Nothing Is Eternal (Book One)

VIII

Shin's heart jumped at the voice.

Kate jolted and slowly turned around. "H-Hello, Mr. O'Neil."

Shin whirled around to glimpse the infamous Chester O'Neil. His lined face appeared older than his years. Shorn and ragged white hair, some of it seemingly burnt off. His face suffered Eternal Burns. A jagged red blister that would never heal ran from underneath his left eye to below his left ear.

"Where did you come from?" Shin demanded.

No one had ever sneaked up on Shin Watanabe. He had spent a good chunk of his childhood at a shadowy refugee camp next to the Dark and subsequent years in the Edges. Unable to rely on eyesight in those murky places, he learned to rely on his hearing. He could hear suspicious activity from a distance.

But—despite the close quarters—he hadn't heard this bastard creep up. And O'Neil was barely inches away from them. He should have smelled him. Judging from his stench it seemed like O'Neil was digging around the sewers.

"I was always here," O'Neil said flatly. "You saw what you wanted to see, like the rest of the sheep. The Dark Optical Illusion. It is everywhere."

Shin rolled his eyes. "I don't mean to be rude, Mr. O'Neil," he said, causing Kate to scoff. "I respect your opposition to the Eternal. But why would you need sacred waters if it's an illusion?"

O'Neil tapped his eye over the Burn. "Because the illusion warps my own perception. I still perceive the Dark and that perception fools my mind into believing it is a source of corruption. And my mind and body react accordingly to such a belief. So I must cleanse myself to get rid of the corruption."

"With a pot of water?"

"What would you have me do instead? Go to a sanctuary?" O'Neil asked. "They would Burn away my brain so that all I would perceive is their truth."

Shin was pretty sure the man's brain had burned away a long time ago.

Kate cleared her throat. "Mr. O'Neil, we don't mean to intrude upon your work. I was hoping that you would be good enough to grant me a followup interview. Our initial piece stirred up quite a bit of controversy."

"Mrs. Mulligan, I am always happy to discuss the Dark Optical Illusion Hypothesis," O'Neil said with dignity. "If you'll grant me a moment to cleanse myself."

"Can't that wait until afterward?" the usually accommodating Kate pleaded, a look of alarm on her face. "We could do the interview first."

"The illusion of corruption waits for no man, Mrs. Mulligan," O'Neil said, unbuttoning his shirt.

Despite the shadowy room, Shin didn't miss Kate's reddening face. "He's not really going to undress, is he?" he asked.

"Oh, wait." Kate buried her face in her hand. "It will be even better."

O'Neil proceeded to kick his pants off and then pull the canvas from his pot. Despite not completely removing the cloth, light immediately cut through the murkiness in the room, illuminating decayed walls with big scorch marks.

And it was now clear that the basement had a pest problem.

"Do you see how the Light casts no shadow?" O'Neil moved the canvas slightly, allowing a greater beam of light to escape. He held his hand over the pot to demonstrate, no shadow obscuring the beam cast upon the room. "But are we seeing no shadow? Or our minds perceiving an impossible illumination and tricked into believing there are no shadows?"

Shin started inching towards the pot, curious about O'Neil's homemade sacred waters. He started lifting the rest of the cloth up.

"I wouldn't," Kate warned.