Rebirth Read online

  The Fallen Ascending

  Prologue: The Fall

  Who am I, you ask.

  I am Death. I am Evil Incarnate. I am Michael Ramsey, and I am going to die at midnight.

  For those few people who don’t know my tale, I thought I’d pen a few quick notes to try and set the record straight. I know nobody cares, and nobody is going to listen, but what else do I have to do while I sit here in this bleak concrete prison and wait to die?

  I don’t have a lot of time left; I should have started this task earlier, but I’m afraid I always though some appeal or some act of Congress or God would come at the last moment and save me. It hasn’t. My appeals are done, and my time is running out. They’ve already taken my order for a “last meal”, but who can eat when they know death is but a few hours away for them?

  My childhood doesn’t matter the most, unlike what all the media or psychologists would like to claim. I had a good childhood, and my parents gave me everything I ever wanted. In fact, I suppose if we’re being honest – and why shouldn’t I be honest here in my final hours – they gave me too much. I had new clothes, new phones, new computers, and new game boxes.

  I spent most of my time indoors reading or playing games, and for that reason, the prosecution claimed I was a “social outcast”. A “loner on the fringe of society” just waiting to snap at the proper time. I couldn’t just be an overweight, lazy child who indulged in games and books – I was a dangerous sociopath where everyone just overlooked all the “obvious” signs.

  Idiots! One and all!

  But that doesn’t matter now. All that matters now is telling my side of what happened that fateful day.

  It’d started out like any other school day. My mother yelled at me to get up and get ready for an hour before I actually got up and stumbled into my clothes with just a few minutes left before the bus arrived. On the bus ride to school, I sat by myself and read something – I don’t remember what it was now exactly, but I’m certain it was a fantasy novel like one of The Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance books -- and I didn’t bother anyone or anything. Like usual, I simply sat in my own corner and did my own thing.

  And this wasn’t because I was anti-social. It’s simply because I was on a bus without a lot of people my age on it. I was a Senior in high school, and the bus was full of kids from Kindergarten up. Most were grade school or middle school kids, and the people I’d hung around with had graduated the year before. The kids who were seniors like me often drove, but that was the one thing my parents wouldn’t budge on. They felt it was too dangerous for me to be out driving on the roads unsupervised – especially since I hadn’t even taken a job anywhere yet. They promised me if I got a part-time job somewhere, then I could drive every day, but not until then.

  So, I was simply stuck riding the bus, without any of my friends riding with me. I was a loner by fate, not desire. Exactly what was I supposed to talk to a bunch of kindergartners and grade schoolers about? SpongeBob?

  Once I’d gotten to the school, I’d stop by the cafeteria and eat breakfast and then go sit alone in my homeroom class and wait for the bell. Again, this was a simple act of fate and nothing self-destructive. I lived at the edge of the country and my bus had a long route. It had a better chance of breaking down or running into unforeseen problems than the local buses, so my bus driver always got us to the school fifteen minutes, or more, earlier than the other buses.

  I was on one of the first buses to arrive, the school was mostly empty, and I was still only half-awake. Exactly what was I supposed to do in that situation? Go sing karaoke on the cafeteria tables while entertaining the other kids as they arrived?

  Screw that!

  My habit was to simply grab a biscuit from the cafeteria and a bottle of water, head down to my classroom, wolf them down, and then lay my head over and rest or read until class actually started. I wasn’t being an “anti-social outcast”. I was simply facing the morning exhaustion that most teenagers felt each day – and due to where I lived, my day started earlier than some of the others. I was on the fringe of the county line and thus about as far from the school as one could live and still be a student without going to a different district. I had a longer bus ride, longer wait for classes to start, and less time to awaken and deal with the morning.

  Simply put: I hated mornings at the school and simply wanted to hide grumpily from them as long as possible.

  That morning class had started as usual, with other students showing up and pouring into the room just a few minutes before the bell rang, with our teacher coming in a few minutes later. The class was started and nothing much was going on. It was the same old, same old. A boring English lesson that talked about whether commas went inside a quote or outside it. This year it seems they went inside; last year our teacher told us they went outside. I don’t think anyone knows where the hell to put them, to be honest!

  About halfway through the class, I got up and left the room. This too was my normal morning routine as I had one of those very lenient teachers who didn’t require us to ask permission before using the restroom or anything. Eating and drinking before class usually lead to me needing a quick break before it was over.

  Here is where my life started to fall apart.

  Unknown to me, around the time I went into the restrooms, someone called the police office and informed them that there was a bomb at one of the schools. They didn’t specify which one, and they hung up just a few moments before I came back out of the restroom. Security footage showed that my movement matched the timeline perfectly, so that was one strike against me.

  The accusation was I called in the bomb threat while in the restroom, and since there are no cameras inside the restroom, I couldn’t prove that I didn’t. I showed that my phone didn’t have any call history of calling the police, but it didn’t matter. Since it was a local call, the cell company didn’t store or keep records of those calls – they only kept records of long distance calls – and they claimed I could easily just delete the call from my own phone history.

