Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

‘Why?’ he said with his mouth open, chunks of chicken in his teeth. ‘What’s wrong? You don’t like me?’

‘Not really,’ Violetta said. ‘Could you give us some space?’

Brandon fell silent. He kept chewing, staring at her, refusing to blink.

Alexis said, ‘Did you hear us?’

Brandon said, ‘You’re guests here. You know what that means? It means you do what we say.’

‘Are you in charge?’

‘No,’ Brandon said, smiling. ‘But those who are in charge told me to watch you. So I’m going to watch you.’

‘I don’t like that,’ Alexis said. ‘It makes me want to leave.’

Brandon didn’t take the bait. ‘Does it look like I care?’

Violetta stood up.

Brandon said, ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the bathroom,’ Violetta said. ‘You’re not going to follow me there, are you?’

‘I’m thinking about it.’ He winked at her.

She suppressed a shiver of disgust and walked away.

Alone with Brandon now, Alexis stared at her food, refusing to acknowledge his presence.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Brandon craning his neck to scan the mess hall.

Finally he said, ‘Where’s that big guy?’

Alexis said, ‘What?’

‘The big guy who came up to you two earlier. He’s not here. Do you think—?’

Alexis interrupted. ‘You must be close to Maeve to get trusted for an important job.’

Brandon’s pride overshadowed his suspicions, and he turned his attention to her. ‘I’ve been a loyal disciple for a long time. She thinks I’m trustworthy.’

‘Wow,’ Alexis said, pretending to be transfixed. ‘What do you think she has in store for you down the road?’

Brandon started ranting about positions of power, a slave to his own ego.

Alexis wasn’t listening.

She’d put up with this if it meant Violetta had bought time to speak to King.

72

Slater needed Alexis.

More than anything he needed her by his side, to ride out whatever was to come.

Or King, his brother-in-arms.

But the very thought of getting up and fleeing the log cabin made him freeze in fear, and he realised Dane had impeccable foresight. There was a reason he’d brought Slater all the way out here, roughly a mile from the commune. Any attempt to find his friends would lead to him blindly stumbling through the dark, and if he lost control of his sanity out in the shadowy plains he might never get it back. In contrast, the warmth of the cabin and the dim glow of the overhead lights was like a sanctuary.

As soon as he realised he wasn’t going anywhere, he buckled in for the ride.

‘You’re okay,’ he muttered to himself under his breath. ‘Walk in the park.’

‘Yes,’ Dane said. ‘It’s a walk in a park. But it’s not any park you know.’

Silence.

Slater worked his jaw, staring acid hate across the table the whole time.

Dane said, ‘Do you see?’

‘See what?’ Slater said. ‘A degenerate who drugs his guests against their will?’

Dane started, ‘Bodhi is no drug. It is a—’

Slater tuned out his next words and told himself the truth to drive a wedge between his own thoughts and Dane’s persuasions. Bodhi is a potent blend of Dexies, molly, and benzos. I’m aware, you piece of shit.

The Dextroamphetamine would get his heart racing, the MDMA would drill dopamine into his receptors, and the benzodiazepine would level everything out to keep him calm and numb and stop him panicking. But that was what one dose was supposed to do. A single hit was expertly crafted to deliver maximum euphoria, but three was beyond overkill. What if he’d ended up finishing the whole glass? How would that have gone down?

Slater made the first violent movement when he lashed out and swiped the rest of the Bodhi-laced water away.

Dane shot to his feet, as if the hit had triggered the start of his sermon.

‘Yes!’ he shouted, his voice booming. ‘Feel that anger! Feel that hate you have toward us! Realise it is not directed at us, and in fact is aimed outward, at all of humanity, at the uncertainty that ripples through your being.’

Slater thought, This’ll be easy not to listen to him. The guy’s a lunatic.

Then it began.

It started with a soft numbness behind his eyes, like the sharp edges were taken off everything in his field of view. The lights overhead glowed brighter, and Slater found himself staring at Dane’s face as the man spewed his delusions.

His stare accentuated every capillary in Dane’s cheeks, every bead of sweat squeezing their way out through his pores, the flecks of spittle on his tongue as it darted in and out of his mouth.

Every crack of dry skin on his lips, every speck of dandruff in his hair, every morsel of food in his beard.

Dane said, ‘Turn within, Will. Look for the source of your anger. Look for the well. Envision it. Accept it.’

Slater waited a second to reply.

It dragged out for all eternity.

The room hovered in stillness, the very definition of the calm before the storm.

Slater said, ‘Fuck you.’

Brilliant colours exploded in his vision, making the cabin pulsate. It wasn’t a hallucinogen like LSD or mushrooms, so he could still make out his surroundings without slipping into a different world entirely, but the furniture in the cabin shifted dramatically. It still looked the same but it felt like a realm he’d never touched before.

Panic swelled in him with dark fury.

He gripped the edges of the table. His touch was different, heightened. He could sense every sliver of wood in the table, imagine where the logs had come from to make the cabin itself, smell the forest and the grass and the musty aroma.

Dane was there, looming over him.

‘Listen, Will. Listen to my voice. You are in its grip.’ His voice boomed like he was omnipotent. ‘Do not fight it. You have fought everything in your life, but if you fight this, you will lose. Let it in. Embrace it. Love it. Cherish it. That is the only way to victory here. Your combat experience means nothing now.’

Slater put up a steel wall in his mind, and realised if it weren’t for meditation he would be lost.

The key principle of meditation is detachment and