I don’t remember waking up. Maybe I was never unconscious, if what I heard about the venom after that day is true.

It was a puddle, that’s how it felt; every inch of my being, and beyond, was as shallow, and murky, and damp.

I must have been doing something, because they spoke to me.

“Don’t move,” one of them advised, I don’t know who, “We should have taken those straps off sooner, they've probably sped necrosis in his arms.”

“We need him alive.”

I think that got me moving.

“Fuck! How are we supposed to put up with this!? Oh come on, one of you try to hold him down carry him while he keeps kicking out like that!”

If I was kicking, I didn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore.

I wasn’t concerned in the slightest; it was probably the venom burning through my nerves, if not my mind itself.

What was I thinking about? I wasn’t at all. I just heard voices, debating, arguing, agreeing.

I heard the distinct voices of Bob, Hunter, Clover, and Charlie who was whimpering.

Beyond them, I heard voices from above- the rancorous voices that where shouting at each other.

I don’t know where that word came from, but that’s what I’d describe them as.

I didn’t recognise any of them.

Except for one. A woman’s- that woman’s, the one wearing Shamrock.

She was so close, yet so far, every word pulled me in, every pause in her voice led to her drifting away from me.

Maybe it wasn’t a puddle that my mind was becoming, maybe it was an ocean.

I don’t want to think about it, nor should I.

Sometimes, the only thing you can do is... ignore a problem.

Save it for later, or wait until it goes away.

…

“Clove...?”

“Hey, Rocky, just try to take it easy, idiot. I want you to be lucid for this.”

“Where are we? I can’t see...”

“We made it to the airport! Nothin’ bad happened either. No monsters, no complications. Right now, the others are working the paperwork out, confirmation from Admin, you know?”

“What? I don’t...”

I think she was shaking me, just a little, “Hey, hey, stay awake, I need you lucid Rocky.”

“What do you...”

There was something in the way she said it, I don’t remember what, but even if you didn’t understand the severity of what she was saying, from that tone...

“I’m going to use my power on you.”

Even in that state, I understood the risk.

Luck isn’t real. If something happens, it's because it was going to happen. Grey told me that from the beginning of the world to the end, all things are on a set trajectory, particles colliding and reacting.

So when Clover makes the wish, ‘I hope Shamrock doesn’t die from poison’, that alteration has a wider impact on the world. The closer something is to her, the more obvious the effects.

With Jack Chandler close by, there's a chance he’ll be able to copy her ability.

I don’t like admitting it, but Clover holds back. I don’t know the full extent of her power, but she’s capable of giving a god an opening into this universe.

“Do you know what a closed system is? It came up once in my chemistry class that when a reaction occurs within a closed environment the reaction will eventually reach an equilibrium. If we think of you as a closed system, if I make a wish to specifically impede the poison, then we might be able to get out of here without giving him the means to kill us.”

It was a lot, and I'm surprised I was able to take it all in.

“Clove... I’m- is there an anti-venom or something?”

She paused.

“The doctor. Attrition. She’s in a personal bunker, so we won’t be seeing her until all this is over.”

She leaned in closer to me and I was able to focus my sight.

“My luck might manifest as a miraculous recovery, or some insane turn of events might lead to you meeting her before you...”

Again, the tone implied more than was said.

“Ask for...”

I was trying to think about what the best one to make would be.

Even then, in that horrible condition, my focus was elsewhere.

“Clo... Is Bob alright? He isn’t sick?”

She was confused, almost laughing, “Yeah, of course he’s alright, why wouldn’t he-”

“The pig,” I muttered, “He came in contact with a monster, that’s what happened to his leg. I’m afraid that- that it’s infected him...”

“Oh...”

“If your going to make a-”

“Right, so you want, ‘Rocky and Bob to make a full recovery from the sicknesses they contracted from monsters’, is that it?”

For a second, I was surprised. For some reason, I had doubted she could cross her fingers for something so specific.

“I-”

There was a smile in her voice, “It’s alright. I think Bob’s a jackass, but I'm not going to risk his life, if I can help him I will. That’s the difference between the Mountain and the Cities. If someone treats you well, you treat them the same. We don’t throw people under the bus at the last second.”

