“Do you know what the proudest moment of my life was, Evelyn? Not when I met your mother, or when I earned my MBA, but the moment when I first looked into your eyes and knew you were my daughter.”
–Marquise Jones, “Unnamed”. 5 Months After.
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Was this God’s love?
An overcast, dark sky hung low today. Hisses and moans rolled out from Elysium’s square, where Abraham’s enemies remained crucified. After so much time trapped in this state and without reprieve, many had hollowed, leaving the survivors demoralized enough to follow soon after. This was used to justify the later executions, for hollowing was proof of their “Sin” and not of anything else. Workers, bosses, and even Hunters. Some were strung up as enemies of the new state. Others had merely engaged in “heresy.” The reasons for these crucifixions varied. Many might have been combating the Beholders head-on in a fight, but others found their way there simply by associating with the other gender, as had been common before this invasion. The square overflowed with the bodies of the damned, all in the shadow of the complex that was becoming the Beholder’s new tabernacle. A post-apocalyptic Vatican reborn, with a foundation paved in black blood.
Evelyn watched from above, incapable of doing anything else. She wasn’t sure what to believe. Not anymore. Every ounce of her soul screamed against the wrongness of these acts. Matthew 5 proclaimed to turn the other cheek. Luke 6 emphasized loving sinners, even at the expense of oneself. Psalms and Proverbs were littered with similar lines. No matter how much Abraham altered the text in forming his Holy Word, he could not completely scrub these unfiltered messages from God. His love was unconditional. Not like this.
“Blessed Mother,” Brother Jericho said, “your presence is required.”
She sighed. “That time already, huh?”
“Your family awaits.”
If only that were true. “Lead the way.”
Evelyn followed in the steps of Jericho and his fellow Inquisitors as they made their way for the daily Mass. Abraham would again be speaking to his latest inductees while she stood behind as no more than his prop. With weeks since Leah’s defeat and the subjugation of Pandemonium’s core, many had flocked under his banner of their own accord.
But even Evelyn was blown away by this latest crowd. Elysium’s most prominent dance floor had been retrofitted for this purpose. Instead of giant speakers and flashing lights with a swarm of half-naked rezzers moshing in the chaos, this space now looked like a medieval cathedral. Sconces lit the hall in place of electricity, the graffiti had all been cleaned up, and giant, unadorned crosses now dangled where posters once sat. Pews lined the floor, with a mob of freshly-minted Beholders awaiting their rumored proof of the Lord’s power…
Of the unhollowed woman whom God had spared during their day of judgment.
Father Abraham strolled into view. All eyes fell on him. “Brothers and Sisters,” he began, grinning madly like a televangelist about to rake in another million. “Praise be to you all today for coming for a good dose of faith. Praise be to our Blessed Mother for gracing us with her holy presence. Praise be to the Lord for providing us with these bounties. Amen!”
“Amen!” the crowd echoed.
He went on from there, delivering this latest sermon. Today focused on Romans 13:1 and how authority must be respected. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of the Lord: the powers that be are ordained by the Lord. Of course, this only applied now that the Beholders were in control. God punished Hades for defying His will, and Leah was the Whore of Babylon whom He struck down. They’d never been “legitimate” authorities. Only pretenders misleading the masses into eternal damnation. Now that Evelyn could see through the cracks, she could practically disregard his entire argument on its face.
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But Father Abraham trudged along without missing a beat, and the crowd ate it all up. That was his strength, more than anything. Where everyone else went through this world, slowly hollowing through indecision and doubt, he spoke and behaved with a conviction that could not be matched. All virtues could be tied to his version of the Christian faith, while every vice would be punished by God’s divine might. The Beholders thus became extensions of his own personal dogma. He fed them an authentic faith, and they rewarded him with unshakable loyalty that only emboldened him further. A community incapable of change, and one that only grew stronger with time.
And yet, somehow, some way, fate just kept working out for Father Abraham too. Every prediction he made came true, and every miracle he insisted on would get born into reality. He decreed that the Beholders would find where their Chosen One if they migrated west, and it was done. He prophesied his encounter with Evelyn, and it was done. He insisted that his followers need only faith to defeat the Hollowing, and it was done. He told Evelyn that he would bring her proof of the Lord’s power, and it was done.
In a world filled with cannibalistic undead clawing each other apart for the tiniest scraps, he walked around with no more protection than what the Lord gifted him. No weapons, no fighting prowess. How else could he have made it this far, if not through divine blessings? With all rational options exhausted, that was all that remained.
So why did this hallway feel so empty and inauthentic?
Abraham pivoted to a dissertation on respecting the family, hedging on the rich material in Proverbs. His people quivered to the wisdom he spread.
The lesson continued, but Evelyn no longer listened. While he spoke of the strength of the Beholder family, hers still wandered outside these walls. Somehow, Evelyn knew that Liam and Leah were still safe. If God lingered anywhere in this world, He would be watching over the two of them long enough to make sure they made it back home.
Then they would be a real family yet again. Yes, that would happen so long as Evelyn made it through these trying days. Abraham and the Beholders were just noise. At least compared to her family. After all, it wasn’t just the three of them anymore.
Evelyn rubbed her stomach. Even though the days were too early for the visible bump, and there weren’t any tests to confirm it, she knew the truth.
Evelyn was pregnant with her second child.
Just more proof that not everything he said came true, she reminded herself. Abraham believed that Leah was the only unhollowed child in this world, a testament to the Lord’s power. But Evelyn had another on the way, and there was no denying the contradiction this created for him. Could his religion handle a second Chosen One?
In spite of everything else, this much gave her hope. While the Beholders fought over Pandemonium’s boroughs to attain their full supremacy, new life grew within her womb. One world continued to fall apart through blood and violence, but life still found a way to come through. Born from love and passion, in a place where both had been a distant memory for so very long.
Maybe this was God’s true guidance. Evelyn and Liam had never been a real couple. Not in the organic sense. They had just been shoved together in a bunker twelve years after civilization ended. As the last surviving humans that anyone could find on this earth, there was neither agency nor legitimacy in their relationship. It had been created out of necessity by the last members of a race on the cusp of genocide.
And she’d done her part. Without question, every step of the way, Evelyn fought for the man by her side. Killing the hollows, maintaining Cheyenne, and keeping her health in a good enough state to bear more children. That was the mission, after all, and no one else could complete it but them.
But what had come of their souls in the process? When the first stretch of turmoil died down and they only had the cold reality of their forced relationship, the two withered under such an untenable truth. Just as marriages fell apart in the world before, so too did they find themselves in that same trap. An inevitable, slow decay of two adults who’d never been together by choice.
Until their last day together. Right before Leah’s fever became apparent and they again prioritized her needs over their own, the two came together as one. Not sex, not procreation, but love. Evelyn had started to really think their relationship was irreparably destroyed, but then her husband came back. To her: Evelyn Jones. That little girl who’d been too young to embrace romantic love before the Hollowing, only to become a woman who clung to the shadows lest she get burned by the light. She’d gotten a taste of the purity and bliss that came with the passion of a real marriage under God.
As Abraham’s sermon winded down to its end, Evelyn knew what she must do next. If there ever was any reason for her to be chosen to walk this earth, it would be to protect the lives of those she loved.
No matter who got in their way.