I Am Become Death...

Disclaimer: This chapter of "Prime" purposely discusses Christian theological ideas, and is, in no way, intended to question or influence the beliefs of the reader. It is meant to be a mechanism to advance the story's narrative.

Author's Note: Within this chapter, the main character, Claire, reads a book of poetry. The poem that she reads in the book is not a poem written by me. Instead, it is written by a fellow Vocal author, Mike Singleton. The poem, "And I Love You So", is used with his express permission. His creativity deserves the honor of recognition. Thank you, Mike!

The dream had changed. The maelstrom remained, though it was subdued. The storm above her head also remained, but now the lightning flashed in concert with her rage. The crow upon her shoulder was silent, but the crows on the shoulders of her others cawed loudly in defiance. Claire walked among her others as a captain among her crew. But it was not their service she was demanding, but their lives. She walked among them unperturbed, for the shadow men that had resolved into her sons, Gabriel and Nathaniel, were no longer there. For the first time since this insane journey began, Claire felt free. She still didn’t know why she was doing this, but the rage had finally given her the freedom to do it without reservation. And so, she walked among her others with conviction, with attitude, and with malice.

Anne had been her ‘perfect’ other. She had lived the life that Claire had always dreamed of. If Claire, the prime, couldn’t be her equal, then none of them could. And they all deserved to die. In the weeks since leaving the Wells household, she had become ruthless. She constantly remembered her killing of Russian Claire, when she told the woman that she was Death. It was nothing more than a snarky, superhero moment for Claire, but now it was a moniker she gladly accepted.

Claire was becoming quite efficient at her task, too. There were days when she would travel to five different worlds and take out five of her others. Other days it would turn into a search, for the worlds were as widely varied as the women she killed. Collateral damage was also high in the wake of her spree, as she many times had to kill the boyfriends, husbands, and girlfriends that accompanied her others. Of course, Claire would be lying if she said that she took no joy in killing multiple iterations of her ex-husband, Dylan.

But there were times when being a cold-blooded killer became too much. There were times when the chaos she left in her wake overwhelmed her emotionless trek. It was in those times that she broke out her silent friend, Sweet Emotion. Claire would calmly turn to page 109 and read. So often had she read it that she didn’t even really need the book in hand, but turning to that page had become her cigarette. She needed to touch the old book, to feel the worn pages on her fingertips, to take in the smell of aged paper and ink.

Then she would hear in her mind the words, and her rage would flashover again into a soul-engulfing blaze. Her Soul is the blood drenched battle ground, trampled by haunted ghosts of torment and screaming wiles. The black smoke suffocates her reproach. The storm keeps her company, at one with her turmoil. She’s well aware it’s the only friend she can ever trust. The searing heat silences the screams of the frightened and the dying. She endeavours to merge with her hellfire demons. Preferring the numbness, the desire to torture and kill. The blistering flames consume her humanity.

Even basic human decency would often flee from her. The memories of the grocery store flooded her brain. It was a world of the mundane, nothing special had happened to drive the place into chaos. Such a realization always infuriated Claire. Why was this world spared? She marched into the Weis, the crowd not small, but not large either. Her other, in this world, was a merchandiser, she could feel it. She’d have to create a distraction.

Going the long way through produce, to the back of the store and the seafood and deli counters, past the meats and into the dairy aisle to a couple of minutes. Claire didn’t want to go too fast and attract attention, so she kept her derision for this world in check, along with her walking pace. Grabbing two 18-count cartons of eggs, she proceeded slowly into the front aisle and spotted her other. She was diligently working on an Ovaltine rack, thin cardboard boxes open and strewn in her immediate area as she set up the new advertising campaign. Claire pulled her hood a little tighter around her face and made her way to the aisle adjacent to her other.

A few moments wait and the aisle she was in was as clear as it would get. So, she opened both cartons of eggs and turned her back to the register area. Claire took a deep breath and heaved the eggs over her head. Never in her life had she imagined doing such a thing as an adult, but there was a small part of her that smiled and giggled at the coming onslaught of yolk and shell. Indeed, the egg-bombing couldn’t have been more perfectly pulled off, the yells and screams of disgust and surprise caused such an uproar that nobody even bothered to look for the perpetrator.

