Dropping the remote onto the carpet, Pel leaned back against the couch and wrapped her arms around our son, trying to convince herself that if she could just hang on to her kids, she could hang on to reality, too.

A deep unease settled atop Pel’s soul. It pried its tendrils into her fears and pains, and opened them up and linked them together.

In the course of a single day, the world had changed. Something priceless had been lost: a sense of reality. The priorities in Pel’s life had suddenly turned on their heads, if not cast into doubt altogether.

The Last Days… they’re finally happening…

It was like the walls were closing in. Through the tumult and panic, Pel found herself feeling like everything she’d built in her life—everything she’d sculpted herself into being—had all been taken from her, reverting her back into a helpless little girl all over again. The deep, dark places of the world seemed almost alive in her mind. Everything she thought she knew… what good was it against monsters and demons and unnamable things with powers beyond her ken. A gut feeling told her she’d be safer at Church, under the aegis of the Angel’s Holy Light and the priests that tended to it. It almost didn’t matter to her that she knew other people would be there, and would almost certainly be infected.

It was difficult to accept what was happening. Pel found herself doubting her faith, she was just so afraid. She wasn’t ready to abandon hope. She couldn’t shake her deep, instinctive conviction that there had to be a way for her to protect her family, even now.

Pel closed her eyes and prayed.

Holy Triun, please, guide me. Show me the path. Help me keep my family safe.

“Mom…” Rayph said, “I wanna talk to Dad.” His eyes were tear-stricken.

Pel looked around for her console, momentarily forgetting where she’d placed it when, out of the blue, she heard the melody of a lilting waltz.

God, that melody…

It was the one I’d hummed when we’d danced on our disastrous first date.

Well, our first official date.

For a moment, Pel was overcome by the memory of that beauteous disaster. She felt the warmth of the Angel’s love crystallized in that memory, one too precious to ever be forgotten. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.

And then the melody repeated.

“Mom,” Jules whispered, “Your console…”

Of course that’s where it was: on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. It was where she’d set her console to charge.

Caller ID showed who was calling:

Genneth Howle

Pel didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

I guess I’ll just wing it as best as I can.

She pressed the speakerphone icon as she accepted the call.

“Pel?”

My voice came out through the console’s speakers.

“Gen-Genneth?”

“Sword stab me!” I said. “Pel!”

“D-Daddo!”

“Hey… Dad…” Jules’ voice was weak and uncertain.

Though I know the whole story now, back then, at that moment, I was completely oblivious to everything that had just happened to my wife and kids. I didn’t know that they’d gone to the market that morning. I didn’t know if they’d seen Ilzee’s exposé just now, and I didn’t know how Pel had reacted to it. I didn’t know that she’d started turning to her faith, though I should have known better.

All I knew was that I’d been planning on calling them anyway later that evening, but then news of Ilzee’s exposé broke, and in a matter of minutes, everyone and their grandma had tuned the nearest console to CBN to watch it, and then, well… things had fallen apart. We’d had to get the hospital’s special police division to come out and help calm the situation. Mercifully, no one had gotten fatally injured. The main source of trouble had come from the most recent wave of people to arrive at the hospital and find their place in the long, long line of patients awaiting treatment.

There’d been pushing, crowding; running, screaming. The Hall of Echoes was a mess. People were shoved to the ground and trampled as a stampede rushed for the exit. Footage from the hospital’s security cameras also showed how, across the central courtyard, in Pediatrics, things had descended into sheer panic, grabbing their children and running in terror. But, as I said, this was mostly on the part of those people who hadn’t already spent days in a waiting room, awaiting the fated hour when either their loved ones died, or they, themselves, fell sick and joined them. With the exception of people like Joe-Bob O’Houlighan who never really appreciated everything, the people who had been here, at WeElMed and seen us at work, those people knew us, and what we were dealing with, and how much heart and soul we pumped into every in of their loved ones’ care.

Besides, given Elpeck’s layout and the geometry of WeElMed’s cloistered position within the city, it would take at least a couple of hours for any riots to reach us, and that was before you took traffic into account. I figured rush hour would be pretty bad, what with the apocalypse and all.

