Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(98)

In that instant I know my friend is no more. I’m numb. I feel nothing. I am as cold as a corpse.

The monsters have won. And I’m next.

Matilda walks to his coffin. She presses a small green jewel set just behind his head. O’Malley’s restraints clack open. He sits up, stretches out his arms, rubs his legs, looks at his fingers like they are made of magic and wind. His eyes shine with wonder and awe.

“I can’t believe it,” he says. “There’s no…I feel no pain. I knew my old body hurt, but until this very moment I hadn’t realized I spent every minute of every day in pain, and now…nothing. It’s gone.”

He swings his legs over the side, lets his feet dangle.

The tears in my eyes make him shimmer and wave.

Matilda puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Slowly at first,” she says. “Your body is fine, but your mind must get used to moving it again.”

O’Malley brushes the hand aside, all but pushes Matilda out of the way. He slides off his coffin-table and stands.



“Praise be,” this new person says. “Praise be to all the gods, it worked.”

A desperate, haunting moan of anguish makes my hair stand on end. At the X, the gnarled, restrained Grownup O’Malley lifts his head. His frail lungs try to draw in air, air that is killing him. He looks around the room, disoriented.

“It didn’t work,” he says. “We…we must try again. I’m still trapped in this hideous body. Oh, I hurt so bad, even worse than before.”

I don’t understand. It did work, I can see the young O’Malley and I know he is not mine.

Young O’Malley starts to laugh.

Old O’Malley’s head snaps up. For the first time, the red eyes clear all the way, blink rapidly.

“No,” he says. “This can’t be.”

Young O’Malley walks closer to his old self, does a little stumbling dance.

“Come on, now, Chancellor! You knew this would happen.”

The wrinkled monster looks around the room madly. I realize that he is looking for someone to help him.

“Wait,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Young O’Malley reaches toward Bishop, palm up. The hulking monster hands over a sheathed knife. O’Malley takes it by the hilt, then grips the sheath and pulls the blade free.

The knife—ornate, golden, bejeweled—looks exactly like the knife in the painting behind the X, the one with the young man driving the blade into the old man’s chest.

Young O’Malley smiles wide, points the tip at his former self.

“If it makes you feel better, old man, this is exactly how I thought it would turn out. Which means it’s exactly how you thought it would turn out, too. My, how interesting to talk to one’s self!”



The old monster pulls at the restraints, but he was weak even before this ordeal began.

“Please,” he says. “I’m not ready. It’s not fair. I want to live! Why did I spend a thousand years in agony if I don’t get to live?”

So much pain in that voice, so much betrayal—I almost feel sorry for him. The overwrite, it doesn’t move the consciousness of the old person, it copies it, leaving two versions. The old version remains trapped in its fragile, failing body.

Young O’Malley flips the knife in the air, catches it by the hilt. He walks closer to the X.

“Don’t be sad, Old Me. You got to live for a thousand years—I’ll get to live for a thousand more.”

From behind the fleshy folds hiding its mouth, the old monster screams nonsensical words, babbles and begs, but it does no good. Young O’Malley places the point of the knife on his old self’s chest, then leans in. The gnarled skin punctures. Red-gray blood leaks down. There is a moment of hesitation, then a crack as the knife punches through bone and sinks deep.

The old monster twitches.

“No,” it says in a faint hiss. “I was supposed to…to live…forever.”

The head droops.

The old man moves no more.

Young O’Malley—now the only O’Malley—pulls the knife free. He wipes the flat of the blade against his dead former self, scraping free the red-gray blood. He slips the knife back into the sheath, then slides the sheath into the belt of his black coveralls.

The lump in my throat changes, becomes a fist—I turn my head to the side just before I vomit bits of spicy meat all over my coffin’s white linen and onto the stone floor.

“Kenzie, she vomited,” Matilda says. “Is her brain all right? Does she have a concussion?”



Old Smith shuffles off the pedestal platform. Her gnarled fingers grip my face, turn my head left, then right.

“Hard to tell,” she says to Matilda. To me, she says, “How is your head?”

“It hurts,” I say. “So bad.”

Matilda huffs. “Like she’s going to tell you the truth, Kenzie. Don’t be gullible.”

“So your former self can lie,” Smith says. “Well, isn’t that a surprise?”

“Get her ready.” Matilda’s voice rings with eagerness. “I’m done waiting. We’re going to do it now, concussion or not.”

The diseased, rotten stink of Smith’s fingers combines with the acrid smell of my vomit; my stomach threatens another round. There’s no food left to throw up, but my body doesn’t care.