In the confusion, Claire moved into the front aisle and approached her other with urgency. She didn’t even give the woman the chance to turn around as she grabbed her by the jaw and yanked her head to the side. The quiet crackle of the woman’s neck was followed by her body crumpling to linoleum floor. Claire put her hand over the dead woman’s mouth and absorbed her soul. Turning her head to the left, she saw a little boy standing next to his mother. The boy’s mother was busy watching the chaos of the egg bombing where a fight had broken out between a lanky, young man with glasses and a bearded, biker type with an open carton of eggs in his hand. The boy, though, had his wide eyes trained on her, quietly aghast at what she had done. Claire winked at the boy and smiled, then disappeared in a flash of white.

Claire’s ‘home’ was a desolate world where she had set herself up with a room in the Perkiomen School dormitories. The weather in her world was almost tropical, and it was the old newspapers that let her know what had happened when she first arrived. What they read was almost impossible for her to believe, until she saw it for herself through the breaks in the clouds that night. The Moon had been broken, and though it was not yet full, it was clear that its ‘front’ side was mostly intact, but the ‘back’ had crumbled into a myriad of pieces of many different sizes. What she didn’t catch at first, but realized after reading the now months old newspaper article, was how low in the sky the midnight moon was. According to the paper, because of the dispersed mass of the Moon, the planet’s tilt had been destabilized, and the lower tidal pull had caused massive coastal flooding of the northern and southern latitudes. It appeared to her that the entire ordeal had caused the near extinction of the human race, and she imagined the animals of the world dancing a jig.

Now, she sat in front of a fire, the air having cooled quickly over the last few days. An empty MRE package sat at her feet, she had a beer in hand, and the book of poetry in her lap. She had chosen to take a day for herself and unwind. While the rage inside never left her, much like the pulsing vibrations that were her compass, a day of reprieve from its constant fatigue was necessary.

Claire’s thumb jerked and it pulled her gaze from the flames. She looked down at the book and noticed that two pages appeared to be stuck together. How did I not notice this before? Setting the bottle of beer on the ground, she carefully separated the pages. Smiling at the unexpected surprise of two new poems, she looked over the pages, numbered 42 and 43. Her eyes were drawn to page 43. As she read And I Love You So, her mind went back to Eric. Not just her Eric, whom she missed desperately, but also the Eric that she fell in love with not so long ago. The Eric whose touch had driven her mad with passion. The Eric who had now suffered the most excruciating pain of his life. She wished desperately that she could return to him and ease his pain, and to let him know that his wife was not gone forever, but lived on within her. The lines of the poem blurred through her tears:

I wake up every morning

You’re the only thing on my mind

I hold you in my arms my love

And I love you so

I love to taste your sweet kisses

My lips meet yours and we’re in love

Holding you close, pull me closer

And I love you so

I miss you whenever we part

But keep you close in my beating heart

I can’t wait to hold you again

Kissing in a warm summer rain

I have so many words for you I know

And I Love You So

Claire didn’t know who Morgan Singell was, but she was damn sure that he had been dreaming of her and Eric when he wrote it. She closed the book and took the final swig of her beer. her day off had come to an end, and it was time to enter the dream and find the next slate of victims.

She awoke the next day to cold and flurries. As she scratched the tip of her blade on the wall, she counted 29 marks, twenty-nine days since she killed Anne. It also marked the date; it was January 29th, and the 108th day of her journey. One hundred and eight days ago, she was a simple GrubHub driver living with her boyfriend in a small town apartment, both of them working their asses off to achieve their dreams. Now, she was a prime, a near remorseless killer, and a jumper of realities, tasked with accomplishing a mission with an unknown goal.

