Vol. 4 Chap. 47 Obviously Different

Vol. 4 Chap. 47 Obviously Different

Truth blinked in confusion. He looked down at the dog. The dog wheezed heavily through his nose, but made no further explanation. He then opted to look inquisitively at his rough patron, who rolled his eyes and explained.

“One angel, but he has been recorded and classified under two names and with two natures by the humans on your rock. His rock. Whatever.”RêAd lateSt chapters at novelhall.com Only

The big man pointed back towards the shadow. “Looks like a duck, but it’s actually a dog. Looks like a protective spirit, one suitable to invoke before battle, but also has a thing for raping human women.”

“Does what now?!”

“Shadow on the rock, remember?”

“Ah. People think he’s that, but he’s not.” Truth nodded. It was a nice night, wherever they were. Hot, humid, but in that way that lends a soft feeling to the air. Every stir of wind felt like being brushed with velvet.

“He isn’t either of those things, exactly. Nor is he both those things... exactly.”

“He is, however, the origin of my planet’s suffering.”

“No, you guys are the origin of your suffering.” The rough patron shook his head. “He is trying to persuade you to stop fucking up. And limiting the means you have for fucking up. Think of it as a fever. The body is trying to do away with the disease. But again, that’s a pretty limited perspective on things.”

Truth nodded again. Slowly. “If I kill Starbrite, will he stop the apocalypse?”

“Almost certainly not.” The Rough Patron gave the dog a friendly pat. “Sariel is an angel. Looks like he decided the “right answer” is, if he must have humans on his planet, they will be his descendants. Which, since they are also my descendants, I don’t really object to either.”

“Wait, the human women-”

“Were pretty exclusively from my line, yeah.”

“You are a human?!” It was like finding out that a mountain used to be a drop of water.

“Ish.” The grin wasn’t anything nice to look at. “You can say that we were all still figuring out how to live as shadows at that point. Mom and Dad never really got there. Me and my siblings kinda-sorta did, some of us more than others, and our descendants were more or less human. It all shook out eventually.”

“But how does all that-”

Truth’s body was forcefully wrenched around, his face pushed next to the stone. New shadows appeared, a small apartment, first one child, then two, then three, then four. Details became clearer. The armchair, the bottles, the endless piles of trash and rotting filth. A big shadow swung it’s arm, one of the little shadows went flying into the corner and didn’t get up for a few seconds, a few minutes. And it didn’t stop. Over and over and over. He could smell it. He could hear every word.

“STOP!”

There were other details now, the water talismans becoming a source of fear as well as water. Soap, shoes, belts, bottles, the flat of a hand or the cut of a tongue. No peace anywhere. Nowhere to hide.

“I said STOP THIS!”

He tried to fight, tried to wrench his head away from what he was seeing. There was no peace here, no peace. He was right back in it, watching the shadows.

Truth bit back his retort. This... unimaginably powerful alleged former human was doing this for a reason, and apparently he wasn’t mad at him. So it probably wasn’t a nefarious reason. He took a few deep breaths. The shadows were showing him running for some gangsters. He remembered this time- they were the kind that not only wouldn’t take no for an answer, they didn’t even ask the question.

Turn around. See the unreal for what it was. Except it wasn’t ‘unreal,’ was it? You could call it an illusion, all the invisible walls we build for ourselves and treat like they were holding us prisoner, but that lived experience was still as real as anything. And the ducks might be more real than the water they were swimming through, but didn’t they still float? The water was real enough to hold them up.

“We are seeing the shadows. We are the shadows. Our lives are the shaped by forces we cannot perceive, and because of that, our whole understanding of the world is built on shaky facts.” He started nodding to himself. “And because of that we decide what is and isn’t possible, what is and isn’t moral. Or fair. Or our fault. I’m guessing God is the fire in this metaphor?”

“For once, no. Wisdom.”

“Ah. Well. Nobody ever accused me of having too much of that.”

“For a clay doll, you’re doing fine.”

Truth smiled a little and ducked his head. The rough man ran his dirty fingers over the dog. The dog seemed quite happy about this, and rolled onto his side. More pets were, apparently, required.

“So What I think is real is the shadows on the wall, and what’s actually real is what I see when I turn around, but since I’m seeing my own shadow on the wall, the me that thinks it’s all real isn’t the real me either. The real me is the me watching my shadow. Which would be true for everyone, I’m guessing. So. You know. Awkward question incoming.”

“Oh?”

“Senior... what is a human?”

The big man looked up from the dog, and the world went quiet. The crickets stopped chirping in the grass. The wind stopped blowing. The fire stopped its crackling. He couldn’t even hear the beating of his own heart.

“That is a very dangerous question. In this place, at this time, it is really, truly dangerous. And you are immensely unprepared for the answer. Keep asking the question. Ask other people. Ask yourself. Keep furiously poking at the world and demanding an answer to why things are the way they are. You might be trying to sort through shadows, but you can teach yourself to turn around. To see through the walls. To be-”

The air started to vibrate. Truth could feel himself starting to vibrate, as though some terrible beast was roaring with fury and outrage.

“A lover of wisdom.”

It all went black.

Truth woke up, slumped against the street lamp. He let the strangeness of the moment wash over him. Didn’t try to make sense of anything, or try to sort the real from the fake. Just... let himself experience the world. Appreciating the shadows for what they were.

There really wasn’t any stopping the apocalypse. On some level, he had faintly hoped it could be stopped, or at least delayed. Wouldn’t that be the perfect storybook ending? The hero kills the bad guy and saves the world. Not this world. Not this hero. The clock would keep ticking, and in just a few moments, it would be last call for civilization.

Assuming it got that far. He never got any useful information about the plague engines or... any of that. His rough patron didn’t seem interested in any of it. Like it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t real. The shadows couldn’t even turn around and see the light, let alone the dog casting the shadow.

So what to do? He watched the worried people running around, trying to get through their days. Trying to keep on keeping on, in spite of everything. Truth thought back to the hospital, and being Bone-Bro. He had enjoyed it. It was a wild con, of course. He couldn’t keep doing it. But he had liked doing it. Being part of the problem.

Oh. OH!

He started laughing, rising up and laughing, wild and free. “Alright, alright, alright! I have all these multiple destinies! Let’s lean into it! Let’s play the fool! I don’t have to solve everything. I don’t have to solve anything! I’ll set my nets for the right sized fish and pet every damn dog I please.” He sniggered. He had to wait for the earth demon’s report, but then? He’d see the Internal Security colonel, then he’d just have a quick word with Niles. Time for Megashroom to grow.