Up From Death

It was cold. There was no more day, just cloud coated darkness. The wind tossed the loose landscape. The end had come and gone, and the silent new world was made of ash. Despair had prevailed. It had overcome all. From the beginning it was patient, but persistent. Never did it rest from tormenting the world. More and more quickly Despair entered the hearts and minds of mankind. As Despair ushered the last of them unto death, it would leave them behind and gather itself in the hollows of a mountain. In time, Despair became substance. He was a swirling cloud of thick-black-smoke, and his perfume was the stench of the dead. Once the last fume had reached the massing of himself, Despair peered into the eternal night over the barren wasteland from the cliff of the mountain. It was finished. Despair enjoyed the eerie silence. Only the cold wind could be heard screaming through the crevasses in the rocks and in valleys between the mountains. Satisfied, Despair descended deep into a cave, for he had worked tirelessly since his inception thousands of millennia prior, but now he would sleep. He dreamt about his completed work, his masterpiece, by reviewing every memory he had gathered from man. With a smile, he fell into slumber and watched his reign of terror begin again.

Man had sinned and did for himself with selfish intent. Fear, guilt and anger flooded him and birthed Despair. As a fountain-pen injection into a glass of pure water, so Despair entered the heart of man. He beheld man for the first time, and saw man as weak, destructive and best of all, selfish. He watched as man experienced the new and devastating emotion. The man wept and fled from Despair, but in vain he did so, for though Despair watched the man flee, his power went with him. Suddenly Despair felt a warm, tingling sensation on his palms. He looked and they were covered in blood. “What have you done?”, he heard a voice from behind say. He turned, and there was a female being. Her hair and skin were a bluish-white, and her eyes were white fire. She knelt next to a dead little girl. The being stared down at her hands which were also covered in blood. She looked up at Despair. Her expression and tone were no longer sorrowful but angry. “What have you done?!”, she demanded. Despair smirked, “What have I done? I have introduced man to his destiny. He is destructive and self-seeking. Evil is his greatest and only potential, and I shall usher him through the valley of my shadow. He will perish and I will take pleasure in plunging his mind into darkness and destroying his soul.” “You are wrong” she said firmly. “Man’s potential is far greater than you could ever understand. Man is capable of good, and he can create a better world. There is an abundance of life in and around him. He just needs to see and understand it. I will show man, and I will show you.” She looked back down at her hands and the child. Despair turned away, “You’re a fool for thinking you can save them”, he said, “They are incapable of breathing new life into another, as you say, for they will be better at taking life, and consuming their own soul in the process. They will destroy one another. This world will be consumed in fire and man with it. I’ll show you who they really are” Despair turned back to the woman, but she and the girl’s body had vanished. Only a sapling was present were the child laid. It had three golden leaves.

When Despair’s power gathered itself in the end, it brought with it all memories of its influence, so he was able to view memories he was not directly there to observe, for the consciousness of Despair could not be everywhere at once, but his power spread like a disease, a pandemic of the soul. His power ruled and blinded man, a dystopia of the mind. It blanketed the earth. As He moved through his memories, he relived each one. He passed through the history of the world and watched as his power slowly and painstakingly consumed man. He blinded man and turned their hearts inward. Despair did not concern himself with those who would not pass through his shadow. There were plenty weak enough who entertained him with their folly. Man would rise and overcome, and man would fall, but in the grand view, mankind always took two steps closer to death and one step back to life. Despair watched his masterpiece play out. He saw each brushstroke of blood streak across his canvas of time. He had painted the perfect portrait of death and destruction. How satisfying it was to Despair for him to see the fulfillment of his proclamation to that foolish being who cleaved to the idea that man was good and full of life. Where was she? What had she done? Never once did Despair notice crossing paths with her again, but that did not matter. He was right, she was wrong, and the world fell to Despair.

After eons of memories, Despair was near the end of the last century of the living world. Ruins everywhere. Man had become animals, and the animal and vegetation kingdoms had become scarce. The sun scorched the day, and death’s cold kiss pressed against the night. Few were sane, most sought blood and carnage. Man knew death and forced it upon one another, and though he stood erect and walked, there was no life in him. In this last chapter of memories, Despair chose to view the lives of those who desperately held on to sanity as his power pressed in around them. One by one, He watched as they met their bitter end. Whether it be by the hands and teeth of a savage, the cold of the night or the loneliness of heart. He witnessed, just before life fled from their body, the evidence in their dying eyes that death was the destiny of man.

