The Omni-Gods:Genesis part 2

      A patch of grass separated the two three lane traffic roads that further up in the direction I was facing, open up into a full blown cluster of trees. They formed a mockingly small wooded area that had been left there for unspecified reasons. The two roads made a bend around it disappearing from my line of sight.

  It was a pleasant change to the prairie where that battle of fate took place. This location had a more familiar feeling and the weight of that sinister energy was lifted the instant I warped to this highway. Yet, I couldn't recognize any of it from places I had been. I turned around to see if the land markings from that direction would tell me anything. As I did I came to face the front grill of a car. Out of pure reaction I lifted both arms up to my face to protect myself from the oncoming impact, despite how obviously useless it would be. It never came; curiously I lowered my arms to find cars were appearing all over the road behind, in front, and to my sides. This was the oddest experience I had ever had. The cars looked to be in a stop-still frame like a picture, there were even people occupying the vehicles though in the same stop frame as the cars as though I was looking at the most advanced photograph ever taken.

  With a similar identical one right beside it meant for the opposing directional traffic while forests stretched along both lanes were humans had yet to tread.

  Glancing around looking into each one I saw people I'd never met or even seen before. They were too random to be just part of my imagination. Facing forward again I looked inside of the car that had appeared first and was surprised to see it to be a large black KIA sportage minivan that my step father Alex drove. What was even more shocking was that Alex was driving it and in the passenger seat sat Vincent who appeared to be lurching forward but not forcefully rather it looked like he was messing with the radio dials, his right arm was extended out suggesting that was the case. Peering further inside I could see that Tyler and myself were occupying the back. Tyler was turned towards me deep concern readable on his face while I had an expression of deep terror and looking to be going ballistic.

    I had a horrible feeling I was going to find out why. I spun around and started to run from car to car trying to find anything to suggest a car crash was about to happen or some kind of tragedy that could make me look so scared. A crack of thunder sounded deafening me for a moment. Drawing my attention I realized why I could find no trace of a car pileup or other road hazard that I had assumed was about to take place. It was because the terrifying event would not be from human error; it was going to be a natural disaster that would end the lives of everyone driving this fateful night.

  A bright yellow flash of lightning spurted from the belly of the black clouds that were hidden within the dark arms of the night. The lightning came down in a giant arc connecting with the freeway lane just to my right. It tore up tar and metal alike. The lightning bolt was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Lightning was never supposed to have such ferocious power and energy, the sheer size of the electricity was unnatural. Lightning then proceed to erupt all over the place hitting and tearing apart everything they touched. The only lane left untouched seemed to be the lane I was standing in, the one my other self was also currently frozen in inside of the back seat of the minivan. I knew undoubtedly that it would not remain that way.

    Lifting my eyes to the  relentless dark skies I could already see where the deathly yellow colored energy was coming down from. The lightning struck down several yards in front of me, creating a massive crater in the road with unbelievable power, before it began to drag across the ground down the freeway towards both versions of me, devouring every car in the path of its course. I ducked and tried to shield myself while at the same time still following the streak of lightning as it made its way to the minivan. I had realized at this point, whatever this was, wasn't real. The lightning could not hurt me right now but as I watched it destroy the minivan I knew that eventually it was going to be what killed me.

    I stood there in the middle of the road watching the deaths of Alex as he was burned alive by high voltage which cooked every cell in his body before thrusting him from the minivan where he flew right into the path of an oncoming eighteen wheeler. It didn’t take a genius to know what would happen next. Vincent was killed instantly by a thread of electricity that hit him square in the chest and then was also thrusted from the vehicle but fortunately out the side of the van that faced the wild of the forest and not the disaster of more opened lane roads where vehicles of all shapes and sizes where screeching and swerving in a mass pandemonium of fear.

Tyler and I were the last to be killed as the lightning dived into the floor board ripping the metal apart like paper and igniting the gasoline tank causing a brilliant explosion to rock the world around me. I was blessed not to have been able to see the processes of our bodies becoming burnt corpses but that didn’t save me from the knowledge that I now held.

    "No!" I meant to yell but all I could manage was a chocked hoarse whisper. Not many people got the opportunity to see their own gruesome death, I'm not sure many would want to either.

    Before I could register the transition, I found myself standing back in the mall again my hand falling from the dome of the golden orb to my side. I didn't know how much time had passed since the vision or hallucination started but I could deduce not much by the only comment I could make out from Tyler.

    "Samuel, are you okay?" Tyler asked must having seen my expression. I could only imagine what I looked like in that moment.

