27 Chapter 24 – Zack – Iteration 144 (1/2)

He slumped in the chair, making himself forget his circumstances. Erik had gone with Drake and Bridgette to bury Lacey, grumbling that the others didn't know how to make a body disappear. Griff stood outside the barn, looking uncomfortable, leaving only the man named Ingrid to watch him.

Ingrid moved closer. ”Why did you come back?”

Zack shook his head, not sure he knew the answer anymore.

Ingrid leaned closer. ”Can you endure the torture and the dark? I will return to free you in a few weeks if you can.”

Zack shook his head again. He could not bear it. Not for a moment longer.

Ingrid came still closer, until his lips were by Zack's ear. ”There is something else I can do. Something that will stop all of this.” He heard Ingrid lick his lips. ”I have the power to open the sky.”

Zack twisted around to look at Ingrid. ”The Creator opens the sky.”

”No, Hess,” Ingrid whispered. ”I open the sky in world after world. The Creator isn't out there waiting for our reports. The Creator sacrifices Itself to bring a world into existence and sustain every particle of matter. Until I open the sky, there is no Creator. There is only the world and us.”

He swallowed. ”You can end the world.”

”If I had known what was done to you last Iteration, I would have opened the sky sooner. If you cannot bear what is done to you, I will stop this Iteration now.”

Seven billion people live on this world. Even if only one in a hundred is truly happy, that is seventy million lives that want to live. Zack shook his head. ”You can't do that. You can't just kill every person in existence.”

”They will never know a moment of pain. Between one moment and the next, they will simply cease to exist. It is the fate of everything that is made to one day be unmade, Hess.”

”You can't kill creation to save me.”

”They're not real. You are.”