And God Said, "Hey."
It was autumn chilly but the park bench still held heat from the afternoon sun. God groaned as he settled against the rails and let the heat sink into his bones. The park was quiet today. On the weekends it would overflow with people but on a crisp fall day, and a workday to boot, the place was more or less his own. Well, technically it was his no matter what. From the brightest flowers to the dark things that prowled through the overgrowth.
God sighed. The problem with being the Creator was that there was nobody to blame but himself.
A pigeon sidled up hopefully. God dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of cracker which the pigeon ate up immediately, glowering for more. "I know, little buddy," he said. "Loaves and fishes. Why not give you a mountain of little cracker pieces?" He held out his hand and the pigeon, still fixing him with a baleful eye, grudgingly hopped into his hand. "Suffering. Joy." God said settling the pigeon against his chest and stroking it absentmindedly, "These things keep us rooted to this planet. For better or worse, these things make us present."
A scream tore through the park. The pigeon started and flew away as God sat up and looked around warily. It had come from the pond. Or, "pond", since it was really just a small concrete water-filled hole in the middle of the city. He stood and began to run towards the scream. A figure tore from the thicket that lined the swirling sidewalks and ran down the hill towards him. It was a girl and behind her something wretched. And predatory.
"Help me," she called to him with a familiarity borne of desperation. God hesitated just a moment. He could burn the thing that hunted the girl, erase it from existence. But doing so would let just a little of his power out into the world. That was too dangerous now, with the Darkness free. It would trace it, sniff him out. And he wasn't ready yet. He wasn't anywhere near ready yet to do what might have to be done.
He held out his hand as she ran at him and when she took it he simply said, "Run." God led her through the park towards the wrought iron fencing that lined the widest strolling paths. He knew the creature, that once-human type. Once it locked onto prey, it was relentless. But it was confused by iron. Running along an iron path was the equivalent of splashing through a stream to cover your scent. He led her along the twisting boulevards to an exit on the other side of the park.
The girl paused for a moment and looked back at the park. "Did we lose it," she gasped.
"For now," he said. "But we need to hide." Several blocks down he knew of an old, abandoned building with iron in its bones. He led her there. "This might hide you long enough."
"Long enough?"
"For it to give up," he lied. For him to do something? Or for someone else to do the dirty work.
The girl didn't look ragged on the surface, but her soul emanated a general frayed weariness that spoke of a hard life. She looked him up and down as though seeing him for the first time. Then without saying a word, she picked up a brick from the sidewalk and smashed out the rest of a half-shattered window before climbing inside. He followed, clumsily squeezing his way through a hole better sized for her frame than his own. He landed in a warehouse sized room. The old iron pipe works still wound over the massive ceiling like a nest.
"I think we'll be safe here," he said. She nodded and instinctively made her way as far from the window as possible. They huddled with their backs against the far wall as night fell.
God knew she was looking at him in the half light that made it in from the street lamps outside. The girl was trying to figure him out. Most people who spent much time with him began to do that. There was something off about him that kept him always on the move. Finally she said, "You didn't seem surprised by any of this."
"No."
"I mean, there's this crazy thing with claws and teeth and… and... It looks like it could be anyone. Except it tried to eat me. He just walked up to me. Asked for the time. And then everything started changing. His face. His hands-" She trailed off, clearly overwhelmed by the crashing reality.
"I know. It's called a sipriyanga." And I made it, a long time ago. "It feeds on people. Attracted to their essence. Iron confuses it. That's why we ran along the fence." He gestured to the ceiling. "That's why we're here now."
"Oh."
"I've just seen it before. I can't fight it." It would take his power, or a complicated spell to lay the beast to rest. "But there are people who can." Hunters. Were any in the area? This thing had already killed two other girls in the past two months. It was hungrier than it should be, but of course there was a reason for that. "Is there someone who will miss you?"
She hesitated. This was clearly a question you should answer yes to, and then probably knee the questioner in the balls and run. "No."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugged. "It is what it is."
"When you get out of this? Find someone. Life is too short to spend it alone." And how short it might truly be…
After a while, she rested her head on his shoulder. It was something she probably hadn't done with anyone for years but there it was again, that instinctive trust. It killed him every time. "Will you talk to me? It's too creepy just sitting here waiting."
"Sure." He had lots of stories, but one weighed on his mind. "Once upon a time, there was a gardener. Most of his gardens grew in lovely plots of land. A great deal of sun. Plenty of water. Happy worms. All that. The gardener grew-"
"Watermelons." Spoken with absolute longing.
"Oh yes, as big as elephants. And flowers that would blind you with their beauty. The gardener saw these and knew they were good. But just outside of the sunshine land there grew a tree. It was a great, black tree as tall as a mountain. Instead of leaves it oozed sludge that burned away the bright things around it. The gardener knew that the land beneath the tree was good, so he set about chopping it down.
"He took some of his most precious children as his army and together they laid siege upon the tree. A brutal time followed." God silently stroked her hair for a while.
