Hollowing was a continuous process. Like the monsters that hunted them, it could be slowed, it could be stalled, and it could even be temporarily reversed, but it could never be stopped. Not even Leah could keep ahead of its crushing weight forever.

Though she’d never admit it. Her temper flared whenever anyone dared to question her cognizance. She still chose to maintain a facade of leadership, and refused to hear otherwise. Even when her routes lost them progress, or she mistook hollow tracks for deer and had to be corrected, Leah wrote those errors off as originating from others, and not from her own mental degeneration. No one could convince her otherwise, not even Mastermind.

As the days wore on, the weight of their travel started to become too much. Liam had initially forewent his own desires to ensure they made it to Aspen. Now that he’d been informed that Cheyenne was their next destination, he knew enough about geography to know that they were almost certain to go right through it.

But as his leg slipped on a rock and his wound burned anew, Liam chose to take his stand. He perched onto the nearest moss-covered stone that looked comfortable, pulled out Thirsty, and started enjoying the ambiance.

It was midday, and they’d been flirting with the edge of the treeline. Pines had given way to shrubs, obstinately fighting the wind. The air was cooler at least, as the summer was on its last legs, and fall was starting to settle in.

Kurt loomed close and held out a supportive hand. “Come on. You’ve got this.”

“I’m fine, mate,” Liam said. “Best you go on without me.”

He frowned. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Then you might as well wait with me. They’ll be doubling back soon enough, whether we’re with them or not.”

As if she’d heard his slight, Leah spun around from her position several hundred meters in front. She waved him forth. It seemed an appropriate time for revelry, so Liam raised Thirsty and gave her an exaggerated “cheers”. He didn’t need to see her face to feel the aggression, even this far away. Leah made the long walk back, with Mastermind following timidly behind.

“Get up!” she ordered.

“Don’t see a reason.” He squinted into the distance and pointed to the next ridge. “See how that rock hooks up on the top? That’s actually a bit of an optical illusion from our distance. We’re looking at a boulder that I’d say is about twenty meters tall, and it’s blocking the path you want us to go through.”

“We’ll be fine. Kurt will just give the rest of us a boost.”

“Sure, we could try that again, but it’s hardly a good idea in my condition, and will be that much harder once it starts raining and the rocks get sleek.”

She furrowed her brow. “Are you kidding me? It’s fine out.”

“Of course. You’re right, love. How foolish of me.” Liam rubbed his nose and looked into the horizon. “There are those ugly clouds over there however, and with the direction the wind is blowing, I’m guessing they’ll be on top of us within the hour. It’s gonna be another heavy squall by the looks of it, just like yesterday.”

Leah stared dully off into the distance, and doubt bled through her otherwise confident veneer.

Liam smiled. “But who knows? Maybe I’ve got this one wrong. Could be that an hour from now, you’ll get to mock me for wasting a bit of time, yeah?”

Leah grunted. “No, I knew those were coming. We just have to move faster. Stop being lazy.”

“You can’t be serious…” He turned to the others. “What? Are either of you not going to step in and put a stop to this lunacy, or is it just going to be me?”

Kurt began to reorganize his pack as if he hadn’t heard, and Mastermind shuffled his feet in the dirt.

“Come on,” Liam said. “You both know I’m right.”

“Perhaps we should consider alternatives,” Mastermind said, his tone weak. Leah glared at him, but he stood his ground. “We would be remiss to force such an unnecessary risk and fail.”

“Yeah, boss,” Kurt said. “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”

“No,” Leah snapped. “We have to keep moving. Can’t stop.”

“Please reconsider,” Mastermind said, his confidence growing. “I don’t think it’s a good idea given what’s happening to you…”

“And what’s that?”

Mastermind averted his gaze.

“We can all see it,” Liam said. “You’re rehollowing, whether you admit it or not. It’s affecting your mind.”

She curled her fists. “I’m fucking f-” she paused. “Fine. I’m fine! Don’t act like you know shit about m-m-me.” She turned away, as if the stutters had not occurred.

