Chapter 7.B

Eugene slowly came to consciousness and quickly realizes that he can’t see or breath in whatever environment he is stuck in. These two driving factors stop him from studying his surroundings more. He inhales sharply and his lungs and mouth fill with some kind of vile fluid. It tastes like death, swamp, and darkness if a flavor could be attributed to such a primal thing. He panics and starts kicking and scraping. His foot hits something that feels vaguely flesh like... A membrane of sorts. This little bit of contact is enough to get Eugene to start using his rational mind. He is underwater or something like water, the taste of it doesn’t remind him of any water he knows. Whatever he had kicked was holding him in, that was the wall, the door to his salvation, the exit.

He knew he had to fight to survive, so he pushes himself harder. Scratching and kicking more and more in all directions. Finally his foot pierces whatever slimy wall he had been kicking and he feels cool air on his ankle. He tries to back up through the new exit, but can’t get enough traction, whatever liquid he is trapped in is much too viscous. He spins his body around in the thick fluid hoping that in this orientation he will have more leverage. H claws and scrapes his way towards the tear he knows his foot has made. The membrane exists all around just out of his reach, he can feel it from time to time in his frantic scrabbling. Soon he feels the pull of the liquid that is draining out of the hole he had made and it partially yanks him along for the ride. His lungs felt like they were about to burst so he pulls himself along as well hoping for salvation.

Soon his hands find purchase on the ragged hole he has made and pulls for all he is worth. Apparently the other side of the membrane is a few feet above ground level because he falls a short distance before his chin hits something hard and the bubble-like thing he was kept him pushes him the rest of the way out. He immediately tries to breathe in as much of the beautiful air as he can but his chest spasms painfully. Something horrible is happening inside of him. He realizes he is choking, his lungs and throat are still full of whatever the evil liquid was. He rolls over and coughs and coughs as the fluid leaves his lungs, sucking in as much air as he can in between retching. The fluid is a truly disgusting shade of dark green and it is congealed like old blood. Once he feels the bulk of it is out of his lungs he allows himself to fall flat on the floor and rest, still taking deep heaving breaths. The floor below him his cold and hard his fingers run along a dry spot and he realizes its smooth concrete. He knows he is laying a pile of the filth that was inside the bubble, but he is too tired to care. He continues to take deep heaving breaths trying to reoxygenate his body.

After a short time he shakily sits up. SHIT, he is still in the warehouse, but it is dark again. Upon further inspection he realizes it is only dark on this side of the warehouse, there is a section far away from him that is lit, leaving just enough light on this side for him to barely make out his surroundings. His eyes follow the trail of fluid he had been laying in back to a now deflated dark green sack sitting in what could only be described as some kind of over-sized reptilian nest of sorts. There are many other sacks full of something dark and alive at roughly the shape and size of a man. Eugene can see whatever they are moving around inside the sacks that are semi-translucent. The light is bad here but their silhouettes look like children swimming or spinning in circles or flips. In between the sacks there are thick organic pipes lining the floor pumping the fluid that Eugene had choked on, maybe it would be more accurate to call them veins. Under the bed of veins there is a bed of what feels like dead flesh. He was back in the nightmare.

The sack closest to him seems to be especially active, the dark silhouette inside of it is convulsing hard causing the whole sack that is about five feet tall to jiggle like an oversized dark green water balloon. Eugene inches closer to get a better look. The sack shakes more violently that even before when he is about an arm’s length out and for a second he is afraid it is going to burst. A webbed hand appears on the inside the membrane that makes up the outer layer of the sack and it shoved until the sack stretches thin. Eugene reaches his hand out to touch the hand still pressed against the membrane, right before he touches it though he hears a deep voice.

“I wouldn’t”

Eugene spins around, it was the man made of the shiny black rock.

“Bertha is very protective of her brood. Please, no touching.”

“Who are you, what have you done to me!” Eugene shouts as he trembles in fear. The creature inches forward and hands him a hand mirror.

“We had to fix you up, it appears you had several minor heart attacks and you were quite close to death. “

Eugene was hesitant to take his eyes off of the creature, but his curiosity got the best of him and he looks in the mirror. It was hard to make out because this side of the warehouse was still pretty dark but Eugene saw taunt fresh muscle under his slime covered torso. He angles the mirror up to his face, he looked younger and he could swear his cheekbones even looked a little higher. His double chin and jowls were gone along with the remainder of his hair, no big loss there. He looked just like he had in high school except minus his normally thick dark brown hair that he had been losing since then.

“I don’t understand, how is this possible?” Asked Eugene as he continued to rub his head and his body as he looked into the mirror.

“Let's retire to your vehicle. I understand you might have refreshments and clothing inside,” says the Rock Man.

