Devon had only drowned once before. But despite the previous experience, it didn’t prepare her for this.

Maybe the difference was that only now was she clearly dying. The first time, even if it was technically an attempt at suicide, once she hit the shifting waters the power within it took over and she was reborn for the better. It was a near death experience only if you had heard it secondhand.

But here she was, watching organs fly out of her gaping chest wound one by one, trying to piece together what went wrong as her body fell apart.

She opened her mouth to speed things along faster. Fuck it, she failed. Fuck it, all she had left was to accept. It was hard though. Outside the searing pain, there was a strange mumbling in her head that wouldn’t shut-

Adam.

He floated up to her. Never had he looked so insubstantial. So flimsy and small. He matched her pace as they both fell down. His words in her brain were rapid but she couldn’t make them out.

”you’relosingbloodandI’mdoingallthatIcanbutI’mscaredDevonI’mscaredbecauseyoudon’tseemtounderstandthatyou’redying”

Catching the last part, she nodded and smiled wide. She was a fuckup, and she would die a fuckup.

It didn’t scare her, not anymore.

“DeliriumdoeshavoctoeventhestrongestofusbutIcan’tletyoudieyou’resomuchbetterthanthistojustgiveup.”

The bottom of the sea presented like a mirage and there, covered by sand and odd bones was a smooth metal surface. In a golden hieroglyph her broken body was reflected back at her.

She would crash in slow motion on the hieroglyph, her body spread eagle. Hah. She would die.

“WhatI’mabouttodoisnotsomethingIcametoeasilybutIknowyou’llthankme”

Wait.

No.

What was she doing?

She liked the way she looked, she liked how good she was as a fighter, she liked herself, for the first time in her whole fucking life she could look at herself in the mirror and what she saw didn’t disappoint her. And she was giving that up?

There was a part of her who knew these thoughts were being urged by Adam. That was okay, because they were exactly what she needed.

”I don’t want to die.”

Time slowed. At least for her. Adam changing her perception so that a second felt like a minute. She floated above a graveyard, filled with skeletons that stretched up like seaweed. “The last few minutes were the most painful of my entire life.”

“Yes.” Adam said. Her eyes were locked on a skull pockmarked with too many holes. She imagined the skull was Adam, talking to her. “I don’t know how she did that, I made a terrible mistake not killing her when I had the chance. But you gained enough strength to go up a sphere. To do so in such a short amount of time is incredible, Devon.”

Any other time would have been better for this praise. The water waited patiently in her lungs, simply thinking took so much effort. “How do I not die? I don’t want to die.”

The skull did not respond, until it did; “this is the Total Cell Integration I was talking about. It will completely refresh you, us, all of our injuries will be reversed.”

But she knew what she would lose. The fear was back. There were worse things than dying. “I hate her.”

But her thoughts raced with what Capacity was like. What else had this skin done?

”Yes,” The skull admitted, “the memories I have of her will only make you hate her more.”

”Will I hate myself?”

”I don’t think so,” the skull said, “you’ll find more reasons to like yourself. The differences will become more apparent. There’s so many ways you’re not her.”

That she could believe. It wasn’t entirely a positive sentiment, but why would it be?

”Am I better than her?” She kept the question open ended.

The skull tilted to the side in thought (and not because one of her flailing limbs had slowly knocked it to the side) “You have the potential to be.”

Her kicking feet were on a slow collision with a garden of skulls.

“All you need to do is agree.” His voice was so gentle, “and then- and then we won’t die.”

Nodding yes, letting her vision go, Devon Near stopped moving.

All life gone, the Remark named Adam Kadmon floated to the ground.

And then from a distance approximately 161 feet underwater, right above the carcass of a long forgotten chariot, Devon Near exploded.

