DEMIGODS

Prologue

Hespun in the fog of a daze, his muscles stiff from atrophy, and hefelt uncoordinated, but much more. Body ill in some vague, distantway, he had become something inhuman. Hearing things beyond theaudible spectrum, radio waves, cell-phone data, these spectrasqueaked past low in the distance. Another frequency range churnedinside his guts, a darker spectrum. His mind encapsulated in theblack liquid, he found himself engulfed by the dark-matter catalyst.Crossing over between the two universes, the other side beckoned himwith siren calls.

"What does he mean? Transmogrify?"

His mind overwhelmed to the point of madness, hissenses flared. As he scrutinized his hands, he recalled that his namewas Steve something. His gaze fell upon what remained of thatscientist, a stiff, charred lump in the corner of the floor.

The house's structure had been damaged by somecataclysmic event. Medical machines had crashed across the floor. Onewire was still tethered into his arm. The line snaked back toward asoft blue glow on the floor.

In his mad delirium, Steve tore out the catheterand stepped on to inspect the smoky hallway. Tiptoeing down a woodenstaircase and toward the source of the fire, he squinted to peeracross the concrete cellar. A final stair below him had been mangledfrom some blast event, and it cracked in half.

"Dammit!"

He fell face forward toward the dirty cementfloor. Pressing his hands out to catch himself, his body hovered afoot above the ground. When he reclaimed his bearings, he looked overat the devastation through the dark, caustic smoke.

The force of his will propelled him up and awayfrom the floor. He righted himself. Feet crunched down onto somedebris beneath.

His fingers pinched himself, but his nerves hadall numbed. Steve felt nothing, no temperature. He inhaled, but itseemed unnecessary. A darkened veil had settled before his eyescontorting the light and the colors. A darker reality tingled insideof his body. It coursed and throbbed throughout him with energy tospare. Dark matter forces coiled onto his fibers with each cellensnared. That second engine within him roared of its own accord. Ifit expanded he might explode in a gory mist.

The basement laboratory had cratered down at thepoint of some explosion. The cluttered expanse was littered withmelted glass and contorted steel racks. Steve saw a pulsing yellowglow beneath the wreckage. Minuscule particles crackled randomly likesparklers unleashed, but it was like nothing he'd seen before. Hiseyes registered colors beyond the normal human range.

It dawned on him that he could only see thesethings with his newfound dark vision.

"Is that radiation?"

Steve gawked at the sparklers, and then he quicklyturned and got the hell out of there. Upstairs, the large multi-storyhouse stood intact. The air still smoky, but the building structureseemed salvageable.

Steve attempted a search through his memories torecall who he was and where he'd come from. Inside his smothered mindremained a towering, impenetrable black wall.

"Why am I here?"

His feet stepped up to the home's front door. Whenhe yanked it open, the blinding cyan glare frightened him at first.His eyes rapidly adjusted. His attention locked onto a pile of oldnewspapers left laying on the front porch. He scurried out and pulledthem into his chest. Escaping the oddly colored sun pulsing above,streaked in browns and turquoise, Steve hid from the light backinside the hazy living room.

As he pieced together his location, he forced hiseyes shut again, diving down in a quest to understand his formerlife. Try as he might to break out of the surrounding blackness, hisbrain had been sucked into a kind of black hole.

Steve lay that night upstairs in the scientist'sbed.

Imagining a plan of action, he considered tosimply take over the residence and clean it up, bury the body. He hada positive feeling about working with tools and repairing things, andhe wanted to be useful.

At long last he fell asleep.

That face, the beautiful girl, he knew her. Heloved her purely. But she strolled away with a little boy, a kid. Itwas Cathy and Michael. They turned back and waved him on to invitehim along.

Steve wanted to follow and to stay with them, buthis legs went uselessly limp. Crawling hand over hand, he pulledhimself along the mushy ground to catch up. They refused to slowdown, the woman and the boy, despite his calling.

Soon he was alone and abandoned shivering in thedark. Up in the swirling black sky the dropping rain became shards ofice and hail. The barrage sliced into his arms as he shielded hiseyes in a snow-blind assault.

Jolting out of the scientist's bed, Steve flew up.His head crashed through the ceiling tiles. His skull splintered thetwo-by-four beam above the bedroom and lodged in between the crackedwooden pieces.

"What the hell!"

As he extricated his head from the building withcare, he peered down onto the bedroom below through the dim dust. Hisbody floated effortlessly on the air. Gentle unseen currents bobbedlike he could swim through the atmosphere.

He was a man, but he floated on the air.

"What the hell am I?"

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