Michael was one with the darkness. Where he ended and it began was virtually meaningless. Thoughts and memories floated through him, many of them not his own. He got the sense he could go anywhere and be with anyone that he heard in the voice-thoughts. He just had to focus on them.

He found he could easily sense the spirits inside the Montgomery Mansion. Orienting on some of the strongest, Michael saw the darkness congeal into images. He saw Mother Constance and Father Jeremiah. They were having sex even though they were supposed to be watching over the babies. Shifting his attention, he witnessed Dr. Harmon having a terse conversation with his wife. He saw other ghosts too, though not one he expected to sense there. Searching for Tate, the impression he got was that he was down at the church, of all places.

It was tempting to go look in on Tate and learn what he was doing. Like his experience with the ocean, it would be easy for Michael to lose himself to the vast darkness and the myriad of micro-stories that were all playing out at once. Passive universal omniscience was much easier than goal-chasing and hands-on steering of others to reach a point he didn't even yet know himself. But that wasn't his endgame, anymore than losing himself in the ocean had been.

What he needed to do was to harness that sense of universal oneness and bind it to his mortal form, which he suspected was laying prone on a mountaintop in the material world. He was quite possibly dead to the world, in the most literal sense. Time was of the essence and he had no clue what he was doing.

How did one harness the dark soul of reality?

As Michael tried to sort that out, he gradually became aware of another presence. This was no shadow-play or memory; it was as real as he was. And it was just as aware of him as he was of it.

It came toward him, surfacing from the darkness in Michael's second sight, tall and lean and wearing a suit as black as the darkness it came from. The tall man had a face that was all shadow and long, wispy white hair that floated around his head like it was under water. A crooked top hat was crushed down atop the skinny creature's head and its hands when it reached for Michael were thin black tentacles.

He didn't want to retreat from the thing; he wasn't afraid of it and didn't want to give it that impression. He didn't particularly want it touching him either, though, so he focused a burst of psychic force at those wriggly appendages. The creature recoiled and at the same time, pain lanced through Michael, defining his arms and hands. He reeled, confused. Had the thing attacked him?

The tall man hesitated, then reached for Michael again. He blasted it with a more forceful strike, this time aimed at its chest. He was surprised when he felt pain radiate through him, giving his midsection form. What he did to the tall man reflected on him, like it was a part of him.

Was this like the snake? Michael didn't know if he should let the thing touch him or destroy it. Frustration welled up briefly then he said to hell with it all. When the thing approached him again, he let it make contact. Only it didn't touch him exactly. He wasn't precisely physical in his present state; the creature sank into him. He absorbed it.

The act surprised him. He hadn't intended to consume the creature and yet he had. He wondered for a moment if he would feel any different, but after a bit of waiting without anything changing, he began to doubt he'd done anything at all. Perhaps it was all symbolism, though he wasn't sure what it might mean—or what it said about him.

He became aware of feeling heavy and chilly, both of which distracted him from the significance of devouring the tall man. He wanted to stay longer but, like waking from a dream, the conscious realm wouldn't let go of him once it started its pull. The whispers from the cosmos faded away and he felt his body again.

Michael woke cold and stiff, face-down on the ground. As he drew his first raspy breath in hours, a beetle that had camped in his open mouth ran for its life.

The young man made a face and sat up, licking his sleeve to get rid of any bug feces that might have been deposited in his mouth. It was just before dawn and the cloudy sky above the trees was muddy coral and violet in hue, but he was of no mind to appreciate it. He scrubbed his eyes with his knuckles. They burned and felt gritty. Everything about being alive was bothersome to him at the moment, but the worst came with the first aching hunger pang.

He needed to feed—now.

—

Michael never felt quite so inhuman as he did right after a hunt. It had been a while since he'd fed off the land. Having a herd of goats tended by acolytes at the church provided him with fresh blood and meat when he needed it. He hardly even thought about the process most of the time.

Covered in the viscera of the deer he'd killed and devoured, it was impossible not to think about who and what he was. He crouched beside the bloody carcass, picking the last stringy bits of muscle from between the cracked ribs. His hunger was satisfied for the time being but nibbling those final scraps pleased him.

Distantly, he analyzed that pleasure. Most times, he didn't feel much about anything. Eating gave him pleasure, as did sex. Most other things either had no effect on him, or else they annoyed him. The present state of the world annoyed him. Despite everything he'd done, things weren't improving. He was stuck in place, trapped in a bad dream mockery of reality that only faintly resembled the life he once knew. He had a suspicion there was more he could be doing, but was no closer to an answer than he had been before his sojourn up Mount Baldy.

The cool breeze on his skin dried the blood smeared on his face, and assured him that what he was experiencing was truly real. His nice pants were dirty. His nails were caked with filth. He couldn't blame nightmares or ghosts for what he saw and felt and smelled. As bizarre and inconvenient as the world had gotten, it was the way things were.

For a brief, nostalgic moment, Michael missed sitting in front of morning television shows with a bowl of cereal. Mother Constance always made other things for Father Jeremiah but Michael always had a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles followed by a half a bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch. It was best that way because the chocolate milk coated the peanut butter balls and made them perfect. It was a routine he'd engaged in countless times before things went to hell.

He couldn't get those cereals now. Milk tasted funny these days because it came straight from cows and goats without going through various machines and containers first. Technically, he could find copies of the shows he liked as a kid if he really wanted to, but he didn't have time to waste sitting around watching reruns of shows that had only marginally amused him when he first watched them. He couldn't recreate his childhood and, even if he could, it wouldn't provide the comfort it did back then.

He looked at his hand. There was no injury per se but four white pinprick marks showed on his skin where the serpent had sunk its fangs into him. Rubbing his opposite thumb over the marks made that area of his palm tingle. Though he didn't feel different, something had happened up on the mountain.

Frustrated with his apparent lack of progress, he reached out and snapped an antler off the deer's skull. It broke close to the bone. Nearly as long as his forearm, it was spiky with branching points that had provided the beast its best defense. Getting to his feet, Michael hefted the makeshift weapon and moved deeper into the woods. He was heading home the long way, hoping that a creature more dangerous than a deer would surface to challenge him. He wanted to tangle with something that could put up a decent fight. Something he could burn some of his pent-up aggression on.

...

Author's Note:

I was hoping to have this published a lot sooner, but then the Coronavirus shut down the world. I've got 3 kids and 2 kittens pent up and wanting attention every 2.5 minutes, which has made it difficult to get anything done. The good news is that the kitten who was gravely ill is doing much better. The bad news is, since he's feeling better, he's more of a handful than before. It's like he's making up for all the time he wasn't able to kitten.

Until life returns to predictable normal, updates here will be kind of erratic. My college and my kids' schools are shifting to remote learning, so I'm having to figure out how that's going to work. Even though this chapter was already plotted out months ago, it feels really relevant to the times.

Here's hoping you're safe and not in need of toilet paper in these post-apocalyptic days.