For a second, I remembered what Hunter had done to the architect.

For a second, I listened to what she had said.

“I’m never joining up...”

She laughed, “We’ll see! I wonder how you’ll feel after you meet some good people from the Mountain.”

For a second, I felt better.

But seconds pass quickly.

I heard someone shout into the room.

Clover responded quickly, “Shit- Shit. Rocky- shit, just stay here, ok? You're in no condition to-”

I didn’t hear the rest, but I could have guessed. Maybe it was Jack, but I doubted that. There might have been some people, either escaped convicts, or rioters.

But more likely than not, it was probably another monster. I had imagined us running into a third in the tunnels, but it made far more sense that it would happen now.

What were the odds that when Clover used the last stroke of luck, that we just so happened to be attacked while our heaviest hitter was out for the count.

If I had to make yet another guess as to the nature of Clover’s power, I'd say that once she plucks all four of the leaflets from the tattoo on her hand, that’s when her luck runs out.

That’s when things begin to go south.

Time stretched and squashed like putty, long after she’d left, I was calling out in my mind, ‘wait for me’. ‘Don’t leave me alone.’

Then, I could feel my hand. It was rubbing against the floor- no, the chair I was sitting on, I was regaining some sense of reality.

I pushed against the couch to get myself up; with no restrictions, I felt the springs snap and twang below me, falling back into it, I felt my foot at last shoot against the floor, a kick of instinct.

I leaned forward on it and stumbled, nearly toppling over.

I wasn’t going to fall again, not to sickness.

If I was going to die, I was going to die on my two feet.

If I am going to die, I'll die fighting.

Bits and pieces of myself and my surrounding were becoming perceivable again.

Was Clover’s luck giving me a miraculous recovery, or was it through shear strength of will?

The answer is both, the first only partially. She doesn’t make miracles; she just reforms the universe under new conditions or something. So, the me of with the sudden burst of strength, is the me that was able to stand up and fight.

I bumped into a wall.

Squinting, I searched around for a door. My mask certainly wasn’t helping.

With some effort I managed to twist the door handle without breaking anything, and stumble out into a hall.

I was slowly remembering this place, the workers area in the airport, the area we went through to handle Charlie’s paperwork.

How far away was that rumbling? It wasn’t the same as the tremoring from the falling stars, that was almost rhythmic, this was like somebody was throwing a fit, taking out their anger on the living room furniture.

I thought I was going the wrong way. Then I finally stumbled over to a window. That’s when I started to see again. What was it about that wide sky-blue expanse? The sun wasn’t visible, the colour just naturally blead into my eyes.

That’s when the building shook, I could feel it in the air. It was like I had just smashed through a wall and was feeling the recoil.

It was close. Whatever monster us Units had attracted was so near I could feel it move.

Finally, after lamely limping about I’d found the resolve to run, I could make the distinction between the world and myself, so without hesitation I burst down the corridor.

My thoughts returned; Bob came to mind first. I’d already risked his life once before, all because I was wasting my time trying to play hero.

I refused to let the same happen, I wasn’t going to play this fight out, I wasn’t going to go for a flawless victory, especially if it risked lives.

I wanted to throw myself into it, to solve the problem instantly, and if that didn’t work, then maybe I'd try thinking.

The fight with Sermilik had taught me a lesson, and it was one I should never have learned.

That if worse came to worse, I really could sacrifice myself so that everyone could get out alive.

It had always been an option, a last resort, but now I was thinking it should be my first, it was the safest after all.

That’s it, even if I find this thing and it’s on fire, radioactive- whatever, I just need to throw a fist at it, I just need to go for the kill.

And I wasn’t just talking about monsters.

There it was again, a quiver in my heart. It wasn’t even for a second, but it was enough to stop me.

Was that really my own thought? Was that really what I wanted?

Again, I was beginning to reminisce on my time in Irminsul.

That was before the wall in front of me was half smashed, the window frame barely holding up as a large brown stump crashed into it, causing me to flinch.

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I struggled to see the thing in full, the room was still moving a little. The window must have been over-looking a roof top, from the length of this things arm I was guessing it wasn’t standing at four or five stories tall, though that wasn’t exactly out of the question.

