July 2, 1994:

             It was a smoldering warm summer night and everyone but David was asleep. He’d opened the window though his mother had told him and his brother not to because it would allow the cool air from the central heating out and now he’d awakened feeling warm and parched. Earlier in the night they heard loud and strange chirping in the sky above the trees.  His twin brother, Gavin popped out of his bed and eagerly zipped towards the window and David following right behind him.  They peered with noses touching the cool pane out at a swarm of bats fluttering chaotically in the darkened sky. Then David lifted the window so that they could gaze more readily upon the quivering black mass of flapping creatures.  They marveled at the sight and talked themselves to sleep with thoughts of vampire birds with blood sucking fangs.  David had forgotten to shut the window and now with a face moist with perspiration and a drenched pajama top, he could think of nothing except a tall cold glass of water.   He wasn’t supposed to roam the house when his mom and dad were asleep but there was no way he could wait until the morning and if he woke his mom, he knew she’d get upset with him. So David laid there thinking of whether to be naughty or not and glanced over at Gavin hoping he was awake so that he might have an accomplice he could share his naughtiness with. The moon was only a sliver and slanting its rays through the window its light fell sideways onto the bed where Gavin was fast asleep and revealed something that quickly dissolved David’s fixation on his thirst.  His bat mitten was on the floor beneath Gavin’s bed! David quickly tore off the sheets to go fetch it. He’d told Gavin not to touch it, but mostly because Gavin told him not to touch his hockey stick.  David angrily picked it up and wiped it against his batman pajama top as though it might have become soiled from the spotless Turkish carpet.  After placing it neatly back into the toy bin against the wall, he quietly opened the bedroom door having decided to disobey his mom’s wishes twice in one night. He glanced carefully down the long hall towards his parent’s room and after seeing that their lights were off he looked back at Gavin hoping once more that he might have awakened, but he could tell from his breathing that he still slept, for it was deep and a little noisey too. David made his way into the hall and began tip-toeing down the darkened corridor toward the stairs. 

David dreaded each step down the creaky stairs of the old mansion and when he reached the first floor he looked back towards the top of the landing and though it would have hidden the outline of either parent, he listened for a voice of reprimand.  But a voice never rang out in the darkness.  And he felt some pride that his venture had been stealth enough to avoid detection.  With an added sense of mischief and excitement he made his way through the cloaked living room avoiding by memory the coffee table and the marble pillar with the large and important looking sculpture of a head. He continued making a diagonal beeline towards the dining room and next, the entrance to the kitchen which was situated on the wall furthest from where he was.   His feet kept warm by the carpeting now felt the cool ceramic tiles of the kitchen.  The moons light refracted onto the stainless steel refrigerator giving it the look of a dangerous missile housed in the weapons room on some futuristic spaceship.  Though a few feet away still, David’s arm extended in anticipation of the handle but something interrupted the final achievement of the glass water pitcher in his grasp.  Instead, David found himself upon the floor on all fours, having tripped over something. He felt a hickey on his forehead from hitting the refrigerator door, it was swelling and pulsating as the blood in his veins coursed beyond the layer of bruised skin.

The injury hurt considerably, but David was tough and the pain was very much lessened by the curiosity of having stumbled over something quite large, warm and unusual.  David’s body had traversed the object and was clear of it having ended up on the opposite side, and still upon the cool surface of the floor, David positioning himself in the direction of what had caused his fall began reaching out in the darkness to lay his hands upon it. A piercing scream filled the large home and sent Nevie and Gavin hurling from their beds and into the hall towards David who was somewhere on the first floor.  For Nevie, this night was the beginning of a silence so utterly desolate, she would seriously fear for her sanity.  David had discovered the body of his father laying cold and dead upon the floor and after uttering those words he would find himself unable to speak again.  His twin, Gavin in one weeks time, would follow in his brother’s footsteps and join him in a world where the motivation to speak, was no more.