So, yeah… I didn’t know what to do, and was very, very scared.

Pel tapped her console screen several times, transferring me to the TV Console. “You’re on the TV,” she said.

“Oh God…” my voice broke, “I miss you all so much! I wish I could be with you, and hold you, and tell you I love you and be there, instead of,” I gestured at myself, “…this.”

I was dressed in full war-gear—PPE and all—as I looked out at our living room through the screen of our big TV. And yet, even though I was staring my family right in the face, I don’t think I’d ever felt further away from them than I did at that moment.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Did you see it?” I whispered. “The footage?”

Pel gulped as she hesitated.

What a terror that hesitation held, and how much worse it would have been for her if she’d known what was weighing on my mind.

Jules ended up being the one to break the silence.

“Yeah, Dad,” her voice cracked. “We just watched it.”

Rayph walked toward the TV screen. “I’m scared.”

I nodded. “…I’m scared too.”

Jules stepped up beside her brother. “We went to the supermarket this morning, Dad.” She smiled in disbelief.

I’d grown a tail, spoken with ghosts, and walked through Hell itself, but, compared to this latest revelation, all those other things weren’t even worth commenting on.

“W-What?” I squeaked.

No no no no no no no no no—

“—We took precautions, honey,” Pel said, “masks…” her head trembled, “masks and everything.”

You didn’t need to be a neuropsychiatrist to tell that my wife barely believed the words coming out of her mouth.

“We needed to get supplies,” Jules explained. “Food. Cleaning supplies.”

Pel shook her head. “It was my idea, Gen. It was my fault. If… if I’d known…”

“We barely made it back alive.” Jules said, averting her gaze.

And then, by the Angel, she described it for me—their harrowing experience. For me, her every word fanned the flames of my terror.

My daughter’s expression and body language spoke volumes. Normally, when Jules went taciturn, it was because she had a lot of stuff on her mind, but here… she was just numb. She was more upset about having had to throw away Rale’s bat when the spore gunk had begun to eat through it than the fact that she and her mother had nearly died, or that it felt like the world was ending. But then, she finished her tale, and the leaden veil over her emotions split open like the skulls of the infected that she’d bashed with Rale’s bat.

She sobbed.

Pel wrapped her arms around our daughter. More than anything else, the fact that I couldn’t do the same made me painfully aware of just how vast the distance was between us.

“Those things, Gen…” Pel said, distantly. She exhaled. “Did you know?”

There was a long pause. I wrestled with my conscience, and my dignity, and my terror. I’d waffled before, but never like this. Never with these kinds of stakes.

But, eventually, I forced myself to make a decision.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I said, at last. “I did.” I balled my hands into fists, holding them down low so that they couldn’t see me doing it. “It’s part of the reason why I chose to stay at the hospital. I—”

“—What are they?” Pel asked. Her brown eyes bore into me like screws.

Burning screws.

Oh God…

Looking at her, I just knew: whatever I said, Pel was going to hang on it like a painting on a wall.

As the Church taught, lying was a sin. Well, most lies were. As much as the many denominations of Lassedicy wanted to deny it, pious fraud was alive and well in the one true faith. It was downright scriptural. As Eldaline, 57th Lassedite wrote:

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Church of the Lass? A lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie? Such lies would not be against the Godhead; They would accept them. The Moonlight Queen Herself would sanction them.

But such a lie was just a branch—a twig—of true monster; the lie that so few condemned. The “Noble” Lie.

The problem of Noble Lies was one of the great dilemmas of our time, if not of all times. A Noble Lie was whatever a people told themselves to shield the collective from recognizing truths it would prefer lay buried. Noble Lies were the stories societies told themselves to excuse the inexcusable. My own society was chock-full of them:

If you worked hard and saved up money, you could live to be rich and successful.

If the wrong person—often you—screwed up, it was always their fault.

If the right person screwed up—rarely you—it wasn’t ever their fault.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Everyone is special.

People ultimately get what they deserve.

The arc of history bends toward justice.