It threw a second blow to the window; it was clearly focused on me now. This blow submerged it’s arm half way into the hall, I didn’t have to dodge its wasteful punch.

That feeling struck me like lightning- that I needed to fight, that I needed to finish this now.

I burst forward, my unbound leap shattering the floor. My cape forming an arrow until I launched my fist at it.

It made clean ‘rock’ sound as I burst through its chest.

I couldn’t keep up with how fast I was going When I came out on the other side, I went skipping across the runway like a stone, before finally smashing into a craft, the first wall tore apart like it was tissue paper, the second nearly met the same result.

Luckily, the force was distributed fairly evenly, the carrier simply rolled to its side.

I wasn’t at all hurt, I got up slowly because I was trying to understand what had happened.

I felt wet, but it wasn’t warm like blood, it was like I'd stepped in a big puddle.

After looking at the substance a little more, dipping two fingers in a thick part of it stuck to my arm, I recognised what it was.

Mud.

I had both regained a sense of reality and lost it at the same time.

“No way...”

I leapt out of the broken machine, barely perching myself on top of the opening.

My eyes went wide, filling with tears.

“No fucken’ way.”

I looked over to the monster, a gaping hole in its chest, clay still dripping down from it, though some of it was moving up, towards the human shaped figure, to repair itself.

Like nothing had happened, that false human standing twice as tall as a regular man, turned around and began to walk towards me.

Engraved in the front of its head instead of a face was the word Emet.

Truth, in Hebrew.

The inscription had a light to it, a light blue slightly obscured by two churning orbs of orange underneath a layer of mud in the place of a man’s eyes.

This whole trip had been one long string of déjà vu, filled with reminders of that first world of Irminsul. And it all started when that old Korean man brought up this story.

He asked if I'd heard it before. Not only had I, I'd lived it.

Pacing towards me, trying not to crumple under the weight of its body, was the Golem of Prague.

The original superhero.

.

.

.

“You haven’t heard of it? It’s an essential in this industry. Well, I can’t blame you. There aren’t any formal institutions in your world.”

As I fell into that wave of nostalgia, my mind that had been raddled with venom, adrenaline, and some other horrible affects that I'll get into later.

I found myself in the cockpit of the Silver-lining, Grey’s jet.

I looked to my right, and there was farmland a thousand kilometres beneath us, a view that astonished me at the tim. The golden sky beating down over that world...

I looked to my left. And there he was.

Seeing the golem had got me thinking about him, but... Last I saw his face, it was being worn by Lechoslaw Limorilow.

“Shamrock?” I was obviously showing my emotions.

“Uhm... it’s just, I sort of understand- the gist of what it is, the monster in Argentina, it’s a man made out of clay, brought to life through Jewish mysticism.”

I tried to say what it was I remembered saying when we were here in the past. My stammering stopped me from succeeding.

He was quiet, suspicious for a while before saying what I expected. “No... it’s more than that. Much more, to you and me especially, to all heroes. Do you know why it was built?”

“To protect the Jewish people. I- I skimmed over it in one of your books-”

“Wrong,” that was him cutting to the point, as per usual, “It was born to save them.”

Though I remember him telling me this, I was still confused, “Isn’t that the same thing?”

His eyes flickered over the dashboard, “No. To protect something implies it being made with a focus on violence, evil. The golem was large, mighty, but was never meant for fighting. It was to help the down trodden people of those slums, to build them homes, to help them with chores... to raise them up.”

He gripped the steering wheel, “Sam... you seem off.”

I adjusted my breathing. And in an attempt to keep things ‘regular’, I opened a compartment and got out a protein bar. It was something I'd grown accustomed to doing, after the first week working with Grey, I was starting to feel at home, in that stuffy black box.

“Really, I'm fine, motion sickness, I guess.”

“Right,” he nodded, “the golem didn’t start off as a monster, when the Christian populace of Prague became truely oppressive, the golem changed, it had to in order to keep ‘helping’. It held the gates of the walled ghetto shut for as long as it could. But eventually, they broke through, hate, flooding in like a stream... and it was repaid. The golem became a monster in response to the evil beyond that little community.”