                Naturally Nevie was devastated, after all, she’d just become a widow and to now find herself with two young boys whom could neither communicate a desire for consolation nor offer their voices as reminders that she was not alone was beyond painful. And then there was the oddity of the diagnosis. In spite of the trauma, after completing a questionnaire for David, who had always been a child of few words, he was diagnosed as being autistic. Gavin was the one diagnosed as suffering from trauma- the trauma of having lost both his father and in a sense, his brother as well. For Nevie, though, existing in a home without the sounds of laughter or even whispers was like living in a hell where each day she felt as though she were walking deeper and deeper into a tunnel that in this case, honestly bore no light at its end. When her grieving subsided a bit, she found the strength to challenge David’s diagnosis of autism. She became obsessed and began taking him to the best doctors in Philadelphia. It didn’t hurt that Armond, her recently deceased husband and their father, had been a neurosurgeon, so finding the most elite specialist in the field was the least of her problems. Still it was 10 months of trying everything that she could think of before Nevie noticed something. The boys never spoke, that much was obvious, but they did seem to be communicating. They’d look at each other and giggle, or one would have his back turned to the other, and then suddenly he’d spin around and toss his brother a toy as though he’d been asked.   Nevie began noticing this type of behavior between the two boys so much so, she asked Eli Rothschild to come and see what he thought. Was she going crazy? She wondered. Had all the silence finally pushed her over the edge? Eli wasn’t a doctor, but he was a science teacher at the Academy that the boys used to attend before all this happened. He was an old friend of hers too, but most of all she trusted him and had always trusted him, even before Armond’s death.  

 

                A month later, Nevie was elated and deeply troubled all at once. Gavin and David were communicating telepathically. It was definite, no if ands or buts. Eli tested the boys by running experiments with David in one room drawing and Gavin in another describing what David was drawing. He tested Gavin, asking him to write down 10 numbers then had David write down what he’d thought Gavin had on the paper- and he was correct, 70% at first, but 90% of the time after it was all said and done. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Nevie tried to reconcile what Eli so convincingly assured her, but she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. The only thing she knew was there was hope now, and it was better than believing that David was autistic.

 

                December 2, 2014:

                As Gavin rode his motorcycle through the rush hour traffic on Chestnut Street towards Drexel University he thought about David. They were doing the same thing in this moment. They were both on their way to Universities. Gavin was q physic's professor rushing to teach his first class of the day and David was beginning a new life. It was new, but more than that it was just plain ole bizarre. A month ago David was enjoying a 6 year stint as the pianist for the darling of Europe, Niko Jolivet when all of the sudden he’d tired of the expensive liquor, the after concert parties and the wealthy and gorgeous groupies. It seemed like just yesterday Nevie was warning David about destroying his liver, when suddenly David couldn’t bear being away from the two of them. So now he was on his way to an interview hoping to exchange the high life for the boring position as a professor of music theory.

 

                ‘I always knew you were a wuss.’ Gavin thought as he was parking his Ninja in the University’s expansive lot. Gavin was the athlete and David the artist and since they were small Gavin always teased David about being more sensitive than he. Suddenly Gavin laughed aloud sensing David’s response to his insulting jibe as he, now running up the stairs rushed to the classroom. Next he felt a cool sensation at the tips of his fingers and as he looked down at them he realized the feeling was related to something David was doing and not him.

