Jarl (Origins Part 1)

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  W Bradley

  Copyright 2012 by W Bradley

  Death: One of those seldom spoken topics, rarely with thought of the actual implications. Those who fear death, or rather ‘being dead,’ think of it too much; in far too much depth. Those who do not fear being dead are repressing the idea of it, but they will die along with all of us.

  Enter religion. Religions promise some of us humans hope; something beyond the shadow of the end. They promise Idyllic afterlives, Gods to care for us, messiahs to rescue us from sin and turn us to the paths of righteousness. Paths plural? Not all the religions can be right.

  Sounds too good to be true to me. It all seems like fantasy; too far removed from what science knows as fact.

  I woke to the crack of a gun the day I died. I’m sure my expression betrayed my fear, though I attempted to disguise it; whoever had killed me would not have the satisfaction of my terror. I looked up at my assailant but there was no way of knowing who he (or she, let’s not be sexist) might be as a dark hood shadowed his or her face. Why conceal your identity from a murder victim? Did they think they might fail? I tried to reach up and pull the hood away but my arms felt heavier than lead. I gave up. It was much easier to die than try to keep myself from the inevitability for longer.

  They were wrong. The religions I mean. All of them, wrong. But there was no need to fear death either, after all that.

  I woke in a hospital bed. I checked my chest where the bullet hole should have been but there was nothing, not even a scar. Strange that. I checked out the room but there was nothing odd there, just an ordinary hospital recovery room. I tried to stand but a pain in my left ankle caused me to falter. More oddities. Why, of all things, would my ankle hurt?

  I decided to push through the pain and take in my surroundings. There was a half-eaten sandwich by the bed. I’d had a visitor and they had left in a hurry by the looks of things. Who knew I was here, in Kenya? Nobody who knew me, I thought. But then, someone had shot me and I may as well assume they had reason to do so. I had been found then.

  Damn.

  On closer inspection of the semi-consumed snack, I noticed the mould. How long had it been there? A week or two at least. Something was amiss.

  I crossed to the door and pulled at it. It was heavy, as if held closed by something, but it slowly opened, revealing the corridor beyond and the all too familiar reek of rotting corpses. Limping down the corridor however, I found neither a body nor degrading flesh of any kind. Where was that odour coming from? And where were the staff? Patients? Anyone?

  Every post-apocalyptic scenario filled my mind. My situation felt very stereotypical of such, even down to the hospital awakening. I half expected the undead to stumble down the hallway ahead of me. I was sure I wasn’t dreaming though; the pain in my ankle was very real.

  There was a sudden sound from behind me and I felt a cold, callused hand grab my mouth and pull me backwards into one of the side rooms.

  “You don’t need to speak.” Grunted my assailant. Not zombies then, unless the films were wrong in envisioning their lack of speech.

  He was a man with huge strength and a strange presence; he had the power to snap my neck, I was sure, yet his touch was gentle, almost soothing. “I have been watching you, Jarl.” He continued quietly, “You healed well I see. Good. You will need your health.

  “Several years ago you served in the British special forces where you made quite the name for yourself. We understand why you quit and why you are running away. I would have done the same under the circumstances.

  “We ask for your help, Jarl and we hope you will give it. Speak now.” And I was released. I turned to face the man. He was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a human. He was not a human. He was… A thing. An it. His face was roughly human shaped but the nose was much higher, the eyes were more deeply set and the mouth, although it was in the same place as an Earth-person’s, was lipless and filled with hundreds of tiny, pointed teeth. I gasped.

  “Take your time.” Said the creature after a considerable amount of it had passed by. I did. Then I was ready to stutter some words into a sentence.

  “What… are you?” It seemed like an appropriate question. Unfortunately, the answer was nonsense to me; just a collection of sounds: Hissing, clicking and otherwise. “Oh.” I muttered, “Any translation into human?” The situation seemed to call for a brazen attitude.

  “Your people do not know of our kind. Not yet. Though there is a race known as the Icii who speak in a similar tongue to you. We are known to them as the Prooth.”

  “OK… And you need my help?”

