Prologue & Explanation of...

Prologue & Explanation of Transcend the Flesh

I wrote the various parts of Transcend the Flesh separately - between weeks of inventiveness in the 90s. Probably when I was 17 or 18, I don't remember now. I didn't particularly care for the view of the characters, the first person view that I switch through during the story so I eventually scrapped the whole thing in favor of other storylines and plots. After many (read too many) stops and starts, I've finally begun writing a new draft of the story that starts at the actual beginning. I already have two chapters and the prologue done. Yay. Unfortunately its not a sexual work - neither is this. It's for those readers who asked for more (read - I'm amazed that there were so many of you). I apologize for the way the pieces don't seem to fit perfectly but if I continue to get feedback I might be convinced to start a unique, erotic, story just for this site. Who knows?

I hope you enjoy,

Azrof.

* * * * *

Choices that need to be made; Promises that threaten to be unmade. A lengthy self-inspection first.

Where was I born? I recall my mother and father on Earth, remember their scent and smiles, yet they are no more. I know that in my past their was love and loss, hate, anger and so many other emotions, each sweeter than the last. Yet they came to an abrupt end. I sought, and found, my path toward the sun and rejected it as well. Perhaps my birth in this world was a mistake; a miscalculation on a universal scale.

The time I spent learning of the world, eyes filled with innocence, was only a blink; a fraction of an instant in the scheme of things. And it was too much for my mortal emotions to stand. First there was love, then loss, then betrayal and finally, to top the mountain of abominable acts, I betrayed. Perhaps I should focus on the present.

On the answer.

On waking up.

On moving.

Looking down, I see the muscle that has atrophied into nonexistence; I see the bone that withered flesh covers, calcium deposits long since depleted. A shattered remnant of a body. I know that if I could see my face I would be horrified at the sunken depth of my eye sockets, at the thinness of my hair and the skeleton-like qualities I have taken on so greedily to end the pain within my soul. I know I must choose.

Power or continued pain.

The feeling of the universal creation flowing through my body would be as sweet as any kiss, as intoxicating as any liquor, yet I fear it. I fear what temptations I would have; I could undo the separation. I could heal myself. Become whole. Yet, within my soul, I know that that option is not.

The flow of self-depreciating sadness moving across each numb nerve with the quiet coldness of ice; numbing my heart to what I have been part of, have seen. As tempting, in its own way, as the power I could open myself to.

I choose.

There really was not much of a choice; the decision made in an instant. I rein in my mind and flow, not outward as a waterfall, but inward, sinking into the black hole that is the remnant of my heart.

Darkness swallows me yet I ignore it; I search. Moving across surfaces that reek of memory and sadness, I begin the long road through a self-made hell. Heat tears at my atoms, Cold sears my neutrons from balance, both fusion and fission work on my mind at once.

Barriers.

I collapse them, with such effort that my body must be failing by now. My heart must be beating so slowly that a doctor would call me dead; soon I will be if I continue inward. I never hesitate.

Cambering across mounds of carrion rotted flesh, my fingers break. My feet hit the ground with the sharp cracking sound of bone broken and the pain is so intense I feel as if a Seedling has a hold of me. I have so little time.

Aeons pass, or so it seems; time has no meaning within the halls of my mind. On broken bones I walk, on boundless hope, I run. Though in my mind I am limited by my physical body, my mind still has the will to drive me on, to drive me toward my goal. Toward the brilliant light, toward the blue hued sun that begins to peek out from behind the frozen-still earth at the edge of my vision.

Bone snaps. My femur slivers into a thousand pieces of shrapnel, slicing numb flesh into a throbbing agony. I can not make it, this I know. I crawl still, unable to escape the will that drove me to my destruction in the first place, my broken fingers giving little purchase, my shattered legs only dead weight.

Time flows past as water; my few lucid moments are filled with a thousand agonies and nothing to repay me but the looming face of a sun that hovers forever past my reach.

I decide to end the pain.

Slowly; gingerly testing out the roots of pain and strength within my ash-made body, I stand. My sunken form is no longer human by any stretch of My mind and retains its shape only through my will, which dwindles still. I call the sun. I summon it by its Name.

