Trials and Tribulations

Chapter One: No rest for the wicked

Seth was just like any adult human male. He worked for a living, had a wife and a kid, paid his taxes, and tried to keep himself out of trouble. The difference was, he was only 18. He had seen the best and worst that life had to offer him, yet he was unconvinced that, at that point and time, it could get any worse. You see, he had a wife and had a kid. His bitch of an ex-wife was a gold digger, that is, she only married Seth for his money.

Seth was an entrepreneur in the medical industry, the medical marijuana industry to be exact. His background was sketchy, a twice convicted pot grower father and a psychologically unstable mother led Seth to understand that the thin blue line wasn't that thin after all. After his dad taught Seth the, erm, family business, Seth went out into the world to make his mark and to help people cope with the various debilitating diseases out there. He believed his alternative to morphine and Botox, THC, was far better for the human body and would even start to reverse the effects of Multiple Sclerosis and some types of Cancer.

Seth wasn't happy though. His ex-wife bribed the judge and won the lawsuit following the divorce, taking half of everything he owned, and only letting him see his daughter every second weekend. He knew that he should have waited until he was older and more world weary before he got into a commitment such as marriage, but he was pressured by his employers to 'marry the bitch' before the child was born. They said bastard kids were something they avoided at all costs.

So, as Seth was heading to pick up his daughter, his mind was weighed down with darker thoughts than usual. He was remorseful for his daughter had to have gone through. Remorse was followed by regret. He regretted ever meeting the stupid cunt. Regret was followed by anger. He wanted to make his ex-wife disappear of the face of the Earth. He grinned evilly. He would make her pay for all the hardship and trouble she put both him and their daughter through.

He stopped abruptly, not realizing he did so in a busy intersection. What am I doing? he thought to himself. I can't commit a murder, even if the blood isn't on my hands. Fuck me, I wish I could just start over. Have a different life, a better one.

As he was thinking this, a school bus came careening around a corner and blew through the red light in the intersection, right into the pondering Seth.

Little did Seth know, for it was too late for him to notice or care, the school bus had been hijacked earlier that day without anyone noticing. Seth's daughter, Zyre, was on that particular bus which was just coming back to school after a field trip to the museum. No one questioned the fact that the bus driver was different from last time, nor the fact that he had some difficulty controlling the bus. Her teacher noticed something awry and stood up to go talk to the new bus driver, but before she could say anything the bus driver pulled a .45 and told everyone to sit down, shut up, or he'd blow the teacher's brains out.

All the kids on the school bus started screaming and before the hijacker could say a word or cock his gun, he hit something with enough force to almost completely halt the bus. Kids were thrown left and right, the teacher was knocked unconscious, and the hijacker had his neck broken from the steering wheel, paralyzing him for life. As police and ambulances arrived, the children were led out of the bus and onto the sidewalk. Zyre looked at what stopped the bus, and cried out in shock.

"DAD!"

Seth didn't notice though. He was too far gone to be saved, according to the paramedics. As they loaded Seth into the ambulance to be taken to the morgue, they listed off his features.

"Male, 6'1, about 175, brown hair cut short, green-grey eyes, freshly shaven, designer suit. Remarkable little damage considering he was hit by a bus. Looks like a big business type, but he only looks to be about 22, 23."

The paramedics checked his suit for a wallet. They found it and opened it.

"Says here he's only 18. Doesn't even have his driver's license yet. Must've been one of those mensa-genius types. Christ, he looks more world weary than some of the 30 year old gang bangers we've zipped up."

The other paramedic nodded and said, "Hopefully he's in a better place now. Poor kid deserves some rest."

The first paramedic was going to say something clever like 'There ain't no rest for the wicked' but before he could make a sound, a multi-spectrum coloured light bloomed from the man's chest, right where his heart was. The colour swirled and grew, engulfing the man in its fiery aura. Before the paramedics could utter a curse or a cry, the colour dissipated, along with the body.

The two paramedics sat there dumbfounded. The more logical of them said, "Great, what the fuck do we do now? No one told us how to deal with a dead disappearing body."

The other paramedic, the more religious of them, crossed himself and said, "For Christ's sake, did you not just see what happened? God gave this man a second chance and took him up to heaven directly. We just witnessed a miracle, you and I."

Unbeknownst to both the paramedics, it was neither an act of God, Christ, or any other divine being with powers incomprehensible to man. Simply put, no one caused Seth to mysteriously disappear from the realm of earth. Something did.