I didn’t react like I thought I would. The void her absence had left suddenly filled—and I could feel it filling. A harsh blend of emotions welled up within me as Andalon materialized in front of me. My inner, fatherly nature won out—at least, at first.

“Andalon!”

Shouting her name, I crawled toward her, embracing her even though I knew well that my arms would—and did—just scissor through her phantom body. There was an awkward moment when I checked myself and scooted back just a tad, so that I wasn’t phasing through her personal space. But, compared to the naked, raw-minded feeling I’d suffered in Andalon’s absence, the awkwardness didn’t bother me at all.

Meanwhile, Andalon was staring at me, perplexed, yet concerned.

Then things got complicated.

Everything I’d endured in Andalon’s absence came flooding back into me. The horror. The despair. I had to wrestle with my tongue just to find the right words for all the conflicted feelings I felt.

“Andalon, when you were hurt…” The hairs stood up at the back of my neck. “I was terrified.”

I started crying again.

“I’ve already lost a son to my mistakes,” I said. “Seeing you beaten insensate on the hallway floor, and then vanish and leave me all alone… I thought I had another kid’s blood on my hands.”

I clenched my fingers into fists, only to stop and shudder at the wrongness of the way my changed fingers felt as they pressed against the underside of my left hand.

Andalon, meanwhile, cocked her head at a confused angle.

I took a deep breath. “I thought you were dead, Andalon!”

That got through to her. “No, no!” she said. With a vigorous shake of her head—blue eyes booming in their sockets, cerulean hair swishing—Andalon scissored her arms through the air. “I’m not dead, Mr. Genneth,” she said, nodding confidently. “Andalon is pretty sure it’s pretty hard to make Andalon dead. I think.” She pursed her lips. “I went away ‘cause I’m not as strong as Andalon should be. Not yet.”

Ordinarily, that incredibly non-reassuring answer would have eaten away at me, but, at the moment, I didn’t care. Andalon was back! In her absence, I’d felt like someone had opened a door in my skull, through which I could feel the wind rake its claws across my thoughts. But now, that sensation was gone.

I felt… complete. I smiled through my tears. But I knew this was a false calm. In truth, it was the rumbling of an approaching storm.

Andalon crossed her arms behind her nightgown and smiled. “But I’m all better now. Everything’s okey-dokey.”

Then my elation went and shriveled up, dried out and turned to kindling, and burst into rage—but quietly.

Shuddering, I sat up straight. “Everything’s okey-dokey?” My voice broke. “After all that’s happened… that’s your takeaway?”

By the Angel, here it comes…

My voice swelled. “How could you do this to us, Andalon? What did Merritt do to deserve this? What did Kurt and Nathan and Lopé and Bethany”—I kept on listing the names—“what did they do to deserve this? They ate people! And you made them do it!”

I knew I shouldn’t have yelled at her. I’d learned well enough that yelling at Andalon never made anything better. But… it was hard. I was scared. Terrified. I still felt like a failure, and that had nothing to do with whether or not Andalon was here.

I lived to help people because it gave me a way to run from the person I was afraid I was. It helped me run away from the thought that I wasn’t who I wanted to be, and from the thought that I couldn’t be him. It’s how I kept myself from thinking that I was irresponsible, feckless, cowardly, sniveling… mousy. That was what made my recent failures so frightening to me. I wasn’t just losing my humanity. I was losing my illusions, and that left me naked and afraid.

Andalon wept. “You’re… you’re not a fail, Mr. Genneth… you’re…”

“What am I, if not a failure?” I demanded. “Why is everything going wrong? Why can’t I do anything right?”

“It’s… it’s just a normlal part of bein’ wyrmeh.” A bit of doubt creased her lips. “I think?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to yell at her if I could avoid it. As much as I felt like yelling—and I really, really, really wanted to yell at somebody—I knew it wouldn’t do me any good.

“Is this some kind of game to you, Andalon?” I asked, trying to maintain my calm as best as I could. “Is that what our lives are? A game? What, is the goal to rack up as many soteriological points as you can? A race to get the saved-souls high score?” I shook my head. “Merritt is…” but then I shuddered, “Oh God…” I shook my head. “You made Mrs. Elbock into a monster, Andalon. She ate Dr. Mistwalker. She ate another human being. My patients are eating human beings. They’re eating my colleagues; the people who are trying to help them! You’re making transformees all over the world into monsters. Is that going to be my fate, too? Are we all going to devolve into cannibals, rabid for food? Is that what the hunger is for? Why is this so hard? Why are the souls so fragile?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As long as I was freaking out like this, I figured I might as well ask some of the edgier questions on my mind.

“Do you appreciate what you’ve done to us? Or what you’re asking us to do? Sympathy—do you even know what sympathy is, Andalon? What empathy is?” I sighed. “I don’t know if you do, and that’s… that scares me. There’s so much I don’t know about you, Andalon. And I’m terrified that the answers will never come—or, worse, that they will, and they’ll be cruel.”

Anxiety cracked her face. Her lips sputtered.

“Cruel?” she asked.

“You’re being mean to us, Andalon,” I said, using a word I knew she’d understand. “What you’re putting us through… it’s not nice.”

