Son of Eternity

by Secrets and Lies

1

He sat there at the kitchen table for more than an hour staring at that Glock 19. Examining every inch of the metal weapon while thinking how it all came to this. His apartment was dark, cluttered and empty as he sat at an old frail table which appeared to be made sometime around the Seventies. He looked over the chrome-colored bullet near the edge of the table, refracting his dismal appearance back at him. His tired arm reached for it and with a steady hand, he placed it closer to the gun.
This poor soul’s name is Zachary–or if you would like, Zack. His life had been grey and dead for years–nothing but tragedy and misfortune followed him. He had tried ever so hard to be like everyone else. Always wearing a fake smile in public, then when getting home he would collapse on the floor in a billow of tears. He hated that his continual depression always got the best of him, bringing his self esteem lower each day. When he was younger, he acted like most of the kids, a little more silent than usual, but still likable and friendly. Over the next couple of years, his parents would get a divorce and soon later his mother, bless her soul, she will have died in a car accident. His dad, the coward Zack called him, left soon after the accident. With no clear reason or motive, he deserted Zack and the mystery of his disappearance only made Zack's hate grow towards him. He and his older brother Jason had to grow up with his grandparents, which wasn't so bad to him; however the past was a scar that couldn't seem to heal properly. The lack of real parental figures is what he blamed most of this on, but not all of it.
Ever since then, Zack's past joys were soon sapped from him and he had become so much more depressed and agitated with himself. He was angry most the time with the way he acted or the things he said out of depression, he punished himself by avoiding human contact for long periods of time, not that it helped in the long run of things. He use to be an honor student, he was blessed with a quick and witty mind, but even that had no help on his progressively worsening condition. Cowardice was a key mistake in his design, something he believed that couldn't be fixed. Zack was now living in a run-down apartment across from his community college. It was falling apart, cockroaches filled the pantries and on top of that, he was three weeks behind on his housing payments. With a wallet sucked dry and friends and family elsewhere, he had planned this day for a very long time, the last day of his life.
The gun he now held was a gift from his grandfather, given to him on his eighteenth birthday. He had only shot the thing a handful of times, just with old friends shooting at glass bottles. Zack had a maniacal thought that made him chuckle a little; the gun he got on the day of the year he was born was about to take his own life. After this quick notion, Zack shuttered at the thought, a quick regretful behavior soon set in. He stopped though, he was persistent and didn’t want to let this moment flee him like it had over and over again. Zack could never work up the courage to kill himself over the months, every time he had tried and failed to deliver his own death, he had regretted it and wanted it more. Zack then released the empty magazine onto the table, he slowly loaded the bullet and clumsily put the magazine back in.
His hand began to moisten with sweat as he thought, "This is it." He saw his glum reflection in the slide of the gun and to him his appearance was pathetic. Zack pulled the slide back and chambered the bullet as a second wave of guilt set in–he tried to ignore it the best he could. He was ready to leave this world, he tried to cope himself into believing nothing could hold him back now. He had never gotten this far, he felt a little proud of himself for once, but it wasn’t over until it was over. He handled the firearm carefully to his head, feeling the cold barrel against his cranium. Then through a sudden mental notion, his emotions broke like a crack in a dam that finally gave way. He took the pistol away from his head quickly and put it out of view. He found himself gasping for air through the amount of shock he just put himself through.
He stood up, leaving the gun on the table to catch his breath. He went over to the kitchen water faucet and turned it on while opening the cabinet and reaching for a clean cup. He pressed the plastic, pale blue cup to his lips as he chugged the water down. After he had drained the cup, he felt a bit more relieved as the cool water made its way into his stomach. While letting the liquid settle inside himself, he lost himself in thought, over-thinking trivial things which numbed his brain. He soon snapped out of it and had almost forgotten about why he was still standing there; he had to finish what he had started, and he planned on doing so now that he was calm again.
He turned around and to his surprise, he was facing the gun again which lay on his flimsy, pine green table. Ironically, the weapon was facing barrel first towards him. Zack stepped forward and kept his eyes on the pistol, thinking that if he looked away, it would shoot him without his consent. He sat down calmly and reached for the gun–this time he didn’t hesitate when he pinned the gun against his head. He just held it there for about a minute, staring off into space, somewhat rethinking his life.
He sat up straight and gripped the gun tighter, he slowly put his finger inside the trigger guard and gentle across the trigger itself. The lights flickered for a split second, but Zack didn’t even realize it it happened so fast. Zack took a deep breath, trying to make himself as relaxed as possible. He then took a much longer breath to make sure it was his last. The lights flickered again and gave off a light buzzing sound. Zack stopped in mid-breath to look up at the light due to curiosity. The light ebbed in brightness and as it began to make a buzzing sound, he moved the gun slightly away from his head.
