Chapter 16: The Strength to Fight

In a passage made from a post office, a young woman was struggling to open up the wall of mailboxes. Nineteen, chestnut hair, short, and even skinner now after two weeks of little food. She was using a screwdriver and a brick to bust them open. With how the food was distributed in this pyramid, checking mailboxes had been a surprisingly lucrative search method. She had already found a bottle of water, a jar of peanut butter, and some beef jerky. She had to be careful, though. The banging of metal from busting open the mailboxes was hardly inconspicuous.

Ah! A can of tuna!

As she pulled the can out of the mailbox, she heard the approach of sudden footsteps, yet before she could defend herself, a solid punch to the side of the face knocked her to the ground. The man who did it immediately grabbed her arms and began to drag her way, while two of his friends showed up, jumping and hollering in excitement. The woman screamed and tried to fight them off, but she couldn’t pull her arms free from the grip of the first man and her flimsy kicks were anything but a threat.

“Come on, get her pants off!” one of the men cackled. The woman screamed even louder and doubled her efforts, earning a kick to the ribs that left her unable to breathe.

She had spent the past two weeks running and hiding from everyone, too afraid to fight back from anyone who came after her. It had worked pretty well, until now. One of the men had unfastened her jeans and pulled them down around her ankles, with her underwear next to go. Was this really going to happen? Was she going to be raped and murdered just like all the other women whose screams haunted her dreams? Was this simply what it meant to live in this era?

“Let her go!”

The woman looked to the source of the voice and thought her eyes to be lying to her, that she was just seeing a hallucination brought on by despair. Down the corridor, a female warrior stood, gleaming crimson hair flowing freely, a look of confidence and wrathful determination on her beautiful face. All this was visible, even in these corridors, due to the aura of light that enshrouded her, as if she was standing in the center of a bonfire.

“What the fuck is this?” one of the men asked.

A silent answer, Jean punched the air and a beam of light shot from her hand and hit the man in the face with a physical force far greater than what simple muscle could do. He was tossed through the air and his cohorts looked at Jean in confusion, unable to understand the light around her. Whatever was going on, she was a threat and had to be eliminated. One of them charged towards her with a knife in his grip.

‘Protect me, oh Lord.’

She swung her arm as he tried to stab her, and the blade broke against her palm. Then she spun around and kicked him, her leg infused with the power of her soul and reaching superhuman levels of strength. He was thrown through the air like his friend, hitting the far wall with several bones breaking. The third man didn’t even bother attacking and ran off.

With the threat neutralized, Jean approached the woman. “Are you ok?”

The woman stared at her in amazement, Jean’s light-shrouded body reflected in her eyes. “Who are you?”

“One of God’s messengers sent me a message. She told me to unite the people and lead them to freedom, and she gave me the strength to do it.”

The explanation went right over the woman’s head. When someone claims to be selected by God to play the role of a messiah, a rational person’s first response is to get as far away from the weirdo as possible, it was just common sense. However, seeing Jean, the way her body glowed, the powers she had exhibited, they tossed that common sense out the window.

“Are you ok? What’s your name?” Jean asked again.

The woman jerked, shaken from her stupor. “Y-yeah, just a little bruised, but I’ll be fine. Anna, my name is Anna.”

“I’m Jean. Well, Anna, you have two choices. You can either have faith in God’s plan and follow me to the exit, or you can disappear back into the darkness and hopefully not get attacked again. What’s it going to be?”

“Which way are you going?”

“That way,” said Jean, pointing to her right. “The angel said she’d leave me a marker that I’d be able to sense, and it’s in that direction.”

Anna’s face became pale. “You can’t go that way! I just came from there! I barely made it out with my life!”

“It doesn’t matter, that’s the way to freedom, and I don’t care what I have to fight to get through it.”

“Not even you can get through it! If I go back there with you, we’ll both get captured and raped, or worse!”

“You need to have faith in yourself. Let me show you what you’re capable of.”

