He was at the hills. He could not push himself up to look. The rocks rose beneath his head and shoulders.
“Forrest.”
There was no answer, except for the stinging pain all over his body. He watched his skin peel and blacken, curling away to expose the bones beneath. The acid. Forrest taught them to shit acid.
“I can’t fight him. I am dying.”
“god you must live—become as lucifer”
“I am God. Good cannot become as Lucifer. I am good.”
“lucifer says he is the evil—is good less powerful than lucifer”
“I cannot change my purpose.”
“change not purpose—change form—become as lucifer”
The thread of a thought spoke to him. Lucifer has no protection against the acid. Then what has Lucifer become? And what must I become to live?
“I am afraid.”
“god—you want us to have faith in you—have faith in us—become as lucifer”
There was not enough tissue left to force air through vocal cords that no longer existed. His thought was his response. Very well. I will become as Lucifer.
He stood, his height above the crest of the hills, his reach wider than the plain beneath his feet. Beyond the hills a massive head leered back at him. The face was rot, corruption, evil.
“You are God,” it hissed.
“Lucifer.”
A glow invaded the engineer’s heart. He reached out his great arms and wrapped his fingers around the monster’s throat.
When they came to investigate the weak, garbled signal from the Oids Belt, they quickly located the beacon. It was from a type of commercial cargo ship that hadn’t been in use for over a century. Of the ship, passengers, and crew, the only trace remaining was a curious statue of two naked human men, in mortal combat, standing upon the bodies of five other humans, the sculpture surrounded by a wall of red masonry. The local life form informed them that the statue was titled “Equilibrium.”