Chapter 10 Chapter 10: the Eighth Day
“I see you don’t appreciate my work very much, Tillyanna.” The same nurse from earlier stood in my cell, arms crossed. “Well, that’s five stitches and a lot of glue, should hold you together until next time. You’re officially my best customer, though I hope we don’t meet again soon. I’d also recommend a bath. You…how do I say it? reek.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“I am not a doctor. I’m a nurse. And I do hope you’ll take my advice.” She rolled her eyes.
“Advice, Doc? The bit about customers or baths?”
With a huff, she stormed past the guard, muttering, “I’m starting to understand why people feel the need to hit you so much.”
The guard followed, leaving me alone again, my third night in this damned city. The late hour meant only four hours until sunrise. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together my broken life.
How do I get a pass out of the city? How do I pay for Ranger protection in the Wastelands? Not Nate and his mob. His face flickered in my mind, the way he looked when my gun was pointed at him, that smug smile. God, I should’ve slit his throat when I first met him. Would’ve saved me so much trouble.
Was it him who ratted me out? No… not him.
The Book. The Eighth Day. How do I get it back? Can they even translate it? And what the hell does that mean for me if they do?
Back when I was a child, living in the church dorms, we all had a copy of The Eighth Day. We were expected to read it daily, every child had painstakingly hand-copied their own, diagrams and all, under the hard gaze of the Sisters. From the First Book of the Nephilim to the Last Acts of Nylah the Warrior-Sister, we knew every word. That book, a collection of songs, stories, and poems from across the world, translated into Russian, spoke of the beginning of the end, of how we would rise again. But this time, we would do it right. This time, we would do it in the name of Nylah and the Holy Mother. For every Sister.
The first book tore through my thoughts like fire, I remember crying with every line I copied.
The Book of the Eighth Day: song text by Hazel O’Connor, Honoured Saint and Sister.
In the beginning was a world
Man said, “Let there be more light
Electric scenes, a maze of beams
Neon brights to light our boring nights.”
On the second day he said, “Let’s have a gas
Hydrogen and power of the past.
Let’s make some germs, we’ll poison the worms
Man will never be surpassed.”
And he said, “Behold what I have done,
I’ve made a better world for everyone.
Nobody laughs, nobody cries,
World without end, forever and ever,
Amen.”
On the third we get green and blue pill pie,
On the fourth we send rockets to the sky,
On the fifth metal beasts and submarines,
On the sixth man prepares his final dream.
In our image, let’s make robots for our slaves,
Imagine all the time that we can save-
Computers, machines, the silicon dream;
Seventh he retired from the scene.
And he said, “Behold what I have done,
I’ve made a better world for everyone.
Nobody laughs, nobody cries,
World without end, forever and ever,
Amen.”
On the eighth day machine just got upset-
A problem man had not foreseen as yet.
No time for flight, a blinding light,
Then nothing but a void, forever night.
He said, “Behold what man has done,
There’s not a world for anyone.
Nobody laughs, nobody cries-
World’s at an end, everyone has died,
Forever amen.”
Lying in bed, the pain rattling through me, I thought of The Sisters’ mission, to prevent the second rise of the Nephilim, to change the world. Words I once believed in. What would they do to me now for my betrayal? For abandoning them… for forsaking my faith?
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I must have dozed off at some point, because now I was being roused,