Emmanuel's lifeless eyes rolled back into his head as he drifted, gently floating on the water's surface.
"Huh," said Mike reflectively from beside him, as they treaded water in an attempt to survive the next death-trap. "Who would have guessed the poor bastard couldn't swim. Bad luck, I suppose. But… he'll be all right?"
Overhead of them, the water continued to rise, only inches of air left in the tight room.
But then, Hannah burst to the surface, head poking out like an otter. "Come on, I found a way out!" she declared urgently, and then resubmerged.
Mike and Winnie followed her down through the dimly lit murk, through some form of underwater passage. Just when Mike thought his lungs would burst, they saw a dim light, and broke surface.
Mike and Winnie dogpaddled to the shore, looking around warily at the massive, underground cavern they had surfaced in.
"This… is the weirdest basement I've ever been in." Mike declared, as they shook themselves, Hannah waiting ahead impatiently. "Of course, I can't remember any others, but I'm pretty sure this is the weirdest."
"Come on, you two," Hannah insisted, her face still expressionless despite all of the exertion they had endured. She strode on ahead, not bothering to see if she was followed.
They trailed behind her, still knocking the water out of their ears.
"She's pretty intense…" Mike observed quietly, gazing at Hannah in awe. "I wouldn't want to get on her bad side."
Winnie nodded in agreement. "Hannah's been here almost as long as I have. She values personal capability over anything else: appearance, other people's opinion of her, whatever. She doesn't seem to trust anyone, and I've never seen a more brutal fighter. Myself excluded, of course. There is one thing we do share, though. "
Mike frowned at the figure striding ahead of them in wonderment. "What?"
Winnie shrugged, as if it wasn't an issue. "We both are totally committed to defeating God. To making him pay. That's all."
"Oh. I see, well then-"
There was a splash. Mike tensed, by now ready for anything. But when his scanning eyes noticed what was in the water beside them, he almost laughed in relief.
The lake had turned into a river. Several hundred feet ahead it could be seen breaking into violent rapids, before finally hurtling over some terrible waterfall. Mike could hear it from where he stood.
Rushing past them, kept afloat in a simple cardboard box was a teddy bear, silent as it hurtled towards its demise.
Mike chuckled. "Heh, that's a relief. No one would fall for a simple trick like that-"
"I'M COMING TEDDY!" Hannah cried. Her face tightened in ferocious determination as she leapt into the air. She plunged into the water and swam to the box with Olympic strokes. The water rushed past, jostling over the rapids with wicked speed.
An astonished Mike distantly saw Hannah reach the box, then, remove the toy with a dawning expression of disbelief, and fly over the waterfall.
"THIS, THIS IS SOOOOOOOO STUPIIIIIID," she called out in frustration, before her call was lost over the pounding roar of the water.
"And," Winnie added, her brow narrowing in annoyance, "she also has an incredible attachment to cute and fluffy animals, bears especially." Winnie sighed. "She loves them so much, she has difficulty telling toys apart from the real thing."
Mike swallowed. "That's… actually really adorable."
"Whatever. Come on, let's get going."
They proceeded to tromp out of the cavern, scaling a spiraling stone-hewn path. At the stair's pinnacle, they stumbled into another hallway. Mike knocked one of the wooden supports cautiously; it looked precisely like the initial tunnel they had traversed.
"Weird… It's like we've gone full circle. Winnie, just how big is this place?"
She brushed past him without an answer and set off down the passage, her face set in a frustrated grimace.
"Winnie? Hey, what's wrong?" Mike called, jogging to catch up with her.
She doggedly avoided his gaze, striding on with forced determination. "Nothing! Nothing's wrong. This is a mission, we have to complete it."
"But, are you sure? Is there-"
"Aww sweet mercy, man, don't you let things go?" she hissed, glaring at him, huffing. He was silent.
She huffed. "Well, a real leader would have done better than this, all right?"
He blinked at her.
"I mean… A real leader, a good leader, they would have kept everyone together… I only managed to keep ahold of you."
She glanced at him. "No offense."
He shook his head violently, running ahead to look back at her. "Hey, I don't know what you're talking about! You're the best military leader I've ever met! You hold these people together, and-" She frowned at him. "You've never seen any other military commander, moron. I still got a long ways to go, if I'm going to defeat the God of the universe." Her frown shrunk a little. "But hey, let's take a quick break. I want to dry off."