               

                Weiss Hall was silent as David walked calmly down the white marble corridor. He gazed admiringly upon the large oil paintings on the walls and marveled at the silence and stillness. There wasn’t a student in sight, for this was an administrative building. David’s eyes darted towards a glass partition that displayed the school’s football trophies and it distracted him from the thoughts he had about the job interview. He was sure to get the position for his talent was exceptional and his style both disciplined and creatively ingenious. He curiously walked towards the compartment and touching the cool glass with his finger tips peered closely at the small print on the golden plaques. The gesture transported his thoughts and he sensed Gavin who was running late again, as usual. Then he felt his thoughts traveling backward to his time in Europe. It was a brief thought, a mere snapshot of he and Niko climbing into the back of limousine in the wee hours of the morning after an especially brilliant concert. Niko passed David an opened bottle of champagne and as David lifted it to his lips he felt the coolness of the golden label against his palm. He didn’t regret leaving the after parties, the women or the fast cars. He was relieved actually, and looking forward to teaching music. It would return to his life a much needed experience of normalcy, but more importantly, it might silence the nightmares he was having about Gavin. Now that he was back in America he could relax and be closer to his family again.

 

~

 

The interview went well though Eli’s having forwarded the head of the music department a Youtube video of David banging out one of the most awesome solo’s of his career turned the interview into a riveting conversation between two musicians. No one told David what Eli had done. Instead David got inside Gavin’s head and found out and while he was there he got wind that their mother had invited Eli to join their celebration dinner tonight and it was intended to be a surprise. David was good at acting, so he’d play as though he knew none of it, but he was more than pleased with the idea of seeing Eli again. Since their father died, Eli had become a much needed surrogate and he never forgot how Eli tested their telepathy all those years ago. Maybe Eli didn’t know it, but all those tests served to elevate his and Gavin’s abilities 10 fold. The testing Eli did with them also bonded them to him, but it was his acceptance of their strange talent meant the world to the two boys. After all, though Nevie loved her sons, she wasn’t at all fine with the idea of them having as she called it, ‘supernatural powers’. And coming from the West Indies she sometimes associated their talents with something evil or at the very least, scary. So Eli’s frequent visits and his open mindedness returned a normalcy to their home that had come and gone all at once in one night.

 

David entered the posh restaurant and the first thing he noticed was its warmth in comparison to the frigid cold outside. As his eyes gazed around at the beautifully set tables, his ears drank in the sounds of Miles David, and then he noticed his mom and Gavin somewhat hidden beyond a tall lush palm in the choicest corner of the restaurant. It was just like his mom to want the best. She was a beautiful woman with dark long wavy hair and exotic eyes. She was classy, sophisticated and had a tongue like the sword of Mercy; though her tongue resembled its razor sharpness and not the merciful part. As David walked in their direction, he had a thought he had often had. And that was, how neither he nor Gavin fully resembled their mother’s West Indian looks, but especially not their father’s brown Dominican complexion.

 

Gavin noticed David first and when he smiled, Nevie turned just in time to get a warm peck on her bronze cheek. “Your brother was early, do you believe that?” She eyed him carefully as he sat down across from her.

“No…” David said, always conserving the amount of words needed to relay a thought.

“I hope you’re hungry, I’m starving.” She said looking at the menu and then setting it down again she smiled. “Well…?” She uttered with an expectant look on her face.

David turned to look towards the door and then turned back to them in reaction to feeling his shin being attacked by his brother’s foot.

‘What?’ he asked without words.

‘Well did you get the job?’ Gavin asked telepathically.

‘I think the Youtube video clenched it.’ David smiled.

“Well, tell me about the interview. Do you know if you got the position or not?” Nevie looked a bit insecure as she glanced to each of her boys suspecting they might have been conversing amongst each other.

“Yeah… Yes, I uh…” words were always hard for David. In fact, he sometimes thought he was speaking, only to discover he was, but only in his mind. Maybe that was another reason why he had to come back to the States. Gavin had a way of forcing him to articulate like a normal person did. “I start in two weeks.” David picked up the menu but turned to glance in the direction of the door again.

 

Nevie motioned for the waitress as though no one else was joining them this evening. “Why do you keep looking back towards the entrance?” She asked David before the waitress made her way towards the table.

When David was too distracted to answer, she shot a chilly glance towards Gavin. “You didn’t?” She asked thinking Gavin had spoiled the secret.

