Chapter 769 - Sacrifice

The drive to survive is a fundamental part of any sapient creature’s existence.  Some people might attribute it to the natural response to the unknowable reality of nonexistence by any rational being.  Others may see it as a remnant of the evolutionary need to protect and propagate one’s species.  But in the end, reasons don’t really matter.  The fact is that no one wants to die, even when it’s a final resort when faced with an untenable situation. 

So it was that, when Zeke finally found himself making his final journey, he did so with no small degree of regret, hesitation, and fear.  He’d spent the past two years with Talia, but it had flown by like it was only a couple of days.  With her, he was happy, and he wished he’d recognized that fact sooner rather than when death – or nonexistence – was knocking at his door.

The parting had been difficult, to say the very least.  Talia tried to convince him to stay, even if only for a little while longer.  She needed him.  He needed her.  And yet, circumstances would not allow them to spend their last days together. 

Once, Zeke had imagined spending his twilight years sitting on a porch next to the woman he loved.  At one time, Abby had occupied the seat beside him, but she had been replaced by Adara and then, finally, Talia.  Three great loves of his life, and yet, one stood above them all.

Was that recency bias?  Or was his relationship with Talia built of stronger stuff than what he’d shared with the other two?  Certainly, that characterization fit his time with Adara.  She had been a stop-gap.  An emotional band-aid meant to distract him from the weight on his shoulders and Abby’s absence.  And there was a part of him that knew it, even back then. 

But Abby?

That had felt more like true love, albeit a flawed version that was destined to succumb to the toxicity they both brought along with them.  Would things have turned out differently had they met later in life?  When Zeke wasn’t so lonely that he would have taken any companionship?  When she didn’t see in him a way to escape the logjam of that first threshold of power? 

Maybe.

But things had happened the way they did.  There was no changing the past, and he would never know for certain what possibilities might have unfolded had the contributing factors changed.

With Talia, though, things were good.  Very good.  She lacked the toxicity of Abby, and she cared far more than Adara.  The bond was strong – almost unbreakable – and he’d cared for Talia even before he’d experienced any romantic feelings. 

That had to count for something.  Perhaps that foundation was the key.  Maybe it was the reason they’d found some semblance of happiness, even if it came a little too late for either of them to truly enjoy it. 

Whatever the case, parting ways was one of the most difficult things Zeke had ever done.  Complicating matters was his fear of what came next.  Of the end of his journey.  Of the sacrifice he’d already committed to making. 

As he traversed the reconstructed Ways, he refused to look back at the gate he’d left behind.  He knew Talia was still there, watching him.  Waiting for him to turn back.  If he did, he knew he’d never again muster the strength to leave.  He just didn’t have that sort of willpower.

No one did.

So, he steadily put one foot in front of the other, hoping against hope that she would remember his sacrifice for what it was.  He didn’t want to leave, but he had no other choice.  He was going for her.  For everyone else in their reality.  She could understand that.  Rationally, she knew he was right.  But knowing and feeling are two very different things, and more than anything else, Zeke feared that, in his absence, resentment would set in.

There could be no greater tragedy.

Finally, long after he’d left her far behind, he found his destination.  The Nexus had not been rebuilt, largely because there was no need.  Instead, it stood in ruins, with huge pieces of the disc having drifted off into the nothingness of the waiting abyss.  Some scavengers made their living by picking through the remains, but even they had fled when the sky had broken apart.

A spiderweb of cracks that looked like black lightning stretched across the domed sky, evidence of the impending rupture that threatened reality itself.  As daunting as that sight was, it was nothing compared to what Zeke saw from the threads.  They hadn’t simply frayed.  They had unraveled to such a degree that they could barely hold themselves together. 

Without intervention, they would soon disintegrate.

He pulled himself into the sky, then rocketed across the city.  The broken platform disappeared beneath him as he passed them by.  He barely noticed the buildings.  He paid no attention to the sundered, once-great city that had hosted millions upon millions of people. 

They were all gone.

And soon, he wouldn’t need to think about any of it any longer. 

Although, Zeke didn’t believe his sacrifice would be the work of a single moment.  His surrender would take decades.  Centuries, perhaps.  But once the Creator had his hooks in him, he would be incapable of escape.

Not that he had much choice one way or the other.

The Creator needed his consent to begin, but once they’d passed that threshold, it would be out of Zeke’s hands.  Of course, he had already made his choice.  He was committed.  He was just glad that a last second reversal wouldn’t be possible. 

The fear of nothingness that awaited him was powerful enough that he knew he’d struggle to hold strong. 

At last, he reached the peak of the dome, where a presence awaited.  It was all-powerful and unimpeachable, and that was just with a sliver of the Creator’s might on display. 

As always, he presented himself as an old man, hunched and broken under the weight of his responsibilities.  His beard tickled the hunk of metal upon which he stood, and his withered body looked like little more than skin stretched loosely across a skeleton. 

“You have arrived,” the Creator said, his eyes twinkling with life his body did not show. 