Before Anna could react, Jean put her hand on the center of her chest and channeled a mighty burst of energy straight into her heart. Rather than as an attack, she was using this to undam Anna’s own latent power, just as the angel had done for her. Jean’s energy flowed through every capillary like liquid light, stimulating all of her cells and awakening her own dormant power. Her soul, it was like it was unfolding, revealing its true form. Then, when Jean’s power receded, a new energy erupted to fill the vacuum.

Anna staggered back, her mind going a mile a minute and her body now wrapped in its own aura.

“What ... is this?” she asked, looking at her hand.

“It is the power that God bestowed upon each and every one of us. We just never realized we could use it. Do you believe me now?”

“I ... never really believed in God.”

Jean grinned. “Well there has never been a better time than now. The enemy of mankind stands before us and we have to power to beat him! So, I ask you again, what are you going to do?”

“I-I’ll come with you.”

“All right, gather up your things and let’s get moving.”

Anna collected what few meager possessions she had, straightened her clothes, and then began walking alongside Jean. After only a few steps, she spoke up.

“Wait, I think I can sense it to. That marker thing. But ... what the hell?”

“I know, I couldn’t believe it at first either. This whole place is flowing with an evil energy, like we’re inside some giant monster. Have you seen what happens to dead bodies? They get absorbed into the walls and floor, eaten by the pyramid, and then turned into those mutants that have been roaming around. I sense an incredible power source in the summit of the pyramid, and it’s what’s powering the activity and the transformations.”

“So ... how do I use these powers?” Anna’s light then faded, unlike Jean’s. “Huh? They went away...”

“This is the power that God had given us, so they are powered by faith. Believe in yourself and believe in God.”

Anna tried to obey, staring at her hands and focusing with all her might. She achieved a slight shimmer, the light around her bending, but she wasn’t producing her own. It was hard for her to just adopt a faith, but more than the idea of God, she found it harder to believe in herself. She had spent her life trying to avoid conflict and fights. In this pyramid, she wasn’t a brave survivor, just a cowardly scavenging insect at the bottom of the food chain. Just minutes ago, she was about to be raped. Had Jean been in any other tunnel, Anna would be getting violated at this very moment. These powers, Jean had unlocked them within her, but she didn’t feel any different as a person. She was still afraid, she was still weak.

“You have to have confidence in yourself. You’ve survived this long. That’s a lot more than plenty of other people can say. Don’t expect it to happen, you have to will it to happen.

Anyway, why is this direction so dangerous?”

“There are a lot of wide-open areas that two groups are fighting over.”

“Which groups?”

“Some crazy church and a collaboration of all the old street gangs. They’ve been expanding their territory from the area up ahead, trying to take it over and secure all the resources for themselves.”

“Then we just have to bring them together and show them the light. If we can turn them onto the right path, then not only can we all get out of here, but we might be able to overthrow Dominion.”

“Are you crazy?! The US government couldn’t even do that!”

“They didn’t have God on their side, we do, and we have the strength to prove it.”

Jean then held out her arm and stopped Anna, her eyes sharpening. Anna heard it after a few seconds, a strange clicking. She recognized that sound, the sound of the beasts that roamed the pyramid. Half of the time she spent running had been away from those monsters. She tried to back away but Jean stopped her.

“We’re not going to run. I’m going to show you the power I wield, the same power that is in within you.”

They saw them ahead, dropping out of a vertical shaft in the ceiling of the tunnel. Four of them had gathered, sniffing the air while using the sound of their clicks to get a sonar reading of the area. Their gazes were all fixed on Jean and Anna. Scent, hearing, and night vision eyes, they were perfectly suited to this environment. Had they been created this way, or had they somehow adapted and mutated after being born?

What was truly troubling was the amount of spiritual energy they possessed. Jean and Anna could sense it, a vast, billowing torrent surging within them, utterly inhuman. But rather than a soul, the power seemed to be radiating from a physical core within their chests. The beasts could likewise sense the spiritual energy in the women, especially in the woman with the red hair. These creatures couldn’t manipulate and focus their energy the way she could, due to not having souls, but they could detect it and were very curious.