…

”You didn’t see anything. Give up.” Trip said, adjusting the makeshift sails on the SS Yucian. The Helot was far enough away that the waves she caused with every step came to them as mere ripples. By quick thinking and quick hands they had avoided capsizing the slab of Constant flesh. Who knew the former mayor of Gutworth was so seaworthy.

But who did Trip think she was? Obviously she was Collapse! Righter of wrongs, master of the sea, and person of incredibly good eyesight.

“I know what I saw”, she signed to him with one hand. Her eyes never looked away from the floating climber as she rowed towards it.

Trip snorted. She couldn’t see him, but she knew that right now he was rolling his eyes and tilting his spectacles. “Collapse, the odds of seeing Devon and Hailien alive are slim as is. I don’t think you saw them together.”

”I think Hailien was dead,” she signed back, “but Devon was alive. She was fighting Tremble.”

Trip was pacing around the Yucian raft. She heard the sound of him tossing a coin and the warm smack when it hit his palm. “You say it like that makes me more likely to believe you. I’m sorry, I just don’t think you saw what you thought you saw.”

Her mind was the only thing left she could trust. As the waves lashed out and the Helot sang she saw the climber. She saw Hailien presented as a prize, she saw Tremble fighting Devon. If he didn’t believe her, what could he do about it? She was the only one who knew how to sail.

They were close enough now to hear the steady sound of the climber as it bobbed in the water. The ocean was pricked with small ships and bodies. Blood had stained large swaths of what she could see, growing slowly like an oil spill.

Trip sat down next to her, sticking his legs in the stained water. “See, where are they? Where are they, Collapse?”

She signed a series of symbols that roughly translated to “shove a sock in it”.

Where were they was a good question; would any of the corpses nearby turn out to be familiar? Did they come to a truce and hitch a ride on one of the dozen boats currently fleeing to the horizon? She didn’t know, and she was annoyed that Trip was acting like it was her job to have an answer.

They were close enough to touch it now. The climber floated up to them and she leaned in to see if there was anyone hiding inside.

It was empty.

For his part Trip didn’t laugh or say I told you so. Robbed of his object of debate, empathy returned.

“Well, at least we checked, right?” He said, patting her on the back, “and you probably did see someone, just not-“

A massive sound that stabbed her ear, an explosion of air and water as something big displaced kiloliters. Flung back, Collapse hung onto the mast and Trip hung onto her. They were jostled, pushed, shoved, and just when she thought they would get pulled under, it settled.

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

She kept her eyes down on the raft, making sure everything was in one piece.

There was a shadow on the raft, a person holding a shard of glass. Directly beneath it water dripped down in a steady stream.

”Collapse,” Trip said, “you’re gonna wanna look up.”

…

The two sailors looked up, and above them was the end. Devon Near, in her hand the Remark of Ruin.

…

From a nearby boat, soaking wet refugees huddled together for warmth. Scraping at his bloated smart veins, a lesser known Number named Zephyr Dozen was jostled by his neighbor. And then his other neighbor buckled, and soon everyone was moving to the opposite side of the boat, yelling and pointing at the sky.

He knew better than to look, and continued to pick at his veins.

“It doesn’t concern me,” he said, the pain growing worse by the minute, “it doesn’t concern me at all.”

…

Her birth was violent, as all births are. It left a crack in the sky, and an explosion that shattered glass and ruptured eardrums miles away.

…

On the fifth floor of Devon’s old apartment building, a man was being beaten to death with hammers. It was loud, messy, and unpleasant. Remarks would have been easier, but then Morgan would know. And the purpose of killing their landlord would somewhat be defeated if Morgan just immediately replaced him.

“There will be no more rent, because there has been no rent for the last six months and that’s the way it’s gonna be” said Norman Certain, sitting on a bag of orbits, “I don’t care that Morgan is back, I have a family to feed, most of us do!”

Shouts of “that’s right”, “you tell them“, things of that nature. His wife, Marribelle, her hammer especially bloody, gave him a wink.

