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In the Book of Lazal, there are three planes of life: the dead, the living, and the omnipotent.
In the Book of Charmont, there are five plans of life: the living, the borne, the regenerated, the lost, and the unseemed.
In the Book of Karaveli, there are eighteen planes... too many to list off in a single breath, with names long enough to make you swoon from lack of oxygen and overthought.
I had been taught that there are only five planes. It's goes without saying that my twin and I had to be given the books in three volumes so that we may study them from cover to cover. It was our father who always expressed that it was our duty to know these things, beyond everything else, for it was us who were drawn to that plane... the Regenerate.
The Regenerate were significant beings, capable of thought but without flesh, blood and bone. Restricted from the fleshen envelope of true life, they sought out host bodies.
It was us, the Borne, who had learn about these beings of independent thought.
Our father, the Maestro of Kadal, who sculpted my twin and I from the alabaster and jet stone that the Yven bestowed on him, said that we were Borne, not alive. The Living had much more to them. They could live how they wished. Walked how they wanted, spoke without restriction from their inner soul, and climbed the evolutionary ladder over many many years. We were to remain... unchanged, unevolved, exceptional solitary twos on the top rung of evolution, staring down at the poor, unfortanate souls who desperately clung for dear life.
It's not like if they would fall, they'd become Lost...
Only the ones who refused to seek life, or shied from it, became Lost.
Razalude... the one carved from purest Alabaster, was called the Harbringer of Light. A creature of immense beauty and the intensity of a newborn sun, he was chosen to guide the Living through their lives, harbor the Regenerate, and aide the other rarities that were the Borne.
I... wasn't given such a grand title... for my purpose was of a darker nature. I was allergic to the purity that was Perpetual Light... which was harbored in my brother's very skin. I was given a darker side to the planes... the side which dealt with the annhilation of the pollutants of Living and Borne. The Lost... and to hunt down the Regenerate.
Regenerates do not come easy. They are ancient manifestoes... strong entities of immense power who feed off of the elements and the soul, the emotions of everything around them. Society is their feast, and as I stood amongst the crowds in the streets of Los Angeles, I could feel my tender skin prickle with cold as I scanned the crowds for any traces of Lost... or better yet... Regenerates.
I had adapted to my new life. I hunted at night, since my skin was too sensitive to light. Fiori always judged me as the vampiric type, since I was always out at night. Fiori was a Live fiend... a human type, who lived amongst the other billions that inhabited the world.
Not like humans are able to see anything. Such humble, blind eyes. You tell them a vampire was real and they'd laugh in your face and have you committed. Of course they'd never heard of the 5 planes of existance. It was a waste to describe your purpose to these people. They'd never understand. Majority rules. You are sane, if you are silent.
All the same, many people can exist without even knowing they are being raped by a Regenerate being. They could cling to your back, sit in your ears... they could even blend with your shadow, sucking away your existance through the soles of your shoes.
I adjusted my black trenchcoat so that it sat primped and proper around my neck and over my shoulders. I had taken the opportunity to avoid Fiori and Evie to do my duties, though the man and woman had said they'd return in a matter of minutes. Whatever the case, I had to maintain surveillance.
To my surprise, I spotted a kindly old chap loading groceries into the trunk of his car. As I watched him through heavy Romani glasses, I noticed a light disruption around his electromagnetic field. I knew immediately what that meant. I stepped off the curb, the rubber soles of my boots touching the pavement with a thump, thump, thump, speeding up as I increased my speed a little to catch the man off guard.
Approaching a man and shouting blindly "you have something strapped to your back and eating your soul" would not be a wise decision. Things like this takes patience, perserverence, self esteem, and the ever so essential, ability to command matter and gravity.
I, luckilly, came equipped with such a device.
With a small twist of my wrist, which to a normal citizen would look like I was simply adjusting the black and red sweatband, I was able to throw the old man's spine for a loop. Like throwing a rock at the base of the spine. Cruel, but essential. I had little time for compassion these days, especially with the boom in Regenerates entering the Living plane. Wars just seemed to be spawning ghosts like grass in a lawn.
