The voice had ushered him towards the light, the sun that was being born in the sky, a baby chick in God's hand. His neck felt sore, feeling the row of stitches inside it, but as small fingers had reached in and clutched the teeth and mouth of the new hole, she told Yehl that everything will be alright, and that he was always loved in the sight of God.
"There truly is no loving God," the hole had spoken. "But there's a mad one, as tall and as mercurial as a hat like the Mad Hatter."
His own voice was lost, disintegrated in the heat of the Seattle spring, as the pink flowers had bloomed in the trees, as the mania had risen in every insane man and woman and child, as the winds were soft and warm and the sea had smelled faintly of goldenrods as they drifted in the breeze. He was coming. He would soon be rebirthed. The new Jesus Christ.
"There truly was no Jesus," the hole spoke. "No white Jesus, no albicant Jesus. Jesus was black. As black as ebony keys."
The stitches weren't enough to silence the voice in the hole. He continued to speak the lies of the Earth, as Shadow had thrust inside its mouth, but it only bit in disdain.
The small rabbit girl, her dress of bleach white, her flowers that were as pink as fetuses, she had all the information of the gods in a database, given to her by a god she dearly loved, but he had suddenly disappeared, had died as the night had died away to the new rebirth of the sun.
"I know your name is Shadow, is it not?" she had asked.
His fingers were stained with blood. The wings had scratched through all her folklore collections, how wide and big and tall they were, and he had sat down as she prepared a steaming tea kettle of Earl Grey tea, laced with yellow flowers that glowed along with the goldenrods outside of the Seattle street.
"My real name is Cream, but Mr. Shadow, I am the goddess of healing, named Aceso. I know of every god in this world, but I truly do not want to fight. I only collect demon eggs that I can find without a scream or a nail in my heart. All the gods can come here to get their wounds restitched and bandaged, and I will not say a word to what their goals are or why they became a god. I know why you became a god Shadow, and it is most unfortunate what happened to you."
Shadow could reply bitterly to her efforts to be friends with all the gods, but she truly was harmless. She had no offensive powers, only powers that healed and dressed the injuries in elaborate silk skins and stitches that contained a magical power to make them talk, to tell their owner of what they truly desired in this world. Shadow only desired lies, and the voice in the hole had told him the truth to every lie that was replicated.
"Jesus was born in September. Christmas is a big sham, created by stupid and misinformed Romans," it had said again.
He had to trust her. If she knew about every god that became a god then she possibly knew things about Chip, about Sonic's newfound power, and about his purpose. He felt that he was only a small, wriggling worm that would soon die out in the dawn of the new Earth, and Cream had known all these things, because of a god who once loved her innocent heart.
They sat in silence, even the hole had not spoken for a while. The tea was becoming cold, it had been so long since Shadow had his favorite tea, a tea that Cream knew he would like. As he gazed at her cupboards he found that she had every tea imaginable to give to whoever had come to her humble homeless abode, even pennyroyal tea to those with upset stomachs and who desired an abortive that would never work and instead take your own life along with the child's.
"Shadow, are you thinking about why you're here? And about Chip, right?"
The flower had soon closed its tiny fist inside the tea. He felt it had been several days and several nights since he had stayed at Cream's home. It could've been. He never could figure out how the days of gods ever worked.
"I became a god because I wanted to find out about my mother and father. And about my past life in that…other dimension. I feel like something is missing. Like my father had some relative I didn't know about take care of me, but…something told me he was very sick, and he hated me for no reason except my father was successful but yet struggled to keep his land cause the government never liked him. Us. Us, I mean."
That was all he could say. He didn't want to delve into much more, but Cream possibly knew there were more reasons than that.
"I know," she said. "In that past life, I know. It seemed like it never happened, but it did in another time that Chip snipped away from us with his surgical scissors. Your uncle was a bad man. He locked you in the closet for hours at a time. You soon had the ability to speak to shadows. And you were soon dubbed the name Shadow, Mr. Shadow."
The shadows had told secrets to him. Secrets of the world. And there was a creature named Chip who could make his life better, could make him run away from this evil man who had adopted him after his parents died of unknown causes.
"What about Chip?" His eyes had looked down in his drink again, as flies and spiders had made a nest of it. The tea had given them life but would soon take it away, as they both can't swim.