I had laughed in my memory, so I tried to laugh now; it came out coarse, “Ha! I didn’t take you for a pacifist Grey!”

He didn’t look at me.

“I am not a hero, Sam...”

My eyes widened. He’d gone off script. If this wasn’t a memory... what was it?

“... are you familiar with...” he gave a hearty chuckle, the second and last one I’d ever see from him.

Now I was really confused.

“Do you know why we refer to Body, Mind, and Soul as archetypes? It’s derived from greek philosophy- which through my interactions with those outside of our universe, I have confirmed as reality. Beyond the physical world there is a sea of concepts from which everything else is derived. Books, trees, people, in that platonic world the true form of these ideas exist.”

I’d never heard any of this from him before, or at least, I hadn’t remembered at the time.

“However there are a few things that don’t exist... Undefinable concepts. Cold, death, dark, those are the obvious ones. They are the absence of something else. Is and Isn’t. Then there are more difficult things to express. Man made concepts such as closed and open, up and down...”

“Good, and evil,” he continued.

I could see where this was going.

Grey turned to me. I should have been worried that he wasn’t paying attention to flying, but it’s not like whatever this was actually mattered. It wasn’t real.

“Which is real, Good or Evil?”

I paused.

“Good.”

He didn’t reply.

“Good exists,” I reaffirmed.

He looked back over the sky. “It took you awhile to answer that.”

“Well, it was a weird question, right?”

He let go of the wheel.

“It’s alright. I won’t chastise you for not believing in the same things I do, you can’t force yourself to believe in kindness.”

I swallowed.

Grey at last confronted me, “You do believe in evil. That's why you started doing this. All of this is to prove to yourself that good exists in the world. That good exists in you.”

He gave a sigh, relaxing himself for- for the first time.

“Can stones curse? Can plants hate? What about the stars, do they throw stones at the oppressed? Can the ocean lie? But you are capable of those things. Because you aren’t the archetype. You are human. And yet...”

There was a gleam in his eye, “The golem was built to help. The longer he existed the less good he saw, the less good he had.”

We sat in silence for a while. The plane didn’t tip.

I asked, “How’d you figure out this wasn’t... real? That it’s... some sort of- dream?”

He smiled, “The steering wheel doesn’t work. If I had to guess this is some sort of memory. Tell me, did you ever find out if I was from another world, or an illusion? Not that it matters now, now I'm sure that I exist only through you.”

I choked, “An illusory universe, I guess. Irminsul- when my mind was transported inside of it, it’s omnipotence was put towards creating your universe. An entire- a whole universe created... and destroyed- It ended when I left.”

“Interesting...” He muttered.

I shot him a teary look and he straightened, “So, I’m a memory of a false, dead, version of myself. It’s almost laughable."

“If I had just smashed his head open-” I was doing something similar to sobbing, but the tears only built up. They never fell.

“If I was strong enough to just- to beat him before he’d opened his mouth, then you’d-”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Then I wouldn’t have existed.”

I rubbed my head. It was getting sore.

“I wish you and Sam could have met. You two would have learned a lot from each other.

I laughed, still rubbing my eyes, “What, he could teach how to set up a dental appointment? I could help him find better taste in comics?”

He smiled, “He was jealous. Deep down. It never surfaced, but he wants- wanted- more. He had to work ten times as hard as anyone else, to prove he was worthy of the title of hero. I know, because i went through the same. That’s how good was measured in my world. By the amount of power one held, political, physical, the two became interchangeable.”

He looked down, “It was only a matter of time before he let it go to his head.”

I joked, “So I’d learn about work ethic from him, would could he have gotten from me? I’ve let my head get big. No thanks to my powers.”

“What are you talking about? Of course there was something he could have learned from you. Green was doing this for years. You’ve been doing this for a couple months. If he met you, he’d have remembered what makes a hero.”

What makes a hero?

I held still before hearing the answer.

“Hesitation.”

My body started to move, minutely. I was churning it over.

