The Last Son

I’m the last one, the last little soldier left on the playing field. The last one of me left alive.

I suppose it’s my fault, and who would argue?

Wasn’t it my job to make sure that they were all untraceable, that their words wouldn’t come back to haunt them? That their alligations against the greatest man to ever have lived wouldn’t punch them an early ticket to Hell? Wasn’t that my job?

It was right, what we did. It was the only thing left that we could have done. After he took our lives, our sanities, and our families from us? It’s not like he was going to dispute our claims; how can any dead man do that? None of this was our fault, none of it. You’d have done the same if you’d been born in one of our communities, if you’d been called Adam; if you’d grown up believing you were the son of God.

If you’d grown up believing God was the man who impregnated your mother.

Should we be punished for the lives we were dealt; should we be hunted down and murdered like we weren’t deserving of the life our father tried so hard to give us? The father you people worship and defend as if he were the very thing it took me so long to learn he wasn’t?

The answers, if you’ve forgotten, are no. Yet all of my other selves are dead, and I’m left alone.

By rights, I should have been first. All of this was my idea. I found them all, preached to them all, had them write their stories, and put them in this book. All of this was my doing. They should have been safe, my brothers, my selves.

I was the one who should have died. Me, with my name on the cover. How hard was I to find?

Are you coming now, to finish the job I started?

Is that you in the hall?

Is this it?

I am Adam, last son of Gildrick, and it was only the truth. It was only ever the truth.