Sleep

A cool draft slips down my shirt making me shutter. The eerie feeling after its collapse made us stand there in silence. Lily, the tanker of our group, clenches an amulet and drops to her knees. Sobbing. Leo, the priest, begins tearing up and rubbing his eyes furiously trying to hide his tears from us. Lucas, the leader of our group, looks towards the sky and doesn't move. He stands over the corpse and a couple of flies land on him, but this however, does not cause him to flinch in the slightest. He stares into the sky with an almost vacant, yet cheerful expression. As for me, I find a stable rock near the area and sit down, while wrapping bandages around my abdomen. I stare at everyone with a blank expression. No thoughts enter my mind as I take this chance and touch my temple. A status screen opens with all my skills appearing. Two new skills and the title "Savior" appear, but I close the window as Lily stands up and looks at us.

"We did it," she says in tears. "We finally killed God."

Night falls. Everyone is laughing and eating roasted meat. I try to laugh with the rest of my party, but there's something unsettling eating at me. Like a centipede gnawing on a cockroach. I can't hide it anymore as Lucas turns around and stares. Through the corner of my eye, I see Lucas leaning in for a closer look on my dumbfounded expression.

"Well that's a first. What's wrong?" He asks with a puzzled look on his face as well.

"Nothing in particular, there's just... I don't know. I can't quite put my finger on it," I reply.

I feel everyone stare at me as anxiety begins to creep over their faces.

Lily interjects, "What are you talking about! We just killed God over here and you're just-"

"I know. It's just..." I take a long pause and hold my breath. "What now?" I reply. My hands gripping my staff, almost breaking it.

The other members look at each other in confusion as silence consumes us. Lucas looks at me and tries to say something, but immediately closes his mouth and tightens his fist, raising both hands so that they are now covering his mouth. Lily caresses her amulet between her thumb and index finger while Leo begins to carve symbols on the dirt with his foot.

"You're right... What now?" Questions Leo, still looking down at his blood stained shoes.

"We can try looking for survivors. I mean... who knows, maybe a couple of people were able to escape underground or... or maybe they weren't touched by the hands." Lucas states in a reluctant manner. Swallowing his pride and belief as he utters these sentences.

"No. There's no way anyone else could have survived. We were the strongest people out there, and we only just barely managed to survive his hands. And even then, it took us a couple of months to get back to full health and well... There was literally no one." I state with a somber expression. I tilt my head up and notice a translucent gate stationed in our atmosphere. The gate itself spans almost the whole sky, yet the darkness of the night almost consumes it, but somehow, someway, it's visible. What everyone thought was heaven at one point in time, ended up being everyone's worst hell.

The rest of the members look up too.

Lily is the first to look back down. "I can't believe it's been eight months since the gates opened," she states. She pushes her hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear. A dark smudge is left on the top of her ear as her dirty finger grazed it.

A cool wind envelops us which would have left us shivering if not for the fire that I created at the start of this. Some embers jump out of the fire, reminiscent of the great jump. A mass suicide where thousands of self-immolations and jumps occurred at the same time. Lucas and Leo are still staring into the night sky with blank expressions, while Lily is staring at the flame, lost in thought. I take a deep breath and resolve myself.