Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.
This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.
BORN AGAIN
I can't remember my family. I can't recall the faces of my parents, I can't imagine what my friends look like.
I am blank. My mind is full of information, but empty at the same time.
I can't pronounce my name, I can't remember anything that has to do with my friends and loved ones.
I remember experiences, I remember movies, I remember books, I remember tastes, I can't remember anything that has to do with my valued memories, I can't bring them to surface. Faces are gone, replaced by blank visages. Names are blurred and scents erased.
I feel my soul aimlessly glide through this undefinable pathway. It twists and turns with colors, it bends and breaks with the formless figures, there is an intrusion that snatches me away. A purple wave against the black field. It guides me to where I know not. I feel changes in my soul, something given for something gained.
I scream out in agony as reality twists like a string. My soul is pulled through an elastic space. Hands reach out from the fabric of creation and they tug at my existence. Horror mixed with divinity is shoved through my open maw. Light speaks like a boisterous drunkard with a microphone and sound becomes visible like a dragon in a pigsty. My mind is stretched, my consciousness flickers, I blank out for a moment as the bright lights welcome me to a serene vast expanse. Large planetary bodies eclipsed by luminous moons lazily floating in the starless obsidian sky. I stand naked and bare, upon a rocky platform. On all sides I am surrounded by a blanket of darkness and silence.
I fall to my knees and draw breaths into my soul. I don't know how that makes sense or becomes possible, but my mind was too tired to try making sense of it, after all it was on the verge of snapping as my soul tumbled through whatever that stream was.
Something stirs in the darkness. I can feel it in the atmosphere. I can taste the terror that rattles across the exterior of my soul. Confusion clouds my mind, anger burns in my heart and nausea stewed deep inside me. I notice the distinct lack of fear. Like the one I had when my life expired, like the one I felt when a dog barked at me, or when I walked down a ghost-quiet alley or when my soul drifted through the stream.
The fog parts, an aura of pure unadulterated majesty washes over me. Wonder breaks past the dam of commonsense and I find myself lost in curiosity, admiring the great feline being that stared down at me, inching closer with each step. White pristine clouds were its fur made out of, its eyes were glowing orbs of exotic light. Its presence was godly and regal. And the one thought that I couldn't get rid off was how much I wanted to tame this creature.
"Insolent lost soul," its harmonious, authoritative voice rang through my soul. "You would dare bear such thoughts in my presence? Shall we find out if you are worthy" it was relaxedly amused. Like the voice you would use when humoring a child's imagination, poorly pretending that the toy you were playing with was alive.
To be honest, I should be the one to be amused. I mean look at this gigantic white lioness talking. That was when it projected its aura through my eyes. Terror beyond imagination. Terror of death and disintegration. Pure primal terror washed over me like a bath of liquid nitrogen. Dread creeped on the edges of my bare soul. Strange excitement dampened my pain and agony. I did not falter or shake, I shivered in excitement and writhed in pain, I felt more alive than I had ever been since drifting through the stream. In the face of certain doom, I found life.
The storm in its gaze lashed out against my insolence. It ate away pieces of my soul. My sense of self was being wiped away. I held myself together as much as I could.
"ARGHHHHHH!" I screamed and cried in pain as fires of hell licked away the exterior of my being, in those eyes all secrets I harbored were laid as bare, as I was naked. I now understood the meaning of soul rending pain. Gut wrenching agony, mind numbing misery, suffering beyond words, beyond what mortal minds should bear. I, knew it all at once, experiencing it over and over again like the intimate touch of a lover, if that lover had fingers of searing hot steel as she trailed her fingers gently over your raw exposed nerves.
And then against all commonsense….. I laughed. I burst out in laughter like a madman hearing the funniest joke in all of existence. I laughed through the agony and the pain, it didn't make any of it go away, in fact it made it hurt more.
But what the hell could I do? I was lost in wonder, tethering on the edge of madness. This whole situation was illogical and irrational, but I was just a soul here. Who was I to speak of the irrational?
"Is it arrogance or bravery that puts such steel in your soul?" the white lion asked rhetorically, but I still answered.
"I really don't know to be honest" I grunted, trying - and failing - to sound droll.
"Mortal soul, know that you stand in the presence of Bast : Cat God of Egypt. God of Wakanda. You are judged worthy to stand before me, for the time being, while you still afford my intrigue." it - Bast, spoke regardless. I know, I know, the knowledge is there. I realize just what entity I'm dealing with. And where I might be, it doesn't matter right now. I'm trying to fight for my continued existence.
Bast stretched out its paws and held me in its entirety encompassing grasp.
"You are nowhere, this place does not exist, you do not exist. Until I decide so, do not delude yourself into thinking otherwise"
"You are an anomaly. To some your continued existence would be an abomination. You defy the natural order as though it were never a set law. I must say, it and of itself is beyond unique."
"Thank you for the compliment. It fills me with so much joy." I reply with as much sardonic hint as my voice can convey.
Bast lessened its grip on me, dropping me roughly to the rocky ground.
"Be grateful I haven't yet devoured you for your continued insolence. You seem to severely lack a sense of survival." She said as her own body began to transform. A cloud of mist gathered around her and her gigantic liones–Panther form dispersed to the wind. My mouth would've been gaping if I wasn't a soul. This woman standing before me was the pinnacle of otherworldly beauty. Her being was a type of perfection. She was garbed in Royal Egyptian wear.
The blue and gold striped cloth that was a Neme headdress adorned her head, her lustrous night black hair flowed down her back and shoulders like a river of blessed ink, with both of its strips sliding down to barely cover her upstanding bust. Golden bands and bangles wrapped around her smooth slender arms. The white short skirt with slits at the side did nothing but bring attention to her proportionate curves.
