Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:28:07 +1300
From: Kiwi Shadow <kiwishadow123@gmail.com>
Subject: The Ascended - Chapter 1, Part 1

I hope you enjoy the very first part of The Ascended series. I know I
enjoyed writing it!

==================================================

Chapter One - Ascension

I smiled at my gorgeous boyfriend as we slowly made our way towards my
place after school.  It took so much mental control to suppress my hard on
but I managed it, somehow.  I had to put my arm around him as we got
closer, I wanted him, I NEEDED him and NOW!  Any contact with him was
better than nothing!  I don't know WHAT made me do it, I knew people might
see us but I wanted him so badly.  I missed the heavenly feeling of having
his warm body sliding back and forth against mine, the total safety I felt
when I was in his arms.  I started to kiss him on the lips with gusto and
slowly slid my hands around his waist, pulling him into me with no
resistance.

It was at this point that the most horrible few minutes of my entire life
were set in motion.

As I was kissing my precious Aiden, I noticed footsteps and loud voices
coming from the alleyway across the road. Aiden had obviously heard the
same thing as I did, because we pulled apart in unison in an attempt to
hide what we had been doing. The horrified look in his eyes was enough to
break my heart; I couldn't bare the one I love being so upset. I slowly
turned around towards the alleyway, but the damage was already done. What
they had seen became obvious by the look of shock on their faces and the
sudden silence. They had seen us. We were going to be mocked and terrorized
by the entire school. I'll be honest, what happened next surprised me; I
never thought anyone would hate someone for the orientation as much as this
group of teenagers did. These were people that I had grown up with as a
kid, people I had trusted to have my back. I hadn't been very close to them
recently but the connection was still there.

The shock and awe that was mirrored on the faces of every member of the
group was short-lived. It's like someone flicked a switch, the expressions
changed to anger and hatred. Hatred and fear of those who are different,
those who are happy and of those who have a loving connection that THEY
will NEVER understand. I've always found it ironic that humanity's great
strength is our ability to be unique or different in every possible
way. It's seems that many individuals like to treat it as our greatest
weakness; this diversity is forever used as a weapon to fuel hate.
Personally, I think everyone needs to learn to embrace how each of us is
different so perhaps we can learn something from each other.

Aiden and I picked up the pace and quickly headed towards my house, I
didn't want this to get out of hand. I just wanted him with me and I didn't
care if anyone else knew, as long as he was okay. Our attempts to move
faster were in vain, however, because they slowly walked towards us,
carefully attempting to surround us so there was no escaping them.
Eventually there was no way around them anymore. It was simply the two of
us standing in a large circle of eight or so teenagers around our age. Why
was no one else in the neighborhood doing anything? The place was deserted,
but there must be SOMEONE around who's watching this happen. There was
silence... No cars went by... No one came to our rescue... We were alone.

"...pfttt everyone thinks the new kid's a fag, but not you too, Ian. What
the hell, man, you used to be cool..." Jared sneered in a manner that
suggested he was talking to something he just discovered on the bottom of
his shoe. It's ironic how I could be his childhood friend for so long and
then he could simply betray me because of my sexuality. I guess it was my
fault in a way for losing touch.

"...It's not what you think...r-really...he's not...I am...b-but..."
stuttered Aiden. How could they do this to my Aiden? How dare they make him
scared and ashamed of what we had together? I had to say something, I was
just so shocked and Aiden knew that. Even at this point, when Aiden was in
real danger, he tried to deflect the blame onto himself. God, I love that
boy!

"It's exactly what you think; I'm gay, so get over it and leave us alone!"
I said with a hint of resistance. I just wish it didn't have to come out
this way and at this time. I could see him getting angrier and angrier; it
was a huge mistake to make a fool of him in front of his friends. I should
have just left it alone and tried to get away but I guess they wouldn't
have allowed that anyway.

