It was an ordinary day. Protectoret moved through his challenges with little resistance: a group of freaks robbing a store in Bricks, carnies in Peregrine, a mission from Portal Corp. that sent him to take out some strange machines that had taken over a space station. It was all going smoothly…
As he approached the entry to the main deck of the space station, the doors whooshed open suddenly. He hadn’t touched the keypad of the door. He sprang in front of the open door, expecting to surprise the controller of the strange mechanical raiders. Then it happened…….
Protectoret saw a dark figure enveloped in a bright green flash; in that instant, the hero felt himself thrown back through a railing. Then nothing….
In the darkness, he couldn’t tell whether he was feeling or hearing something moving; perhaps the sensation was in between touch and sound. “He is here,” a dark, wet voice declared. There was no response. Pro tried to speak but couldn’t. “What’s going on?” he thought to himself. Instantly an echo of his thought seared out into the darkness. Startled, Protectoret understood….
“Yes, you have no form here. Not yet, at least,” said the dark, wet voice. “No form. No voice. You are what one in your dimension would call a spirit”
“Who are you?” Pro’s thought interrupted.
“You can call me Best Intentions; it’s what they call me where you come from”
“Where am I?”
“You are in my dimension. Your dimension calls it the netherworld -- also known as purgatory, the waiting room, and so on..”
“Am I dead?”
“You’re in the sliver of time between death and life, where decisions are made on your future. These are decisions you have no control over, although they involve your being. You’re behind stage, waiting for the judges to decide your score.”
“What do I do?”
“You wait -- while a decision is made by us. You cannot see or hear the others; they aren’t linked to you. I am your ‘guardian angel’ in this dimension; the others are various forms of guardians and lords of this realm, entrusted as gate keepers to heaven and hell.”
What seemed like hours passed by as Pro sat in silence and darkness. Suddenly the voice spoke again, calmly and unemotionally. “The decision has been made.”
“You will go back. You should know that you won’t be the same. You will be connected to this place permanently. Next time, you will skip this part of your journey; you need not return here. Where you go next is unknown; it is up to you. There are a few others like you. Some remember this experience, some don’t. Either way, it has made them stronger and longer-lived. I expect that a being of your abilities would not be back here for a very long time.
“I leave you with two pieces of information. One: upon your return to your world, you will experience indescribable pain such as you have never felt before; it will be as close to dying as you can get without doing so. Second: do what you can with your life.”
Protectoret sat still for the moment, waiting for something to happen and not sure what to do next. He tried to stand or create the act of standing. Suddenly, his eyes begin to burn, throbbing with bright green light, followed by an indefinable pain, neither blunt nor piercing, throbbing nor constant. Memories of people, places and things burst into his mind, searing past his mental peripheral vision so quickly that he couldn’t concentrate. Everything went dark. Almost peaceful, he felt himself floating down and back. Then he stopped; everything stopped…….
Suddenly there was a rush of noise: the sounds of air swooshing through a passageway and sprays of metal pieces and debris ricocheting off the ceiling and floor. The sounds got progressively softer, until only small particles were dropping, like people late to a quiet meeting. “Target Protectoret vaporized. The station is again secure, Anti-matter.” A mechanical voice stated.
As clunky foot steps walked away, Protectoret could feel or hear (he was not quite sure which) tiny molecules of himself rebuilding, slowly at first and then growing more rapidly. In seconds Pro found he was sprawled out on a metal floor. He could feel every imperfection, vibration, and temperature in the metal; perceptions never before his. He could feel, smell, taste the dank air of the space station, the heat of the lights overhead, the heat of the….. mechanical raiders on board. With strange, new recognition, he thought, “There are 20 left. 15 are down the hall and 5 are beyond a closed door up above my current location. There is also one other temperature variance -- something different then the mechanical raiders.” “Anti-matter,” a mechanical voice echoed in his head.
To his new eyes, there were faint shadows everywhere, almost not even there. Some were shadows of objects, some were of things not present; everything had one of these “shadows.” Everything except for himself. Protectoret almost panicked, feeling like he was missing something. He thought to himself, “Now I know how Peter Pan felt.”
Pro gathered himself up. He found his sword impaled in the insulation of a nearby pipe. He ripped it free, causing a cloud of vapor to pour out, covering the walkway with a cloudy mist.
As he walked up to the door, he was caught by a rush of déjà vu: the untouched keypad, the doors opening, the bright green light. “Fuck this,” he muttered to himself and, suddenly, hundreds of black tendrils appeared out of the shadows. They slid quietly into the seam of the door until there was a loud, screeching wrench of metal. The doors ripped opened. Anti-matter stood beyond, looking – momentarily -- stunned and puzzled. His mechanical friends -- if that they could be -- seemed stunned also. “But,” Pro thought to himself, “More likely they can’t compute what just happened.” Pro’s own surprise wore off more quickly than that of his opponents. He found himself physically tearing through 3 of the mechanisms while destroying the other 2 with those mysterious tendrils of darkness.
Seconds later, he was slashing at the still-startled Anti-matter. Defensively, Anti-matter managed to fire off bright green blasts until Protectoret was at arch-villain’s throat, blade primed to slice. But Pro’s attention was drawn to Anti-matter’s shadow; somehow it was communicating. It was terrified and panicking. Pro stared into Anti-matter’s shiny unemotional mask with a fiery mix of anger and hatred. “You’re scared,” the hero sneered. Pro swung, decapitating Anti-matter’s shell – but the villain vanished, teleported away.
Protectoret stumbled, then gathered himself up, startled to realize that hundreds of dark tentacles surrounded him, giving the impression they were looking over his shoulder, waiting to see what was needed next. Abruptly, the tendrils vanished.
“This is different,” Pro said to the space station. “I need clothes before I go anywhere.”
“A Hero’s Rebirth” copyright 2004 J.Kargl
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