The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones)

by M. H. Hawkins

  Though it wasn’t uncommon for reapers and angels to occupy the same area, especially after battles and tragedies, Blackwell’s presence was rare. But battlefields, especially the really bloody ones, were different. Those he liked to attend, to supervise the scavenging of souls, to ensure that there was no confusion or fumbling during the transition. And today was turning into a prime example of why.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Leave him. That one’s clearly not… Here, come here.” Barking at a reaper that was squared off with angel, Blackwell sternly called over a different one of his lackeys. The reaper came as he was beckoned. And he was big, standing nearly seven-foot tall and towering over Blackwell. It didn’t really matter, and Blackwell reached up and grabbed the reaper by the top of his chestplate, where a shirt collar might rest, and pulled the reaper down and onto his knees. Even kneeling, the reaper appeared big and he was now almost eye-level with Blackwell, but he was also short enough to get an ass-chewing from him as well. Blackwell’s words were as stern as his face was. “Hey, he said, “hey!” he shook the reaper around by his collar. “Hey! Listen to me.” He slapped the side of the reaper’s head. “Listen to me very carefully. This isn’t a pissing contest. This isn’t ‘us versus them’ or ‘light versus dark’ or whatever ridiculous idea that seems to be going through that dimly-lit head of yours. Get this straight: we take the leftovers, whatever that might be. That’s it. And I don’t care if it’s one soul, all of them, any of them, or even none of them. I don’t even particularly care if they’re damned or not. If their kind wants to sully their so-called paradise with whatever waffling souls that may or may-not be worthy, you let them. Do you get it?” He slapped the reaper in the side of the head again. “Do you understand me?” Blackwell didn’t wait for an answer and instead huffed and tossed his servant to the side. “Good. Now go. Go… scavenge. Go pick up the garbage.”

  The reaper remained silent and scurried away, but then Blackwell heard something behind him and he froze. That voice. It was soft and smooth—and as soothing as a bubbling brook in the summer. It was scary, the good kind of scary, and sent electricity shooting through his veins. And somehow it seemed to have drowned out all the crows’ obnoxious cawing. That voice, her voice.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” she said, her voice sounding like the softly plucked strings of a harp. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Don’t you think? How you always seem to meet the most interesting people in the most innocuous places.”

  Turning around, he saw her. She was stepping over a half-hacked body that was stuck in a battered suit of armor. A sword was still jammed in the side of it. Behind her, a reaper was yanking a shadowy-soul from a rotting human husk and dragging it into the ground, dragging it to hell. Such an innocuous place indeed. “Hello,” Blackwell said, dryly and without emotion. “Yes, it is. It is strange seeing you here—seeing you at all.”

  The source of the voice was her, Mea, and she was smiling. Though her hair was golden-blond and she was taller, thinner, and paler than she was now, it was her nonetheless. And she was still beautiful and draped her iconic, glistening, angelic armor. Admiring her every move, Blackwell watched as her angel wings melted behind her and transformed into a silky cloak that was white-as-snow.

  Bittersweet and half-frightened of the answer, she asked, “You’re still angry, aren’t you?”

  “No,” Blackwell replied. “Not angry… just finished.” He wanted to walk away, but he couldn’t—not from her, never from her.

  Seeing his pain and feeling it herself, Mea sighed, “I left…” She sighed again. “I left because I had to. I just couldn’t…”

  She hesitated to finish her sentence but couldn’t, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need to tell him why she left. He already knew and would answer for her. “You left because you couldn’t be around me anymore. You couldn’t look at me the same way, not after I…” failed you, he wanted to say but didn’t.

  “And who could blame you?” he added, chuckling sadly. “I mean… look at me. I’m a garbage man, a lackey. And who would want to be around this… the shadows, the darkness… the souls of the damned. Who would want to be around all this death?” He shrugged at her melodramatically. “Only a fool would blame you for leaving.” But he was still unable to walk away, and all he could do was try to maintain his emotional shield and pretend he didn’t care.

