The Death Blossom Chronicles - 2 - Ra

Resulting from the Fourth Great War, Atman-253 is a drug that fundamentally alters the recipient, revealing their true nature. The death-to-life transformation known as The Death Blossom .

I am Ra. The creator of new lives. That is the name given me by the world of The Death Blossom. I assist Travelers in their quest for their true nature. I empathically watch their transformation, their creation, their destruction. Telepaths require engagement with both a living mind and a living being. During The Death Blossom, when the brain still lives and struggles toward its final form and heart has stopped functioning, telepaths are useless. Empaths however engage directly with the mind, with no need for a living host to be involved.

 

I don’t remember much of who I was in The Before, only small vignettes of someone else’s memories. My memories are intact from The Beginning, as it is for most Travelers. I cannot tell you why I chose the path of The Death Blossom, only that I have traversed it and survived. Recalling The Beginning, even now after 20 years, is painful, but I will document as much as I can bear to transcribe.

 

The primary thing to know about The Death Blossom is that The Beginning starts with death. Not a mild fading away of the consciousness, but the violent wrenching of a living being from the realm of reality into the unknown and unknowable. The sensation of your body being ripped away, your head split in half by shards of cold steel, and the neural connections of you mind torn asunder by the whirring blades of an industrial strength blender. Death, if only The Beginning were that serene. Insanity, fear, pain, remorse, and the overwhelming dread of loneliness. It seems to go on without end, as seconds turn into agonizing eternities. Until, at the point when you feel as though every nerve is being shredded by sharp edges of obsidian, you reach the point of blankness. Only then after complete destruction and ungodly pain, the total exhaustion, do you achieve the nearly blank slate required for the creation of your True Self.

 

The peaceful all consuming nature of blank slate for me was like the quiet depth of the cosmos, the primordial void. Slowly, in the depth of the darkness came the small flickers of light. The synapses of my mind slowly beginning to touch and connect. No sensation of sound, no sensation whatsoever. The darkness of the void, the presence of the universe. So vast and expansive as to instill in me a feeling of the very insignificance of my meaning and my being.

 

Now more rapidly the flashes of light, coupled with pin pricks of sensation. Not completely discernible, not completely devoid of meaning. Sensation coalesces into pain, joy, sorrow, hope and love. The torrent of sensations and feeling being enveloped in a universe that begins to feel constricted. The edges of nothingness collapsing. A growing pressure and intensity. The first sight of color. The first aroma of fear. The nothingness becoming and growing and collapsing, ever constricting and confining. A growing din of horrific sounds, like the crashing of planets and the whaling of souls. The taste of life itself, still separated yet within reach. Sight, sound, taste, touch and smell now fully sensitive and engaged, and the universe accelerates its race toward self annihilation.

 

Flashes of memories not of me, but now defining me. The unbearable pressure of the collapse. The shrinking of the limits of my being and existence focused to the pinpoint of nothingness again. Everything and nothing, time and infinity, being and nonexistence, love and hate, all collapse in a frantic crescendo of universal proportions, for the universe itself ceases to exist. Then a momentary return to the void and the sheer terror of insanity. Without notice or forewarning comes the shattering of the universe, an explosion so powerful that it thrusts me through the vastness of nonexistence into harsh cruel world of reality. The rapid progression of time. The expansion of the interstellar gases of my soul filling every part of the void. Somewhere in the far off I hear the faint rhythmic sound of a heartbeat and I collapse into the sleep of the new born.

 

As I awake I perceive the richness of hues and the flowing energy of the connections of the universe. I sense more than see the world around me. I am Ra, creator of life. I am Ra, destroyer of life. I guide Travelers through The Beginning. At times I am able to touch and affect their journey. I am but a man, but they come to know me simply, as god.

Author's Note

I realize that this story can still be improved. I will not limit your comments. All comments that would improve the story or my writing are welcome.