In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
-- Genesis 1:1
Think back. What is the first thing you remember?
My life begins in an alley-a dark, hidden place in shadows of the city. I awaken there like being born: weak, blind and helpless, new to the world and all of its strange sounds, smells and experiences. And alone, but not for very long. The first thing I become aware of is the darkness and the noise. I cannot see, but I can feel and smell and hear.
I can feel the ground beneath me. It is hard and cool. The roughness of it is not unpleasant-like someone scratching your back-and I lay there for I don't know how long just enjoying the sensation of being supported by the ground, feeling its cool and strong embrace. I can feel the air stir around me, a gentle breeze brushing across the bare skin of my face and hands and ruffling my hair. The breeze brings smells and sounds to me as I lay there.
I smell the harsh smell of the city: a smell of burning. Burning fuel, burning trash, burning wood and people burning with hope, despair, misery and joy make up the smell, mixed in with the slow decaying scent of the city as metal, mortar and stone slowly crumble to rust and dust, ground down beneath the force of the elements. I smell my own sweat, cooling on my skin.
I hear the distant sounds of the city, the constant rumble of noise that most city-dwellers ignore almost completely in their daily lives. I hear the voices of cars, from the bass rumble of diesel engines to the high whine of electric motors driving small commuter cars. From time to time a horn blares out its distant cry of anger or warning. The voices of the city whisper and speak to me, and I know there is danger.
Then I hear another voice, much closer, that is speaking to someone else.
"There he is," the voice says and I know he is talking about me. The other's voice replies, deep and gravely.
"Just like Crawley said he would be . I'll give him this, Weizack, that freak may be weird, his information is right on the money." Weizack laughs, more like a humorless bark.
"You should talk, chummer. You ain't winning no beauty prizes yourself." Weizack's partner growls, a low, throaty sound.
"Watch it. I ain't like that fragging thing. I may look like something outta somebody's nightmare, but at least I don't act like it. Let's just do this job and get the frag out of here. This place gives me the creeps."
A rough hand grabs my jaw and I feel a jolt of fear and surprise shoot through my nerves. I want to push away the hand touching me and filling my nostrils with the stench of overripe sweat and the smell of decay, but my body refuses to obey me. My muscles remain limp and I lay like a dead fish on the cool, hard ground as the hands turn my head to the side and blunt fingers brush against the side of my neck.
"Hey," I hear Weizack's comrade say, his hot, rank breath blowing past my face. "He's still plugged in."
"So unplug him. What's the big deal?" The fingertips brush my neck again. I hear a faint metallic click and feel an immediate and yawning sense of loss open up within me. He has taken something from me. Something very important, my connection to something larger and greater than I am. I am truly alone now, and helpless against these strangers. I try to move, or even open my eyes, but I can't. It feels like my brain is detached from the rest of my body. Like I have forgotten how to use it somehow. The part of me that is awake and aware floats somewhere, detached, unable to make the connection to make a move or a sound.
"Fragging chipheads," the deep voice grumbles. "Why they wanna burn out their brains beats the drek outta me. Feedin' stuff right into your brain is totally fragged up. All of that techno-trash, just for the sake of gettin' high."
"You ever try slottin' sims , Riley?" Weizack asks his partner.
"No way, those things'll frag you up for good. Not even the beetles , just the soft-core drek. My cousin was into sims and he spent the whole day sitting around slotting chips and living in a fraggin' fantasy world. Couldn't hold down a job or nothin'. Finally cooked his brain slotting something he shouldn't of. Cheap Hong Kong trash. You wanna get trashed, I say do it the old fashioned way: with a bottle or something. These brain-burners frag you up but good."
"What about all of this stuff?" Weizack says, his voice coming from close by and above where I lay. He must be standing near my head, looking down at me.
"Leave it," his partner replies. "Said you don't wanna mess with this drek. It's bad biz."
"Why not? As long as we're here..."
"No," his partner says, his tone flat and cold. "Bad enough we're comin' here for him, but I ain't messin' with some of the weird-ass mojo that goes down around here. Beetles are bad enough, but this place gets used from some real magic. Once we're done with him we're out of it, but if we mess with this place we could end up cursed or worse."
"You really believe in that hoodoo curse drek?" Weizack asked.
"Take another look at my face, drekhead, and tell me there's no truth to curses. Ever since the magic came back it's been nothing but trouble for the whole world." The other man's voice was heavy with bitterness. "It mighta made some of the elves and their wannabes happy, but it's just another way to screw over the rest of us. Proof that mother nature is a slitch with a sense of humor. Now shut the frag up and give me a hand here. We need to move this guy before somebody finds us here."
A strong pair of hands grip my ankles and, a moment later, another pair slide under my shoulders and grip me under my armpits. They lift me off the ground like a limp rag, all of my muscles still stubbornly refusing to respond to the demands of my mind to move. Just a little movement, a twitch or a blink, to show these two I am awake and aware. That's all it would take. But I can't seem to figure out how to do it.
I feel vaguely sick and dizzy as I am carried a short way, swaying gently between my two carriers. They set me down again on a surface that is slick, dry and soft over the hardness of the ground.
"All set?" Weizack asks, and for a moment I think he's talking to me. Riley grunts in response and Weizack says, "OK, let's get going. Crawley doesn't like to be kept waiting."
"Frag him," Riley says. "I don't take drek from some fraggin' ghoul."
I hear the sound of a zipper and feel the slick vinyl-coated cloth close around me like an embrace. The zipper passes up above my head and I'm completely sealed in... oh no. They don't think I'm unconscious. They think I'm dead! But I'm not! I feel panic grip my heart like a cold hand as my mind frantically screams at my body to obey. I just need to move, to make a sound, something to tell these men I'm really alive, that they've got the wrong guy. Dammit, move! I feel my breathing begin to quicken and I hope the sound will penetrate the heavy vinyl, but there is no response from outside it.
Two pairs of hands lift me off the ground and swing me a couple times like a sack before releasing me. There is a moment of cold, stark terror as I fly through the air with no sense of balance and no idea where I will fall. Then I drop onto something firm but yielding and roll just a bit before coming to rest on my side.
There is a clunk of metal on metal and the retreating footsteps of the two men. Then the sound of doors opening and muffled talk from somewhere ahead of me. That's when I realize I am lying on top of a stack of bodies, wrapped up for delivery just like me. But delivery to where? And are they dead or like me, trying desperately to gather the strength to cry out, to yell "I'm alive!" in hopes someone will hear them?
The thought hits me: is this what death is like? Maybe I really am dead and just don't know it. Maybe when you die all you really do is become a helpless prisoner in your slowly decaying body, aware of the world around you but unable to move or communicate in any way. Maybe your mind hangs around until your body rots away in the ground or you get the quick and merciful release of cremation. The thought of this paralysis as the afterlife nearly makes me scream and collapse in terror, but another thought bubbles up into my mind from somewhere. I know I'm not dead. I just know it somewhere deep down inside. I know I've been dead before and this isn't what it was like. I'm alive, reborn, and I have to figure out how I'm going to stay that way. Be a shame to start my new life only to end up dead again.
An engine rumbles to life and we started to drive. The meat-wagon slowly pulls away from the place of my awakening and heads out into the city.