Descent to Ascension

Cross awoke and found himself lying in a crater. Around him was nothing but rubble and corpses. Strangely enough however, he was not disturbed by any of this. “What happened? What was I doing?” He wondered to himself. Cross could tell there was something very wrong and it was not the unbridled carnage that surrounded him. No, it was something about himself that felt different. He had no recollection of what he was doing prior to waking up where he did, much less how he could have ended up at the epicenter of all this destruction. The crater he was lying in looked as though it was where a building once stood. “Did I do this? How could I have?” He wondered once more to himself.

He began to stand up and then had the first realization of why he felt so different. He could not feel anything. Even more so to his surprise his arms and hands were desiccated and showed signs of decay. And yet, he was not alarmed. For some reason, this seemed to make sense to him, but he still did not understand why. His second realization was that he was not breathing. He even tried to breathe but found the action futile. It was if his lungs were no longer functioning. As he stepped forward, he began to float; “I certainly wasn’t able to do that before.” He spoke aloud this time in a voice he was certain was not what he originally sounded like. His voice was as hollow and cold as the grave, which given the condition of his body seemed to track. Still, he had no recollection of why his body was this way or what chaos ensued prior to him waking up.

In the distance, he could hear sirens and screams, and it did not sound all that far away. In fact, the sirens sounded as though they were approaching him. “I’m probably going to be in a lot of trouble,” Cross said aloud. He then proceeded to float even further forward, dark wisps flowed from his feet and from under his tattered cloak. As he floated over the bodies they began to convulse and return to life, all of them moaning in a similar fashion as if pained by their return. Cross was astonished, but not disturbed, if anything he felt less lonely as if these creatures were an extension of himself. He dawned a mischievous smile and proceeded to hover over all the corpses that were with him in the crater, watching with delight as they squirmed back to life. “Friends...” He uttered coldly. Immediately after speaking that word, he found it so wretched, he began to have a flood of scattered memories. Memories that brought him emotions he wished had stayed lost. He felt pain but one memory was the most painful. One of a heart-shaped locket. Cross felt intense hatred towards his memories. Memories full of emotions ranging from happiness to sorrow. All of them he found disgusting.

As he floated seething in rage amongst his new friends, he had almost disregarded the sirens he initially heard in the distance, as they were now upon him. Special forces cruisers began to hover around the crater where he was. Soldiers began to descend to the ground with hover packs and fixed their rifles on Cross. Multiple red beams dotted Cross’s body and a tense silence came across the crater aside from the groaning dead and radio chatter from the armed force’s vehicles. Suddenly a bullhorn screeched from one of the vehicles, “Come peacefully Cross, and we won’t have to do anything drastic.” Cross stared blankly for a second. It had become clear to him that whatever had happened, he was the source of the disaster, but what was it that he did to have caused? Cross still had no idea.

“Did I do this?” Cross yelled back to the officers. They all reeled as they heard his voice. “OPEN FIRE!” An officer yelled. As Cross observed the barrage of gunfire coming towards him, he closed his eyes and curled up midair, preparing to not wake up again but he felt no fear. The gunfire went on for what felt like an eternity but eventually, it stopped. Cross opened his eyes unexpectedly. The bullets that had come his way were deterred by a bubble of purple and green energy. “Power,” Cross uttered with a cold smile. His newly raised friends began to charge the edges of the crater where the soldiers stood. The dead were met with more gunfire, but their numbers were overwhelming, and the soldiers were quickly overrun by Cross’s army. Cross joined the fray and began blasting his adversaries with energy that was the same color as his bubble. After about five minutes of combat, Cross floated victorious over the soldiers’ corpses who began to reanimate not long after being killed.

“There is no place for me in the world of the living…or perhaps the living has no place in this world with me in it,” Cross said staring at the dead who blankly stared back at him. “This is true ascension, true unity. I will show the world peace through death!” He bellowed staring into the rest of the city. However, something was beckoning him in the easternmost part of the city and it did not feel all that far away. “Let us march comrades!” He commanded his army as he floated above them, feeling more powerful than he had ever remembered feeling prior. As they pressed forward into the city, citizens began to run, and more soldiers showed up in a futile attempt to deal with the army of the dead that stood before them, growing in ranks as they killed all who stood in their way. Growing ever closer to the familiar feeling that nagged Cross with emotions he did not care to have.

After about a mile of rampaging, Cross stopped in front of an apartment complex taller than the clouds. Cross was then bombarded with more memories. This time with the beautiful smiling face of a woman. Cross felt immense sorrow that was quickly followed by intense hatred. “Whatever is here, it will pay for doing this to me.” He floated up alongside the building as his army continued to wreak havoc below, intent on discovering what was the source of this pain. Stopping at a window on the fiftieth floor of the building. “Here…” Cross said anxiously.

He blasted the window with energy shattering it and then gently floated inside. The apartment seemed all too familiar, and a rush of more memories came to him. This time they were not warm memories. An argument, a crystal alongside the heart-shaped locket, and a ritual, but strangely, this did not upset him. As soon as he came to from his flashback, a woman walked out shakily from another room into the room where Cross was floating. The same woman from his flashback. He could tell the woman was petrified but not so much with fear as much as it was shock. “What the hell have you done?” She said with tears streaming down her face as she stared in contempt and despair at the being before her. “I think that is what I’m here to find out. Where is the locket?” Cross asked disregarding the woman’s emotional state. He had no idea how he knew the locket was here, but he knew without a doubt it was. “I stole it before you could complete this madness Cross. I hoped it would deter you but apparently I was wrong.” Tears streamed down her face and cross floated closer to her. Around her neck was the very thing he was searching for. “Phylactery.” He uttered, and the locket began to emit a black, purple, and green aura which then enveloped the woman ripping her soul from her body. She fell to the ground and began to reanimate just as any other corpse did in his presence. He pulled the locket from her neck and as soon as he grabbed it, he remembered everything.

Cross was a sorcerer in the year 2087. He was one of a few in his era and well respected, but he always hated how humanity treated itself and as a result began harboring contempt towards humanity and being human. He had begun studying magic involving immortality in secret with only his wife knowing, and she did not approve, as the deeper he delved, the more he began to forsake who he was. But he was desperate to bring his research to fruition, as the magic he was using was slowly killing him. He found a ritual in an old tome he discovered in Scotland labeled the Ritual of the Lich, which stated he would achieve immortality from completing the ritual. He attempted to conduct this ritual but needed to sacrifice his humanity for it to work using something that was close to him as his soul transposer or phylactery, the locket. However, his wife attempted to interrupt the ritual in hopes it would stop the evil he was prepared to bring about by stealing the locket. However, it did not work because his soul was already placed in it and he was not aware of this because, in the process of becoming a Lich, he died and was reborn without his soul. The rituals completion was also the reason for the explosion and that was why he awoke in the crater

“Seems as though you were right to try and stop me.” He said looking at his wife’s soulless body. “A shame it was all for not. This world is mine now.” He stared out the window at his army that continued to amass as he watched varying sections of the city burn. He smiled, as he knew he would bring peace to this wretched world he hated so. This was the beginning of the end. The era of the afterlife.