"Is he truly a good creature, trying to keep the humans, and time, in line, or does he have other intentions? Is he truly a wolf in sheep's clothing?"
Her eyes closed, as the sun had closed behind her sheets, the home that was only nothing but a few blankets that contained the same things as an ordinary kitchen, the stove, the electricity she had made with her godlike abilities, and the cabinets that had hung on the sheets of afghan and blue. He wanted to know how this home even functioned like this, but with gods, anything was believable.
"Chip truly wants to keep time in place. But he also is the yang side of the coin. He is both good and evil. He represents both the good and bad sides of gods. He both wants to keep the humans on this planet, using up their time wisely, but he is also the killer of humans, the damnation of humans, both God and Satan."
The hole had spoken up again. "He truly is not God. But Satan."
She nodded, as if the news didn't affect her at all. "Is that so?"
"Nothing truly shocks you anymore, is that true?"
She was soon sewing a large stuffed animal, with its marbled eyes, lying flat like a bear rug, and she had planned it to give it to a god who had a baby, a god far away from Seattle.
"I've just seen many things, Shadow. And I have learned there is truly nothing I can do about them. Gods are born and gods die, including Chip once everyone discovers that he is truly Satan. There is one god that I don't believe can die and that is the one, true, universal God, but that God is brilliant and full of diseases. God doesn't answer prayers very often because He is ill himself. He doesn't answer the prayers to those with depression because He doesn't understand their plight as much as He doesn't understands His. Worlds are born. Worlds die. So do galaxies and stars. But nothing will truly die away. The universe is so big and vast, that there is always life out there, blooming and evolving and birthing and dying. God doesn't want to give up on His beautiful universe. He made it with His own blood-stained Hands. The pen, the brush, the stroke, the words, they are just as strong as God's touch. They create different worlds inside our heads. We are all gods, and we truly aren't immortal like we would think we are, except for the stories the blind deaf and dumb tell. They carry on, for years and years and years…Stories never truly die if the god passes them down with ink and paper. And that's how we gods are still alive. Some of us, anyways."
The hole inside of him had said nothing. He believed it as the universal truth, that they all were truly gods.
Every line of thread that had crashed against her bosom, and receded back into the plush, she looked out to the grimy sea of Seattle, and she could feel the flowers beginning to rise, the blossoms born, the new babes, the mammals coming out of their holes. It truly was a birthday for God.
"Then what does Satan look like? Do you know? Does he have horns, a forked tail, a forked tongue, and parchment eyes? Does he have nails and sulfate teeth and a horned body? Who is Satan, and what does he have to do with our world?"
The plush continued to be birthed by her hands. She was her own god on the child's creature.
"He looks like you. He looks like a different shade of the spectrum from everyone. Satan is only us. We also all have a little bit of a demon inside of us, and Satan is us. He is you," she said.
He paused. Was Satan him, with green streaks in his black fur, with slit eyes and with no mouth? Because the mouth had moved into his neck, his soul?
"We all need gods. We all need devils. They tell us the difference between right and wrong. They make sure we are aware of rules and regulations and give us some imagination, something to truly believe in. There are some that don't believe in both, but how unfortunate they are for not having imagination, to believe in such a fantastic world as this one. Science has answers, but it doesn't give many people hope. It is often nothing but a reminder that the world will be lost forever. But with gods and devils, we know time will continue indefinitely, and it will never truly die. That even when we die, we will still have an eternity of time. We will spend our lives forever in heaven or hell. Whichever one we believed in, and whichever one our choices had brought us. To believe you will rot in the ground forever with no images and without another world, it makes some people scared to die, when we all need to have affirmation that our souls will be okay, if we truly believe in our gods and causes and devils. Some want to be immortal. But even when we all have some godliness inside us, even God Himself dies, when people don't believe in Him anymore, when people move on to other beliefs, and that is why we gods die. I know if I don't conquer any more eggs, I will die, but I believe I have done good things with my time, and I will spend an eternity with the gods I believe in. Including Anansi."
"Is…" He paused. "Is Anansi…did he all play us like fools and forced Sonic to revive him, and now he truly is God?"
