~12~

Day 1775

I am not even sure if I have kept an accurate count of the days anymore. "Day" doesn't mean anything, hasn't meant anything, for a long time. I am as lost as a sinner. A blind man in a world without a sun. There is no sun. No life. Nothing but darkness.

Nothing.

Found Joseph in the Red Room.

I was wandering the bunker aimlessly, humming a tune I'd forgotten, chewing on a pencil until I could taste graphite at the back of my mouth, when I heard a soft sound. I stopped, an animalistic twinge pulling my ears, as though they were perking. Heard the sound again, a brief intake of air, but stifled. I looked down the passage at the door to the Red Room, Dutch's intel den. It wasn't red anymore because Joseph had changed the bulbs, but it was still the Red Room to me. Still the room where I learned my destiny, where I made my first wrong choice of many.

I pushed the door open. The lights were off. The glow from the hallway ghosted past me, casting my shadow on the far wall. Joseph was huddled at the foot of it, beneath the map of Hope County, knees up to his chest, arms tucked in and head bowed. His bare toes curled at my intrusion. I shifted to the side, and he shrank from the light. He raised his head. I could only stare at the wetness on his cheeks, his swollen eyes, the snot under his nose. Couldn't say how long he'd been like that. Only that it was the first time I'd seen him so...broken.

"H-h...how...?" His feet slid forward an inch, pulling his knees away far enough to free his arms, which were cradling a tiny bundle. "How can...?"

I stepped closer, wary, concerned. Scared.

Joseph's breath shook so badly it was like his very core had frozen. "How can you even look at me?" He sobbed, pressing his eyes into his knees. I looked to the bundle in his hands, held up like an offering to me. It was just that. A bundle. His shirt and some rags. Wrapped and knotted together until it looked like...like...

"My child," Joseph mewled. And he wasn't talking about me. "My little one. My own flesh and blood..."

I sat on my rear before him, hands around my knees, fingers linked. And I waited.

He raised his head again. His hair, so long and unkempt, framed a gaunt, bearded face. A face, once so full of power and certainty, now a mess of snot and tears and regret. Didn't like seeing him this way. He was the strong one. He was the Father.

"She had a name... Did I ever tell you that? My wife and I, we named our little girl, together. Before she was born." He sniffled wetly. Swallowed what had ended up in his throat. "But she had two n-names. Eliza is what we named her. But when...when she was brought into the world from the broken body of my wife and I saw her for the first time...she was Eden." Joseph's eyes gleamed a bit brighter. "She was hope. She was the future. She was the promise of a better life." And then they welled with fresh tears, fingers closing tightly around the bundle until they shook. "And God took her away from me."

He threw the bundle across the room. I flinched as though it had been a living thing. Perhaps it was the look on my face, but Joseph started crying anew, shaking like a leaf. His skull cracked against the wall as he looked up. His Adam's Apple bobbed in his throat.

"I killed her. I killed Eden. I gave her to God because He promised. He promised. I have done everything He asked of me. That is all I have ever done. But no matter what I give He always takes. Just takes and takes and now I have nothing, nothing left!" Again and again he smacked his head, the sickening crack of skull on concrete sending jolts through my spine. "My family! My flock! But you!" A shaking hand pointed between my eyes. "He spared you! The snake! The demon! The harbinger of hell!"

I tensed, ready to stand if need be. Wanted to leave but something...something made me stay, even as grief morphed to rage before my eyes. His gaze was wild, spit flying from his lips as he jabbed his finger at me again and again. For the first time in years I was afraid of him.

"You are nothing. You are nobody. You sit there, breathing a life that doesn't belong to you! You don't mean anything to anybody!" Joseph was getting angrier the more I stared, and yet I couldn't look away. His hands splayed on the floor on either side of him; I winced as his nails ripped and grated against the concrete.

"It could have been Jacob. It could have been John. But it is you. God put me down here with you and all you can do is stare at me!"

I recoiled, scrambling back as he pounced but then he was on top of me, grabbing me, pinning me down. A knee on my gut, all his weight on my core. His hands were scrabbling for my neck and I fought back, trying to kick him off. We were both weak, husks of once strong men, but he had height on me, and anger, and before I knew it I was seeing the world through bleary vision. Both of Joseph's hands were around my throat. They were like sandpaper. And they were squeezing the life from me as they'd done his daughter.

"I gave my all!" Joseph roared. His eyes blazed with black fire, spittle spraying across my face. My arms thrashed like landed fish, trying to find something to use as a weapon, but the floor was clear so I grabbed at Joseph instead, struggling to make a sound. All that escaped was a gargle, which the Father immediately silenced with a tighter squeeze. His words dripped with poison, heedless to my soundless plea for mercy.

Joseph, please...

"And you, you are all He gave me in return. You pathetic wretch. You insect. You locust in my Garden! I should have left you to the Flame! Let your soul burn with the old world. Instead God saddled me with you, because...because..."

