Chapter 1... Pre-fall Prelude
He found himself crying again, he was now truly alone. I had been a week since the terrible events, which he so desperately tried to forget, took place. People passing by him, giving words of comfort and thoughts of solace. Family and friends treating him like they knew him so well, like they could help, like they were truly his friends. They were nothing but memories to him, people who knew nothing, of his pain, of his loneliness, of the hardship to come. He was alone, with no solace, and little hope. He managed to thank people, and answer some of their spotty questions. He felt the strong cold wind, freezing rain was coming, he never really understood why he knew what the weather was going to do, but he could feel it coming from miles away. To his relief the end of the line was in sight, he continued to thank people for their words. He was a bit relieved as the line came to an end, no one was left but him and his lost family. He was starting to cry once again but held back the tears when someone shouting near the exit of the cemetery interrupted him.
"Hey Kenny! Come on, it looks like it's going to rain and there isn't a bus stop for a few miles!"
This person was Ray, a friend Kenny met by chance, with a polar opposite personality.
Kenny felt that it would rain in a couple minutes so he started to make his way toward Ray and his car. After getting in it started raining. "Dude, what great timing! Sorry I wasn't here for the funeral, but you know how busy I'am. Anyway, I heard your selling most everything, do you already know where you are going to go? If you don't you can stay at my place!"
Ray was a nineteen-year-old college student now, so when he wasn't playing video games, he was in school. "Come on man! You haven't visited in like forever! You have nowhere to stay! So stay at my place, at least until you get yourself together."
Kenny was eighteen, out of high school and waiting a year before college. He knew that Ray would keep nagging him unless he accepted Ray's offer. Plus, Ray was right, Kenny had no place to go. The house his family owned had been sold to a local company who was planning on demolishing it tomorrow. "Fine." Kenny responded, "But we have to get a few things from the house first."
"l33t!" Ray exclaimed, excited about being around his friend.
Kenny's old house was about fifteen minutes from the cemetery where they were. The drive there was long and pretty quite, with the occasional meaningless expression shooting out of Ray's mouth. Ray's ability to annoy and irritate Kenny was matched by no other, yet, they still managed to stay half decent friends, who really, given their relationships, were best friends.
They finally arrived at their destination and Kenny was happy to get out, "Are you coming in?" he asked Ray.
"In a second." Ray responded holding his forehead. At this, Kenny walked toward the door of his soon to be demolished house.
"LEAVE HIM!" The voice inside of Ray yelled giving Ray somewhat of a headache. "No, damn it! He is my friend!" Ray yelled back in the closed car. "OBEY ME! LEAVE HIM! YOU NEED NO FRIENDS!" The voice yelled louder. "NO!" Ray yelled even louder and got out of the car. He had won this time, but that didn't happen to often. He ran up to the door of the house and entered in.
Kenny's house was huge; three stories tall, and wide enough that you couldn't see the end of the house if you were in front of it. Kenny's family was rich, both in money, and in heritage. "Hey Kenny! Tell me again, how it is that your family can afford this place?"
"My great-grandmother made money because she could predict the weather, she was one of the first meteorologists ever. My great-grandfather was a prizefighter, a boxer. So my family inherited their money, and I inherited my her genes." Kenny responded just as Ray looked up at the painted picture of his great-grandparents.
"Wow! Your family is pretty amazing. So how much of this do you have to get? I don't have THAT big a car!" Ray exclaimed, thinking about how he could fit some of this stuff in.
"I'm just about done. If you see something you like, take it and its yours." Kenny responded.
"EH! L33T!" Ray exclaimed running toward all the TVs that he could find in search of video games and systems. "XBOX 360! L33T! PSP! SW33T! WHOA! LOOK AT THIS COLLECTION! YOU HAVE EVERYTHING!" Ray was stuffing every video game he could find in his shirt or in the bag he had found. "HEY KENNY! HOW MUCH DOES THE PSP HAVE FOR MEMORY!"
"Two gig."
"L33T!"
"Ray, I'm done, lets go!"
Ray came running out of the game room with video games falling out of his shirt and pants and a half-torn bag full of systems. "Ok, I'm ready." he said playing the PSP.
Kenny couldn't help but sigh, "Ok then, let me get you a few bags." he said walking toward the kitchen. "Thanks!" Ray answered never looking up.
All Kenny had gotten was a duffel bag with some clothes and his favorite hoodie. A navy JNCO card theme with gold color stitching. Ray looked up for just a moment and noticed this, "Are you sure that's all your taking out of the house? What about heirlooms and family pictures?"