“No!” Gavin uttered defensively despite not knowing what she was talking about. Then he looked over to David who had again glanced towards the front of the restaurant.

“What’s going on?” David said noticing the look in his mother’s eyes.

“David, look at me...” Nevie said when David turned to eye his brother. “David!?” She said when he remained preoccupied.

David turned to meet her intense glaring eyes. “Yes?”

“Why do you keep looking to the doors?” Her voice was flat and a tinge of annoyance strained her lovely timbre.

Gavin caught David’s thoughts and chuckled. Only now did he realize David knew Eli was joining them.

“What?!” David exclaimed. “What did I do?” He added taking his mother’s hand in his and putting on the charm.

Nevie smiled awkwardly. Was it shameful that she loved the attention of her son’s? Then she felt nearly embarrassed at accusing Gavin. “Nothing…” She smiled briefly then turned to the waitress standing now at her side. “I'll order a bottle of your Castello della Regine." She said and then sighed inaudibly. "I suppose you boys will order beer?"

David still had her hand in his and he squeezed it hoping to illicit a smile.  He was successful, but only for a moment.

‘Black and tan.’ David informed Gavin.

“Two black and tans.” Gavin said ordering for them both.

Nevie’s face was suddenly set with exasperation. “David, open your mouth and order for yourself.” She replied as though he were 9 years of age.

“Black and tan.” He uttered obediently yet sarcastically.

She gave him a look before turning towards the door as though hoping to see someone of relief walking through them.

“It’s uh…” David began. His tan complexion was flushed with a red tinge and he paused before going on. “It’s really exceptional, being back.” He finally got out. Then he turned quickly to Gavin before sighing. “Really?” he replied shaking his head indignantly. Telepathically Gavin had just called him ‘such a girl’.

“Don’t insult your brother.” Nevie replied guessing but also knowing what Gavin must have said. “And no telepathy tonight… Please. I’ve had enough silence in my life.”That was one of Nevie’s lines, something she’d said no less than a hundred times since that night so long ago.

 

David felt especially bad whenever she said that. He always had, but she never believed just had hard he tried to make conversation. She always thought he avoided it just to be obstinate. But he didn’t. He noticed Gavin nod his head, and when he followed the direction of his eyes, he found they were resting on a smiling and jovial Eli. David felt a rush of emotions that gave him somewhat of a shock. He’d missed Eli, but he didn’t realize just how much and he stood up as Eli reached the table. Hiding his true emotions, he extended a manly hand to shake Eli's, but Eli would have none of that.

“My God, it’s so great to see you.” Eli said pulling David into a big hug. Then he smacked his back sort of hard to make up for the sentimental gesture. “Well, tell me everything. You’re staying at Gavin’s place, yes?” Eli was tall, had an olive complexion and dark hair. He was fit too, had always been, but he still looked really great.

“Only until I get my own… “

“Do you need a car to get around?”

David chuckled. “I did make quite a bit of money.”

Eli smiled. “Of course you did.” He responded removing his coat after having bypassed the hostess and placing it on the back of his chair.

“I had a job interview today at Temple University.” David uttered as though he didn’t know that Eli knew about it.

“No?” Eli was sitting and now that he was next to Gavin, David noticed for the first time that they had the same square shoulders, thick wrists and long fingers. “How did it go?” He asked looking at the wine menu for a split second.

David nodded realizing only afterwards that he hadn’t spoken aloud. “Yeah, I got the job… I start in two weeks.” When he looked over towards his mother she was smiling at him proudly and it dawned on him just then that everyone he loved in all the world was sitting at that table.

