PRL Serials

The PRL Event: Darker Resurrection 16

Maria wasn’t afraid of the newly resurrected man. He is no Frankenstein’s monster, he is not a zombie. He is a man and he was obviously confused and he looked around the room where he was held with bewilderment, not like he was seeing it all for the first time, not like a newborn in a strange place, but more like a person who had fallen asleep in a completely different location than the one in which he woke. 

Maria stared at him from the door of his room as Dr. Worthington completed a check up. The man was naked but he didn’t seem to mind or notice, and when he wasn’t following Worthington’s directions to open his mouth or lift an arm, he was staring suspiciously at the world around him like he did not trust his perception. 

“You are a very healthy man Mr. Joseph,” Worthington said smiling from ear to ear. “I think if you try, you can speak with us. Can you try?”

The man had not spoken to the doctor since opening his eyes and he had been very obedient to the doctor because of compounds that Worthington had introduced into his system to make him more compliant, compounds that he had acquired from Dr. Thomas Eakran. The man did not have to resist urges to escape the room that he was in, even though he had wanted to get out of the building because he felt a crushing sense of claustrophobia even in the rooms of the facility that have extremely high ceilings. Any time he heard the voice of the doctor, the man obeyed calmly and his own desires took a backseat to the doctor’s orders. 

Maria could see strain on the man’s face, his discomfort at everything happening to him, but his inability to change it.

“Why am I here?” the man asked. 

“You are here because you are the luckiest man in history,” Worthington explained. “You were killed, a drug related murder, you were a criminal in your previous life, and I brought you back because you mean something to a very special man named Thomas Eakran.”

When he heard the name, the man’s entire personality changed and he stared at the doctor.  

“Don’t ever call me anything but Darker,” the man, Darker, said with a scary glare on his face, his eyes sharp. 

“Mr. Joseph…” Worthington started, but Darker was on his feet in a flash and he grabbed Worthington by the neck and lifted him off the ground. 

“Stop!” Maria yelled and Darker looked at her, unaware that she was observing. “Put him down.” 

Darker obeyed and Worthington collapsed on the floor and gasped for breath. 

“Listen to me!” Worthington screamed, “you should follow my every command!”

Darker only saw Maria, though. 

“The compound is obviously wearing off,” Worthington said as he backed away from Darker. “How are you controlling him?”

Maria shrugged and she looked at Worthington with a gentle smile. 

“Does it matter?” she asked, and then she turned her attentions to Darker. “You ready to see Dr. Eakran?”

“You cannot leave until we know he is not a threat…” Worthington said desperately as he watched Darker follow Maria out of the room. He managed to signal security and alarms blared through the building. 

Maria thought that it would be very good if Dr. Worthington stopped taking, and as soon as she thought it, he was silent. As she led Darker down the hall and to the main staircase, and then down to the first floor, each step was perilous; security guards ran out from shadows with guns trained on both Maria and Darker, and neither of them seemed to care. Darker focused on Maria, and Maria had a thought for every man who presented themselves with a gun. 

Let them leave, she thought and it soon became the overriding command that all of the armed men obeyed, and they stared confused at each other as to why they were all gathered in the first place. Many of them waved Maria out of the door and as she stood on the top step of the facility’s high front steps, Darker stood behind her. A car pulled up and a well dressed, female doctor ascended the steps to stand in front of Maria.

“Are you new here?” the doctor asked. “I’m Dr. Jones, what department are you?”

Go inside, Maria thought, and the woman’s face went blank and she walked on past Maria.

She led Darker down to the car that Dr. Jones had left behind and Maria realized that there were no keys. 

She didn’t know why she did it, but she had the idea that anything should do what she asked, and she thought that the car should start, and it roared to life around them. The car that she had driven to North Carolina was nowhere in sight, and Maria was eager to be done with the facility and Dr. Worthington. She is not the same woman who arrived. Her ability to control minds had always been dependent on her making eye contact, but suddenly she was able to control a car with a thought. 

Darker was still very much under her influence as he sat in the passenger’s seat. They drove away and Maria called Eakran. He answered his phone and Maria could hear a difference in his voice. 

“You will need to talk with your friend,” Maria explained, “I had to get out of there.”

“I’m glad to hear you are OK. What happened? What gift are you bringing me?”

“Do you know a guy named Darker?”

Eakran chuckled, “I did. He was my friend.”

“Worthington brought him back to life,” Maria said, “he’s right here next to me. We should be at the IBF tomorrow.”

“I know you are not lying to me,” Eakran said with disbelief in his voice, “but how is this even possible?”

