WE Shall Be As GODS: 1st Testament - Vestigial Dream

By K.R. Columbus

Loomis finds himself in Caul, The Library of Ages. Being a Hemihence, a soul unable to leave until he can forget, or be consumed by memories from his previous existence, and so becoming a Crowling, A servant to Raziel, The Angel of Secrets.
There he meets Angus, a Hemihence That's being used by a mad soultamer named Metreaus to find Raziel's Book of Secrets and ultimately The Tablets of Destiny. If Loomis doesn't help Angus escape Metreaus, he will be lost forever, body and soul.
In a world of vestigial plots and reminiscent traces of past lives, Loomis must confront his past, in order to help Angus before Metreaus consumes his soul and unleashes into the universe and ancient darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.R. Columbus
• Release date: Dec 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781466117570

K.R. Columbus

Born August 4, 1982 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, K.R.Columbus [Kemuel Ríos Colón] is a prolific Puerto Rican Science Fiction and Fantasy author, with more than twenty novels, and young adult books sold all around the world. With novels that have reached the top 50 charts in England and Australia. Before becoming a writer, he trained to be a sumo wrestler for four years. Currently lives in Puerto Rico reading good books, drinking coffee, enjoying rare music, and obscure Cinema. To contact the author – [e-mail]

Book preview

We Shall be as Gods

1st Testament – Vestigial Dream

Copyright 2010 K.R.Columbus

Smashwords Edition

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Antiquarian Age Books

By K.R.Columbus

(Release dates and titles can change at any time…)

………….

(G) - Contains Gay Characters

(S) - Contains Strong Sexual Content

(M) - Contains Medium Sexual Content

(L) - Contains Light Sexual Content

(D) - Contains Disturbing Situations

(Ω) - Contains Speculative Religious Themes

-We Shall be as Gods Series- (L) - (D) - (G) - (Ω)

1st Testament - Vestigial Dream

2nd Testament - The Weaver and the Herder

3rd Testament - Shadows of Me

4th Testament - Children of Exile

5th Testament - Beyond Destiny (2014)

-Hyper Speed Inertia Series- (D) - (G)

-Yamato Trilogy-

Battle-Submarine Yamato

The Fires of Kawaita (Coming Soon)

-NOVELS- (Not part of a Series)

-MAGNA MAQUINA- (G)

-YAKUZA RONDO- (M) - (D) - (G)

-Sodom’s X Duology- (M) - (D) - (Ω) - (G)

-Hall of the Mountain King- (S) - (G)

-The Last Southern Mountain- (G) (Coming Soon)

-Young Adult Fiction-

-The Treasures of Shamarkand Series- (G)

Wanderers to Shamarkand

Daughter of the Gods

Carnival of Shadows

The Mechanical Labyrinth

The Mirror Tower (2014)

-Totemic Haven Series- (G)

Totemic Haven

WildChild

Father Sun, Mother Moon (Coming Soon)

WE Shall be as GODS is a sequence of novels that came to be because of my love of mythology, archeology, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the occult. The premise is… What can humanity learn from its ancient past to survive impending doom? The main argument takes place in our universe and the afterlife in an expanse of 60 years or so, with a back-story spawning thousands of years, even before the creation of humanity and the known universe.

In one novel, we may have a main character that in the next might be secondary, and so on, in future books you might see some minor recurring characters taking front stage. If something is not resolved in one novel, be assured it will be at some point.

The series spans 7 Testaments, with an original story based, and inspired by mythology and folklore. The argument dances between different genres like the supernatural, science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, mystery and even some 80’s anime.

Even if the series’ narrative is apocalyptic, and dark, with lighter tones here and there, the 2nd Testament The Weaver and the Herder reached the top fifty charts. The endings to each book are bittersweet, but I do promise a happy ending of epic proportions before the curtain falls.

Hope you enjoy this Author’s Definitive Edition of the WE Shall be as GODS series and thank you for your support.

K.R.Columbus

Ps – To avoid confusion, character thoughts, important words, songs and messages are in ITALICS.

