A Short Story Collection

Infinite Lazarus

And again...

The Mother breathed life into his mortal spine... Into his strange brain.... Into the curled, rapidly withering form of his... He was weak... Lacking anything... Nearly crumbling... So, he fell into a deep sleep for another hundred years... Until the Mother would regenerate him...When the day would come, and when war was no longer an 'idea', or even a word... When he would forget all that he'd done, and his mind was replaced anew... And the rust would be washed away, and he would regenerate from the ashes... And he would remember thoughts... Thoughts implanted... Thought's recycled...

From the emptiness... From the near-oblivion of his thoughts... He awoke.... Rose forth from the metal sheets, and the metal carapace, the engines, the infinite black, and grey. Then down the infinite carriers, down the staircases, through the melting flames, where heat rushed through his frozen fingers... Frozen body, and he breathed a new identity, a new place in reality... Filled his empty shell with newfound life.

There was only one thought.... An infinite Lazarus... An infinite bridge, rushing through the span, the length of the world... The great infinite... Like rain rushing down the slopes, continuing forever and ever. Mountains rising up from the clouds, going into space... Plants sprouting from the emptiness... This was infinity... It was an idea... Never a number... But the bridge was reality... It was the key to existence... The key to a strange door in the back of every head... And yet the Mother, with all her infinite wisdom, with all her strange magical power... Could not even touch the mere cusp, even an edge of brick... Of that beautiful bridge... She was a star... A great flame... Eclipsing thousands of suns, devouring entire planets... Yet.... Trusan Delphan...like Old Runes, but stranger... A name he couldn't remember... But he knew what it was in his dying mind... It was power... True, raw, unimaginable power... Collectively building together one by one like bricks... Like old tongues.... A great godly being... Some strange godlike presence that drank souls as nourishment, and watched beings from a window to the universe...And he faintly remembered the name... Faintly saw the resemblance... Between faces...Between personalities... The same mindlessness, droning on and on toward power and conquest... He remembered the infinite regeneration... The infinite times... The knowledge... Yet faintly....

The ship arrived, a mere metal box, blasting through space and rubble. Arriving with three men and five comrades... And a quiet metal whisper, as the door opened, and he sat down.

He stared at each of them, analyzed their faces, each indifferent, a pair of twins, and a single loner... Degenerates... Wandering nomads, constantly wishing and wondering... With strange thoughts, strange dreams... Always escaping into their own welcome worlds...

But these feelings were not his thoughts... They were of a personality... From a true emotional standpoint...

There were worlds and thousands of them...Thousands of thousands of worlds... Strange difficult worlds. He could see them all in his strange metal head... Like his eyes merging with the future... Merging with sights he'd never seen before... Thousands and thousands of strange glittering lights, and thousands of worlds atop the cusp of a great height... Atop the jealousy of gods alike... On a mountain... In a place, where colors were truly reality. Where he had light cusped, bent, all glittering... All underneath his palms...

He could see everything... Everybody.... Everyone... It was only a matter of knowledge... Merely bendable... Like power... Like human emotion... But he did not require sight, mind, or eye. It was a clear painting, a strong picture in his eyes. He did not require the Mother or the Universal Library... There was knowledge of bricks and stone... In mortar and a rainbow of dust... And he saw Trusan, he remembered that dull, strange, face... That omnipresent, omnipotent mess of power... But only slightly in reality... Bent in a strange cracked glass... He nearly remembered now... Barely remembered the threads... The strange strings... All attaching together....