Embracing Noble Lies meant assuming that people couldn’t handle the truth, and that false hope was better than no hope. As for me, I’d like to think the answer was simple: the Lie was wrong, always and forever.

Or had all the people from my childhood who lying was a sin just been lying through their teeth, hypocrites down to the last?

“D-Dad?”

Jules had noticed I’d gone quiet.

“Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat again, shaking my head, “it’s just…”

I sighed. My breath warmed my mask, rebreather, and PPE visor.

“It’s been a long day.”

I had a choice to make, and not enough time to make it.

What would I tell them? Would I tell them the truth? And, if so, how much of it? Would I tell them Hell was rising up to conquer the earth? Would I tell them I was turning into a wyrm? Would I tell them that I had powers now? Would I tell them I was the accomplice of a blue-haired, blue-eyed amnesiac spirit-girl bent on saving the world from the darkness?

Well, if I told, I couldn’t be certain of how Pel would react. Though she hadn’t given any indication she was processing what she had seen through the lens of her faith, I knew my wife well enough; there was no way she wouldn’t at least make the connection.

What was a Norm if not what Ilzee’s footage had shown?

The problem was: I had no control over how Pel would respond. There was no telling how she’d react. Would she do something drastic if I confirmed her beliefs that something supernatural was afoot?

I couldn’t be sure.

I could also go the other route. I could tell her that science would find an explanation for this, and that the best thing they could do was to shelter in place. But… that wasn’t a guarantee that Pel might still eventually freak out and do something we’d all regret. And that was before I even factored Jules into the equation.

Fudge…

I started to cry.

“Dad…?” Rayph asked.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” I said, shaking my head. I snuffled. “It’ll be okay.”

Those words were lies, and they burned my tongue like a hot iron.

Oh, who am I kidding?

At that moment, I wished life had a Pause button, so I could freeze our conversation in its tracks and go ask Brand or Heggy or Ani what they thought I should do. But it didn’t, so I couldn’t.

If I had to choose, I’d rather tell my family and know their reaction for what it was, rather than leave myself with doubts, forever wondering about what might have been. What finally pushed me over the edge was the thought that, if I put it off any longer, I might not be human enough anymore to get another chance to tell them.

So I told them.

“Something is happening…” I said. It felt like a dream—only one I’d never wanted to have. “I think the Last Days are drawing near.”

Pel stared and stared, wide-eyed, jaw clenched, holding onto Jules’ forearm with a tight squeeze, as if she’d slip away. “People are turning into wyrms.”

“What?” Pel asked.

“Those creatures.” My voice trembled. “Wyrms—with a Y.” I bit my lip.

Pel stared at me like I was insane.

“It’s part of a plan to save the world from the fungus. The wyrms are going to fight against the fungus. Against the forces of Hell. They’re the good guys, even if they’re… a little scary.”

Moment of truth: I was not looking forward to becoming one of those… things.

Jules pursed her lips. “Dad, what are you talking about? You’re scaring me right now.”

I cried. “I’m scared too, Jules.” My voice trailed off. “I…”

As I looked into their eyes, I think they knew what I was going to say before I said it.

But I had to say it anyway.

Holy Angel, I thought, …I hope you’re watching this.

“I have it,” I said. “I’m infected. I’m turning into a wyrm.”

I exploded with tears. “No matter what happens,” I said, “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you. I’ll never forget you. Never. Never ever ever. I promise. I—”

—Pel pressed ‘end call’ and tossed her console across the couch without any care. It landed on one of the big leather cushions. Then, she knelt down, bent over, and wept.

“Mommy!” Rayph ran and embraced her.

“Why’d you hang up?” Jules was ripe with indignation—hair a-quivering, arms sweeping. “Why’d you—”

“—He’s doomed,” Pel burbled. “Angel forgive me, I couldn’t… I couldn’t save my husband.”

Jules stumbled back. “What?”

“Now… he’s—he’s going to become one of those… things! This is it, this is the end. All we can do is pray. Oh, Holy Angel, help us! Help us!”

And she sobbed.