It is a cold winter day in December and I have no idea of how I got here. Right now, I’m in the middle of a chase. I’m the one being chased if you’re wondering. Anyways, I’m being chased through a forest by some bounty hunters and their wolf dog hybrids. Their dogs are vicious. They are mud brown with red eyes and they have pointed ears like a horse. They have leg strength of a wild wolf and have breath as warm as the sun itself. The owners, ha! Don’t even get me started on them. They are actually cyborgs. They lost part of their bodies and had to replace the lost limbs with mechanical ones. Obviously that’s why they’re chasing me. They think I caused them to lose their limbs when I wasn’t. I actually built them their new ones. So, as you can see, this really sucks!
The only thing that could make this worse is if the snow instantly melted. They would be able to see me even better. Right now, I’m wearing a white coat and some goggles. I died my hair white when I was eighteen years old and my skin was also very pale. Oh, how the Family would love to see me running now. Out of all their people it’s me running. Why me?! Why not another brother?! Oh well. I can’t blame them for not having my power. After all, I am the mister fix it in the Family… well… not all the time but most of the time. Anyways, I can’t see any shelter. The sun reflecting off the ice and snow is blinding. I pull my goggles down and see everything clear as day. It may seem clear as day, but from my view, it seems slightly green tinted. Hey, at least it blocks the glare better than your normal pair of shades or sunglasses. As everything comes into focus, I see a small little shack surrounded by a mote. I wonder, ‘I wonder if I could swim across and take refuge inside that shack. It may not be warm but hey, it works for the time being.’ I run to the mote, dive into the freezing water, and swim towards the shack in the center of the mote. The dogs lose my scent and the cyborgs, practically blinded by the glare, cannot see where I am so they call off the search.
I reach the shack and notice that it is actually in very good condition. Maybe somebody was still here! I run inside and yell out, “Is anybody here?!” No response. I think to myself, ‘Finally! A place of refuge.’ Oh, I’m sorry for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Ezekiel Dread, otherwise known as Brother Dread in my Family. The Family had just accepted me recently and I was already on the run from hunters for no reason. I was born with the special power of being able to make electronic devices from scrap metal. When I was only 5-years-old, I stuck my finger in an electrical socket and I didn’t even get shocked. That’s when I realized my power of electricity. It was weird to me but now I realize that it really is helping. Especially now! Anyways, now I need to find something to keep myself warm with. I see a fireplace and some dry wood next to it. ‘Maybe I could light the wood in the fireplace if it’s dry enough.’ I take a piece of wood and stick it in the fireplace. I rub my fingers together and produce a spark that I catch and gently sent down atop the wood. The wood eventually ignites and I have a nice warm fire.
‘It’s been three hours already! Where is the original owner?’ I hear a door creak and I instantly jump up and behind a bookshelf. I hear the footsteps come closer and closer when finally, “Wow. I didn’t think the fire would actually stay lit that long. Unless…” The person turns to her right and looks at the bookshelf. It’s odd but for some reason I could feel her eyes penetrate the bookshelf. I look down at the shelf and see nothing. Then out of nowhere, “I can see you. Why don’t you just come out?” I walk out from behind the bookshelf and she gasps. She sees me in my wet torn black jeans and my black muscle shirt and an unbuttoned dress shirt (exactly my style… except for the wet part). She runs up to me and embraces me. I ask worriedly, “What are you…” “Stay quiet,” she interrupts, “You need to conserve your energy and stay warm. You poor thing.” She sets me down in a wooden rocking chair and leaves to a closet across the room underneath a staircase. She opens the door and pulls out several blankets and a wool quilt. She pulls me up and off the rocking chair and strips me of my clothing and puts them near the fire. She ignores the way I look and wraps the surprised faced me with several blankets. She sets me back on the rocking chair and lays the wool quilt across my body. She scurries to what would be the kitchen and flips on a light. She takes a hot kettle off the stove and pours something into a mug and comes back over to me. She offers the mug to me and I just sit there and stare at the brown liquid in the sea foam green mug. She looks at me disappointedly and says, “C’mon now. You need to stay warm. I don’t even know how long you’ve been here.” I wanted to tell her of my powers that were able to keep me warm but my mind was taking control. I thought of the way she stripped me and the thought just sat there in my mind, entertained. She stared at me and asked, “Are you okay?” I snap out of my fixated daze and reply, “What? Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I’m fine. I was just going to tell you…” “Good, I don’t want you dieing on me,” she interrupted… again. Just like any other woman trying to succeed in helping someone.