The light bulb then lit up so bright and the buzzing got so loud it shattered into showering glass. Zack panicked and fell out of the chair. He tried to cover his face with his hands, but when he did, the Glock flew out of his grip and into the corner of the room. The gun hit the tile floor and discharged, firing a hole from his kitchen wall into his living room. Zack flinched and rolled into the closest exit out of the kitchen, which happened to be the living room. He looked up to see where the bullet penetrated the wall when he felt safe from the chaos that ensued. He followed the bullet's path and discovered that the bullet went directly into his laptop screen, which was open in the corner of the room.
“Dammit...” Zack fumed, even though he had no use for it anymore, he still got a little vexed about it without thinking of why he even got angry in the first place. He shook off the undesired emotion and soon noticed that the other lights in his house were buzzing and flickering in random assortment. One by one, each exploded and sent shards of glass in every direction, Zack leaped toward the couch in the middle of his room where no light bulbs were above and vaulted onto the ragged piece of furniture. The light bulbs had soon all bursted and he found himself in the middle of a surprisingly dark room.
He thought it was around six-thirty the last time he checked his phone, which is why the lack of light in his apartment was very strange to him. Zack’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness when he searched from his couch where his clock was. It was usually on top of his TV and after some hesitation, he then realized that it had gone out.
“There must have been an electrical surge,” he whispered to himself, trying to think of what to do next. He shuffled his hands around in his pockets until he found his phone, it too was dead. “Weird.”
Zack stood up promptly and tried to light his lighter to get a little bit of light, but no matter how many times he tried to light it, it wouldn't spark. He figured that the lighter was just out of fluid as he shook the lighter next to his ear to check if his assumption was true. He could however hear the lighter fluid shifting around, and now a great fear began to slowly rise up from within him. Zack flopped back down on his patched up, smoker’s couch and peered into his reflection in the small TV in front of him, trying to rationalize what was going on.
Zack soon realized he felt a strange energy cloak his body like a blanket. It felt like a static charge almost, his arm hairs rose upward and the hairs on the back of his neck rose from both the unknown energy and from fear of the situation. Just as he thought he wasn’t alone, the television began to give off a dark indigo glow of weak static. He could hear an incoherent murmur he thought was coming through the television, but after listening more closely to the noise, he realized the muffled voice was coming from all around him. Zack was now petrified in shock, he couldn’t move in fear of something awful happening. He just sat there, frozen in front of the television in the deep shadows of the room.
He soon recognized that whenever the suppressed voice began to talk, the TV would pulse a tad brighter, and when it would stop talking, the TV would go back to normal. Zack tried to make a few words out, he carefully listened for syllables rather than words to try and help his mind path together the ghostly voice was saying. It almost sounded like a young woman’s voice, but she sounded doleful and frail, yet, familiar.
He then picked up a couple of odd words such as, “Death is not... destiny is... We need... I need... Our world in danger... Your fate... a blessing... this... is... not... the... end... but the beginning.”
In an instant, a piercing white light beamed out of the television screen, blinding Zack. The light stretched across the room and out the apartment windows like spotlights—Zack could feel the intense heat of the sun bear down upon his exposed skin. Zack fastened his eyes as hard as he could, but then, in a strange turn of emotions, he felt a feeling he thought had left him, comfort. He slowly opened his eyes, hands still blocking the brilliance of the glimmering light. He slowly dropped his hands and starred deep into the source of the spectral light, almost as if trying to see the source directly. His eyes felt no pain, his skin had grown use to the heat and he felt his past wounds and scars, physical and mental, evaporate away.
Zack soon felt his body levitate off the couch and into the light through the television. His body soon gained speed as he entered a rounded tunnel of light while stars bent around him. The bright new world began to blur around him and he felt his body now rising skyward at a terrifying, but amazing speed. His body began to seemingly melt away. Slowly—from his toes upward—it was as if he was sinking into a hot tub and all his wounds were being healed. It was a feeling of relaxation no human treatment or high could give someone. As soon as he felt his body finally melt away into a formless spirit-like being, he entered into a new, bright and beautiful world. Without the limitations and frame of his previously constricting form, he felt free and untethered. The last thing thing he heard was the same voice from before; however this time, it was much clearer and human.
She said quietly, “You are entwined with our destiny, and we love you.”