God Has Fallen
Creaaak——
The heavy double doors parted with a slow, agonizing groan.
“Phew... I'm a lot more nervous than I thought I'd be...”
“Please step inside at once. The faithful are waiting for you.”
“Ah, r-right! Understood!”
I crossed the threshold into the vast expanse beyond.
For a fleeting second, a sea of blinding radiance washed over my vision, only to dissipate just as quickly.
“Ugh... so bright...”
Squinting against the lingering glare, I took in my surroundings.
I was standing atop a towering dais, easily five times the height of a grown man.
“...All of these... are believers...?”
An ocean of countless faces looked up toward me.
Every single one of them had their hands clasped tight in prayer, weeping tears of rapturous joy. To look down upon that immense multitude gazing back with expressions of sheer ecstasy stirred an alien, unsettling sensation deep in my chest.
“Hah—utterly sickening...”
“Still, they're your followers...”
“Hah! And who ever commanded them to revere this body?”
“Aren't you being a bit too heartless?...”
“Lord Altin, please maintain your silence.”
“Ah—yes! My apologies!”
Tira gave me a quiet reprimand for whispering under my breath. Feeling sheepish, I cleared my throat into a fist.
“Ahem. So, what am I supposed to do now?”
“It is quite simple. You need only remain standing there, Lord Altin, and receive the prayers of the faithful.”
“Uh... right here?”
I pointed down at the floor directly beneath my boots—the very precipice of the towering dais overlooking the crowd.
“Yes. From there, you need only smile down upon them.”
“Um... alright...?”
Wearing a stiff, awkward smile, I looked down past the edge.
It was an unnatural smile at best. It had been far too long since I had last smiled, and I had forgotten how to make it look effortless. Yet the crowd below went wild over that clumsy, strained expression.
They erupted into delirious shrieks, their tears flowing freely. The sheer fanaticism of the spectacle sent a chill down my spine, yet beneath the unease, I didn't entirely hate it.
“Ha... haha...”
“Tsk. Deranged wretches.”
I couldn't tell whether his sneer included me or not, but one thing was abundantly clear: he derived no pleasure whatsoever from this gathering.
Even so, I wanted to drink in every detail of the panorama stretched before my eyes. A swelling sense of superiority and pride—feelings entirely foreign to my past life—welled up inside me. For some inexplicable reason, a hollow, barren corner of my heart felt as though it were finally being filled.
“...”
Tira watched in dead silence as I smiled down upon the worshipers. Her gaze was steady, heavy—unblinking. Yet her stare was completely swallowed by the thunderous roaring of the crowd, leaving me utterly oblivious to it.
“Ha... haha... hahaha...”
A quiet chuckle escaped past my lips.
It felt good. Had I ever felt this exhilarated in all my days?
Slowly, my strained expression began to shift. From stiff, forced corners of my mouth—to a natural curve. From crumpled, squinting eyes—to a smooth, relaxed gaze. From boots planted firmly on solid stone—to feet clawing at empty air.
“—Huh?”
I was shoved.
My feet were no longer treading stone; they were slicing through vacant space. My hands and legs scrambled frantically against thin air. With nothing to seize, I plummeted straight down.
“Ha... ha...?”
It was a grotesque laugh—a sound hollowed out by sheer terror and disbelief.
CRASH——!!
I slammed into the flagstones with violent, bone-crushing force.
“Kagh...! Cough, gasp—!”
My chest. My chest burned with suffocating agony. The brutal impact drove every scrap of air from my lungs. Pain. Excruciating, blinding pain tore through every nerve in my body. My legs—they felt shattered to splinters.
“Someone... someone, please help—”
Step. Step.
People. A sea of people encircled me in a tightening ring.
Their hands were still clasped together in fervent prayer. The only difference was that now, they were weeping tears of thick, dark blood.
“Uh...? Uhh...?”
They drew toward me, slow and deliberate.
Slowly—slowly.
Step by step.
“S-Stay back!!”
I tore the scream from the depths of my crushed lungs.
Indifferent to my plea, they closed in around me.
“God has fallen! God has fallen! God has fallen! God has fallen! God has fallen!”
Chanting those senseless, maddened words, their jaws unhinged wide. Before I could even process what was happening, they loomed directly over my face, baring their teeth—
CRUNCH—!
—and tore into my flesh.
“——!!!”
Ah? Ahh? Aaaaargh?! AAAAAAAAGH!!!!
It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!
Flesh ripped away in raw, bloody ribbons.
“GAAAAAAAHHHH?!!??”
“God has fallen! God has fallen! God has fallen!”
“Stop!! STOOOOP!!!”
I shrieked until my vocal cords frayed and ruptured. From my own eyes, tears of blood began to spill, just like theirs.
“Tsk.”
A sharp click of a tongue.
The dismissive sound echoed from far above.
“Ti—Tira!!!!”
I screamed her name with every ounce of breath left in my battered chest. It was a desperate cry laced with raw betrayal, unanswered questions, and burning resentment for shoving me off that ledge.
“You... You are——”
My vision swam in red. With blood flooding my eyes, I could not make out her expression clearly. Yet the palpable disgust rolling off her was unmistakable.
“You are not... Lord Al Camidew.”
A man.
Here stands a man. No—here once stood a man.
This man had lived a wretched, pitiful existence. Because he understood himself better than anyone else ever could, he despised himself more fiercely than anyone else ever would.
Every single morning when his eyes dragged open, he looked into the mirror reflecting his own loathsome face. And every morning, he forced the corners of his mouth to twist upward.