I accept the mug and she sits down in a lounge chair and explains, “When I was little, I had one friend in this world. His name was Ari. He was like a true brother to me. One day, as we were out in the snow, we started dancing around a small pond that had frozen up…” She pauses to wipe some tears out of her eyes. “The next thing I knew, Ari had fallen in and… and I didn’t know what to do! I was scared! So,” occasionally sniveling now, “I tossed out, surprisingly a vine of all things. It was strong and still in good shape. He grabbed it and I pulled him out. We lived in broken families so we went to our tree house that we had made. I lit a small fire and tried to keep him warm the best I could. He looked into my eyes and he said, ‘Don’t forget me.’ ‘I won’t,’ was the last thing I could think of saying. Then,” no longer sniveling but has a red nose and teary eyes, “he said something very strange. He said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll come back.’ I stared at him with an odd face and he just faded into the sky. Pretty odd death if you ask me.” “I’ll say it is,” was all I could say as I tried to figure out why she looked familiar. She couldn’t have come from the same city as me. That’s way too far to walk. I look up and see her staring at me. Then she says, “Why do I feel like I know you some how?” “I don’t know. I was just having the same feeling,” I responded. She got up and walked over to my chair. She bent one knee down and stared into my eyes. For some reason, I thought I saw someone else, not her, in her eyes. I looked at the expression on her face and her eyes widened. She yelled out, “Ari! Oh, it’s you! Oh, how much I’ve missed you!” She hugs me tight and releases me. All I can think of saying is, “Huh?” She then exclaims, “What, you don’t remember me?” “No, actually… but you do seem very familiar for some reason. Oh, and my name is Ezekiel Dread, not Ari.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Ha, I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Ellie. Nice to meet you.” “Heh, it sure was great to meet you, but…” I get up and retrieve my now dry clothing, “I need to go.” While I start putting on my street clothes, she exclaims, “You can’t go! We need to catch up on each other’s lives.”
I start my way to the door. “I may not know many people,” I started, “but the last thing I want to do is get to know anybody… Considering the fact that the people I know are all trying to kill me!” She was quick to respond, “I’m not.” I turn around and look at her. She has the eyes that look like the eyes of destiny looking upon me. It seemed like they were asking me, “C’mon! What’ve you got to lose?” I finally gave in and with a sigh I said, “Oh, alright. I’ll stay for a while.” She cheered her wondrous victory and ran towards me and hugged me. “I know this isn’t to keep warm.” I said sarcastically. She looked up at me with teary but happy eyes and we got to talking.
I eventually learned that she was not very old but very young. She was only about thirty-years old, which leaves me to question: How old was Ari when they met? If I am Ari, he would have had to have been pretty young. So I decided to ask, “How old was Ari when he died?” She responded bewilderedly, “Why are you so curious all of a sudden, hmmmm?” “Well, if I am Ari,” I started, “then I should at least get to now when I died, right?” “True,” she started. “Okay, I’ll tell you. You died on January 28, 2020.” “Wait a minute… That’s when I was born, though.” “Maybe you were transferred into another body as soon as you died.” “Maybe,” I trailed off. I just sat there… thinking. “Anyways, how long do you think you need to stay?” Ellie asked. I could tell she had a large interest in me. I responded, “As long as it takes for me to have a real friend… and get rid of the cyborgs that are following me.” “Oh, right…” She looks at me. I look at her. She nods her head over to a door on the other side of the room. I make a face like, ‘Huh?’ She shakes her head at the door again as if pointing to it. Confused, I get up and walk over to the door. I open it and find a nice warm room. Happily I run over to the bed, jump on it, and lye down on it. I shut my eyes and think about the last time I was actually on a bed. I could hear her slowly walk over to the other side. For a while she may just stared at me or something, but she didn’t come onto the bed for a while. Finally, I could hear her pull down the covers, get on the bed, and pull the covers back up on her and I. I felt her hold me, but not like before. It felt more… intimate. She turned me over and I saw she was in nothing but her under garments. She held me close and kissed me once… twice… Soon, we were in an entire love fest. I am not about to get into details but you should know what happened.