    "Ty..." I failed to respond choking on the very words I wanted to reply with. I felt my body give out and I collapsed to the floor in a massive heap. The last thing I remembered before passing out was that blood was oozing out of my nose and eyes and had began to pool on the floor the moment I fell. I was sure that it had to have taken a little time for me to come to that conclusion so I must not have passed out instantly. My mind was probably unable to process any other information and so time seemed to past so quickly. Regardless the darkness took me fast, the promise of a painless sleep was too hard to resist.

                                                    Chapter 2: The storm

The ambulance arrived sometime after Samuel fell on the ground and began to have minor tremors, which I instantly recognized to be a mild seizure and then when he stopped a little while later, although it all happened in a sluggish slow motion to me, blood had started to seep onto the tiled floor from his nostrils. I watched in total horror as I was helpless to do anything all I could manage was to pipe up with a horsed cliché cry for someone to call the ambulance that was now carrying my younger brother out of the twin sliding glass doors from the Egyptian exhibit. A large crowd had formed around us all chattering about why Samuel passed out in the middle of the mall. It was a question I too had myself.

    “I’m sorry I didn’t think he was one!” The elderly woman was telling Vincent.

    I spun around curious and somewhat hysterical that my brother, whom I felt I had to protect, had been hurt, perhaps even life threateningly, by some unexplained reason. I had to blame something or someone.

  “One of what?” I asked my voice slightly elevated and accusing.

  The elderly woman just glanced away but said nothing. I knew she was hiding something but before I could pursue my line of questioning further a tap on my shoulder made me turn away from the old lady.

  “Emily, hey, don’t!” Someone in the crowd cried out and I came to find the same girl who had been talking to Samuel in Hot Topic. She had a general concerned and surprised look on her face from someone who Samuel said he didn’t really know.

  “Umm, excuse me but can you tell me what happened to Samuel.” The girl, Emily I presumed, asked. ”I was just talking to him a little while ago.”

  “He just passed out, sorry but I can’t talk now.” I told her finding myself to have been somewhat rude but I had a line of questions I wanted to ask myself.

  I turned around back towards the ageing woman to find she had disappeared along with that golden sphere Samuel had been looking at just before he collapsed. Vincent still stood right beside the table she’d been occupying looking completely oblivious.

  “Vincent, where did the old woman go?” I asked forgetting common decency.

  He glanced around himself for a moment before turning back to me giving a shrug to state that he was in fact just as oblivious as he looked.

  “Damn!” I cursed annoyed she definitely had known something and now there was no way I was going to figure out what that was.

  I spun to follow the paramedics out of the mall wondering if that old lady really had anything to do with the reason for Samuel’s collapse. If in fact she did what exactly had she'd done to him and what did she think Samuel was. I left the mall justified in my previous conclusion that going to that exhibit was a bad idea, even if my reasons were somewhat different then.

                                                                  Alex Cruiser

  I found myself rushing head long through the corridors of the St.John’s hospital having driven here immediately after being called on my cell phone that my step son had collapsed in the mall and had to be admitted to the hospital by ambulance. The current situation was that his life was not in any danger but he still remained unconscious. Since St.John’s was the same hospital I was currently working at they had decided to call me and let me take over his medical care and moreover to also act as his official guardian as his mother drove internationally, hauling freight, as a commercial driver. I wasn’t accustom to having to take charge of my patience decision but I held my confidence. I eventually came to the hospital director’s office where the heavy set aged worn man stood looking at a black and white picture of someone’s MRI scan.

  “Hello, Director Hall.” I announced my arrival along with a slight knock on the already opened door.

  “Oh hello, Alex, glade that you have arrived however I’m afraid that I’ll have to go ahead and start with some bad news.” The Director explained moving away from the photo posted on the luminescent billboard motioning for me to take a look at the photo. I obliged and instantly found one of the most disturbing sights I’d witness during my entire time practicing medicine. There appeared to be a obscenely large growth literally attached to the brain of the patient unlike any kind of cancer I had ever seen.

  “Who’s MRI scan is this?” I asked though I feared I already knew the answer.

    “Samuel’s unfortunately.” The Director replied.

  “Impossible, how could he have survived past infancy?” I asked confused and disturbed by this new revelation.”This must be the reason for his collapse in the mall.”

  “That’s a mystery left for later but I can say if we don’t act quickly he’ll die before the months out at the latest.” The Director explained putting an emphasis on the short time frame.

  “God, how am I supposed to tell his mother that her son is going to die?” I exclaimed even with my experience with having to give my patience the worse news possible about their loved ones having passed away and seeing their grief ravaged faces I had never had to live in the aftermath.

  “There is little if anything we can do for this boy.” The Director replied. “It is tragic but you must come to cope with this. He hasn’t much time left with us.”