“Uh okay…” Eugene was hesitant to go anywhere with this creature, but so far he hadn’t shown any aggression at all and it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. He didn’t see any obvious doors out of this place and he knew if he ran they might just kill him, he had watched the rock man break a gun with this bare hands. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to say he could kill Eugene easily. He had to switch into negotiation mode before he got to the vehicle, if these monsters wanted him dead they would have killed him not healed him. They needed him.

They got to the vehicle and the monster calmly held a hand out signaling that Eugene should enter first. As Eugene entered he noticed the Lincoln was running and when he opened the door the dome light flicks on. Even the television in the back was playing a movie which he instinctively pauses. He saw the Stone Man was coming in behind him so he quickly scoots over. The monster crawled in after him and casually sit insides a measured distance away from Eugene, a professional distance. Eugene feels the shocks of the vehicle strain under the intense weight of the newest passenger. Everything about the rock mans current demeanor screams business casual and formal business deal. Despite the fact that Eugene was stuck naked and covered in slime in a confined space with a deadly alien, he couldn’t help but feel that he was in his element.

“This is a nice vehicle, very comfortable. I explored it a bit while you were convalescing. I hope you don’t mind.”

“That uh… No, that is fine. Make yourself at home,” said Eugene who was extremely nervous, but still trying to put on a brave yet welcoming face.

“You are probably curious about who I am and why I am here. For simplicity sake you may call me Obsidian, my associate you met earlier is Bertha. Why don’t you prepare us some of your native drinks while we discuss these matters.” Eugene nods and began grabbing two tumblers to mix up some Manhattans.

“I have a job to do, a very important job. I did a bit of cultural research on your planet over the last few hours while you were indisposed and I was happy to find out that your people have a religion that mirrors the philosophy of my very important job. Tell me, have you ever heard of Taoism?”

“No,” says Eugene as he hands Obsidian a Manhattan in a glass tumbler. Eugene is surprised to see how delicately Obsidian grabs the glass before taking a tentative sip.

“Delicious, anyway even if you haven’t heard of the religion I am sure you have seen their symbol. I found it in all forms of media and pop culture in almost every country on your earth. It is called the Yin and Yang,” said Obsidian.

“Yes, I’m very familiar with the Yin-Yang,” says Eugene. What he doesn’t say is that a lot of the cheaper whores he has perused often get this symbol tattooed on themselves with a myriad of other non-nonsensical bullshit. Everyone wants to seem worldly.

“So the Yin and Yang speak of balance by recognizing the need for predators and prey, a very evolved concept and symbol. Those who are short-sighted would only focus on the light side of the symbol, yet this will surely lead to disaster. Let me run an example by you. Let’s say a good Samaritan wants to honor nature by planting trees everywhere as often as possible. So he does this, he spends his entire life planting trees and protecting the ones that already exist. A hundred years after his death all of the trees he dutifully nurtured have grown tall and wide and spread even more saplings on their own. These trees now surround and grow into every major town for a thousand miles. Until a dry season comes, the trees become extremely parched and continue to grow dry and brittle. A lightning strike hits, one of the trees catches on fire.

Out of this never ending dry forest a wildfire arises, the likes of which have never been seen before. The fire consumes thousands of people, it destroys lives, millions of animals, the local ecosystem is decimated.

The moral of my story here is that this tree-planting gentleman focused too much on the light side of the balance. In his rush to do good he inadvertently ruined thousands of lives. What if instead of planting so many new trees he instead explored the forests and established places that needed fire breaks. You see from a simpleton’s perspective all you would see is this gentleman traveling the woods and destroying the trees, but in reality he is killing for a purpose. He destroys wide swaths of trees in the most densest parts of the forest. Then again in a hundred years the dry season comes just like before, lightning hits, the fire starts. The wildfire spreads and is immediately stopped at the first firebreak. A large swath has been cut through the woods, the fire can’t bridge the gap and it slowly extinguishes itself and no one is harmed.

You see that man, the second man who established the firebreaks, he will see no glory. He will be seen as evil, he will be seen as a destroyer, yet he is the one who saved lives. Most people are too short sighted to understand this. It takes a special kind of person who is willing to destroy for the greater good. I am here now because I think you are the right kind of person for this duty. You can be the dark side of the Yin and Yang. You have the foresight to understand that the universe needs balance, and of course we can have some fun along the way,” Obsidian finished and took a long drink.

“So this is a job offer?” asked Eugene.

“More than an offer, unfortunately this is kind of more of a draft. The universe picked you for this duty. I was just polite enough to explain it. No reason to be worried though, the job comes with lots of perks as you have already seen in your new enhanced body. You will live for an extremely long time, a full life of beauty and health. You can have whatever you want now, and grow as strong as you wish,” said Obsidian.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, what’s the catch?” asked Eugene.

