Now, with our internment coming to an end, I can take a moment and look back. Remember the Harrowing and Cleansing, and what it meant for all of us.
I understand now: Had we just been given the Revelation, it would have been rejected out of hand as an insane abomination. We had to be broken down, our illusions about life and morality destroyed. It’s an old cliché, but like a field, we had to be prepared before a seed could be planted that would eventually bear fruit.
First was the fear. When Ashanti reinverted to normal space and we understood the full scope of the disaster that had befallen us, we realized that, no matter what, some or all of us were going to starve to death. Trapped. Here, in this ship, in the black immensity of space.
Then came the fight: the attempted mutiny led by Irdan and Brady Shaw. Its failure at the hands of the crew. How could they just have shot human beings down like that? We’d lived with these people for close to three years during the transition. Only to have them murder our leaders in the hallways.
We knew disbelief and rage when we discovered that the hatch had been sealed. That we were not only doomed but trapped in the limited warren that was Deck Three.
What followed was a mind-numbing despair—the kind that left even me weeping, defeated, and broken.
Then the rations were cut.
How clever the universe is. It let us observe the worst in humanity while teaching us the ultimate lesson: Survival is conflict.
Raised within the warm and secure womb of The Corporation, we could not have been more shocked by this rude and disturbing awakening. The depth of the deception we had been living back in Solar System was as traumatic for us as the ensuing starvation. As we wasted away in an agony of hunger, it became clear that altruism was a myth. Everything The Corporation had taught us to believe was a sham and a lie.
We witnessed the base brutality of the human soul.
In the beginning, when the interpersonal violence broke out, we dropped the bodies down the chute. Sent them to the hydroponics.
It was Irdan—who would become the first of the Prophets—who realized that it was a waste. All those calories, the protein, and fats. He was the first to begin the Harrowing.
See the cunning of the universe? Indeed!
Upon the revelation of Irdan’s actions—that he had cooked and eaten another human being—most had a feeling of revulsion. Thought the consumption of human flesh was abhorrent. A few sought retribution; Irdan killed them when they came for him. Nor did he leave them to waste, but promptly processed their meat and organs.
The Harrowing was over and the Cleansing began.
With it, so did the beginnings of the Revelation.
I remember the guilt I experienced the first time I ate human flesh. The self-revulsion. At the same time, I relished the sustenance. The relief from the hollow pangs of starvation.
This was meat.
This was life.
I knew it was Sally McKendricks, mother of two, whose meat I was cutting up and chewing.
But that night I slept with a full stomach.
For a time, following that, I was lost. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Disgust. A loathing of who I’d become. How low I would sink just to live another day. To keep breathing. To be rid of the hunger pangs.
Irdan—always in the forefront of the universe’s will—was the one who told me: “Batuhan, they’re not dead. They’re inside us. Living through us.”
And that night I had the dream, a vision.
Nothing like those bestowed upon the Prophets.
This was just a simple understanding: The universe had put us in such dire circumstances to serve a purpose: This was its will.
If killing and eating another human being was the universe’s will, it could not be a crime, an abomination, or a sin.
Consuming another human being was immortality.