“Do you know what Deom’s notebooks are worth?”

“No,” Marcus annoyingly spat back while marching down the prison corridor. “And I don’t want to know.”

“Come on, Marcus,” Carpenter pressed, close on his friend’s heels.

“Will you leave me alone and just go start your shift?”

“You have access. Just take one. One. I’ve already found interested parties. The money they’re offering is enough to get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t care what they’re offering.” Marcus stopped and spun around to confront his fellow guard. “I don’t want anything to do with the man.”

“Are you really that fucking stupid or just a pussy?”

“Unlike you, I still have my integrity. When did you lose yours?”

“Christ, Marcus, wake the fuck up! Do you want to spend the rest of your life dealing with these shitheads? Living out here in the goddamn desert? No future. No possibility. For all we’ve suffered, we’re due!”

“You really are screwed in the head, aren’t you? Do you want to end up in here with these people?”

Carpenter snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’m only coming to you because you’re a friend. But if I have to, I will go around you. I’m not giving up this opportunity.”

“Do what you gotta do, Carpenter,” Marcus stated, turning his back and continuing down the corridor. “It’ll be your ass.”

“Yeah?” Carpenter shot back. “Well it will be well worth the price."

***

Lost in an increasingly formless realm with but the flashing gasps of wisps serving as harbingers to an encroaching bleakness, Herbert held his head in quaking hands. Bruised and battered, his sanity crumbling, he struggled to hold himself together as a silhouette mutely watched.

“Would to God that all people were prophets.” Deom’s words thundered in the silence.

“Why?” Herbert croaked, eyes averted, the word burning his dry throat. “To see our own ruin. What good is life if you know it is destined to fail?”

"Exactly. And though you face tribulation, be of good cheer," Luke solemnly professed to Herbert from his cell. "All shall be overcome."

“No,” Herbert replied, shivering in the dark. “We succumb.”

Luke’s shadow sagely nodded. "They can be cruel, can they not?"

Herbert’s head slowly rose, his split lip wrinkled in a grimace. "What?"

"You suffer. I can see it etched in your face so deeply that it has carved itself into your very bones. But why wallow in sorrow? Do you realize that depression is nothing more than rage spread thin?"

"What would you know about it?" Herbert retorted, jutting out his jaw. "Huh, you fuck?"

"I know that blessings alone do not open our eyes. I understand that the will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. And I accept that pain is never permanent for everything fades." Luke took a step forward, his face emerging from the blackness. "The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering. Without it, nothing holds value."

"Are you so bereft of sympathy?"

“My sympathy is only excited by the misery of life,” Luke responded with a sneer of cold command. “Adversity introduces a man to himself. It turns him away from the flesh, toward the mental; toward the spiritual. It is a purifying experience; an initiation into a new state. So why flee from suffering? Do you wish to run all your life toward that unreachable horizon, forever driven by mortal pain? Stand strong, brave the storm, or else be at the mercy of forces for all eternity as you are now.

“Even now I can see them lingering around you. Hear their whispers, urging you to hear me." Luke cocked his head, pausing briefly. "Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can. Dreams and anguish have brought us together.” The dangling bulbs above angrily buzzed and flared, their strobing seeming to slow time until it ceased. “You cannot go. Not yet. We are not finished.”

"It’s like being lost in a dream," Herbert rasped.

"They think the same thing. Only it is a dream from which they cannot escape." Luke crossed to the other side of the cell, stepping forward to embrace the bars. "The lingering Unaussprechlichen. Lennartz tried to convince me they weren’t real. He was wrong." Deom cocked an eyebrow. "But he was right on one point. They are part of me as they are a part of you. They are the antithesis of us, enduring our world that they may show us truths.

"They tormented me to capture my attention. So few can hear them or see them lest they open their souls to them. And through Edmund, my heart was thrown open. Through my work, I have learnt their secrets as well as much, much more. And my destiny which they presaged is at hand."

"Which is?"

The unsteady amber glow of Death Row pulsed and crackled like fire. A throbbing filled Herbert’s head. Yet the drumming did not break his focus on Deom; the pounding rhythm at his temples only intensified his concentration casting everything else away from consciousness. Luke’s eyes were pools of shadow within which embers danced. He thrust his shoulders back and stood tall, seeming to grow ever larger filling the darkness as a deific aura emanated from this post-modern shaman.

