*Part 2*

It is fair to say that Joe did not expect to regain consciousness once more. Not only had he sustained a fatal wound to his stomach from the filthy shiv, but the fall from a great height in the pit had broken many bones and shredded his skin like yesterday’s newspaper. Opening his eyes did little to change the situation yet it helped stabilise his sodden mind. For the first time in many years his mind was clear, despite the agonising pain, the aches all over his body. Joe paused at that thought, ‘all over my body?’. He caught his breath as poked his right arm with his finger. He winced, but poked again. “What the fuck” he exclaimed outloud. Laughing a little crazily, Joe shook his head and then decided to take stock of his situation.

He was deep underground god knows where, without food or water, yet he was alive. Gods be praised, it’s a miracle, by all rights he should be a corpse providing food for whatever scratched the stones in the darkness. He felt around with his left hand, touching the wound at his stomach. Oddly, there seemed to be little pain. Sniffing, he realised he was surrounded by a truly foul odour. Not just his usual stench of urine and feces but a stronger even putrid smell, like rotten eggs, sulfuric almost. He sniffed his armpits and almost passed out again. Christ! The smell was coming from him, rotten eggs, stale alcohol, piss and sweat. He idly considered whether they’d accept him into the Ritz in such a state.

What really surprised him however, apart from being alive of course, was his ability to think, the clarity of his mind. It was true when one had faced death squarely, one’s mindset would go through a dramatic change. And if Joe hadn’t faced death then the Gods know who has. His somewhat cheerful mood was damped as he remembered his current predicament. Lost and injured in the dark. He lent back against the stone he had woken up against and noticed that there was no pain in his back, just a peculiar tingling. In fact as he considered his internal condition he realised something supremely odd. Within his stomach, almost exactly where he had been stabbed he could feel a sense of power. That’s not right, warmth maybe, or is it coolness? He thought. Momentarily distracted by this novel feeling he scratched his right leg, causing dried blood to fall away. He paused again, he had just scratched his leg with his right arm.

A scientist at heart, Joe took to deducing and analysing the evidence before him to avoid jumping the gun on any conclusions. First question; am I actually awake? He pinched himself, quoted Descartes, and then ran a Turin test for good measure. Axiom 1 “I am awake”. Second question, why am I alive? This time his reason ran out. Hmm, fuck. He thought back to the last things he remembered. Thoughts of his loved ones ran through his mind, and the anger he had felt for Todd before being stabbed. “Bastard” Joe mouthed. Finally a clearer memory once again appeared in his mind’s eye. That of mountains and the figure beneath the trees. “Is it related?” he queried. As he thought back on the memory he suddenly found he could control the memory to a certain extent, like a lucid dream. He approached the black clad man beneath the towering trees who smiled as Joe approached.

“Welcome my dear disciple” the man said, opening his arms in welcome. The black clothes turned out to be silken robes and they lent quite the effect to the man's movements.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Odin?” Joe asked, at this point hoping for the best. The man offered no response, simply returning his arms to his chest as he stroked his curly black beard.

“Unfortunately for you, fated one, I am just an imprint of a soul that your blood has awoken from the memory stone, so you may not ask any questions” the man continued on. “I have limited time to pass my inheritance to you, fated one, and sadly the inheritance I have to pass is only incomplete for it is how I found it” at this the black clad man looked ashamed. “ I am the last of my kind, at least on this planet. Before our predecessors left, I was tasked in guarding our planet as the last, guarding the inheritances and legacies our forefathers had left behind before they ascended. “ He looked up into the sky, looking past the trees and almost seemingly past the sky itself. “Unfortunately I was unfit for the task, and whilst I was concocting a pill I injured myself gravely in a backfire” The man looked back down towards Joe, smiling awkwardly. “I was never much of a pillsmith you know, but damn was I interested; the source of my own downfall”. An illusory small round ball appeared in his hand as he spoke which then just as promptly disappeared. “Hopefully my ancestors will remain ignorant of the course of my death” he said looking at Joe meaningfully. “That being said, my name is Augustus Levi, and I hope you are willing to take me as your master, post mortem as it were?” Augustus chuckled at his own joke and then continued “ I will pass onto you all my knowledge of what the Ancestors left behind, the true Ancestors, that is, the founders of our planet. It isn’t much I’m afraid, but it should help you if you choose to pursue the footsteps of the Ancestors like I myself attempted” the man sucked in a deep breath “and failed. Know that you are the last of us, the true Last Immortal, and “ he paused meaningfully “ you must understand the responsibility you now are burdened with, the responsibilities of the Ultimum.”

Joe’s memory began to falter and Augustus began to appear even more illusory. “I will now pass everything onto you. The memory stone would have cleansed your body and possibly even helped you pass the first stage. Within the stone you should find a vial containing a solution. Of course, who knows how many millenia have passed since I died, or whether you will even be able to imbibe the vial” the man laughed. Along with the vial I pass you what I hold most dear, my knowledge of pillsmithing”. “Good luck to you, Ad vitam aeternam, may we meet once more on the path.” With that, Joe’s memory faded, yet as he relaxed a headache struck him as the stone behind him warmed. He groaned. It was like having a million brain freezes at once. He shook his head as his vision swam, foreign images blinking in and out. Finally the pain settled and his vision returned to the inky black that he had become accustomed to. He felt like he suddenly had a deeper understanding of something mysterious, like the feeling one has when a word is on the tip of your tongue. You know the word is there and yet it evades you. However hard Joe tried, he couldn’t access this ‘knowledge’ but he felt like he knew it was there. Not very scientific he thought but jeez, who cares? I'm dying in a hole, why should I not invest in my brain’s wild fantasies?

With that he shifted his sore but somehow functional body away from the warm stone, the memory stone as Augustus had intimated. “Vial within hmm?” he touched the stone with his forefinger, going with touch rather than sight. The stone rumbled and then crumbled into dust exposing a faint light behind where it had once stood. In the middle of the dust was a crockery container, a small clay amphora. More entranced by the glimmer of light than anything, Joe pocketed the miniature amphora and began crawling towards the light.