  “Samuel.” I thought to myself. “How do I tell you most of all?” Out of all of Helen’s children he seemed to be the darkest and loneliest. Only two people I had ever seen him with is his older brother and his friend Vincent and never had I seen or heard him having a girlfriend in fact Tyler and his siblings make fun of him quite often because of that fact. He hadn’t had much luck in his life and now I was going to have to tell him the saddest news of all.

  “Alright I’ll take Samuel home tonight and discuss his future tomorrow. It’s been quite a day for him already.” I said to the Director taking down his MRI photo scan and tucking it neatly beneath my arm.

  “Alex you must understand that delaying even a little could significantly dwindle his remaining life span!” The Director explained.

  “I don’t think it matters at this point even I can tell chemotherapy wouldn’t do any good for him at this stage and surgery is out of the question.” I replied heading out of the office.”Or do you expect anyone to believe otherwise?”

  The Director said nothing and just bowed his head in submission. There was nothing to be done about cancer as advanced as Samuel’s except give him empty hopes and promises that I knew would not fool him even for a moment. In the short time I had known the boy I had always found him to be grossly intelligent and very realistic. Most of all he didn’t like being lied to or being treated like some petulant child. He would catch me in my lie in an instant though he may not tell me directly.

                                                                Tyler Aumann

      It must have been several hours before Alex showed up to pick the three of us up. I expected the hospital would want to hold Samuel in admission until he was at least completely conscious, Samuel kept drifting in and out but was mainly asleep most of the time. Alex just had a nurse acquire a wheel chair before waking him up momentarily to get him into the chair, upon which he fell right back to sleep the instant he sat down, his head rolling to one side devoid of any muscle activity. Alex rolled Samuel out to his minivan, a KIA sportage, which he decided to buy when he married my mother deciding that a vehicle big enough to carry all six of us was more efficient than having to use two cars. Again after having to wake Samuel to get him into the back seat of the van, we all piled in and Alex started the car to head home driving willingly into the storm that was now over taking Ft.Worth’s suburbs but to his defense he was just as oblivious to the terror it would rain on us just as Vincent and myself were. Only one soul being knew what was to come and at that moment he was half asleep unaware of the approaching darkness or the vile tumor that was to claim his life in the near future. The three of us just sat, not speaking to one another. I sat simply listening to the radio and watching the building of the seemingly still distant storm with no interest, while Vincent fidgeted with the dials turning it to another channel whenever there wasn’t a song he liked currently playing on the station it was on. Alex just kept his attention on the road his thoughts constantly trying to come up with a decent way to tell his entire new family, one he had been a part of only for a year, that the youngest of them was to die before the month was out.

  Only fifteen minutes later did I really notice the storm’s ominous presence. The clouds became unsettlingly dark, enough to cause the midday four O’clock Texan summer day an eclipsed night-like effect.

  “Whoa, man that’s going to be a monster of a storm!” Alex exclaimed the storm catching his eye as well.”Might even be tornado weather tonight.”

  Suddenly Samuel sat up right so fast it made my head dizzy just having watched him and since he had been complaining about a bad migraine I would imagine that he too was suffering from it.

  “No Alex we’ve got to get off the road!” He exclaimed somewhat frantically. “I didn’t think it’d be this soon, shit!”

  “Samuel what’s this so suddenly?” Alex asked calmly but politely unmockingly.

  “This storm it’s going to kill us!” He cried.

    “Sam, dude you’re awake don’t worry.” Vincent laughed out loud.

                                                                          Samuel

      The others just weren’t getting it. It was no dream. I couldn’t explain how I knew it was real but the fact it made me pass out only bolstered my confidence. Then again I didn’t like the idea of claiming that a bunch of lightning strikes was what would be snuffing out all our lives. Lightning didn’t have the strength or energy necessary to rip a car to shreds like it had in my vision.

  “I wasn’t dreaming besides I got the vision right before I lost consciousness in the mall.” I blurted out then regretted it instantly.

  “Vision?” Vincent asked, quick to mock me. ”What are you a psychic now? Thought you only believed only in unexplainable phenomenon and not supernatural.”

  “Samuel, don’t get caught up in some figment created by your overly creative imagination.” Tyler joined in although somewhat nicer in his disbelief.

  The only one in the car who didn’t offer up a condescending statement was Alex. He was silently remembering the tumor only he knew existed inside Samuel’s cranium. He once remembered studying that some brain tumors had caused psychic phenomenon in the past and Samuel’s certainly fit that description. Could this be a manifestation of the tumor?

  “In your vision what killed us?” Alex asked me.

  “I already told you the storm kills us!” I roared annoyed.

