What Lies In Me

Chapter 9

"Yep," replies Tony, getting out his phone. "Maybe something the snake said could let us know what it is, and what we should do about it."

I relay my conversation with the snake, as best as I can remember. Everyone remains quiet, listening with rapt attention up until I relay the snake's words: 'To you, we are gods! I am Zahrim!' At those words, everyone reacts.

"Gods?!" Sadie cries. "We can't fight gods! What can we even do about this!? What kind of god goes after people like us, anyways!?"

I shrug. "That's just what it said."

"Right, so I attacked a 'god', and lived through it." Jackson poses. "That probably won't happen again. No, this is ridiculous, if it was a god, it would have us by now... Good thing that other 'god' isn't with it, right?"

"Zahrim? How do you spell that?"

"Huh?" We all turn and look at Tony. He frowns at us.

"Is it Z-A-H-R-E-E-M, you think?" he asks. "I'm trying to google it, but all this gives me is random blogs and stuff. Any suggestions?"

"I don't know, he didn't spell it for me. Try Z-A-H-R-I-M, maybe?" I suggest.

"Alright... Here we go..." He mutters as he taps the name in and scrolls through results. "Nothing but metal bands and names on social networks. Gotta admit, that's a good name for a band. Let's try 'zahrim god'. No, I don't mean 'shrim god'." He continues scrolling. We simply wait.

"Ah, got something!" He begins to read. "Names and titles of Marduk... Zahrim, the twenty-second name of Marduk... Slew ten thousand of the hordes in the battle. A warrior among warriors. Can destroy an entire army if the priest so desires..."

He looks up for a second, then looks down at his phone. "It looks like we have something. I'm going to search for Marduk now. It sounds familiar." We simply wait.

"Ah, here we go. Marduk is an ancient Babylonian god. Wow, ok. Associated with the planet Jupiter... that doesn't matter... dates back to the third millennium BC... alright... not much else relevant here, guys."

"So, this thing is Marduk, a Babylonian god?" Jackson asks.

"Not necessarily," I reply. "He could be just using one of the fifty names, or it could be coincidence. Personally, I'm hoping for one of these options, because I'm not happy about the idea of the whole Babylonian pantheon chasing us down."

"Besides, why would he use that particular name?" Sadie posed. "The twenty-second name? That's pretty obscure. If he was Marduk, he would have gone by Marduk. These are just names, not individual gods."

"In any case, the internet will only give us an overview on these 'gods'. I'm interested in going to a library that has copies of some ancient Babylonian texts," Tony says. "According to the internet, there is a library that has that kind of thing about thirty miles from here."

"Well, I guess that's something that we can do tomorrow. Any objections?"

I look around, but no objections are offered.

"Alright, well I guess, if there are no objections, I can finish telling you what happened now."

I relate the rest of the tale to them, with Jackson interjecting at several points to give his side of the story. He simply acted on instinct when he saw the snake, and tried to protect me. To him, I looked like I was being paralyzed by it.

Upon catching everyone up to speed, I stand up.

"And that's about it. I'm going to bed. We can go to the library tomorrow." My mind flashes back to the last time I was at a library, but I shrug off the memory. "Good night."

"Good night." They all reply, nearly in unison, and I leave them to go back to sleep. I'm exhausted. I fall unconscious as soon as my head hits the pillow.

###

Blackness. A deep void surrounds me. I breathe in. I can taste the thickness of the dark. Many surround me, but I cannot see them. I just know that they are there. A thick silence surrounds me. I am suspended, floating in a void. There is no life, no death. There is no pain, no pleasure. I only am. That is all that there is.

In the void of space in front of me, there appears a pinprick of light. I long for the light. The pinprick becomes a line, slowly carving its way into the black slate in front of me. A slow, scratchy sound reaches my ears, the first sound I have heard in ages. As the line extends into a curve, the light reaches me, bathing me in warmth. Never have I felt such pleasant warmth. It soothes me. I want to clutch for it, to hold it.

The light continues to etch its way across my vision, and slowly begins to complete the form of a circle. Desire wells up within me, and I want nothing more than to see the circle completed. I never want to leave the light. It will be mine, and mine alone. The circle is almost complete. I want to reach for it, to hold it, to bathe in its glory.

. . .

The circle is completed.