Trying to hide his blush, he looked away. He never really liked violence. Which was unfortunate, considering the world, but he had gotten through so far.

But killing the Legacy appointed landlord had to be messy, with normal weapons. With luck Morgan would never notice, and they could pay off anyone who came around to ask.

He looked away to the window, out to the sea, with the lights of Luminescia (bright even in the day) and the sturdy blue wall of the Drum beyond it. He heard word that apparently the Helot had come to life. He didn’t care. It wasn’t something he could see out his window. Assuming it was true, he had further been told it had walked right by them.

Climbed right over the Drum they said.

And if it was already well past Gutworth (some instinct inside him told him to lean closer to the glass) then why should he give a shi-

There was a flash of light. A sonic boom. The window shattered, a sound like steel boiling. His ears bled and he fell to the ground, screaming.

…

Superimposed above and under was a bolt of the Visionary. It served as a beacon to all who saw. A boon for the worthy, a warning for the sinners.”

…

All was quiet on the docks of Gutworth. Those strange stooped fishermen had all fled or been washed away. The ships coming in were still too far out to dock, but something small was coming in fast.

Riding Hailien like a surfboard, Tremble jumped off of her and did a 360 flip in the air, nailing the dismount onto the slats.

Unfortunately, the only one around to see this was an animate bundle of string, who offered no words of appreciation as she rose from the sea.

The string that was Stumble (or the string that pretended to be Stumble, her identity was confusing and not worth Tremble’s energy to figure out right now) curdled out and pushed itself into the massive woman’s body through her cuts and open sores.

With a sickening crack the neck jerked in Tremble’s direction and Stumble puppeteered the face into a grotesque wink, “I never liked her anyway,” she croaked.

”Neither did I,” Tremble said, assuming she was talking about Devon, “it was her attitude mostly, Death had reserved a dance with her since she was born. She never accepted that, so until the moment she died she thought it could never happen.” It was good that it was her who did the deed; no one else would have been able to bear the strange emptiness that came with it. “Morgan will be pleased with me,” she said this to self soothe.

Her body was odd, personal rules of perception had been rewritten. Her broken eggshell head had no eyes, yet she could see better than ever. Beings with meat appeared to her as a burning red, everything else a dull purple. Dullard’s purple. But the Visionary was simply a thought away; she could see it right under reality, breathing.

“Morgan will be pleased with us,” Stumble said, contorting the non-metal half of Hailien’s mouth into a smile.

Tremble clawed at the Visionary, its color was the color of her future. It was so much easier now to alter and control it, even weave it into herself. She had no regrets for anything she had ever done; the universe had justified her cruelty as survival. She should write a book about why she was the greatest. She should sublet an entourage to worship at her feet. They would want payment at first, before her reputation was so great anyone would pay her for the privilege. Maybe she’d fight some duels for them as thanks; she was one of the architects of the world now, she had nothing to fear from violence.

And then there was a loud tear and a surge of energy far in the horizon. Something so powerful it tore at the Visionary without even trying. It silhouetted a figure standing on air. Before knowing exactly why, she felt pure terror.

Tremble locked onto the being’s signature. It was familiar, like salt in a wound. The feeling of missing something and knowing it can never be filled. Closing her eyes, she opened them on an image that confirmed what she knew.

She saw Devon Near. Floating high above her death bed like a messiah, looking dispassionately down on two mortals. Her body primed for violence, her injuries all healed.

”No,” Tremble said. “No…”

Like a bad dream, Devon seemed to sense she was being watched, and turned her head so that she stared directly at Tremble.

Her eyes were the color of the future.

And then Devon’s signature intensified to a point so acrid that Tremble vomited. Repeatedly.

Her bile sizzled when it hit the deck, a mix of writhing polyps and sawtooth tonsil stones. Tremble continued to dry heave long after her body was emptied.

What even was she, to think she fancied herself a god!? Maybe an hour ago, but now she was on all fours like an aberration, struggling to stand because she couldn’t stomach the power of someone who moments before she had killed.

