Fear the fantastic Book

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I felt my own burns. My own bruises and scrapes and aches and torn muscles. But all that was nothing. All that was welcome. No forgiveness. How do you not risk death to save the one who saved you? How do you not die trying? How do you still think of yourself a man?

I was a useless piece of crap of a human being. Losers like Trent and Keith thought I belonged with them, and Jesus, maybe they were right. Maybe they'd seen in me what I didn't want to see in myself.

I felt Ganymede's hand as he'd taken my weight, taken my weight as I screamed and cried and begged indifferent heaven for salvation. He'd have died, immortal or not, he'd have been ripped to shreds, he'd have died if we'd hit. And I had run.

-

"NO!" I screamed.

The sound was lost in the chant. David grabbed me from behind, clamped his hand over my mouth. I fought. Crazed. Out of control. I bit and clawed.

Jalil pinned my arms and held on tight. And David kept saying, "Not your fault, man, not your fault."

Ka Anor's tongue wrapped around the small figure of Ganymede. The billions of insects, those billions of tiny ripping, tearing teeth, the living filth conjured up by the god-eater, began to strip Ganymede of flesh. I screamed.

April put her hand over my eyes and prayed to Mary to intercede, to keep this evil from us. Hail Mary. Hail Mary.

No one covered my ears. Ganymede screamed for a long time. The chanting became frantic. Ecstatic. The Hetwan were witnessing a sacrament. It seemed to last forever. But finally Ganymede was quiet. And the Hetwan chant was stilled. And when David and Jalil and April released me, I was quiet, too.

-

I got the CNN: Breaking News. The bag dropped. Rice burst onto the sidewalk. I knelt down, stupidly tried to shovel the rice back into the container. I was a coward. Ganymede had saved me. I'd let him die. I'd let him die.

"Wasn't your fault," I told myself. "Wasn't your fault," I echoed David's words. No forgiveness for this. No forgiveness. My insides had spilled out onto the sidewalk with the Chinese food. I was hollowed out. Empty. What was I? What was Christopher Hitchcock? Nothing. Fear and hatred and lust and jealousy. What was I, to live?

-

"Maybe I could have saved him. Maybe not. But see, the bitch is, for that split second, when the Hetwan came down around him, that split second, I thought, screw him. See, that's the thing. You know what else, David, my hero David? So did you."

David's jaw clenched. He said nothing. April looked sharply at David and whispered, "Oh, no," like she was witnessing a tragedy and couldn't do anything to stop it.

"And we both know, David, we both know why we could let him die and think 'screw him.' All right? We know, you and me. We're the same on that. Only, he saved my life. And when he did, I said, 'I owe you one.' Something to say, what else are you going to say? But it was true, too, I owed him my . . ." I couldn't talk. Sucked air through a clenched throat. "I owed him. My life. One life. Screw him. See?"

I was babbling. Not making any sense. Making an ass of myself. Being a fool.

"You have to let it go," Jalil said. "No sense in torturing yourself over the past."

"He wants to be forgiven," April said. Words. (hide spoiler)]