Truth be Blue, Hope be Gold;
Life be Mysterious, Death be Obscure;
Dark be Insidious, Light be Bizarre...
¤ MINICHAPTER1 ¤
heartbeat. heartbeat.
heartbeat. heartbeat.
~ What is it about life that we, as human beings, find so profound and confusing, and oh so terribly precious?
3... 2... 1... CHEAR! Zap.
~ The end, perhaps? Without death for contrast, how much would we really appreciate life? Would we still know the difference between a rock and a heart-pace?
kurpump. kurpump. kurpump.
“Doctor?”
~ Life so so mysterious; where does it come from, and where does it go? How long will it last? ... Does it hurt?
“Doctor, he's gone...”
~ Death is merely obscure.
“No, I won't let him die-----not this one, too!”
“Doctor, you did everything you could.”
“No, I haven't!”
“He's gone...”
“No...”
zap... zap... zap... zap...
“...He's gone...”
beep. beep. beep. beep. ...
“No, he's not,” said the doctor, a grin now spreading all across his face.
“Pulse is strengthening.”
“How long?”
“Over seven minutes.”
“That's a long time to be dead for such a little guy.”
“That's a long time for anybody to be dead.”
“It's a miracle.”
“Yes it is,” said the doctor.
The sudden lights and men in white masks was was more than he could take. ...What just happened? ... He could tell, there was something wrong with him. ...
The years passed and the seasons rolled on and on, and the yound man grew stronger and wiser. He had a kind heart and a good soul. He was strong-willed and unbelievable gracious. But, he wasn't always honest...
Once upon a time, his name was Zane; and a very familiar name I'm sure you'll find it.
Long ago, in a very familiar place, this boy was a hero, and everyone knew his face. They called him an angel, a “being of light.” But what they knew-not would disturb them, for for even his great silver lining still carried some speck of a cloud....
Zane came to call it “the Animal,” and therefore, sometimes, “his pet.” And like an irritant inside an oisters shell, he tried to coat it as thickly as he could with pearline essence. Not to hide it from the world so much as for his own sake, he tried to bury that Animal in its grave.
Without this bit of dark for contrast, he could not be sure he wouldn't forget how to recognize light-----being a hero, it was important for him to know how to recognize evil.
But 'heroes' shouldn't be the only people like that. Zane wished all people could starkly tell right from wrong. That way, he figured, at least one could tell when someone just didn't care-----villains.
Sadly thought, Evil just loves pretending to be good, just like some people like pretending to be God.
In his travels, Zane had seen all sorts: met people, been places... But unlike all the rest, there was one he'd met before...
~ “...Doctor?...”
¤ MINICHAPTER2 ¤
Blink blink...
Blink blink...
“Doctor, we need to close.”
“Huh, what? Oh, yes...” he said, breaking out of his transe.
Days later, after the surgery, little Zane opened his eyes and blinked in the morning rays. Unbeknowest to him, this scrawny young fledgeling already so new to the world, he'd just come out of a frightening ordeal that so very few survive-----and that, for a moment, neither had he. Seven and a half minutes he was dead; praise the Lord the doctors were able to save him! However, having been dead for any length of time is not without its life-changing effects.
“Oh, my baby!” a woman with swollen eyes and a tear-stricken face blubbered into her son's hair as she nearly hugged him [back] to death.
“Mom? Mom, you're choking me...”
“Oh, I'm sory, Zane.” And with that, what let go, but continued to squeeze his hand blue.
Dad's turn. “You had us so scared...We'd thought you were a gonner for sure!”
“Umm-----huh?”
A pause.
“Mom, Dad, what happened to me? I--- I thought I saw-----I think I saw an--- an amoeba.”
And with that, both his parents looked both concerned, and deeply disturbed. “You're crazy,” was the general point his father teased him with in reply. They quietly reasoned with themselves that he'd meant to say 'angel'.
Zane seemed to glow, almost. The sunlight coming through his window reflected off his face almost iridescently, granting him a golden aura that looked almost other-worldly Was it only his parents' imaginations playing tricks on them because they were so glad to see him awake?
In a word, no. With the passing of th years this phenomenon became frequently noted.. Only in rooms of the most complete darkness did the uncanny shimmer in his skin cease. For even under mere starlight, let alone bright moonlight, he could easilly be seen. No physician could explain it, no poet could name it, but twas in these later years that his complete and utter lacking of a shadow became his superhero trademark...
