The face I was making wasn’t easy to describe. At this point, I’m over being surprised. They’ve told me this kind of thing before, anyways. I just want to get done whatever it is I should be doing. No questions I ask are giving me information that’s useful. Why can’t I get just a little bit of help here? It’s like if I Googled “how to save someone from drowning” and all I got was a link to a textbook about respiration. Yes, I understand the relevance. I’m sure it’s perfectly accurate, but it’s not what I need! So, that’s what I told them.

“Is there something I should do right now? Is there something I shouldn’t do? And please, Rose, for the love of God, don’t tell me something stupid.”

“‘Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.’ — Gautama Buddha.”

“I’m going to punch your lights out.”

“I’m just joking, calm down! Don’t freak out, you’re not doing anything wrong, and you’re not going to. Just keep paying attention and slowly piecing your puzzle together. You don’t have any more responsibilities than those.”

I slumped back in my almost-comfortable diner booth. All I’ve wanted this whole time is to stop dealing with this bullshit. So why am I so upset at Rose telling me exactly what I wanted to hear?

“Have you bonded with your demon at all, Mina? Choronzon, right?”

Biologist asked me this casually, like she was asking if I saw a new movie.

“Probably not. He must like me about as much as God does. All he does is fuck with my reading ability. Demon dyslexia.”

Rose chipped in.

“Maybe that should be the focus of your next study session. I had you possessed for a reason, you know. I didn’t want to leave you as a sitting duck with those beasts after your head. Having some real demonic firepower should keep you one step ahead of them. If you’re powerful enough to wield it, of course.”

“Choronzon… Hmm…”

Biologist pulled a little white leather-bound notebook out of her purse. The front was full of complex geometry and random letters. She flipped through a few pages and began reading.

“Choronzon, demon of the Abyss. First recorded interactions with humans were in the 16th century with John Dee and Edward Kelley. The Abyss is the gap between the supernal triangle and the moral triangle of the tree of life. It is occupied by inconsistent forms; all inane, arbitrary, and confusing. These forces, while powerful, act on planes incomprehensible and inconsistent to even themselves. When evoked, these forces have very little intelligible interaction with the real world. For this reason, Choronzon, the personification of the Abyss, is of little use to magicians.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Rose rips the book out of her hands and frantically reads it up and down. She flips the pages, eyes darting back and forth across the text, scanning desperately. She looks up at me, face turning red as a fire engine.

“I- I thought- It’s just, He-”

After stuttering helplessly, she buried her face in her hands.

“I… I thought he was cooler than that…”

She put her face in her hands. Biologist began patting her fading pink hair reassuringly. Part of me felt like maybe it’d be nice if I tried to make her feel better too.

Fuck that, she could learn to be sorry every once in a while.

Rose left her head on the table in shame for a few more minutes. Biologist was reassuring her and being hospitable while I stared out at the downpour. I was thinking hard. Putting everything together, all the puzzle pieces. I even read a bit about Choronzon in Biologist’s book. Everything’s starting to fit together. I can see it now, the big picture.

“Alright. Biologist, Rose, I figured it out.”

“Fuh-fighured what out,” Rose responded, wiping snot off her nose.

“Nothing matters. It’s all pointless. Everything is meaningless. It always has been, and if it wasn’t, it is now. Choronzon is, according to this book, the overlord of all things meaningless and confusing. Mysteries with no answers, mazes with no exits, random numbers that don’t mean anything. He’s the reality I live with now. Even if I had some significance to my life at some point, it has now vanished. I wasn’t even important enough for God to abandon me. He never even knew I existed. I’m unimportant to the point of being supernatural. I’m not just a freak of nature, I’m a freak of supernature. It’s all fake, nothing’s real, I don’t matter.

I can’t fucking believe it, Brandon from Philosophy 102 was actually right. That bastard was so smug about it, too.”

I felt a small weight taken off of me. It was therapeutic, really. I’m not sure I truly believe what I was saying, but it felt good to say it. So much of my energy had been wasted on trying to find a solution to a puzzle without one. Now I can move on to better usage of my time. Well, I suppose if everything is meaningless, then there is no “better” usage of time. Only ways I would rather spend my time.

I stood up from my chair, my friends’ staring at me with eyes wide-open. They were holding their breath, not moving a muscle. They must think that I’ve lost it entirely. They’re right, but at least I lost it on my own terms.

“I’m going to my car. I wanna get my sword.”

Sopping wet, I dropped my sword on the table in front of them with a theatrical clang. They had hardly moved from the positions they were in when I left. I let them bask in the glory of my new artifact for a moment. Eventually, Rose found her voice.

“...You bought a longsword?”

“Nope, found it.”

“Where?”

“About five minutes that way.”

I point in the general direction we came from. It’s also the direction Bunny’s in now, presumably.

“Wh-what are you going to do with that, Mina?”

Biologist’s voice was quivering, like she thought I was about to disembowel them both.

“I’m gonna go help Bunny. She’s the only one who’s been by my side this whole time. She might not be the best conversational partner, but I’ve made an arbitrary decision to trust her. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing to that poor guy you texted her about, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing does. I’m just going to do whatever the hell I want right now. And right now, that’s brandishing my badass sword.”

I slid it back off the table, leaving an outline of dirt on the table where it laid. It’d be way cooler looking if this thing had the outer layer of rust and grime removed, but I think my dramatics were impactful enough as they were. As I have made very clear, I don’t care anymore. Let God and the Devil do what they want, so will I. The eternal dice of the cosmos no longer toy with me. Feeling just a little proud of myself, I took my epic exit from the diner, and was immediately struck by lightning.