  “Yes but how?” Alex was quick to notice my evasion.

  “We.. well.” I stammered slightly. “Lighting comes down from the sky and pretty much obliterates the car.”

  “Wow did ya steal that one from the bible?” Vincent roared with laughter.

  That sentence only dissuaded them further, even Alex, from his previous train of thought. He also had come to the conclusion that lightning just didn’t pack that kind of fire power.

  “It’s fine Samuel, I heard you had a minor stroke as well perhaps it’s what gave you this premonition you think is so real.” Alex explained.

  No it wasn’t! I screamed in my head which now exploded with fresh pain. I had completely forgotten about my headache in my hysteria. I slumped back into the car seat unable to argue further due to my tired mental and physical condition and the knowledge that it would be impossible to persuade them to believe even something I found myself hard pressed to.

  I glanced out the window searching for the first shred of what was soon to come. I had a terrible Final Destination movie flash back thinking perhaps even if I did save all of us then death would only return again to reap those that had escaped its wraith the first time in even more gruesome and spiteful ones. I could see lightning strikes off in the distance already underway however savagely beautiful they appeared to be, they were still normal never the less.

  As the minutes ticked by I was even about to admit that I may have been wrong that the vision was just some chemical induced hallucination that felt horribly real and that this storm was just some cosmically bad humored coincidence.

  I continued to watch, again for the dozenth time, a vicious lightning bolt zip across the pitch black night sky. One that was still in the realm of norm only, this time, it light up the trees that occupied the sides of the highway. There standing on top of one of the countless trees stood the silhouette of a human.

  My mind went awry just at the sight of the shadowy figure. I found I suddenly, magically, knew the most minor of details about the man without having the ability to pierce the blanket of darkness that enveloped the distance between us. I found myself knowing that the man was thirty-three years of age, or his appearance would be except that if I could actually see him I would think closer to forty or fifty. Yet he felt, which was an odd word that came to my mind, many times older. He wore an outfit that expressed that he may be homeless. The weirdest part of it all was that I knew, in all shape, form, and fashion of the word, was that he was the cause behind this storm.

  "This is all so impossible!" I declared aloud but quietly so no one else in the car heard it. Thinking that finally after all this time I had finally gone insane. Was all this just nothing more than something I made up in my head? I wondered.

    The irony of the situation was that it had happened when I’d actually started to enjoy my life.

  I started glancing frantically all around us looking at the scenery around us remembering the visual of the location where the premonition took place. Sure enough everything now looked exactly as it was in my premonition. I then knew, a split second before, what was going to happen. And that the others where oh, so, wrong.

      Their disbelief had just cost us our vary lives.

    That was when the first bolt of lightning struck on the farthest left side of the road setting ablaze or obliterating anything in its path along with any doubts that the premonition had been an hallucination of any kind. A second bolt struck the road on our side just to our left as the first became satisfied with its work.

          "Son of a bitch!" Alex cursed while simultaneously spinning the wheel so the car flew sideways into the shoulder lane as some idiot in front of us hit his brakes.

I turned my head to the left in time to follow a third bolt of lightning continue the horrific onslaught of the murderous storm. I felt the car jerk to the left to reenter the last remaining lane after Alex had passed three cars that had all pressed their brakes for no apparent reason.

  "Alex, no, anoth-." Too late that was all I had managed to say before a fourth and final bolt of electric whitish-yellow lightning departed from the underside of the dark clouds overhead. Everything so far had happened exactly like my premonition had foretold. It hit thirty feet or so in front of us then it dragged itself through trucks and cars alike tearing an impression in the cement with its awesome destructive power. In its wraith it constantly leaked out minor smaller bolts of electricity that would attack vehicles that were not even in its path. It seemed that nothing was spared from its torment. It kept going until it was inevitably on us, all this happened in the space of three very quick heart beats.

        As it came to us the lightning seemed to slow itself down, as if to take its time with us savoring the moment. The lightning smashed against the windshield causing it to burst inward the glass flew across the inside of the car embedding themselves in everything including the passenger’s skin. The bolt of electricity went on inside the KIA smashing into Alex, as its first victim, hitting him with full force but strangely enough did not kill him and as if it knew he wasn’t quite dead simply trusted him out the driver side door blasting both objects free from the van. Alex had his life ended by being rammed by an eighteen wheeler that was swerving on the highway like an out of control wrecking ball.