The man howled with pain, doubling over. I rushed up to his side, grasping ahold of his arm and saying in my most honey-coated voice I could muster, "Are you all right, sir?"
I narrowed my eyes, paying no attention to the man's complaints. Sure enough, inches from my cheek, was a nasty looking Regenerate, clinging like a baby ape, to the man's neck. He had his long tenticles delved into the poor man's ear canals, and it's mouths (it possessed three, the greedy b*****d), were aligned along the upper spinal column, it's long teeth secured firmly into the flesh. The man must have had terrible scoliosous. This creature had been sucking the very soul out from the neural branches.
Using my sickly sweet voice, I said, "It's going to be okay sir, just double over for a few minutes... I'll pop your spine back into place."
The man was about to protest, before I grabbed both his arms and pulled them back as far as they would go, putting my foot squarely on the Regenerate's back. With one full push, I was able to squish it into my own body. It was painful as hell, but I bit back the pain. It's one thing to do a 'spine fixing' procedure wrong in front of a crowd of people, it's another to do it and scream in pain while having an old man doubled in front of you with your leg in the air on his spine. I wriggled my ankle, hoping to dislodge the foul thing. Finally, I scraped it downward, hearing a ripping and a popping sound. The man cried out in immense pain, before my boot finally finished ripping at his poor back and falling to my side underneath me again.
The man turned around and shouted at me, "WAS THAT SOME SORT OF SICK JOKE!?"
I shrugged, and gave him a wicked smile, "Shut up, ol' geezer. You shouldn't trust some guy you met on the street to fix your back. Watch it next time and get a professional."
I flipped open a lighter, and reached for a cigarette that I kept in my breastpocket. Lighting it up, I walked away from the thoroughly enraged old man.
Tattooed and pierced Fiori Monroe was the first to step out of Kevin's Food Market on 83rd street. Evie followed behind him, bouncing with her red hair behind her as she grasped two plastic bags full of assorted necessary foodstuffs.
"Rastel! Rastel!" Evie bounded up to me, holding out the bag so I could view the contents in full, "Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Poptarts!"
"Red Bull, and Rock Stars," Fiori added gruffly as he retrieved one from the box he had over his shoulder. He unlocked the can with his teeth and drank it with one hand.
Evie, the ever so hyper human girl, smiled and ran in a little circle around Fiori, paying attention to his back and poking him in the spine and trapezoids, "Do you have wings?"
"I could ********' fly right now." He said, taking another swig, "Rast, are you going to help me carry this crap or not?"
"I thought you enjoyed showing off how strong you were," I shrugged. To tell you the truth, my foot still ached like a son of a b***h and I wasn't in the mood to apply more weight to my person to intensify the pain, "Especially since I'm such a 'twig' right?"
"******** you and your obvious remarks," Fiori grunted, shoving a box of Red Star energies into my arms, "Just carry that to the Rat Room."
The Rat Room. Thusly named for it's intense smell of rodent droppings and the occasional R.O.U.S's that poked their heads into it from the drains and cracks in the walls. It was a hotel building that had it's whole upstairs burnt to pieces. The downstairs remained intact (enough), but was kept condemned. The furniture was rotten and disgusting, but Fiori and his friends found it to be 'perfect'.
Why I hung out with these people was beyond me. Perhaps it was because I needed cover. They were all insomniacs, and an assorted bunch. Punk rockers and the like. I was amazed at how my vocabulary had grown while in the company of these people. One thing was for sure, I was no ******** saint.
Fiori opened the door with his key. We all had a copy. He had replaced the doorknob with a new one and got each one of his gang a spare key so we could all go in.
Helen was already lounged on the bed, writing in her black book. Juni was playing video games against Lourette, and Justin was throwing up in the corner with a bucket. Beer cans littered the floor, and so I knew exactly what had passed here.
Juni hailed us from his game mid-play, not bothering to look up at all from his sport.
"Heyo guys," he said, his irish accent blended with a surfer's was quite unique, "bring more booze?"
"Unfortunately, the cashier has 20/20 vision," Fiori dumped the Red Bulls on the termite snack of a table, "We had to behave and get kiddie stuff."
