Heroic Journey Myth

The streets of the city were quiet in the dead hours of the night. A rain had made the concrete rivers wet and the reflected the streetlights. Not a sane soul was out that night.

As a knife enters the body between the ribs and streaks towards the heart of an enemy, did sounds pierce the heavy night air. The sounds traveled everywhere, the tunnels, the alleys, and the main street that was the lifeblood of the city. Suddenly, from a dark tunnel, like steel stallions, seven motorcycles screamed out. They sped along the street, turning into an ally and firing out the other side. They were like ravenous wolves, chasing prey that was tiring. They raced to a group of people, cheering them on. The motorcycles screamed past the lamppost and a mix of cheers and curses resounded in the cold night air.

The winner took a wad of money and laughed, “Let it be known that Johnny is the greatest of them all!” he yelled in triumph.

Then, they heard a sound, and as if from the shadows this creature was spawned, did it come. The motorcycle was black, black as night, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch. It ran as a wraith glides, barely making a sound or giving warning to its prey. The demon-like machine stopped in front of Johnny; the rider wore a black helmet with a single symbol: a pentagram turned upside down. As glacial ice, creeping down the valley to swallow up life and all warmth that opposes it, did the voice sound.

“I hear your boast. Care to prove it?”

Johnny’s face screamed of the hubris he felt in his heart. “Yeah, sure. What’s the bet?”

The mystery man said but one word, “Souls.”

Johnny was a little shocked, someone actually wanted to race for souls? Johnny’s girlfriend, Sabrina spoke up, “No! I don’t know what it is, but this guy isn’t what he appears to be. If you go through with this, you will be damned for eternity!”

Johnny ignored the wise words and turned to this mystery rider “Deal”, he shook his opponent’s hand and listened to the instructions.

“We ride out of town and to that Cliffside. First one there wins.”

Johnny once again gave a cocky smile and sent everyone else ahead to wait at the finish line.

Johnny and the dark one waited, waited for the signal that would start the race of his life. The signal, a beam of light from the cliff, started the race. Johnny sped off, thinking his steel steed would surely outdistance his opponent. He was wrong. The dark one started to pass him, and Johnny saw a real challenge. He kicked his bike into a higher gear and sped forward again to lose this mystery racer. But, once again, his opponent stayed with him.

The two combatants passed nine streets and raced out of the silent city on a highway to fate. Sabrina looked at the two; she saw the two at a dangerous speed, and attempting to do even faster.

Johnny was worried. He didn’t go this fast at all, let alone on this road, which went near the edge of the hill and possessed a fall that would kill. As they entered the turn, Johnny slowed down to spare his life; his opponent gave a demonic laugh and sped up, leaving Johnny in his dust.

Johnny approached the finish line, the other rider was just crossing it. The dark one called out, “I have won your soul for my master, and I claim it. Go to him now!”

Johnny tried to stop his bike, but the breaks didn’t respond. It was like being thrown into a river of ice, as he looked at the edge of the road, and the cliff. He sped past the laughing demon and off the cliff; the only thing he heard was his girlfriend, Sabrina, screaming, “Johnny!”

The rider, that was once alive and full of hubris, was now chained in the depths of hell. He burned in the fire and watched as the demons tore apart others, just to laugh as the damned ones screamed and writhed in pain. He saw the dark prince, the fallen angel, in the distance, laughing. He looked to the dark corner and saw the rider who had bested him. The one also laughed.

He came up to Johnny and said, “Don’t worry, we will take care of you here, and you know what? We’re gonna rip your soul to shreds, and every night, put it back together so we can do it again. Then, I am going to go to Earth and rape that pretty girl of yours, and bring her down here so you can watch.”

The demon walked off, laughing. Johnny remembered his life and saw a picture of Sabrina. He must go back, if only to stop the demon from getting to her. He struggled against his bonds, but not out of desperation, or pain, or even fear, but out of love and the desire to save another. The iron links, forged in hellfire, could not withstand the power this soul projected and snapped as if they were the most delicate crystals.

Johnny looked about, saw the pain, the destruction, the chaos, the death, the painfully taunting sight of the ramp, said to be the only way out of this demonic place. He saw the dark one. The dark lord was looking at him! The fallen one pointed a finger and an army of demons ran towards their prey. Johnny ran, looked for a weapon. He found a cave and went inside.

The demons smiled. They didn’t have to chase this one very far. He was trapped in the cave, and when he came out, they would feast on his essence. Suddenly, they heard a noise from within the cave and tried to remember why the cave WAS there in the first place. They were reminded in a most painful way.

Johnny streaked out of the cave on a silver-black phantom bike. A skull over the headlight and black hair tied in the form of a tail attached to the end of the machine. He ran down the demons and streaked toward the ramp. He dodged various horrors that jumped into his path, intent on killing him. Johnny kicked the bike into a higher gear and the bike sped off at the speed of darkness, for light was banished from this realm. Like foxfire, he sped toward the only exit from Hell.

