The Watcher

Chapter 4: The Dark Half

     Lightning exploded into a supernova, curling around the empty space and The Watcher emerged as an empty being.
     "I'm here to help you, come with me," said Glenwood
     "Okay," whispered The Watcher. Glenwood opened the portal to his pocket dimension and The Watcher followed him in. Glenwood could feel the difference between this person and the one he sent into space. A dark emptiness was emanating from him as if there was nothing past his eyes.
     "This machine should scramble you around until you back to normal," he said as he walked The Watcher into a spacious dome room. Mechanical probes stuck out from the walls. The Watcher walked into the middle of the room and just stood as still as a statue.
     "Okay just stand there and keep calm. I'll be manually powering this thing so I'll know when to stop." He walked over to the door and put his hands into these stone holes, twisted his hands, pulled the sections out a little bit, and then blasted energy out of his hands. The probes started glowing and The Watcher started smoking. He fell to the ground before being hidden by the smoke. Glenwood started worrying and grew tired from powering the room. He fell to the ground and the machine stopped. When he arose and saw the smoke get clearer The Watcher was missing. *what the fuck.*
     "No this doesn't make any sense, I had everything right. I had everything.." Glenwood breathed in a defeated voice. He put his hand over his face and started dragging it down. He sighed and then walked to the middle of the room to see if there was a portal he could reopen; there was. It led right to the main room with all of his artifacts, and it had been ransacked. Fury swelled inside of him as he saw empty armor stands, weapon stands, tech missing, and obliterated tech. He crawled around analyzing the wreckage while screaming.
     "I'll fucking find you! I'll fucking gut you and I'll smite you out of this fucking dimension!" Glenwood screamed as he kicked the rubble. His pure rage made the structure of his pocket dimension on the verge of collapse. Every step heightened his blindingly tense feelings, his hands clenched so hard it sent shockwaves. This ticking time bomb crawled to a wall and punched in a code on the hidden buttons built into the wall. The door whooshed open, revealing a room with pitch-black walls and a strip of white light that lined the whole room. This room was the physical embodiment of darkness from the past of Glenwood Bankar, a past no one was allowed to know. In this small room was one set of armor, a  picture hanger on the wall, and a shiny black sword. The armor was pure black with spikes coming out all over the place. When he put on the helmet the visor masked his face by emitting a dark essence but compared to what was behind the mask now it wasn't much different. He picked up the sword and was teleported into a dark cloud.
     I awoke on a medieval battlefield covered in blood, every direction was a sea of battle. The noise of yells and people dying was deafening. I had bulky white and gold knight armor on. On my hip was a sword as well as a dagger and a futuristic-looking hourglass I remember seeing in Glenwood's trophy room. It had a metallic button in the middle of the hourglass so I pushed it hoping it would stop time or open a portal. Instead, it flashed a light that blinded the world and unleashed a lady. This lady had been frozen in time and when I let her out she seemed to pick up right where she left off.
     "don't do this Gl-" she screamed until she saw the battlefield. She saw my sword and grabbed into her purse to grab a handgun. My eyes grew as I plucked my dagger from my waist and slit open her neck. Blood got in my eyes but as I blinked I saw a crazed entity with armor blacker than midnight covered in spikes. A black essence trailed behind him and his sword glowed a shadow. I felt nothing but fear when I saw it charge at me. The lady's body wilted and was consumed by a black fire. A black fog sprouted around her and a map emerged from within. Something inside of me compelled me to grab the map. Suddenly a crippling rush of lethal fear soared through my body and right before the crazed being could grab me I was taken to some dark place outside of time. The knight armor ripped off and my flesh melted off its bones, but the powers within me wouldn't let me die. Lightning exploded around me and my flesh started to return. Every pore in my body sparked with energy and this time a new, darker energy, clashed around me. This energy was black lightning or soul lightning. It wrapped me in ebony knight armor. I looked in front of me and saw a wraith-like being in this clouded dimension.