“In the beginning, there was but a single particle. Purest innocence. It was raw power. Unfocused. Unthinking. No shape or certainty. It simply was. Divine simplicity. Immortal possibility. All was one with it. There was no you and I. No separation. There was only the One. The Source.

“But then it stirred. It found consciousness.” Luke’s eyes widened. “And that first thought was a question, the first question, from which existence was willed into being. In so doing, God surrendered his immortality, venturing into the void.

“The universe is nothing more than that single particle, caught in a cycle of death and rebirth. An existence built of corpses. Life culled from life. But we do not see this because we are creatures of crude primitive flesh, lost in a dream. All we are capable of seeing is what waits before us: approaching death. Because of that, fear arises. Fear of the void. Fear of what waits. It is this fear that drives some so mad that they refuse to ever wake, believing falsely in the dream. And like those smoldering cinders that wander oblivion," Luke’s hand motioned to the sky, "Many find themselves lost.

“Do you want to know what lurks in the void? The desperate dead, spiritual cannibals ever hungry for more life, so ravenous for the lie they devolve into pathetic things that are nothing more than the epitome of appetite; feeding on each other, even us to prolong their miserable state. They fear the Light which beckons to them. Refuse the cycle. Hold tightly to their failing individuality.

“None of this should be.” Luke slapped the bars with his palm, the metal thrumming. “This Creation is an abomination, a mockery of the Light. Worlds built of shadow and dust. And these lost have cried out to me to usher in an end, to wake us from the dream. I have sworn to send them back. I will send us all back and usher in the end, for I am the last. The shepherd meant to guide us on our final journey."

"You’re fucking crazy," Herbert spat, breaking the spell.

Luke flinched. Then his visage twisted, pale flesh mottling with anger as he railed, “Are you so pathetic as to think these clay vessels are the culmination of Existence? These bodies were conceived of the fallen ashes of a dying Light. We are composed of decay and harbor that destructiveness within us because, subconsciously, we want to be free. To return to the Source. Wake from the dream.

"In our own way, we play God. You can see it in our nature, our ruinous tendencies. We create only to raze. Start only to finish. We dim the stars. We should surrender all to the abyss. Let our mockery of the Light end.

“So many believe that when we die there is a Heaven where we can continue to exist. But there is no Heaven. No Elysian Fields. There is only the void. And unless we cast off our individuality we can never return. Never be free. Is that what you wish? To be a spiritual exile lost in a hell of your own making? Do not give substance to the illusion. Find peace in stripping yourself of life, casting off the lie.

"As long as we are drawn to this life, we will never escape it. How many have emerged from their shells to be driven mad by absence? And these lost, unable to pass on, linger here becoming them. Wraiths. Ghosts. Shadows.

“They are angry, angry at their cursed, senseless immateriality. This perceived betrayal dealt them by the Light but fostered by their own vanity. And so they clutch desperately at life, lost in the void, blind to the Light. Yet they hunger for a taste of the Light, starving in the darkness. So they feed on us, feed to be.

“You see, in death there is only emotion; it is the sole way to exist. There are no nerves. No hands. No flesh. Nothing. All the dead have are emotions and memories. An echo of what was that keeps their consciousness from passing. With time their memories fade and their finer emotions fail, succumbing to that spiritual numbness. Losing themselves to it, maddened by the numbness, they become fiercer, angrier. Flare brightly in the dark. Push their emotions to manic levels in order to feel anything, to preserve their dissolving souls. And even then, eventually, it is not enough. So they turn to us in their rage, focusing their fury on the living and reaping our fear. Gathering cults and becoming strong on the devotion of their acolytes, promising miracles and protection for their guidance. And what it led to in ancient times…

“There is a reason that so many cultures believe in an ancient cataclysm, the Flood. It was a true event, an attempt by the Unaussprechlichen to unmake our world, to end all life. That was always their intention, for in the end existence is madness and the hubris of immortality shall ever fall to mortal tragedy. The dead, these would-be gods, grew jealous of the life they could never have again. They tired of the dream but knew not how to wake up, lost so long in the darkness, unable to look back. So they sought the only solution offered to lost life: an end to all things.

“The power the dead wielded was immense. They captured the fire of the skies,” Luke grasped at the air and brought his fists crashing down, “and brought it streaking to Earth. They cracked the glacial sheets, created an all-consuming deluge of flame, ash, and raging water. Their hatred was so strong, one last sensation before the numbness consumed them. And the world burned with it, blackening the skies. The oceans surged in unstoppable waves washing civilizations away. Millions were swallowed. That flood of death was so immense that it carried the dead with it back to the Source in a violent torrent as fragile reality sundered and all seemed at an end.

