Thanks for watching, kiddies. It was great fun. I truly enjoyed writing Spawn, more than anything in the world. I hope you enjoy the ending.

Final Word Count: 107,000

I purchased the ticket to Alleluia and was prepared to leave the very next day. Unfortunately, the next day would not treat me well. More and more perished every moment in Ushuaia; by the day of my flight to Alleluia (or, nearby) I found several of my coworkers dead. One had been shot; the others succumbed to Athan’s Disease, including Dr. Moncayo. Dr. Moncayo would never again be able to chatter on with me about Alleluia – about anything – beca8use I would go there. I did not need her small talk anymore. I imagined arriving in Alleluia and scouring the city, uncovering mystical ancient information pertaining to the very first cases of Athan’s Disease. In Alleluia’s ruins I saw hope; hope for my job, hope for the sick, hope for humanity. News reports ranted and raved about supposed “purges” happening around the world in certain isolated areas. Mass killings. It was, reports said, “the greatest collective destruction of a single people since World War II.”

I moved bodies that lay dead in the street by me. In one night the city had filled with corpses. Nobody was left untouched. I could not roam the entire city, but I couldn’t assume it had succumbed to a worse fate than either Srinagar or Westendorf. Nobody was murdered, but they were all bound to wake again. The town would spawn in a week or so, and nobody would be the wiser. Would somebody come and tell them what had become of this poor city? Of course not! They would live in confusion, and then in perpetuation, their lives extended as much as Doradwe’s, but against their will. They wouldn’t awaken to the fact for years – for decades, I imaged. Shane Evans had noticed strange happens rather quickly, but he had never seen what I had; he had never witnessed the snow white bacteria feeding themselves to the body, regenerating what was lost, what they themselves had strangled to death.

There was no path for cars to take, and nobody alive to take the cars – willing, at least. I imagined there were living people who had spawned, but they never showed their faces. Presumably they had devoured the death pills distributed by the company of death, Pharand. Pharand played master of live and death – thought that they could cheat life out of its role on Earth. They were wrong. They could not steal life; not this kind of life. As addicted as humanity became to Malogon, it would never be cured of Athan’s Disease. The only true way to purge it, without the sacred information from Alleluia, was to destroy the people – or use my cure. And at that time it seemed that only the former was possible; nobody would take my cure. Not now. Not now that Malogon was widely distributed. It had gone far further than my own travels. It was everywhere in the world, currently being consumed by all manner of human being. In a week it would become the most common medicine in the world, and the most widely used. Families would use it on their siblings, spouses, grandparents, and every type of member in order to pretend, for just a few weeks, that life was normal – that this family hadn’t been the one infected with Athan’s Disease. And yet it still had no name in the public eye. It was just “that horrible, despicable disease” to everybody. As soon as anything similar popped up people knew what anybody was referring to.

But even though Athan’s Disease had progressed so far since its inception, I could not have thought how smart – and how controlled – the bacteria were. It was beyond me to imagine any of it. It was beyond everybody to consider it. Our minds blocked out the possibility – a possibility that could only be discovered once I was in Alleluia.

I took the plane that afternoon. It was empty. The pilots had all been replaced – luckily there were still a few left who could fly. I took a plane to Oslo in Norway, and from there to an unimportant town in Sweden. The flights were long, but never boring. I kept sensing that the pilot would collapse soon, j7ust like the taxi drivers. Athan’s pulled off a hat trick with transportation for me. I couldn’t fall asleep due to the constant rocking and rattling of the plane. I was constantly afraid that the airborne vehicle would crash into the oceans below. But soon ocean turned to land, and Oslo was below us. Oslo had become, like Srinagar, a city divided. But I did not stay for more than an hour. It was long enough to see a man killed in front of me, which I realized was becoming an incredibly common sight. I wondered, as I walked onto the plane to Sweden, how many more people I would have to witness the deaths of before I could help a single one of them. I could stand by and watch. I could make the cure, but I had not the materials. I could make the cure, but I had not the support to distribute it. Who would take medicine from an unemployed man off the street, or in an airport, or in a random pharmacy? Nobody.

Two hours later I arrived in Sweden (on an equally disturbing plane ride, all alone except for the pilot), which was, it seemed, was far less affected by Athan’s Disease than anywhere else. The single town I saw was joyous, in fact. Either everybody was infected, or everybody was healthy. I could not make the distinction – but could that one town have some connection to Alleluia? I would have to get closer to Alleluia for any real information. Through the network of joyous people, I discovered a small village that was only a few miles from my intended destination. I thanked the inhabitants of that unimportant city and headed off- I did not stop for anybody or anything, or any city or any sick person on my way. All of it didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was seeing Alleluia, experiencing what was there – relaxing, discovering, and then returning home to wipe these horrible experiences from my mind forever.

Here the area was too rural for there to be taxi drivers. I sighed, told myself that I was home at last. I felt more comfortable already. I hired a car service to drive me to the city nearby Alleluia. It was about ten minutes to the north, along the shores of the Baltic Sea. It was smaller than I could have ever imagined – a few primitive looking houses and one sturdily built wooden inn, where I imagined I could stay the night before trekking into Alleluia the next day. The inside of the inn was entire circular. Around the lobby were several shelves on the wooden walls, and a reception desk near to the entrance. I wheeled my belongings in – once again I had made sure not to forget anything, and had given up on ever getting my painting back – and said hello to the woman at the desk. She smiled back and said, without any discoverable accent, “Good day to you. I have a room prepared. Shall you stay the night?”

“More than one night, if it suits me.”

“Wonderful!”

I went to hand the woman my credit card, but share refused and shook her head no. “Please, accept this night for free. We always value our customers.” I was grateful that she valued me, but nobody valued their customers enough to offer free stay in a hotel to a complete stranger. “Here is your room key,” she said, and handed me an odd key with no jagged edges. It was smooth on each edge, and completely flat. However, on the sides there were strange depressions, as though small beads could fit into certain areas of the key. These depressions and dots seemed to be arranged randomly – some even overlapped each other, creating a molecule-like look. I nodded, taking the key and looking on the keychain for my room number. Floor two. I walked up the spiral staircase. Something about the lobby had seemed familiar – and the rooms were designed the same way. Everything was neatly organized, and everything – down to the tables and beds and bathrooms – was circular.