  Mea chuckled and shook her head. “Know what? You’re a horrible actor. Did you know that? You’ve always been a horrible actor.” Moving closer, she touched his cheek.

  Without making any type of conscious effort, he felt himself leaning into her touch and closing his eyes. Her hand felt like silk and she smelt like a bakery on Sunday morning, and Blackwell melted. “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry… I’m sorry I failed you.”

  “Hey.” Mea cupped his other cheek with her other hand. “Hey, you didn’t fail me. I just… After the great flood—during the great flood, I watched them die. I watched them all die, so many of them. And I… when Lilith left me on that stone cliff, stuck and poisoned. I could have saved myself. I could have yanked out that stinger of hers and pulled myself free.”

  Blackwell smiled and snickered. “You always could handle yourself.”

  “Yeah,” Mea agreed emptily and nodded somberly. “But I didn’t want to. After seeing so much death, I just crumbled, crumbled into myself and imploded. So I stayed where I was, pinned to that cliff and I just… gave up, for however many years that it was. I don’t even know.”

  “And I was condemned to the underworld… because I failed.”

  “No,” Mea said before kissing his forehead. “No, you didn’t fail. You did what you could, to save as many of them as you could… doing the best that you could, in the best possible way that you could think of. I know that.”

  Still feeling like a failure, Blackwell bit his lip and sulked. Unable to look Mea in her beautiful, forgiving eyes; he looked away instead. “I should have done better,” he said, shaking his head in her hands.

  “Like I said before,” Mea snickered. “You’re a horrible actor.”

  Blackwell chuckled and finally found the strength to look up at her again. It was good to see her; it always was—no matter the situation. “I missed you. I really did. And I just wish that I could have…”

  “See,” Mea interrupted, “you see? This… This is why I didn’t come to see you, why I couldn’t come and see you… because I knew that you’d blame yourself… that you’d blame yourself for trying to help me. And I know that you got locked up, that you were exiled from here—from me… for me. And that was because of me too. And I blame myself for that.”

  Looking over the field of death and seeing the souls getting torn from their mortal husks—some going to a better place, others to a worse one, she looked up and back into Blackwell’s eyes, and she saw the pain behind them. Then it hit her, maybe for the first time ever. It didn’t matter how much death she’d seen, he’d seen more. Speaking through her tightening throat and tears, she asked, “How… how long? How long have you been doing this? How many cycles—how many Cleansings have there been? How…” How long had she been doing this? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t remember when it started or how she came into existence.

  The tears were now streaming down her cheeks. “How many times have we been here before? How many times have we done this? How… how long do we have to do this?” Tired of it all, Mea wrapped her arms around him, and her head collapsed against his chest. ”How long has it been like this?”

  Blackwell winced and wiped away her tears. Pulling her closer and into his arms, he finally answered. “Too long.”

  CH 1: Breathe Again

  It is known that when reapers die, they dissolve, leaving no corpse and no evidence of their true existence. Though the death of reapers—the scavengers of the dead—was rare, it did happen from time to time. And as reapers died, dissolving into the death of which they were born out of, they also left behind their remnants of death: a patch of dead grass; a dead
tree in the forest; an oily stain in a strange place—all relics of dead reapers.

  Now knowing that dead reapers dissolve into nothingness, the current scene was a strange anomaly. It didn’t make sense. It was unnatural—impossible. Because, if dead reapers dissolve into nothingness, what the hell was a reaper’s corpse doing here, lying dead in the middle of an abandoned factory.

  This corpse, it was a man once, a long time ago—before he made a deal with the devil and became his servant, the devil’s messenger. Raven was his name—it wasn’t, but his real name had faded away with his human life, a long time ago. Now he was Vincent Blackwell’s reaper, his servant, his minion. He was, until he betrayed him. And now he’s dead.

  With Raven’s betrayal, his maker repaid him in kind, and killed him. And the reaper’s body was right where it wasn’t supposed to be, right where he was slain. And like Raven’s corpse itself, his reaper blade, the instrument of his death, was right where it was left—untouched, unmoved, and intact—erect and protruding from its owner’s cracked chestplate. And it’d been there since he died, for the past three days… Well, three days, more or less.

