Nihilist: Legion (Preview)

"Is everyone here?"

"We're all ready. Have you made it inside yet?"

"I made it in without a glance of suspicion."

"Great. Faeri, you know what to do. We'll be scouting around the tower to keep tabs on security. You just focus on what matters. Code Blacks are no longer viable here."

"I hear you."

"Alright, great. Let the dance begin."

I stride through the crowd quietly, brushing my scarlet uniform against the gold glitter of another woman's dress. Squeezing past twirling men in white and ignoring the false laughter that surrounds the foyer, I keep my mask tight and my awareness keen when searching for higher ground. Light chimes echo against crystals as smiles mirror against marble. Each soft footstep tapped against the gloss is one with elegance, but soon these souls will cry without a body to keep them from drifting in black clouds for an eternity. The bottom of my boots click against the steps leading to the second floor where a mezzanine awaits me above. When drifting my hand against a glass railing, my eyes follow a woman in a bright silver dress as she enters the foyer for the first time. Her backbone keeps the skyscraper in the clouds, and her decisions decide the fate of all who chant below us with torches and rage. She has led this cult for far longer than we believed, and she is one of Autumn's greatest servants. She brushes against concrete and paints the remnants of the old world. The people call her by the same material she helped to blanket over reality.

Her name is Ash.

I watch her every move like the drones of the Crow did years ago. The gleaming light of the room fades with the sounds of the crowd as my focus encloses on the monster walking into the room with the same gestures as a human. I scan the crowd again, looking for her destination as she strides through the foyer, and she catches me off guard when she stops in the middle of a gemstone encrusted within the marble.

Adapt, Faeri, adapt.

Just as father taught you.

Don't stray from your target.

Always be ready to strike.

Her pause as she takes a glance around the crowd has my thoughts running faster than the predators outside who join the shouts for war. The only time I've ever seen her face has been through pixels of digital screens. I'm witnessing her exact movements in the moments she makes them right in front of me, and her presence is enough to send chills through my body. I can't believe I'm within the last ceremony on Earth before it never orbits the same. She'll have it in her palm if this celebration ends in cheers. I hate to finish it early with screams, but it must be one to make up for the millions of others.

This is the last time a dance will be performed with grace.

The tiles in front of her feet lower deeper into the ground, and a microphone arises from the darkness. She taps a chime out into the room to capture the attention of everyone who may be interested to hear what their sovereign has to say. She's no Autumn, but she's the last thing bringing the crown back through the rubble. Every face glittered with the plastic heads of animals turns to watch Ash's soft lips move with words that may lead their souls to divinity.

She begins with a welcome. She waves her arms up to those standing near me, gathering everyone in a promise that their night isn't going to be wasted. She apologizes for being late with a smile on her face, and a question relating to the wine in the hands of the rich comes after.

"Stay focused," I hear a voice from behind me whisper. Glancing to my side, a woman with a black dress she tore from the night sky grabs the railing next to my hand. She looks to me with the same silver mask as before, but cut in half to match the rest of the crowd's attire. Half of her face is covered by the face of a black dove as she looks at me, taking my attention off the prey beyond my reach. "The hammer to the concrete lies below the foundation. Below the surface of the tower lies a den full of unused lives for Ash's gamble to forge the next celestial to sit under her reign."

I give a soft nod, reminded by a friend of memory, and step away from the railing with assurance that Ash will fall with the marble and stone of a structure built to bury the shredded flags of munity. I drag the fabric brushing my thigh to the side as I unweave a small metal disk to sit under a thin glass table.

A soft bell rings her voice back into my eardrums when the disk flashes to notify me of its awakening. It continues its work relaying the sounds beyond me as I slide out of the room to begin my haul to revolution. Spinning my body over the railing to drop against the staircase next to me, I rip apart the words of the cult leader as she chews on her first announcement. Introducing the project many of those within the ceremony were aware of, she tells everyone of the great defeat they've met when trying to use animals as sacrifices. She admits that they've gone unrewarded, but cares little for the cost of the souls she trapped around that house.

I guide myself down the stairs until I hear footsteps at the door in front of me, a gateway to the sixteenth floor. I rush down the stairs with a timer blocking me into a corner before a woman, looking as if she just left an office, finds me frozen like a deer in headlights.

She stares.

I stare back.

"Don't let those who witness your actions make you terminate them. The eyes who look up to you will be your strength to continue. You're doing this for her, for everyone beyond that door, and any door that has ever opened for humanity. Once you save the gates of divinity, perhaps they'll open for you, too," a haunting man in a metal mask behind me says. The neon rims of the staircase imitate his monochrome tuxedo as he hovers over me in careful observation.

She smiles and walks past me, walking up the stairs I jumped over. I wait for her to lose me in her line of sight, then continue rushing down.

"I hear you."

