Of man

-As human beings we are born to die. All else in life has this certainty. Yet we seek to ask questions that have no further meaning. Or so we create words that try to extend the possibility of life. Man's creation of things tangible or non stems from his need to be accepted. By chance we evolved. But by fate we will fall. For if i was a wise man I'd swallow the fate the universe had provided me and become rot.-

Chapter 1

I rose in the midst of a howling wind. No longer in the comfort of my bed. In the absence of my four walls and a roof. I awoke into the wilderness. I rose from a granite slate, the cold too real to think this was still a dream.

The sharp pain my feet felt as I stood sent a danger signal to my brain. I felt my heart drop and shatter on the freezing cold rocks. Instantly I wrapped myself around my arms. Trying to preserve what little warmth I had left. I realized I could not stay wherever it was I stood. So I did not think twice and started walking. In these primal moments at the mercy of nature we are reminded of our humble beginnings…

And Oh how instinctively I began to think. As my first steps were towards the sun. Towards warmth. Towards life. I found myself on the summit of this rock.

With every step I pinch myself. Hoping…...begging that this be a dream. Although my feet were now numb. Face frozen and body uncontrollably shaking, I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes.

…..Inhale……

…..Exhale……

As my eyelids peeled away from themselves. I knew this was real. For my lungs almost burst from the inhale of cold. It felt as if I had swallowed microscopic shards of glass. The pain so new to me that I fell to the ground. Clutching at my throat with my pale hands. I knew that if I stayed here for more than 10 minutes I would be dead……. I closed my eyes.

...Inhale…

...Exhale…

I reached for the sun. It’s gentle warmth wrapped around me like my mother once did as a child. I closed my eyes and felt my body of bones and blood fall forward. Off the edge I tumbled, rolling and rolling fast down the sharp rocks. An avalanche of rocks now fell and carried me down the slope.

Before me was the limitless wild. It was the last image I had before I took the tumble. To the vast front of me there were nothings. Bare trees that had seen the scorch of a wildfire. My body hurled down so fast my flesh tore from its body. I had fallen from the summit into and through a thick fog that had circled the mountain.

I was bleeding.

Yet I crawled.

I was dying.

Yet I crawled.

Still towards the light.

Towards the sun.

Towards hope!

In front of me stood a thick oak tree. No further than twenty feet. And there I crawled. As it would be the last thing I did before I could give in.

Death now loomed around me like the fog. Circling me and tempting me with the rest of eternity. But I could not give in. And so I crawled. I dug my hands into the ground and clawed. My nails bent and my fingers tore. I was drawn to this tree. In these final moments of breath I was connected to all things living. The tree and I were the last to live. Slowly wilting I would die by its side.

And then. When all hope seemed lost. After I had convinced myself that these were my last moments on this earth, a beacon of light pierced through the coming void of Death. A single Lightning Bolt boomed through the bombing clouds. The fog that was crawling towards me fell back. The Bolt cracked the earth and I felt a force that would shake continents. The booming force of nature electrified even the floor. For as I dragged myself along the jagged rocks they tore into my chest and shredded my cooked flesh. In a final stretch that took my entire life force I arrived at the stump of a tree that was left, charred with the burning smell of a crackling fire. In that warmth I wept. For the force of nature was my savior. And in that moment I found myself. In its arms I buried my face into the dirt and slept.

I awoke and sat in the small pool of sticky blood that had collected on the rubble. My chest was now porous with small holes that stung in the dry afternoon or morning heat? I had no idea of the time nor where I lay as all my possessions were stripped away. My decent apartment in the heart of downtown. Once flooded with life now silenced by nature. And instinctively my mind drew up my locket, sitting still on my dresser. My totem of solace. Shaped and curved like the heart of my lover.

My chest now bore the emblem of pain, my mind the armor of madness. Somehow I was taken here to be shown this sadness. I could not tell if gifted or damned…Yet still my face masked in tears. My mind wandered back to my room, to my alarm clock that last clucked, 2031. A warm day in June was my last in that society. Today I was born anew.

Deep in the jungle of nowhere I was shown the brutality of nature. A force not seen since the scrapers were built. Since the dawn of man we’ve been quick to forget our past. To move away from the caves and into the future.

In that process, in that race, in those wars, in those silenced, we lost our past. I am imprisoned here until I find a way back or until I die. I know not of my crime but worse places I’m sure there would be.

I am the chosen of man, to be reminded of our smallness. Our insignificance. Our delusions. Our actions unpunished. All along I knew not of a god, but always of Death. And here I must stay, until my final breath.