1
The Firefly.
“In the first year after the Rise, our teams registered strange seismic activities all over the globe as the old gods woke from their deep slumber and broke out to the surface. It helped us find and identify most of them. But one activity in particular caught our attention. That one god might have never been found otherwise. It’s in the remote underwater caves in the mountains of Venezuela that he dwells. Urara can only be described as a giant eel or knifefish. But your imagination would come short of the truth. He’s as long as a train and wider. His viscous skin is harder to pierce than stone. He uses his abilities to see in the underground darkness. The few survivors who came back from the expedition could only describe with shaky vagueness the giant creature who travels with fear-inducing efficiency in the wide underwater caves. And so few came back… Because what makes Urara more fearsome to face than many gods who walk on the surface is the massive electric charge that he releases around him. He will stun—or often, kill—anything or anyone that comes close.
Thankfully, a member of our team brought a few samples back. We have Urara’s DNA in our possession. I can’t wait to see what we can create with it. Or, should I say,whowe can create.”
Video transcription of a video log from Dr. Simone Chastain, a scientist who worked on the Revival Project.
I dreamed of the jellyfish again. They floated above me, beautiful and deadly. Their thin tentacles danced in the artificial current of the cylinder tank. I stayed at the bottom, too afraid to even swim to the surface. And yet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from their beauty. Their bodies, so soft and colorful, invited my touch. But I knew better. I had felt their sting before. So, I watched and feared them.
A slap to my ruined face brings me back to my painful reality.
A man is screaming at me, but I can’t understand what he’s saying through the buzzing in my ears. One of my eyes is swollen shut, but I can see well enough with the other if I focus.
It’s the beautiful man who came with Helios. The ginger. His skin is marred with the fern-like burns I gave him with my electricity a day ago. I didn’t hold back; it’s quite a feat that he survived.
“Wake up, you motherfucker!” he says, slapping me again.
I grunt from the pain and glare at him. Can’t he fucking let me die in peace?
The horned mutant buried his two swords in my gut, and I’m bleeding out. And Helios… Helios left me to die here.
A great boom echoes in the surrounding bunker. Dust rains from the rocky ceiling and the walls. More explosions? Someone is really going at it. I feel a twinge of sadness and regret for my short-lived dream of an underground city. But I find solace in the fact that it’ll die with me.
I wish the entire world could die alongside me.
Another slap.
I sneer and reach for the ginger with a weak hand. If only I could burn his insides to a crisp. Cook him alive. But my power is leaking out with my blood, and I can barely move, much less defend myself. The devil’s swords pierced the organs that I used to produce electricity.
“How do I start the aircraft below us?” the man asks. “What’s the password?”
So, he found my secret exit. Only a few of my men know about it. He must have torn the information out of one of them. I sent him to the dungeons yesterday, and he escaped. Resourceful, to say the least. Sadly, for him, he’s stuck here with me.
I chuckle faintly. “It’s set to only obey my voice and command…”
The small aircraft was the last resort to save the President of the United States if the bunker fell. But the President and his convoy never reached the bunker, and so the aircraft stayed in the dark for twenty-seven years, accumulating dust. I found the secret exit two years ago and hired a hacker to change its setting to obey my command. I kept it for emergencies.
The ginger slaps me again.
I thought I was too far gone to care, but burning hatred surges to the surface. I want to choke the life out of him. I wish to see his eyes dim as I kill him slowly…
The man disappears from my blurry vision before I can plot fun ways to torture him. He leaves me to die alone, just as Helios did.
Helios…
The little whore left me ten years ago, only to go find himself a new monster. There’s a hole in my chest, and it has nothing to do with the deep wounds his devil gave me. For years, when I thought that Helios had died, I contemplated death in my darkest hours. I imagined that if there was an afterlife, he would be waiting for me on the other side.
But lo and behold, the man is alive, and he has just found himself a new monster to care for him.
I gasp and dig my nails into my chest. I lie in my growing pool of blood, pondering my short life. I hope there’s no afterlife. I’m fucking tired of existing.
The ginger should have finished me off before leaving. Dying is taking me far too long.
A great roar shakes the surrounding mountains. An old god is attacking Bunkertown, I realize.Good. Let it all burn.
I close my eyes. Death can’t come soon enough.