The circular bed caught me off guard as tacky and old-fashioned, but I couldn’t complain after lying down upon it. It was more comfortable than any other bed I’d slept on. It almost made me want to fall asleep at that moment, but I knew I had a bit more to do before I could nap. I tore out my laptop from my sealed luggage, turned it on, watched the boot screen and tapped the circular table. It took far longer than I’d hoped for the machine to start up entirely.

For some reason, the screen started warping colors. I couldn’t make sense of it, but after about a minute it stopped and returned to normal. My eyebrow rose – just slightly. I opened up the list of things I needed, wrote it down on a sheet of paper, and put that in a safe place. If I found and special documents in Alleluia I would compare them to my list. Perhaps, if the people in Alleluia had ever managed to cure Athan’s Disease (provided the rumors of it being the origin of the bacteria were true) as I had, they would have kept a similar list of ingredients to produce the serum. I imagined the ruins of a hospital in Alleluia; the ruins of a once-prosperous city; the ruins of, as I’d heard, a lighthouse and a large tower whose purpose was entirely unknown, but appeared to be a large storage building, possibly keeping food for the entire village. What a community it must have been! To share everything with one another, together, by creating gigantic food repository for all to take from. I imagined this community; it must have been a utopia. It must have been one of the greatest places to live in its day. How could it have possibly become ruins?

I turned on my cell phone; the standby display, which was always on regardless of whether or not the phone itself was on, said that I had a new message. But when I turned the phone on the screen produced the same effect it had with the computer. The colors on the screen fluctuated quickly throughout the spectrum – text was unreadable. I couldn’t make anything out. Certain screen elements were blurred, as though the screen was being ripped apart from the inside. And after a minute, the screen returned completely to normal. My eyebrow rose further. I tapped on the keypad of the phone to look at my new messages – click, click, click, tap, click. Strangely, I could not hear the message on playback. Static. Nothing but static. And then, after a minute, I heard audio playback. I was able to listen to the message.

Before rewinding the message and listening to it, I tried playing some music from my laptop. The same effect – static, then a minute later some garbled sounds, finally becoming normal, full-sounding audio a few seconds after that. My eyebrow remained at the same height, and I went back to my phone to hear the message. It was from Shane Evans, who I hadn’t spoken to for the longest time. Hearing from him seemed awkward, but since I hadn’t heard from him in so long I assumed it was urgent. The message went as follows:

“Hello, Ethan? This is Shane Evans; it’s been a while. I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing right now, but I’ve gotten a very strange message regarding you and two other people named ‘Victor’ and ‘Mike’. If you know those people, then good for you – apparently we’ve all been sent invitations to go to some town called ‘Alleluia’ in Sweden. I’ve even got plane tickets. I don’t know if the other two will be going, but it sounds like there’s some sort of medical discussion going on about my sickness – did you finally cure the disease? I do hope so! My wife and I have been very scared; strange things are happening around town. We’re both afraid that we’ll be thrown in jail at random – it’s been happening often with the sick folk around here. The police are scared of us, so they throw us in jail.

I’ll be going to Alleluia, but not with my wife. I hear that you’re already on your way, so perhaps I’ll see you there. If you are not there, please call me and I would love to update you on the situation. Maybe you’ll come then.”

The message ended with a beep. I closed the clamshell casing of my phone – and then the clamshell casing of my laptop. What did that mean – why had he been invited to (and been given a plane ticket to come to) Alleluia? I thought something was suspicious, but I didn’t want to abandon my hopes for a day exploring the mysterious city. The strangeness of the timing of Shane’s message, though, struck me. I only knew one man willing to give out plane tickets so quickly; a certain Dr. Afalsi might know a thing or two. His reluctance to reveal any information about Alleluia, and his blatant fear of the subject, also made me suspect that he had something to do with this. And because he was connected to Doradwe, I knew he would probably know more about me and what I’d done in my job at the destroyed hospital than even I did. However I still, despite this strange message from Shane, wanted to know what was hiding in the ruins of Alleluia. I wanted to poke around everywhere and find everything I could. Even if I ended up finding nothing helpful.

But I would find something more than helpful.

I fell asleep onto the bed at last. It was too comfortable to pass up – my laptop would have to wait until the next day, when it would come with me to explore the ruins of Alleluia.

I packed my things and left the inn. Alleluia was calling me; I had a smile on my face and was spreading this cheer everywhere I went – although the receptionist was already unnaturally happy. The inn seemed too friendly, too nice. I continually got the impression that they were expecting me, although they could have expected me in the way that they may soon have expected Shane, Victor, and Kasten, who I assumed would be staying at the same inn that I was. A car had already been prepared for me. That was not suspicious – I’d called a service before falling asleep the night before. It only made my day better, knowing that the car company was alive and well – and not ill with Athan’s – enough to be prepared to drive me to my destination so early in the morning.

Alleluia, like the small town I stayed at, was along the banks of the Baltic Sea. It extended over a land with twin peninsulas, on each of which at a large structure. The shores of Alleluia, however, were not sandy, but rocky, as though to forbid all ghostly inhabitants from entering the ocean. From far away one could hear the crashing waves against the rock, signaling death to all who enter – the merciless tides would be afraid to crush any nearby swimmer against the rocky edge of the peninsula, surely ripping them apart.

The car approached the city, eventually entering through a small road that broke through a dark forest. The forest surrounded the entire city, isolating it from the rest of the world and providing it with shelter, oxygen, and some food. I’d heard further rumors about a girl, supposedly dead, who had been found in these woods surviving off of berries and such. Supposedly the first case of Athan’s ever recorded – even earlier than Dr. Doradwe’s case. I didn’t know how Doradwe had become sick. Thinking about it, I didn’t know, at that time, how any of my patients contracted the disease. I know how the bacteria had entered them, but I still didn’t know how it multiplied and grew, if it fed itself to its host. I only knew that it could multiply when given food; but what caused it to multiply in the first place? I would find out – soon enough.

The car left the city. I rolled open a window; a fresh scent entered the car. The air was incredibly clean. I wanted to move to these ruins, live in them forever. I saw, from the distant road on the outskirts of Alleluia, two towering structures on the twin peninsulas I’d read about. The peninsulas were small; large enough to hold only the towers built upon them. One was a large lighthouse, painted white and red like any other lighthouse, although the paint was chipping dramatically. The door was ajar, but looked like it had been ajar for half a century. To the right of the lighthouse, on the rightmost peninsula, was an equally sized stone tower. The stone that made up the, though it once may have been gray, was now black. The tower itself was nearly destroyed and collapsed. There were holes on all its sides; half of the back of the structure looked like it was missing, or had fallen over due to the lack of stability provided by the roles, which seemed to be dug. A green moss covered the black stone; plants had taken root on the tower and spread all around it.