The rage inside flared to life as she brushed her teeth and set her weapons about her hips. Claire kept it smoldering as she walked to the ruins of the Pennsburg Diner. It was a local hub in the Valley, and this journey had given her many trips there. She used to be able to spot the minor differences in states of ruin, as the timelines seem to come in groups of tragedies that they would suffer. Civil war, nuclear war, extinction level pandemic, crop failure (which she called the cannibal worlds), Moon breaking; so many terrible fates, and they came in groups. The ones she found to be the most interesting were the ‘conquer worlds’. Whether Russian invasion, or Chinese, or Muslim, they were interesting because of the signs were typically written in two languages. There were times that she would linger in those realities and attempt to teach herself a bit of the other language. It wasn’t taking very well…

Nevertheless, she continued down Washington Street to the diner, her iPod attached to her belt and music playing in her ears. This world had no electricity, but others did. Why not take advantage? I deserve it! A smile came to her lips as Renegade came alive in Dolby digital.

“Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life

From the long arm of the law.

Lawman has put an end to my running

And I'm so far from my home.

Oh, Mama, I can hear you a crying.

You're so scared and all alone.

Hangman is coming down from the gallows

And I don't have very long.”

Claire began to dance as she walked, her thoughts agreeing with Styx, she was so far from her home. She entered the diner soon after, pausing her music and tucking the earpieces away. Blade drawn, she stepped into the next world. The click of pistols behind her told her that she was in a peopled world, and the smell of borscht rankled her nose.

“Ya zhdal tebya, tovarishch,” said her other, her back to Claire as she sat at the table. I’ve been expecting you, comrade.

Oh, great! The fight was a tough one for Claire, as her other was very well trained. But she eventually bested her foe and dispatched the two men that were with her. She sat at the bar catching her breath, the blood on the floor expanding its reach as it flowed from the woman’s neck.

“Well done, Claire. You’ve become a dangerous woman.” Gabriel’s voice came to her from across the diner.

“Never trust a fucking angel…” she responded.

“That’s a bit uncalled for, don’t you think?” The angel walked gingerly towards her, trying his damnedest to avoid the splattered blood and corpses.

Claire snickered at Gabriel and rolled her eyes. “Look at what you’ve done to my life, and you still haven’t told me why. And you want me to trust you?”

“Alright… alright,” Gabriel sighed like a miffed teenager. “I haven’t been very forthcoming with you, it’s true. But I promise you it’s been for a very good reason.”

The angel walked past her and to the swinging metal door that led to the kitchen. He dropped his head in dismay at what he saw.

“You killed the cook, too?”

“Necessary collateral damage. What do you want me to say? I am become death…” she answered, sitting up straight on the barstool and stretching her back. The blood had finally stopped trickling from her nose, and she tenderly touched the red bloom on her left cheek where her other had landed a solid punch.

“Yeah… that makes two of us,” he said, and sat down two stools away. “I was really hoping for some pelmeni. I don’t need to eat, but that’s some damn good cuisine!”

“What do you mean by that?” Claire questioned.

“Pelmeni… you know, meat and onions stuffed in unleavened dough and boiled? Russian ravioli, if you wish,” his reply being accompanied by an exasperated stare.

Claire rolled her eyes again, the smoldering rage beginning to flare again. “Not that, for Christ’s sake! What do you mean by ‘that makes two of us’?”

“Right…” he said, his eyes going to a bloodspot on the floor. “Well, I may have done something stupid, and I don’t know how to fix it.” Gabriel slowly removed his fedora and placed it on the bar. “And I may have condemned the whole of the universe as a result.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Gabriel, just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“All of it?”

“I want the truth…”

“You can’t handle the truth!” the angel suddenly yelled at her. But Claire was not startled, nor was she amused. “You can’t handle the… you know, A Few Good-” he continued quietly. “Right, complete lack of humor.”

“I don’t have time for bullshit, Gabriel,” she said with eyebrows raised. She was not happy, but she couldn’t help taking a jab at him anyway. “Besides, that line is much better without the British accent.”

Now Gabriel took a deep breath before he spoke. “Do you believe in God, Claire?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you know who God is?”

“How would I know that?” her face one of derision.

“Exactly! And the truth is, only a select few do know the answer to that. And you’re about to join those ranks.” He ended with a small flourish of his hand and a smile.