“Life dimmed and nearly vanished, yet a spark held in the ash; one single glowing ember. But it was an ember fueled by fear. From the survivors sprinkled across a near dead world new cultures arose. They struggled to carry on, finding themselves alone in a dark and dangerous realm surrounded by treacherous shadows. Death seemed ever so close and threatening. Life was fragile. This great fear eventually ingrained itself into the subconscious of future generations. Man became distrustful of Nature, sure of her culpability in the Flood. He built fortresses against her. Cities.

“Attempts were made to understand the murderous turn of the dead. But these attempts were lost over time and only now are remembered as myths and fables. The shadows became pantheons of gods, their earthly incarnations and true ties to this world forgotten. Once worshipped as bringers of Life, the gods took on a cruel, flawed, and unknowable form; beings who viewed the living with derision and abused us for their own enjoyment. Who could only be appeased by sacrifice lest they try to consume the world again, for surely they wanted our blood. Some vaguely remembered the origin of shadow which gave rise to the worship of dead ancestors, for they subconsciously remembered it was the dead that sought their demise.

“Man turned against the natural order. He withdrew from Earth’s bosom, fearful of her smothering embrace. He separated himself from Existence seeing the world, the void, and the Light as enemies who must be conquered. It is fear that has driven us to rape our mother.

“With the balance lost, Man has found his own path away from Nature, the Light, and the void. He has created unnaturally, crafted sterile worlds of steel and glass. Gone are the gods. Technology is our new faith by which we mean to twist the cosmos in our grip, to our rule!" Luke clenched his fist tightly, holding it in front of him like a holy relic, the knuckles white.

“It is all around us! You need only look to see the natural fall to the artificial. We have given ourselves longer lives, unnatural abilities, knowledge once held only by the shadows. We control the Light in an artificial way, enforcing our shapes on an amorphous being, dictating reality. What is is what we choose it to be. We grow stronger. But we are still just children, children who have forgotten the question so consumed with the dream.

"And the dead have gradually returned drawn to our light. Now forsaken and forgotten, weaker than in older times, the shadows have tried to crush humanity through subtler means of manipulation, scorching civilization away with barbarism, trampling knowledge beneath their feet. But humanity rises again stronger, pushing further. We resist them ever more, the Light and the dead.

“We threaten everything with our artificiality.” Luke’s unblinking eyes filled with a vision of the world encased in a grave of concrete and plastic. “I remember the first time I visited New York City, surrounded by gleaming skyscrapers that jutted into the firmament, impaling the sky, malignantly sparkling with the illumination of souls locked within. When I looked to the heavens do you know what I saw? Nothing. A black void. The stars were gone. That is what civilization shall do. Destroy the Light. Destroy the dead. Destroy it all. Create a void. A true void bereft of all that is. True, everlasting death."

Luke paced the cell, gesticulating wildly, thundering to the unseen. "I cannot allow this, cannot allow the living to end the cycle. This is why I must drag the whole of humanity with me into the grave. The cycle must be completed. I must end the fragmentation of Light. I must end the illusion of Life!

“The lost loathe what has come, this human-engineered evolution that neither improves nor ruins but goes sideways. It is a removal of the Light from itself, its very dissection; an eternal imprisonment in flesh and the enslavement of the Light.

“So these dead do their best to encourage our destructive tendencies. They whisper to us from the void. Try to draw the living to them in order to reveal what is to come. Use those open minds as gateways into our reality. They need our belief to grow stronger. They feed off our emotions, the energy we create. They will use us to destroy us.

“We must relieve ourselves of our reason and emotion, surrender this illusion of individuality and transcend."

"So you would kill us to save us?" Herbert accused, leaping from his chair.

Luke halted his pacing to stare fiercely at Herbert. "There is no us. Don’t you understand? Life is abominable, feeding on others in order to continue on. Do you not see the blasphemy it has fostered on the ravenous dead?

“And you. Do you think yourself who you were ten years ago? Five years ago? Even one year ago? No. You are not that man. Not one single cell. To survive, you ate and drank and replenished those parts of yourself that were dying. Consumed life. Made those things a part of you, subject to your will. And what you once were is long past.

"And that is what I have done. As I devour the flesh of my victims, each soul passes through the Vishuddha," Luke rubbed his throat, "and are purified, becoming a part of me, subject to my will. Bonded to me. And I gather strength from them."