“What? No, a super hero’d run straight into a burning building to safe someone, anyone-”

“What kind of ignorant self-destructive logic is that? You’d sooner charge into fire than observe your surroundings to find a way to climb to that floor without getting burned? And I'm not talking about ‘super’ anything. There is no shame in being a blubbering mess in a stressful situation, so long as you’re thinking, so long as you’re asking the question 'which is right and which is wrong'. If you keep doing that, then you won’t live a perfect live, but it will be good. Most of the time.”

I was frowning, “Whatever. This isn’t real. You aren’t Grey. You’re... my imagination or something.”

He motioned a hand to me, “Yes, that’s what I'm talking about, that ‘or something’. The unsureness of youth, you’re not set in any particular way. You’ll regret the ‘wrong’ choices you make, and lament your failures, learn from it all, and become a better person. You are the golem. Do not let the gate burst open.”

I looked down.

.

.

.

I began to recognise the area, everything, it was as if the venom had been purged from my system completely.

Time had passed since I hopped onto the broken aircraft, but not enough for the Golem to cross the distance.

That feeling that I had almost forgotten finally took over, neurons fired through my mind, doubt helped me choose the best course of action.

I had it right with the pig head, I wanted to make the right choice now.

I let go of my fists, settling myself down. I sat on the edge of the broken thing, my legs dangling. I stroked my chin, trying to bring forth my old memories.

The Golem was walking towards me, its melted feet trudged over the ground in long strides, and it was getting faster.

Gun fire sounded off, a sharp light piercing the air, mud splattering off in drops.

It was distracting me, so I shouted over at the racket to no avail.

Not only were they firing guns, but they were speeding around in a roofless car, skirting against the now uneven tiles.

I shouted again, “Get out of here assholes!”

It seems like they noticed me now, they were driving my way.

The car, carrying three members of airport security, Hunter driving, and Clover acting as bait.

“ROCKY, YOU SON OF A BITCH! I TOLD YOU TO STAY PUT! I CAN’T SAVE YOUR SKIN, ASSHOLE!”

I hopped down and said to them, “Get out of here. You haven’t a clue what you’re doing."

Hunter piped up, speaking quickly, “We can’t beat that thing, it’s magic! We need to keep it away while Bob and Charlie-”

The clay-man had started moving towards us again, the slump in its side wasn’t stopping it any more.

They sped forward, Clover calling as they left me behind.

I paced in the opposite direction, muttering to myself, “What were the words again? Or letters, I guess...”

It was becoming uncharacteristically enraged, unlike the one from the story or Irminsul. Maybe this one has seen more evil? I didn’t have time to think about it.

“I remember reading them... Aleph, Mem... and Tav. It was Aleph, that’s the important one.”

It’s fist slammed down, hitting me with the full hardened weight of its arm.

I had thought about dodging, but decided to counter, seeing how he had struggled to bust that wall, it’d take a lot more to best me.

And honestly, I wasn’t paying enough attention to dodge in time.

But maybe that was the right thing to do, because I noticed something I wouldn’t have if I'd acted immediately.

He slammed down on me with his left hand, and suddenly I remembered that Hebrew is written right to left.

The mud tightened over me, the same technique that Noah Thatcher had used. He was restricting my movements, covering me completely.

Except, he hadn’t yet covered the floor beneath my foot.

I learnt from my mistake fighting the skin head.

After a few quick stomps to the floor, a small part of the floor broke apart, and me and the mud fell through.

With its other arm, It took a swing at me, this one I dodged, busting the floor as I shot away.

The force from my leap and his slam caused the floor to fall apart. Looking back, these were quite impressive feats of strength, we were standing on a platform meant to support the weight of not only the antigravity crafts landing on it, but there were normal aeroplanes.

He was standing on the level below me now, reaching up at me. His stump like hand reached up to me, maybe I imagined human fingers stretching out, maybe I didn’t.

I leapt forward, too close for him to grab.

I stretched a single finger out and drew a line.

The last letter on his head was removed.

And the golem was no longer alive.

It didn’t melt into a puddle, it kept its form as it slumped back into the pit, nothing but common clay.

The car had circled back, I raised a hand to them.

They stopped, Clover and Hunter got out.

She didn’t say anything, they approached, but kept quiet a distance between us.

Hunter was the first to say anything. I’m sure he had his gun out already.