  Raven’s torn, wingless body lied on the chalky floor of the abandoned factory. The black pool of blood that once seeped from it was gone, evaporating without a trace, like it was never there at all. As undisturbed and untouched as it was, his lifeless body was still beginning to accumulate a thin layer of dust and debris.

  His broadsword, the same one that he once wielded so expertly, was still where it was left—impaling him through the chestplate of his once-glossy black armor. The sword stood up, tall and straight, its blade looking like an obelisk made of polished onyx. While the entry wound was surgical and no wider than it needed to be, his armor had dried, and the entry wound was now surrounded by a web of thin cracks that had spidered out from the original death blow. The rest of his armor was faded and cracked as well. Three days, that’s all the time it took for Raven’s once-illustrious armor to lose its luster and become nothing more than a cracked, faded shell of its former glory. And cracked, faded, and thin as it was; it looked like it would shatter at the slightest disturbance, crumbling like ash.

  Raven’s face had thinned and faded as well, becoming a beige, eggshell color that had its own set of cracks. His eyes had become chunks of coal; black as night, porous, and dead.

  Then he blinked, and the charcoal coating of his eyes fell away to black powder and revealed a set of polished onyx stones. Blinking again, his eyes seemed to regain some sense of life and lucidity and shimmered again.

  And though the rest of him was still lying there motionless, his eyes came further alive. The onyx stones were slowly being filled with a bright red paint until they became two tiny pools of blood. They quickly drained and left only thin cracks of red over black. His onyx eyes dulled to the sad, gray tint that they once were, when he was alive. Then the bright-red puddles reappeared, settling in to the cracks of his irises like they were made of cracked gray concrete.

  Raven’s fingers twitched. His hand flexed, and then he made fist. Everything felt strange. Yet with each passing second, he became more alive, more alive than the moment before.

  Now he was more alive than dead, and he came to a blaringly obvious revelation. He still had a sword stuck in his chest. It was still shooting bolts of pain through him. His armor crumbled off his hands and arms as began pawing at the well-struck blade. His chest burned from the movements, but the blade itself never budged. Firmly stuck through his chest, the blade was also firmly planted in the concrete factory floor he was lying upon, and the blade’s tip was firmly rooted deep within the same concrete. This is going to take a little more effort, he realized.

  With a loud grunt, he grabbed the blade again, this time with both hands, and pulled up, hard, and he was finally able to pull it from his chest. With a gasp of relief, the blade fell to his side with a painful release. Momentarily limp but satisfied at his victory, he took a deep breath and felt the pain subsiding and could feel the wound in his chest closing up. That’s better. Now, time to get up. Now coughing painfully, he felt the air flowing through his lungs. Still coughing, each one was less painful than the prior cough. He was healing; he was alive, back from the land of the dead.

  Raven sat up, and his once-polished armor cracked further and fell away like old paint. Beneath it was a crimson dress shirt and black dress pants. A new body? he wondered. What is this? Where am I? I should stand up.

  Raven pushed himself onto his feet, and whatever was left of his armor crumbled away in a fine, black powder. He brushed himself off and examined his new outfit and strange new body. Almost independent of his thoughts and actions, a long black trench coat materialized over his back. Examining it as well, he noticed the crimson lining inside it while the coat’s split coattails fluttered behind him, almost like it was a cape. Gothic, a little metro, but it’ll do, he thought then shrugged.

  Glancing at the floor, he saw his once-beloved sword. Twitching an open palm towards it, the sword leapt through the air until its hilt slapped against his palm. Examining it, it felt nice as he swung it around. But… something still didn’t feel quite right. He swung it around, hoping that his senses and instincts would return. They didn’t.