“I’ll try to hold them back and protect you, but they’ll come for you as well. If you fight, there’s a good chance you’ll die by my side today. But if you run, I guarantee you you’ll die alone in the dark later. The choice is yours.”

Jean then approached them, a glowing beacon in the labyrinth. The four beasts all screamed in bloodlust and attacked her. The first to reach her tried to slash her throat with its claws, but she blocked with her arm. Despite breaking the knife blade with her palm earlier, some drops of blood trickled from the wounds the claws had created. More than blood, there was a staticky plasma bubbling where its claws were grinding against her flesh. Their energies were interacting and repelling each other, just like sparks shooting off grinding metal.

With the beast pushing against her, she pulled back her arm and thrust her hand into the monster’s chest. She had focused the energy around her fingers, flattening it into a blade to pierce its flesh. Despite the difference in their levels of strength, the fact the Jean could condense her power with her will meant that her quality was superior to the beast’s quantity, up to a point, at least. She ripped out the core, a black sphere, and crushed it in her hand, extinguishing the monster’s life force. Before getting her powers, she never would have stood a chance against these abominations, she’d be slaughtered in an instant. Now she could fight back.

One of the other beasts leaped through the air like a pouncing lion from behind its comrade. Jean punched the air and a pillar of energy extended from her hand like a battering ram and struck the monster in the chest, knocking it back. She turned around, seeing the other two beasts charging towards Anna. She caught up to one and grabbed its tail, then, with superhuman strength, she flung it back. The second reached Anna and tried to slash her, but she managed to duck out of the way. Actually, it was more of a lucky tumble.

Jean extended the reach of her energy, just like before, and turned it into a tendril that grabbed the monster’s other arm and stopped it from advancing. “Anna! You have to fight! If you want to live, you have to fight!” But Anna was paralyzed with fear, unable to draw up the strength that Jean had given her.

Jean then cried out, one of the other monsters sinking its teeth into her shoulder. Unfortunately, it was hard for her to attack and defend at the same time. This aura, whether she used it to enhance her strength, guard from attack, or launch one of her own, it never seemed to run out or wither, but she had only a fixed amount to harness. Normally it wrapped around her, protecting her, but when she willed it, she could reach out with it like an extension of her body, though that meant diverting power and making herself vulnerable.

She had to let go of the monster attacking Anna so that she could gather back up her energy. She punched her own adversary with an enhanced punch, sending it flying back through the air. Then she went to work healing her wounds while the third approached. It didn’t wait for her bleeding to stop, it lashed out with its tail and Jean parried it.

A scream demanded her attention, and she fired a burst of energy to buy herself some time to look back at Anna. She was on her back, the beast upon her, snapping its jaws and trying to dig its claws into her flesh. She was bloody, her mind too scrambled to call upon her power. Once more, Jean created a lasso, thinner this time, and wrapped it around the monster’s neck to try and drag it back. It was pulled upright, just enough that Anna was out of its reach. The tether wasn’t strong enough to fully separate the beast from Anna, but it left Jean with just enough strength to create another coil and crack it like a whip at the two others to hold them back.

“Anna! Fear won’t cut it! You have to want to live, not be afraid to die! Even if you get out of here, you’ll never truly be free if you don’t have the strength to fight!”

Her words shook Anna from her stupor and bounced around in her head. To want to live, to be afraid to die, two concepts that sounded the exactly the same at any other time, but now felt like polar opposites of each other. Anna focused on that, her desire to live, to be free of this place. She wanted to see the sky, the sun, she wanted to feel the fresh air and feel safe! She was sick and tired of being afraid! Her frustration, her hatred of feeling fear, she used that to expunge all fear from her heart and replace it with the insatiable desire to win her freedom. Pure desire, it brought the power from before rushing back. Anna gathered it into her hand, channeled all of her will, and punched the beast in the center of its chest. A burst of energy erupted from her hand, burning straight through the monster’s torso and destroying its core.

