My Father's Son...?

Now clean, but cold and wet, I returned to the clearing where Yggsdrasil had once stood vigil.

A figure stood near the giant stump. I felt a strange mixture of fear and joy at seeing this figure. Joy at the thought of being able to talk to someone, anyone about what had just happened to me, fear began to wrap its cold hand around what passed for my heart though as I got a closer look at this figure.

It was vaguely feminine, its pale flesh almost translucent in the dim light of the clearing. Her hair was long, dark and tangled in massive clumps that seemed to have a life of their own. Her eyes shone with a bright blue light that only made me feel even colder in my nakedness.

She waited as I stepped from the forest and cautiously approached her.

Now that I had the my natural equipment again, I found it difficult not to drop my hands down to cover my privates, but something told me that there was nothing truly sexual about this creature, so I resisted and kept my hands down at my sides, fists nervously clenching and unclenching.

“Who are you?” I saw no reason to beat around the bush.

“I am Me’shwara, She Who Watches, in your mortal tongue.”

“Can you tell me what the hell happened to me here?” I looked down at my new body before meeting her gaze again. “Where is my son? He helped to bring me here.”

“Your son made his sacrifice. His time has expired. He has moved on in his journey. You, however, have much work yet to do.” Her voice was cold and distant, ringing out with a hollow echo as she spoke, as if she were using a microphone and bad speakers.

“Why couldn’t he wait until this…transformation…that I went through was finished?”

The woman’s face showed no emotion as she replied. “His sacrifice was required for you to rise again. Without the completion of the act, you would no longer exist.”

I stepped forward, losing the fear for this strange woman as my frustration level grew. “What do you mean that I wouldn’t exist? I was far more powerful than I feel now. What the fuck did you people do to me? What happened to my body? Why do I need to eat again? Why…”

Her raised hand ended my rush of questions and halted me where I stood, unable to move or even speak as she exerted some sort of power over me.

“You will have to find your own answers to most of your questions, but I answer three questions that you ask now. Ask carefully, because I will answer no more than three questions.”

I felt her grip of power on me loosen. “OK, what happened to me?”

“You had fallen into the trap of becoming that which you had been fighting against. By defeating the Banes and absorbing their essences, you became too dangerous. This was a process that had been taking place over a number of years, but you reached a critical mass, a tipping point, where you would have soon fallen under the sway of the An’girasii and destroyed all hope for your people. Your son sacrificed his own life so that you could be saved. As you can see, your body has been dramatically altered. You are now flesh and bone once again, your Spirit has been reunited with a body that has certain physical needs. Your Spirit has been cleansed of all the others that you had absorbed over the years, including the creature you knew as Grendel’s mother.”

I didn’t stop to think about her answer before asking my next question.

“So, do I need to eat and drink again because I am alive?”

“You are immortal, to a degree, in that you do not require sustenance to survive. You do, however, need to eat and drink in order to thrive and become as strong as you will need to be for the challenges that you will surely face. You will find that you crave the lifeblood of living creatures, the fresher the kill, the more strength you will gain from its consumption. In that aspect, you are now well and truly your father’s son.”

That caught me off guard. I couldn’t resist throwing out my third question. “Wait a minute, who do you think my father is?”

“The man you know as Drake Kampmann was both your biological father and your spiritual father.”

I was so stunned by this statement that I had trouble forming coherent words in reply. “But…that’s…not…possible…”

The creature smiled for the first time. “It is the truth. When you come to a full acceptance of this fact, you will truly discover the full range of your inherited powers.”

“No…no…no…”

“Say your farewell to this place, human, for you will likely never return. You will find that it will be exceedingly difficult to travel through the Shadow, as you call it, like you did before. You still retain the knowledge of how to do so, but you will no longer have the same complete mastery of that place as you did before.”

She pointed to a pile of clothes and gear next to her.

“Please collect your things and prepare yourself for your final journey from this place. I will open the path for you to take back to your home world.”

I couldn’t bring myself to move just yet. “But what happened to Alexa? Why can’t I see Kenny one more time?”

She shook her head. “You have used up your allotment of questions, human. You will need to find those answers for yourself. You do not have much time before the pathway is open to you. I suggest that you use this time wisely.”

A door of Shadow formed just beyond my pile of clothes. Still dumbfounded, I staggered forward to scoop up my gear. I noticed something was missing. “Hey, where is Excalibur?”

“The Lady of the Lake has claimed the blade for now for safekeeping. If you prove worthy of it, and are in need of it, it may be returned to you at a later time. I suggest that you leave now.”

Clothes and gear in hand, I stepped into the Shadow with far more questions than answers.

“Drake is really my father? Mom, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

Radio Silence...Part 2

I emerged from the cavern to see even more dramatic changes to clearing.

Yggsdrasil was no more. There was simply a massive rotting stump where the mighty tree once stood. The clearing itself was much smaller, the surrounding forest loomed closer having reclaimed nearly half of the clearing.

This once familiar place was now strange and alien. Or perhaps I was now the alien in this place. I felt very much alone.

“Kenny? Alexa? Is there anyone here?”

The only response I received was the swaying of the trees in the breeze and the distant sounds of various forest creatures.

As I stood there surveying the incredible changes to the once place I could call a sanctuary, a strange, yet distantly familiar sensation erupted from my gut.

