by J Hawk
Hovering over where his body lay, fading from the world like a gentle breeze would after wafting through the sky, Zardin survived as a mere thread of consciousness. He could sense his surroundings as he floated above his body. The black hearted vultures were spiralling around, sinking their beaks into what had once been his vessel of life in this world. But no more. He was no longer a part of this world … He was only surviving as a mere shadow that would soon pass to the next world, a loose rope tied to this realm that would wear and break soon. His life had ended, and he was cast between a mere veil separating this world from the next. Anytime now, he would be gone for good…
For it was time for him to leave.
And now, with the end now upon him, Zardin felt his entire life run past him like a speed train. A life he had striven and ploughed through to reach nothing at all in the end. And now, as it ended, he was left with nothing at all … but pain and suffering. For that had been his life. And all of the agony of his days compressed into the present, crashing upon him like a tidal wave of grief and fury. He remembered everything that he had lived through, and realised that it had left him with nothing but pain.
And all of it came from one reason.
Zardin had been a mystic.
And that had made life hell for him. He remembered his days, scurrying and fleeing from the authorities, and braving the world of pain that mystics faced. And he had faced and braved it all his life. And now, at the end, it had left him with nothing … nothing but grief and angst. And fury.
As the veil separating the two worlds began to dissolve, Zardin could feel the tug of the next world slowly draw him off this one. He was moving … He was leaving. And at this final stage, as he relived the life he had known, he was left with nothing but grief and rage. And now, at this final hour, though it was beyond too late, he wanted just one thing…
A second chance.
A second chance at life. But not for himself … for the world. To show the world what he had been through, and to rage through it. To unleash his wrath upon this realm that had left him with so much grief. But he knew it was too late. Far too late…
As everything around him blurred, he could sense the oncoming blanket of silence slowly cloak around him. The world he knew, along with the body which he had known, lying down on the ground, being pecked at by vultures … everything he knew was fading. Everything was melting back to the abyss from which it had all begun.
And at the teetering final moment, as he passed on, Zardin sealed his vengeance with the one thought: if he had a chance, he would make this world pay.
And right then, as though in response … as though in reply, came a voice. A voice that rumbled with the force of a thousand avalanches. It shattered the peace and seemed to leave the entire world quaking along with it.
“Look towards me … Zardin.”
Then, as the voice faded, silence settled over the realm again. But it wasn’t the same silence he knew before … Zardin felt a sudden thrill of fear like nothing before. For he realised, as he floated in the abyss between life and death, that there was a strange, unknown presence … an unknown mind, attempting to communicate with him
Zardin waited for a moment that could well have been an eternity in the endless abyss that he now found himself in. And then, very hesitantly, he probed the strange new entity that had arrived here by asking, Who … are you? Then, even more hesitantly, God?
The voice loosed out in a great rumble of laughter, and Zardin felt his being shrink inwardly at the colossal rage that the terrible voice seemed to contain within. The laughter died slowly, and the voice replied:
“No … better. Much better.”
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