        The lightning spun around back into the already severely damaged vehicle slamming its head in Vincent’s head with its deadly force ejecting him from the car similarly to Alex Vincent on the other hand was fortunate to be shot out to ward the woods instead of in the path of the twisted metal behemoth big rig that now was plowing a car with two charred smoking corpses in the front seats. Inside Vincent the super concentrated electricity hit his heart causing a reaction in it that it had long ago had been denied as it solidified while the remains of the voltage traveled up his neural system and into the parts of his brain that controlled his growth and attitude.

      The lightning continued to wreak havoc upon the Kia sportage shredding both front seats, peeling off the roof like a tin can lid, demolishing the engine and interior, basically devouring just about everything it touched. The bolt then struck Tyler electrifying his nervous system and muscles intensifying them and sending thousands of volts surging through his skeleton hollowing it out and awakening dormaint traits inside his body just before he was shot through the roof and into the nightish air that wreaked of death and destruction.

      Now it was my turn, the lightning swerved its serpent like head eying me and it seemed as though it was smiling as if it knew I had foreseen what was going to happen next and drank in the fear caroming off me aiming its disfigured head at my forehead, it plunged into it fulfilling my premonition and began to slither its way into the abnormal growth I was ignorant of. Inside it began to unlock something in me that had long since been forgotten. The power it released would be the catalyst for my future endeavors and my name in history would be assured. The last thing I remembered before being launched from the safety of the car was seeing my life flash in front of my eyes.

                                                    Chapter 3: After the storm

                                                            Vincent Break

      A dull wave of pain was sent rippling down my body, forcefully pulling me back to the conscious world of the living, as the object I was laying upon chronic palpitation began to worsen.

        "Ughh, great I feel like shit." I groaned pushing myself up enough to see what the uncomfortable ground beneath me was and was surprised to find the red coated metal that was attached to the back of a very old and worn pickup truck that had seen far better days.

        "Ha ha, what do you know sleeping beautys awake.” I heard a voice chuckle.

        Curious I looked up to see who had spoken the words to find a middle aged man with sandy brown and a puffed out gray beard his face however was beautifully unscratched as if it was being preserved but it, the paleness of his skin, told me he hadn’t seen the light of day in sometime. I thought to myself that perhaps he was sick as he looked to have been in some kind of accident though he showed no wounds. He wore a torn gray outfit that was probably a suit once upon a time.

    Reluctantly getting into a sitting position, my body sending shots of pain through its muscles in resistance, I retaliated. "Hey, bite me old man. I feel like I’ve been hit by a friggin’ freight train and then some."

      Glancing around I realized I had no idea where I was and then it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember who I was either my whole existence was one big blank. Yet I felt oddly secured in that fact as though I knew something I didn’t really want to.

      "How’d I wind up here?” I asked aloud but not to anyone else my eyes soaking in my unfamiliar surroundings with incredible detail.

    "We found you unconscious on the side of the road.” The man informed me. "Oh and where have my manners gone? My name’s Kevin Gram."

        "Vincent Break.” I answered automatically without a thought to it then wondered if that was my real name shaking his hand as he leant it to me adding.” I think."

      A peak of interest spread across Kevin’s face when I said that.

        "You think?” He repeated my words with concern. “What do you mean?"

      "I..."I faltered as a series of images swept my mind so quickly I had to shake my head to clear it.

        The hairs on the back of my neck prickled with fear from being completely exposed but to what escaped me. Turning my head up I looked at the sky searching it for something, again, I wasn’t sure for what but I knew that whatever I was afraid of either was caused or came from it. All I saw however was just a pure white moon in full prime over head accompanied by an infinite number of stars that shone brightly without the worry of clouds blocking their radiant beauty. Straining to remember all that I had forgotten, even though there was no use, everything was there and I could feel it just within my grasp yet it evaded me every time.

        "Are you alright?" Kevin asked even more concerned.

        "Ya, I can’t remember who I am.” I said my voice sounded better than I felt.

      "Sounds to me you’ve managed to contract a slight form of amnesia.” Kevin told me.” But didn’t you give me your name right now?"

        "Ya, I think so.” I admitted but wasn’t sure. “I don’t know."

          "Well I’ll fill you in on the some of the details." Kevin changed the topic." About three days ago a deadly storm hit us here in Dallas that unleashed destructive lightning strikes and disastrous tornados about three I’ve heard of so far. Up to now about two hundred people have been pronounced dead and many more still missing."

            He said all this as if he were reciting it for a project.

      "You’re well informed but it looks as if you have just been found yourself.” I pointed out.

      "Very observant and yes I was the two men in the cab were kind enough to tell me everything that I passed onto you.” Kevin explained.” The city has been recruiting volunteers to help find the missing and those who died during the storm."

