The Rise of Lazarus

The world was a graveyard, a landscape of dust, death, and decayed hopes. It had always been like that, hadn’t it? A world with no place for the dreamers, no room for those who dared to stand against the storm. But there was something in me—something that wouldn’t break. Something that refused to stay buried in the ashes.

I was dead, you know. Not in the sense that the body had stopped, but in the way the soul can die, eroded by time, by sorrow, by the weight of the things I’d seen. I had become a shadow of myself, wandering through the remnants of a world that was lost before I even had a chance to understand it. Every step I took felt like the last, every breath a burden. I could feel the weight of history, the weight of a thousand wrongs stacked upon me, pushing me lower into the earth.

And then… the call came.

It wasn’t a voice from the heavens, no divine proclamation to save the lost. It was a whisper—quiet at first. But it grew louder, until it became a roar inside my chest, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Something stirred in me, a fire long smothered beneath years of regret and grief. I stood up, as if for the first time in ages, feeling the earth beneath my feet, as raw and broken as it was. The world around me still stank of ruin, still cried out in agony, but for the first time in what seemed like eternity, I could hear something else—a heartbeat.

It was mine.

They called me Lazarus. You know the story—how a man named Lazarus was risen from the dead by a voice. But that’s not my story. Mine is the one of choosing to rise on my own, without a savior, without anyone’s help. It wasn’t a miracle—it was defiance. A rebellion against the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole.

I wasn’t born into this wasteland—I became it. I became everything it had shaped me to be. A man who’d forgotten his name, his purpose, his reason to fight. But now, now I remember. I remember the strength I had buried beneath layers of sorrow and self-loathing. I remember the person I was before the world got too cruel to survive in.

I rise, not because some higher power has decreed it, but because I chose to. I rise because I refuse to be a corpse among the ruins. I rise to show that even in a world like this—especially in a world like this—there’s something worth fighting for. The fire is still alive in me. It’s still burning, and it’s spreading.

No more shadows. No more hiding behind the walls of my grief. I stand tall, not because I’m strong, but because I’m still here. And that’s enough.

The world may have fallen, but I haven’t. Not yet.

And then… I saw her. Imelda.

She was there, standing at the edge of the ruins, not looking for salvation, not searching for a way out. She was a flame in the darkness, the light in a world of shadow. She was broken—her wheelchair rusted and battered—but she held herself like she had already won. Her eyes… they burned with something I hadn’t seen in years: hope.

I didn’t know her then. Not yet. But I saw something in her, something that mirrored the fire I had felt awakening inside me. She wasn’t afraid. And for the first time in a long while, I wasn’t afraid either.

She didn’t speak right away. She didn’t have to. We both knew the truth—the world may have fallen, but in that moment, we were still standing. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough to start again.

I couldn’t say why she called me, why I followed. But as I approached, a part of me knew… she was the beginning of something. Something bigger than just survival.

And so, we stood together, in the middle of the wreckage, two lost souls among the ruins, ready to rise.

They call me Lazarus Jones—my name’s a mark of rebirth,
I chose it from the ashes, a label of my worth.
A bootlegger, a ne’er-do-well—morals sold for dust,
Trading in remnants of the old world, fueled by greed and lust.
I ride a rusted truck down highways scarred by pain,
Chasing fortunes in the ruins, dancing in the rain.

Every deal’s a wager, every night another sin,
I barter broken promises for a chance to win.
In the alleyways of ruin, I hustle dreams in the dark,
A king of shattered memories, leaving behind my mark.
But fate’s a twisted mistress, whispering from afar—
A child’s voice calling softly, like a long-forgotten star.

I’m Lazarus Jones, rising from the ash,
A scoundrel riding midnight on a broken dash.
No kings, no gods—just a rebel on the run,
Chasing shadows ‘til the end, beneath a dying sun.

And in the echo of my own disdain, a whisper cuts the night:
“Lazarus… change is coming,” as destiny prepares to write.