Never had Tremble felt more worthy of death.

There was a laugh behind her.

She turned her gaze from the floating eyesore to the sad dumb face of puppet Haillien, looking amused.

“Do you not feel that?”

“I certainly didn’t have whatever you had. Have a lighter lunch next time.”

She made a fist, but the threat was empty. Pounding the dock she screamed and screamed. Why had it gone wrong? How had she survived?

“Oh,” Stumble said through Haillien, catching on slowly, “I guess we didn’t kill her.”

…

She was in a trance. Her escape from the evil inclination taxing on her mind and her body. They had to coax her down with a rope and cane. As they lowered her to the raft they noticed that her skin was bright with the color of creation. They wept for 77 minutes.

…

In a repurposed meat packing plant, the latest in syncopated rhythms made the bodies writhe. From steel wall to floors there were bodies, some fighting, some fucking, some flagellating. All of them wanted to be there; all of them were happy.

Setting the tone from an obsidian throne was an eleven foot tall woman, the lighting system bathing her in neon pink and blue. Someone wandered in, half drunk, half dying. He said in a slurred voice; “The Helot’s been activated, there was a huge explosion, and now there’s a bloody woman floating in the sky.”

“… what the fuck does that mean?” She asked.

…

In the corridors of power, men who thought they were the future counted their days. They hid in their ivory towers, for what recourse did they have against the end of the world?

…

“Fucking Grand!” Daaz yelled, sweeping broken glass away with her feet. “What was that?”

Morgan did not know. He furrowed his brow, not used to this.

“Does it have something to do with the Helot waking up? One would assume they’re connected?” Quertra asked.

Nathan Remainder sat in an egg-shaped swivel chair, not saying a word.

Morgan rose from his mat in the conversation pit, his cloak glided across the floor to the window.

There in the distance was a figure floating in the sky, radiating with a power that made him shiver in his carapace.

He knew the tales. The story his mother sang to him and his sisters as he swam around in her bloodstream. The stories he had shared with the constants.

“The Remark of Ruin’s a fallacy-“ he muttered to himself, and turned away, feeling a strange mixture of anger and elation.]

…

The Remark of Ruin and its wielder fell into a deep slumber. In this slumber the lives of all who had come before her played out. Before her came Caution, Sylver, Norton, Nonsense, Bryant the second, Demise, Bryant, Trench, Meat, Motor Boy, Davim, Andis, Charlen, Meyers-

-and Capacity Kill, the mother of Death*

* Excerpts from the writings found scratched in Lady Chemetrical’s secret room. Date unknown. Attribution unknown, assumed to be Lady Chemetrical. Medium: fingers on drywall

…

109 years ago, when the sky was wide and beautiful, and people had not yet realized they had landed on Gehenna.

A young woman with a bright smile was going through a monster’s organs. With intellectual rigor she took out each part and placed it into two piles, edible and not.

”This is good. This is poisonous but it works well as bait for aberrations. You can eat this but it tastes awful. This is a tumor. This is a- well, I’m not sure, but you bite into it and it tastes like a pear!” She demonstrated, biting into the prickly ball. Bright purple juice poured down her chin.

”Capacity, time to go!” Yelled a thin voice from atop a burrowhorse.

“Oh, yeah, sorry!” She jumped from the Wyrms open stomach and landed with ease 50 feet below. The townsfolk cheered.

”Thank you, for a hundred years we shall thank you,” an old man in front said, bowing his head, “how much can we pay you? You can name any price.”

She held out a hand to a man in the front. “No, just the fact that you’re all safe is the only reward we need. My name’s Capacity Kill, just call for me if you guys run into anymore trouble.

“Capacity Kill, one of those strange new names I guess,” the old man said. “What do you suppose it means?”

”I don’t know,” she said with a smile, “but an angel gave it to me.”