Description is never adequate for this feeling; for it is not a feeling. It is a new state of being, a paradigm unlike any other. I am lifted from the seat of depression and loneliness and given a new gift. Hope.

Then, faults in the small piece of the whole that I am, healed, I awaken. I Awaken. And the horizon of my dwelling trembles with the force of it.

Energy; power. Red power. It flares with the brilliance of a sweet rose wine blasted with the sun's light and coalesces over his head. Like blood. The shape coagulates into a triangular blob, aimed directly at his emaciated flesh. Aimed at the center of his power; at his heart. Life pounds within his breast, the life of one who has walked a thousand miles on broken hopes and shattered bones. The thin, barely audible life of one who has the force of Will to move though pain becomes a reality; though pain was his reality.

The pure, angry, power hovers within the air for a moment, shifting as water would tend to, violent as life is. The energy seeks to know, to understand why it was called into such a hurt existence and, in that moment, it also decides to act. A wafting pseudopod of dark red sweeps the naked bones that are caressed with only the meanest flesh. The sweep is a question; the heartbeat an answer, a song. It says, "This is your purpose. This is your design; heat for life."

The sporadic melody begins to fade within it's captor, dims with each passing moment. The energy, though it has not mind, knows in it's design that the song is all. Must be continued. And it shall be, it also knows. The energy is shy, quests, no more; it sweeps inward with the force of a tidal wave. A tsunami of pure, angry, need. An animal force that Growls in it's need to use the part of itself to keep the song alive.

The heart does not fade, it grows stronger. Life blood, the essence of power within the universe, flows into the decimated, war-torn veins. No life can withstand this need; this acidic burn. It summons the song within the heart and brings it into full bloom, making the near cadaver kick with sudden, new, pain. Life flows greedily into the being that summoned it so desperately.

Water; life. Blue life. Flesh to flesh, given to me, I bid thee come; renew my vigor. The call so soft, so sweet, that the essence of life must, for only a moment, obey. The sweeping sound of sudden water fills the remote building with the roar of a thousand lions. Calling to the being that called it. A floating haze of navy light rushes into the room and into Him, flesh flowing as if made of nothing more than warm tea for a fraction of an instant. Then solidifies. As water becomes ice, so does the essence of water find it's natural place within marrow, within cells, within atoms, bonding at such a rate that the being receptive to the massive power He has called can merely gasp with sudden feeling. Nerves scream into existence where once there was only numb, tendons fill into iron strength when, for an eternity, they were slack. Muscles grow and conjoin into articulation points so deftly woven that Life takes pride in It's own work. The warp and weft move.

Shaking the wetness from his body, he stands; the motion so amazingly perfect that no one could ignore the pride Life has taken in his reformation. His call was beautiful to it. Beautiful to Life to know that He has decided to return, to dance once more for It. To It.

The baldness of his head does not satisfy him; the lack of small accessories to his body gall his acceptance of the gift Life has given him. Ebony magic swells within his smooth palms, drawing callus into being; pain is an option now, one he still chooses to feel for this, last, part of his transformation.

Raven hair splits from his skull as spaghetti, thick like dead-locks, then splits into strands of Night silk, an extension of True Night. Nails grow on bare flesh, toes and hands, rounded and without flaw. Ruby lips flush as life fills his entire body and Amber eyes glow with the viricrescent slivers he chooses to add; emerald in honor of the cat he once loved. A shape, called from beyond, with the black light, begins to form. He screams silently, teeth working into his bleeding gums; the call must be made with sacrifice. The night shape works it's way through the wound it has created and moves into now callused, bleeding, hands comfortably. It shivers once, caressing it's owner, then grows still as it is placed in the air at his hip. Ready, conscious; alive.

A night blue shirt sprouts around cut musculature, black buttons with the third-eye design enameled upon them. Black, near silken, pants move from the darkness to sheathe his nudity, flowing around his thighs, calves, and hips with the loving caress that only solid shadows can achieve. He does not notice, other than to give a cursory glance downward. He then reaches back, into the shadows behind him, and gathers the matching black vest, tightening it around his chest to accent his muscle, buttoning it with the deft ease that his new fingers give him, and exits.

His travel is straight, doors are opened and closed, no power is used. He whispers as the last door is closed behind him and his leathern boots touch cement soundlessly. "I am here."