Mike slumped down next to her as they sat at the edge of the passage. "Look," he began, curious. "I don't remember what earth was like, so I feel like I'm missing something. Why are you all fighting God? I thought he was the good guy."
Winnie began to wring out her sleeve. "What, as opposed to the Devil? What, God's the one who fights the Devil, stops him from messing up the world?"
She slowed, her eyes steady as she stared at the far wall. "Best joke I've heard all day."
"What do you mean?"
Winnie leaned back against the dusty wall. She was silent for a moment, and then began to speak.
₪"When I was ten, my dad got a new job. He had been promoted. Suddenly, we could live comfortably. We bought a new house, and my family; my parents, me, and my three younger siblings moved to a nice place out in the country. We weren't really rich, but we were better off than most. I didn't really pay much attention to that.
"I'd just got to middle school, you see. There were so many people, and some tough teachers… I had my own locker. It was serious business. Suddenly I felt all grown up, I felt like I was capable of anything. My little siblings were a little bit annoying, but… I knew they looked up to me. I loved them so much.
"One day in the summer, my parents were away for the afternoon. They'd left me behind, told me to take care of everyone. I was overjoyed, my parents trusted me to protect the most precious things in the house, my siblings. I was responsible!
"But, we lived out far from everyone else, there were no immediate neighbors. And, it had been a hard summer for my country, lots of people losing their jobs.
"There was a robbery. Three men, they broke in through a window, and started running around the house, knocking things over, using words I knew I wasn't supposed to use.
" My brothers and sister were terrified; I could only hold them as we knelt in the living room, waiting for it to be over. The men were looking for our valuables, of course. But my dad, he kept everything in someplace hidden, and I didn't know where it was. The robbers couldn't find anything, and they became… angry."
Winnie's eyes scrunched tight. "And so, they did the only thing they could think of. They wrenched my brother and my sisters from me, and held them up against our living room wall.
"'Hey, little girl! You're the oldest, right?' one said. I, I could tell he was drunk, he leaned over me as he spoke, his breath smelt terrible. 'You must be in charge, huh?' he said. 'I bet your parents told you were all the money n' stuff is kept, huh? Where you'd keep what you need to, ah, to make nasty burglars go bye-bye, huh?'
"They all laughed. Then, the man spoke again.
"'We're real impatient, you see girl? So you bring us your parent's valuables, right now. Because,' and, the man tickled my youngest brother on the cheek. 'Because, every ten minutes that goes by where we don't get what we want… We'll have to take one of your family from you. One by one.'
Winnie shook. "I was frantic, the most frightened I've even been. I raced around the house, looking desperately for something I could give them. But I was only ten, how could I know what they wanted, what men like them would find valuable? I flew, from room to room, up and down the stairs, the men watching every step I made.
"At last, I came into my father's study, and saw the clock behind his desk. It had been nine minutes. Desperate, I picked up the only thing I could think off, my father's favorite vase. It, it was so heavy, something that heavy had to be valuable! I could barely lift it; it took all my strength to take it to the stairs.
"I started down, holding on to it with a death grip, I couldn't let it slip. But, but I couldn't see the stairs beneath me, and my foot missed the step… and I fell.
"I lay on the ground, covered in pottery shards. I remember looking at my hands, watching blood cover them from the cuts. And then, I blacked out.
"The police finally arrived, 30 minutes later. When my parents found me, I had to tell them the truth. I'd failed. They were all gone, and I was left, an only child. "
Mike's mouth hung open, his eyes red. He couldn't think of anything to say.
"It's just, it's just too much," Winnie whispered, hugging herself. "We didn't do anything, but we were killed by hatred. We were just kids…"
Her eyes snapped open. Mike blinked in alarm as she suddenly stared into him, irises burning.
"Mike, the older I got, the more I noticed the same thing all around me. Whole nations drowning in poverty, children left to die in the streets. Natural disasters struck often, with no rhyme or reason, tearing down homes, and ripping apart families. God's kingdom is miserable, he doesn't care about us. Why else would he let this world be such garbage? Why is it so full of hatred, where… where…
"I can't accept it; I can't accept a life where we have to live with so much pain. And I can't, I can't ever forgive God for abandoning us to such hard, difficult lives. I will fight this almighty God, the Lord, until I am strong enough, until I can finally make him pay for the hateful world he threw us to."
A thud suddenly resounded, echoing from not far behind.
Winnie flew up, taking a shell-shocked Mike with her. "Angel's almost here!" she cried, taking off down the hall, dragging Mike along. "Hurry, we're almost there. I can't let Angel win."