That final, guttural scream Jerome let out made Sunshine sick to her stomach. It left a rancid taste in her mouth that she desperately wanted to throw up, but the past couldn’t be changed. If she could cut her ears off so his cries wouldn’t fill them anymore, she would. If she could claw her eyes out so that she didn’t have to see his limp body, she would.

  I’m the worst, the worst daughter in the whole world, Sunshine thought, biting her lip until blood seeped from the cracks.

  Fortunately, Jerome was fine. At least, she hoped he was. Once Jesus activated his Radius Ability, her father would change. Whether that be for the better or the worst was up for him to decide, though Sunshine saw nothing but good in it. And it’d be her job to explain it to him once he was brought back.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Luz Solar,” said Jesus, his words confusing the girl. “A death in that manner can even bring a grown man like me to tears.”

  Sunshine’s brows furrowed. “You don’t have to lie anymore, Jesus. Just… hurry up and do the thing already. I don’t wanna stay here longer than I have to.”

  He stared at the girl with his brown eyes. The same eyes that reminded her of that black haired man—cold, lifeless, but somehow filled with sadness. “What do you mean?”

  “The-the plan. You’re gonna turn him back into a human, right?” Sunshine asked somberly.

  Right after the battle with Daemon, Jerome had taken the appearance of a human. At least, that’s what she initially thought. Even if he had the look, the green skin and ooze covering his body guarded her from the truth. But her Energy Sense told her a different story.

  A beating hard, lungs, and even a brain. Someone had reversed Jerome’s death. Considering otherworldly Radius Ability, Sunshine assumed he had something to do with it. But after conversing with Jesus, he revealed himself to be the one that did it.

  Before that moment, Sunshine had only been helping Jesus ‘cause she wanted to help him in his search for his son, Diego. She had doubts, regrets for the tricks and manipulation she used on her father’s mind for a kid she’s never even met before. It didn’t make sense to go along with it. Although, after seeing the danger Jerome put himself through by keeping Sunflower around and the true danger that Jason poses to them, turning him back into a human was the best option.

  The best option for his safety.

  With the way the swordsman explained it to Jerome, he made it seem like he and Sunshine were under the Underground Radius’ leash. That wasn’t true. She’d never work for those guys, and if Jesus was truly working for them, then she would have never gone this far.

  Once Jerome was turned back to normal, Jesus swore that he’d protect them from any danger. That was the plan. A plan she was wholeheartedly confident would work.

  Jesus paused, and then lowered the arm that was holding up her dad. “Kid… he’s dead.”

  The words shot out like a bullet, piercing her little heart. “Wh-What?”

  “I mean, did you not hear when I said ‘take the life of someone unapologetically good’?” Jesus asked with a genuine curiosity in his voice. “I think I said that, like. very clearly too.”

  She looked at Jerome’s dangling body. “But his body looks-”

  “Yeah, his body’s fine, but that’s because I only needed his body. The man that used to pilot this body is totally dead.” He scratched his head, widening his eyes a bit. “Oh yeah, I did say I would turn him back into a human, didn’t I? I lied about that.”

  “You… lied to me?” Her body began to tremble, but she tried her best to hold herself still. “I-I don’t understand.”

  “Do you want to know what Daemon specifically tasked me with in exchange for information on my son’s whereabouts? Strengthening you and your daddy’s Radius Abilities just enough for them to be used without its owner. Hunter’s Energy Absorption and your Mind Trick were the first and are the only abilities that could be used to potentially reverse the effects of the apocalypse. However, that virus you created and Hunter’s stubbornness proved to be a problem.”

  “The Underground Radius wanted us to join their cause, but with all the people my Sunvirus was killing, I could never be an option,” Sunshine added in. “Add in Jerome’s love for me, and the only way they’d make any progress with their plans… was to remove us from the picture. But what does that have to do with…you?” A terrible realization flashed in her mind. “You! You… were against us from the start.”

  The man gave a thumbs up and smiled. “Bingo! ?Muy excelente! Obviously, I couldn’t let you two get too strong, or else you’d give me a run for my money. Especially Jerome. His growth was unnatural. I had to plan up all these distractions that would make him stronger but not stronger than me at the same time. That was hard.”

  “Distractions? Distract him from training properly?”

  “Pretty much.” He counted his fingers as he began listing all the events he planned out. “I told him he had to go all the way here to kill Jason by himself back in Boomsbarrow. I paid that Afro guy from the Corleone Family to set up that stupid game. Made a call to Daemon, and he showed up to fight him. There was this talking radioactive shark I shared a drink with one time. Told me he was chilling out in the same pool I told your dad and Dante to go to. R.I.P that kid, by the way. If he’s dead, that is.”