"You…fed on your victims?"

"I do not feast on death," Luke countered. "I consume life. Like you. How else do you think I have found the strength to battle my enemies? Mazda has ordered this of me. In time, I will be powerful enough to negate all others. I will draw all together and we shall jointly return to that time before time.

"And you," Deom’s face took on a look of horrific fanaticism. "You will spread His word."

"Like hell I will!" Herbert shouted.

“Do you think I can complete this task alone?” Luke’s tone was woeful and soaked with tears of sorrow dripping down pale cheeks. “I am but the catalyst setting things in motion. Others have helped me. You must help me as well or all is lost.”

***

“Move it along you lazy bastards,” Officer Bud Conway prodded, prowling the kitchen during dinner shift. “You got a job to do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the prison crew absently replied, gowning up.

“Don’t yeah me. Hurry the fuck up! Dinner’s in an hour. And don’t let me catch you trying to steal trash bags again, Martinez.”

Pots clanging, the stoves starting to sizzle, Bud nodded as Clyde Darrows, a fellow officer, emerged from the back. “Hey Bud-“

“What the hell do you need?” Bud snapped. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Clyde pulled Bud aside. "I have to show you something."

Bud quickly cut Clyde off. “Whatever it is it’ll wait. If I don’t keep on these shitters they’ll take forever. Probably rob the kitchen blind as well.” Something caught Bud’s eye stealing his attention away. “Damnit, Lucas. You don’t need that much sugar.”

Lucas, arms full, pleaded with the guard. “C’mon chief, have you tasted Pollock’s cooking?”

"Hey fuck you, Lucas," Pollock shouted from his station.

Bud was not giving an inch. “We have a budget. Now put some of that back. And you watch your mouth, Polack. The only thing I want you stirring up is stew.”

"It’s Pollock," the con muttered under his breath, eyeing the tenderizer.

Bud noticed Clyde was still standing next to him. “What the hell is your problem? Shouldn’t you be on rounds?”

"I really need to talk to you."

"What is so important that it can’t wait?"

“Follow me.” Clyde led on, the two guards pushing past inmates dashing to and fro. Clyde dodged his way through the chaos, Bud simply shoving aside anyone who proved an obstacle.

"There." Clyde pointed at the large walk-in freezer.

"Yeah?" Bud asked. "So what’s the problem?"

Clyde grabbed the handle and jerked it open. "There," he repeated, gesturing inside.

Bud blinked in annoyed confusion. "Ok, am I missing something here?"

"Don’t you feel it?"

"What?" Bud asked, aggravated. He did not have time for this.

"The temperature."

Bud thrust his hand into fridge. "It feels cold to me."

"Look at the thermometer."

Bud glanced up at the red digital panel. The temp was ten degrees above normal. "That can’t be right."

"Now listen."

After several seconds, "I don’t hear anything."

"Exactly. The motor is dead."

"Wait." Bud looked from the fridge to Clyde. "You’re telling me-"

"The motor is fried. This bitch is gonna get hot."

"The food is going to spoil. Great, just fucking great." Bud removed his hat and briefly thought the situation over. "Can we move it to one of the other refrigerators?"

Clyde shook his head. "No can do."

"Why’s that?"

"Because the other refrigerators are fried too."

Bud kicked the steel wall. "Fuck!"

"Yeah, I know."

"How did this happen?"

Clyde shrugged. "Gremlins, how the fuck should I know?"

"Warden ain’t gonna like this."

Some of the cons had gathered behind the pair to see what was going on. Bud spun around. "Get back to work you worthless bastards. We got a meal to put on the table. Go on!" They scattered throughout the kitchen area, disappearing into the steam. "And tell Polack to use less seasoning. Air stinks with it. I can hardly breathe in here as it is with you funky bastards."

Clyde leaned forward, lowering his voice. "What are we gonna do, Bud?"

"What are we gonna do? Watch these bastards starve." Bud calmly replaced his hat. "That’s what we’re gonna do."

***

Herbert reclined against his car in the motel parking lot, gazing off toward the horizon, peering into that endless sky yearning for a glimpse behind the veil. But no divine hand emerged to sweep it aside. All he was faced with was emptiness. Despite his protestations, the sun fled and the firmament turned cyanotic. The heavens darkened as day passed into night, and the abyss soon yawned above him.