  I fit the timeline, thus, I was the one who called in the bomb threat. Strike one.

  I’d barely gotten back into the classroom before the fire alarm had gone off and we were all told to calmly exit the building and wait outside. Drills weren’t anything unusual, so no one thought anything of it. I went in, got my book, and followed the rest of my class out and to the parking lot. The only thing that was really any different this time was that the principal came by and told us to stand a little further from the building, but it wasn’t a big deal. It certainly wasn’t anything that stood out enough to make us think there was an actual problem anywhere.

  Time dragged on and firetrucks and police vehicles arrived with flashing lights. It was at this point that we all started to wonder if anything was up. Somebody passed the message that a bomb threat had come in, and it was actually an exciting moment! Better than class anyway!

  Our school was located on top of a large hillside and one of the elementary schools was at the bottom of the hill. Just by walking over near the road, we could see that there were firetrucks and police vehicles all down at the elementary school as well. Their students were all lined up and out at the edge of the parking lot as well. Some of the kids were waving and shouting down at their little brothers or sisters, and in its own way, it was almost a festive atmosphere.

  We were stuck outside for half an hour or more, while the police dogs and all did a search of the building, and traffic was backed up and blocked out of sight by the time they finally declared our school safe. The officer holding up traffic finally motioned for vehicles to start moving on again, and that’s when my second strike occurred.

  I looked up from my book and from the corner of my eye, I saw catastrophe abou
t to occur! One of the drivers was distracted and swerving slowly towards the curb; while one of the students was still standing there and waving to their family at the bottom of the hill. I yelled, but no one paid any attention to me, and without even thinking, I dashed out across the short distance between us to grab the girl and pull her back away from the curb and danger.

  And that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Have I mentioned I was overweight? Almost fat – well, if I’m honest, and I promised to be while writing this – I AM fat.

  Fat people don’t run very well. We get out of breath easily. We don’t have good balance.

  Instead of rushing up and grabbing her arm as my mind intended, I ran up, lost my balance, and fell right as I got near the girl. (Even now, I can’t write her name. My guilt just won’t let me.)

  I didn’t heroically save her from a swerving car. Instead, I lost my balance, slammed into her, and knocked her out into the middle of the road – where she was broadsided by one of the irate drivers in the other lane who was trying to speed away from the hold up.

  The driver in the other lane panicked and instead of hitting the breaks and stopping, they slammed the gas down and dashed down the road, up on the curb, and went air born. When the car came down, it crashed into the side of some tanker that was hauling some sort of flammable fuel – at my trail they said it was keyotone, acetone, propanone, or something like that; I think it’s similar to paint thinner – and it gushed out and everywhere.

  The truck flipped, the tanker broke loose, and down the hillside it rolled – spraying fuel left and right as it flipped and tumbled! End over end it went, and then fire shot heavenward and hell itself erupted all around us!

  The spinning, flaming, ball of wreckage tumbled down the hill and into the young kids and their teachers who couldn’t react fast enough to get out of the way. The tanker itself rolled right through them and flipped into the back side of the elementary school – hitting it in the worst possible place – as that’s where the propane tanks were located for the science classrooms and such. An explosion went off so loud it deafened us up at the top of the hill and flaming bricks and debris came raining down from the sky like a volcano had gone off.

  123 children, 17 teachers, 2 administrators, 8 police, 11 firefighters, and 2 k-9 units all died in the fiery inferno that resulted. Almost all of the children were ten and under. And that’s not counting the number of people who were injured in the incident.

  And my third strike?

  I survived without any major injuries.

  Video footage showed me going into the restroom. It was shown that I could have been the one who made the bomb threat – which ended up being fake all along. A couple of students had been recording things on their phones outside, and from their perspective, it seemed as if I’d deliberately ran and shoved the girl out into traffic.

  And people wanted someone to blame. They were hurting. The largest school horror in the history of the world – and the media all pointed to me being responsible for it.

  I was tried as an adult. They found me guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, (continue reading guilty for several hundred more times as I really don’t feel like writing it and my time is getting short), and I received the death penalty. No lawyer really wanted to take my case and defend me – The Inferno School Slayer – and my appeals didn’t last long.

  I haven’t even turned twenty yet, and I’m going to die at midnight.

  In fact, they’re coming for me now.

  My time is up. I’m not really a bad guy, and I didn’t intend for anyone to die. I was honestly trying to save a life, not cause the death of so many!

  My guilt is terrible, and my heart is shattered. I only wish my parents didn’t have to continue suffering once I’m gone. I was hoping they wouldn’t come to see my final moments, but the guards have already told me they’re here and waiting.

  I just hope my death will bring some peace to everyone else. I hope my parents can move on and recover.

  And I hope God doesn’t judge me as harshly as society and the courts have. If He does, I’m destined to spend eternity in a pool of liquid fire. Of course, maybe that’s where I actually belong – after all, it was my fault that so many others felt the pain of fire.

  I refused the priest’s last rites, cried like a baby as they strapped me to the gurney, and whimpered as a hot burning rush ran up my arm and towards my heart. I’d been told that there was some medicine to numb the body and make a person go to sleep before the second shot was administered, but I guess for a monster like me they don’t bother with that so much.

