The Akashic Mandate

Chapter 3

"No!" Mother Vanya snapped. "The cage is for prisoners, not monsters. The Blight is in him. Look how fast it spreads. He might lose his mind before midnight. We cannot take the risk. The community is more important than one man. Even our best man."

She pointed her staff directly at Elijah’s chest. "Gather your things. You have five minutes to walk out the front gate. If you refuse, we will force you out."

Elijah looked at the old woman. He did not feel angry. He only felt a deep, heavy sadness. He knew she was right. If the situation were reversed, he would have dragged an infected person out of the camp himself. It was the only way to keep the healthy people safe.

"I will go," Elijah said quietly.

He walked past them. The guards quickly moved out of his way, pressing their backs against the walls so they would not touch him. They looked at him like he was already a corpse.

Elijah went to his small tent. He didn't take much. He took a heavy wool cloak, a canteen of water, and his iron sword. He left the heavy iron spikes behind. He wouldn't need to pin enemies anymore. He was going out there to die—or to suffer forever.

He walked to the main gate. Word had spread quickly. All fifty people in the camp stood by the walls, watching him leave. Mothers covered their children's eyes. Grown men looked down at the mud, refusing to make eye contact. No one said goodbye. No one said thank you for saving them today. Fear had eaten all their kindness.

Marcus stood by the heavy iron gate. He had tears in his eyes.

"I am sorry, my friend," Marcus said. He pulled a thick wooden bar away from the gate, opening it just enough for a man to slip through.

"Keep the gates locked, Marcus," Elijah said, pulling his wool cloak tight around his shoulders. "Do not let them waste the iron spikes. Aim for the joints."

Marcus nodded, wiping his nose. "May the Gods give you a quick end."

"The Gods are dead," Elijah replied flatly.

He squeezed through the gap in the gate. As soon as he was outside, the heavy iron doors slammed shut behind him. The loud, final clang of the lock falling into place sounded like a death sentence.

Elijah was alone in the Deadlands.

The sun was gone. The blood-red sky had turned into a dark, bruised purple. The only light came from the broken, cracked moon that hung low over the ruined city. A cold wind blew through the empty streets, carrying the smell of rust and decaying flesh.

Elijah started walking. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew he had to get far away from Haven’s Drop. When his mind finally broke, he did not want to be near the people he cared about. He did not want to become the monster that battered at their gates.

He walked for hours through the ruins of the old world. He passed rusted, overturned buses. He climbed over piles of broken concrete. Everywhere he looked, he saw the Hollows.

They did not attack him right away. In the dark, the Hollows were slower. Some were wandering aimlessly in circles. Others were pinned to the ground from battles fought years ago, weakly snapping their jaws at the empty air.

As Elijah walked deeper into the city, his body began to fail.

The pain was getting worse. The cold fire of the Blight was spreading from his arm into his chest. It felt like heavy stones were pressing down on his lungs. Every breath was a struggle. His vision began to blur, turning the edges of the world gray and fuzzy.

He stumbled. His boots caught on a broken piece of sidewalk, and he fell hard onto his hands and knees. The rough concrete tore the skin on his palms, but he hardly felt it. The sickness inside him hurt too much.

"Get up," he told himself. "Keep moving."

He tried to stand, but his legs refused to listen. A violent cough shook his whole body. He coughed so hard his throat burned. When he spat onto the ground, the saliva was thick and pitch-black.

The infection had reached his heart.

Elijah rolled onto his back. He lay in the middle of an empty intersection, surrounded by tall, ruined buildings. The cold wind bit at his face.

He looked up at the purple sky. The pain was unbearable now. It felt like his bones were freezing, snapping into tiny pieces from the inside out. He could feel his mind slipping away. His thoughts were becoming slow and confused. A deep, angry hunger started to grow in his stomach. A hunger for warmth. A hunger for fresh blood.

“So this is how it happens,” he thought. The transition. The death of the mind.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the madness to take over completely. He waited for the endless darkness.

But the darkness did not come.

Instead, the air around him suddenly grew unbearably heavy. The gravity shifted, pressing him flat against the concrete. It was hard to breathe. The wind stopped blowing. The distant moans of the Hollows completely vanished. The entire world went dead silent.

Then, a sound tore through the silence.

CRAAAACK.

It sounded like a massive window breaking right next to his ear. It was so loud that Elijah covered his ears, his eyes flying open in shock.

High above him, the sky literally shattered.

It was not a cloud parting. The very fabric of the sky cracked like broken glass. Huge, jagged black lines spread across the purple night. Through the cracks, a blinding, terrifying light poured out. It was a mix of brilliant, burning gold and deep, terrifying blackness.

Elijah forgot his pain for a moment. He stared up in pure terror. He could not comprehend what he was looking at.

From the center of the broken sky, something descended.

It was huge. It fell slowly, gracefully, like a feather drifting on a breeze, but it carried the weight of a mountain. The air around it caught fire.

As it got closer, Elijah saw it clearly. It was a creature from the ancient myths, but twisted and horrifying. It had six massive wings. The wings were not made of soft feathers. Three of the wings were made of blinding, jagged light that burned the eyes. The other three wings were made of dark, rusted iron, dripping with what looked like black blood.

The creature had the general shape of a human, tall and perfectly formed, wearing armor of shining silver and black steel. But it had no face. Where a face should be, there was only a glowing, golden visor, burning with intense heat.

A Seraphim. An Angel of Death.

It floated down until its armored boots gently touched the broken concrete right in front of Elijah. The heat radiating from the angel was intense. It baked the moisture out of the air. The puddle of Elijah’s black blood on the ground instantly hissed and turned to steam.

Elijah was paralyzed. He could not move a single muscle. The sheer presence of this cosmic being pressed him down like an insect.

The Seraphim tilted its faceless head, looking down at Elijah’s ruined, infected body.

When the Angel spoke, its voice did not come from a mouth. The sound exploded directly inside Elijah’s head. It sounded like grinding metal, roaring fire, and ringing church bells all at once. It was beautiful and utterly terrifying.

"The Blight takes the mind, yet the soul refuses to rot," the Seraphim whispered in his mind. "You carry the dark seed, human, yet you do not Hollow. A rare anomaly."

Elijah tried to speak, tried to ask what was happening, but his jaw was locked tight.

The Seraphim raised its right hand. In a flash of golden light, a long, beautiful spear appeared in its grip. The blade of the spear was made of pure, white-hot fire.

"The Gods demand perfection," the Angel intoned, raising the spear high above Elijah’s chest. "Anomalies must be purged."

Elijah’s eyes widened. He wanted to scream. He wanted to roll away.

The Seraphim drove the flaming spear downward.

The blade of fire pierced Elijah’s chest, sliding easily through his ribs and directly through his heart.

The pain was beyond anything Elijah had ever felt. It was not just physical pain. It felt as if his very soul, the core of who he was, was being set on fire and ripped out of his body. He felt himself being pulled upward, stretched out across the universe.

The ruined city, the purple sky, and the cold concrete vanished.

There was only a blinding white flash, a deafening roar of fire, and then—absolute, infinite nothingness.