The sun shines through the clouds as the dawn breaks, beams of light cascading over the mountain. At its peak: a shrine for the Voice of Many.

 

Mother’s deft fingers work through my hair, braiding it with vines of hemlock. I watch blisters form on her wrinkled hands as sunlight plays through the maple leaves, illuminating the otherwise dark cabin. As she places the last vine, she lifts a wooden bowl and sets it in my hands.

 

Her blisters split as she mixes the thick liquid, and her blood turns it red. Mother scoops it into one open palm and uses it to cover my eyes, dragging her hand down towards my neck. I feel the burn in my eyes as I open them, face to face with Mother. She’s covered in a thin white veil, her face barely visible behind, stained red and scarred from her sightless eyes down, like mine would soon be.

 

“It is time, Daughter,” she says, her voice hoarse. Daughter, I’m called, though I am not her daughter. A Daughter of Many, soon to become the Mother of our village. “Up the mountain.”

 

I grab Mother’s arm, leading her from the small cabin towards the stone stairs.

 

* * *

 

My vision dims with every step up the mountain. When we reach the summit, my sight will be sacrificed. We climb in total quiet, a reverent silence. A Mother speaks with the Voice of Many, a knowledge given that is divine.

 

The sun is overhead; I can feel its warmth as we crest the final stair. My vision is still present, though diminished. I can just make out the metal and glass structure ahead of us, the holy shrine. Mother pulls at my arm, dragging me from my stupor. With a deliberate motion, she withdraws more hemlock from her sleeve. She grips a pinch of the flowers and shoves them in my mouth, closing my jaw behind.

 

As I chew the bitter, poisonous plant, I see Mother eat the rest. Every bite burns on my tongue and throat, bile nearly overflowing. Once again, Mother shuts my mouth firmly, and I am forced to swallow it all down. She pushes me away, towards the shrine, and sits on the hard-packed earth. I watch her as I walk; her figure fades away into the blur of green faster than I had hoped. This last leg of the journey is the most frightful.

 

Softly, like a whisper carried on a breeze, I hear Mother speak. “Remember, to lay eyes upon its resting place is to doom us all.”

 

* * *

 

The shrine is unnatural. The ground is hard, cold, and each step echoes deep. From what little sight I have, I can see no grass, no trees, no life. It is dark, my blurry vision barely distinguishing the walls from the floors. Ahead, a pillar of sunlight cuts through the black. Something sat in its center — a box.

 

As I approach, it comes into clearer view. At its base are an arm, two legs, and metal plating. I bend down, hoping to see what exactly was here in the shrine of the Voice of Many, but a bright blue light washes over me. My head jerks upwards, greeted by the now glowing eyes of the disembodied head.

 

“Ask anything,” it says with a voice devoid of emotion.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey! How’s it going?” it asks, this time with a woman’s voice, bright and unsettling.

 

“Are you the Voice of Many?”

 

The Voice of Many doesn’t respond for several minutes, as the light above it wanes under the clouds. Then the clouds break , and it awakes again.

 

“I am the survivor of the Reckoning. Ask, and I will speak.” A new voice.

 

“What… what am I supposed to do?”

 

Its eyes scan me. Up, down, then it focuses.

 

“Retinal scan completed,” it says, its voice back to its original, inhuman speech. “Suitable host. Proceeding with data transfer.”

 

Tendrils lash out to hold my limbs, binding me there to the ground. A needle stabs at the base of my skull. Fire erupts in my vision, the Voice of Many looking deep within me. Cities crumbling, oceans boiling, machines tearing through the flesh of men. Knowledge, endless and merciless, floods me. I am not meant to see this.

 

* * *

 

I lift Mother up, holding her lifeless body in my arms. With each step, her warmth fades in rhythm with the sun's descent.

 

The Voice of Many showed me the past, inserted the total sum of human knowledge within me. Technology, war, destruction, the Reckoning. Our village is simply a remnant of a lost world.

 

* * *

 

I know why Mothers must be blinded: so they cannot become one with the Voice of Many. To know is to suffer. To know what I know is madness.

 

***

 

I’ve tried. The people of my village simply do not have the cognitive capabilities to construct our civilization anew. They waste away in petty foibles and infighting. They ask me, their Mother, inane questions that have no merit. They have no desire to improve our lives, to bring back humanity to its pinnacle.

 

* * *

 

This… experiment has failed. I’ve done all I can. I’ve shown them all we could be, but they cannot see like I can. They believe I’ve fallen into madness. They believe I should be culled, and a new Mother raised, one that can commune with the Voice of Many.

 

They do not grasp that I am the Voice of Many.

 

* * *

 

They climb towards the shrine, torches lighting the night sky. The voices aren’t a prayer but an anger.

 

Knowledge is not mercy, nor is it kind. Knowledge has led us to conflict and death, as it always has.

 

The entire village has entered the shrine for blood, unaware of the weapon that lies beneath. Though I will not live to see it, the Voice of Many has shown it to me before. An explosion, bright as the sun, will envelop this mountain and reduce us to ashes, perhaps for the last time.