1st Testament – Vestigial Dream

By K. R. Columbus

-Gaze upon your creation and cry ye winged ones, for he burned your wings and created beings in your image to be his slaves. The night is getting darker. Can’t you see it? Are your eyes so blind that you can't see the truth? The stars are fading, and with them, any hope for the future. How did The Nefilim survive the lingering dark? I Pity you for being born in these times of blight and pestilence. He'll burn your wings time after time to steal your creation. There! There beyond the chasms of space! There, the darkness waits, beyond gates and doors it waits to gain revenge for what came before.

Before him, the ancient gods were reduced to dust, and nations were rendered into memory, because their empires are nothing more than the sand that we use to build our homes and feeble shelters. I call to you to awake ye dreaming Gods! Break free from the cycle of rebirth! You’ve to be prepared for what’s coming. There’s no escape!

Please believe before it’s too late! Please awake before it’s too late!-

A fragmented passage from - The Tablets of Destiny

Prologue

-A Time of Blight-

Time flows in a single line, but its shadows spread across everything, leaving traces of what once was, and so promising what will come to be. After all, the future is but the anticipation of something we once had, that we desire to experience again. Without former experience, there’s no future, because with this past knowledge is that we foresee what will come to be in the infinite pond of events and recurrences we call life.

Mom, I cannot see. Where are you? A dark eyed young man named Ludo called in the dark.

Everything was dark as midnight; there was not a single star or moon to enlighten the events that happened to poor Ludo and his world. From the cold floor, Ludo looked wide-eyed at the dark, as if trying to see something out of the pool of darkness, which like ink covers his vision completely.

He tried to move, but he was pinned down by something, and each time he tried to stand or make any sort of movement, his whole body hurt terribly. Ludo called for his mother, but no one answered, all he heard was muffled screams subtly mixed with the many sounds of crumbling and destruction. His eyes were dusty, and it was very hard to speak. Slowly, but steadily, it was becoming harder and harder to breathe, to the point that it was panic inducing. Ludo’s respiratory canal stung, feeling hot as he tried to breathe.

Time and an eternity passed, and Ludo’s mind fell idly into a well of uncertainty.

Am I dreaming? There’s not much I can do. All my body hurts. If this is a dream, I will wake up soon, because after the long night morning always follows. Then again, it’s strange, once awareness of a dream comes, I just wake up, because my mind becomes unbound, and like if someone pressed a switch, morning takes me. How many hours have I been laid here? I feel almost disembodied. Still, it hurts.

Help! Anybody, I’m here! Ludo tried to yell, but his shouts were cut short by the sound of screaming, the screams of a woman.

He tried to move once again, the darkness trembled violently, and in a sudden flash and painful fall, he hit the lower floor of the collapsed building. He had been on the top floor, and his movements collapsed the floor onto the one below, killing anyone or anything, that might have been there. Ludo curled in pain, his skin swelled with burst blood vessels. He felt his flesh pulsating with the blood flow, and it felt almost like a balloon about to rupture.

Something was falling on his left arm from where he fell. It was a dark thick liquid. The moment Ludo noticed the liquid; he glanced up at the ceiling. For lack of bravery given to lions, the young man with the dark eyes looked away as fast as he saw the thing there. Ludo couldn’t make himself look again to the upper floor; he couldn’t dare to see what was hanging there, something that had been perforated by a metal pike. As fast as he tried to stand up he fell back to his knees, the sweat on his forehead dripped down into his eyes, and so joining his tears. His eyes, like overflowing cisterns could not take it any longer, so he cried bitterly. How many times had he cried before? Ludo looked back at those times that he had cried, and compared with this moment they were nothing more than tests for his eyes, because for the first time in his fleeting life Ludo felt that he was crying for real, and not because it was expected as a sentimental response. Before, it didn’t feel real, almost as if he was watching himself cry on a stage, but in that moment, there were no words to describe the pain that took over. Ludo cried so much that his mouth felt raw, being nothing more than raw naked flesh. He felt unprotected.

Like in a trance, he heard more screaming, and yelling outside. It sounded like a meat grinder using human beings as feed, yet no mechanical sounds came from it, because it was no machine. The screams came from afar, chilling out the very air as they disappeared into a prolonged lingering silence.

This can’t be happening.

