The Flash: Savitar's Rebirth

Chapter 5

THE BOOK OF THE BLACK
THE BURNED IN THOUGHTS OF WILLIAM HAND:

CHAPTER 1, VERSE 1   

 "Why do they bury bodies six feet under?" I asked my father as he oversaw the digging of my grandmother's grave. He told me of a plague. A black death that turned the streets into a morgue and the world into a graveyard. There was panic and fear. The corpses were ordered to be buried six feet under to slow down the outbreak. I dreamt of the plague that night. Of blistering and hemorrhaging that turned my skin black. Buried in the darkness like the others. Undisturbed. At Peace. But my father said there was no peace for the dead back then. When the plague passed, the corrupt would remove the tombstones and reuse the graves. With the dead six feet beneath the ground, they would bury a new coffin above the other. Bodies stacked on top of bodies buried every two feet. My father was an honest man. He never would have disrupted those at rest. he buried everyone properly. Six feet under. In St. Roch, they buried their dead above ground.

I had never been to the city Hawkman and Hawkgirl called home. In fact, I had never been to the south, nor did I care to be. Their humidity, mosquitoes and deep fried meats were not for me. But the voice of death brought me to this city. I walked through upside-down graveyards. Cracked caskets and neglected tombs protruded above the ground. The water levels were too high and flooding would push the coffins out of the ground. They would float down the streets. It was a common problem here in St. Roch. The dead leaving their graves. There was no six feet under in St.Roch. Death took me through the alleys, to a place glowing with the most brilliant luminance of violet light. A love emanating from within a museum filled with possessions and artistic accomplishments of the dead. Was that not all a museum was? A graveyard of people's lives? Of things they thought they would forever need? I wish I had time for a tour. I heard shouting. The arguments echoing into the night. I watched the silhouettes of winged figures clash across the windows. I wondered why these two people were of importance above so many others. And suddenly, I knew. I knew everything as darkness enveloped my sight for the briefest of moments. Death told me their love alluded him.

Thousands of years ago, these two had ruled over a desert kingdom. They fell in love. A love that mirrored the fossilized devotion within the heart of the star sapphire's power battery. Yet the love between Hawkman and Hawkgirl, like so many others, became a curse. They were betrayed and murdered by a man seeking to claim their kingdom. Their essence did not return to the darkness. Instead, they were reborn into warm flesh. They found one another again. And when their love was at its height, died together again. There was no peace for Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders. Today, there are no bodies to be buried in St. Roch. There are no caskets to fill above or below ground. There is a new black death migrating across the world. And it will restore the universe to its primordial state of bliss where love and their curses will no longer exist. Where peace will wash over it all. Where darkness allows us all to rest. There will be no six feet under anywhere. There won't have to be. Love will soon be dead.

 RAGE IS NEXT.

-credit to Geoff Johns who created The Book of The Black

     "Grundy was just spotted near Ace Chemicals." Ralph spoke as Hal sighed lightly standing up over a body bag lying beside his feet.

      "We need to stop him before he causes anymore damage." He expressed as both he quickly took to the sky, zooming over into the direction of Ace Chemicals as Ralph started following his way behind Hal at a slower pace.