~

             Months passed and Gavin and David were as inseparable as they’d always been. They always got along very well, and could enjoy each other’s company almost exclusively. They were hanging out nearly every day and driving around the city in search of an apartment for David who ended up purchasing a condo instead. His new place was in an artsy section of the city called Northern Liberties and now that they were no longer boys, Eli began meeting them at a pub in the Art Museum area of Philadelphia, called the Fire House. There they’d have drinks and talk about life, and in that they were all teachers their conversations were often about their students, the pain in the ass's, or the especially talented ones. And it didn’t go un-noticed by either Gavin or David that most of the time after their tête-à-tête, Eli would head out to pay their mom a visit. They began to suspect that the two of them were more than friends, and though neither of them mentioned it to the other they both knew how perfect it would be if Eli and their mom got married.

               

             Spring was right around the corner and Nevie and Eli were attempting to get David to have a housewarming party. Though David had a new girlfriend, a social worker by the name of Corrine, he needed to meet more people. Aside from going out for drinks with Gavin and Eli, David’s life consisted of losing himself behind the piano where he’d play and compose all night forgetting about sleep until the birds outside his window reminded him of the approaching dawn. The three of them were so incessant with their urgings and staged conversations that David finally conceded, mostly however because he was curious to meet Gavin’s girlfriend of nearly a year, Akiro. She lived across the bridge in New Jersey, which was one reason it was difficult to meet her. The other reason was that she was a physicist, as Gavin was, but she was always attending conferences all over the world. In the time that David lived with Gavin, the relationship was just budding and Gavin was constantly visiting her apartment, giving himself some much needed space and not minding fitting into Akiro’s unconventional schedule. But this weekend was a definite.

 

             Akiro was to attend the housewarming party for David where she would finally meet the family and Corrine as well. Gavin was eager to introduce her to David, and he was worried if his mom would like her and hopeful that she and Corrine would get along. As for Eli, he knew Eli would love her, especially her sharp mind.  Gavin marveled at his life, David was back, he had a fantastic family, loved being a professor and he had a woman in his life who he had so much in common with. ‘A person couldn’t ask for more’ he thought over and over again. But then life took an unexpected turn, and it was of tragic proportions.

 

CHAPTER II

 

It was the first evening in days where it hadn’t rained, and Gavin was eager to take his bike out for a spin and visit Akiro who’d just returned from France. The night sky was beautiful, the breeze was warm and the moon was pregnant and full. It was nearly three in the morning and Akiro had just text him that she’d arrived and was walking through the doors of her apartment. Gavin couldn’t wait to see her, he was imaging kissing her and feeling eager to make love to her, it had been over a week, after all. He took the exit for route 1 and found the boulevard, a wide 8 lane highway, completely void of cars. It was a dream come true; as though the God’s had created a stretch of highway with only his name on it. Gavin changed gears, revving the motor and preparing to pierce the air molecules like a spaceship soaring through outer space. He glanced at the speedometer as it inched toward 90 mph. The last thing he remembered was a car pulling out from a parking lot about 80 feet in front of him. He swerved the bike then felt something crushing hard against his rib cage and squeezing his heart as though it was slab of liver. His body felt weightless as it soared up high into the sky. It was all in slow motion and the feeling of weightlessness was exhilarating even though some part of him knew the cause of his awe was born from an act of terror. The next thing that occurred was feeling himself dropping back to the earth and soon the pain was unbearable, excruciating. Seconds after that everything went black.

The phone ringing and the sun blaring through the window was the first thing Gavin remembered since the accident. Then he heard his mom’s voice on the answering machine, her crying jarred his awareness and got his heart pounding so hard he could feel the blood pumping in his ear lobes. She was tough, she never cried, he thought as he sat half way up. But she was distraught and saying something about how she felt like she’d lost both of her sons!  What she’d said caused Gavin to sit up fully and he looked around only now realizing he was in David’s condo. He struggled to get out of bed and had to use his hands to move his left leg to the edge of the bed where it dangled as though paritally paralyzed.  All the while he was trying to sense David, trying to feel where he was and what he was doing. He couldn’t feel anything but he kept trying until a slow sense of panic grew to become so overwhelming it felt like a boulder smashing down on his consciousness with the realization that David was dead. David was dead.  David was dead and in some way so was he, because not only could he no longer sense his brother, he couldn’t even feel himself. He couldn’t feel his own soul!