"That's all, I'm sure, I'll remember my family in my head, and heirlooms are really meaningless to me." Kenny responded, bringing back three paper bags. He began to put all the video games that had dropped already in the bags, while Ray dropped the rest from his body and let Kenny pick them up. Ray was now enveloped in playing the PSP.
Kenny finished putting all the games into the bags, he grabbed the PSP from Ray, turned it off and put it in the bag. "HEY! What's that for!" Ray asked irritated.
Kenny put the hoodie on his head, picked up the duffel bag and the three paper bags and started off for the door. "You have to drive, you can't get caught up in a game yet." He said becoming more edgy, but he was feeling comforted by Ray and was starting to forget about the week's events. He put the bags in the back of the car and got in as Ray sulked to the other side, got in, started the car and they set off.
The car was totally silent the whole drive, with Ray only glaring once or twice at Kenny who was staring outside his window.
They arrived at Ray's dorm room, which was conveniently placed on the fourth floor. Ray carried the bags with the Xbox 360 and PSP accessories and games, and left Kenny to carry his hoodie, the duffel and the bag with the "old stuff", PS2 and Xbox with their games, in it. They walked up the stares and to Ray's great delight, there was a package carrier waiting at the door. "Hello, do you know who lives here?" the carrier asked with a medium box at his feet. "That's me!" Ray exclaimed knowing what the carrier had.
"Could I ask you to sign here sir?" the carrier said looking a bit frightened by Ray's enthusiasm.
"Sure."
Ray quickly signed and the carrier left as fast as he could upon hearing Ray's maniacal laughter.
"Will you just open the door." Kenny said annoyed.
Ray opened the door and with a fit of glee disappeared inside with the box and the PSP bag leaving Kenny another bag to carry in.
Kenny sighed, picked up the bag, walked in and dropped all the bags in amazement of the proverbial pigpen which was Ray's house. Plates and empty food boxes and bags everywhere, the kitchen stained with messes from attempted concoctions not worthy of being called food. Open cabinets filled with half-open food, cans, and many instant ramen packages. Where there wasn't junk there was weapons. Frag grenades, handguns, machineguns, knives, swords, papers with ideas for weapons, even a small cannon with mortar shells in the corner of the room. All these things scattered around, "Ray, do you EVER clean!" Kenny yelled heading for the fridge. "Yes, I do." Ray responded grabbing a nearby box cutter and running back into his bedroom.
Kenny opened the fridge and his jaw dropped, leftovers took up most all the space, an unopened milk was four days expired, and opened beverages littered the door compartments. The freezer had things so old you'd swear they we science experiments. Finally, the smell, of uncovered tuna made it to Kenny's nose. "RAY!" Kenny walked over to the bedroom door and opened it only to find a bedroom/computer room that was spotless and organized with Ray in the middle holding computer components over a box. "Isn't it beautiful?" Ray asked infatuated with the miracle of computer technology in his hand.
"Ray..." Kenny's tone had calmed a little but the anger was only being held back by the refreshing scent of a clean room. "You need to clean more than just this room. What is that thing anyway?"
"It's the new sub-atomic processor, it came with the sub-atomic RAM and sub-atomic motherboard. It's gonna superpower my computer!" Ray exclaimed
Kenny looked at the computer parts, "I'm guessing your going to put them in right now?"
Ray responded by making Kenny hold the parts while he went to open up his computer case with his screwdriver.
Kenny examined the processor closely wondering how they could make sub-atomic computer parts, and make them legally for that matter. He closed his eyes for a second and felt a little funny, like something flowed through him to his head, it made him a little dizzy. He also couldn't help think of a word. Soshigan, the word called to him, it ran through his head. He opened his eyes and couldn't see anything except little balls that were flowing back and forth at a slow rate. He felt something draining out of him and saw what seemed like streams of energy speeding up the little balls.
Ray turned around and saw a spaced out Kenny with whited out eyes, "ARAKAWA BLOOD! ARAKAWA BLOOOOOODDD!" The voice inside Ray's head screamed and Ray fell holding his head, "THIS IS THE OPPERTUNITY! WE NEED TO GO BACK!" Ray closed his eyes in pain, and felt something flowing through his body to his head. He as he opened his eyes, "YAMIGAN! YAMIGAN!" The voice squealed. Suddenly Ray looked up as his sacred computer parts were glowing bright like nuclear waste. "WHA!" Ray was astonished as now the flow getting stronger. "YAMIGAN! YAMIGAN!" The voice was the loudest he had ever heard it, as his ears started to bleed because of the mental tension the voice was causing.