He either trailed off, or I was too far gone to hear. My limbs were lead and my heart was a dying bird in my neck, fluttering weakly against the cage of Joseph's fingers. But then...his hold didn't seem so tight, and I heard him from the other end of a tunnel.

"Because you are my last test," he said, to himself. "You are Isaac. The son God spared."

His hands left my throat, gliding down my chest as he sat back on his haunches. It took a second for my windpipe to unstick itself and open up, allowing life back into my lungs. It tasted of fire and I coughed coarsely, face like a brand, tongue jutting out to make room for more air. I writhed on the floor until my head stopped spinning and my breathing eased. I sat up, eyes only on Joseph, who had retreated back against the wall. Cowering. From me.

He raised his hands as though to defend himself. "Shh...shh..."

My face had contorted into a snarl, lip curled back over gritted teeth, eyes predatory. The last thing every Peggy had seen before dying by my hand. A murderous, desperate, hate-filled look. And it stayed there for several seconds, a part of me as much as Wrath, ingrained as any tattoo. But fade it did, and I was back to staring at Joseph. Only this time, it was accusatory.

Thought we were past this. Thought we had come to an understanding. Two extremes come together to balance in the middle, bonded by mutual respect and a similar goal. By the look on his face, Joseph had thought so too. But he had betrayed himself.

He started to sob again. "How can you even look at me?" He curled up, scrawny, scarecrow legs shielding him from his guilt.

This was not the first time he'd attacked me in anger. I had every right to attack him now. A feeling I had not experienced in years had awoken deep inside. The primitive drive to kill in order to survive. But...I was not that man anymore. Not really. I had learned from experience and Joseph's teachings that relying on violence as a means to an end was one of the reasons why we were down here in the first place. Joseph knew this, because he had learned that the hard way as well.

I couldn't undo my choices anymore than he could bring his daughter back, or his brothers, sister. His flock. The countless civilians he had put to death, hanging them from bridges and power poles and stuffing their insides with Bliss. All we could do now was make better choices. And it started with me.

I approached Joseph slowly, crawling on all fours. He cowed, one arm up to fend me off. I slid up against the wall beside him, watched the trembling in his bare shoulder and back, sinew tugging and relaxing beneath pale flesh. Touched him and he flinched as though I'd scalded him. I took his wrist, thin as a winter twig, and pulled gently. He struggled, but as he had persisted when I fought his Project, I persisted now, drawing him around until he was in my arms, huddled to my chest rather than the cold wall. His tears soaked through my shirt.

"I am a monster," he whimpered. Unable to speak, I held him tighter. Mental images of long lost friends gazed at me in confusion, or looked away in disgust. But their judgment meant nothing to me. The man I held was not the same man I fought those few years ago. He was different. I was different. And I needed his guidance like he needed my anchoring and protection.

I wished I could tell him what he did was monstrous, and he had tried to do the right thing, just, the wrong way. The fact he was feeling regret and pain proved he was not a monster, just a child in the dark like everyone else. I couldn't tell him, but I could show him. I would help him forgive himself, even if I couldn't forgive myself.

Save the Father, Faith had said. Save the Father.

Couldn't say how long we sat there, but I was so used to sitting on hard, cold surfaces it didn't really bother my ass anymore. Joseph fell asleep, and the old, impatient streak inside me couldn't help but fill me with exasperation. So I imagined instead I was out in the middle of nowhere, nothing but me and the trees, waiting for the eight point to return to the river to drink. Of course, that just reminded me of a perfectly seasoned venison steak, tenderized in buttermilk, grilled to medium rare and lightly charred and served with scalloped potatoes and corn on the cob and an ice-cold 'weiser—

My stomach growled, jolting me from the brink of sleep. Woke Joseph too, and to my surprise, he chuckled.

"You must be hungry." He sniffled, cleared his throat, but didn't move. I made a coarse grunting sound in response, hoping he'd take the hint and scoot. But he seemed to like this arrangement. Having lost so much body mass, it was hard to keep warm, and he never really kicked the habit of wandering around without a shirt.

And like hell I was going to admit I was kind of enjoying the feeling of another human body pressed against mine, even though it was his.

I thought he might have dozed off again, but then his stomach growled too and he pulled away from me.

"Come. We shall eat."

He helped me stand, and it was like none of this had happened. We spent the rest of the day together, him bolstered by my forgiveness, me encouraged by his clemency. Our journey was still long before us, but we would make it, because we didn't walk it alone.

Day 1776

GOD FORGIVE ME

"Well you look like yourself, but you're somebody else only it ain't on the surface. Well you talk like yourself—No, I hear someone else though, now you're making me nervous...I saw the part of you that only when you're older you will see, too. You will see, too..."

You're Somebody Else, Flora Cash