As the slain monster fell over, Anna got to her feet and joined Jean, now alight with the same power.

The Church of Penitent Blood, it was the first stop on Jean and Anna’s list. It was one of the two main powers emerging in the darkness, absorbing all of the smaller religious groups and building an army of believers. Anna was nervous, having fled from this very church just the other day. Her light had vanished. Without the adrenaline of fighting, her courage had yet to possess a reliable presence. As they approached the edge of the church’s territory, Jean concealed her power. In this situation, if she did anything rash or abnormal, she and Anna could be declared witches and burned at the stake. Despite their fear, going to the church first was the better choice. There would be more people willing to believe them. Hopefully, if they got enough followers, they could convince the street gang conglomerate to join them.

They saw it up ahead, a barricade blocking off the passage. There was no telling how much space the church controlled, due to the intricacies of the labyrinth. Their expansion depended entirely on where the tunnels would let them advance. Some tunnels could go for miles without branching off, cutting right through their territory like tree roots through a garden, just taking up space. Since the pyramid had levels, territory included elevation, so in every accessible tunnel within the church’s domain, barricades were stationed to form a perimeter. Countless people had tried to break through the walls, including Jean, but nothing worked.

The barricade was made of random junk, a mix of furniture, car parts, and building debris. Around it, dead beasts were hanging off pikes, a warning to their brethren. The barricade was guarded by four men, all armed and wearing robes made of bedsheets. As Jean and Anna approached, they raised their weapons. This could easily be a trap from the street gang conglomerate.

“Stop where you are and state your names!” one of them shouted.

Jean pulled off her cross and held it out in front of her, showing it to them. “I am Sister Jean Clark of St. Peter’s Church on Barclay! This is my friend, Anna. We have a dire message that we have to deliver to your leader!”

“You didn’t tell me you were a nun!” Anna whispered.

“I was going to be, but then Dominion came along and screwed everything up.”

“Tell us your message, we’ll pass it along,” one of the men said.

“I know the location of the exit of this place and I have a way to get us out, but I can’t fight Dominion’s soldiers alone. The only way we can all survive is if we mobilize and march on it together. I need to speak to your leader!”

“It’s a trick! She wants to assassinate the Cardinal! There’s no way two women could have gotten here alive!”

“It’s not a trick! I know the way out! I—” She took a step forward, but then pulled back when one of the men shot at the ground around her.

“Move and you’re dead!”

They were paranoid. Living in the dark had told them anything sounding too good to be true really was. They were too afraid to take a chance on hope. Should she leave and try to enter through another tunnel? No, anyone she spoke to would probably be the same way. Reveal her powers and tell them about the angel? They’d just accuse her of being a witch or some unholy monster like the beasts. She could always try and fight her way through, but she really didn’t want to test herself against guns. She could block against threats she could see coming, but if someone shot at her from behind, there was a good chance she’d die. How could she convince them?

She took a deep breath, the answer clear. If she couldn’t convince them through her words, she’d do it through faith. She closed her eyes and clasped her crucifix with both hands. She began to pray, loud enough for them all to hear. A single step, it earned her a bullet striking an inch from her foot, but she took another, and another. The men fired several more shots, all at the ground. When she arrived, they were fully prepared to kill her, but hearing her prayers, the words spoken with such fearless certainty, they found themselves unable to take a lethal shot, for if she died, then the prayers would end, something they desperately wanted to prevent.

But they were also screaming at her to stop. Plenty of people had rushed the barricades before, often with explosive vests on. Countless loyal believers had been killed because they were too trusting. Anyone outside who touched a barricade without permission was to be killed, no exception. They didn’t want that to happen. They wanted her to stop, to see reason and stay away, but she was so confident, so unafraid. It was like she knew something that they didn’t, that she somehow knew they wouldn’t kill her. Her prayers, did she really have that much faith in God? Could it be possible that she really did have His protection?