He closed his eyes and when he reopened them, "Yamigan!" he blurted out. His eyes turned totally black and he could see the inside of the processor, something coming from Kenny was speeding everything up. "ADD TO IT! EXPAND IT!" the voice said. Ray hadn't not listened to the voice in this type of situation, and that was one of the reasons he thought that he was still alive this day. Ray let the voice take control, he felt the same thing that flowed to his eyes, flow to the reaction that was taking place. All of a sudden, Kenny's Soshigan stopped and he looked up to see Ray's black eyes then...
"BOOM!" The earth shook, and the third and fourth floors along with the roof of the dorm blew off into a million of pieces.
Needless to say, the news that night was of how the top two floors of a college dorm blew up and how there were only two known casualties...
Das Ende Chap 1
Chapter 1.5 Eulogy of Ray (Short account of Ray's life and/or character background)
A long time has passed since I last had a place I could call home. Once, I had heard about the death of my last relation, my father, I searched for years for the answer; what was behind the veil, the mask? Is anything real? But, in my search I found nothing but sadness as I couldn't find any answers.
Life is not what it seems, I'm wondering now, about the wisdom or madness that I have listened to. In my learning's, I learned about the composition of things that are on the smallest scale. I know what metals are made of and the very essence of matter.
I will tell you this story that is my life.
I was only seven, I lived in a quiet city far away from where I'am now. At that time life seemed confusing. On the surface it seemed all well and good but inside it was not. You see, I was not your ordinary child, I learned faster and matured quickly but inside there was always help, a voice inside that had shown itself that year.
I was wandering in the forest on a dark day much like the kind you see in all good stories, it was pouring rain with thunder and lightning. What I was doing in the forest was unknown, even to me. I felt something calling me, like some stranger to a warm fire, but unlike the stranger, I shunned the warmth of the fire and wandered in the cold darkness to answer a premonition.
I wandered for what seemed like hours, the storm never letting up until I found a hollowed out tree. In its roots was the entrance to a small cave. I entered in and there was a ring there, it had a black six tailed phoenix etched along its surface and seemed to call to me. I took the ring and put it on my finger then I saw a figure with black wings standing outside of the cave but when I ran to see what it was, it was gone, only leaving a sense of familiarity. With that, I went back to civilization guided by some compass inside of me I didn't have before that always pointed to where I needed to go.
Two years passed by for me and time seemed to fly by. I then realized that what drew me were things on a deeper level then science, deeper than any human had looked or seen. I pursued the knowledge of these things all the while I felt more and more out of place everyday.
It was like this until I met Kenny that year, someone who seemed as out of place as me. He didn't really talk much but he used to talk a lot more back then compared to now. I decided to build a friendship with him. I talked and he listened and we were there to help each other out.
Five more years passed and time came upon the fourteenth year of life. My father passed that year and left me an ominous gift. "I will awaken the spirit of the fire of ashes within you and it will help you as you are the last." With that, he took the ring of his that was identical to mine and put them together. They fused into a ring and with this new ring it came into my mind the image of a mask too fierce to behold, and I knew without a doubt that that was his future.
Now fifteen, I still grieved my father and with the help of my friend Kenny, and occupying myself with games, I coped and resumed my life. After two more years of aimless inner wandering, life started to change for me.
Now seventeen, I had found a fascination with objects, not the objects themselves, but what they where composed of. Metals and minerals mainly learned at a fast pace the composition of every material that I came in contact with. The number of compositions I could recognize and distinguish was in the thousands, from acid to gunpowder, I knew it all. After I had learned pretty much all I could, I became more active in playing computers and video games to the point of addiction. Then I discovered l33t speech, so unorthodox that I just had to learn it.
Two more years passed and now I was in college. I decided on Chemistry and Geology as a major and considering I know more than the professors about it, it allows for allot of spare time, but nothing I seem to do ever helps me figure out just what is missing.
Sadly, Kenny's family died recently, and he is going to have nowhere to go for at bit. I think I might invite him to stay with me.
Finally, I have some l33t new hardware that I ordered, the new SUB-ATOMIC PROCESSOR! I can't wait to try it out, I hope Kenny is here when I get it!
End of Chap...