When she fell asleep, I slowly and quietly got up. I put on my clothing and walked into the first room. I decided to sit down by the fire and read a book. After about an hour she came out, in her clothes. She sat down next to me and put her arms around. She kissed me on the cheek and asked me quietly, “What ‘cha reading?” I answered, “Oh, I’m reading your book on mechanics to see if I might be able to learn something.” “Oh, so you’re into mechanics,” she assumed. “Yep. Oh, and I was going to tell you something earlier. You see I was born with the power of technology. I can take a piece of scrap metal and transform it into, umm, let’s just something like a computer. When I was five I found my power of electricity when I stuck my finger in an electrical socket. So I’m able to keep myself and others warm, make fires, and build weapons, etcetera etcetera. You understand right.” “Yes, I understand.” I now had a shocked look on my face. I couldn’t believe she didn’t think I was crazy! I decided to make sure, “So, you don’t think I’m crazy?” “Nope. Why?” “It’s just that… Well, most people thought of me as crazy when I tell them.” “I don’t. You want to know why?” “Sure, why?” “No matter what the conditions are, no eyes or not, I can see everything going on around me crystal clear. There is no down side to my power. I can even look through objects. I could make my vision to where I see nothing but things of the same type.” “Well that explains why you could see me through the book shelf.” “Actually, that was just luck. I didn’t use my power.” “Oh.”
Well, it’s been three months now and life has been going well. I’m now promised to Ellie. I don’t think anything could ever separate us. That’s how great life is with her. Now, I’m in the forest hunting for something for us to eat. It’s night so I have my goggles on so I can see. I look ahead of me and see a girl, about my age. She’s just standing in front of the lake nearby. I make the decision to go up to her and meet her. When I come up to her I find that she is fairly good looking. She has black hair, long in front and short in back. Her eyes are brown and her skin is light but not as light as mine. I decide to say something, “What are you staring at?” Surprised and in shock, she turns around and looks at me. I ask again, “What are you staring at?” She turns her attention back to whatever she was looking at and says, “I’m staring at the moonlight glistening on the lake surface.” I looked to see what she is talking about and I see something almost as beautiful as Ellie. It looked as if the light was dancing on the waters surface. While I stared in awe the girl came up to my side and kissed me on the neck. I awoke out of my daze and look at her. She looks at me. I ask as politely as possible, “What was that for?” She responds, “I think I love you.” I stare at her and she comes to me. She puts her arms around me and kisses me for a good ten minutes. Nothing but kissing. Not even a single word.
She eventually stops and looks at me and asks, “You aren’t scared?” I ask her, “No. Why should I be?” She explains to me, “I didn’t know if you could tell but I am actually half vampire. My bloodline is a long descent of vampires in my family.” I stare at her in awe and ask, “What’s your name?” She responds, “My name is Naphtali.” I give her my good-byes and I leave of home. When I get there I find nobody inside. I look everywhere but I couldn’t find Ellie. Finally, about ten minutes later, Ellie came in. She stomps in and sternly says to me, “Who was that?” All I could think of to say was, “Huh?” She quickly snaps, “You know who I’m talking about. Who was that girl?” I tell her, “Apparently her name is Naphtali. I’ve never seen her before.” She then yells at me angrily, “THEN WHY DID YOU KISS HER?” I stare at Ellie and calmly said, “I didn’t.” “Then why were your arms around her and your lips touching hers’. Was it just an odd coincidence then?” I try my best to explain to her that I never kissed her back but she couldn’t believe me. I see her eyes start to fill with tears. She brings her hands together and throws something on the floor. I go down to see what she threw and see it was the promise I gave to her, the ring. I clench it in my fist and ask with teary eyes, “What are saying?” She responds, now crying, “Get out of my house. I don’t want to see you ever again.” I get up to leave but I pause at the door. She stares at me and I turn and look at her. I set the ring down on the table next to the door and sadly say, “Just in case you change your mind.”
It is now two in the morning and I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t believe we were separated. First we were friends, then apparently I died and was born again and we became friends again. Then, we made a promise to each other and we become separated. And to top it all off, I STILL HAVE SO PSYCHO CYBORGS HUNTING FOR ME! My life has now gone down the hole again. I sit next to a dead tree, cold and teary eyed. I see Naphtali start to walk towards me. She asks, “What happened? Why are you sad?” I explain to her what happened and she almost starts to cry. She asks me to walk her to Ellie’s house for some reason so I do. When we get there she tells me to wait at the door. She walks inside and I can hear her talk to Ellie. Ten minutes later she comes out and says, “There you go. Go inside.” I ask her with my still teary eyes, “What did you do?” All she says is, “You’ll find out.” I walk inside and see her standing there with teary eyes except these eyes were different. They seemed to be filled with tears of joy. She runs over to me and hugs me, kisses me, and all that other stuff I mentioned when we first met. I ask to see her hands and I see it. She’s wearing the ring. My heart then just becomes overfilled with joy. I didn’t know what to do or what to say so I hold her close and kiss her between the ears. Eventually we go to bed and sleep happily together for the rest of the day.
The next day I go out hunting early in the morning and again I run into Naphtali. I run up to her and hug her. I say to her, “Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU! Oh, I can’t thank you enough!” She says, “It’s okay. I didn’t want to break something that special.” I hug her again, really tight, and I then walk away.