“I’m not amused,” she said flatly. “Get on with it.”

Gabriel’s look of consternation was brief, then he got serious. “God was only a singular entity before the beginning of the universe. After the first moment after Creation, God became two separate entities. The elder of those is Yahweh. Yahweh is chaos, freedom. The ability for the universe to unfold as it chooses. The younger is Yehwah. Yehwah is order and law. The ability to shape the chaos into what we see today. For eons and eons, the universe did just that. And over the infinite expanse, beings and civilizations rose and fell countless times. Each of those civilizations were the same. They understood their creator, they idolized their creator, and they died out peacefully and quietly. They praised their God, they loved Him, and they reaped the benefits of that with little strife over the time of their existence.

“Yahweh and Yehwah admired their creation, and they accepted the worship as any God would. But they always desired more. Then, in a far-flung part of the universe, in a run-of-the-mill galaxy, around a run-of-the-mill star, on a run-of-the-mill planet, something extraordinary happened. There rose a race of creatures that were as full of defiance as they were of love. Creatures who were as full of violence as they were of charity. Creatures who desperately wanted to believe in their God, yet used every device at their disposal to deny His existence. Yahweh and Yehwah were intrigued. They focused themselves on this little world, and they realized that they could watch many versions of the unfolding story of Earth at the same time. Quantum mechanics was their tool, humanity was their project, and balance was their goal.

“Now that Yahweh and Yehwah had a refined sense of purpose, they required agents to serve that purpose. Enter the angels and the demons. I won’t bother to go into all of their individual purposes, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Claire thanked her lucky stars, again, that Gabriel had the accent, because all of this was much more palatable to listen to. If he had been a regular old American, she would have just walked out of the restaurant. She nodded absently as he spoke, just trying to take it all in.

“For millennia, Yahweh and Yehwah and influenced and goaded humanity into blindly accepting their sovereignty over them. But humanity had other ideas. No matter how many miracles were witnessed, no matter how many tragedies befell, humanity just simply would not accept it. So, Yahweh and Yehwah gave a part of themselves to humanity. And I was the messenger.”

“The Annunciation…” said Claire with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

“Indeed, that was Christ. But he didn’t die for humanity’s sins. Upon his death, Christ, and, by proxy, Yahweh and Yehwah, finally understood what it was to be human. They learned that the key to being human was the soul. In all of the civilizations that lived and died in the universe, none of them had souls like human beings. And souls were not a gift from God, they were born of humanity’s constant conflict between their defiance and obeisance.”

Claire sat up straight with these words, her expression one of wonder. “So… what happens to our souls when we die?”

“To answer that, you must understand where they come from in the first place. And that source is the energy of the universe itself. Human souls are weakest at birth, for there is very little conflict in an infant. But, as life progresses, the natural conflict and manufactured conflicts of life focus the soul and make it stronger. When a person dies, if it’s a stronger ‘strain’ of soul, it can continue on in the world as a ghost. Normally, though, the energy dissipates back into the universe itself.”

Claire raised her hands and looked around as she spoke, “Then where do these multiple timelines come into play?”

Gabriel nodded at her, “Good question. The timelines grew out of humanity’s ongoing conflicts as they evolved. As the power of their souls increased, so did the likelihood of being able to branch into multiple timelines based on the importance of a decision, or an event. With each branching, the soul of the prime individual would branch with it, making a person’s soul in each timeline weaker than it was before the timeline split. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” she answered with another nod. “That’s why I feel more powerful with every other that I kill, right?”

“Exactly!” and he slapped his hand down on the bar. “Now, when Christ died, Yahweh and Yehwah agreed that humanity would never be controlled, and that their governance would be better suited to their own. So, they stepped back from the arbitration of the timelines and chose successors from humanity to take their place. To be a Yahweh, the prime would have to voluntarily kill all of their others. To be a Yehwah, a person’s others must be killed by a demon and then given to the prime. Voluntary and natural is representative of freedom and chaos. Involuntary and supernatural is representative of law and order.”