     "I am Death," it said in a magical voice. It took me a while to soak up the scene that lay in front of me. Everything was so beautiful yet dark and somehow I felt like I was a part of it all.
     "What......happened back there? Am I dead?" I asked in a calm tone.
     "You found the map of death after killing that lady, and you embraced it to be bound with me for the rest of your life. You should be grateful, the map of death is impossibly rare and nobody has ever survived it before." Death said.
     "What entails with being bound to you?" I asked
     "More excitement in your sad life. The map of death is very hard to understand, just think of it like a pact. You get eternal life and unique abilities and in return, you'll have to help me out if I ever need it. You'll now be able to do things you never thought were conceivable. Even getting revenge on untouchable gods." he said in a suggestive tone then snapped back to a more serious tone. "But don't kill God just yet. You do need way more experience and power, killing gods comes with responsibilities you can't yet handle."
     "What happens if I die?" I asked
     "That depends on how you die, nothing is certain, but I have a weird feeling you won't have to worry about dying. Now that you mention dying I should talk about what was going on earlier. Switching bodies is a little complicated and everything needs to be factored in before going along with the process. You see a soul is a marker a god puts inside of conscious beings they create. This has many purposes dealing with monitoring, controlling, and afterlife variables. You weren't created with a soul, it's why you could hide so well and why you were seen as a threat. Since you weren't aware of souls you forgot to clear the body you switched into of its soul, resulting in complications. When you grabbed onto the map it killed the mortal soul you were divided by and restored you back to normal."
     "But I died in my mortal form before that," I said confused.
     "You never died fully, you switched over right before death. If you died fully as a mortal you might've lost your consciousness." Death said.
     "So what happens now? I don't exactly have anywhere to be. All I want to do is end my haunting and kill God." I scoffed
     "Yeah listen......killing him won't change what happened and you're not ready to face him. If you kill him, sure you won't have to look like he's going to pounce out of thin air and rape you at every corner; but, if you kill him you'll likely have to face graver enemies. Remember seeing the Overgod? There isn't just one, there are many, and they aren't even the highest on the hierarchy of gods," Death revealed. I stuttered into thought imagining something more powerful than **the** Overgod, or I guess the Overgods. *Could there really be anything stronger than them?*
      Death continued, "Breaking laws as you did is one thing, gods can make more worlds and more people in an instant, but creating gods is something a lot more complicated. My advice would be to stay the hell away from gods, there are plenty of other beings in the galaxy less painful to deal with. It's hard to make a noticeable difference in the universe so don't earn an early grave choosing the wrong battles."
     "An early grave sounds nice right about now. I have a feeling that things are going to get a lot crazier from here. I just don't know how to make my life have any meaning in this overwhelming universe." I whispered.
     "Things are going to be crazier, but that's life, things just keep getting crazier." Death said as he summoned black smoke around us and teleported into space above a planet. It was nighttime and the lights on the planet glowed like a trillion little candles.               
      "Below us is a planet," Death remarked. I glanced over at him with a "no shit" look.
     "Two days it didn't exist" he defended himself.
     "This is happening all over the universe at an alarming rate. When the universe started it was....crazy...I'll admit it, but nowhere near this kind crazy. Back then I was no one but now I'm one of the most infamous figures in the universe. Many believe I'm the reason for all death; the mortal coil on all life. Many believe that at the end of it all, I am the winner and that I'm the most powerful being in the universe." said Death.
     "And are they right to believe this?" I asked.
     "They are right to believe in whatever they wish, if it makes me sound like the ruler of the universe then that's great."
     I stared at him with my mouth open thinking. After the pause, he winced and started talking with newfound excitement in his voice. "Okay first lesson! Let's see what you can do. Alright so I'm not sure what new abilities you got but I can tell you some new abilities you should have and let you try to figure out where you are. The Map of Death could've given you shadow portals, soul siphoning, power siphoning, soul identifying, and body vaporization." Death conjured up a zombie-like being whose face was ninety percent mouth, and ten percent beady eyes. Blood drooled out of its mouth as it whistled breaths.