  “Too big,” he said to himself. Sliding his hand over its black blade, it thinned and shrank. As it passed beneath his hand, the sword’s edges shimmered and shrank. Upon finishing, the long-bladed broadsword was now an elegant silver dagger that was the size of his forearm. That’s better. Thin and simple, the edge gleamed like ocean waves in summer, and the blade had a chrome finish that sparkled in the shade.

  He slid it into the scabbard that was suddenly hanging from the left side of his belt.

  Something else still didn’t feel right. Looking at his hands, he thought, something’s missing. Smiling, he snapped his fingers. Got it. Thrusting his hand out to the side, a long strip of black smoke puffed up around it. And as it cleared, he was suddenly holding a katana with a jet-black blade. After a few swings, he smiled. “Better.” Sheathing it in the other scabbard that had suddenly materializing in front of the shorter scabbard—the same one that appeared just a second ago. Much better, he thought.

  Still, something else was bothering him, gnawing at him. He unsheathed his katana in a clunky, jagged motion that sent the blade wobbling. Examining his katana first, he then looked at his scabbard. It’s catching. The blade’s catching on the scabbard, he realized. My draw is a quarter-second too slow.

  Sheathing the blade again, he looked down at the scabbard and slid his thumb down its side—leaving a long, silver-edged slit that trailed his sliding thumb. And finishing up, the scabbard now had a thin, silver crack that ran a quarter-length down it.

  Pulling his katana from his scabbard again—this time in one fluid, swift motion, he smiled. Much better, he thought, as he slid it back into the scabbard yet again.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  Fast as lightning, he pulled his blade one more time and held it out to his side… and beneath the jaw of his would-be attacker.

  A jumble of emerald-green Christmas lights lit up around him, and he finally realized that he wasn’t alone. In fact, he was the center of attention. Looking around, he saw hundreds of them, emerald eyes. Fallen angels, Heaven’s outcasts. There’s a lot more than last time I was here, he thought absentmindedly.

  Raven’s eyes followed the length of the blade on his katana, until he saw where it ended, beneath the neck of a very large outcast. Surprisingly quick, the brazen attacker had stopped on a dime, but now he was at the mercy of the resurrected reaper and the blade at his throat.

  The outcast’s head was tilted upwards and dangling just above the edge of Raven’s katana. The outcast glared down at him with his emerald eyes while the rest of him looked like a wide-armed statue.

  Fallen angels, outcasts, were a strange breed, and this attacker was no different. Like they usually were, he was dressed like a homeless person who gave up on life a lo
ng time ago, and like they usually were, he was a specimen of physical perfection. Despite being wrapped in a ripped-up hoodie and some oil-stained jeans, he was still quite an imposing figure, a big one too. Roughly 6’4” with a chiseled jaw, he was built like an NFL linebacker with the face of a male model. His right hand held a rusted butcher knife, and an old, paint-splattered hatchet was in his left.

  “You’re quick,” said Raven. ”But you breathe too heavy.” The giant attacker remained quiet and frozen, waiting for the inevitable, waiting to die. Instead, Raven pulled back his katana and continued his commentary. “But that wasn’t what gave you away. What gave you away was the pebble. On your approach, you kicked a pebble that trickled across the floor and hit my shoe. And as settle as it was, it was enough to be your undoing.”

  Raven was about to sheathe his blade but didn’t. Instead, he casually turned back towards his attacker. “And because it was me. Did you really think that you could get the drop on me? That you could kill…” His mind blanked. What am I? he wondered. I’m not what I used to be. Now what am I? A god? A reaper? What was he? At the moment, he didn’t know.

  Raven’s thoughts further interrupted his words. That outcast, that beast of a man, just tried to kill me… again. But I was already dead—dead for three days, wasn’t I?

  Looking around, he again took in his surroundings. Hundreds of emerald eyes—all planted inside half-as-many gorgeous, blank faces—were staring at him. Clumped in large groups around larger groups of junk and old factory equipment, all of them were watching him, cautiously and with wonderment. On the terrace-like second floor of the factory, atop the metal mesh floor, more outcasts were staring down at him. Others were packed in-between old, large, abandoned packing machines, and they were watching as well.