“Ah, a smart man you truly are. There are lots of downsides. First of all, this is a thankless job and you will be looked down upon and sometimes hunted. For the most part those are non-issues, you will be so rich and happy that you won’t care who looks down on you,” said Obsidian.

“I’m already in a situation like that,” said Eugene.

“Good then nothing will change on that front. As far as being hunted this also won't be an issue for you. You will be so strong that with a simple slap you will dent your enemies skulls in. Gaining that strength can be problematic and difficult. You see there is a mostly untapped source of power we can utilize. When the universe decided that we would be the balance it also unlocked an ability in us. The ability to harness this latent power. On your planet you would call it the soul,” said Obsidian.

“Are you saying I have to kill people to become stronger?” Asked Eugene.

“Those terms are simple. I am saying like the second man in the story you have to destroy a few trees to prevent a massive disaster. I need you to have the foresight and the ambivalence to look deeper than surface actions. Is killing a homeless vagabond that bad if that same homeless vagabond was going to murder a child in the future. Or let’s say a hundred people are stricken with a terrible disease that leaves them with no ability to move their limbs. Their loved ones and family would spend the rest of their lives caring for them, never able to move on or live their own lives. What if you were to kill those hundred people. At first their families would be sad yet within a year or two they would move on, their lives would blossom like a beautiful flower, they would form new relationships and ultimately flourish.

We can not let the system strangle itself. We have to be the balance, the ones who set the world right. We are the reaper, we pull the weeds so that the flowers may grow. As a reward for this the universe lets us feed on the souls of the weeds we have to prune. Our bodies and minds are strengthened and we can perform our duties to a higher standard.”

“So if we are the dark side of the Yin-Yang, who is on the light side?” Asked Eugene.

“Once again Eugene, for one so young your perception amazes me.” Eugene couldn’t help but smile a little at the compliment. Normally people complimented him out of fear or because they wanted his money, he could tell Obsidian’s compliments were genuine. It was a ridiculous situation, sitting in the back of his limousine with an alien recruiting him for some kind of Angel of Death service. Yet he couldn’t help but feel honored. It wasn’t often in life that he was chosen for things. He normally had to pay his way into positions or scare people so much that they gave him what he wanted. If what Obsidian was telling him was true then he had been chosen for this based on his merits and his intelligence. Eugene had never had a purpose before, this could be his.

“Yes the light side of the Yin-Yang exists in reality and they have grown out of control. They lack the foresight we have. They call themselves Arbiters and they have been doing their darndest to kill members of my faction for the crime of existing. We call ourselves The Balance, yet they call us Demons or Chaos-Makers. Doesn’t sound very enlightened does it, damning an entire group of people for simply being different. I’m not saying the Arbiters are bad, they are needed just like we are. I just wish they would stay in their own lane so to speak and let us do our job, but we are way past that point. The Arbiters have established a major foothold on a prime planet used for trade and commerce and they have arbitrarily announced themselves as rulers of the system that governs the universe, above reproach or questioning as it were. They have grown fat and lazy in their short term success, and I am afraid like the first man in the story if they aren’t stopped soon they too will cause a great disaster. That conversation is for another day though.

For now we need to focus on you. We got some actionable intel that a new Arbiter was going to be awakened on this planet. Sometimes they send an older Arbiter to help the new guy along. There are a lot of pieces in play here, but with me, you, and Bertha on this planet there are three members of the Balance and only one or two Arbiters depending on if the older Arbiter left yet. It is well past time we prune some of their population in order to fix the balance. And on this planet we outnumber them and we have more resources. Soon Bertha’s brood will be born and we will have a small army of foot soldiers at our disposal. Bertha’s brood will surely tip the already tipped scales in this conflict. In the meantime we have to get your power level up. Also I have a gift for you,” Obsidian paused his speech and reaches into a very small crack on his leg, he comes up with a metal vial with a black stopper on the top. He carefully hands the vial to Eugene.

“Apply this to your weapon of choice and it will share in your soul harvesting. It will grow with you and become a powerful utility for the Balance,” says Obsidian.

“I can put this on anything and it will enhance it? Anything at all?” asks Eugene.

“Yes, but chose wisely whatever you pour this on will be with you forever. It should be something you hold dear,” said Obsidian. Eugene didn’t think twice or hesitate. He opens the cap to the vial and threw the contents on the dash of the Lincoln. Eugene is surprised to see it’s an iridescent bright green fluid. At first it harmlessly splashes across the dash, but very quickly it forms into complex patterns and then begins to squirm around the vehicle sinking into key positions and disappearing.

“Wise choice,” says Obsidian as he claps Eugene on the shoulder.