“How does it feel to be damned no matter what you do?” Virgil asked. “To know that if you lose to me, I kill you, and that if you win, you’re killed or imprisoned anyway? How does that feel?”

“I know that I fight for God, and that he blesses me,” Adam retorted, more and more unsure of himself. Enoch smiled in the distance, the angel observing the fight proudly.

Virgil sighed sophomorically, brandishing his sword out toward Adam. “Fuck your God,” he began. “Your lord, your Christ. Your God is an aging tyrant. You fight for dogma and totalitarianism. I fight for freedom.”

“You fight for evil, Virgil,” Adam replied, circling around, his feet entering the cold marsh waters under the highway bridge.

“I’m the evil one?” Virgil snorted. “Question authority, you naïve little pissant. Your God wants his power and his glory, and the rebels refuse to follow him. So exactly what are you fighting for? Being a good little boy and following orders? Fighting maybe for Elizabeth?”

“Leave her out of this,” barked Adam, eyes shining with tears.

“She was the first to go,” hissed Virgil. “You saw how she died, bleeding like a pig on the dirt? That’s you, Adam.”

“No I’m not!” roared Adam, leaping across the marsh into combat, his sword clashing down on Virgil’s. Surprised, Virgil shoved him back, knocking him into the wet waters of the marsh.

They banged their short swords off each other’s, stumbling in the muddy marsh, parrying each others blows and swiping at their arms and legs. Virgil’s face was contorted in concentration, while Adam let his instincts guide his hands. It was rebel against God, but child against child all the same.

“Kill him, Virgil,” Pyron said, as stoic as an Indian on the shore. “Eliminate the Authority.”

Virgil’s sword sliced through the air millimeters from Adam’s nose. Like two gladiators of Rome they sloshed through the dark creek, in the shadow of the overpass, hacking their swords through the dank, cold air.

“Take him, take him…” Enoch whispered, his silky growl echoing beneath the arch with the clash of steel. Opaiosaita stared blankly at the two boys, observing their fight.

A flutter of wings heralded Amaliel’s entrance into the overpass arch. He watched the boys fight, and said, “It’s started?”

“Yes,” Opaiosaita replied emotionlessly.

“Jackie McCoven took an arrow in the eye socket,” Amaliel said. “He’s dead, Opai.”

“No…” whispered Adam, stepping back.

Virgil charged, slicing his sword across Adam’s chest, making him fall back. Adam stumbled, and Virgil struck him in the chest, blood splashing across the creek water. Adam choked and fell to his knees, his ribs laid bare by Virgil’s blade.

“Get up, Adam…” Opaiosaita’s fluid voice said, reverberating under the arch. Adam bowed his head, and felt Virgil’s sword at the back of his neck.

“The Kingdom is lost,” Virgil smiled. He raised his sword, and Enoch screamed like a wounded bird. The sword tip lingered over the back of Adam’s head, and Adam looked up, scanning his way up Virgil’s stomach, his blade in front of him…

Like a torrent of water bursting from a blocked passage, Adam leaped forward into Virgil’s chest, knocking Virgil off balance. Sword in his hand, Adam shoved it forward, hearing the sharp edge squish into Virgil’s abdomen.

“Virgil, no!” Pyron cried.

Adam raised his blade above his head, forcing it down toward Virgil’s face. Virgil shook his head, caught in Adam’s deadly embrace, unable to move his arm. Tears steamed down Virgil’s face as he grunted and tried to escape Adam, trying to push the sword away. The tip of the blade entered the side of Virgil’s neck, and he shuddered, sighing onto Adam’s face.

“Praise be!” roared Enoch in delirious triumph. “Your rebellions dies before you. Finish him, Adam, and become one of us! Cut his throat! Cut his head off!”

Virgil’s blood ran across Adam’s fingers, and he fell to the ground, skewered in his intestines. Adam looked over and saw Opaiosaita’s grim face, weeping, envisioning Adam’s fate. It was over, no matter what. There had to be a winner.

“Kill him, Adam!” Enoch screamed, his voice multiplied a thousand times in the arch’s echoes. “Cut off his head! Kill him!”

Adam looked down at his enemy, as he lay dying in the water, and knelt down to him. “Virgil, it’s okay,” Adam said soothingly. “It’s all right.”

“Thanks,” Virgil whispered in an airy, blood-choked voice.

“What are you waiting for?” Enoch shouted. “Kill him, Adam!”

“You were destined to die anyway,” Adam hissed, surreptitiously placing Virgil’s sword back in his hand. “You pathetic piece of shit. You were betrayed here, betrayed by Pyron, the demons, and the fantasy of a rebel who might have stood a chance.”

Virgil growled, his face red and eyes bloodshot. Opaiosaita yelled something, but Adam couldn’t hear it. Adam wouldn’t lose, and he refused to win this fight, this battle of kingdoms and angels and Gods. He withdrew, he quit. And he was taking Virgil with him. Adam braced himself, and said, “Embrace me, Virgil.”

With the last of his strength, Virgil forced himself up and sank his blade deep into Adam’s stomach. Enoch screamed a volley of curses as Virgil stabbed Adam over and over, the short sword biting hard into Adam’s ribcage. The pain was blinding and furious, but Adam looked over at Opaiosaita, smiling and crying tears of joy, and it calmed him. It would be over soon.

Adam stabbed Virgil in the back as Virgil tore into him with the sword. They stabbed and hacked at one another, blood spreading out in a wide pool in the water beneath them. “This is for you,” gasped Adam. Virgil paused, and merely nodded, giving Adam one final stab deep into his stomach. Virgil leaned forward, and Adam in his weakness fell with him into the water, trapped under Virgil’s dead body.

The water was cooling, and eased the pain of Adam’s many wounds, and the warm sticky blood was cleansed from his body. Adam breathed, and water seared his lungs. He had defeated everyone. He had defeated God himself. Even in death…Adam had his victory.

A few lines that his mother had taught him from the Odyssey came scraping to the top of his mind. He thought of his mother, Elizabeth…Father MacKenzie…Jackie…and of course, Virgil…

“I raised my Hands to kill my Murderer

As I lay dying, with a Sword in my body

But he slipped away, he wouldn’t even close my Lips or Eyes

As I descended into Hell.”

Adam looked up into darkness, and closed his eyes. It was like entering another world…the afterlife…Adam saw nothing before him, and the pain suddenly froze away. His mind drifted off in a million ways at once, and he fell into a deep, eternal slumber.

Everything was over. Adam was dead.

OUR WORLD: ADAM DEPARTS NOVEMBER 2 2006 18:59
THE WORLD OF DEATH: ADAM ENTERS --- -- ---- --:-- (No linear time in World of Death)