      I glanced over my shoulder at a white sheet that covered most of the third man who looked to be in a bad way. He was the only other whom occupied the back of the pickup with us his incredibly discolored skin, even compared to Kevin’s, portrayed just how injured the man was. I noticed how one side of the sheet seem to press up against his body oddly making it uneven somehow, then had to swallow bile as I realized he was missing an arm.

      "What happened to him?” I asked pointing at the mystery man but avoided another glance. The sight of the man was unsettling. It was a wonder he wasn’t dead yet.

      "I’m not quite sure the SUV we found him in had been flipped over  he’s missing an arm and a steel pipe impaled him in the lower abdomen we pried him free from it and tried to stop the bleeding but...” Kevin let it fall. “We’ll see, we’re on our way to a hospital right now."

      I nodded entering into deep thought trying to force myself to remember again who I was trying to forget the man wrapped in the sheet. Though I had woken up for the first time since I can remember I still felt oddly exhausted as if I had already been through a long and trying day and the weight of losing the memory of my own identity wasn’t helping.

                                                              Tyler

        After having been on the verge of regaining consciousness for awhile, I didn’t realize being awake until something wet hit the side of my cheek or perhaps it was the wet liquid that had woken me, I couldn’t tell everything in my head was smoggy and my head swam with pain. I waved at, whatever it was, to leave me alone but all I managed was to barely move my left hand a couple of inches then being granted a surge of intense fleeting pain through my whole body for the attempt. The thing then turned its attention to the source of the sudden movement.

        "No, go away, leave me alone.” I croaked at the animal it was even painful to speak my throat was dry and sore and my body ached with agony and fatigue two combinations that I found I didn’t like along with the hard earth that I was on made things even worse.

        The thing ignored me, continuing to drench my hand in spit. With strain, I got my neck to respond enough to shift my head to get a good look at the curious animal and found a doe licking my hand like a kid would a frozen Popsicle. At least it wasn’t anything potentially dangerous.

        "Seriously leave me alone!” I yelled at it, although it sounded more like croaking loudly. The doe seemed to not have heard me and kept on licking.

        Frustration sent an odd jolt of energy shooting through my body causing the doe to jump backward as if shot then it turned tail and took off at full gallop deeper into the forest.

          "Heh, teach you to bother with me.” I said softly trying to cheer myself up.

      Struggling against the pain I placed my hands beneath me pushing upward, I got to my feet. Uncertain whether to not I could stand after being hit with a megaton bolt of lightning I made a quick use of every muscle to see if any wouldn’t respond. To my relief, other than the dull throb of pain that rippled across my muscles, they responded normally. I was so happy that none of my limbs had been crippled that I stood straight up which proved to be a little too fast and I had to make use of a nearby tree to help stay standing while my head spun from fatigue depravation. Gasping for breath I waited until the experience faded thinking about the last thing I remembered seeing before I blacked out to help pass the moment.

    Alex is definitely dead. I told myself cringing at the thought. What about Sam or Vincent? I assume they’d be dead too, then again I shouldn’t be in one piece much less alive either and standing at that! I couldn’t help but gloat over my luck and I hoped to god, if one existed, that Vincent and Samuel had gotten just as lucky.

    Shaking my head I ordered myself to stop thinking about the “what ifs” and focus on the task before me. Alright, I need to think. First of all where am I? Glancing around I found trees, trees, and even more trees there wasn’t a single land mark it all looked exactly the same.

    "Fuck!" I cursed the trees thinking. I needed water since I was over dehydrated. My mouth felt like Death Valley but I couldn’t risk wondering around aimlessly. I also had the misfortunately of knowing, from watching too much of the Discovery Channel, that humans favored one foot over the other at all times. Which meant, since I didn’t know the woods, I could wind up doing circles until I fell over dead. That wasn’t an encouraging thought.

      I knew that I lived just south of Dallas so going north would inevitably put me in civilization. I had only one problem. I didn’t know how to tell one direction from another without some kind of instrument. I collapsed back onto the tree I had been leaning against in despair. I redoubled my search of the trees, again, looking all around for something, anything that would betray the way north to me. Then repeated again and again hoping for that one thing that would magically show the path that would lead me back to the world but alas I found nothing in each passing as every pass before.

  I was on the verge of giving up when I noticed something I had missed before. It was hard to explain but as I strained my eyes to the patch of wood before me I found I was somehow looking north-west as if the letters were printed on my mind. I turned 35 degrees to my right and sure enough I found myself looking north. Skeptical but desperate I started that way praying I wasn’t hallucinating although it was better than leaning against a tree in the woods out in the middle of nowhere waiting for the harbinger of death to come pay me a visit.