When I come home later I find that the door is open. Worried that something bad might have happened, I drop my catch, a king deer, and run inside the house. I find Ellie standing in front of the fire in the fireplace and I can hear her crying. I walk up behind her, hug her from behind and whisper in her ear, “What’s the matter hunny?” She responds, “I’m sorry. I just can’t stand seeing you with her.” I start to ask what she means and then I stop in mid-sentence. I ask, “Did you follow me again?” She says, “Yes. I’m sorry though. Really, I am. I just can’t stand seeing you around her. It makes me feel sick.” I explain to her, “Ellie, I was just thanking her for bringing you back to me. I’m sorry if it seemed like something else.” The truth is, when Naphtali kissed me, she kissed me in a certain spot that made me start to like her. The only thing that held me back from kissing her is my promise. I will admit though, I lips did touch and I didn’t pull away. I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t have felt right for me.
It has now been a year and still, we aren’t married. We still have no way of getting into town with the cyborgs waiting for me. I sit there in the rocking chair and wonder what the Family thinks of me right now. They probably hate me for not checking in with them. I yell out to Ellie who is now taking a bath in the lavatory, “I’m going out to hunt! See you when I get back hunny!” I grab my hunting gun and hunting knife and leave out to catch something. I again see Naphtali and she runs up to me and again kisses me. The amount of time was a lot less than the last time and for the same reason, I didn’t pull away. I felt like such an idiot when I walked away. Eventually I found another king deer feeding on the wet vegetation of the coming winter’s shrubbery. I slowly pull up my gun and aim. Once I have my gun fixed on its head, it turns and sees me and starts to run. I decide to run after it, considering with my electricity power I can run a lot faster than it. I eventually corner it and get it with my hunting knife. It lets out a louder yell then I expected. It was louder than a prosimian elephant. Hoping that the cyborgs didn’t hear it, I quickly run towards my home. I get to my home only to find Ellie sitting in a chair and angrily watching me come through the door. She takes the ring and holds it up. She then says, “I’m sorry but we’re going to have to wait.” I ask, “What do you mean?” She says, “I’m sorry but I really can’t stand you being around her. I promise you though. Sooner or later, we will get married.” I look at her and ask, “Does that mean I can’t live her anymore?” She stares at me and tears begin to fall form her eyes. She nods. I go up to her and hold her tight. I kiss her our last kiss and hope that my dreams come true. I leave out of that house for the last time in my life. Once again, I have become easy prey to the cyborg hunters. Now I am totally dead.
It is the second week now that I have been separated from Ellie and I can’t help but feel pain, emotionally and physically. My physical pain is where my heart should be. When I made my commitment to her I gave her my heart, or at least what was left of it. Yes, I am literally heartless. Anyways, at least I have these goggles and the three pieces of scrap metal that Ellie gave me. I hope the metal comes in handy. As I approach the end of the forest, I hear something crunch. I stop and turn around. I can’t see anything moving but the tree branches in the wind. Then for some reason it looks like there are heat waves coming up from the snow. Then I think, ‘Uh, oh. Cyborgs.’ I run for the entrance and I then hear their pets barking and what sounds like twenty feet running in the snow, not including mine. As I came to the end, a cyborg drops right in front of me. I stop and watch as the cyborgs and their pets appear. I watch as hear a deep computer generated voice command, “DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!” I get down on my knees but I also reach for the metal in my pocket. Unbeknownst to them, I am transforming it into a shrapnel bomb that will not affect me. It won’t affect me because I will become the electricity that triggers it to go off. The leader cyborg walks up to me with a long machete, sticks it against my throat and says, “Any last words.” I respond, “Yeah. See you in Hell.” He looks at me as I pull out the bomb and he raises the sword. As he does so, I transform into a bolt of electricity and set the shrapnel bomb off. I manage to kill everybody in that circle. I emerge from the remaining pieces of the bomb and realize what I have done. I then whisper to myself, “Wow. I not only have a lust for love but a lust for power. I need to get over these problems.” I casually walk out of the forest as if nothing had happened.
