Promethean: The Created

290 Pages·2006·55.45 MB·English

by  Bill Bridges

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V: I’ve been residing in this doomed t-township for ten years now. That was the bargain I st-struck with the
angel, and now it’s reaching its climax. I can’t say I’ll miss this place.

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IV : nWo elo nagreer aslecehke miti.stry made fl esh. Seeking the same goal the alchemists had. An illusion, I’ve c-come to realize.
AG: I don’t understand.
V: No? Then you’ll never understand me.
AG: And what ever happened to your fa-…
um… to the doctor who made you?
V: I’ll say just that I had my r-revenge.
It was neither swift nor merciful.
AG: Did you always want revenge
on him?
V: Not at the very b-beginning. If I
ever knew happiness, it was the
night I escaped his chamber
of horrors. I walked through
a forest, feeling no pain for the
fi rst time in weeks. I was free. I
let the cool night air s-soothe me. I marveled at the scents of the night fl owers, the
chirping of insects. I saw for the fi rst time the s-st-stars. Tiny jewels of
light in the sky… I thought I could touch them. I reached up and they
receded to their true height. I laughed. When the moon rose, I had an
urge to talk to it, but speech was d-diffi cult for me. The sound of
my voice fi lled me with anguish. I ran and ran and fi nally dropped
and fell into a d-dreamless sleep.
I awoke at dawn in some rustic cemetery. I heard v-voices; they
frightened me and I hid. I watched from behind a d-dead tree as
a small group of peasants shuffl ed tearfully around an open hole in
the earth. I understood just enough of their words to be horrifi ed. When they left,
I ran to the newly dug grave and b-began to pull up the earth with my h-hands.
I thought that they’d b-b-buried someone alive, you see — I didn’t really know the
difference between l-life and death. I smashed open the coffi n and p-pulled the corpse to
my b-breast. I c-c-cradled it and whispered in its ear, half-f-f-formed words to reassure it
that, that, that everything would… would b-be all r-r-right. I l-laid it out in the s-s-sunlight.
I thought that w-warm light might wake it up. I held its head in my l-lap, rocked b-back and
forth, stroked its hair. That was how they f-found me when they came back with their fl ow-
ers and c-c-candles. You can imagine how they reacted. It was a pattern that would be
repeated over and over again. I don’t know why, but it took a long time for me to learn that my
n-n-nature renders me unfi t for the company of human beings.
AG: Why do you say that? I mean, surely it’s no surprise that those people reacted negatively. But apart from that
incident, why are you so convinced that your nature makes you an outsider?
V: I should not exist, Doctor. We Prometheans should not be. You can feel it yourself right n-now, if you’re honest.
An unease, a discomfort in my presence. Yes? It’s an instinctive revulsion. We call it the Disquiet, and it is the
reason none of us will ever f-fi nd a place among the mortals we imitate.
AG: And this… Disquiet, you called it… this is something you’ve always experienced? You think it’s the cause of
the isolation you’ve described? The loneliness you feel?
V: I didn’t say anything about loneliness. And it’s not just p-people who feel Disquiet. Nature herself recoils.
Given time, the presence of one like me brings inevitable d-death and decay to the landscape. Why do you think the
countryside around here is so barren and poisoned?
AG: Isn’t it the mine fi re that’s doing that?
V: If I hadn’t started the fi re when I came here, the Disquiet would be expressed through some other means. A
drought. A plague. Some unseen pollutant. The mechanism doesn’t matter. While I’m here, natural laws are bent
towards d-destruction, and they’ll stay that way until I’m gone.