 

A numbness came over him, lasting a moment before being replaced by an ache in his chest that felt like a sword being been run through his heart and then slowly withdrawn so that the shock and pain would linger as long as physically possible. Tears began streaming down his face as the thought of never seeing David again echoed over and over again hitting against the insides of his empty mind.

 

Gavin couldn’t tell how long he’d been unconscious. He couldn’t even remember the weeks of physical therapy he most certainly had to have endured before being able to get back on his feet. It was foggy, but he had a fuzzy recall of wanting desperately to get to David’s condo instead of his own. The incident with the phone call seemed like it was yesterday, but it was actually several weeks ago and now his isolation was causing life to take on a strange and surreal quality. Without David it was like he was 7 years old again and those same feelings that silenced his voice, overtook him like a dark wave of loneliness and again he lost the will to speak. He didn’t want to see anyone either, not his mom, who kept leaving messages, not Eli or even Akiro. He didn’t want to see anyone who might tell him that everything would be all right, or that somehow they understood what he was feeling! The best he could manage was to text them every now and then saying that he loved them and was okay, but that was it. It was like he was in some kind of dream or a bizarre state where he could go in and out between reality and what he would come to understand as life beyond the veil- life beyond the mind of sanity.

He sat on the edge of the bed trying hard to recall being transported to David’s condo but as much as he tried he was incapable of snatching even one image from the annals of time. It must have been the pain killers, he reasoned as he reached for the headboard to pull himself to a standing position. He would have needed a lot of them, he thought as his eyes met with the sight of his mangled leg. Even now nearly all the flesh was gone, and the same was true of his skin beneath the left side of his ribcage. His eyes needed to look upon something else, something less harrowing. There was artwork everywhere and his gaze rested on a nice colorful painting of a girl. She was like a flower child. With long sandy dreaded locks and a beautiful expression she was roaming through a field of daisies looking back at him with the most awesome smile. If anything was good, he thought, it was good that he was here. It was as close as he could get to being with David and in some way, somehow, every now and then he could pretend that he would find David sitting at the piano playing and then scurrying to scribble down the musical notes playing inside his head.

Life seemed odd, surreal, but things became quite bizarre when he began waking up at 3 a.m. every morning. It was the exact time of his accident. Then the oddness became extraordinary when he felt like something or someone was beckoning him to the computer sitting on the metallic desk in David’s office. One night the beckoning was so strong and insistent the thought of it wouldn’t leave his mind no matter how hard he tried changing the trend of his thoughts. Gavin finally heeded the call and feeling all jittery inside he stumbled through the dark condo to David’s office some 40 feet away. He sat in the chair half wondering why he hadn’t just stayed under the warm covers even if it did mean he’d toss and turn for hours. Something inside him lifted his arm and caused it to reach out to fiddle with the mouse. The computer screen lit up and a chill soared immediately down his spine. There on the screen was a document poised as though he’d worked on it only hours ago. There was a title above the script which read: ‘The Celestial Chronicles’. As Gavin maneuvered the mouse so that the curser would allow him to scroll down he felt something like an electrical jolt travel up his arm and spread throughout his body as though there had been a short in the circuitry sending through him, a low grade voltage. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been at the computer, hell, he couldn’t remember much, but he was sure of one thing! He wasn’t the writing type, and never would he have written this document.

Gavin sat there scrolling down and reading the manuscript. All the while a voice inside his head whispered that he must have written it. He must have, it kept repeating, frantically over and over again.

‘You will be sent chronicles…’ Was how it began.

“Jesus…” He mumbled desperately but continued.

 

‘You will be sent chronicles of the battles that we face. I am something like a reporter- a Celestial reporter, gathering news from different sectors of space and sending all concerned up to date briefings about the war of the Universe.’