Those were the only two intact objects in the city. Everything else was leveled. Homes barely stood; most were decimated and could not be seen or heard of again, except through word of mouth. Thus the architectural style of Alleluia was lost, except for the lighthouse and the tower.

The car stopped. “You may leave now,” said the driver, and took his payment before I left. He said he would be back later in the night, at ten o’clock, which was how long I’d told him to give me. If I needed more time, I could always come back the next day – at least, that’s what I thought. Unfortunately, I was wrong. That was the only day I would spend in Alleluia, and the last day.

Once out of the car I began to walk around, to learn my surroundings. There were, as stated, no homes, so I could not search the ancient remains of a people long gone. I found it strange that for a town only seventy or so years ruined it was so completely destroyed. There was nothing left, as if a town-sized bulldozer had demolished everything but the two towering structures at the opposite end of town. On top of that, it was incredibly small – smaller than I thought. I would be able to traverse all of Alleluia in less than a day. This was slightly disappointing, but only because I did not yet know everything that Alleluia had to share with me. It had much to share; I just couldn’t see it yet.

Alleluia, firstly, was completely grass-covered and, from a biological standpoint, looked as though it were finally beginning anew. Plants shot up everywhere – where homes once stood were moss-covered stones and rubble. The rubble had been blown around quite a bit; I suspected another few decades would pass before there would no more rubble, just grass. I saw the ruins of a wooden schoolhouse – it was garbled, as though a construction agency had haphazardly added to it to account for what was probably a growing population at the time, when the city was prospering. A few buildings that were large and partially made of stone still stood, but buildings made of wood, like the school, were either falling apart or gone. I could tell that the rotting building was a school because the desks within were far more sturdy than the building itself. Made of metal and plastic, the desks inside the school had withstood the years. They sat, empty, possibly filled with the ghosts of Alleluia’s forever-students, still waiting to be taught their final lesson.

A blackboard was also intact in the school. I walked up to it, and ran my finger over the dust and rubble, clearing some of it away. I knelt down. Scratched onto the blackboard, although it was broken cleanly in fifths, were the words “Death to death! Dust does not always return to dust.”

Away from the school were several districts. I could see how the housing was split up – into blocks, possibly to prevent fire, though from several charred woodchips I could see that this system had failed. And, of course, there were the two stone structures beyond that – the lighthouse and the black tower. The roads leading to them, and through the rest of town, had long since been covered in moss and grass. The rubble from the roads was scattered throughout, making walking painful as one stepped over large chunks of asphalt broken up by plant roots.

As I approached the black tower – the most interesting looking building – I noticed just how large it truly was. It was monstrously gigantic structure that towered hundreds of feet above the ground, packed with holes large enough to fit two people between. The structure had a door, but it had been ripped off. Fortunately, the name of the structure was mildly intact. Engraved on the horribly rusted steel door were two words: “Prayer Tower.” The letters were large and foreboding, but curiously thin, with simple, easily understandable font. They were disappearing as the door conjured its own bumps and curves, similar to the strange key I had been given at the inn back at the nearby town. I chuckled at the name “Prayer Tower” – was it some sort of pun, because the town was named Alleluia? Surely the inspiration must have come from there. I decided that this town must have had been a very religious abode; Alleluia would have implied a very strong congregation of Christians. But there was no proof that anybody who once lived here was religious. I could see no church. If there had once been one, it was long gone now – there wasn’t even a trace of a cross anywhere to be found. I spent a good amount of time searching for it after deciding that Alleluia was a Christian town. But, even after an hour searching, I found nothing. Perhaps the name was simply coincidence.

There were no synagogues, either. No mosques. No religious buildings of any sort. Did these people not worship anything? Had they no God? I couldn’t imagine a town completely made up of Atheists – at least not seventy years ago. Perhaps now, but not seventy years ago. Back then, things were far too conservative; the world was fueled by religion. Now it is fueled by anarchy. It was fueled by anarchy even before Athan’s Disease spread around the Earth – only afterwards it was even more so. I wondered if the governments of any nations were taking positive action to suppress the genocide of the ill taking place even while I roamed Alleluia, safer than most human beings on Earth. I also wondered if those same governments, instead of taking positive action, were participating – secretly or openly, in any form – in the genocide. Perhaps some had even been absorbed by it, and destroyed in the turmoil.

The lighthouse was the only other structure completely intact. I approached it, after a long walk – it looked like there had once been a bridge from Prayer Tower peninsula to the lighthouse peninsula, but it was now at the bottom of the sea, as was everything else that had ever been suspended above the water in Alleluia. I saw various ship wreckages – it looked like Alleluia had once been a large port as well. But the lighthouse was more than just a lighthouse – from afar it was a symbol of light against the darkness of Prayer Tower. They were so juxtaposed it was difficult not to notice the contrast between the two equally sized towers. I noticed something behind the lighthouse as I examined it – a children’s playground, it looked like, though like the steel door of Prayer Tower all of the metal had long since rusted away. I refrained from touching anything; I didn’t want to break it, although I knew it would most likely break on its own soon.

From the lighthouse one could see all of Alleluia, stretched out along the rolling hills, stopping at the dense forest in the distance. It truly was the picture of perfection – of what paradise could have looked like, if it hadn’t been destroyed so far before its time. I walked around the lighthouse several times; I scraped some of the paint off with my fingernails. It was dirty underneath; bacteria had grown beneath the paint. It came off easily. My nails filled with grime; I wiped it off on the pristine grass that took root in the dirty soil. When I reached the front of the lighthouse, the door stood perpendicular to my gaze. It was metal, but painted red; unlike Prayer Tower’s door, it had not rusted. Stainless, I thought. I congratulated the people of Alleluia for doing one thing right with this door.

But when I walked around to the other side of the door – the side that faced the open room within – I saw a far graver message written on this door than on Prayer Tower’s.

“I came here to live, but lived too much. R.I.P. Alleluia, 1875-2007.”

And a second message on the door below that:

“We are not sorry. Hallelujah!”