  Pain traveled up my arm. My heart tightened, burned, and finally quit beating.

  I died.

  And that’s where my story really begins!

  Reward or Punishment?

  As my heart quit beating, blackness engulfed my senses. Time slowed and then finally stopped. For an indeterminate period of time, there was a simple nothingness around me.

  And then the silence was broken by laughter.

  Soft, quiet little laughter that gently seemed to pull me towards it at first. As the feeling of moving in the nothingness towards the laughter increased, the sound got louder and more manically. After a bit, it no longer sounded soft and gentle, but instead came across as being wild and menacing.

  Abruptly, the dark nothingness disappeared and I was surrounded by a ring of light. Floating in the center of this light was what I could only describe as a medieval style jester. It was a guy, of indeterminate age – I couldn’t really say if he looked old or young honestly – in a set of rainbow patchwork coveralls. His wrists and ankles were covered in deep purple ruffles and he had one of the fool’s hats with a dozen bells hanging from it around his face.

  “HIYA!” He flipped twice in midair and the sound of bells jingling echoed in the nothingness around us.

  Suddenly he disappeared from where he was floating and appeared directly in front of me and grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down enthusiastically.

  “IT WENT BOOM!” He exclaimed all at once and then flipped in the air again while laughing like a madman. “POW! ZOOM! BANG!”

  “IT WAS PRETTY!” He flipped. He disappeared from thin air, and then he reappeared off to the side, where he flipped and did a midair summerset all at once. Bells tinkled and jingled all around and he laughed that crazy laughter once again.

  “Who… What?” I was lost. I was dead, and yet I was here before this…

  What the hell was I standing in front of any way?!

  Was this an angel? God?

  “WHOZAWHATZA TO YOU TOO!” The Flipping Fool, as I’m going to refer to it, for now, disappeared and reappeared in front of me and just suddenly kissed me square on the lips!

  “I LIKES YOU!” It told me as it disappeared and fireworks burst all around us.

  He, it, something liked me? Just what the hell was going on here?!

  “Uhm… That’s good, I guess.”

  “IT IS! IT IS GOOD, ISN’T IT!” The Flipping Fool floated up and down five or ten feet in the air in agreement. “GUESS WHAT! GUESS! GUESS!” He was enthusiastically shouting and spinning as he floated up and down in thin air.

  “Umm…” This damn fool was hard to follow. Even while dead, just trying to keep up with it was making me dizzy. “What?”

  “O…” He just suddenly stopped floating and crashed down with a loud ring of bells and flopped as if he’d hit a floor which I couldn’t see or feel.

  “That’s just mean!” He pouted at me and pooched his lower lip out where it quivered. It almost looked as if The Flipping Fool was going to cry.

  “Wha?” What the heck did I do?!

  “You guessed it.” He was definitely pouting.

  “Guessed what?” I was lost.

  “EXACTLY!” He flew up and down and stomped his feet a few times on nothing. “You really are a meanie-weenie, aren’t you?”

  And then all at once he burst out in laughter and spun around with fireworks
flying out of his ass while the sound of bells tinkling rung like temple gongs all around us. “AND THAT’S WHY I LUVS YOU!!”

  “Since ya’s done guessed what, then I suppose all that’s left is the reward!” He disappeared and reappeared in front of me and kissed me again on the lips.

  “Reward?” What the hell was going on!

  “Uh huh! I just wanted to watch all the pretty lights go round and round on the car thingies, and listen to the pretty wooo woooo woooo they make, but you made it better! It went boom! And bing! And zing! And colors went WHOOSH! It was PURTY!” He disappeared and reappeared several times , blinking left and right around me.

  “And besides, it’ll be fun to steal you from that old stuffy-duffy of your peoples! He’s so dull and boring and stupid. Just one place for good people and then a stupid old lake of fire for the bad? BORE BORE BORING!!” The Flipping Fool bent over and flames shot from his ass towards the sky as a loud farting sound echoed in the nothingness.

  “NANNER NANNER! STUPID OLE GODDY GOD CAN’T STOP ME!” He spun. He twirled. He disappeared. Fireworks erupted all around. He reappeared and kissed me once more.

  This time, when his lips moved away from mine, the nothingness and everything in it disappeared. Pain flooded my body and I found myself being held in two gigantic hands.

  “Zifwa ka Boota!” came to my ears and hurt them. A sudden ringing pain stuck my ass and I cried out.

  The sound I made was weak and feeble – it was a baby’s pitiful cry.

  I had been reborn!

  Learning to Crawl

  The next six months or so was a terrible experience for me. All I could do is lay and kick while crying and pooping myself. At first, I wasn’t even strong enough to lift my own head and look around – all I could do is basically just sit where people put me and wait until they came back for me. My only lifeline of joy was the time each day when I could suck on a soft, warm breast as much as I wanted. The only drawback to my enjoyment was knowing that it was probably my mother’s breast, and somehow that took a lot of pleasure out of it.