Hunger.

It was the first time I could recall the feeling since I had died.

My knees began to tremble as a wave of hunger and a seemingly insatiable thirst overcame me. These twin drives had been missing from existence for so long that I was at a loss as to how to satisfy either of them.

The need to eat something, anything, was growing by the moment. I started stumbling towards the woods, hoping to find something that would tamp down the screaming hunger pangs that were raging throughout my body.

As I plunged into the dark mass of trees, I grabbed a long hanging branch, plucked some leaves from it and stuffed them into my mouth.

The leaves quickly dissolved into a bitter, chewy mass of mush that only inflamed my hunger.

Crashing through the thick underbrush, I began to look for something more substantial to eat. I was hoping for a small woodland creature of some sort, but I would’ve settled for almost anything with a pulse.

I was making so much noise as I rampaged through the woods that everything with an ounce of sense and the ability to move or hide quickly did so.

Crying out in rage and frustration, I stumbled across a babbling brook that opened up into a small, clear pool just a few feet away from where I landed with a splash and a curse. Unable to contain my thirst anymore, I plunged my face into the muddy stream and sucked a mouthful of water, pausing only long enough to gulp it down and dive down for some more.

The water was shockingly cold, but it tasted absolutely horrible. It was full of grit and had a tangy, metallic aftertaste.

Before I had the chance to marvel at my newfound senses of taste, smell, and touch, I caught a flash of silver coming from the pool. Seeing a chance to satisfy the other primal drive that I was feeling, I crawled over to the pool and watched for more movement.

It didn’t take long for the silver-colored fish to move again. With all of the speed I could muster, I plunged my hand into the water and grasped at the slippery form. On my third try, I was rewarded with a wriggling brook trout.

I was far too hungry to even pause before I brought the fish up to my mouth and ended its struggle for survival with a massive bite through the fleshy belly. My teeth tore through the slimy scales, the juicy fat of the belly, and whatever internal organs were in the way. I was rewarded with a cool rush of coppery tasting blood.

I swallowed as quickly as I could break the flesh into digestible bits. In mere moments, most of the five or six pound fish was gone.

Looking down at my reflection, I was horrified to see how monstrous I appeared. Blood and scales covered the lower part of my face and a good portion of my upper torso.

For the first time since I woke up, I noticed that I was completely naked. Looking down at my naked body I was more than a little surprised to see parts of my anatomy that had been taken from me by Dr. Geek and his lab technicians. I seemed to have all of my natural parts again, despite the fact that all of my flesh looked deathly pale.

I shook my head in disbelief before plunging into the pool to wash off the remains of dinner.

(To be continued on Sunday, July 6, 2008)

Radio Silence...Part 1

I awoke to nearly silent darkness. The only sound was a gurgling, squishing sound that was regular and strangely comforting.

I was floating within a warm, watery cocoon.

For the first time in years I didn’t have to push back against other voices in my own head. I was alone with my own thoughts, as confused and scattered as they were.

“Where am I?” My own voice sounded distant and muffled.

“What is happening?”

I tried to move, but my limbs felt heavy and unresponsive.

“Kenny?!?!”

“Alexa!?!?”

“What the fuck is going on? Someone help me!”

There was nothing but the muffled, water-logged sounds of my own small voice and warm, wet darkness.

Doubt began to eat away at the edges of the small amount sanity that I had left.

“Why am I here?”

“Who am I?”

That last question echoed through the darkness, bounced off the unseen walls and came back at me in endless waves of varied loudness.

“Who am I?”

“Who AM I?”

“WHO am I?”

“WHO AM I?”

“who am i?”

I tried to reach up and cover my ears, but my body refused to respond. I was completely helpless as the echoes grew louder and more insistent, hammering at me from every direction until it built into a constant crescendo of sound and fury.

I answered the questions as loudly as I could. I threw out a new true answer every time the question came bouncing back.

“I AM JASON SMITH!!”

“I AM AGENT RUSTY BONES!”

“I AM A DEAD MAN WALKING!”

“I AM A KILLER!”

“I AM KENNY’S FATHER!”

“I AM A COP!”

“I AM A MAN!”

“I AM…I am…i am…I am I.”
A small dim light grew around the edges of my vision. The darkness began to fade as my body began to feel normal once again.

I was laid out on my back on the floor of the cavern beneath Yggsdrasil. The sound water dripping from the roots above into the pool to my left brought me fully back. Each drop echoing in the cavern like the questions I had been bombarded with.

I was alone.

I sat up and looked at my hands in the dim, diffuse light of the cavern. They looked almost normal. They were very pale, but the flesh seemed real enough. I reached out to touch the floor with my right hand. It was cool, damp and hard. It was…smooth and slick.

I pulled back my hand and brought it up close to my eyes. Rubbing the tips of my fingers together, I felt the friction of skin on skin contact.

I stood up. My legs were stiff, but functional. I reached down with my right hand and felt my stomach. I actually felt the contact on my gut both through my fingers and through the muscles of my torso. I pinched the pale flesh between my thumb and forefinger, hard, and smiled at the pain of it.

“What the hell? Am I alive again?”

No one bothered to reply.

(To be continued on Thursday, July 3, 2008)