As he ascended from his subconscious state, Despair was full of pride, he was completely satisfied with the world’s destruction, and its eternal descent into darkness. Upon waking, he noticed his strength and presence had dwindled significantly. Before he had slept, he filled the cave with his smoky blackness. Now, as Despair looked at his hands, they appeared as bone covered in charred skin. A breeze came through the tunnel that led to the cave opening. The breeze was warm. Darkness rushed out of the cave and came to the cliff he had gathered himself upon, and horror overcame Him. The sky was blue and speckled with clouds. The land below was lush and green. Rivers flowed, birds sang, and life was abundant. In disbelief, Despair walked to the edge of the cliff where a lush tree now grew, and he stood in the tree’s shadow as he observed a world full of life and light. “You slept five times the millennia you were awake, my dark friend.” Startled, Despair looked up and saw the bluish white being sitting on a limb in the tree above. He climbed up to a limb that stuck out parallel to hers, and he listened to her as he climbed. “You were blinded by your own darkness, for I was with man as much as you were. I guided those who looked for me, and I showed them the life in them and around them just as I told you I would. I was with man, and I was with life itself, pushing both on to their potential. They carried me, and I showed them. Even after man, I was with the life buried deep beneath the ash and I guided it until the earth was ready again, and I have been here pushing life to go on again. This world and its inhabitants have formed without you, Despair, and your power has dwindled for you were not present to promote it.” “I will overtake them again,” Despair said with frustration, “They will succumb, and I will destroy them!” He collapsed and almost fell. He was weak, and powerless and the task ahead suddenly became overwhelming and daunting. “Save yourself”, the being said, “This world has matured without you. It will detect your presence and snuff you out quickly. Some of your fumes left the cave and entered a few here, but they quickly overcame, for I showed them the evil your power bore. This world has overcome your power, and since it has overcome you, it no longer needs me, for though we worked against one another, we are dependent on each other to go on.” Despair looked over and noticed that the being looked frail and aged, almost transparent. She looked him in the eye, and she could see his question. “I am Hope, and my promise to show this world life has been fulfilled. You, Despair are the one who has lost, for you blindly fell to your own destructive power of selfishness and promotion of death.” She looked away, “As your end has drawn near, I now know that my end comes swiftly.” Despair looked back out to the living world. He could feel a heavy weakness. His body was becoming transparent, and he felt an unbearable, tormenting feeling burning inside. Failure consumed him, and his continuation was futile. His purpose could no longer be served, and Despair felt an ever-growing emptiness within. He lost all strength and fell from the branch and continued passed the cliff. He looked up and saw that Hope fell with him. They fell through a lush forest canopy and landed amongst the trees. Hope reached for Despair’s hand as they faded together. They heard rustling and a child giggle in a tree nearby. Despair looked and a large tree covered in golden leaves stood near them, and from its lowest branch a little girl jumped down and ran towards them. “Hope, is that not the girl who was dead at our beginning, and whose blood was upon our hands?” “It is she.” Hope said with a smile, “Now that we will pass, she lives again.” The girl knelt between them and caressed their faces. She spoke to them both. “Rest now, for your war is over, and just as I come to you now so shall I come to this world, and I will be with it and its people forevermore.” Hope smiled, closed her eyes and vanished. The girl looked into Despair’s eyes. She reached up to the neckline of her dress and pulled out a necklace with a heart shaped locket, she opened it and brought it close to Despair’s face. He did not realize it at first, but the pain within was so intense that tears had formed and ran down his cheeks. The girl scooped the tears from his cheeks into the locket, brought it back to herself and clicked it shut. Suddenly there was silence. The breeze rustled the leaves and birds were singing, but there was silence in Despair’s soul. He felt the hole within close, and all became well. As Despair faded without fear, he spoke, “You have removed my pain and you have restored my soul. Who are you, my child?” He felt the warmth in her eyes as she smiled. “I am Peace.”