He didn’t write it, but the conclusion was worse, wasn’t it?

‘But my orders have been expanded, and I have been asked to include you in the briefing. But before I can do this, there is something crucial you must comprehend. The Great One, like all beings, possesses a body, and this body like all others, possesses cells. These cells eat, they breathe in oxygen, they have duties to perform and they govern certain functions so that the body lives. The cells don’t think of themselves as cells. Because they possess intelligence, they feel themselves too lofty for the designation of mere cell. They reproduce and live in communities, these cells even have enemies and fierce wars are fought, won, and sometimes unfortunately, even lost. The cells live and they die and more cells come and take their place and the body lives on.’

‘ This is the life of what your scientists call a single cell, however when there are trillions of these single cells in one region they tend to give themselves a name. They call themselves Raphael or Maria, they call themselves Humans. But they are no more an individual as a cell that makes up your heart. In reality you- you are simply part of a larger unit, a platoon called the Celestial Warriors! You are a cell within a mighty fleet of soldiers within a vast galactic army whose sole purpose is to protect the Empire of Neshma, the being you call God. But the purpose of your unit was to protect the planet. You on the surface, before you’d all forgotten your orders and true identity was to guard and protect the Earth sector from our deadly foe...

Have you ever wondered what the function of the Universe is, and whether it, like you, has purpose and awareness? Would it seem odd that something so much vast than yourself, something so much more complex than yourself should at least possess intelligence and the same gift of awareness that you enjoy? The truth is all creations enjoy awareness. But most of you believe the Universe exists merely to be observed, for you it is simply a mass of twinkling wonders to be unraveled and marveled. Using that premise, what would its purpose have been for the millennia that man had no tools to observe or for the millennia when man did not even exist? I’ll tell you the secret, the Universe is the body of Neshma, and the Neshma is the highest of all Life Forms!

As cells and organs are to humans, so are humans and planets/celestial bodies to Neshma. Neshma is the Supreme Being, the one that can not be divided nor reproduced, or even fathomed by your genius! The Neshma’s reality is a mystical journey into the magical realm where substance and life is created from nothingness. Where that which is timeless creates time, where the canvass that it paints upon, lives and then itself paints upon canvasses! The purpose for those on earth is to re- awaken to protect the sacred journey so that life might continue for all eternity!

When Gavin got to the last sentence and finished it, he stood up. His leg gave in and sent him reeling back into the chair again. His knees began trembling and as he looked around feeling dazed, the room seemed close to fading, as though it weren’t actually real. In that same moment he actually heard David’s voice, it filled the room as though he were standing next to him speaking into a microphone.

 

‘I can’t go on without you Gavin… I feel like I’m dead inside.’

Tears began streaming down Gavin’s face and an emotional pain as real as any wound tore through his body. After that evening, Gavin ignored the computer for three days and then faithfully after laying in bed for 2 straight days listening to ‘Comfortably numb’ by Pink Floyd, decided to check and make sure that nothing more was added.

 

‘There is something I have to tell you, and I wish it wasn’t so, because I don’t want to scare you,….’

Gavin gasped. More had been added to the manuscript!

‘ but there is a battle going on in that picture perfect place that you call space- in that stagnant paradise that you think of as Heaven. Your scientists observe Suns going super nova and neutron stars emitting micro waves and think this is just outer space, this is just what naturally occurs in the Universe, but what they are really observing is no different than mankind exploding bombs and using lasers as sources of energy!  The suns unleash nuclear storms in the midst of battles and neutron stars emit microwaves that Celestial Warriors use as weapons to neutralize its opponent. Comets are sentient beings that travel the Universe giving us coordinates and maps of unknown territories. And the enemy, a vortex of infinite proportion has a name, we call the monstrosity the Eblis for it is the mortal enemy of all of creation!