The people of Alleluia were obviously smart to sustain their message through time with a stainless steel door. But there was something far greater within the lighthouse that I’d not noticed before. Inside, on the very first floor, out in plain sight, was a well-furnished circular room. It was strikingly similar to the inn I’d been staying at. I walked inside; explored everything related to the lighthouse. There didn’t seem to be a way to go up to the top; presumably it didn’t work either way. The inside of the lighthouse, however, looked well kept and fairly new. Was the inn expanding? Obviously not into the ruins – there was some other explanation that went beyond a simple small business. I searched deep inside my memory. Something about the inn had seemed familiar as well; what was familiar about it?

The circular rooms. They were all reminiscent of Dr. Doradwe’s city home, where I had feasted with him and his cronies. But it wasn’t possible – could this lighthouse be occupied by Doradwe’s secret organization? It made sense. Doradwe wouldn’t want me knowing about it – and neither would his associate, Dr. Afalsi. They would try to shoo me away from the village so that I wouldn’t know they had overtaken one of the oldest cities related to Athan’s Disease, discovered all of its secrets, uprooted every bit of information they could gather.

There was nothing left in Alleluia for me to gain. Dr. Doradwe, I could plainly see, had taken it for himself a long time ago.

But I had made this connection far too late. Footsteps. I heard footsteps behind me – where were they coming from? I exited the lighthouse. There were no tourists in Alleluia. The city was abandoned – nobody was here! Why, then, did I constantly hear footsteps? Why did I next hear the rattling of metal? And then the cries of those who I knew? I could hear their voices – but the metal? What was the rattling, chain-like sound?

They were chains.

From behind the lighthouse, a figure followed the perfect circle. He approached me, at first in shadow, and then in light. Nobody but Dr. Doradwe. He had guests with him, it seemed. It looked like all three men had replied to his invitation to Alleluia. All three had come, and all three had stayed in the inn, which I now knew was owned by Dr. Doradwe’s secret organization. I had been watched the entire time. I had been expected. Why was I so stupid as to think I could get away with going against the will of Dr. Afalsi and Dr. Doradwe? I knew then – I should not have run away to Alleluia. I should not have contemplated going back to the USA. They would have found me. They would have found me anywhere I went, and done to me and those connected to me what they were now about to do.

“I see we have a visitor today. Four, in fact,” said Doradwe, smiling at me. “How are you, Ethan? I hope you’re well. I was told that I could find you here. I wanted to talk to you. Not a big talk, just a little one. I’m just wondering why you’re here, is all. Nobody told you to go here; certainly the people who hired you did not.”

“I wouldn’t go anywhere Pharand told me to go anymore; they’re frauds. They switched the antibiotics, and cheated thousands – no, millions of people out of their own lives. Don’t tell me that you think I have no right to go anywhere in the world that I want, especially here.” I looked at him sternly, but for some reason my eyebrow rose. I couldn’t control it; it was like a natural reflex. I tried as hard as possible to put that terribly inquisitive face away, but it just wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, I’m not saying anything about your rights. You are fully able to go wherever you please. But when you make deals with me, you listen to me. So, here I am – and I’m telling you to leave, or you’re fired.”

Something was obviously here that was far bigger than Athan’s Disease. I couldn’t let him keep that from me. “I think I’ll take my chances and stick around,” I told him. “Besides, I don’t like the city. I’d rather not go to another one and play Mr. Missionary. If you don’t mind, of course.”

Doradwe stepped closer; I backed up, but hit the door, which flushed with the opening after I pushed it back slightly. “I pity you, Ethan. There are several reasons why. Let me show you the first reason.” He tugged on a metal chain. The rattling ensued and the first voice I’d heard appeared in tangible form. It was Shane Evans.

“Hemmings, don’t listen to a damn thing this ma—” Doradwe slapped him.

“Shut up, you!” said Doradwe, who then turned to me. “Reason number one – this man. Shane Evans, your first Athan’s patient. I know him quite well, actually. But enough of that. There are two more reasons why I pity you.” He tugged on the chains again – bound at the wrists were Victor and Kasten, both who had accepted the invitation, as Shane had, to come to Alleluia. “These were your second and third patients, yes? I believe only the fourth is missing, but I know where he is. He’s a good man, Mr. Seaton. But these three are passive. They’re the result of a doctor like you. They look at themselves without seeing what I see and what Mr. Seaton can now see – an evolved human being. I can tell that you don’t see it, either! No matter. By the end of the day you will see it,” he turned around and faced his three hostages, all bound at the wrists, connected to one another, “and the rest of you will as well! And by the way, Ethan,” he said, “there won’t be any dinner, this time.”

“Why in God’s name are they all in chains?”

“It begs the question.”

“Then answer it.”

“There is no answer. Rather, you’ll find everything you need to know in the travels you have taken. I have sent you all around the world – do you know why? It is not important why. All that matters is that you have done what needs to be done. Whether you are there or not now doesn’t matter. You’re just being kept busy at this point, doing any menial task Pharand can assign to you until the entire world in engulfed by Athan’s Disease. We had plans to keep you running in circles, but I suppose that wasn’t working out as well as we’d hoped. The world is in many shambles now, isn’t it? What a pity; a pity just like you.”

In the background Shane, Victor, and Kasten were screaming, shaking their heads, signing for me to run away. But I could not run away – I would just be more of a pity if I did. There was nothing scary about Doradwe but his words and his chains, and at the moment he had no chains for me and no words of merit to smite me at my position against the door. Doradwe flicked his hand at them, as though they were flies, constantly buzzing around his head. He kept waving his hand, signaling for them to quit talking – but they wouldn’t stop.

“I’m no pity,” I told him. “I’m still here, still talking to a bloke like you. Why are you really here?”

“There is good reason for that. I don’t just follow people, Ethan, without purpose. There is always purpose – just as the beggars in Ushuaia beg for purpose. When they beg for purpose, they beg for death. That is their only purpose in life now: To die. Likewise, I have a greater purpose. It is to enlighten people, and show them their true potential as human beings. For a select few, this is through Athan’s Disease. But now the world has it. I did not select them.”

“So you kill them?”

“I haven’t killed anyone. They’re killing each other. What a wonderful combination make fear and guns!”

“A good gun isn’t shaped like a capsule.”

“Too true,” said Doradwe. “But I believe I have not yet enlightened you. Allow me to introduce the substitute for a gun – and Shane Evan’s best friend, might I add.” He reached into one of his pockets, keeping hold on the chain that tied Shane, Victor and Kasten to each other, and pulled out a tiny red spray can about the size of a mint mouth spritzer. I got the feeling that it wasn’t mind – or even cherry – that was inside the spritzer.