The dark one, the prince of lies, called forth a demon. This demon wore a black helmet and sat upon a black motorcycle, forged from fires from the ninth level of hell and cooled in the eighth.

The fallen angel looked to the demon, “Go captures him, or you will take his place.” The demon streaked off, hunting his prey.

On Earth lived Sabrina. She lost the one she loved a year ago and came back to the Cliffside every week. She cried at the site, as always. But, this time, something different happened. Her tears, like liquid crystal, fell, but not onto the cold, uncaring granite below, but through them. They passed the earth, and descended into a place where pity and love had no place. A single tear survived this journey and fell toward the hell-scorched rock.

Johnny approached the ramp; he was at the top speed of this machine. He realized with a chill that he would not be able to attain enough speed to clear the plane of Hell, and so did the demons. The evil creatures laughed, and cursed. They started to tell Johnny, “We will bite your fingers, eat your toes, rape your body and tear at your soul! We will cut off your head, cut off your dick, sit on your neck and take a shit!”

The demon, with a black motorcycle and a black helmet with an upside down pentagram raced towards his prey, intent on catching this soul a second time. He smiled behind his helmet, thought his prey, intent on catching this soul a second time. He then noticed something, a shining substance falling.

Johnny raced further up the ramp and noticed a small object, glistening not with the light of hellfire, but with that of the mortal fire. The single tear, one that survived the descent into hell hits the skull on the motorcycle with a splash. The machine gave a roar, and in the empty eye sockets of the skull, a green fire flared. From the tailpipe, a fire of the purest white fired out.

The fire was not hellfire, which feeds on the soul, nor mortal fire, which kindles the soul and allows it to grow, but heaven’s fire, which saves the soul. This holy flame blackened the damned ground, seared the demon-skin of the pursuers and scorched the hellish air. The bike sped up the ramp. The dark lord of hell roared with anger as the bike left the ramp and sailed up, up, and shattered a part of the barrier that separated his domain from that of the mortal world.

Johnny’s motorcycles fired through the demonic boundaries like a bat out of hell. Johnny landed on the ground of a familiar street and knew what he must seek out. The bike sensed this and sped him off to the Cliffside that had ended its rider’s life. They went faster than Johnny had ever gone before and soon he was there, and he saw his beloved.

Sabrina heard a motorcycle somewhere in the city; the night air was like a damp cloth over the forehead of a fevered child, cool and heavy with moisture. She saw the bike speed up the hill and skid to a halt before her. She did not believer her eyes, before her was a man. He wore what was once jeans, a leather jacket, and her loved one’s eyes.

The man looked at her and managed to for the word, “Sabrina”.

She needed no more proof, and jumped into his arms.

The motorcycled had, since the entering of the mortal plane, doused the fire in his eyes and engine. But now, it sensed a great evil coming. In the distance, it saw a demon with a black, hell-forged helmet enter the mortal plane, the one that damned his rider’s soul. It revved its engine in warning and readiness to battle his demonic former captors.

Johnny turned at the sound of the motorcycle and saw the black figure he knew from earth and in hell. The figure had grown to the size of a giant and laughed, “Come all my brothers, let us gather our prey and tear the souls out of the living. Come!”

Johnny turned to Sabrina, “I broke the barrier. He came through. I’ve gotta send him back, even if it means going back there, too.”

She watched as Johnny jumped on the bike and they both jumped the cliff, back into the city, and to battle.

Johnny sped toward his enemy, and wondered how he could possibly defeat this creature. As if his heaven-born machine heard his thoughts, it started to change him. Johnny saw his own body, a reflection of his soul, which was corrupted and foul, change. He started to brighten with a light; in his hand was a lance of the purest silver, shining with a holy essence. He sped up a bridge and flew into the air, at the demon that now dwarfed the skyscrapers.

Like an arrow, fired from the bow of a master, Johnny sped to his target, and pierced it. The lance entered the demon, and the demonic biker screamed. A holy light flashed and a white fire started to consume the demon. The other minions of hell were shocked into the pit screaming. As the bike and Johnny fell away, the demon biker slapped them, as if they were nothing more than a small insect.

The motorcycle gave a mechanical howl as the plummeted to the earth. Johnny, losing the glow after the blow had been struck, fell with the machine and slammed to the ground. The demon screamed one time before he dissolved into nothing, leaving a dark scorch in the night’s sky, and the crack into the fiery pit of damnation closed.

Sabrina ran over to the body of her beloved and the twisted, burning form of the motorcycle. She saw that instead of the dark shape of his soul, burned with hellfire, his body was pale, like that of one who lost the embrace of the mortal’s fire. She wept next to his cooling corpse.

From the distance somewhere, she heard a bell tolling, and beams of sunlight shattered through the dark clouds that hung like a gray blanket concealing the sky. On the third ring of the bell, Sabrina turned around, to locate the noise, but heard no more. When she turned back to the body, she saw that Johnny, and the bike, were gone. In the distance, she heard the sound of a motorcycle. It sounded as if it was riding, up past the clouds and into the light.

“Godspeed, Johnny” was all she said as she got up and walked away.