"Urgh... Energy drinks?" Juni whined.
"I like them!" Lourette said, punching the air with victory and sequencing it with a slug to Juni's gut, "Fork one over!"
Fiori retrieved one like a bear would snag a fish from a river, and tossed it at Lourette. It missed and connected with the television screen, momentarilly disrupting the vision of the game even worse than it's original waves of rolling rainbows. She cried out with shock before finally recovering and uncorking her drink, taking a long, victory filled gulp of the juice.
I moved to my spot on the bed next to Helen. She was a red head too, but fancied a gothic flare. Always dressed up like someone from a vampire movie, with purple and black frills and messed up net stockings. She kicked her slender legs up and down against the rickety bed, chewing on the lid of her pen while looking over her notes.
She didn't bother to look up either, "Hello, Rastel."
"Hello Helen," I responded, looking a little to see what she was scribbling.
She shut her book with her hand and looked up, "It's rude to read someone else's masterpiece."
"I thought you didn't believe in masterpieces," I said, smirking a little with my next response, "Besides, if that were true, then those who read Shakespeare are going to hell."
She rolled her eyes and looked up at Evie, who held out two silver tin foil circles towards us. She smiled a bright smile, and shook the items quickly back and forth, as if to seduce us with their shine.
Helen sat up and snatched the silver cylinder from Evie's grasp, unwrapping it and taking a bite of the chocolate pastry.
I gingerly accepted it. I had no need to feed, but I guess if it would appease her, I could pretend. I unwrapped it slowly, and licked the chocolate coating with my tongue. I looked up to see Evie blush and her eyes narrowed in gleeful survellance.
"...um..." I blinked at her with my azure eyes, "what's wrong?"
"Nothin'" She smiled, laughing a short while, and then twirling around, bounding back to Fiori's side to enjoy some more of her pilfered sweets while chanting some sort of Jamaican tune and swinging her red hair side to side.
Justin, finally spent of his innards, staggered over to the bed and collapsed on it, making it bounce and creek noisely. Helen nearly toppled off, and commenced to hitting Justin in the face with her book for the intrusion of her solitude. He apologized, and sighed groggly, "Rast, man..." he took my trench's hem into his grasp and tugged it a bit, "Go down to the store... get me some rolaids..."
"Rolaids aren't going to help you," I said, releasing my coat tail from his hand, "Get some sleep and drink some water."
"No, seriously... I need rolaids."
"No you don't." I didn't understand why these people didn't listen to me. I'm the supernatural being. Trust me, I know what I'm doing.
"YES I ******** DO!" Justin pushed me hard so that I had to get up or fall onto the ground in a wreckless and ungraceful heep.
"Then send Juni," I said, dusting off my jacket. The bed was ancient, and covered in dust. Upon better inspection of Justin, he looked like he just rolled in flour, and Helen's whole black front was plastered in a light brown coating.
"Lazy a**," Justin grimaced, finally rolling onto his face and stomach and groaning worse.
I shook my head and adjusted my sunglasses. I finally decided it was best to dump the pain in my leg before it moved to my thigh and made me really uncomfortable, "Fine, fine... I'll get your medicinal coins."
I opened the door and walked out, leaving with Evie's final goodbye being, "Get me a roll of Donettes!"
I walked as fast as I could, my leg feeling like lead. The Regenerate had finally had a firm grasp on my inner sanctum and was about to do an ascent to the aerie. I couldn't allow that, and the sooner I got to my residence, the better.
I lived on 4th and MarketPlace, and although it was a couple more than eight blocks from the Rat Room, it was not a long trek. I finally resolved to vaulting over a few fences and dodging the sleeping dogs to cross the blocks more successfully, shortening my spent voyage time.
By the time I reached the door and took out my key, the pain in my foot suddenly shot up to my thigh. My eyes widened and I staggered a bit.
Pardon me, I forgot to explain the background as to what is occuring.