"Alright fine, we'll teach you faggots a lesson! We don't want you homos
anywhere near us, or in our neighborhood!" snarled Jared as he kicked me in
the stomach, knocking the wind at of me. I was caught off guard and I
wasn't expecting it at all but I quickly regained my senses and fought back
while I was still able to. I buried my knee into his stomach, throwing him
backwards on the pavement, winding him temporarily. Next to me, Aiden was
fighting off another big guy. This wasn't going to last. The rest would
surely join in soon.  They wanted us to hurt badly and they didn't care how
that happened. I lashed out and punched Jared in the jaw with an almighty
crack and he hovered for a moment before falling to the ground unconscious
with a thud. Now I know in the movies everyone makes it look REALLY easy
and painless but my fist was on FIRE! I wouldn't be surprised if I had
broken a few fingers! I didn't have much of a chance to think about it
though, because my actions seem to infuriate the mob around us. They
grabbed both of us and dragged us kicking and screaming to the alley across
the street they had come from. Here they wouldn't be disturbed; here they
could do to us WHATEVER they wanted to.

An anger-powered fist repeatedly impacted against my face while several
others attacked me from all around. Two other large guys held me down while
my 'punishment' was carried out. It wasn't because I owed anyone money, it
wasn't because I had picked a fight with the wrong people and it wasn't
because they wanted to rob me. Well in a way they did want to rob me of
something; they wanted to rob me of my boyfriend. That's right, you heard
me correctly. If you haven't already guessed by now, I'm a homosexual, a
faggot, a gay and every other word that represents a savage attack on my
sexuality. Hatred can have so many disastrous consequences for so many. One
must ask ourselves what we ever did wrong. What has caused our sexual
orientation to not only become the butt of people's jokes, but an insult to
all those who are accused of possessing our orientation? As I ask this of
myself, the hate crime taking place, with me at its core, does not falter.
It is unending, the agony everlasting.

The unimaginable torment and suffering that my body is undergoing is
meaningless in comparison to another deep agony inside of me. This deep
seeded emotional distress continues to send pang after pang of excruciating
pain that is swept over me as I watch my one true love endure blow after
blow to his beautiful form. I just can't bear to see him in pain.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" I screamed out in anger, while flailing helplessly in an
attempt to fight back, or at least hold them at bay. They weren't
listening; this group of teens had already made a silent, unanimous
decision that they didn't want faggots in their neighborhood. They were
willing to go this far to remove me from their lives... even if it meant
beating me and my boyfriend within and inch of our lives.

"Please... please you can hurt me as much as you want just... leave him
alone..." I say, now begging and pleading with tears running slowly down my
face. They just continued to hit me with blow after blow to every part of
my body. That's when my boyfriend, my Aiden started to cough up blood all
over the ground... as tears slowly leaked out of his eyes, disappearing
into his blood soaked face.

My yells and plea's to stop were useless, they never faltered, they never
checked to see if they had, in fact, done us damage beyond repair. It took
a while before I came to the realization that they never intended to stop.
They were going to keep destroying us until our bodies and our minds were
sent off into the abyss forever.

A final whimper escaped Aiden's luscious lips and all life left his body.
He ceased moving and yelling... he was gone.  I screamed and howled in
agony louder than I ever have as the one I love was no more. I kicked and
punched out and like a madman, but it was all in vain. They just returned
the favor, harder and faster.

It's often said that your last moments alive are a divine experience as
some speak of visions or their life flashing before their eyes. In reality,
the fact that the brain is getting no oxygen makes it work harder, using
all resources to try keep the body alive. This makes all of the body's
senses flux, making all the information in our brain pass us by in an
instant, everything we have ever said, felt or experienced. Arguably, any
divine experience with a heavenly being can be explained away as ones
sub-conscious trying to deal with the inevitable death that is approaching.
The last image that I ever saw, that will be forever etched on my retinas,
is the look of constant terror engraved in my lover's face and the looks of
satisfaction in the eyes of our murderers'.

...and then... there was nothingness... I honestly can't explain it.  It's
like your body's gone and what's left of you is floating through the
void... an infinite amount of nothingness. It's not like you are alive. You
don't feel, you don't see, you're just THERE, moving through the infinity
of darkness. You are not a conscious being, you are a collection of
thoughts, experiences and emotions that were felt what seems like millennia
ago. However, as an incalculable amount of time passes, the nothingness
noticeably evaporates around me and my consciousness slowly returns to
me. I was me again, at least in some small way. It took me a while to
realize that I was lying on the ground somewhere.  It was a bit
disorientating at first and my mind was flooded with confusion. How can I
be here? I'm dead... Or... maybe I'm not? My eyes timidly opened again and
I found myself in a small room filled only with darkness.