They called him, “a being of light,”and sometimes, “an angel w/o wings.” Though, some folks believed he was only hiding them.
For comments like that, when they confronted him, he thought they were crazy. But he soon came to realize that there was more to being this 'being of light'-thing that he was, than he had originally thought.
Whatever it was that was making his skin act this way was also taking its toll on his soul. A few villains into his carer, he'd find that, all along, he'd had the ability to conjure infinite coat-hangers-----a mighty weapon indeed-----and could hurtle them forth not only at sickening velocities, but with tremendous spin and accuracy of target.
And by the use of a new technique he called the “Coat-Hang Man,” he defeated his next foe in nothing-flat!
The greatful townsfolk thanked him, and commenced bombarding him with the usual Questions & More Questions.
“Why do you do it, wast you time on small, unimportant people like us?”
“There's no such thing as an unimportant person.”
“Who was your hero as a kid?”
“I'm, like, 10.”
“Who's your favorite rock-group?”
“All of them, I guess.”
“What is the meaning of life?”
“Uhhhhh, lemme get back to you on that.”
“Who's that hardest villain you've fought so far?”
“Wait... There's not going to be more, are there?!!”
“How did you do that awesome thing that kicked badguy-booty?”
“Uhh...”
“Are you allergic to squid?”
And the list of odd inquiries goes on and on...
Eventually, Zane would just have enough of it and mysteriously vanish before anybody could stop him.
After a hard-day's fighting evil, he layd down one night watching the light show of auroras put on above through his bedroom window. The blueish-white and purple-green colors lighting up his face as surely thwould a glassy black lake beneath the sky, in all its mirroring, glow-mimicking glory. No one knew how he got this way, cause according to his parents, he wasn't born, like it, and he sure-as-heck couldn't figure it out...
So, he just sighed, and fell asleep.
Elsewhere on the map, another story was unfolding.That of another young boy who's name I shal not disclose on the grounds of, well, nobody knows!
Well, nobody but onebody, I suppose, and her name would be Ms. Lady Epiphany. Her mysterious friend was a disturbed one alright-----always questioning life and death, and what it meant to be “real” and “not fake.” Together they lived in a community of people stricken with genetic photo-sensitivity disorders ranging from albinism to full-blown XP. Xeroderma Pigmentosu-----a skin disorder which keeps the ill from entering the sunlight.Epiphany was albino, and more of a working vaulenteer than a patient. But, Nameless had XP, and had it bad.
To stroll in the morning rays would practically be sucicide for him, and for those like him. But he needed air, and of course, him being who he was, no one could stop him.
...It burns... were there words he thought as he shut the opaque door to his safe-haven behind him.
First one step, and then another...
And before he knew it, he was lying on the pavement some 40ft from the safe-haven door, screaming for help, and burning. No one from inside that he knew of could save him-----except, someone did.
It was exactly like a nightmare. The blinding dawn light pouring freely into his sensitized eyes, that pain comparable only to scalding-hot oil if it were flowing through his veins, and then a hooded figure, like a vulture or the angel of death, descending upon him from out of nowhere, and swallowing him with its cloak, plunging him into familiar pitch-blackness...
“Child, you fool.”
But when he looked into the figure's hood, for the first time in both their lives, he clearly saw his albino savior's face, an she saw his.
He saw her, and she discovered something about him...
For a long time, the darkness of the ward had kept his secret. But now in the light, a horrible truth became all to plain for Mr. Epiphany... Her mysterious friend did not have eyes-----how he could still see, she did not know, and nor did he, or anyone else who know about it, for that matter. In their place were two shadowy black orbs as opaque as the door, but hardly as solid. They had the appearance of smoke and seemed to fall limitlessly into nothingness.
Feeling her shock in the sudden tenseness of her embrace, the boy quickly dug himself deeper into the folds of her cloak.
“It burns,” he moaned softly, changing the unspoken subject back to the present moment. He was a child in pain, so of course, she was not about to argue.
“Come on,” Epiphany murmured gravely, helping him up and steering him back inside. “You'll be alright.”
The boy replied nothing, but followed her guide.
