Light faded into thinly sliced fragments as darkness loomed above. The moon announced its presence, spreading pale white glows over the metallic cityscape. Its light seeped through an open window, striking a shattered piece of glass like flint and steel. Pale white washed the shadows creeping around the corners of the cramped suburban room.
Lance, seated next to his workstation, ignored the intrusion and kept his focus. His messy hair, blackened eyelids, and weary form seemed worse than the interior of his room. Books, notes, spilled ink, and piles upon piles of the dirtiest clothes collecting into mounds of stench decorated it. Blood splattered across the walls, palm prints, and pooling blood from underneath his bed wouldn't pull him from the last step.
"Three drops of virgin blood. The catalyst," he whispered, releasing three drops of blood from the pipette into a silver dish.
He reached over to the left, hovered over a series of metal rods of varying lengths, and took the thinnest one possible. Inhaling a mouthful of air, out of nervousness and for the sake of stabilizing his core, he mixed the various ingredients on the silver dish into the blood. Among them were the tooth of an aged dragon, the hair of a flaming phoenix, various auspicious herbs, and materials that shouldn't have been possible in the world he lived in.
"Three swirls clockwise. Two swirls anticlockwise. And four counterclockwise fans along the theoretical axis of a circle, as prescribed by Einfield," Lance chanted, following through with the motions, ensuring not a single tremor passed through his hands.
Maybe he was a fool. Immortality. Godhood? Those were all false constructs, something he didn't need to pursue. The lane society built for him should have been it. Dreams of transcending were nothing but an idiot's fantasy. Some part of him pushed against going through with the ritual written in the book. But,
He had nothing left.
So he'd finish it.
Unnatural bonds grew among the materials. An acidic sizzle formed a thick layer of white froth around the set of ingredients, tugging a string of relief from him. If what he saw couldn't be explained by mere science or chemistry, topics he knew nothing about, then godhood was only a few minutes away.
A sweet aroma rose from the mixture, cleansing the stench of sweat and dirty clothes that hung in the air. Lance nodded, the reaction matched the description in *Einfield's Law of Godly Preposition*. The corners of his lips dragged all the way to the edges of his earlobes, and a bright, menacing light burned within his eyes. First, he let the mixture settle for a few seconds, then rose from his seat.
As he did, he caught a reflection of his face within the shattered pieces of glass on the carpet. What truly caught his attention, aside from the pathetic, gaunt figure staring back at him, was the color of the moon's light. It seemed off. Crushing the rest of the glass beneath his bare foot, he walked over to the window and looked at the moon. It looked normal. Was that his mind playing tricks?
Dismissing the phenomenon and filing it in the depths of his mind for later, he knelt down by the bedside and clawed for skin contact until he did. Catching the wrist of his unlikely volunteer for his Ascension to godhood, he dragged the ingredient out from underneath the bed. It trembled lightly, and a weak feminine gasp from it tried instilling weakness into his resolve. He refused it and dragged it into the center of his cramped space with great difficulty.
He let it slump near the pile of clothes and fell back against the bedside. The pile of barely living flesh murmured. With a glint, he traced his palm along the bruised wrists and slit forearms until he reached her lengthy, clumped-up hair.
"You and your friends. Quite naughty. My sister is gone now. But it's fine. You'll join her," he said, snapping her head back so that she could see him.
Weakness dragged her golden eyes shut, and the little strength left in them only squeezed tears down their corners. Aubrey. Lance knew her as one of his sister's best friends, the same friends that pushed her over the edge. All he had left from the last day she greeted him was a small plastic necklace resting on the bedside cupboard. It was a gift for landing that damned new job, one that treated him more like a slave than anything. Her smile had made the effort and lengthy hours worth it.
"I'll bring her back!" The declaration gave him strength to move on.
Great anticipation and subtle moments passed. He pushed through the barely breathing corpse to the center and arranged the limbs into an odd, grotesque shape. One leg straightened, the other folded so that the heel cupped the pit at the back of the knee. Meticulous and precise in his task, he snapped the arms into place, ensuring that the elbows bent at the natural forty-five degrees for a young lady. He snapped bundles of her blonde hair and threaded them into the thin metal rod to create a natural brush.
"I just need to become a god. Become a god. I'll bring her back," Lance repeated the chant that carried him to the final step.
After a full five minutes, the mixture became a thick black paste. Poking it with the impromptu paintbrush, another requirement of the ritual as the tome requested, a dull thud rang out. It awed Lance. Even though the paste was more liquid than solid, poking it gave him the same reaction as striking a hammer on a solid surface.
The next part required immense focus, more than any other part of the ritual so far. First, he aligned his gaze at an almost perfect one-eighty with the table. Only a small film at the top of the silver dish was visible. From an acute incline, he prodded the thick paste. Magically, it collected onto the paintbrush.
Not wasting a second, he went on to the next step. He knelt and drew a cross on the human ingredient's forehead. He spat. Then, he dragged the brush all the way down, right until her groin. Her nakedness brought no reaction from him. Her humanity held no value at the moment of his apotheosis.
From her groin, he pivoted and drew across her left thigh down to the tip. Most of the difficulty lay in ensuring he drew the lines as straight as possible while not breaking them. All parts of the drawing had to be circular, invoking the Ancient One that ruled eternity.
Then, a sound. Imperceptible at first. But once he caught its rhythm, there was no mistaking it. Sirens. Instinct ignited, urging every limb to bolt as far from the little apartment as possible, but hunger wouldn't let him make that mistake. He would either become a god or die trying.