This was a deadly beauty. A very dangerous type of beauty. It would do well for me to be somewhat cautious, the prettiest flowers have the nastiest poisons… but I couldn't lie to myself. If I were still in possession of my flesh and blood, a single sight of this woman would invigorate the fire in loins. I now understood all those flimsy third grade expressions psycho characters in eastern fictions could use to justify something called a world ending beauty.
I should be terrified out of my mind right now. I should be screaming in horror at the absurdity of the situation.
But no, I seem to find it…there's a word I'm missing here, wonderfilled? No, fascinating? Close. Exciting? Yes! That's the word, Exciting! It's crazy, I know. I'm feeling fucking high as heaven on hell acid. Pardon my French, my vocabulary seems a bit not up to the task at the moment. I'm sure you can understand, considering my circumstances.
Because the excitement is now clouding my thoughts, instead of confusion or fear.
The goddess chuckled, her emerald eyes peering right through my soul. "Answer with the absolute truth to all I will ask. Lie and I will feast on your soul, little mortal," the goddess walked to a throne that appeared in thin air and relaxed on it.
"Do you consider yourself a righteous person?"
I answered without much internal debate "No. I'm not evil, but I don't think I'm good either."
"Why?" she questioned.
"I'm human, I am fundamentally flawed, I won't go out of my way to make your day bad like an asshole or a psycho. Sure, I could spare a dollar and some food to a homeless, but I couldn't take that homeless person to my house to let them bathe, clothe them and accommodate them. A truly good person could do all that and not care at all about the inconvenience. But if you were standing between me and my survival, I'd push you to the side, guess there's selfishness in that." I explained.
"In that case, I, as well, can decide to indulge in selfishness and devour your soul. Why shouldn't I?"
"Well, contrary to my 'lack of a sense of survival' I do value my continued existence. So I'll find various points to use in trying to convince you not to kill me (after I've just gone through one death) but the choice is yours in the end. Plus, I have really useful knowledge and my uniqueness that I could use to achieve a great number of things in your name if I were to once again live," I spoke "Either way, I'm actually not scared of dying" I added with a slight chuckle. Was I brave? Hell no! I'm trying not to trip over the spaghetti falling out my pocket
"Hmmm…." she tapped her chin thoughtfully. "A child and a woman are drowning in a river. You are given two choices : the option of saving the child with a future ahead, or rescuing the woman who can give birth to yet another child. Choose carefully" She offered.
I spoke from my core, no politics on guile or cunning. I just spoke " I take ...the third option, save both"
"Oh, but you weren't given a third" She said, leaning forward.
"I know. Just because it wasn't given doesn't mean it can't be taken or created" I answered, meeting her now emerald gaze straight on.
"Your heart seeks, nay, hungers for power, and your mind desires deep knowledge, why?"
"..." I was truly shocked for the first time. I knew it spoke the truth, my mind was running around the ways I could obtain power, strength, immortality, magic and the whole list. Why, why did I really want it? I was just a normal human before I died. Now I'm here, I could live a peaceful life with the knowledge I have. I could avoid the disasters. And even make enough money so I never go hungry again. I could live a comfortable life. So why did I want power?
"... True strength neither needs, nor makes excuses. I have lived a comfortable life before. I had everything I ever wanted, well almost everything. But here, in this universe, things that go beyond common sense, things that put the fantastic to shame, things that make mockery of the divine, are the norm. The word impossible is just a mere stepping point for greater things," my voice began to get louder as I let the words flow.
"So to answer your question, yes I want power. Power to achieve whatever ends I direct my mind to. Strength to uphold my will, life to live a fulfilled existence. I want it because I have now seen too much to go back to mediocrity, there'd be no meaning for my existence if such were to happen. I not only want to survive, I want to live."
"The things you seek will demand sacrifices. I have looked into a hundred thousand futures, you will have much to pay."
"Nothing comes for free"
"Though your methods may be merciless. Though your path may be rife with hardship. Your intent is pure, and your future mutable. You would grab hold of your destiny and mold it yourself. If you should become complacent, if your strength fails you, if you lose your true intent, you will perish in the hands of your enemies in the most vile unspeakable of ways and your soul will never find rest," She stood from her throne, approaching me in calm noble strides. Her hand morphed into claws, the dangerous razor edges caressing my chest, and she sank them into my soul with a deep thrust. "Know this today, and remember it forever. You have been judged, and found worthy. You had passed the test the moment you survived my gaze, my Champion, defier of the natural order. My questions were just to sate my curiosity, it would seem that indeed, I have chosen well." She smiled with an unspeakable glint in her eyes.
What I felt wasn't pain. It was something else, a foreign energy that bled into my soul. My mind massively expanded aided, nurtured by the foreign essence to contain the concepts that flooded it, it was an explosive growth in my mental capacity to facilitate the changes. It was like pouring fuel into fire. It fed the essence of my being, nurtured the makeup of my soul, elevating me to new heights. Healing me of all the damage I had suffered at her hands and by my arduous journey, the pain that gnawed at the edges of my sanity finally ceased, the nervousness and anxiety that had constantly been trying to strangle me loosened their hold over my proverbial neck. I felt at peace. She took my soul which now took the form of a sphere and she brought up to her eyes. Like an ant looking through a magnifying glass pointed at the sun, her gaze was almost all consuming.
"Lead them well, they are your people now. And bring glory to my name, you perfect abomination" she blew with a slight breeze, I drifted from her fingers towards a deep darkness.
"Right after I bring it to mine" I grunted, drowning into the shadows one thought primarily occupied my mind. I am going to tame that cat.
I heard her laughter in the darkness. Her infectious amusement, the only emotion to paint the dark atmosphere as I fell deeper into the shadows.
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Wrote this a while back, a bit unpolished, just wanted to put it up here and see where this goes. Enjoy.