“I have,” Zeke acknowledged with a nod.  He floated toward the Creator’s platform, then landed only a few feet away.  “Will it hurt?”

“Assuredly.”

That was as Zeke had expected.  Pain was a familiar companion, but just for once, he’d hoped that it would leave him be.  The only solace was that, if the Creator was to be believed, it would be the last time Zeke was forced to make its acquaintance. 

One could not experience agony if one did not exist, after all.

“How does it work?” he asked. 

“A true explanation would take decades,” the Creator responded.  He looked up, his bones creaking with even that small motion.  “We both know that we don’t have that long.  The end of all things awaits.  You have the power to help me subvert it.  You came, which I take to mean that you have acknowledged your responsibility.”

Zeke nodded.  “I’m ready to make the sacrifice,” he admitted.  “What do you need me to do?”

“No delays?  No pleading for a better way?  No demands?”

“Would any of it make a difference?” Zeke asked. 

“No.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“A valid question, and one to which I do not have the answer.  I can only say that, like life itself, the point isn’t the end, it’s the journey itself.  In this case, the pleas for another way are part of said voyage through life.  Do you have no one you wish to see prosper?  No possessions you would like to see in their hands?  What we leave behind is important.  Perhaps not to us, but to those we leave behind.”

“I have seen to my own affairs.  I need nothing from you.”

“You resent me,” the Creator guessed.

“I do.”

“Why?” he asked.  “I have done nothing to harm you.”

“You are the Creator, aren’t you?  You made me.”

“That is not the case.  You are the result of process far beyond even my control.  Life is not something I can merely wish into existence.  There are rules, even for me,” he explained.

“Then you brought me here, at the very least.  You pushed me back into this cycle, bringing me here.”

“I did, though it was through an intermediary.”

“Did Oberon know he was doing your bidding?”

“He did not,” the Creator answered.  “He believed everything he told you.”

That, at least, was a relief, though a hollow one. 

“I resent you because I wouldn’t be here without your influence.  I wouldn’t be leaving my loved ones behind.”

“Ah, but without me, you would have no loved ones to abandon,” the Creator pointed out.  “A paradox, of sorts.  Do you blame me for forcing you to leave them?  Or do you give me credit for the existence of the relationship in the first place?”

“I don’t care.”

“Do you –”

“What do you want from me?” Zeke demanded.  “I’m here.  I’m ready to be your battery.  If you want a conversation partner, you’re barking up the wrong tree.  I’ve never been much of a talker, even with people I like.”

“Are you saying you do not like me?” asked the Creator.

“I’m saying that you are an unknowable, all-powerful being who’s literally about to kill me,” Zeke said, fed up with the back-and-forth.  “I don’t know enough about you to like or dislike you.  In fact, you’re more like a force of nature than an actual person.  My opinion of you doesn’t matter.”

“That…is oddly hurtful.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not in the mood to be polite.”

“Do you not fear the consequences of angering me?” the Creator asked.

“Not really.  The way I see it, you need me, and soon.  You can’t prolong this.  I’m going to die one way or another.  Might as well just say what I mean.”

“I…fair enough,” the old man allowed.  “Then, I suppose we should get to it.”

“I guess so.”

“You understand what is needed, do you not?”

Zeke shrugged.  “I have to let you in.”

“Indeed.  You will rail against it, regardless of how you feel.  Reason does not matter.  Resistance is reflexive.  You must marshal your willpower and subvert that inclination,” the Creator explained.  “If you do not, it will be that much more painful, even if it works.  If it does not work…”

“I know what’s at stake.  That’s why I’m here,” Zeke reminded him.

“Then brace yourself.”

Zeke did, and the Creator stepped forward.  Gone was his feebleness, replaced by a surety of presence that belied his formerly unsteady stance.  More, his eyes were alight with hunger and power, which Zeke interpreted as a glimpse into the person the Creator had once been.

And the one he wanted to once again become.

All he needed was Zeke’s power.  His strength.  He needed to steal everything Zeke had worked so long to obtain. 

And all Zeke had to do was allow him in.  Doing so would open a conduit between them and allow the Creator to take it all.

The Creator laid his hand on Zeke’s forehead, the mountainous weight of the gesture forcing Zeke to his knees.  Those hands were strong.  Callused.  They were the hands of a warrior.  Zeke knew, because his hands were the same.

“Try to relax.”

The words echoed in Zeke’s mind as the Creator reached out with his own will, slamming into Zeke’s natural defenses.  They held under the onslaught, the first hint that Zeke was stronger than his position implied.  He took a deep breath, ignoring the Creator’s grunt of frustration, and forced his very soul to lay itself bare.

A lecherous smile spread across the Creator’s face as his will latched onto Zeke’s soul, forming a conduit of power.

But that smile faded only a second later when Zeke’s will reasserted itself.  Because the connection flowed both ways.  If the Creator could take from Zeke, then he could take from the Creator.

“What are you doing?!”

“The same thing I’ve always done.  I’m here to fight,” Zeke breathed, shrugging off the incalculable weight of the Creator’s presence.