  “Yes.”

  “With?”

  “So you will help?”

  “I have a choice?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked into his relatively small eyes and considered him. He knew a lot about my past. Although some of his knowledge had been ambiguous, there was enough to warrant further questions.

  “You said you have been watching me?”

  “We have. From afar. We know you had a dream about the death of a small girl.”

  “How… Could you know about that?” I had told nobody of that nightmare.

  “We have technology far ahead of that on this planet. We understand why you did not tell others.”

  “It was just a dream.”

  “You know it was more than that. You predicted the murder of that child. You could have stopped it, but you did not because you did not believe-” I launched myself at him unthinking, attempting to grab his throat, but he simply grabbed my shoulder with unbelievable strength and pushed me back.

  “We are out of time. If you wish to see proof of your ability, go back to where you were shot. I’ll meet you there. You can decide then if you will help us.” I reluctantly agreed and walked towards the door, following him out before I realised he had become semi-transparent. Half way down the corridor to a fire escape he disappeared completely, leaving me completely alone. Weird.

  Then, moments later, a nurse appeared from an office to my right and another emerged from somewhere behind me and hurtled past. Soon I was surrounded by the hustle and bustle one would expect from a standard hospital environment. I decided the absence of such activity must have been something the creature from another world had done and I laughed aloud at how nonchalant my thoughts had become on the matter.

  I hailed a member of staff, had my clothes brought to me, dressed myself, left the building and waved down a taxi to take me to the house where I’d died.

  It was the strangest feeling returning to the place of my end. It felt wrong, almost as if there were forces of goodness pushing me back the way I’d come and I was the evil driving my body onwards. Nevertheless, deep down it seemed important I should defy the angel on my shoulder and press on.

  I opened the front door and entered. There were old magazines stacked on the floor on the right as I entered, the curtains were closed, blocking out the moonlight, and piles of Coke cans littered the carpet by the fold-out bed in the centre of the room. Just how I’d left the place. Home sweet home.

  I crossed the room to the fridge, feeling the strangest feeling of déjà vu as I did. An icy shudder shot up my spine.

  Suddenly a shuffling sound issued from the back garden. Must be my alien friend I thought, again chuckling out loud. I opened the back door, preparing myself to behold his ugly features.

  Unfortunately, that was the second time I died.

  “What the hell!?” I found myself shouting the moment I realised I was again conscious. I was back in the hospital room with the creature staring back at me.

  “A premonition.” He answered gruffly. “An updated vision of your future.”

  “What are you bloody talking about??”
I felt a confused anger take hold of me now. I had lost control of my own being.

  “You saw what would happen if you were to return to that house.”

  “I’ll die again? This is ridiculous! I can’t see the future.”

  “You have not died yet. You have only foreseen your deaths in visions. Do you feel it more likely that you woke up in a hospital bed, having been shot in the chest, with no bullet wound and a pain in your ankle?” I stared at him, my mouth slightly agape. I was beginning to understand. The comprehension felt like both a sharp blow to my psyche and a dull throbbing in my physical brain.

  “So…” I hesitated, holding my head. “So I saw my own death when asleep in the hospital bed? And when I awoke… I thought I’d awoken following the attempted murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what happened just now is what would happen if I went home now?”

  “Yes. Because I intervened in keeping you here, the outcome remained the same but the path taking you there altered.”

  “Instead of being shot in my bed I was assaulted at the back door…” I could predict the future? See my own fate? I slumped into a chair against the wall. “Since we’re clearing the fog, who visited me in the hospital? There was a half-eaten sandwich by the bed. And who killed me twice?”

  “I do not know who visited you; nor do I know who wants you dead. I am only interested in the help you could be to our cause.”

  “What cause?”

  “Survival. Will you help? Do you have reason to stay here on Earth?” I considered this. There was nothing binding me to this place. I had called it home because I’d had no other options. Here was an option.

  After some time with my head in my hands, I looked up at the Prooth. I shrugged, smiled a weak smile then I spoke in a voice which I hoped was full of certainty:

  “I’ll help.”