I walk into town and look for the Family’s meeting spot. For some reason though, the city looks strange to me. There are wanted signs with my pictures on them! I look around to see if anybody has spotted me yet. Seeing that the coast was clear, I jumped back behind the tree line and decided to wait until nightfall. As I noticed the moon rising, I decided that it would be best to avoid the moonlight. There was no easy way for me to travel without getting caught except for on foot. I searched and searched for my Family’s usual spot but I couldn’t find it. I then see Sister Broken standing in front of the door of what seems to be a bakery. I walk over to her and ask, “What ‘cha lookin’ at?” She turns and looks at me, surprised to see me. She hugs me and says, “I’m waiting.” “For what?” I respond. She explains, “This is where I pick up leftover food for the Family.” I realize what she means and walk away into the darkness. Eventually, I’m just walking around and I hear something. I stop like a deer that has seen headlights and listen. Again, I hear the noise. It sounds like someone whispering. After the third time, I finally hear the voice clearly. It says, “Hello, I’m a lovely death whisper. Please, make my day.” I ask it, “Where are you?” It says, “I am here, there and everywhere. But what does that matter. You can’t see me. Hello, I’m a lovely death whisper. Please, make my day.” This time, I respond, “Could you help me find my Family?” It says, “I wish I could but I can’t. I do not know the surrounding area.” “Well, you act like you do.” It responds, “But I don’t.” In awe that I could be talking to myself, I ask it, “Who are you?” It says, “I told you. I’m lovely death whisper. You can trust me. Now see what has happened since you ignored me so for so long? You have died once already and I revived you. Please listen to me this time.” I ask it, “Why did you revive me and how is it that you revived me?” It says, “I believe I could only tell you why with one word: confidant. As for how I cannot say. Hello, I’m a lovely death whisper. Please, make my day.” Now begging I plead to it, “Please… help me.” It says, “Okay, here is your chance. Use it wisely.” I wait to see if it says anything but it doesn’t. I yell out, “What is it?!” Then I out of nowhere, I hear Sister Broken, I’m guessing at this point, walk up behind me. I turn around and see Sister Broken walking towards me with a basket and she asks me, “Whom, may I ask, are you yelling at?” Stuck in an ignorant gaze, I cannot think of what to say so I respond, “I don’t know.” She responds, “Okay, well follow me. Maybe I can help you get back to the Family.” We start to head south of that direction and eventually find somebody sitting against a brick wall next to an alley. The person looks up at me and stares in shock. I stop walking as Sister Broken signals me to hurry my pace and the man walks up to me while saying, “I know who you are…” I stare at him with a fixed gaze as he walks closer. I stand firm and ready to defend myself. I slyly stick my hand in my pocket in case I need something. The man finally meets me face to face and he whispers in my ear with his alcohol stained voice, “You’re mine.” Shocked, I slowly turn to look at him and he instantly transforms from an old poor street dweller into a cyborg. I jump back and he lifts his arm while transforming it into a cannon arm. Sister Broken yells out, “WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!” I turn around to see another cyborg walking towards me but this one has one of the wolf dog hybrids. I turn to the original one and see his arm start to grow a light aqua color. Determining what he could be doing, I transform into my lightning being state and zip by his ankles and trip him. He falls and his arm fires an aqua colored energy beam into the air. Expecting to be finished I transform back, as that state takes a lot of energy, and unbeknownst to me, the other cyborg released its hybrid onto me. The hybrid ran up to me and bit down on my forearm. I yell out in pain as the hybrid starts to drag me by the arm. Watching as I leave a trail of blood stained snow behind, Sister Broken jumps in and knocks me out of the hybrids grasp by introducing its head to her elbow. The second cyborg, unafraid, runs towards me and readies a punch. I get up with my disabled arm and transform one of the pieces of metal in my pocket into a mini-rocket tube. I activate it with my power and fire a mini-rocket at its head. The head flies away along with the mini-rocket and the cyborg’s body collapses onto the snow. Sister Broken comes up to me and my bloody arm and says, “If your power is electricity, why didn’t you just drain the cyborg’s power supply?” Trying to think of an answer, I respond, “Let’s just say, I tend to do things the hard way.”
As Sister Broken and I approach the Family’s usual spot, we see the door open as Brother Chaos and Sister Wicked come walking out. Sister Wicked speaks: “So, I see you met the new brother.” As Sister Broken and my bloody arm and I approach, she nods and walks me inside. After we walk inside, Sister Wicked and Brother Chaos follow. Sister Wicked asks me, “So what happened?” I respond, “Let’s just say, my sins got the best of me.” Brother Chaos then asks, “So what did you do this time?” I respond, “I’m sorry brother. For I have sinned.” They then respond, “Go and ask for your forgiveness.” Later that night, I set me and my broken and bleeding arm down in front of a picture of my shadow and recite my Family forgiveness offering, “Forgive me brothers, for I have sinned. Forgive me sisters, for I have sinned. My arm now bleeding, has now been pinned. A piece of metal, not in the wind, has come to me, from deep within.” I continually recite it until morning for my recompense as Brother Chaos and Sister Wicked watch as my arms transform into werewolf’s arms, I grow technologic wings, and blue electricity surrounds me.
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