The Crystal in the Chasm

chapter 19

Death was a warm blanket on a cold winter night. It was an old friend that I thought I had forgotten about. A familiar feeling. I saw stars and planets, space and galaxies. I was floating through the cosmos light as a feather, with no laws of gravity to constrict me, no form or body to bind my soul. I was everything and nothing all at once. I was the universe and it was me.

Like a glitch, time skipped and pulled my unbound form into a box of darkness. There was someone there with me. Like a distant light blurring into focus, a godlike figure emerged strolling through the nothingness. He was a tall, flawless male with blonde hair and glowing white eyes. A ray of sunlight encapsulated his figure like a second skin, shining around him with eternal life. He flashed a perfect smile at me as he tilted his head.

"I have been waiting for one of you to bite the dust," his voice was low and husky, with a silkiness like honey.

"Who are you?" I managed to ask just by thinking the words. So we must have been within my head.

"I should ask you the same question, but I'm convinced you do not even yet know. I'm Blix, I'm sure you've heard of me," the deadly male floated in an otherworldly way.

"The lesser god," I thought aloud.

He let out a thunderous laugh, shaking his head. "A lesser god in this world only. My sister is the mother of this world, which makes me lesser only in the sense that I did not create. I have worlds of my own, some birthed even more grand than this."

"Then what do you want with this one? With me?"

Blix strode casually through thin air, reemerging so close to me that we could kiss. I had no limbs or bodily consciousness to retreat. I could only float, as if he had my soul in his grip.

"Honestly?" he stroked a flawless hand down whatever I was, "I'm bored. Eternal life has grown... anticlimactic. Bland. You intrigue me. Your soul, it was just floating about in the universe like a lost little lamb. When my sister saw you and convinced you to incarnate here... Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'd much rather watch you a little longer before spoiling the ending!"

If I had a body, I'd be fighting him. I'd slap that amused little flicker of delight off of his glowing face. What was going on? What was he talking about?

"You find this amusing? My death?" I couldn't believe the sick, demented thought process behind it.

The god eyed me deviously, "On the contrary. I find your inability to die amusing. My sister is afraid of you. I'd like to figure out why. She's keeping you two all to herself and that's not very fair to the rest of us, is it? So I've been... disrupting her world, if you will," he smiled like the messenger of death, "tampering with the balance of things. I'm going to figure out what makes you so special."

"I'm not dead?" I felt it for the first time in a long time: a crushing sense of hope. The kind worth dying for.

His form flickered in and out of my vision, his voice fading slowly. "I haven't got much time. We will meet again soon. You will tell me of the secrets death shows you. Have a good trip," Blix left me with a haunting expression just as his light faded out.

I was falling through space and time, life weaving in and out of me. I was a ball of energy and creation hurtling through a vast emptiness when I heard the distant sound of beating wings. The roar of a dragon thundered through the darkness, burrowing into my soul with greedy hands. I gasped as the heaviness dragged me down toward something glowing.

A ball of flame, one that did not feel hot as I approached. Then I was melting into it. Merging with it wholly.

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