As my job is to secure and dispel the parasites of Life, I must come equipped with methods of retrieval. My inner body is basically a hollow shell, through which there is nothing but mock bones, guts and flesh. I have no real vital organs at all (hence the no need to eat). Instead, I absorb the parasites, trapping them inside myself. What I do have, however, Is my own soul, which had the soul parts of organs. Since the parasite needs only to move up to my head and latch onto the neural center which controls my soul, it would be only a matter of time before it would either control me entirely, or destroy me.
My soul is very hard to break, but it can, it has been proven, be done.
A parasite can spend a long time confused inside it's prison that is my body. It attempts to latch onto the mock structures, only to find them rock solid, and even though pretending to be functioning, do not actually work. Finally, fed up, it'll move upwards, attempting to latch onto whatever it can find. If it doesn't work, it'll move on. Though I lack some things, that does not distract the innumerable amounts of pain that course through my body in massive spasms when the parasite actually moves. It's unfortunate, but a hard fact of my existance, that has no change nor remedy.
My hand shook, making the bronze key scratch the enamel off the door knob. I finally thrust my hand forward, plunging the key into the lock. I had too much on my mind to manipulate the movement of the lock or anything remotely simple but to stagger my way through the door, up the three flights of stairs, into my other door, and finally across to the closet, where I had to press my palm to an eight pointed star. The star alighted and began to spin, and certainly enough, the door opened to a vast room. Far larger than any normal closet, of course.
In the center of the room lay another eight pointed star. Markings of Charmont where inscribed along the outer rims, while workings of Lazul and Karaveli were engraved along the inner walls. Truths common in all three books of knowledge. They were essential for the transfusion.
I walked around the outer circle that enveloped the star. I read the markings, one by one, to the beat of an ancient chant. Finally, before my stomach area began to seize, I finished the final verse, alighting the star in the center. I fell to my knees with a cry of immediate pain, and collapsed in the center of the star.
No sooner had my face connected with the cold hard wood floor, than the star began to glow and encompass me, spinning slowly and spreading cool dim light across the room of shadows. The different words of wisdom that sprung from the star's sides delved into my back, combing my body for the intrusive bug. They discovered it in my chest cavity, and as the words locked and entombed the Regenerate, they dragged it out of me.
All this hurt like a son of a b***h too. I kid you not one bit. Each word felt like a sharp cold knife being plunged into your body, twisted so that the blade broke off, and then the blade stabbing different parts of your body as it wriggled about, searching for the intruder. Not a tender loving experience.
Finally, the incantations lifted all at once in an explosive force from my flesh, blowing a hole out of my back. I screamed bloody murder. Thankfully I had a leather wristband in my mouth (I took one of mine off while I took the words in), so that I stiffled the scream and bit down on it instead of my poor teeth . The parasite screamed too, as all the words became real knifes and stabbed the creature to death. Or it would seem...
Really, the words expelled it to the Lost realm, where they belonged. However, the process is quite painful, for it involves the separate "downloading" of the parasite into the alternate plane.
Panting and out of breath and feeling my split flesh with my fingers, I cried on the floor. Yes, I have real tears, and I could feel the cold wash of my own blood spill over my body and onto the floor as well, like a river from a fountain.
I wouldn't die though. I can't die from something so basic...
But you wish you could.
It hurts that much.
An hour later of lying on the floor, weeping and feeling my blood spill, I was able to finally sit up. My back was repairing itself, even though my poor coat had paid the ultimate price. It was dead as dreams now. I threw it aside and walked out of the closet space into the bedroom, reaching into the tall armoir that held my clothes. I rummaged through and found a black and white striped shirt with a large beltbuckle slung over one shoulder. It was an odd garmet, but Evie had been the one to give it to me. I put it on instead of my ruined black tee, and adjusted it in the mirror. Deciding that it was good enough, I chose my black denim jacket with ripped sections. I put it on and went downstairs.
Unlocking my door and returning to the Rat Room took longer. I didn't want to run it. It would be an unnecessary waste of energy. So I took it easy, meandering. It was 9:05 p.m, so it was early for me. There were still people walking about, gabbering on to eachother as they passed me.
I chose the street with the most nightlife to live near. It was a good cover.
 Keoteki · Sun Mar 18, 2007 @ 01:17pm · 2 Comments |