“The mist!” Shane Evans yelled. “Oh God, that was what it was? Doradwe, you did this? I’ll have you dead!” Shane began kicking and thrashing, trying to break free of the chains so that he could grab hold of Doradwe, but the chains were too strong for him. Shane may have had an extended life, but his strength was still that of a normal human being. He was not able to stop Doradwe from pushing the button, releasing a strange pink gas into the air that immediately made me feel drowsy and weak. I had inhaled the pink gas. Even if I hadn’t inhaled it, it was seeping into me, entering my body through my pores and any manner of opening it could find. Within seconds I felt like something was about to burst within me, but it was not painful. It was merely tiring. I felt locked up. I fell to the ground.

Everything after that disappeared from my memory. I remember Shane Evans and Victor and Michael Kasten shouting, “Oh God! Oh God! Stop; what are you doing to him?” They felt not a thing. They inhaled the gas freely. Why was I the only man affected by the strange spritzer? I was unconscious before I could deduce the reason.

I awoke in a circular room, alone. I had not been awake for five minutes before I heard footsteps coming closer. Presuming they were Doradwe’s, I straightened myself up and prepared for whatever he would bring to me next. I felt weak, but I also felt strong – it was a sensation unknown to me. What had happened? How long had I been unconscious for? I could barely stand up. At least, it had felt that way. I didn’t realize that I was standing up perfectly as I thought it. The door opened. Click.

Indeed it was Doradwe. He strolled up to me. “That was a fun few hours, but I think it’s time I went beyond looking at you through a camera. I’m sure you’re wondering what I did to you. It’s quite simple. Imagine that the entire world is filled with Athan’s bacteria. Then imagine that, with the flip of a switch, you could cause those bacteria to attack a man and infect him.”

Impossible, I thought.

“It is not impossible, but the reality. Granted, I cannot use the gas on just anybody. They have to be a carrier – bacteria don’t just fly to the gas in the air. You see, Ethan, I didn’t know whether or not you were a carrier, but my team’s research says that approximately ninety-five percent of all humans carry, at some point in their lives, Athan’s Disease. Usually it’s just on the surface of their skin, which is good for this gas – it’s the easiest place for it to get to.”

“What do you mean; why is the gas important at all?” I asked, wobbling in my stance, then falling to me knees before him due to lack of strength. Strength came and went, came and went. Eventually I didn’t bother standing up anymore. It was easier to remain on the ground.

“Within this gas is a special hormone that, when fed to Athan’s cells, cause them to rapidly multiple and engage their host. Think of it as an activation hormone. But it only works if it can find Athan’s bacteria not yet activated – such as on a carrier. The hormone will find those latent bacteria and activate them. The gas did nothing to harm you; it hardly did anything. What it did affect, however, were all of the Athan’s bacteria inside of you. You’ve had them with you since the beginning. I’ll bet they’ve even been flying around people you’ve met, causing them to die. Or perhaps you became a carrier later in life. Could this have caused it?” He reached into his pocket – just how many objects were in there for him to pull out? – and lifted out a plastic bag containing a broken microscope slide. The one that had been mysteriously placed in my back pocket. “Ethan Hemmings, you have been, at long last, consumed by Athan’s Disease. How does it feel?”

I looked up, straight into his eyes; my face jumped back to its strange inquisitive position with the raised eyebrow. “Why did you do it? Explain to me. Also, tell me where we are. In fact, tell me where we are first.”

“We are in one of my own structures – a network of buildings and small rooms located underneath the Alleluia lighthouse spanning from this point to the inn you rested in several miles away. As for your first question, I’m afraid I’ll have to say ‘no comment.’”

I was contemplating how we had gotten underneath the lighthouse. There had been no trap door inside, none that I could discernibly notice while I explored the room, at any rate. It must have been incredibly well-hidden. Thinking about the lighthouse made me recall Shane, Victor and Michael. They were nowhere to be seen – it was just Doradwe and me. “Where are they? Shane, Victor and Michael? What have you done with them?”

But Doradwe wasn’t listening. “I’ll take that back,” he said. “I do have a comment or two to make. There’s a very good reason for all of this. You might think that I’m using Athan’s against people for my own amusement, as though it were a toy of mine. But it is no toy. My story is a tragic one, one that you might find you already know. But I’ll spare you that for now. Athan’s Disease is far more than an amusement. Through my efforts I have turned it into a religion; one that far surpasses the clever yet quaint teachings of the Torah and the obsolete prose of the Bible. I am not God, for there is no God in this religion. There is only humankind, his friend, a life as long as you like it. We thank God not because he exists, but for allowing us to evolve into what we are now. It is incredible, what has become of those with Athan’s Disease. Should it not be exclusive? You’ve seen firsthand what damage it does to humanity. They are not prepared for a gift such as Athan’s Disease, as you or I are.”

“It’s no gift,” I said. “It’s a mockery of nature. You’ve taken Mother Nature and hit her square in the face. She despises you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But I know that you have seen it – the death and destruction. Humans can’t accept Athan’s Disease for the greatness that it is. That is why Alleluia is in ruins! It is all the same. Seventy years ago one person fell sick, and then another, and another. Soon, everybody but one sixth of the population was sick with Athan’s – though they had no name for it back then. But what did they do? The minority rose up and defeated the ill by terrorizing them, burning their homes and murdering their children. It was they who became the monstrosity, not the perpetually living population of Alleluia, need I remind you was the majority, five sixths of the village? By the end of it all there was not a soul left in all of Alleluia! This is what is becoming of the world. And I say good riddance! I’ll be here with my peers, until I die a slow death one thousand years from now.”

“Do you really think you’ll live so long?”

“I do not know – fifteen years and I’ve aged not five.” For the first time, I saw a hint of worry in his voice. He was embarrassed to say that he’d only aged five years in fifteen, that his growth rate had slowed so much. He was really my age, but so overcome with Athan’s that he’d forgotten what age he truly was, and would rather have thought himself immortal. He was far from it; I knew. But something had gotten into his head that exaggerated, and then exacerbated, what Athan’s Disease really was. It was an infection. And, like all infections, it must be purged to keep the body healthy.

“Fifteen years and not five! So I will keep this disease exclusive. You are special. You are very special to me, Ethan,” he said, clutching something in his back pocket. “I’m surprised you don’t know yet. All this time you have been looking straight at me, and you don’t yet know who I am! I’m liable to destroy something in this room out of frustration if you don’t recognize me soon. I’ve been trapped here for so long, Ethan. You could never imagine what it is like being here, being alive but never changing as the years pass. It is horrible, and I will tell you that it is always night time in my world! Athan’s Disease is a blessing, but because I have convinced myself of it.”