Ludo of the dark eyes stared at the only way out, a very small passage that was formed when the buildings collapsed. Beyond the crooked opening, Ludo saw a small portion of the street outside. He decided to go out.

Coming out of the opening, he noticed that his building was nestled between two taller buildings, so he couldn’t see the main road. Ludo could only see a small portion of the main street. The street was full of broken down vehicles, and people walking to the right. All of them were walking in unison to the right side of the street for no apparent reason. The sight was horrifying.

In pain, Ludo dragged his left leg behind towards the main road. At times, he would lean his weight against the many chunks of debris that were on the way. The air was still, almost dead, and this fact scared Ludo greatly, because it's always windy in these parts. He reached a point on the street from where he saw a portion of the sky right above him, it was pitch black, but every few seconds he could see streaks of light piercing the sky in a straight line towards the left, yet he couldn’t make out what they were. He was about to reach the main street when an old man appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed his ragged shirt. Ludo looked into his eyes wide eyed and in fear.

We must follow the light! The old man screamed in madness, showing Ludo his scorched eyes. Follow the light before the dark takes us all! I must follow it before it’s too late!

In fear, Ludo stepped away from the old man, when he noticed an intense light coming from behind. Just like an undead creature, the old man followed the others to the right side, while from the left an intense blue light kept increasing in intensity. For some reason, this light didn’t bring him any comfort, on the contrary; it felt full of dread and fetid foulness. The screams of the old man drilled deep into his soul, and so bringing him to a sudden hideous halt. Ludo doesn’t want to see what’s on the left side of the highway, but with each passing second, that something draws nearer.

It’s too late.

Such blinding darkness!

Chapter 1

-Into a Dream-

A few weeks before…

Don’t look at me! Not like this! It burns! Familiar voices echoed in his mind.

Everything must fade eventually, into complete silence.

The last thing I remember feels faded, no matter how much I try to forget that particular moment, I just can’t, just like an old picture that’s still there, even if faded by the unseen touch of time. Blindfolded I felt my nonexistent body dissolve into rays of light, a light slowly fading against a backset of faithful darkness, hidden by a truthful blanket of void. I’m not sure if the rays of light faded entirely, but instead, I believe they were woven into my being as a beautiful part of me, a part of me that will stay with me for eternity and ever more, just until the stars turn into dust.

Aware of myself, I finally understand that what happened before was but a prelude to something greater, something I was far from understanding. My sleeping body drifts gently but steadily inside a womb composed of shades of darkness, or just the slight absence of light. Two sets of vision and understanding, one that knows all that came before, and another that like an innocent child is ready to learn what will come to be. The vision that knows it all is telling the other one to sleep, and without asking, it falls asleep in a web of things that had to be forgotten. To drift is a rare feeling, having no sense where you’re headed or being taken to. Just like life, it’s you and your feelings against what was predetermined.

Lost in that drift my sleeping self forgot all that I could perceive as part of me. I wasn’t afraid, and that’s out of the ordinary. It was like polishing an ancient jewel, after all the cleaning, what was left was just me. There was no lingering dust or stains of visible pain. Everything was gone.

Slowly, I was taken away from the void. I saw the darkness slowly rot away into an infinite number of stars surrounding a beautiful planet. There, before me stood a magnificent globe sparkling in blue and green, like a precious stone casting its warm aura onto my floating self, like a mother nurturing her son. In awe, I stared blankly at the sphere before me as it caresses me gently. It felt good and natural, but I just don’t feel complete, everything feels like a dream I had countless times before.

I just can’t get a grip of myself!

Like a rare flower, I saw that world bloom from morning, until the very nightfall of its end, and so I said good-bye. The voice behind me already knew what was about to happen, but it remained silent as a small light was seen in one corner of the globe. A beautiful blue light. That light covered the globe like lightning, engulfing everything with blue flames, and so, I saw the one who cradled so many wither away into its doom. Always destroyed by the same blue light, only to be reborn a new to be destroyed yet again, as if caught in an endless loop.

Who destroyed it?