      I walked for probably twenty minutes, without a watch or clock to tell time it was difficult for me I could only judge. Feeling as though I would pass out from dehydration, I started to get desperate again. Regardless to how I felt I knew I had to keep moving thinking to myself I only had so long before I reached water. Trying to use my drier than normal tongue to wet my cracked, bleeding, and irradiated lips I thought. I must’ve been out through most of midday. Glancing up I was shocked to find a moon was hanging in place of the sun I expected to see instead. Taking another wild look around at my surroundings I discovered what I had thought to be normal before that I could see everything so clearly only it was night time not day but the oddest thing was that in my desperation before I found I couldn’t see the green or browns of the foliage around me but that everything appeared a different contrast of black and white depending on how dark their colors were.

    "Things just keep getting weirder and weirder.” I croaked out loud. And all I need is water to survive, how ironic? I survive a tragedy to fall victim to starvation.

    I fell to the ground as my legs gave out unable to support me any longer. I shrank to my knees physically worn out, combined with hunger and thirst finally took their toll. I fell onto my hands keeping myself off the muddied soil so not to ruin the clothes I had on. All I could think about was how random of a way to end up dying this was. In all my thoughts of the ways I would die this wasn’t even on the list. I felt as though I should weep for my life but felt there wasn’t much of one to weep for. Thinking of my past I realized just how meaningless it all was.

If I could… I began to think to myself and then it struck me a second later as I squashed the soft earth between my fingers. Wait! Mud?

  Looking to my left I found my savior, a creek. On normal occasions I would have skipped on such potentially diseased infested water yet right at that moment I would have given my right arm for such an opportunity I was now given.

    Using mainly my arms muscles too dehydrated and exhausted to utilize all four limbs, I pulled myself along the forest floor to the creek in a slow crawl scratching my hands on plants and vines on the way. I dipped only my face into the shallow waters gulping down the tasteless refreshing liquid until my body refused to drink anymore, lingering in the cool current of the water a bit longer. After about half a minute later everything in me seemed to become rejuvenated instantaneously, like the water I had drunk were a miracle cure. The aches in every muscle vanished, the feeling of dehydration was soon gone, but what really caught my attention was the cuts I had acquired on my hands from the brush during my crawl began to heal with such speed that if I blinked I would have missed it.

      "Holy shit!" I exclaimed rising to my knees.

  I searched over both hands to find all the last major scratches heal on them by themselves leaving my hands completely new just as if never touched by the hardship of living. Entranced by the paranormal event I was bewildered by what was happening to me. Pulling my mind away from my fully restored hands I found north again continuing on to where I believed to find civilization while still examining my hands.

  By the time I came to a clearing in the forest I had become bored with my hands they hadn’t done anything of interest since they’d healed on their own. Deciding if I ran I might reach a gas station, or better, the city faster not to mention rid me of this pestering sensation of wanting to run. I took off at full sprint which to my astonishment resulted with me speeding across the clearing in a space of a mere millisecond then reentering the forests tree line zipping past one tree after another in a blur of motion.

  "Shit!" I cursed using all I was made of to dodge the trees flying at me most of the time it was simple luck however I still surprisingly manage to avoid injury. Today was just not my day.

    I ran for maybe five seconds with no idea on the exact distance I traveled in that time but when I finally managed to put a stop to my own running, which took all of my body’s enabled power to do, I was glad that I managed to right before I would have ran straight smack into a featureless white wall of the side of a building complex. I couldn’t help but breath a inward sigh of relief. At that speed who knows what kind of damage I would have taken.

    Breathing in ragged gasps from the physical exertion; muttering aloud." Alright last time I checked I ran a nine minute mile not a nine millisecond one."

      "Hey, where’d you come from?” A man just exiting the building’s dual sliding glass doors asked having seen me appear from nowhere.

    "I think a few miles that way.” I replied in truth pointing over my shoulder but the guy shrugged at what he thought to be sarcasm.

        I shook my head one more good time, baffled on what was going on. I walked to the doors the man had just stepped out of; careful not to go faster than a slow pace not daring to run again. I opened the manual door to the left of the double sliding glass doors hesitating a moment before entering when I noticed I was entering into a jam pact hospital full of people. As soon as I entered the lobby my eyes burst into pain from the intensity of the lighting from the light panels above me, on the ceiling, my eyes shut automatically to protect themselves. They continued to refuse to open even after the pain had ebbed away from simply the fear of being blinded again; making me have to willingly force them apart to reopen. Prepared for the worse I was happy to find they had adjusted fine just like if I’d spent too long in the dark then flicking on a light suddenly. Scanning the hospital, my eyes still stung from their temporary photosensitivity, people were littered all across the lobby some were sitting, others on cots, only a few were standing. Meanwhile more patients were coming in through a sliding door in the left section of the lobby. To complete the collection was a WFN 25 news crew standing in the midst of the stream of chaos.

