Elizabeth went silent. Clearly, she was challenged by this idea of her body being sacred. “I like the idea of my body being sacred, but I don’t believe in the… Bible religion. I’m a Zironist like everyone else.”

Everytime one of the women of the Wasteland told him that, he cringed inwardly. Nikodemus was an open-minded sort, but he could never get behind the Zironist religion. The Zironists praised only decadence and excess. Nikodemus’ face fell. His head furiously pounded, his joints felt weak. His body was warning him, like it always did, that the activity he was about to engage in was wrong.

“Is there nothing I can say to convince you?” Nikodemus asked.

Elizabeth shook her head with a bright smile, showing him that nothing he had said sunk in. “Don’t worry! We’ll have fun, I promise.”

She dragged him to the bed and shut the door behind her.

***

Nikodemus lay awake while the three naked Nymph women lay asleep beside him. Already, his brain would not let him forget the regret and shame he felt about participating in such a licentious activity, so much so that it wouldn’t allow him to sleep.

He felt like he had committed some sort of crime and gotten away with it. Slowly, tears began running down his cheeks, and without wanting to, he sobbed hideously, feeling overwhelmed by his own actions.

He sat up, intending to crawl out of bed and take a walk—to do anything to wash his hands of how much filth they were coated in—but Elizabeth heard his sobbing and woke up. She didn’t know what to do about his crying--he imagined that these women had rarely experienced tears before due to being accustomed to the harsh world they were brought up in.

She sat up, looking at him in shock as he buried his face in his palms to muffle his anguished—and irrational from her point of view—sobbing. “What’s wrong? Have we displeased you?”

Through sheer force of will, Nikodemus managed to swallow his tears and stop his crying before he woke the other women up. He uncovered his eyes, but they were still gleaming with wetness. He shook his head. “Of course you haven’t displeased me.”

Her eyes were large with confusion. “Then why are you crying? That was one of the most fun nights in my life.” She said it almost reverently, and Nikdoemus felt so sorry for her and so sick at the world he was living in that bile rose in his throat.

It was finally and truly sinking into Nikodemus that the world he had grown up in was dead and gone. This current world had no room for deep affections or moral character.

Nikodemus grabbed the woman by her shoulders. She flinched in surprise. “Didn’t engaging in such a filthy activity make you feel anything at all other than pleasure? Why isn’t your vision swimming from the noxious miasma of that overindulgent pleasure? Why aren’t your insides being eroded by the gnawing pit of sin inside of you? Do you have anything inside you other than emptiness?”

Elizabeth finally looked somewhat afraid. She had never seen someone acting so irrational. Her pupils shrank in fear, her brow was furrowed in confusion.

“I… Have a heart inside me, a set of lungs, a stomach, and numerous other organs, just like anyone else. I’m not empty inside at all. I’m living the best life I possibly can—I’m experiencing all the worldly delights that are available to me, and abiding by Zironist Scripture. What else should I be doing?” Elizabeth asked calmly.

Nikodemus pressed his palms against his head, screwing his eyes shut as if doing so could block out the painful memories that haunted him. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “For one, perhaps you should be thinking about whether following Zironist Doctrine allows you to live your best life. If it weren’t for the Zironists, I doubt humanity would have broken up into these tribes…” Nikodemus murmured.

Elizabeth’s eyebrows knitted in offense. “What are you saying? There is no other way to live than the way the Zironists have dictated. We must live our most excellent lives and earn their favor. There is not other way to make it to Paradise.”

Nikodemus slammed his fists into the sheets—surprising even himself by his outburst. “Why can’t you see that living this way benefits the Zironists and the Zironists only? You have to kill either an enemy tribe member or one of your own each month and leave them out for the Zironists to desecrate just so you can remain in their good graces! Abiding by their Doctrine has only driven us humans apart!”

Elizabeth’s breathing was heavy, her eyes were searching and shiny with unshed tears. He had forced her to think about the world too deeply, and when the layers began to be stripped away, she became fearful. “What are you talking about? The Zironists give us the tools we need to survive! They saved the human race by breeding the mutants and cultivating the land to artificially grow vegetables, grass, and fruits.”

“It’s true we have breathing bodies, but I’d hardly consider us humans anymore. They have saved our bodies but killed our souls.” Nikodemus whispered almost more to himself than he did to Elizabeth.

“How could you doubt the Zironists? What else is there to life but trying to survive and earning their favor?” Elizabeth’s voice was shuddering, her world-view was shaking.