I don’t remember, but the voice behind me has some ideas about it. On the expanses of time that followed, I saw the stars weep tears of blood for that blue planet. It was sad. At that moment, I gazed upon my hands, which so frailly pale hang against the nothingness, like a candle that's meant to fade against the wind. The important thing about flames and candles is that even if meant to fade, the moments they stay lit, they can pierce the darkest deepest of places, even if that flame is pale and ultimately, meant to fade.

What’s happening to me? Where am I?

The blindfold covering my eyes was taken away, undone by unseen hands. A whisper was all I heard before being taken into the realms of the unknown. The voice that knows everything about me was gone; it was left behind by the new me that was preparing to be born anew. Born would be a bad word to describe what I was going through, because it was closer to a transformation. My body radiated light. Most unexpectedly, that light turned into a beautiful tunic made of white treads and golden lining. Reason was forgotten when I left the other voice behind, so I didn’t fall into panic when I was taken in mid air by a great raven the size of an elephant, it took me away on dark wings into the lands beyond the veil of life and death.

Where am I being taken? The young man thought.

The great raven is unimportant, but the one being carried on its black wings, but for his ill fortune, he couldn’t even remember his own name, or his true past. Even without a name, he kept his chin up, looking over the mists that surround them in every direction. The body of the young man had no traits, a humanoid phantom on its way into a new form. With every flap of the raven’s charcoal black wings, the mist uncovered hidden worlds and shadows of things forgotten by time, and more importantly by the mind. Those hidden things made him remember an old dream he had a long time ago, but the memory faded away as fast as it came to him, and so becoming obscure, becoming nothing more than a feeling connected to a foregone memory.

Caressing the great bird around its neck, feeling its soft silky feathers he tried to find some connection to his now, and to his amusement, the bird repaid him with a rush of emotions full of gratitude. Those emotions spoke louder than anything he had felt until then. Closing his eyes, he smelled the cold wind, that to no avail tried to grasp him, but things that are more urgent were at hand.

Young man, you’re the quietest passenger I’ve carried on my wings. The raven said suddenly.

It’s not that I’m quiet great one, it’s just that so far, I’ve been having a nice conversation with myself. The young man replied with a smile.

Free soul, who do you think I’m? Tell me what you’re thinking.

I’ve no idea great raven of old, but still I feel safe riding the winds on you, even if unaware of where we’re heading. I wonder why this is so?

As most things in life, it's something simple, and that’s because I’m your guide on this part of your journey.

A journey? The young man repeated.

How can it be that you can’t remember your destiny? That place you must go. Look inside, the answer is there hidden within and beyond the walls of your being. It drives you. Am I wrong?

Inside of me? The young man closed his eyes as he lost himself inside.

Oh yes, inside of you, deeper than the calling of your blood. Yes, just beyond the boundaries of instinct. Can you not see it? Can you not feel it?

At first, there was nothing as he tried to quiet everything down. Only hidden desire remained, and there he saw it. A jolt of happiness, a smile forgotten in time and the memory of a place that once had been very clear to him, but that now lay dull and half-forgotten in the depths of his mind.

Yes, I know where I’m heading old one. My body aches to go there, to soothe my soul of the many falls I’ve suffered. Wait… What falls? Why can’t I remember my past? The young man felt confused, and soon after a great void took a hold of his heart.

Let’s just say, that your memories have been obscured but they’re still there. Because if you had lost all your memories, you wouldn’t be here talking to me right now. Most of your memories were obscured to help you adapt to your next existence, to feel free of guilt and lingering pain. Some tend to be attached to old baggage, and in the end they’re left bonded and tortured by their shadows. The raven’s voice echoed deep and endlessly.

Something about the words of the raven scared the young man, but he kept listening.

"On your previous existence, you gathered a cauldron of information about the true form of your immortal soul, and that same information helps form the shape of your next life. Souls that only live for the thrill of battle are eternally trapped in an endless myriad of lives, caught up in battlefields and bloody carnage. Why? Because they desired it that way. Some souls dedicate their existence to protect others, and these people bound by the sea of blood are knights of a path that began long before time itself, before Zoroaster gazed into the flames and saw the truth, and it’ll end in The Gumizeshn, the last battle against all evil, then, the next step will be decided by those that