What was this man talking about? My eyebrow rose higher. Was Doradwe insane? I had never met the man – not so personally. “I recognize you,” I said. “You are Dr. Doradwe, the highly esteemed medical advisor and specialist…”

But he stopped me there. “Idiot!” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a pistol. I was now highly convinced that this man was insane. “You truly don’t know who I am? You can’t recognize the face of an old friend at all? Perhaps it was better that we parted ways, after all.”

I looked at his face; stared for a while. I could see nothing. I had a slight lead as to who he was, but I couldn’t recall for the life of me his identity, if he was indeed somebody other than Dr. Doradwe, the highly esteemed medical advisor and specialist. Noticing that I was too stressed to produce an answer of my own, he created the answer for me, mostly out of frustration.

“You are an imbecile – even goofier than I remember you. But I’ll tell you who I am, and then you will remember me. They thought that I was dead. But I was not dead! I was reckless, but never dead. Athan’s stole my humanity that day. After that fated crash, I lived on, but became an anomaly. I had to hide my wretched living state from my parents, and from everyone I knew. Athan’s had stolen it all from me. Colleges would not take me; they thought I played them, and told me I was too young to go to college! That damned disease took my life away, but not for long. I dedicated my life to discovering what had become of me, and why my body began behaving as it did, while simultaneously keeping my health and state a secret from public eye. I was forced to live for years not knowing why I hardly aged; for all those years I was afraid of myself. Would I ever age? Would I ever rejoin the circle of life and die? What monster was I? Under thus assumption I changed my name, and fled to elsewhere where I would never be found by those I knew or once knew. But now you are here, and you have found me – so rearrange the letters! Now! Here is a pencil,” and he pulled a pencil out of his pocket. “Take it, and write my name as you know it on the wood of the floor.”

I wrote:

TAMBEN DORADWE

“You’re a smart man,” he said, “following my instructions. Rearrange the letters. Do it for yourself. I will not be insulted by telling you my own name.”

But I already knew how to rearrange them. During his speech, it became clear who he was. I couldn’t believe it at first, but it made more than enough sense. After he’d died in the car crash, he’d somehow been infected with Athan’s bacteria. His parents, however, had never buried him. Lucky he was; he had a wake. When the corpse disappeared from the open casket, his parents told everybody that the body had been removed and buried. But that wasn’t what had really happened, I now knew. No, he had risen from his casket and ran away. Ran as far away as possible, scared to death – or to un-death. I rearranged the letters, just as my old friend asked, and displayed to him his own name directly below his assumed one:

TAMBEN DORADWE

NAMBET EDWARDO

“Good, good,” he said, applauding me. “I’m glad you remember. But now that you know, I’ll have to ask you to simply, well, take it back.” He took out of his pocket a bullet cartridge, and loaded it into his gun. Click, click.

My eyebrow rose higher than it ever had before, even higher than on the day I learned of Edward’s death. Now it was Edward Nambet, but back from the dead! And there was the clicking – the ultimate and final clicking that drove me absolutely mad. I screamed. As though I were possessed, I backed away from Edward and started rolling on the floor with utterly random movements, unsure of what was becoming of me. All I knew was that I had to escape the click, click, click – or else I would be dead for good. I couldn’t handle the clicking, the news that Doradwe was Edward, the small, circular room – it was all so imposed on me. I was driven to insanity for a moment.

But the click turned into a louder bang, and a pullet whizzed by me and landed on the floor nearby, piercing the wooden ground, and bringing me back to a normal mental state.

“Now that you’re back, I would like to— what’s this?”

Edward was about to say something, but was interrupted by stomping feet. Somebody was running towards us. The door burst open – “Ethan, inhale nothing in the air! I remember now; it was the gasses, all of his crazy gasses that caused everything! Everything at the hospital, and my own sickness too, it was him who spread the disease alone! I forced that out of a man in one of the rooms, and he—!”

That was Shane Evans who had burst through the door. And now he was Shane Evans – past tense. Edward, in reaction to his entrance, turned around and shot him several times to shut him up. Shane Evans fell to the ground, a mass of bloody stuff, while behind him Victor and Michael entered, stopping quite abruptly at the sight of Shane’s body, and then looking at the crazed Edward in the eye. “Bah,” said Edward, turning back to me. “That hospital was a mistake of mine. This man,” he said, pointing to Shane’s body, “was a mistake of mine. I blessed him, and now look what has become of him! Good riddance to that damned hospital of yours, Ethan. I am proud to have demolished it. Ethan, you are better off here, with me, than at any of those other grueling places.”

But he was wrong – so very wrong. I was not better off with him. I was better off where I had begun, working at the hospital that I now knew he was behind the demolishing of. He had let all of the people inside face a horrible and untimely death. If Athan’s Disease was unnatural, then his murder of all those people was only more unnatural! How could he live with himself? Perhaps, I thought, the same way he could live with the way he’d just murdered Shane – by completely ignoring it. By putting the murdered at fault. By pretending that those he killed had refused some special offer, and that it was an insult to his “religion” to refuse it. What could have possibly justified his despicable actions?

Unfortunately, I was not the one to turn these thoughts into action. Victor and Kasten attacked Edward before I could muster up the nerve to move. Smothered by their bodies, Edward fell to the ground. “Go!” shouted Victor. “Get yourself out of this place! Find an exit – we’ll catch up. There are dozens of rooms to choose from. One of them must lead outside!”

I nodded and promptly leaped over the pile of bodies blocking the doorway, which had thankfully remained ajar so that I could escape out of it. I was now faced with a long hallway – the room I’d been in had been at the very end of this long hallway, so I assumed I was at the end of one “node” in the network of rooms and pathways that made up Edward’s strange underground secret society. I ran as far down the path as I can, ignoring all features on the walls and in the rooms that were open – a silly mistake that would drive me around in circles. Although the path was straight, every room looked the same. Several lead around each other. I did not know that Victor and Kasten had gotten off of Edward, or rather had been completely shoved off of Edward.

