Chapter Text
In the years before the Great Fall, Aaron Gray and Teddy Coyak were best friends. They did everything together. Went to the gym, took art classes. Honestly, they were like a pair of siblings, or old lovers. Aaron worked for the local news outlet, and Teddy was a mortician. Whenever somebody notable died, Teddy would always share the gossip, and so Aaron got exclusive content for their newspaper that nobody else got the chance to know. When Teddy transitioned, and was kicked out by his family, Aaron gave him a place to live and a shoulder to cry on. They would never have considered the other their type, and if you’d asked just a few months prior, they would both have told you in earnest that no, they were just friends, nothing more than that. And they would have believed it. But when they started spending more time together, getting to know each other on a more intricate level, it became clear that they could never have just been “best friends.” They were doomed to be lovers from the start.
When they first got together, it was strange. Neither had truly expected this much. But they were happy, so happy, and their love for one another only grew and festered until nobody could deny that they weren’t soul mates.
Aaron tried their best to be content where they were at, but in the end, they wanted more. Just a little more. Finally, they couldn’t take it anymore, and they talked to Ted; they told him the truth, that they wanted a baby. Terrified he would leave them, that they didn’t want the same thing in life, Aaron wept after their confession. Teddy, his heart breaking to see his partner in such distress, took their face gently in his hand and whispered to them.
“I want what you want. I want you, Aaron. You. If you want a family, we’ll start a family. I’m so glad that you felt brave enough to tell me.”
And that was that. Both wanted a family, therefore a family they were getting. Aaron offered their body if Teddy could find a surrogate that he trusted. In the end, after several months, numerous tries, fails, and a miscarriage, Aaron got pregnant. The once-young couple held their breaths... and then the second line appeared. They both wept until it hurt to breathe. Their rainbow baby was finally on its way.
In lieu of recent financial hardships, and with a child on the way, Ted boarded a plane to take him across the sea for a job opportunity which was surely too good to be true. He would make the way for his family to follow very soon afterward. It was hard saying goodbye, but Aaron knew it was for the best. As they touched their belly softly, delicately, not yet swollen with the baby inside, they felt a warm sensation spreading over their chest and throughout their whole body. Joy.
It took five whole minutes after Ted's plane took to the sky before Hell broke loose on Earth.
Of course, all things, both good and bad, must come to an end. That is the way of the universe. All that begins will eventually end, and death comes to end all of which begins. These are facts we know to be true. Perhaps the shock came because nobody expected the world to end so soon. Nobody thinks that they’re going to die in the next ten years, five years, year, month, day, minute. We feel immortal until we don’t.
Ted certainly didn’t expect to die on that plane, headed towards a better life. Aaron didn’t expect to die on the street, carrying with them new life.
Teddy went first. The air was the first thing to be targeted; planes were suddenly dropping from the sky like birds, or exploding like gruesome fireworks.
Next, the electronic systems went. Power grids failed out of the blue. People on life-support flatlined, and every TV in every home across the world instantly cut to black. Traffic lights flickered out. Ovens, lights, refrigerators, all turned off in one instant.
Water began to turn red, and the iron tang of blood hit in sickening waves. The sun vanished, the sky a gory crimson. Rain which burned skin and killed anything organic it touched began to fall. Trees died, animals died, people died. Soil turned to rot and crumbled; decrepit nails, ancient bones gnawing against dust, pushed out of their earthen prisons. They were fast, and starving. Not many escaped.
Back in the air, those unfortunate enough to have been in the sky without the “protection” of aircraft were strung up by the Strings, the origins of which are unknown. There they forever stay, swaying gently in the breeze, rotting slowly from the inside out, yet never fully dying. Any unfortunate passerby off their guard may also be caught and hung, forced to share a similar fate to those who came long before them.
...
Aaron, luckily, didn’t feel much pain when they were originally bitten by the Skeleton. They had no idea how they had survived, but at least they’d fended it off. By the time they realized what was truly happening, a whole year had passed; the world was in anarchy. Nobody knew what had gone wrong. One minute everything was fine, and the next they were plunged into what could only be described as a nearly Biblical Hell, minus the fire.
Joyce, little baby Joy, was almost a year old when Aaron began to turn. At first the signs were subtle; they felt hungry. They would wander aimlessly with Joy clinging to their ruined shirt. The smell of fresh blood no longer made them ill, although perhaps that was because they had been living with it for so long. They felt hungry. So hungry. They were skin and bone, barely more than a withering corpse within days. Their epidermis was nearly falling off of them, now.
When Aaron saw themself in the reflection of a broken window, they barely recognized their own face. Hollow cheeks, sunken-in eyes. They looked more like Death than a human person.
Death.
What sweet release death would be, when it came. Aaron looked at the baby, now toddling beside them, and thought mournfully of their dead husband, body lost somewhere at sea. How he would’ve loved Joy. Would’ve cherished her, played with her, adored her. Aaron allowed themself to sit against the wall, arms and legs shaking from the effort of moving. They were going to die here. They were going to die, and Joy would be all alone.
Please, they thought desperately, please God send someone to care for her. Keep my daughter safe.
But many respond to that title, and the God you call is not always the one who answers.
...
Praying to God might’ve been the worst decision that Aaron Coyak ever made. It was certainly the worst decision they’d ever made for their daughter. Joy was a year old when their one and only parent succumbed to The Illness. By the time they had gained enough strength back to become dangerous to Joy, she had been whisked away. It needed a vessel. Joy needed care. It was mutual parasitism; Joy drained It, and It drained Joy. Joy fed It, and It fed Joy. They worked in tandem as one entity.
Curious by nature, Joy asked questions as soon as she was old enough to understand It’s tongue. It would answer when it could, and remained silent when it could not. When the war on the plague of humanity had lasted for twenty years, she was finally ready; The Inquisitor. It poured everything into her, and she accepted all of It.
Wings sprouted agonizingly from her back, shimmering ichor streaming from her shoulder blades, the stench of it overwhelming her nostrils.
It was too much.
It was not enough.
She couldn’t handle it.
It needed more.
Pain spilled over into a gurgling cry of anguish. Her lips were no longer her own; flesh merged into flesh as her body stitched itself together while she tried to pull herself apart. Her nails ripped at the body that no longer belonged solely to her, and she found no resistance from the skin. Joy bore lines of glowing yellow down her arms, allowing her blood to spill. In her rage, her blinding pain, she stumbled back into one of The Strings. It caught her by her right wing, tight enough that it tore past skin and bore into bone.
Time blurred in the gore-soaked Hellscape. Joy sobbed until their eyes were raw. Sobbed until the few birds that were left began to pick at her face. They stole her eyes, in the end. She could not fight them.
It must have been months that she hung there in the sky, clouds blocking out her view of whatever entity held her captive. Months where she starved. She could feel It growing restless, as demanding as a parasite; this was humanity’s fault. The fault of her former people. They couldn’t leave well enough alone. Couldn’t behave well enough that It didn’t feel the need to subject the entire species to this. Everything was constantly getting only worse, a horrible death spiral out of which humanity could not escape.
Joy felt fresh rage, all her own, well in her chest. With a scream that caused her fellow Hanged to turn their sagging heads, she jerked her wing. With a sickening snap, it broke, and she fell. She had a moment of relief before she hit the ground and everything went black.