Descension

CHAPTER 38

Ben gasps for breath as he careens at full speed towards Omnicore, running through the golden planes of dust between Genesis and the facility. He hyperventilates, every breath caught immediately ripped away by the next desperate choke for air. His lungs and legs burn, arms flailing wildly by his sides as he wavers his balance, tripping over himself, his conscience foggy. Liam's still-warm blood drips down his face and mingles with Ben's own tears on his cheeks. His heart aches at the feeling. Ben cries out as he trips, coughing out a sob as he scrambles back up to his feet, his entire body trembling with adrenaline. I'm so close... just a little further... he thinks as his eyes fixate on Omnicore's gleaming quartz pillars, a broken, desperate smile cracking through Ben's expression.This will all be over soon... we will finally have peace. Ben forces himself to trudge faster, the gun tethered tightly to his back digging roughly into his skin. He's nearly there. Less than half a kilometer.

Then, the Earth begins to rumble beneath him. Ben plants his next step on unstable ground. He throws his arms out to balance himself, panic taking hold of his entire system as he cements his feet into the dirt. He gasps as he lifts his eyes to Omnicore, his heart stopping entirely as he gazes upon the facility, his entire being flooding with dread.

A blinding flash consumes Ben's vision and bathes the world in white. He gasps and turns away to throw his hands up in a feeble attempt to guard his face. Paralyzed by shock, he can only watch as the light dissipates to reveal the entire structure shattering and burst into flame, completely engulfed by fire. A supernova on Earth, the inferno blooms into billowing clouds that consume the sky in red and orange, shards of glass and steel that were once grand spires plummeting to the ground. The explosion spits pieces of the glittering blaze as a disastrous firework, burning lead and graphite melding with liquid omnium in the atmosphere.

Then, the shockwave hits; A blast of wind and heat slams into Ben with a bone-shattering force, knocking the wind out from his chest and sending him flying backwards. Time slows to a near-stop as his feet lift off of the ground. His clothes either burn away or melt onto his skin, his hair following. His tears evaporate off of his cheeks instantaneously, the water leaching from his skin as it's charred to a hardened, shining obsidian before being stripped away entirely, flaking off as ashen remnants. The pain is excruciating- every nerve in his body screams in agony before going completely numb, his sense of touch destroyed and thrust into darkness. His skull rings from the eruption of sound, his eardrums burst and left hollow, abandoned concaves now serving nothing. His tongue burns with the taste of metal, nostrils assaulted by the same sense. His vision ripples, the radiation rapidly tearing apart his retinas until his sight desiccates to nothing. The side of his body facing the blast dissolves, muscles and tendons melting from bone, bone charring to brittle crisps that snap away in the wind, wind beating against his newly exposed organs, organs that shrivel up and fail against the heat, heat from the gleaming horizon he once called home, home now a blazing neutron star burning him, killing him.

I'm dead.

Ben sighs. The breath is light, easy. His body floats ghostly through the void. He opens his eyes to find no light, only darkness, his entire being drowned in a pool of numb serenity.

"Not quite."

He's lifted by a single, iron-gripped hand and ripped out of the sea. His eyes snap open and he gasps, shuddering as his senses surge back to his body. Though this isn't a body; he's glittering and translucent, the edges of his form blue. He's back in the cosmic web with the shadow. Ben collapses, tear-stained and shaken, recoiling into the fetal position as he holds his hands to his face, crumpled. He sobs silently, his eyes wide with shock and horror, his breathing coming as strained wheezes.

"I failed!" Ben chokes out, his words tumbling into each other, "I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed, I!-"

"There was nothing you could do, Ben..." The shadow whispers from behind him, Get up.

"I can't!-"

"Get up!" It snarls.

Ben doesn't even try to move.

He stays a shriveled nothingness on the floor and lays there for days, maybe weeks. The entire time, he can feel the presence of the shadow behind him. It doesn't speak. His mind replays the final moments again and again until it all melds together as one and becomes nothing more than a blur. He grows so still that the water around him doesn't ripple.

Finally, he speaks, "Are you God?"

"There is no God." The shadow responds calmly and without hesitation, as if their conversation had not paused for even a second.

Ben closes his eyes again, his lip quivering, "There was nothing I could do?..."

"Nothing."

He shudders, both relieved of burden, yet full of helplessness. Ben gulps before attempting to move, struggling as he cranes his neck to face the shadow. It sits behind him cross-legged, its hands positioned in a mudra in its lap.

Ben asks, "Can I stay here forever?"

"You may. That's what I've done."

Ben's brows knit, "You were..."

"Alive, yes," it responds, standing up in a single fluid motion and opening its eyes, "I've been meditating for hundreds of years here, learning everything there is to learn. I abandoned my body in order to achieve enlightenment."

Ben huffs and turns his head back around, "I know better than to ask questions about you..."

"I might answer them."

Ben pauses before speaking, "Are you from Earth?"

The shadow hesitates as well. "...Yes."

"Leaving your body... Did you die?"

"In a way, yes. In another, no." The shadow's tone darkens, "I cannot exist in this state without a physical form."

"Then your body is still there."

The shadow nods, "And so is yours."

Ben grunts as he stands, his legs shaking like a newborn deer, "I have more to do in the material realm. If I can go back, I can change things for the better! I can still rebuild the world!" Ben steels himself, curling his hands into fists as he grits his teeth, "I can't let the Ordership take back control! Not after we've come this far!"

Though it has no expression, the shadow's form seems to soften. Perhaps that is its way of smiling. It walks over to Ben and places one hand on his chest. Ben feels his heartbeat begin to resonate within him once more.

The shadow whispers, "As above..." It places its opposite hand on Ben's forehead, "...so below."

It levitates off of the ground and pushes Ben down, plunging him into the water. He falls rapidly, unrestrained by the drag of the water, his ghost free falling back towards his body, pulled to himself like a magnet.

"Bennett..." Alex's voice whispers.

Ben opens his eyes.

Alex smiles down at him, one hand on Ben's shoulder as his freckled, tear-stained cheeks bloom with a smile. "I always believed in you. Now, wake up... you're waking up."