     "Chase him." Death commanded the monster. It whipped its head toward me and hovered at me like a bullet. I dove away and attempted to open a shadow portal but had no time to think and no idea what I was trying to do. My first attempt: I created a normal portal. The monster ripped open my portal and continued to chase me. I dove into a hollow planet that flowed with caverns. As I flashed lighting along the walls I maneuvered around the cave but could still hear the shrieking echoing from behind me. *How is this thing so damn fast?* My lightning clashed against the cold stone. Up ahead I saw the emptiness of space. A black cloud emerged at the exit and the monster came out full speed. Second attempt: I created a normal portal. The zombie lashed out at the portal I created and ripped it out of existence before it could be used. Cold claws swept at my neck as I tried to change my body into a formless fog to avoid the damage. Blood waterfalled out my neck, forcing me to hunch over and hold the wound. The zombie swung over my shoulder and punched through my skin effortlessly to curl its claws around my spine. Blood rushed along its nails as thick as syrup and my spine was pulled back. Agony tore through my body and sent shockwaves into space.  This shock caused me to feel something within me that I grabbed onto. My physical body became a mere suggestion. My body, now a black fog, was free of the monster's grip. I twirled around and went to vaporize it but it bit my hand off. Lightning spun around my hand like twine and formed a new arm; the zombie swung at me and went directly through my untouchable body. I returned with a blast of soul lightning that turned it to ash. As it dwindled I could feel its energy transfer to my body. A slow clap emerged from behind me.
     Death started, "A good effort for the first attempt but certainty needs work. Don't worry, you'll get better after you do it again. I want you to do it over and over again until your powers become more reliable. I don't care how long it takes, it's like you said, you don't have anywhere to be."
     "I think I have more of an understanding of what I'm feeling for," I replied.
     "To be honest I really don't care until you've mastered it," Death muttered as he summoned two more zombie-like monsters after me.
*Fuck.* I teleported to a set of planets and became as still as a statue. My memories were frozen still. The zombie creatures came out of the portal and I instantly vaporized them to ash with soul lightning.
     "You're supposed to open a shadow portal, I've already seen you do that?!" Death yelled like I was simple.
     "These are the worlds I created with my species, this is my homeland," I said in awe.
     "Well, it appears to me that people came and made it their own homeland. It's too late to reclaim it. You can make so much more than planets. A couple planets that aren't yours anymore should be the last thing you're thinking about." reasoned Death.
     "But-" I began to revolt.
     Death cut me off, "B-b-b I don't fucking care. On your own time, you can do WHATEVER the hell you'd like, but this training that's happening right now should have your undivided, unbreakable, attention and focus." He summoned four of the zombies this time and commanded them after me. I narrowly escaped each attack as they started to team together to cut me off. *No running now.* I couldn't outrun them and I could hardly outmaneuver them. My only option was to make that damn shadow portal. The darkness within me granted by the map had a certain terrifying feeling that made everything else seem like a blanket in comparison. I grabbed this darkness and tried welding it into a portal. Lighting shot out of my hands uncontrollably as I worked on forming this portal. A small dot of dark energy formed and I tried stretching it out but to no avail. *Come on!*  Desperation starting to rise in my chest. They were closing in on all sides and my portal was completely unstable with ash and black flames bursting from the edges. Time seemed to slow down as I shut my eyes to focus. The feeling of the energy I needed to grab was so clouded, but with every millisecond that past it felt more clear. My focus was pushed still when I felt the teeth of the zombies sink into my shoulder, and then all around me. At that moment I decided to keep pushing forward. The shadow portal stabilized and ripped what was left of me in the portal. Blood spurted as the zombies attached to me continued to dig in, but they were in my dark dimension now. They got smashed off of me as I blew them away with waves of lightning. Instead of killing them I just teleported out with a shadow portal so they couldn't follow.