So now everybody was running after one another and through the maze of similar circular rooms no less. It was only expected that I would find my way back to the very room I had began in during my panicked hunt for an exit. I knew it was the same room even though Victor, Kasten and Edward were gone. There was blood on the floor – blood from a body that had once been there. Blood from Shane Evans. To my surprise, Shane Evans was no longer in the room; but his bloodstain remained. On the other side of the room, Shane stood, looking at me. He didn’t remember how he got up, while rubbing his temples. He said he had a headache, but I told him it was more than that. I begged him to look at his chest, but the gunshot wounds were completely sealed.

“Shane, this is incredible!” I shouted – but too loudly. I was heard. Edward came running, followed by Victor and Kasten. “Shane, we have to get out of here. Follow me – we’re escaping. We can’t let crazed Edward get a hold of us. He’ll kill us all without thinking twice, just like he did to all those people in the hospital. Follow me now!”

“Sure thing,” Shane said, and rand after me through the network of circular rooms. We leaped over tables, and even over people working in the rooms, for there were still member’s of the society living and working in this network of rooms, disregarding all manners and methods of running form. Our goal was simple: To run as fast as possible, and as far as possible. But we were outsmarted. Edward knew his own system far too well for us to be able to escape without first getting through him. All doors led to Edward – we could not escape. He found us wherever we went, even with Victor and Kasten attempting to slow him down. Nothing could slow Edward down in his own habitat and home.

And then, something miraculous happened.

After ten or so minutes of running and panicking, all five of us were in the same room once more – although it was a far different room than where we had started. It could have been right next to the starting room, or a mile away. I couldn’t make heads or tails of this place – it was too confusing and I hadn’t the energy to comprehend any of it. But we had him cornered, if that is possible to do in a circular room. There we were, in the room – Shane Evans had taken Edward’s pistol and pointed it at him. Edward didn’t dare move now that we had him at gunpoint.

How did we get the gun? Victor and Kasten had tackled him again. I supposed that they’d played a good amount of football in their youth to be able to tackle in such a robust manner.

But that wasn’t important. We had him at gunpoint – he was helpless before all of us. The click of the gun was on our side now, and all it would take was a few bangs, and Edward would be out of the picture. Shane fired the shots without bothering to speak with Edward about anything. We all nodded in agreement before the action took place. One shot in his head. When he fell, one shot in his chest. To make sure, one final shot in his neck. And that would dispose of Edward – no longer would he come after us. We would escape his decrepit network of rooms and workers.

At least, we thought we would.

Not a minute later did Edward’s body begin to stir. He got up moments later, and laughed heartily. “That was exhilarating, but you know nothing about Athan’s Disease. Don’t you know? I am perpetual! I have re-spawned. I will spawn as many times as you shoot me. I am evolved beyond death.” He laughed, but we had thought ahead. Contemplating that shooting Edward would end the same way that shooting Shane had, we stole one other object from him, one that I thought would keep him dead for much, much longer.

The red spritzer.

I picked it up, and looked at Edward. “You said that this will activate any Athan’s bacteria and cause them to multiply incredibly fast. That sounds good to me.” I pointed the device at Edward’s face. He tried to run, and for the first time I believe I heard him whimper and scream for mercy, but I dispensed the gas too quickly. In moments he was collapsed on the ground, convulsing and gasping for air, but too late. I continued spraying the gas. The room filled with pink, and he inhaled his last breaths. Now I knew why the others had not been affected by the hormone. It order for the hormone to enter the body, it needed a decent amount of speed – or else it wouldn’t be able to push through the pores. Because Shane, Victor, Michael and Edward had all been standing behind the blast of hormone gas, it was not powerful enough to affect the victim (I assumed Edward had a different gas for use in the hospital that did not need to be pointed directly at the victim – perhaps this was colored a beautiful blue, but one could only speculate). Now that it was pointed at Edward, it was he who fell collapsed on the ground. The Athan’s bacteria multiplied rapidly inside him, returning him to a state he’d probably wished never to return to – the death-like sleep where one’s heart stops beating, and everyone around the person thinks that they are truly dead. He had not been in that state since his parents had put him on display after the car crash so long ago.

“He’ll wake up,” I said. Others nodded, but then there was total silence. “I don’t want him to,” I added. Others nodded, but then there was total silence. For the first time I was forced to examine the finer details of the walls in hopes that there would be something that could finalize the murder of Edward Nambet. Luckily, there was. I’d noticed them but never acknowledged their presence – two crossed swords, feudal in appearance, on every wall of every room. I took one and measured the sharpness of the blade. It was mildly dull, but shark enough to cut.

Without consulting anybody, I thrust the sword through Edward’s stomach with as much force as possible, and made sure that it dug deep into the wooden floor after going through his body. Even if he spawned from that, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. He was stapled to the floorboards by the blade of his own sword, completely responsible for his own demise – just as he should have been so many years ago.

With Edward out of the picture, it was up to the four of us to wander the halls in search of some form of an exit. Along the way, I found something that interested me more than anything else in the network of rooms and hallways. I’d missed it so – hanging in one of the rooms was a copy of the painting that had been missing from my life for so many weeks, the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. Tulp was still displaying his knowledge and skill to all of his students, who watched attentively at his demonstration. But now those people looked at me. The men in the painting judged me one final time, and deemed that I was finally a suitable man to own the painting. I took the copy off the wall and carried it with me.

It didn’t take as long to find the exit from there as we thought it would – we’d gotten a feel for the place by running around so much, and although we were fatigued beyond believe, and scared completely stiff and out of our minds, we managed to find the one room that supposedly led out to the lighthouse. This would have been entirely convenient if we hadn’t run into one more obstacle blocking our way. It was the one man who had failed to make an appearance thus far – number four of the First Four patients I had treated. The warehouse worker had been waiting for us, told by Edward to guard the exit and dispatch of us if we ever approached. It was Mr. Seaton’s moment to shine. I’d known he’d been following Edward, but I never knew just how devoutly. Edward’s followers and workers had been roaming the halls and rooms, but for the most part we were ignored – nobody else but Mr. Seaton saw us as a threat.

“Hello,” he said when we found the room – which we would probably not found anyway had he not been in it. Thinking I’d found one friendly face, I responded to his hello with a cheerful smile. But he pulled out two pistols, and begged me not to step any close. Pointed them at all of us, and said he would shoot us, and then burn us to death. “And once I’m done with all of you,” he said, “Tamben will be so proud of me that he’ll finally declare my initiation complete!” He laughed, reminiscent of Edward’s final gloating, haughty laugh. Then, instead of firing rounds from the pistols at us, he took out a solitary match.

