Gotham General Hospital

[Yaakov-Tovah]

[[Post moved from Gotham City]]

"When love has fallen far to earth...and when all burns in the hearth...

Seagulls...the sounds of seagulls greeted his ears...

The smell of salt permeated into his nose...the feel of hot sand upon his body as slowly Zesoranael became conscious and found himself on a secluded beachhead, the blazing sun above him that was raining down its deathly heat...

He groaned as he slowly rose to his feet, his eyes looking towards inland where he saw only a few yards outward of sand before more ocean surrounded him. He gripped his forehead as he felt the sting of the heat, and could not remember how he appeared here...

Then, something caught his eye above and he followed the sight, his eyes widening as the sky before him was littered with flitting, bright, overexposed images before him, quick snippets of images that contained moments familiar and unfamiliar...many of them revolving around Elasa...Nekron...his family...and his old home...

"Wha-....what is this?"

"You're dead sweety..."

Zeso spun around, his gaze in utter shock as before him, a woman walked out from the ocean, her tassels of golden hair spilling outwards, resting about her chest and back, a dress of emerald seaweed spun about her body, barely covering up her upper thighs and pelvic region, her chest heavily pronounced against the wild growth as her blazing, blue eyes looked to him...

"M...m-m-mother?!" Zeso gasped, unable to do anything more then stare upon the woman he knew as his mother, her soft smile clearly showing that she was amused by his reaction, "W-What is this!?"

"You're dead sweety...this place..." She motioned her arms to the ocean and sky around them, "Is your nexus...the go between...I'm here to help you move on..."

Zeso stared incredulously at his mother, his steps moving backwards as he was shaking his head, "That...th-that can't...it can't be! How...how am I dead?!"

His mother slowly shook her head, sighing softly as she walked towards him, outstretching her arm and would softly rest her hand on his cheek, her thumb gently rubbing his cheekbone and he sighed heavily, pleasure coursing through him as he had not felt that sensation in forever...

"You mean...you don't remember?"

At her words, lights blinked before his eyes, appearing like small stars everywhere around him. His mind was brought back just moments before it happened...he had been laying low from police in the city after the incidents that occurred between him and Elasa when they first met. This was one of his only nights on the street and decided instead of flying, that he would take a cab to get away from his district before making the shift, knowing he needed to meet Elasa, having not met her at Odym...

He was mere minutes from the zone...when from the right passenger side, he could see the lights of a large truck moving into view, its horn blaring like the symphony from hell...and then...everything became white...

He snapped back into reality, his mother's face was solemn as she knew that he had relived it and his mind was racing, a bead of sweat moving down his brow as he tried to fathom just what had happened to him...

"I...I can't be dead...I can't...what...what about my powers? The Ghost Rider energy...the Black Lantern...what's happened?"

His mother deeply sighed, lowering her hand from his cheek and let it rest on his shoulder, stroking it gently, "Honey...you're not immortal...your powers make you near invincible...but only when you're in that state. When you're human...you're fair game..."

Zeso turned from his mother, his black slacks sloshing through the water as he walked forwards from her, nearing knee depth as he looked out to the horizon, seeing nothing except the endless ocean and those disturbing, flashing images of his life in the sky...

"I...I can't be dead...they need me...Nekron is coming back...I can't just die like this...I have to do something..."

He slowly turned back to his mother, but nearly yelped in fright when he found that his mother had been joined by a tall, ghastly being that was wearing long, flowing robes of black. The being's skull was clearly visible underneath the spacious hood; the creature's face clean and free of rot, being only of pure bone.

"I'm sorry honey..." she softly spoke, the specter behind her, clearly known as Death, slowly walking upwards to Zeso, outstretching a hand, as if to take his own, "But...you do not have much say here...you're dead hun...there's nowhere else to--"

"NO!" Zeso crowed, pushing away Death's hand in a show of rage, "This...this cannot happen!"

"....Zeso....please....don't do this to yourself."

