There are no bodies on the culling field today, so it can’t be real. There’s no buzzing of flies, no metronome dripping of blood. A crow hops from branch to branch in search of food that isn’t there. The water flowing down the stream is fresh too, so clear I could drink from it.

The beast isn’t here. No fangs, no feathers, no flesh. I touch my face, and my fingers meet smooth cheek instead of exposed teeth. There are no open sores on my legs, just plain white skin. I’m not in my dress, either. I’m in the clothes I’m supposed to be in—baggy shorts and a black jacket, sneakers instead of standing barefoot in the water.

New Nazareth is silent. Not a body exists except my own.

It isn’t right.

I need to find the beast.

I leave the stream and go to the student union but find nothing on the roof. All I’m offered is a beautiful view of campus, with a bonfire of red and orange leaves lighting up in the gold of late afternoon.

Why am I still this? Why am I still no different than I was weeks ago? There’s no tongue weighing down my jaw, no open wounds to feel the wind. I’m just a boy standing on a roof, alone. But I shouldn’t think about it too hard. When I’m here, I’m not out there. Going out there means having to deal with the pain, and nothing hurts right now.

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.

For the world will burn under the weight of it.

I walk across campus until I make it to the old health center, Sister Kipling’s building. The laboratory, the office, the examination room. I muscle aside the glass doors and follow the basement stairwell all the way down to a deep, oppressive hall.

At the end is the room I am being kept in.

A narrow sliver of glass cuts through the door, offering the only glimpse inside that isn’t hidden tight behind laboratory walls.

I press my face to it. It’s cold. It feels more real than anything ever has here.

A bulging white eye surrounded by rot stares back.

That’s me.

Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Even through the hellfire, talking:

“How much longer?” Mom. Her voice is choked. I think. Choked? Over me? “It looks—”

Sister Kipling: “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to, Reverend Mother.”

“I do. Answer me.”

Shuffling. “At least a day.”

A day?

A day?

A day?

The pain is in an ebb now. It comes and goes like the tide, in and out. Big changes, then little ones to fill in the gaps.