The man who spoke to me vanished from behind me, I continue sliding down the glass railings of elegance, and continue listening to the voice of a demon not in my head. She continues her speech with the reassurance of a new candidate that has recently been taken into Delta's ownership: a young child at the age of four. I pause my tracks, thinking back to the photo of an identity that could match who she speaks of now, and give more pressure to each new step over the glossed concrete.

They look back at what Autumn created. They acknowledge that there were eight other children, with lives, families, and purpose, stolen for capabilities that belonged within constellations. They were created under the reign of Autumn, a worn and vicious predator, and their inhuman intelligence, abilities, and protection were under her order. If she wanted one of her enemies to meet the demise equal to the void of a black hole, she would have sent one of her anomalies to answer her. They were an experiment for the human race, said to stretch out our purpose as entities to the ends of the universe. She had promised the salvation of all who were drenched in sin. She was going to forge a new religion, erase the current reality to replace it with her own, and give the next newborns a reason to live. She was unaware of the consequences. She hadn't understood the costs of her work until they came in crashing waves as snow drifted in smoke.

Rebellion always lights the world on fire when the fuel rests in dominion. Even entities from the stars, children of the universe, have a reckoning beyond their captivity. They belonged in the skies, and Autumn had them chained to her throne. With little time, a war of divinity struck the world and left no mercy to spare. They took their rage to the people, and they used reality as their weapons.

There is only one celestial child remaining in the debris of a prophetic war. The only thing left standing in Autumn's favor is the tower I breathe within, and I'm going to be the one to bring its demise.

She continues her speech, the whole foyer well aware of her voice, and explains the physical features of the child. I jump across the next flight of stairs and roll toward the wall in front of me, holding a firm stance as I run to the next. She reminds everyone of the location where they've been completing their rituals, speaking on the abandoned home in a forest so dense that light barely peers through the roofs of trees. Very few people have ventured further than a few miles of the forest without turning back in fear that they may never return. That territory had never been one for survival.

She informs of the celestial traitor they hunted down with a single missile. Libra. The crowd cheers after hearing the tides have returned to their possession. They shouldn't have sent that explosive out. It's just going to soar right back with meteors. I slide down the next flight, knowing there are only a few left stopping me from entering the den. She hypes the tragic souls above by telling them of the helicopter fleet rising above them with the child within. She raises her voice as the blades spin faster, rumbling with pride and glory. As they rise above the clouds that protect them from the rioters below, I step over the first floor of the structure and the last floor I'll ever step on again.

Sneaking out to the lobby, I crawl to the front desk and meet one of my pupils as he comes from the other side of the hollow room. The rioters roar beyond the front doors, and the only thing stopping them from coming in are the turrets ready to rip them apart with a single spin. The light of a new era beams through the stained glass above, the dark marble glistened with the purity left of the world lost in its cracks. Holding a tablet and watching through a black metal mask, I can tell when he looks up at me that he's happy to see I'm here.

"To think we were worried you were going alone," he snickers quietly. "I've had the cameras disabled for some time now, but it won't last much longer before they get suspicious. Also, remember that the doors are only opened from the outside. They've taken extra measures to ensure nothing comes out of the den without permission."

I nod affirmingly, drag off my backpack, and slide it across the floor to him while I crouch below the desk. He stuffs his tablet into the bag without a hint of distress from his swift actions.

"You'll always be with me," I respond, grabbing the backpack again after glancing at the tablet, "You've given me the confidence I needed to be here. I can't let you go. All of you, my Legion."

He nods back, turning his head to look at the door behind him, reminding me that I have little time left to act. I throw the backpack over my shoulders and grab his wrists over black fabric before I leave.

"I won't," I stare into his eyes with intent, "I won't let you go until the moment I die."

He stares back, the bottom of his eye wet from a newborn tear. Even after all he's done, all he's accomplished, he still carries emotion with more depth than the mindless animals barking outside. His trails have made him stronger, even if they've concluded in failure. I'll make sure his work is remarked.

I stand past him, running to the other door, giving trust in his hack that no one watched me rush out of the lobby. Before opening the door, he calls my name with caged breaths. I turn back to him, my hand at the door, and listen closely.

"No one is going to call your name after this is over," he calls out. "If this is the end, no one is going to know who you are. You're going to be buried here."

I narrow my eyes, watching him as he warns me of my fate, and the muffled noises of the crowd fade out of my awareness. I focus on him, and in his pupils, I find a universe resting in silence. A quiet void awaiting for life to reach its every corner as color does his iris. A reality created from another, awaiting its story to be told throughout the cosmos for eternity. This isn't my story; the universe has only met its end through my actions. No one needs to hear my name when it belongs to my body. They need to know my existence when I breathe dust into the galaxies, my beauty weaving with dreams as they drift in the void, and my purpose examined as the universe continues its walk to marriage while holding the hand of reality.

"This isn't for me," I say to him, my words the clearest they'll ever be. I don't need to tell him my reasoning. He'll feel it even beyond the end of his life, even if my mind is the only thing still keeping him alive.