"I can't die like this!!" He cried out, his energy permeating from his being, the island around him twisting and warping as he tried desperately hard to call upon his Ghost Rider energy, causing the world around him to seethe with blackness and flames as he cried out in the world, his cries echoing across the expanse, "I can't leave!!! She needs me!! The world needs me!! Elasa!! Elasa help me!!"

=======================================================

In the real world, Zeso was on a lone bed in the emergency room of Gotham City, a team of nurses and doctors yelling orders and hooking him up to machines, his vitals showing that he was flat lining as they attempted to resurrect the boy.

He looked serene, peaceful; even with the instruments on him, the doctors hard at work trying to repair what damage they could to his fractured and beaten body, no doubt many broken bones throughout him. He was bare except for the medical clothes on. All except for his ring of which the doctors, despite their best efforts, could not remove and deemed it unimportant until they restored him...

But unbeknownst to the doctors, the ring began to glow with energy; it's once lifeless construct glowing and slowly pulsing with energy, unnoticed as this energy was sent out from the room, an invisible force that slowly expanded from the hospital, across the skies and from the city, expanding an invisible beacon that carried Zeso's intense emotions, his intense cry for help shrieking through the world, but deaf to many ears...all except for one...the intended receiver...who would hear it no matter how far she was...or what she was doing...the energy would come to her as a wave...a single word in Zeso's voice of pain...in helplessness and in need...

"Elasa!!!"

When all you crave is lost, I shall be what you need most. Your love in the darkness that won't fail...never the end to this dark tale..."

 

[Yaakov-Tovah]

"When love has fallen far to earth...and when all burns in the hearth...

At first there was the relative silence as the doctors finished their work. The boy was dead. The instruments read him as deceased, his vitals at their lowest and all attempts at resuscitating him had failed. He was lost and they pronounced him dead, cleaning up his body and sent him off the morgue, waiting for an appointment with the coroner...

Then...the signal beat into his ring...the energy channeling through his existence and brought itself to his inner mind, where he was floating in the black flame, Death surrounding him as the end was drawing near...

And when Zeso heard it...at first, he could do nothing. He listened to her cries, her suffering, his body limp as he heard her and Death was drawing near, outstretching a hand as his mother continued to speak for Death, who remained mute, "There is nothing she can do...nothing anyone can do...it's time you--"

But she stopped as the flames began to broil again, only now the flames were glowing with deep blue and the world around them began to shake viciously, thrashing about as Zeso's head slowly rose, his teeth bared as his eyes burned with an unholy blue flame, his teeth clenched tightly against each other and in a ferocious snarl, like that of a monster...

"NO!!!" He roared out a monstrous call, his voice doubling as his own voice and that of his Spirit's merged, blue fire erupting and blazing through his eyes, his body beginning to burn, "I!! AM!! NOT!! DYING!!!!!!" At his roar, the world collapsed around him, his mother's eyes falling into pain as she vanished and the fire consumed everything.

In the real world, everything was at peace. The coroner had entered the surgery room and was prepping himself to perform the autopsy, when the room began to grow warm.

The coroner wiped his brow and turned to the boy, but yelped when he saw that the metal bench was beginning to melt, the linoleum floor beginning to split and crack as the body was moving, a low groan escaping as the nude body quickly burned away, melting into a skeletal creature consumed by blue flame, the trench-coat and suit forming around him from the flame as he let out a blood-curdling roar, the flame quickly snapping and growing...

The outside of the hospital was at peace as people moved about their day. Patients coming in, leaving and cars moving this way and that, a typical afternoon in Gotham, when it became not so natural and a pillar of blue flame exploded from the top of the hospital, the fiery creature lifting high into the sky with the pillar of fire swirling around him and following him, his Lantern aura twisting around him with the flame...

As he flew towards the East, the fiery swirled around him like a shadow, making the Dark Lantern appear to be like a great phoenix of blue fire streaking at an immense speed towards the source of his pain and wrath, zooming towards Europe at speeds that not even Earth's fastest jet could match, the skeletal visage of fire streaking through the skies on a mission to protect what he cared for...and for vengeance...

When all you crave is lost, I shall be what you need most. Your love in the darkness that won't fail...never the end to this dark tale..."

[EXIT Zesoranael to Latveria]