Apocalypse: The Savior with System

27 The Balance of the Gods

Paul could not sleep.

Oh, well, it’s not the first time this happened to him. Often in the past, he had trouble closing his eyes and his mind even when his body felt as drained of energy as a raisin yet heavy as a fully-soaked sponge. Those times he didn’t think he could take in more of anything, especially not his mind.

But remembering…does it also mean taking in?

Now in the dead of night, with Rahu snoring loudly, Eric curled up on the living room sofa, and Judith ensconced in the bedroom, Paul just stared up at the starlit sky through the solar window, the moon out of frame but still gave enough light to be present.

What was it again about remembering?

He remembered all too vividly what it felt like before the viral pandemic happened. What his favorite food tasted like. What chamomile tea smelled like. What the sound of his wife’s voice sounded like whenever she warbled an old Hindu lullaby her grandmother used to sing to her.

And then he remembered what it felt like after.

When food tasted like the ash blown from the furnaces. And flower tea could not mask the stench of rotting flesh surrounding the city and trapped within the bowels of the research facility. There will no longer be lullabies in a language older than Jesus. No Amita and no babe.

The recollection of desperation set in, urging Paul to rise from his mattress and silently hurry to the kitchen to get something to drink. In the months after his wife and child died, he had not wanted for alcohol. For some reason, the drink was always readily available within the compound for sufferers. Later he found out it was also part of an experiment, a way to see if imbibing enough nontoxic concentrations of ethanol slowed down disease progression. It did nothing to the virus but it did help the suffering. Too much of it killed them before they could turn into the flesh-eating monstrosities they would inevitably become themselves.

And when the scientists discovered this, they took away the alcohol; much to Paul’s remembered frustration, as he opened the fridge and found only bottled water. With a grunt not unlike Rahu’s preferred mode of communication, Paul grabbed one bottle and downed its contents in one gulp.

The water was cold, almost sweet. It was like the water he drank minutes before he and his men set out to destroy a small group of zombies terrorizing a town north of Pakistan. The town was defenseless, quite the usual provincial region where goats numbered more than people and ground cumin was an ever-present cloud hovering above the populace. Eric had handed him the bottle back in HQ. Paul wondered if Eric’s stilted conversation during the ride north when he was usually so talkative had already been a sign then.

As if Paul had summoned the devil himself, Eric materialized behind the open fridge door, half of his face swollen from lying down on that side for a long time. It made Eric look younger than his years. Paul’s reflection on the stainless steel door on the other hand was warped and made him look on the worse side of older.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” Paul apologized, throwing his empty water bottle into a trash bin. “Still can’t sleep with the light on?”

“I thought I wanted to pee,” Eric mumbled sleepily. Paul’s eyes went to the front of Eric’s pants—two sizes larger because they were loaned by Rahu—and they were thankfully dry.

Eric followed where his gaze went and chuckled. “I managed to hold it in until I got to the toilet. I’m not five, asshole.”

“You still wet your bed in kindergarten?”

Eric flipped him the finger and strode back to the sofa. However, he stopped and turned back to Paul. “My eyelids swell and so does the rest of my body during sleep—“ He grinned down his pants then at Paul, who gave him back the finger this time. “—but my mind’s awake enough for a talk between old friends.”

Paul did not want to take away Eric’s rest but a part of him felt like he needed to talk to someone at the moment. Or at least hear about something different than the thoughts and experiences marked in his head. Paul walked over to the living room and sat across from Eric.

“How have you been, Paul?” asked Eric. ‘And don’t give me some s**t about how you’re fine. You didn’t look fine when you were rejected in the safe zone. You look better now but not fine, no.”

Paul rolled his eyes at Eric’s “mothering”. How could he have forgotten what the other soldiers in their squad teased Eric about all the time? Of course, he wasn’t fine. Not for three years.

“I’m surviving,” he replied.

Eric nodded to himself. “I guess that counts as something good. I’ve always wondered what happened after everything.”

Paul sighed inwardly. So much for not talking about the past.

But maybe Eric needed to talk, too. Probably more than he did.

“People lose precious things every day even without them realizing it,” he said, a corner of his mouth lifting ruefully. “I just think of it as par for the course. Some get taken away, and some are given, too.” Images of his wife, child, Judith, Rahu, and the doomed occupants of the train appeared in his mind.

“What? A balance of the gods, you mean?” Eric scoffed, plumping up his pillow. “They must have gotten tired of a billion prayers daily. So they tried answering them wholesale with a virus.”

Paul couldn’t blame Eric for his words. The virus has destroyed so many lives and raised every manner of evil in humanity. It was not unusual to let go of faith and hope.

It was heartbreaking to watch it happen, though.

“Eric?”

Eric stifled a yawn unsuccessfully. Though Eric offered to listen and talk, Paul saw that his friend was more exhausted than he looked. They can talk about the past some other time.

“Yeah?”

“Where do you go after we’ve helped Judith?”

Eric yawned again, openly this time, and lay down on the couch, eyes closed. Paul thought he just fell quickly asleep and stood.

“I don’t know where I’m going, Paul,” Eric suddenly spoke. “Suggest anything?”

He could tell Eric to find another safe zone and get re-tested. Or find a job in a town with zero statistics for the virus. Or get out of America. Or serve in government, become a lobbyist or some legal clerk. But all those futures seemed like a betrayal of Eric. His friend deserved better, even with this pandemic going on. Especially because.

You can stay with me.

In another time, voicing that out loud would have resulted in jeering and teasing, not to mention Eric going a sick shade of red. When they were all younger, healthier, and without any idea of what their futures held and what the world was going to be like.

If you knew what the most precious things in life are, you would do well to hold on to them, his mother told him a lifetime ago. Those you cannot possess now own but they are yours. And will want to be yours.

Family.

Friend.

“You can stay with me, man,” Paul said.

Eric opened one eye and peered up at Paul. “You sure? My other friends…”

“They’re welcome to stay or leave if they want to,” explained Paul. “But it’s not going to safe or easy.”

Eric sighed. After a long pause, he blurted, “Okay, man. Don’t forget to turn off the light.” And promptly turned over to finally sleep.

And just like that, Paul was dismissed and the discussion was over. Paul bit back a laugh and went to the light switch, flicking it down and plunging the house in darkness.

From where he stood in the living room, Paul glimpsed the full moon. It was round and bright. While the earth changed, the sky was still the same. And with that came more remembering.

The moon is a goddess, a woman’s voice sang in the head.

Oh, Chandra of the Night!

Would you let me drink from your cup

Of memory and sky?

Laugh not at my fall

Let us drink, instead

No tusks hurled at your head.

Make flesh immortal and blood flow.

I drink from your cup

And all shall be well.