nights ago I drank half a fifth by myself just to fall asleep faster."
"Did you dream?"
"Oh yeah." A good dream. A long dream. Full of her and empty of anything else. "I hate waking up."
Zach sighed and fabric rustled as he slouched in his seat. "What happens in the dreams?"
"Zach," I growled. "I'm not gonna fuel your wanks, okay?"
He laughed, but it was a slightly nervous sound. "Come on, you wanted to confess. Is it guilt?"
"Of course it's guilt!"
"For having sex in a dream? Or for preferring that your whole world is a beautiful woman touching you rather than the shit we actually have on our plate?"
"For…wanting to dream and never wake up again," I said.
Zach was quiet for a while after that. "Are you confessing suicidal thoughts?"
I let out a slow breath. "Not suicide. I think I'd take a coma though, if it were a safe bet."
"It's okay to be weary, Stavros. To be angry. God is…"
I tuned him out after that. God was testing us. God wasn't giving us more than we could handle. God knew that we—Kais, Zach and I—had the situation in hand. That was Zach's favorite line. He liked to feel chosen by God, as if Hell had risen up from the depths to wash the slate clean for us to start over. Except that Hell hadn't gone back down again, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't until they'd dragged every last living soul back with them.
"What does she look like?"
I stirred and shook my head. "It doesn't matter. You're right. It's just dreams. At this point I'm lucky to be dreaming about a beautiful woman that can't stop fucking me rather than the horrors that ought to be working their shit out in my head at night."
"Just tell me," Zach pressed.
"Jesus Christ, Z, just borrowing a fucking magazine," I laughed.
"Dark hair, pale skin, kind of slight, but with those almost fake looking curves, except they're real, right? Cause you've weighed 'em in your hand."
I sat up straight frowning. Was that just…? That was coincidence. That was just a standard fantasy girl that guys thought about then?
"Weird eyes," Zach said softly. "You can see them almost glowing sometimes. Little bit gold, little bit red, sometimes even green."
"The fuck, Zach?" My skin crawled, ice and spiders raising goosebumps and making my hair stand on end.
The eyes had given me chills the first time I'd seen them, but lately I'd enjoyed reading them. Red was when she was impatient, desperate to get me inside her. Gold was kind of usual, but glowed brightest when staring up at me from between my legs as she ran her tongue up and down my eternally stiff cock. Green…in the pausing moments, ones where it was almost like we were both satisfied, resting together. And then she'd start up again.
"Mine always start mid-kiss, like I'm just kinda waking up with her already there. Do you try to talk to her? I used to, when they started. ‘Bout two weeks ago, yeah?"
I sat up like a shot and banged the door of the confessional open, swiveling on my heel and throwing his open. Zach was just sitting there, frowning to himself. He was dressed in his robes—Kais and I figured he hadn't really gotten to wear them before the Rising, and anyway Zach still really had faith. His hair caught the light of the candles on the other side of the room, little shimmers of gold in the honey. One blue eye and one almost amber flicked up to meet mine.
"You…" I couldn't find the words.
"She doesn't ever answer, does she?" Zach asked. "She doesn't make a sound. I can feel everything, but it's like the world's on mute."
The only time there was a sound was when I woke myself up with my moaning. I gaped at my friend, some combination of shock and horror and…there was jealousy too, wasn't there? She was mine, this crystal-clear perfect woman of my dreams that didn't make a sound and never seemed satisfied.
I'd become almost obsessed with her, that was what I was confessing. I was possessive of a fiction.
And it wasn't even entirely my own.
"Kais?" I asked.
Zach's eyes widened and slid away as he thought. He shrugged. "He hasn't said anything, but I wasn't planning on saying anything either. Do you think the others…?"
We—well, mainly Zach and Kais—didn't take too many confessions from the small community of people we protected. I wouldn't have let anyone call me a priest at all if it