"No matter what the gardener did, the tree always sprang back if even the tiniest piece of root remained. Finally the gardener was able to trap it. Quarantine it. He locked it in a walnut and gave it to his most trusted and sensitive warrior to protect. But the gardener didn't know. The tree grew on, but this time inside his warrior.
"While the tree wormed its way through his sweet child, the gardener busied himself by planting his new garden. It was beautiful in its variety, from smallest one celled organism to the mightiest lizard that ever topped the trees. But the gardener saw his warrior changing and he knew that the tree was alive, and growing.
He looked down. She was asleep. He gave up the pretense.
"So I came up with a plan. It would take time, but I could make a self-propagating creature that would carry a fire deep inside. The creatures, these humans, would carry their souls around with them, grow more at a fantastic pace, and simply grow the energy I would need to defeat the Darkness. And this was the best part. After their mortal shell was discarded, the fire would live on. An eternal power source! I was a genius. The best.
"I created Heaven to keep them safe and stored until I had enough. When I had enough, I would absorb them and burn out the tree for good. I filled Heaven with souls for my war machine, and it was good. But Lucifer. Oh, my Lucifer. He knew the plan and the Darkness whispered to him. Convinced him to show the first humans the truth about my plan. Can you blame them if they rebelled? And so my creations turned to dark and light on their own. And the Darkness waited, coiled in its cage. The Darkness began to build its own arsenal around its own black heart and humans became split into light and darkness.
"I banished Lucifer, afraid that the Darkness would do more sabotage through him. Before he left, he sneered. Told me to go to earth and see what I had wrought. At first, I refused. I used fear to build my arsenal, but I lost even more souls this way. Fear can so often tar a heart." He shook his head.
"But now I've spent time here. I understand the dark a little bit more. But it's like living on a sun, this planet. So much fire and light and good. How could I destroy that, even to win against the Darkness? My weapons became my most surprising creation."
Something clattered down the hall and he looked up, then cocked his head to one side. "The Darkness is rising," he whispered, "and I don't have a plan B." He shook the girl awake and pressed a hand against her mouth and a finger against his own lips. Her eyes grew wide, but she nodded and sat up as he took his hand away.
Slowly they stood. Something prowled in an adjacent hallway. He could hear it as it bashed into corners and brushed against walls. God gripped the girl's elbow and they edged away back towards the window.
The sounds from the hallway stopped. Was it listening for them? That was likely. Somehow it had tracked them here through all the iron. If they stayed in the warehouse, big as it was, they were sitting ducks. The girl pointed to the window, head cocked questioningly. God nodded.
He laced his fingers into a step for her and then wedged himself out, falling gracelessly onto his elbows.
"Where to?" she whispered.
He wasn't sure if he would shrug or just pick a direction. There were other places to hide, yes. But could they make it there in time? And with the sipriyanga's enhanced powers, would a new hiding place even matter? He was spared admitting non-omnipotence by a loud bang.
The door to the warehouse splintered and the sipriyanga sprang through. In the clarity of the street light God could see that the creature was in poor shape. Its arms looked like they were carved to ribbons and it was flicking its two large claws in and out, in and out, almost like a nervous tic.
The creature started towards them. God sprang into action. He would save his powers until the last possible moment and then he'd have to figure it out from there. But he had to try. He sprinted towards the beast. "Hey!" he yelled.
The beast snarled and rolled towards him now. It extended it arms and howled in half agony, half ecstasy as its razor sharp claws extended. And then it was over him and on him and God found himself with his fragile human bones pressed into the concrete, gnashing teeth over him. One vanquish and he was revealed. One taste by this creature of his flesh and he was revealed. God began to reconcile himself to the inevitable path before him - of dark battles and uncertain futures. Unless you were human, in which case you were all going to pretty much be dead.
And then the hot breath was gone. The girl stood over him, panting, with the brick in her hand. "Run?"
He nodded and hoisted himself up, hefting the limp sipriyanga off of him. "Run."
They ran again then, down quiet streets, despair settling into him. How could he save her without giving himself away?
An engine roared, filling the night with sound. A black Impala rumbled as it turned around the corner, the sweet strains of classic rock distorting into something otherworldly.
He stopped short and gripped her shoulder and pointed. "That car," he said. "They can save you."
"What?" she panted.
"Go!" He shoved her and took off running himself, sprinting around the corner and out of sight. He could feel her confusion, her fear. And then, her decision. He could feel her running, feel the boys as they stopped and he leaned against the wall, relieved.
Those boys. He'd thank himself for them, but really they were far beyond even his plans. The Impala tore away and the creature lumbered after, falling farther and farther behind. It would find them, but hopefully they'd have the spell in place by then. He'd uploaded it to the Internet just a few weeks ago, coupled with some helpful drawings of the sipriyaga for easy identification.
"Hope," he whispered. "This is why I'm here. There's got to be another way. Stay close, boys. We've got a hell of a fight ahead."