Page 62 of Fable for the End of the World

And then, just as abruptly as it appears, it’s gone. The glass fragment of a memory and the sensation that accompanied it.Keres’s name sinks back down into the murk and depths of my black-pitted mind.

When I come to, Inesa is watching me intently.

“You aren’t afraid of fire, are you?” she asks, brow furrowed.

“No.”

At least, I don’t think I am. Surely Azrael would have wiped that phobia out of me, like I’m certain he did for many others. But I don’t mention that. And I don’t mention that what I felt when looking at the fire wasn’t fear. It was closer to anger. Closer to defiance.

Those are definitely not emotions an Angel is supposed to feel. I’m grateful that they’ve vanished so quickly. I shake my head, as if to clear the last of the fuzzy memory from my brain.

I hold my hands out toward the rising heat, relieved at how it chases away the chill from the tips of my fingers. Inesa holds hers out, too, and I’m equally relieved to see her visibly relax, her shoulders slumping. At least for the moment, we’re both safe and warm. All thanks to her.

“Maybe survivalists would be better at surviving if they took some tips from you,” I say.

Inesa laughs. It’s a clear sound, bright and somehow shining, almost visible in the air.

“It’s just a shame,” she says, “that we don’t have anything to cook over it.”

“I think I can fix that.”

If I’ve been feeling slightly useless to our survival efforts so far, this is the perfect remedy. Hunting is something I know I can do. It’sas instinctual as breathing. Granted, I’ve never tracked animals before, but it can’t be any more difficult than tracking people.

Unless it isn’t. Animals might technically be less intelligent, though in a way they’re more adept. Their brains are optimized, dedicated solely to survival. They aren’t clouded with things like empathy, or tripped up by tangled human questions of morality. Their memories are short, and full of holes, but they preserve the essential things: how to escape and how to stay alive.

Azrael’s voice echoes through my mind, quick as a fizzing bar of static.You are my perfect creation.

If only he could see me now. Digging graves for Outliers. Bandaging the hands of my Lamb. I wonder how many Wipes it will take to mend these cracks in my facade. To obliterate all memories of this weakness.

Fire erupts across my vision, that same outward, blooming heat. And this time, it’s his face I see within it, his name that catches on my tongue. My stomach clenches with revulsion.

Stop, I tell myself sternly.Snap out of it.These are false memories, I decide, something going wrong with the circuitry in my brain. The blow Luka struck me with his rifle must have done more damage than I thought. A tiny fissure in the glass. That’s all. Azrael will seal it up and make me new again.

But my fingernails are digging so hard into my palm that I’ve broken the skin beneath my gloves.

I start pacing through the forest, silent and swift on my feet. The biggest challenge will be finding a deer that isn’t too irradiated to eat. Inesa told me the best places to look: upstream, where thewater is fresher, and where the woods are damper and denser. I make sure to stick close to the creek, though, so I don’t get hopelessly turned around.

But even if I do lose the creek, Inesa’s tracker is still pulsing in me like a second heartbeat. All my other systems have collapsed, except for this one. I’ll always be able to find my way back to her.

The sun slowly works its way across the sky as I walk, draining toward the line of the horizon. Evening settles thick and heavy across the forest, shadows stretching and air bristling with cold. I’ll have more luck now. Inesa told me that deer come out to graze at dawn and dusk, when the light is muddled and they’re safest from predators. Or so they think.

The stream diverts into a small pool, with deer droppings ground into the dirt around it. It’s not something I would’ve picked up on before, but being out here has reframed my vision. Made me notice things that I would never even have bothered to look for. For as long as I can remember, the air has just felt like dead space around me. Now it seems like I can sense every atom, seething and blooming with life.

This new awareness is equal parts blessing and curse. I narrow my eyes, trying to focus on nothing more than the hunt. I clamber up into a nearby tree and cache myself among its low-hanging branches. Then, with my rifle propped against my shoulder, I wait.

I don’t have to wait long. The deer come trotting out of the trees in a group of three: a mother and two fawns. They’re still young enough that their pelts are dappled with white. It’s not dark enough yet for the night vision in my prosthetic to click on, so Ihave to strain with my real eye to see if I can spot a third eye or a webbed hoof. They all look like ordinary deer to me. Anxious, trembling, gentle things.

Using the scope, I train my rifle on the mother. My artificially slowed heart gives an inexplicable stutter, and I wonder which is crueler: to kill one of the shaky-legged fawns before it’s even had a chance to outgrow its white spots, or to kill the mother and leave her children to fend for themselves? Crueler to make a child live without its mother, or a mother live without its child?

It’s nothing I’ve ever had to consider before. These are the types of inane human concerns that make a person weak. Concerns that should be below me. I shoot the mother because she’s bigger, which means more to eat. But when I see the fawns scatter at the gunshot, still unsteady on their legs, their large, black eyes damp with uncomprehending terror, I feel another tremor in my heart. Another crack in my system, spiraling outward from the first.

The temperature drops violently while I’m hauling the deer back to the cabin. All of a sudden, my breath is clouding in front of my face and the air is taut with cold. Under my hunting suit, gooseflesh rises on my arms and legs.

Careful to avoid the trip wire, I drag my kill into the cabin. As soon as I open the door, I’m met with a flushing wave of heat. Relief makes my bones quiver. The stove in the corner is steadily crackling, chuffing gray-white smoke. All the oil lamps have been lit, casting the room in a sheen of gold.

Inesa has spread out a series of tools on the table, mostprominent among them a knife and a handsaw. She’s still wearing those ridiculous clothes. When she sees me, her head tips up and a smile stretches across her face, one that shows the dimple in her cheek.

“You did it,” she says.

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