I lean back in my chair. At least he answered most of my questions. “And you want me to unleash these monstersinto the world? Why the fuck would I want to do that? I’ve read Revelation, and torturing all of humanity who aren’t ‘sealed with the mark of God’ for five months seems abitextreme.”
“Well,” he rubs the side of his neck. “It’s like the story of Pandora’s box. The locusts bring about great misery, yes, but also hope. They will help fight off the evil that will try to take control of your planet,therefore protecting the innocent, good, and righteous.”
So itisa battle of good and evil. I guess I wasn’t too far off.
“But Judgment Day,” Malak cautiously continues, “is not going to be pleasant. The worst of humanity will be controlling Earth, all self-serving and wicked, fighting each other and committing unspeakable atrocities.Thatis why we have to open the Abyss at exactly the right time. We can’t do it too soon, as the presence of locusts will certainly send the planet into even further turmoil. But also not too late, because that would leave the remaining good and righteous people unprotected. You said you’ve read the Book of Revelation. You know what happens.”
“And what if I just… refuse? Do I have a choice here?”
He hesitates a moment, his face flattening. “Well. Essentially,youcan refuse, but thestarwon’t. It might leave you alone until the day you die, and it might not. We assume it would find someone else once you’re dead, and maybe that person would have actually been the prophesied one all along, but we can’t say for certain. Again, it’s not exactly something that’s been done before. I can’t fathom why the key is meant to be given to a singular human, but here we are.”
I level him a look. “Can’t you just ask God?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why? Are you guys on bad terms or something?” A thought enters my head that makes me want to slap myself for not seriously considering it sooner. “Wait. Malak, are youactuallyLucifer? The literal devil? I swear, if you don’t answer me honestly?—”
He snorts a laugh, interrupting me. “You’re hilarious. No, I’m not. And it doesn’t work that way because we make it a hard point to never take anything directly to God. Not unless it’s absolutely dire. It’s one thing when humans pray to Him, but something else entirely if angels need to talk to Him. It’s our equivalent of ‘going nuclear’ to beg for His interference in worldly matters.”
“Great. Lovely. Because the apocalypse isn’t on that level? What about the rest of Revelations?” I pause, recalling everything I’ve read, dreamed, and experienced in disgustingly vivid detail. “The stuff with the horses, horns, seals, and so on—all that hasn’t happened yet,has it?”
“No, not yet. But as I said, a chain of events has been set in motion.” He sits up abruptly, looking at me across the room with sudden, unusual seriousness. “There’s no distinct timeline to this, Dawn, and there’s no way I can get you one. We could have years, or we could have weeks. Don’t you want to be prepared for when the time comes, whenever that may be?”
A dark, unsettling feeling buries deep within my stomach, threatening to turn me physically ill. To placate it, I turn away from his uncanny, glowing eyes, picking a blank space on the wall to stare at.
“So, worst case scenario…” My mind tumbles through everything I’ve dreamed, how horrifying the end of the world could be. Honestly, I’d rather be dead than suffer through those nightmares in real life, but it’s not only me I have to worry about. Jackie and my dad would still be here, and leaving them behind when there’s even the slightest chance I could spare them from suffering—I can’t—I can’t even bear to think about it.
“Worst case scenario,” Malak says softly, “you should start packing now.”
It’s as if everything he’s been trying to tell me is banging on the doors of my acceptance, but my inner voice keeps rioting against it, knowing exactly what’s behind those doors. ‘No!’it screams. ‘You don’t want to be part of this! Barricade the doors and run far, far away!’
But like a battle lost before it began, running from this is futile. I know, so innately—so deeply inside me, I believe I could have been born with it—that there’s nowhere on Earth I can go to escape this fate. All things, even the very world we live in, must come to an end. More often than not, endings are the only thing we can truly control.
And the thought of everyone I know and love, suffering through such misery… It physically hurts my heart. My chest pains me so much, I can feel every splintered beat of the broken heart inside me.
But I can endure this pain for my people.
If it meant I could spare them even an ounce of such massive suffering, I would sign my own life away. I’d sell my soul to the devil. I might be doing just that, but at least I’m the one signing my name in his black book.
Malak’s eyes soften, as if he can read every dire emotion overflowing from the pool I’ve been dipped in. “I know this burden of responsibility isn’t what anyone wants in their life. But if it’s any consolation, it’s also a blessing to receive the power to make a difference in a monumental way. You’ll have plenty of time to process how you feel about it all, so focus on this: The only people the locust army will target are the self-serving evil, rather than the altruistic good. There will be no neutral ground left. Everyone will be forced to pick a side.” He slowly stands up and walks over to me, touching my shoulder lightly as I stare at the ground in concentration. It’s taking everything in me not to burst into an ugly cry. “You can have the power to help people, Dawn. More than you can even imagine.”
I do want to help people. Helping as many people as possible isexactlywhat I want. It’s just a goddamn trolley problem!
By committing myself to fighting for Malak’s side, I’m picking whose suffering I want to be responsible for. Even if it’s the side of good intentions, I’ll become directly responsible for someone’s suffering—I’ll be pulling the lever to the trolley. But on the contrary, if I blind myself to the opportunity I have, refusing to take action against the greater evil, then I’m still indirectly responsible for someone’s pain and misery. Someone innocent.
I shouldn’t be in the position to make these kinds of choices in the first place. I feel extremely small and insignificant, like a tiny grain of salt in the great ocean of all existence. A whisper slips out of me on its own accord, “I’m just a girl.”
“No, Kae.” The angel smiles softly down at me. “You have no idea how exceptional you are.”
Exceptional.There’s that word again. It teases me, tempting me with a promise of something greater than my mundane existence.
But at what cost? Everything I have to give?
Tears threaten to throw themselves from my watery eyes when I look up at him. “And you’re saying I have to go somewhere far away to do this? Indefinitely?”
Malak is silent in his answer, looking at me with a pitying expression.I feel it in my chest, heavy and crushing. Against my will, grief crawls inside me, taking root in the place of the darkness that once haunted my dreams.
How do you mourn the death of someone you haven’t lost yet? It hurts in a dull, sickening way, like a slow poison without an antidote. My fate was sealed the moment it entered my life, but I still have to wait for the agonizing end.