"Hi there, Ian," came a calm voice that belonged to a hooded figure who
literally appeared out of thin air. He radiated a brilliant glow that
filled the room with light. The darkness was still there but it's like he
subdued it for the time being. "Now the answer to your first question...
Yes, I'm afraid you are dead, and in response to your second... no, I'm not
God."

"How did you know what I was going to ask?" I questioned him, a little
shocked.

"You don't think that everyone that comes through here isn't thinking the
exact same thing. Of course it IS always funny when some of the
Middle-Eastern men start demanding their virgins." He paused with a small
grin that appeared and disappeared before I could really be sure it had
been there in the first place. In other words, the joke was obviously
losing it's hilarity after being repeated so many times.

"Now there are a few things you need to understand. Firstly, and most
importantly, there is no DIVINE being, well, at least not anymore. You see,
many centuries ago a being of unimaginable power created a race of beings
that would do unimaginable good throughout the universe. At the time,
galactic war threatened to devastate the entire universe, at least the
parts that are inhabited. After creating these being that were destined to
spread peace and prosperity throughout the universe, he discovered a
fundamental flaw in his plan. This flaw was time. This new race of beings
was taking far too long to develop into the powerful beings he had
intended. The other problem was that once a certain period of time passed,
these beings lost all of their knowledge, experience and wisdom in
death. Sure, they could record their history and hope to learn from it but
over the generations, the information was lost. He set out to create a
system whereby those who 'died' were simply transported into a new system
of being, where they could fight to restore balance to the universe at
large."

"Wait... wait, I'm confused. What about all of these other religions?
Buddhism, Christianity, etc. Isn't there any kind of basis to them at all?"

"Many of these religions have a basis and have similarities to the way
things actually happened. Christianity is probably one of the ones that had
the most substantial and essentially correct information. Jesus Christ was
a REMARKABLE man; he was created to remind man that there was something
AFTER, something to look forward too. Heaven originally wasn't supposed to
be a place where you lived happily forever.  Ironically, the most important
piece of information was 'lost in translation' over the ages. There are, of
course, clues of the original meaning, but as usual, humanity has chosen to
ignore it. The Hebrew word for heaven has a more literal definition of "on
high", which is far more to the point. Simply put, it refers to what
actually happens after death. Some refer to it as being "on high", some
refer to it as eternal enlightenment." What a concept! Was this guy for
real? "When one ascends, their body mutates and evolution accelerates
millions of years to the point where the perfect form is created. An
enlightened one also gains a huge amount of information based on what
others among the populous know, those who have experienced and persevered
the most in life, have the potential to be the most knowledgeable and
powerful."

"So what? I never have to read a book again?" I asked, half joking.

"EXACTLY! You, in particular, have experienced so much heart ache and
agony; I doubt your knowledge will be limited.  You will truly be great,"
he said excitedly. "All information is open to you once you have let go of
your burden and truly accept your place as one of us."

A question was on the tip of my tongue, I just couldn't remember, it was
almost like someone was trying to make me forget to ask it. My memory of
someone was being suppressed enough to stop me from asking. Something
important... I just couldn't remember.  It's the most infuriating feeling
there is.

"Ahh it seems your starting to remember how you got here, which means it's
time for you to start on your journey."

"What journey?" I asked a little puzzled.

"For you to FULLY ascend you need to embrace the pain you have experienced,
you don't forget it.  You and everyone else that has ascended will learn
from it. I know you have many more questions, but you need to go back to
the important moments of you life. The good moments and the bad ones, you
MUST understand how you came to be where you are now."

As soon as this was said, the mysterious cloaked figure disappeared, the
light around him vanished and I felt the darkness envelop me once more.
This time it only happened for an instant and then I was back in my
original body again. I was sent back down to earth again, to a day in the
past that I remember so clearly. Time froze and a familiar voice echoed in
my mind. "Remember these are memories you have already experienced.  You
cannot change them, you have to understand their meaning and move forward.
Otherwise you are doomed to repeat the memory in your mind forever."