  “Wait. Geremiah was a part of the Corleone Family?” Sunshine asked in disbelief. “Does that mean… you were working for them too?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Jesus laughed. “With them is a better way of saying it. I mean, if Michael had a hand up my ass and played with me like a puppet, I’d be wearing a suit right now.”

  “You set Dad up! You told him to go down to the basement to get that power boost taken away from him.” Sunshine gritted her teeth, making a fist. “You-You were scared of him, you coward!”

  The swordsman’s smile faded, replaced by a stern expression. “Your hypocrisy disgusts me, kid. You call me a coward for the shit that I’ve done, and yet you’re the same girl who betrayed her own father to support your own selfish goals.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been dropping a lot of fat, girthy truth bombs on you, but you want to know the biggest truth of them all?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I hate you, Sunshine.” The sheer disgust in his voice when Jesus uttered her name sent a chill down her spine. “I absolutely despise you. You are one of the worst people I’ve ever met. Your dad was a good man. Unapologetically good. I didn’t want to kill him, but I had to. His kind can’t exist in the world I want Diego to live in. But when humans like you curse me with their presence, I think to myself ‘maybe zombies aren’t that bad, after all.”

  “Y-You don’t know anything about me!” Sunshine spat, her lungs burning with shake and regret. “You’re a fucking traitor!”

  “Oh, so now being a traitor is bad when the person being betrayed is you, huh?”

  Her lips trembled. She wanted to deny the truth. Her mouth wouldn’t allow her to.

  “Sure, I’m a traitor, but I believe that my reasons are righteous and justified. You, Sunshine, betrayed your father because you felt he betrayed you by showing love to someone that wasn’t you.” He pointed his katana at her and spit at the floor near her feet. “Jealousy plagues your soul. You betrayed your father to help me save my son, but that wasn’t because you actually cared about his well-being. You only cared about being seen as a hero, as a good person. A feat that Jerome can subconsciously do without effort.”

  I’m pathetic.

  “You are pathetic.”

  I’m the worst.

  “You are the worst.”

  “I’m-”

  “But you want to know what sealed the deal for me? Your disgusting cowardice. You wanted to turn your father back into a human to run away from a fight he wanted to participate in and win. Jason has killed many, and Jerome was perfectly in the right to want to take him down. But you stopped that. Not because you cared about his safety. You were jealous.”

  Jealous?

  “You hated the idea that not only Jerome, but a former slave and a weakling KB could rise up to the challenge while you weren't cut out for it. You wanted to bring them all down with you into the pits of failure, and that’s why you helped me do this.”

  Sunshine’s legs crumbled under the weight of the truth. If her body was made out of glass, it would've shattered by now.

  Jesus grimaced at her as Jerome’s body slid off of his sword, landing with a thud. “But despite how much I hate you… your ability is just so damn useful. I had you use that Mind Trick: Obedience technique on your own father, Dante, Jason.” The amusement he once had returned to his face. “You know, speaking of Dante, I don’t know what the fuck happened in that mindscape you told me about, but you somehow made the entire state of New York think a month passed. It’s still January, by the way. It is not February. I mean, geez, I even got you to use that on yourself.”

  Myself? “The therapy session when I went through the gate?” Sunshine muttered to herself.

  “The therapy session? Si. Si. That shit. Anyways, I believe I’ve improved your power enough for the UR to use it without you being alive.”

  The girl’s mind was scrambled with thoughts, but there was one image keeping her from completely breaking down. “Daddy… Bring my dad back. I changed my mind.”

  “He’s dead,” Jesus said, cleaning the ooze off of his katana with his hand.

  “Please.”

  “He’s dead,” he repeated, pointing the tip of the blade at the sky.

  “I’m… sorry.”

  “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

  A low rumble rolled across the horizon, like the growl of something ancient waking up. Then the sound deepened, spreading through the streets, and the buildings.

  Cracks spiderwebbed through the sky. At first they looked like streaks of lightning, but they didn’t fade. They spread, glowing white at the edges until the heavens themselves fractured. And then, with an earsplitting snap, shattered completely, revealing an infinite void of darkness.

  It didn’t even look like a hundred radioactive birds could match its size. And yet, Jesus wasn’t affected by it. In fact, it seemed like he was the one causing this mess, as though the rules of logic were now following his orders.

  The air grew heavy. The building they stood on lurched violently as if the city’s foundation had been caught in an earthquake. Lightning arched across the sky. The screams of Hallowsville’s citizens rose like a choir of panic. The heat that made Sunshine’s body sweat was now replaced with a freezing cold that wrapped around her body.