How the stars shone in the darkness begging his attention; a realm of gods and legends. That is what it had once been. Now? It was the source of mystery, a horrific mystery. Like a child, he stretched in futility towards the night sky, but it remained out of reach. The stars were cold cosmic dust, carelessly strewn dreams slipping through his fingers.

Herbert discovered a macabre reverence for those poor scattered lights. He could not help asking were they once us? Souls lost never to be reclaimed? Would he one day join them?

A storm rumbled off in the distance, presaged by a chilly, biting wind blowing in from the west stirring up the sand of the wastes. Soon the clouds would roll in and obscure the stars leaving all in blackness.

"You have no right," Herbert stated in challenge to the coming storm. "They are all I have." It replied with palpable force: thunderous cracks of lightning that blinded and deafened him, shaking the foundations of the world. The icy gale increased in strength as if trying to snatch him from the earth. He hugged himself closely, fearing what the night held.

There, bathed in the crimson neon of The Oasis, Herbert felt more alone than he had in a long time.

"Hey there." Herbert pivoted toward the sultry voice. Emerging from the unlit periphery, Reeza strutted suggestively his way in the febrile glow; her scuffed boots mincing through the gravel in the failing moonlight. When she reached him, Reeza lightly touched his face in mocking sympathy, stroking his lined cheek before brushing his bottom lip. "You want some company?" she asked coquettishly.

They were all over each other before he even opened the door to his room. Herbert tasted acrid cigarettes beneath the spearmint of her talented tongue. He sucked in her breath, clutched tightly at her waist, pulling her into the blackness with him. The warmth beneath his fingers made his heart beat faster. He had to possess it. Senselessly he groped her as she ground her hips against him.

Taking control, Reeza pushed him down onto the bed and forced her way on top. She spread his shirt open and ran her fingers across his chest. Bending down, she sucked on his nipple and rubbed his limp cock. It rose engorged in blood, throbbing and alive at her touch; a sordid resurrection. Pulling it free, she strangled and throttled his penis, breathing white hot breath on its tip. Leering up at Herbert, she licked her painted lips and went back down.

Swallowing him, her tongue wrapped itself around his shaft. She sucked roughly, her teeth nipping now and again. Her fingers tickled his balls, the orgasmic impulses prickling through his nerves in waves. Herbert grabbed her dry hair tightly, his hips involuntarily thrusting. He fucked her mouth ferociously making her gag, bile infused spit spilling down onto his stomach. The fetid rank of wet pussy fouled the air.

She pulled herself free of his grasp and backed away into the shadows next to the bed. Reeza gripped the zip of her dress and, with a whorish sigh, slowly pulled, a low growl as it parted down the center. Her naked body was pale underneath. Herbert glanced down at her shaved pussy, bare and swollen between her legs, hungry and salivating. Reeza teased him, rubbing her scarlet clit in front of him. Her fingers soon disappeared into her vagina, driving in and out. Herbert gripped the sheets tightly, watching as she finger-fucked herself against the wall, the bitch writhing depravedly out of reach. Slowly opening her eyes, smirking at Herbert’s attention, she pulled her fingers out to lick the cream from beneath her nails.

At his wanton beckoning, Reeza crept forward, mounting the bed and crawling on all fours until she was once more above him, dominating him. She was in complete control. Grabbing his wrists, she held him down and roughly impaled herself on his cock, the two crying out in the night. His dick was forced deep into her feverish pink pit. Reeza rode him hard, her ass slapping with vulgar applause. Herbert was one with this bitch, her coarse panting filling his ears; sweat dripping into his thirsty mouth. He just wanted to fill her. Empty himself. Be empty. Take the life from me, he silently urged.

The slapping of her ass reddened his crotch. His penis throbbed. Her grip tightened on his wrists, the nails burying themselves into the flesh. He squirmed in pain. The heat of passion imploded drawing in his strength.

Struggling against the fugue, Herbert opened his eyes to the abomination atop him. It was the succubus. She humped away, her face skyward to the darkness, grunting like an animal.

"No!" he shouted, pushing her back to pin her to the bed. Wrapping his hands around the bitch’s throat, he fucked her as he choked her. A depraved lust possessed him as he pumped deeper and deeper into her rotted core. Vengeance, depraved vengeance. "Cunt!" he screamed in its face. And as her breathing ceased, he gazed deeply into those milky, vacant eyes and came, releasing an inhuman groan.

But as his senses returned, revulsion overcame him as he saw Reeza dead beneath him. He had killed her.

Next Chapter: Lapsarian