“I have detailed notes,” Maria said. “We will be there soon.”

“Come to the house,” Eakran said. “It would be good to see you both here. We will have guests soon.”

Maria hung up and looked to Darker. He looked like he craved her direction. It was a powerful feeling, though it made no sense at all. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but something had. 

Be yourself, Maria thought, and then she saw Darker change like he had truly woken up from sleep. 

“Do you remember anything?” Maria asked him when he seemed in control of himself.

“I remember everything,” Darker says. 

“Are you excited to see Dr. Eakran?” she asked. 

Darker looked at her as the scenery moved passed them. Darker knew where he was, he knew where he had been, and he was suddenly very upset. The existence that he had enjoyed in death was a freedom that he had never conceived of before and it had been taken from him against his will. He had known it as his final resting place, a final peace after a difficult life, and he was annoyed to be back to it. And Thomas was behind it all. He couldn’t even let him die, Darker thought, he has to have someone to toy with.

“He did this?” Darker asked. He was still naked but there were no sexual feelings in the car as the two drove. Darker is just under six feet tall and he has a muscular frame, nothing that he was ashamed of as he rode next to Maria and readjusted to the world. 

“He had no idea,” Maria explained. She pulled the car over onto a clearing next to the road. There were trees behind it and the whole thing was pastoral, just the type of calm that a man like Darker needed. They stood next to the car and Darker stared up into the sun with his eyes closed. Maria found the doctor’s workout clothes in the trunk of the car, sweatpants the were short and tight on the man, and a shirt that barely hung down to his navel. 

“I think I will kill myself,” Darker said gently and he looked at Maria. Her concerned face came into view as his eyes adjusted to the light that was intense even with his eyes closed.

“Why?” Maria asked, suddenly very sad at the thought of death, though she had become very numb to it as she worked with Eakran; progress requires sacrifice he liked to say. But in that moment next to Darker, his death felt like a terrible waste. He had been brought back to life, and though he had not asked for it, it was an opportunity that no other person in the history of humanity had ever enjoyed before.

“I already know how this ends,” Darker said and he stared ahead at the scenery of trees and wild grasses with occasional squirrels running through. “Your mother is dead, Maria. Isabel died and she is with the Aje.”

“What did you say?” Maria was stunned. Isabel was her mother’s name and she has not seen her in a very long time. 

“There is only one solution to all of this. I have to go back. I want to.”

“What happened to my mother?”

Darker had moved past that fact and he was jarred to have to return to it. “She is with you, but her body has expired. Don’t be alarmed. You are so much more than you ever were with her the way she is now.”

Maria couldn’t abort her mission, not even at the news of her mother’s death. She was too deep undercover, Eakran’s most trusted assistant, and she was meeting extraordinary people and learning extraordinary things, like the fact that a man was resurrected from the dead and is somehow aware that her mother is dead even though she had not known. How would she know, how would anyone who knew her mother get in touch with her? She had dedicated her life to reuniting with the aliens and she had finally found her way to one who was her key to getting back to that home planet she had enjoyed. The planet she wanted her mother to see, that she no longer would. It was sad for her to realize, but then why would she give up when she was already so close? Maybe Darker was an omen, a good one, a sign of what she could do for her mother. 

She wanted Darker to live. She wanted him to appreciate the awesome experience.

“Don’t kill yourself,” Maria said. “At least see Eakran. He’s never called anyone a friend before.”

“Is he a better man than the one I knew?” Darker asked.

“He’s the same man that I met. The same man who murdered a woman in front of me. He thinks I’m special.”

“What did he do to you?”

Maria shook her head. “He didn’t do anything to me. I just want what he has. I’ll be honest with you Darker, once I have what he has, I mean to kill him.”

Darker nodded. “That’s probably for the best. I loved him. I love him. I don’t know if I can let you kill him. He wants to live.”

Maria smiled at Darker. “Then you either kill me now or you gotta stay alive to protect him. I’m not his enemy until I know how to get to his home planet.”

Darker considered Maria. It was possibly all a ruse to keep him in the land of the living, but she was obviously serious about her intentions to kill him. 

“I didn’t know he was an alien when I was alive. It makes sense though. I still love him.”

“Were you two an item?” Maria asked. 

“No, he had no idea how I loved him. We were just best friends.”

“I wish we could be on the same side Darker. As long as you’re alive, I want to be your friend.”

“Why?” Darker asked. 

“Because I believe you when you say my mother is with me and that was the most comforting thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Let’s go,” Darker said. “I will see Thomas and then I will end my life. You can do what you want after that.”