It was an awkward, sickening smile. No matter how many days he spent practicing before the glass, a natural smile remained forever out of reach.
Every day, he ate the exact same breakfast. Every day, he walked to the exact same place. Every morning, he ran the paths circling the neighborhood park, desperately emptying his head—because without scouring his mind completely blank, he felt he could not endure another breath.
“...Did you have a good run?”
Always the exact same routine. Always the exact same morning greeting from his parents. Always the exact same worry lingering in their eyes.
He could never find words to say. He could not even manage a proper answer to their concern. Guilt. Sin. Self-reproach. Abject self-loathing. He was sick to his very marrow of his own existence.
Even so—in spite of everything—he had wanted to live an ordinary life. A quiet life kept far away from agony.
Because he hated pain more than anything in the world.
“...”
I blinked.
“Haa... ha... ha...”
A ragged, faint wheeze scraped from my throat. I was lying flat on my back against the bloodstained floor.
“Oi. Are you still in one piece?”
His voice sounded detached, almost bored.
“Haa... haaa...”
Shallow, agonizing gasps rattled in my chest as I groaned like an animal left for dead.
“Tsk, dammit. What the hell possessed that wench Tira to pull a stunt like that?”
“Haaagh... haaaaargh...!”
“Aigoo... Calm down. Just breathe.”
“Hrk...! Haa...!!”
“Bloody hell... Pathetic creature.”
I want to die. I feel like I'm going to die. My entire body had been ripped to shreds by human teeth. No sane mind could hold together through such agony.
Why? Why did I have to die? Why did she push me? Tira. Why the hell did Tira push me?
“Ha... haha... ha...”
I'll kill her. I'll wrap my hands around her throat and choke the life out of her, then fling her off the highest ledge just like she did to me. I'll slaughter her. Why should I be the only one made to swallow this agony?
I didn't care anymore. The boundary of death, whether I was truly alive, whose voice was ringing in my skull—none of it mattered. I'll kill them. I will murder every last one of them.
“Haha...! Hahaha...!”
With a broken, manic laugh, I forced myself up from the stone floor. The crowd of believers still stood encircling me.
“W-What in the world...!”
A flustered voice dropped from the platform above. I looked up. Tira stood perched atop the high dais, her face frozen in stiff shock as she stared down at me.
“Tira...!!”
I snarled her name like a rabid beast. Hearing the raw fury in my voice, she visibly flinched.
“Why did you kill me?”
“...”
“Answer me, or I'll tear you apart!!”
“Haaah...”
She released a long, dismissive sigh. Her eyes hardened, turning so bitterly cold that not a flicker of warmth remained.
“Die, you vile imposter.”
“...Ha, haha.”
Her true colors had finally surfaced. This was a first for me. The very first time in my entire existence that I had felt true, unadulterated hatred for someone other than myself.
“...Al Camidew. I don't suppose—we can do what we did before, can we?”
“...What?”
“I want to slaughter every single thing in this room... Can you help me...?”
“Pfft...!”
A burst of guttural laughter erupted in my head. It seemed my words had pleased him beyond measure.
“Power—you desire power?”
“Yeah. Give me the power to butcher every last one of them.”
“If that is your desire, this body shall grant it.”
Throb——
A violent ache twisted through my brain. It felt as if my skull were splintering into shards—yet compared to the agony I had just crawled back from, this was child's play.
“There—it is done. You should be quite the terror now.”
“...Right.”
Lifting one hand, I raised my index and middle fingers together. No one had ever shown me how, yet my body executed the movement with terrifying natural grace. A crimson aura began to coalesce around the tips of my fingers.
“Severance.”
The crimson radiance streaked forward in a razor-straight line, sweeping effortlessly past the throngs of people. The lingering afterimage carved by that red light—cleaved everything it touched.
Space itself fractured.
The frenzied howling that had glutted the chamber severed in a fraction of a second. Where deafening shrieks once raged, only suffocating silence remained.
“Ah... ah—”
Tira stared down at the nightmare unfolding below. The heads of countless believers had been cleanly split in two. Not a single drop of blood erupted from the wounds. Only mirror-smooth, immaculate cross-sections occupied the space where their heads had been.
“Tira...? I'm coming up. Wait right there.”
I began walking toward Tira, slow and steady.
Slowly—slowly.
Step by step.
Grinding the corpses of the fallen beneath the soles of my boots, I ascended the stairs. At last, I reached the top of the dais and stood before her.
“...”
“Well...? Nothing to say?”
“Oi, brat. You aren't actually thinking of trying to kill her, are you?”
“Of course I am. She murdered me.”
“You cannot kill her.”
“...What?”
“I speak of Tira. She is no mortal of flesh, but a spiritual entity. You cannot kill what cannot die.”
“...So, you're saying she can't be killed?”
“Indeed. She is a being who has already crossed into death.”
“Ha... Haha...!!”
A harsh, hollow laugh burst from my chest. I resented her with every fiber of my being. I wanted to scream at her, to demand why she had pushed me, why she had done this. Yet—I couldn't bear to look into her eyes.
Because every time I gazed into those clear irises, my own face reflected back at me.
The hideous, monstrous face of a murderer.
“Just disappear... all of you...”
“...”
My strength gave out, and my knees thudded against the stone. Tira stood motionless, looking down at me.
“As I thought, you are...”
Silence hung thick between us. With neither me, nor her, nor the voice in my head uttering a single syllable, an awkward, suffocating quiet stretched into eternity.
“You are not... Lord Al Camidew.”