  While searching the lobby my eyes happen to fall on a silver wording the told the visitors the hospital they were currently at and realized why it all looked so familiar. I was at the hospital Sam had been taken to after he collapsed. I had ended up back where I had spent most of my day when that lightning storm had come and wrecked havoc upon my life.

“Great.” I sighed exasperated.

      "Sir, do you need help?” A voice behind me asked.

    I spun around to face a young doctor with small light brown beard matching his thin light brown hair and slightly tanned skin had spoken to me.

      "Auhh, not at the moment.” I told him glancing at his name tag.” Doctor Dunlap."

      "Then why are you here?” He inquired.

        "Got lost.” I answered simply.

                                                                        Samuel

    "I’m sorry.” The old man that I had seen a top the tree just before the first lightning strike hit, apologized. With a close inspection I discovered that I had been right, he didn’t seem old at all maybe in his thirties to late twenties. His gray beard and similar colored long hair with his sunken face that gave the impression that it had gone through some terrible times causing the ancient like effect.

  We stood in the middle of a prairie unlike anything I had ever seen before. The moon glowed with a lovely blue hue that light up the landscape giving it an radiant blue energy that seem to flow off everything in the prairie which appeared to stretch on and on into the distance. Soft lights drifted up from the soft green grass helping the moon in the sky alight the world with color. It was simply the most serene and beautiful scenery my eyes had beheld and I was never the one for art or scene. Yet somehow looking upon the prairie I felt somehow saddened by it. The old man stood against the single large sakura tree that occupied the prairie which shed cherry blossoms over the ground in a vibrant display of beautiful pink, however the sakura tree never seem to run out of its petals.

  “Where are we?” I asked sitting upon a smooth flat stone, the only other object besides grass to occupy the prairie beside the sakura tree, with one leg stretch out before me while my right arm rest upon my other’s knee. The stone seemed to match my exact body length perfectly as though it was placed there specifically for me.

    “I’m not quite sure.” He answered taking his time with his words. “If I had to say it out right I’d say this was your soul or perhaps your mind.”

  I laughed slightly at that. “If that’s true does that mean at heart I’m a complete wimp?”

  “No, this is simply the nature of who you are.” He replied not mocking me in the least. “And a truly beautiful nature it is, however sad.”

    “Just not what I expected though.” I told him then turning serious I asked with a heavy breath. "Why did you do it? Why did you see to the deaths of so many people?"

      The old man turned towards me slowly again choosing his words with care. "It was necessary to put your destiny into motion, Samuel. “

      "Destiny…” I repeated mulling over the word looking up at the moon its icy blue glow mesmerizing. “Does that destiny involve the killing of innocent people? If so then I can honestly say I want nothing to do with destiny..or you for that matter.”

    "There are some things you must live to understand." He replied not moving from the Sakura Tree.

    "Who are you?” I asked curiously turning toward him for the first time looking away from the moon.

  "A messenger, of sorts, that’s all you need to know.” He replied cryptically.

    "A messenger huh? Don’t quote me but a messenger is someone who delivers, I doubt mass genocide is on their daily schedules.” I told him.

    "It was their destinies as yours has been issued to you now. It is for you to do as you wish but be wary for every action you make has..."The man said before I cut him off.

    "A reaction, I know, Isaac Newton taught me that in the fifth grade. “I finished for him.

  The old man simply nodded but did not continue to speak nor tried to tell me off for speaking out of turn.

  “What is my destiny?” I asked wondering my stomach seemed to tighten as though I was about to find something out I didn’t want to.

  “Your destiny shall decide the fate of everything. It is in your whim that everything may live or die, continue or end, that is what you must decide.” The old man told me.

  “What does that mean?” I asked annoyed by yet another cryptic answer.

    "We shall meet again in due time." He told me. "Time to wake, Lord of time!"

    "Wait! What does that mean?” I pleaded too late I had already awoken from the dream to find myself standing as I had been in the prairie only now it was a dense forest.

    What did he just call me? I wondered.

    A sudden sharp low growl jolted me back to the present reality. The noise made me do a complete 180 spinning around I came to meet an unusually large dark shaded gray wolf barring its menacing teeth its blazingly bright blue eyes carefully watching me reading my every movement. The sheer size of it was enough to frighten any man. The wolf had to be larger than any human; it was most certainly bigger than I was. Its highly developed muscles made its fur ripple like a wave of tall grass in a cool summer breeze. Its claws were almost as large as my entire skull and this thing looked to be searching for its next meal.