She burbled. “B-But… you said you were wrong. You said you needed Andalon’s help.”

My lips quivered. “And—I…” stammering, I nodded my head, “I do, but,” I wept, “that doesn’t change the fact that what you’re doing isn’t kind, Andalon. It isn’t. Not only did you not ask, you’re not doing it to everyone. Your plan is half-baked, Andalon. You’re tearing some of us away from our humanity, while leaving the rest out to die. You’re gambling on ordinary folks like me being able to do the work of the Godhead and tend to souls and keep them safe. What part of that plan sounds the least bit sensible? It’s… it’s folly. Look at what we’re up against!”

Andalon sank to her knees. She clenched her hands into little fists. “No, that can’t be true! Andalon is good! Andalon is helping!”

“Then prove me wrong!” I said. “I’m begging, you,” I shook my hands, “prove me wrong! Prove to me that you’re not something the fungus made to try and trick me. Prove to me you really want to save people from Hell, because, as the Angel as my witness, I’m one of them. I’m scared, Andalon, I’m scared out of my mind.”

“No!” Andalon was aghast. “No! I don’t want you to be scared!”

“Then help me, Andalon.”

Right then and there, I decided I might as well go for broke. “Is God real, Andalon?” I asked. “Does the Godhead exist? The Holy Angel? The Hallowed Beast? The Moonlight Queen?”

She lowered her head, her expressions tensing as she pondered my question. After a few seconds, she looked up at me and gave me her answer.

“What’s God?” she asked.

I should have seen that coming…

“Why?” Andalon asked.

“God is…” But I stopped and shook my head. How to explain it?

Exhaling, I tried again. “God is the creator of all things. God made you, and me, and everything that ever was or will be. God is the source of all Goodness, Love, Light, Truth, and Beauty. God is lord over all.”

“I…” Andalon shook her head, pensive, as if my words had struck a chord in her. “I dunno.”

“What do you mean, you dunno?”

Visibly distressed, Andalon crossed her arms at her chest. “If there’s a Mr. God, he would know who I am, right?”

I nodded.

She clenched her fists. “Then why doesn’t he come and tell me! Andalon wants to know!” She wept. “I would really like somebody like that. Then everything would make sense.” She looked at me again. “Could Mr. God stop the darkness?”

It said a lot about my state of mind that I actually hesitated to answer her. “Yes, God could.”

“Then why doesn’t he?” Andalon asked.

Technically, the Godhead’s pronouns were “They/Them”.

I swallowed hard, crestfallen. This was the last thing I’d have expected! It seemed even Andalon had trouble with faith.

And then, Andalon asked a question that surprised me. “Can Mr. God get rid of Hell?” She stared me in the eyes as she asked.

And I stared back.

As a kid, I’d asked exactly the same question.

“Andalon,” I said, my chest tensing, “God made Hell.”

It was as if I’d slapped her. “What!?” Andalon flinched, staggering back. She cut her arm through the air, shaking her head. “No, that’s… that’s awful.” Andalon wept. “Please don’t lie to Andalon, Mr. Genneth. Lying’s a sin.”

“I’m not lying!” I said, getting teary-eyed myself. “The Godhead created Hell.”

Andalon blubbered and stammered. “W-Why?” she cried. “Why?!”

This was painful for me. Andalon was reacting like I had reacted as a child when I first learned the awful truth.

I shook my head. My shoulders slumped. “There isn’t justice in this life,” I said. “Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. And since God is Just, the wicked have to be punished for their wickedness, and so they suffer after death. God made Hell so that bad people would be punished for forever, and so as to give people a reason to want to be good.” My head slumped down. “I was taught that Hell was a place of ice and Night. There is no heat in Hell. No warmth. The Hallowed Beast prowls Hell, devouring the souls of the wicked and spitting them out again to devour them once more.”

“That’s… that’s horrible!” Andalon cried. “Why do you need a reason to be good? Being good is… good! That’s why it’s called good!”

I smiled. Even Andalon could see the cruelty of it. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“And that’s why you want to save people from Hell, right?” I asked. “Because it isn’t fair for them to suffer forever?”

Andalon shook her head. “I don’t know about ice and freezing! Hell has none of that. Hell is nothing. It is darkness. Horror horror horror!”

Wait, what?!

“That’s not what scripture says, Andalon. The ice and cold are a fundamental part of what Hell is. It is cold in Hell because it is the place which is the furthest from the Angel’s Light; it is the part of creation furthest removed from the Sun and the goodness and warmth of its Light.”

If Andalon’s position was the correct one, I had to face the possibility that scripture might not be as reliable of a source for understanding the Green Death as I’d hoped it to be.

Where was the truth in this situation? I wish I knew.

“Mr. Genneth, here’s what’s impormptant: if the darkness wins, everybody goes there! Ev! Ree! Buddy! That’s what matters! Andalon is the only hope! Wyrmehs are the only hope! Otherwise, everyone will be gone! And if you’re gone, then I’ll be all alone. If the darkness makes everyone die… I’ll… I’ll…” Tears pooled in her eyes. She gagged on her sorrow. “…I’ll never find my family.”

“Your family?”

Andalon had a family?