One of the men, desperate, fired two rounds at her, one grazing her leg and the other her shoulder. She stumbled just the slightest bit, her steps slowing, but that was only due to the pain. She was still fully confident that they wouldn’t kill her. Enraged, the man jumped down off the barricade and pointed his gun right between her eyes. Who was she to strut around like this? What could possibly make her think she could be so arrogant? It was infuriating, the way she was looking down on them! How dare she assume that God would favor her over them!

She stopped, only when the man’s pistol was pressed to her forehead. Still, her eyes were closed. Slowly, she reached up and brushed her fingers against his. A pulse of energy, nothing at all compared to her attacks when fighting, but it was as real as the gun in his hand. He felt it, his flesh drinking it in like heat from a fire. It wasn’t enough to awaken his own soul as she had done with Anna, but he felt it ripple through him, a shiver at the cellular level.

He lowered his gun. He didn’t know what he just felt. Whether it was God’s protection or some trick, he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he shouldn’t stand in its way. If his life had a purpose, if every action he had ever taken and would take had been predetermined and ordered by God, he knew that to oppose this woman was not one of them, a certainty that he had never experienced before.

“Take her to the Cardinal. Do it now. If anyone gets angry, I’ll take the heat.”

Someone should have spoken up, they should have told him that he was being stupid or irrational. He wasn’t even in any kind of authoritative position to give orders or bear that kind of responsibility. Yet the way he spoke, it was the same as when she prayed. A sacred light stood before them, and all they were doing was casting shadows.

“Follow me, I’ll lead you to the Cardinal,” one of the other guards said.

Jean and Anna thanked them and followed him down past the barricade and deeper into the tunnel. The other two men stared at the third, his eyes transfixed on the hand that the woman had touched, his heart desperate to feel that energy again, if only one more time.

Jean and Anna followed the guard through the passages, deep into the heart of the church’s territory. There were more people in these tunnels, moving freely with little fear. Well, they all seemed plenty fearful, but there was the absence of distrust between strangers. They were all members of the same group, so infighting and hoarding resources would earn expulsion, and while priests and other cult leaders never had a good record of keeping it in their pants, they were all too terrified to try anything. After all, they were imprisoned by the Devil, so the last thing they wanted to do was anger God further with carnal desire.

For the two women who had spent weeks running from rapacious marauders, it was a nice change of pace, but still, there was a tension in the air. All faiths have a habit of degenerating into violence in response to external threats. The feeling of being oppressed or opposed causes religious beliefs to combine with the will to live, forming a fanatical desire to protect one’s link to whatever forces they worship. It was like dealing with a plague, anyone who showed signs of infection had to be cast out or even killed to protect the flock.

“I saw those monsters strung up outside the barricade. Did you guys kill them?” Anna asked, wanting to break the silence.

“We did, but there were a lot more of us there to do it. For every one we kill, our side loses three, and it’s happening more and more often. All of the barricades are reporting more frequent attacks by those demons.”

“Wait, you mean from every direction?” asked Jean.

“Well, mostly from this side and the other side. Why?”

Jean didn’t answer. It didn’t make sense. The angel said that the monsters were nesting around the exit to the pyramid, which was on the other side of church territory, meaning that most of the attacks should only be coming from that area. But why would the monsters outside of the nest attack with the same numbers and intensity as those from the nest? Was something happening on the other side of the pyramid?

They continued walking through tunnels, as well as up and down flights of stairs. After so much time spent in the pyramid, it quickly became a fact of life that to get anywhere would require taking long, roundabout routes. As this was a relatively safe area, people weren’t hiding their camps in closed pockets and chambers, rather sheltering openly in the tunnels to try and reestablish a sense of community. The larger tunnels were even filled in, becoming shanty towns.

Children could be seen running and playing while the adults worked to try and build order in the chaos. There were religious symbols everywhere, crosses adorning every surface. Jean and Anna couldn’t help but notice the distinct injuries everyone wore. Any men without shirts or bedsheet togas exposed the flagellation scars on their backs. Some even had bandages wrapped around their wrists and ankles, probably stigmata. However, most of the women showed bruises on their faces, which was an immediate red flag.

