Season 2 - Blogisode 1

CHAPTER ONE


The midday sun heats the jagged rock face of the barren mountain pass causing what little moisture that remains in the soil to rise from the earth and form a thin haze that blankets the horizon. The heat waves dance across the surface splashing over Christian draining what little energy he has left from his weak form.

Christian stumbles up the side of the mountain, the fourth he would navigate in as many days, his weight heavy on the walking stick he had forged from jungle root, now no more than dry tinder threatening to crack under the pressure of each step. Though he found that his reptilian form tended to be more compatible with these extreme conditions something to his pride, or perhaps shame, refused to let him cast off his natural form voluntarily.

He had abandoned his friends some weeks ago taking to the jungle, then the swamps, now to these rocky cliffs. His mission no longer mattered to him; he had found the ocean and gifted it with two Adams and two Eves. There was no more room for a snake in the garden.

The mountain peak stands to his front some twenty paces, this was not the range of rock he remembered from months past, it was as if the earth was shifting like a maze with moving walls. Nothing stayed the same. It has been four days since he had seen his last plant jutting out from between the boulders half dead from exposure and another six since his last animal, which he had killed and turned to dinner this past week with the help of his other half.

Christina stumbles up the rock a quickened pace, eager to see what awaits him beyond the top of the heap. The last of his food and drink were gone, twenty four hours with nothing but your malnourished imagination and the depression that comes from knowing that every sense of purpose you once had is now lost to you. His only prayer is that he dies before he goes completely mad.

He casts off the shall protecting him from the suns lethal rays, his stick drops to the dust beside him as he turns to hands and feet crawling to the highest place, the place he could be certain to see…

His body halts as if blocked by a wall of brick held tight and high with a thick paste of discouragement. He goes limp in the hot wind, his body swaying ever so as his eyes fix on the sight to his front, the other side of the mountain.

“Nothing.”

Below Christian running down the long face of the Everest he had just navigated was a desert as far reaching as any ocean he had ever seen, in all direction nothing but sand, grey and empty, cast about by the wind with ease causing dust devils to dance over its surface crashing into one another in anticlimactic explosions of dust and heat.

He falls to his knees, collapse. The last of him is gone, there was no more point because he too far was past it. Even the point of no return was far behind him.

The rest of his frame crumbles and falls. His face slams hard into the rock, eyes gone to the back of his head consciousness leaves him.



JUNE 11TH 1998

Aggressive hip hop sirens out from the trunk speakers of one of the three cars parked adjacent the basketball court. It was the first organized game of the summer and the first time in months that the entire crew could be found in one place at one time.

Shirts VS skins as was the norm, nine of them in all; a game of four on four with Eugene off to the side hitting on other peoples girlfriends as usual. The games were never known to draw any kind of a crowd but the weed that fueled some of the more bizarre dunk attempts and the cheap forty ounce bottles of malt were enough to pull a few girlfriends and friends of friend’s court side.

Dave rushes up the court Pippen style weaving past the two people charged to guard him spitting slurs and good natured insults as he moves to the net. He leaps solo and spins round tossing the ball through for point. It was a pain in the ass not being able to dunk anymore but the court was on an elementary school grounds and the nets had been ripped off their backs six times past, the last time they reinstalled them the janitor had been instructed to screw them in upside down so that the net hooks would be pointing up instead of down. One bloody hand and the dunking stopped.

Dave struts back up to his end of the court. “What? I told you can’t hold me. You could throw all four of you on my ass and I’ll still make you look clown assed.”

Kramer retrieves the ball and eyeballs the far net. “Oh yeah? Graaaaannnny shot!”

He throws the ball with a heave from between his legs across the length of the ball court landing it with a swish in the adjacent net.

“How the fuck does he do that?” Christian jogs to Dave’s side.

“Doesn’t matter, that’s game and I want to get high. Eugene you got bud?”

Eugene startles at the sound of his voice, he slides himself a safe distance from Christian’s girlfriend. “Uh, yeah, yeah I’ve got like a twenty in the car. You want to roll it?”

“Yup.” Christian jogs off court past the girls sitting on the concrete steps snatching one of the opened forties as he passes.

Dave follows Christian up to where the cars are parked sliding into the passenger seat of Eugene’s Tempo.

“Sup.”

“This is it man, drink?” Christian motions to the bottle with his head, hands full rolling the joint.

“Yup.”

Dave takes a long swig.

His eye catches something as he lowers the bottle. “Hey, who the fuck is that?”

Christian seals the joint with a lap of the tongue and looks up. Parked across from them on the other side of the parking lot is a large white van, two men in the front seat.

“No fucking clue man. Cops?”

“You think?”

The man in the driver side locks eyes with Christian.

“Fuck this, here.” Christian hands the joint to Dave.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see what the fuck their problem is.” Christian opens the car door and steps out. Dave watches from inside as he struts across the lot toward the white van.

“Crazy fucker, oh well.” Dave shrugs and fishes a lighter from his pocket, lights the joint.

Christian raises his arms to his side in a what the fuck gesture to the men in the vehicle to his front.

“Can I fucking help you guys?”

He taps on the passenger side window. “Hey, you guys want to suck each other’s dicks do it someplace else, we’re trying to….”

The back door slides open, two men grab Christian with force and yank him into the back of the van slamming the door shut behind him.

The joint drops from Dave’s lips. “What the fuck?”

The van kicks into gear, revs, and speeds out of the parking lot. Dave’s eyes go wide as he watches the van disappear into the street, the man in the front passenger seat stares at Dave sending shivers through the boy.

Set's eyes shift from human to reptile as he spins in his seat to face Christian, he smiles at the sight of the young human terrified and confused. He has what he needs.