"Capitalize your Hs, Shadow. Of course He is God. But this God is sick, and needed to die. Sonic had to revive Him, because he loved Him, but he doesn't believe in a heaven or hell or angels or demons. He believes He must kill this world and bring upon a new one, Shadow. He messed up. A new god will have to take over. And that is both you and Sonic. He loves His brother as well, but He cannot be forced inside his body. He must die once, and be reborn. You must kill him Shadow. That is what you must do."
He remembered the note he wrote from the lovesick teenager's scrawls. He felt so alone all his life that he trusted Sonic to take care of his own wounds, the ones that had torn and suffocated his heart. He believed in him as much as this God. He was cruel, but only he denied those feelings. He only wanted what was safe for Sonic, and he thought dying was better than becoming a god, becoming a being that only worries and only sees the end of time and the birth of time. It was such a godawful experience, seeing everything alive and dead, that he had to kill him himself, but it was too late. And now Sonic had to become God. He had to witness the sounds of all the people, deal with the blind deaf and dumb, and hold babies like jewels and kill them with the blooming of his palms. He didn't want to live forever. Neither did Sonic. He tried to kill himself before he became a god. He couldn't kill himself now, else there would be no God to have in this miserable world. Even the atheists and non-believers and agnostics needed direction. He needed to control their lives in some way, so everything can go perfectly in the world, in the saving of people and the damnation of those who didn't believe in angels.
"Why do I have to kill him?"
"Because you were the only friend he had, Shadow. So was his brother. Although no one teased him in school he felt alone. Without his brother he wasn't anything. Cain and Abel weren't anything without each other once Cain had raised the stake and killed his brother; Cain was only labeled as a murderer that couldn't taste the holy latrine of heaven, however. And Sonic felt it was his fault that He died, because he rarely visited Him. He rarely helped Him with his illness. He felt it was his duty to revive Him, so he could become something again. But Sonic could only become a lowlife hedgehog to the old God. Many had pined for the same dream, but only one can have it. Even Sonic's father wanted to be God, but he is much too sick to become one. Schizophrenia and bipolar are illnesses that can affect a god's decision, and Anansi popping his medicine that only made him seem more imaginative and creative…his decisions are too riddled with decay now. He only wants to die, and Sonic has to be reborn. Reborn into a hedgehog without sin, like Jesus Christ."
The plush was finished. It had stood in the light of the broken sun, looking innocent, unharmed by society's views. Unharmed that Earth had to start all over again.
"That means you will die too. You're fine with that, right?"
She nodded her head.
"Yes, I am. Anything to make the world reborn, to be better than last time. Sometimes we need to start over from scratch to make something good, a new beginning. And this also applies to people. But I see myself as only a speckled god in the million of other ones that are making a difference. I only heal. And I only spread knowledge."
"And you're quite smart for being a six-year-old girl." Too damn smart.
She said nothing, and finished her tea, and finished the xanthic flower by eating it daintily. Without another word, she had used her godlike abilities to tell Shadow that she was done speaking the truth to him, and his hole inside his neck would tell him the rest.
"Cream is actually a hundred years old. She just has the stature of a six-year-old girl. She has been around this world for a long time."
"If you want to replenish your folklore for a reason you can't explain, there is an egg at Lakeview Cemetery. The one where Bruce Lee is buried. If you make it there just in time you will meet a purple cat named Blaze. She also wants this demon egg, and you have the decision to fight her or not. Blaze has other issues to deal with than you. This is the very last demon egg you will find on this world. All the gods in this earth, except you and Sonic, will die, and if you want to give her some satisfaction to getting a demon egg, or satisfaction of killing her, she is in your hands. And so is Sonic's."
The sewing needle he had stabbed Sonic's bruised and bloody cheek with. It was broken, but it had so much power. He realized it came from Aceso's home, and something, something had made him give that needle to Sonic. And it wasn't him. It wasn't Chip's orders, but the orders of the Voice in his head. It was the Voice of Anansi, the true God.
Aceso had disappeared in the darkness, in the murkiness of a homeless home built by a six-year-old child who was truly a hundred, maybe a thousand years old, and he could hear the soft kindling of tea kettles as she made more tea, tea to help her soul withstand the death of the planet and the death of the old God.
He flew off, to Lakeview Cemetery. The sky had grown cloudy, more like a supposed February day, and he could see the charcoal shadings that meant the end of the world was near, and the gods were slowly dying away from the planet. The spring then was doused with rain. And they rejoiced, on God's birthday. On God's deathday.