Claire’s jaw dropped open. She stared at Gabriel in surprised anger. When she finally spoke, her words came out in a ‘how dare you’ tone, “You chose me to be the next God?!”

He raised a finger to her, “The next Yahweh.”

“Give me a break, Gabriel!” Her anger broke like a tsunami upon the shore. “Why the fuck would you choose me?! I’m a nobody! I’m not special! I’m not a leader! Much less a god!”

“You’re right,” he answered quietly. “But your sons are primes without others! They are unlike anything I’ve ever seen! They are natural primes, which is something that has never happened in the history of humanity.”

She stood up, defiant, unwilling to accept what she just heard. “Then why not choose their father? Why not Eric?”

“Because he is not capable. He is honorable, and good, to be sure. But he is not convicted like you. He would not be able to complete the trial you are now on. The twins are special because of you, Claire!”

She felt like she could explode. Within her, the rage and the sadness swirled into a dangerous cacophony. Claire screamed at the ceiling as the tears streaked down her blood-stained face. As the scream ended, she sat back down on the barstool and hung her head to her chest. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

“But you are doing it, Claire. This conversation would have taken place far in the future were you any other successor, but you’ve been to the prime timeline already. It has typically been the last, and most excruciating, interaction for any successor.”

“Prime timeline…” she said as she lifted her head and looked at the angel curiously. Then her eyes widened again. “Anne! That was it, wasn’t it?”

Gabriel nodded, “Yes, it was. After Christ died and before the first successors took power, Yahweh and Yehwah collapsed all the timelines, save one. That timeline has been around since, even though it is not the timeline where all primes exist.”

“Is Eric a prime?” Claire asked with urgency.

“Yes, he is.” Gabriel felt hesitant about answering that question, but she’d find out anyway. What could it hurt?

Claire sat back in silence, eyes trained on the floor, brain deep in thought. It was all a lot to take in, and she now had to process it. She had once asked Eric to describe how his brain worked, and he was somewhat abashed when describing how his mind never rested, how it never was able to focus on one thing at a time. It was a point of near embarrassment for him that he could never settle his mind. She now understood how he must’ve felt. Claire’s mind had never been so full of random and parallel thoughts at once. Suddenly, she jerked her head up and looked at Gabriel intently.

“You still haven’t answered my question. What did you mean by ‘that makes two of us’?”

The angel was sitting with his elbows resting on the bar, hands together as he picked at his fingernails. When Claire spoke, he stopped and looked at her without turning his head.

“Well…” his hesitation causing her heart to flutter. “I killed Belphegor.”

“And?” She watched him as he remained silent and still.

Gabriel shrugged before answering her. “A certain amount of chaos occurs in the timelines during a succession. My fellow angels and demons had seen quite a bit more than that with this succession because it’s a dual succession. The Yahweh and the Yehwah weaken during these times, and now they’re both weakening simultaneously. But, in case you haven’t noticed, there has been a step change in the chaos and weirdness of late. No angel or demon had ever killed another, until me.

“Belphegor was the demon of natural order. His purpose was to maintain a certain level of order in nature in the timelines. And I killed him, allowing for natural chaos to take over. The timelines are failing at an unnaturally high rate. Lucifer is a busy man…”

Shaking her back and forth, Claire said, “What does that mean to me?”

“It means,” said Gabriel with mounting irritation, “that some timelines may fail before you reach your other. Your succession is in jeopardy, Claire. Which means that your entire journey will be for naught. And there has never been a failed succession.”

Claire stood up, her face looking as though it was carved from stone. The rage inside of her ignited to a white hot inferno. She silently donned her backpack and verified that she had her Hellcat and her dagger. Then she approached Gabriel as he sat quietly, his eyes fixed on a stain on the countertop. Leaning into his ear, her words came with a fiery, blood-chilling venom.

“Never trust a fucking angel…”

Through his peripherals, the angel watched as his future boss, he hoped, disappeared in a flash of white. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and said a prayer to the Yahweh that had created him. I could use your help right about now. The prayer was never heard.

Continue following Claire on her incredible journey in Chapter 18:

Reflections