Everything unfroze and the fresh morning breeze swept across my face
sending a chill through me that wasn't unpleasant, but still managed to
send a shiver down my spine. I reluctantly slammed the front door shut and
plundered towards the garage with my past self fully in control. It was
incredibly strange, like being on autopilot, feeling everything yet having
no control. I looked in the side mirror of my parents' car in the driveway,
I was reminded that I was your average 15 year old with scruffy brown hair
and blue eyes, while wearing a look on my face that told anyone walking by
that it's Monday morning. Even after I supposedly have become this 'all
powerful being', it is still difficult to understand how anyone could ever
enjoy going out for a morning stroll at this point of the day when they
could be snuggled up, fast asleep in their beds. For some strange reason, I
keep thinking that it didn't matter what my outlining features were. My
past self seemed to be sure of his supposedly unsatisfactory appearance. I
found myself starting to think that even if those who cared about me
refused to admit the truth, they were simply trying some feeble attempt to
spare my feelings. At least those who make fun of me are honest enough to
give me the truth about my appearance. Just after thinking it, I realized
that it must be my thoughts from the day in question, back when my self
esteem was at its lowest. I have to be careful not to let them take over my
conscious thought because I don't want to be the way I was.

At that point, the thing that seemed to be bothering my past self the most,
in the back of my mind, was his, or rather, our sexuality. I have to keep
reminding myself that this is me! The word still almost seemed dirty and
wrong to my past self. Even after three years, I hadn't managed to come to
terms with it.  My Aiden sure changed that. It was infuriating, however,
because I had to battle my past self. I kept thinking, "Maybe I'll never
come to terms with it." The dominant fear that my past self seemed to have
was anybody finding out about his sexuality. The very idea of anyone
finding out scared him more than ANYTHING else. That's a feeling I
understand well.  It's like finding that you failed the most important test
of your life, or finding out a loved one has passed away. It meant back
then I had to keep that part of myself deep inside of me; my sexuality made
a liar out of me everyday. I think deep down I felt I would turn out like
one of those perverted old geezers who has a family but looks at any cute
guy's ass when his wife and kids aren't looking. The sad thing is his wife
and kids are the ones who suffer. His wife goes without the proper love and
companionship of her husband and his kids lack a father who is in a healthy
and loving relationship. His wife loves him and in some way, he might be
trying to believe he loves her, but naturally, it's not the same.

My past self continued to autopilot me into grabbing his bike from inside
the garage, then jumped on it and setting off towards school. I say his
bike because I really don't consider myself to be this guy, I mean he's ME,
but he's not me. I'm dead and all. As houses shot by, it became evident, as
always, that it was a newer part of town; one of the many new subdivisions
that take forever to build. It's always the same; the new houses look so
similar to each other it's almost like everyone conforms to a secret code
of conduct. This pristine part of suburbia became less evident as I left
the new subdivision and rode towards school and older buildings started to
whizz by.

The school gate came into view and we rolled through the gates into the
desolate bike stands, where everyone had their bikes locked up. After
thrusting my bike into the stand and securing it with my lock, the school
bell rang reminding me, as always, that I was late. So I sprinted to class
at speed, in a vain attempt to avoid the punishment that was given when
anyone was late to English class. 'Late' was the word my teacher liked to
use to describe anyone who was even two milliseconds after the bell. The
word never seemed to fit, in my opinion. I always thought 'delayed' or
'overdue' was a better way of putting it, but it's not like you could ever
tell him that. It's interesting how so many of my past self's opinions are
forced on me.  And even though this was only a year or so ago, they felt so
foreign and different; almost like there was no way that this head was once
my own.

The classroom door squeaked as he skulked into the classroom at 8.32am.
For a brief moment he thought that, just maybe, he could get out of being
late. I knew ahead of time, of course, that there was a detention waiting
on my desk. Sure enough, when I sat down, my past self groaned loudly as he
saw the yellow ticket waiting in front of us.

"Thank you, Mr. Domani, for joining us..." said Mr. Smart with a scowl that
could have possibly burned a hole through me and my past self. DIVINE BEING
OR NOT! I just hoped the good part of this day would come quickly, because
I needed to feel again what it felt like to first meet my Aiden.

==================================================

I'm sorry to leave it there but I promise there will be a new chapter
coming along ASAP! If you would like to give me some feedback or would just
like to talk about life in general, feel free to email me at
kiwishadow123@gmail.com.

Alternatively pop in and say hello in my irc channel #kiwi on
irc.chatuniverse.net. All are welcome and you are welcome to email me for
instructions. :) Have a nice day!

Copyright KiwiShadow 2008