  And with a voice louder than anything she’s ever heard before, Jesus said…

  “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

  First, something sped out of the dark hole in the sky, and then blurred past her vision. It now felt like the biting cold was lashing her skin, forming small cuts around her body. This was just as bad… no, worse than being up on Topside Mountain.

  Blinking was hard, but Sunshine managed to do it anyway. When her eyes opened, a figure with four legs stood in between her and Jesus. It was a horse with fur as black as the hole it seemingly flew out of. The shadow of its wings loomed over the terrified girl, swallowing her in darkness.

  Even more terrifying was the skeleton sitting tall on the horse’s back. He had on a black mariachi suit that shimmered like polished glass. Silver designs ran along his jacket and pants, twisting into shapes that resembled skulls and flowers.

  “Muerte is at your service,” said the skeleton, readjusting his black sombrero as a cold breath left his mouth. It had a masculine voice, so Sunshine assumed it was a male. “This world has changed since I was last here.”

  Another silhouette began to come down, bursting from the hole with the sound of thunder. This time, the landing wasn’t graceful. It was violent. The rider and their horse slammed into the roof with enough force to create a dust cloud that swallowed everyone whole.

  Sunshine covered her mouth, coughing, trying to see through the haze. The only thing she could see was a bright red figure, and once the dust cleared, she realized it was the same rider who burst onto the scene in an eventful fashion.

  He twitched constantly, turning his head from side to side with a wicked smile, as though he was looking for someone to fight. Given that he and his horse looked like they’d been drenched in blood, fighting must’ve been his favorite thing to do.

  “Conquista is at your fucking service, biaaatch!” he said with a wide grin, wielding a long spear, his spiked up crimson hair flowing in the wind. “Wait, do people still say ‘biaaatch’ in 2024?”

  Sunshine thought he was the last, but then she recalled the name ‘Four Horsemen’. There were still two more to go. She expected the next one to enter with a boom or a bang.

  Instead, they came in with a plop. Compared to the other horsemen, this one was a lot more clumsier, spiraling off her horse the second it touched the floor. She didn’t look that much older than Sunshine, though her frail limbs and sunken face suggested she hadn’t eaten or drank anything in months… no, maybe years even. She almost pitied her seeing how slow the rider regained her bearings.

  She reminded Sunshine of Moonlight.

  As for her horse, the girl didn’t know they could get so fat, but this one proved her wrong. The animal lumbered towards its rider with a tired expression.

  “Hambruna… is at…your service,” the malnutritioned horseman groaned, awkwardly climbing back up on her horse.

  “The fuck? Did you get even weaker, kid?” said Conquista, not hiding the disappointment and disgust in his voice. “You’re a disgrace. I feel sick just looking at you. Qué vergüenza me das.”

  “Be nice, Conquista,” Muerte sighed. “Death comes for us all. Whether you like it or not. You will look exactly like that. On the day death comes knocking on your door.”

  “Silence, biaaatch!” the crimson horseman growled, aiming his spear at the skeleton. “As long as I follow Guerra, your filthy hands will never touch me!” He turned to Jesus. “Isn’t that right, Hernandez?”

  The swordsman nodded, putting the horse mask back on his face. However, there was something different about it. Its color had changed from light brown to black, and it resembled more of a horse’s severed head than something you’d buy at a Halloween store.

  That wasn’t the only thing confusing her. “The fourth one…?”

  “What was that, little girl?” Conquista placed his hand behind his ear. “?Habla fuerte!”

  “Four horsemen of the apocalypse… There’s supposed to be a fourth one.”

  “The Horsemen of War… is me,” Jesus replied, pointing his katana at Sunshine. “Remember what I said about killing you, kid? I’m not just killing you because Daemon wants me to. There are two steps to using my Radius Ability. To summon the horsemen, I must take the life of someone unapologetically good. And to unleash them on the world, I must take the life of someone unapologetically evil. And you, Sunshine… fit that description.”

  The girl’s heartbeat sped up. She crawled to her dad’s body for protection, but her frantic shaking didn’t wake him up. Jerome wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t die like this. He got back up before, so why wasn’t he now!?

  “You want so desperately to win your own battles, and yet you cling on to a corpse for safety?” Jesus inched closer. “C’mon. Hit me with an attack.”

  Dad! I need you… Dad!

  She felt the cold hand of death smother her body.

  Jesus raised his blade high above her. For a moment, she thought this was it. Everything was going to end right here. But the sword came down, not to strike her—it was to block an attack from behind.

  Sunshine twisted her head and froze.

  Jason had entered the battle.