“Hey, I don’t know what the fuck you just did, but our guys have tried everything, that thing won’t stay down.”

I responded, “Fuck off.”

“Rocky,” she was gritting her teeth.

“Clover, give me your phone for a second, I need to look something up.”

I finally looked over to them. Hunter’s gun, I could tell he was ready to use it, though it wasn’t even raised.

“Hey, ‘kid’,” Hunter smeared that horrible smile across his face, “This isn’t the time to antagonise me. Don’t think I didn’t see what you were going to do back in that tunnel. This is the end, right? You go home and forget about all this. We never meet again.”

“Shut up. Clover, your phone.”

She looked back to the agent, Hunter gave her an order, “Don’t do it.”

I’m sure she felt his animosity. And with no good fortune left to help herself...

She tossed her phone over.

He was becoming antsy now, cursing under his breath.

“All of you should leave. I’m staying here. I’m going to finish this.”

Clover was arguing against me now, “Wow, wait- what are you talking about?! Rocky-”

“I’m going to save them. You guys are alright. Now I just need to save the city. The Ints. Creh-umha. Jack Chandler. I will not fail. I’ll mess up along the way, but I'm going to do right.”

I had found what I was looking for, on the phone.

“All of you, get out of here. I’m going to take my mask off. It’d be disrespectful to keep it on for a funeral.”

“Rocky!”

“Hey, Clover-” I turned around, “-if things get fucked up, I’ll run away. I’m definitely not going to die.”

She looked at me, like I'd lost my mind. But there was an understanding there.

She wanted to stop me. They both did. I’m sure Hunter knew this would only stir up trouble.

“But if I just run away from, then this world isn’t going to... If I don’t keep fighting, this life isn’t going to get better.”

In response to my smile, Hunter took a step forward, “Listen asshole-”

“No, you listen to me, exterminator, from here on out, whatever skills and talents you’ve got? Whatever inexplicable tech you pull out your ass? It doesn’t mean shit. I’m Shamrock, the non-entity. I defy logic.”

My smile stretched into a grin, “Fuck off ye cunt ye’.”

He squinted at me; Clover hesitantly grabbed onto him. “He’s made his mind up. He doesn’t have a soul, you’d classify him as a Golem. There’s nothing you can do.”

I thought he’d pull something. But I guess he wasn’t stupid enough to take Clover hostage, or to fire a shot at me.

He spat out, and turned his back on me.

I waited for them to drive away in that car with the guards. Then I took my mask off, just the top layer, I left the hair net.

The world looked so crisp, seeing it through a veil had made a huge difference. This was the first time in days that I got that thing off my face. I felt around my nose, wondering if I'd busted it somewhere along the line.

Eventually, I turned to the pit where that thing shaped like a man lay. From what I'd read in Grey’s books, Kaddish, the Hebrew burial right, is supposed to be performed with an audience, but I doubt either of them would humour me.

Inscribed on the Golem’s head, was the word Emet. Striking the letter Aleph from its head (like the rabbi in the story had done), left only the word Met.

Meaning Death.

There had to have been something special about how I'd removed the letter from its head, or else the Ints would have taken care of it a long time ago. (Unless they found some way to profit from it.)

Maybe it was simply because I understood the significance of the action, the history behind the being.

The Golem didn’t have a soul. It was just clay given autonomy. When it becomes Death, there is nothing for it anymore. Nothing remains but a mess of dirt.

It was, and now it simply isn’t.

The Rabbi had believed that was something worth mourning.

And so do I.

I bowed my head low, looking into the pit, and after excusing my poor pronunciation I read the script.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chir’utei; v’yamlich malchutei b’hayeichon u-v’yomeichon, uv’hayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z’man kariv, v’imru amen.

Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam u-l’almei almaya.

Yitbarach v’yishtabah, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam, v’yitnasei v’yit-hadar, v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kudsha, b’rich hu, l’ela min kol birchata v’shirata, tushb’hata v’nehemata, da-amiran b’alma, v’imru amen.

Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya, v’hayim, aleinu v’al koi yisrael, v’imru amen.

Oseh shalom bi-m’romav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen.

…

I looked up to that polluted sky.