No, it was more than that. The sight of all these people, the way they were living, it was tying Jean’s stomach into knots, but she didn’t know why.

“Can you tell us about the Cardinal?” Jean asked.

“Oh, he is a wonderful man! God chose him to lead us to salvation, he placed him here to be our light in the darkness! Without him, we would just be savages, fighting over scraps. But he united us under the glory of the Almighty and showed us the true meaning of this place!”

‘The true meaning of this place?’ Jean wondered.

As their surroundings became more populated, a persistent voice could be heard, a sermon. Fire and brimstone, the righteous and the unworthy shedding each other’s blood, God smiting Dominion atop a mountain of bones; it was a sermon that made Jean’s skin crawl. But where was it coming from? Finally, the guard came to a stop in front of a pair of double doors, not from a church, but a shipping container, stuck in the walls. A voice could be heard on the other side, the man giving the sermon. Around them, members of the church were kneeling in prayer. They were likely the extras, stuck in the corridor because there was no more room on the other side of the doors. She could hear many of their prayers. They asked for strength and protection, they asked it not just of God or Christ, but the Cardinal himself.

“This is it, the heart of our church. The Cardinal is performing a sermon, you’ll have to wait until he is done and the service is concluded. Once a sermon begins, it is forbidden to open any doors into the citadel.”

“No, everyone needs to hear this.”

Jean then pushed by him and opened the doors. With Anna following her, she entered the shipping container, which acted as a corridor into the next chamber. A cathedral, the size of a sports stadium. It was a vast open floor space, at least a quarter mile in diameter. In the four corners, water was pumped up to form great waterfalls, with the roars echoing through the chamber. The sink in the restaurant that Jean and her group had huddled around so desperately, it felt so pathetic now, like this was some big practical joke on her. The chamber was lit with gathered stage lights, shining on the walls where followers had painted murals mimicking the stained glass from churches. Lights had also been set up in the center of the chamber, around a raised stage. Above the stage, numerous pipes of all sizes hung down from the ceiling closely packed together.

A man stood atop the stage, dressed to imitate the pope, but even gaudier. The cathedral was filled with thousands of people, kneeling in prayer, a sea of backs and bowed heads. It looked more like an Islamic gathering than a Christian one. Now it made sense, why his sermon could be heard throughout the tunnels around this room. As he preached, his voice was carried by the pipes and echoed outside for everyone to hear. The design was genius, but that’s what was so strange. This didn’t make sense, why would Dominion create a place like this in his pyramid? This open space, the waterfalls, the voice-enhancing pipes, why would he add such detail and thought to this one room in the labyrinth?

“Oh God...”

Entering the citadel caused many worshippers to turn their heads and shoot daggers from their eyes. However, none of them so much as sat up. It was taboo to interrupt a sermon. Those who were late had to pray outside, but there was no excuse for coming in. These women wouldn’t last long here. The Cardinal in the center, standing with his back to her, didn’t seem to notice her and continued preaching.

“We are but rats, trapped and lost within the walls of Jericho! But like the walls of Jericho, God will tear down his prison and set us free! We must show him our faith, show him our allegiance! Our bodies, they belong to God, and only when we truly acknowledge that, truly subvert ourselves to His will, will he show us mercy and save these vessels that we take for granted! An offering of flesh and blood, it is not giving him something of ours, it is returning something that was his! We must lay ourselves on a silver platter before God, so that he may grant us the mercy of continuing to walk the earth that he has created for us!”

“I think I should stay put here,” Anna muttered.

Jean didn’t reply and instead began moving forward. In case of a truly dire emergency that would interrupt the sermon, like an enemy attack, every entry and exit had to have a clear path to the stage in the center. Jean walked down the path from the shipping container, with everyone she passed gasping in fear and amazement at her impudence. As she walked, she tried to plan the words she would use. She originally had it all planned out, but as soon as she passed by that barricade, she realized that this would be much more complicated than she first thought. Regardless, she walked without fear.