Within moments the entire room was ablaze. He took matches, then lit them and threw them around like so many scraps of paper. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t possibly remember every detail – but with those two pistols he shot Shane, Victor, and Kasten, all multiple times. They each would have survived the blows, if they hadn’t fallen on their backs into the burning wooden floor. I couldn’t believe it – I broke down and cried, shuffled on my knees over to the burning corpses of the three men who had enabled me to travel all over the world, and nearly escape from this mad house created by a man who I had once called a friend. And I took from Shane’s burning body the gun we had used to take down Edwardo Nambet.

It was hot, but not too hot for me to hold. Clutching the gun, I listened to Seaton’s twisted soliloquy of adoration for Edward. “Now it’s complete… now I’m accepted. Do you know, Dr. Hemmings, what I ‘ad to go through to get i’to this society? I ‘ad to die. I killed myself – I let Doradwe infect me with Athan’s Disease. What a coincidence that you found me on the ware’ouse floor! That should have been the end of my ‘nitiation, but Dr. Doradwe wouldn’t stand just letting me die! He had me run endless errands – for you, no less! But now the final errand is done. Why’re you staring at me? Stop lookin’ at me like that.”

I wouldn’t stop looking at him. He was despicable – not as bad as Edward, but a follower in his footsteps, and that made him almost as convoluted. I clenched the gun and, without mercy, fired as many shots as I could at him, wherever the bullets would hit, until there was nothing left in the gun. What an ass! He had tricked me into thinking he was a patient, when in reality he’d been following Edward all along. Once he fell to the floor, I shoved his body into the roaring flames that had also consumed the bodies of my friends and allies so that he would never spawn, just as they would now never spawn. He now, too, would join them, but not in heaven. His initiation had, indeed, been complete. But it was not to any place he’d hoped to initiate himself into.

There was a ladder nearby that led to a trapdoor in the roofing. I grabbed The Anatomy painting, put the wire around my shoulder, and climbed the ladder. It was burning hot, but a few burns were nothing compared to dying in that burning room. I wondered what would become of the rest of the network of rooms. They had all been made of wood. I realized, however, that they were actually made of a tough metal, lined with wood for cosmetic effect. The fire wouldn’t be spreading into any other room – not since I had shut the door behind me. It also wouldn’t rise into the lighthouse, which was protected by a layer of metal below and another layer of stone above. I came out into the lighthouse room that I had stood in before Edward’s twisted visit. I stepped out of the room, and looked at the sky. Where there had once been light, there was now only darkness.

I looked at Prayer Tower in the distance, and decided to give it one last visit. Whether it was to pray for the loss of those three wonderful allies or to discover the truth of what had happened in Alleluia didn’t matter. But I did discover the truth about what had happened in Alleluia. At first, I only noticed the patches of bones inside the tower after crawling through one of the holes. There were bones everywhere – the flesh had long since dissolved into the Earth. A spiral staircase made of metal had survived through the years. As I walked up the staircase, I saw in those holes in the wall more corpses and bones. What had happened here?

I pictured the grotesque image: In rage and frustration, the healthy people of Alleluia had built this giant quarantine chamber, where the sickly would be locked away and stared to death. Prayer Tower had nothing to do with the city being named Alleluia. If one was to survive in the Tower, one would have to pray. I collapsed on the staircase and cried without knowing how long I cried for. I did not know, however, that I had the tears left in me to cry for so long after witnessing the cremation of my good friends. But the tears were still left, and they rolled down my cheeks and flooded the rotting Tower below. I turned around while crying, and laid down on my back, on the staircase. I saw the skulls and bones go up endlessly, climbing their way into heaven as the Tower rose higher and higher. I felt sorry for those old bones – but sorrier for the new bones that were now appearing around the world, and I wished that the world would not act the way it was. I wished that Alleluia wouldn’t repeat itself, but I knew history had a terrible habit of repeating itself. The fate of Alleluia, for the world, was unavoidable.

I left the Tower by climbing out once again through one of the holes. I landed on something crisp and crinkly; a piece of paper. I picked it up.

It was a journal. A prisoner’s journal. I flipped to the end – the prisoner had survived, and escaped. But who was the prisoner? Never once did he mention his name. I scanned the document, looking for a name, but found nothing. To this day I still sometimes scan the document, and though I have read it many, many times over, I cannot find any trace of a name for this former prisoner.

Clutching the painting and the manuscript, I left the town and waited on the edge of the forest for my car to arrive. I looked beaten and fatigued, and could not believe that it was still the same day that I had come to Alleluia. But lo and behold, my car came – it was ten o’clock in the evening, exactly when I had scheduled the man to pick me up. I climbed into the car. “I’m glad you found something you liked here,” he said as he drove me back to the inn. I decided that I wouldn’t stay in that inn that night.

However, when we arrived the inn was gone – all traces of it were removed, and with it my luggage and belongings. I did not know where they had gone to, but as I looked at the new copy of the painting, I didn’t care. I told the car driver to stop and let me out to search the small town for any sign of the inn. The town itself had been abandoned. To this day I hold the theory that it was entirely inhabited by members of Edward’s secret society, which dissolved once word of his timely death spread. I told the car driver to wait for me while I explored the town and looked for a place to stay the night. I hadn’t any money to fly back the USA. I would remain in Sweden until I had enough money.

I spent that night alone, watching the dark sky, grasping the prisoner’s journal, the painting, and thinking of Shane, Victor, Kasten, Seaton and Edward. I grasped the full extent of my loneliness that night. I am still alone, even now, no matter where I go. But I don’t mind. I’ve been alone my entire life, and it’s no different now that the world is collapsing upon itself. In fact, it seems only fitting that I should be so alone. There’s much less to lose that way.

Without supervision, I assumed Pharand would simply continue to mass-produce Malogon until the world had satisfied its need for the drug. Nobody would ever taste the sweetness of my cure; they didn’t deserve it. Instead, humanity would be left alone to spiral into oblivion, until it could formulate a cure of its own. But I don’t mind that, either. It’s perfectly fine for humanity. At least half of it has nearly an eternity to find a cure it likes. It might even stick with Malogon forever.

Humanity is stubborn. That night, after learning my true loneliness’s extent, I also knew how assimilated I had become into the stubborn new humanity inhabiting the world. I am assimilated, and blessed for that, for I no longer have to deal with Athan’s Disease. I can be stubborn and deal with it as I wish, as the rest of humanity does. I am simple, alone, and isolated until my death. But like I’ve said, I don’t mind. I’ve got nearly an eternity waiting for me.