Mastermind tugged on her arm. “You must slow down, Leah. The added stress of leadership will only accelerate the damage to your reservoir. Please, I beg you, allow me or Liam to guide us through this treacherous terrain. We will find sustenance to restore your mind to good health soon enough. Just trust us.”

For a moment, Leah seemed to have taken the words to heart, but then the fire in her eyes blazed anew. “No! None of you know what the f-fuck you’re talking about. You’ll only s-slow us down. I’m the leader here. I’m the only one who will get us through this! Just like I always h-h-have. And I won’t let any of you get in the way. I won’t let you make me weak. Is that fucking understood!?”

A drop fell from above, followed by another. Seconds later, and the sky was gushing rain as the squall hit.

The group stood in silence. There was nothing else to say against her outburst. The cosmos had spoken for them. Leah stared at her hands as water soaked her leather gloves. Her fingers shook.

The selfish part of Liam wanted to claim vindication, but empathy had won the day, and so all he could do was sit and wait with everyone else.

Leah stormed off without saying a word. The squall grew in force, but she ignored the rain and instead focused on a nearby bellflower. She stroked its lilac petals in admiration.

“Do you w-want to know the story of how w-w-we started calling ourselves ‘rezzers’?” she asked, no longer fighting the stutter. “I remember it like it was y-yesterday. It started with Hades, just like everything else. ‘Can’t just call ourselves “zombies” like a bunch of casuals,’ he’d s-s-said. ‘Gotta be m-more creative than that.’ Everything was on the table. ‘Zeds’, ‘Alphas’, ‘Omegas’, ‘Thinkers’, ‘Deaders’… You n-name it. We all w-wanted to leave our mark in this new world.”

She plucked the flower. “That’s when Mother t-told us about the reservoir. ‘It all began at the Rez’, she explained. Every memory, every emotion we’d ever col-l-lected, all in that personal space inside our m-minds. We were unique in that our reservoirs never filled naturally. Unlike every other creature that builds memories with age, ours could only drain with t-time, drip by drip.” She clenched her fist. “But rather than shy away from this truth, we embraced it. If our reservoir’s design w-w-was inverted, then we would build our identities around it.”

She gripped the bellflower tighter and took a deep breath. “I remember the feeling of the wind blowing around us. The way we all nodded in unison when the p-pieces finally clicked. The crumbled buildings that w-would one day be Pandemonium, and the open sp-spaces that we’d turn into the Styx. I can still feel the sun on my back as I went deep into the c-city. I’d wanted proof that my Rez was mine alone, so I kept searching the city until I f-found the most beautiful flower I could, to keep as a mental image. I remember it all.”

She turned around. Reddish tears were streaming down her cheeks. “But, the thing is, I c-c-can remember everything about that day, except what that flower looked like. It’s gone, Liam. Purged from my memory forever. All because I’ve let my Rez become too w-weak.

“You want to know why I won’t st-stop? Why I can’t? Because if I do, I’ll lose everything else that m-makes me be me.” Her voice rose as she dropped the bellflower. “And I don’t want the Hollowing to take me too!”

Leah stood and sobbed as the rain continued to fall, and Liam regretted his hubris. Here he had been thinking that she was just full of hubris, but her frustrations hadn’t been borne from misdirected blame. They were a deflection against the futility of their endeavors. Liam once again realized how wrong he’d been for thinking his companions as more or less than human. There was nothing alien about what they were going through.

They were just in an altered state.

The squall left as fast as it had appeared, and the sun fell again. Liam drew close to Leah, knelt down, and picked up the discarded bellflower.

“We won’t let that happen,” he said, meeting her in the eyes. He pressed the flower back into her palm. “If you lose any more precious memories, we’ll just have to make new ones. Better ones.”

Even through the scarf, he could make out the silhouette of her jaw dropping.

Liam curled her fist around the bellflower. “We’ll get through this. Together.”

And he’d make sure of it.

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