     Death appeared behind me, "I think a big problem is that you're just too damn slow, anyone who is quick could eat you alive. Flapping those wings and channeling into your lighting just isn't going to get you across the universe or away from any serious enemy. We'll work on that later. now for the fun part. I want you to locate Joel Scott with the Map of Death and take his soul."
     "Okay," I replied as I summoned the map into my hand. A sketch of his face appeared on the cloth and next to it was a map with a glowing dot of where he was. I darted off as fast as I could to find this man. Flying into the atmosphere I got to see what this new civilization had done to a planet I helped create. Instant flashbacks played in my mind of all the fun I had on this planet. Temples and statues we created for each other still stood strong, although they now stood among new cities. Gothic Victorian cities coated the planet for as far as I could see. I swiftly landed right next to a statue of me that stretched a hundred feet in the air, right next to where the map showed Joel Scott. Strangely, he wasn't anywhere to be seen on the ground like I expected. I flew up and saw him crying with his face buried in his knees on the statue arm that was reaching out. My wings disappeared and my armor became clothes to fit the period.
     I landed next to Joel and asked him, "What are you doing up here?"
     "I can't let myself live anymore, I can't take it anymore," Joel said utterly defeated.
     "I understand," I said, laying across from him. "I've been kicked to the ground over and over again. And for what? I don't even care about this life anymore. But-" I sighed. "But I'm trying. I'm trying to do right by my dead friends. It just doesn't feel like I'm doing anything that means anything. My whole life I wanted to kill this person that ended up killing all the people I ever cared about, but I'm not going to act like he did it for fun. He did it because he thought he was protecting his land. We had no right to be created in this world. He took it too far killing us, but it was never personal. The threat on my life is over, he thinks I'm dead, yet I still want nothing more than to go back and kill him. But what is there to gain? It seems like it'll just cause more suffering. How am I supposed to keep my friends' memory alive when I don't have a purpose or will to live?
    "I don't deserve to answer your question because I'm killing myself for things that aren't in my control. It's why I haven't jumped yet, my dad used to say that the only thing we can control is how we react. Not the situation, but how we respond to it. And ultimately it shouldn't matter what happens, "we just have to keep being the best person we can be." But I can't. I can't be the best person. I've tried but my life has been stripped away. When the communist leader took over I plotted against him in protests, torched buildings, and defaced buildings. A few years ago my house burned down that I inherited from my dad. So when they shut down my gun shop I lost everything my family had left me. The government somehow found out I acted against them so they disappeared my little girl and my wife. Now I'm forced to work a job I hate to go home to an empty house. Sleeping in an empty bed is so unbearable I don't get much sleep anymore. The government forced all my friends to stop talking to me so I truly have no one or nothing to live for." Joel seethed. Joel sighed, "If I had any reason to live I might climb down there and try to fight the government again, but I'm done."
     "Revenge, is it justice or is it selfish? Does justice really exist? Or is it just more violence pretending to be mercy? Snapping back at someone to make them "pay" for what they did like the damage isn't already done. It's hard for me to wrap my head around. People like you are ultimately meaningless unless you live. Isn't that ironic? The only way you can change anything is if you climb down and rage against injustice," I told him.
     Joel had a sad smile and asked, "Would you help me in one last triumph? To be the best we can be?"
     "Yes," I said, "let's start by getting down from here."
We started climbing down the cloak of the body.
      "Oh wow my hands are really sweaty," Joel said shakily. I looked over and saw him slipping. I slid down to grab him but it was too late. His arm dropped out of reach and he fell to his death. Blood spilled at the foot of the statue and I could feel it on my own feet. *I could've saved him, why didn't I?* Before his soul could get away I absorbed it. 
     When I met up with Death he asked "Did everything go well," and then," How did it feel?"
     "Yeah everything went well, it felt empowering."
     "Great so you destroyed his soul and everything." Death paused and then continued, "I'm done training for now, I'll give you some time."
"Sweet," I said, teleporting away.