When a cell within the body mutates you label it as cancerous, but in the Universe when a cell mutates, its deadliness is monumental. In the body white blood cells destroy the cancer to save you. As it is below, so it is above. We are the immune system of Neshma, we are the Celestial cells that protect the body of Neshma by maintaining the balance within Her wondrous body! When man awakens he remembers his orders, and he realizes that everyone stationed on the planet is a soldier. You, the cells on earth were to be, are to be the front line protection!  But instead of following through on the command, man has fallen asleep, and the planet without this protection sits there in the galaxy like a lamb being hunted by the deadliest of all wolves. We need the human race to awaken, for when you do you will awaken to a reality where you realize you are only one division, one platoon of infinite legions in the greatest battle that ever existed! A battle in which he can never be killed, and a battle, where if won, saves God, herself!

Then Gavin heard a voice, faintly, as though it were on the other end of a phone line in another room.

 

‘Gavin we need you to wake up… the light is your salvation.’

             

             Gavin stood up and felt every muscle in his body tighten as though his body were trying to keep him together, trying to keep him from imploding into millions of atoms. “I’m insane!” He whispered as though tenants in the adjacent condo might over hear him. “I’m insane…” He whispered over and over as he walked, still limping terribly, up and down the hall of the condo.

 

             It was close to midnight and Gavin was wide awake, sitting on the sofa and staring blankly into the darkened room. Life felt skewed, wrong somehow, but there was one element of comfort that he could claim, and that was he had avoided the computer for over a week this time! Life was grim, but at the very least it was of great relief that he was sane. He was sane because he had refrained from continuing that maddening piece of writing- for that was what defined him as a lunatic. Yes, this time the cord was unplugged and positioned in the same snake like fashion as it lay a week hence. Then, a thought riveted through his psyche. What if more still had been written? What would it mean if he opened the computer again and found more had been added to the Chronicles despite its being unplugged? The curiosity crumbled his resolve, ravishing his week of discipline and leaving it in pile of desperation in the corner of his brain. He got up from the sofa as quickly as his maimed leg would allow and limping towards the office he felt his heart pounding wildly as he tried to move his body with more agility and quickness than its capabilities would oblige.

 

The Gemini was turning out to be quite a Captain…

 

Gavin paused. He was horrified. But his horror was only sublimated by how strange it was that the name Gemini was used. It was strange because it was what he and David were called by their childhood friend Enrico. Enrico… he hadn’t thought of him in years, Gavin thought as his mind rolled back in time with perfect ease. As vividly as ever he could visualize the three of them running through the long jagged trails that followed the Wissahickon creek the 10 miles from one end of town to the other. Enrico was struck by a car and killed by a drunk driver as they all walked along a dark road over 10 years ago.  Gavin pulled his mind from the past, it was strangely difficult. As though the thoughts were made of gum, they seemed to want to remain there, but now they were focused again, focused upon the awefulness of having found more had been added to the Chronicle!

 

The Captain was making a reputation amongst the newly passed as someone who would reach the higher ranks and have at his command a multitude of fleets instead of just one. Even now it was impressive that he was given over 30,000 soldiers to command. And though the recent skirmishes had taken nearly half of his soldiers by vaporizing them and then imprisoning them in the realm of matter, it was no fault of his own, and was not uncommon even amongst Captains who had served for hundreds of years. It was the Gemini’s rare bravery that rendered him worthy of such a command. In his short career here on the other side he’d even trained majors so that they could oversee units that consisted of hundreds of eager soldiers that forsook Paracedios, or Heaven as it is called, to serve in the mighty war!

All Warriors who fought in the Celestial battled used weapons made of light particles that they stored in their solar plexus and which emanated from their bodies like laser beams when fighting the enemy. In the Universe there were many sources of light, but the newly passed could only bear the levels of light that came from micro waves. There however, would come a time when they would grow stronger, and when they did, they would graduate to recharging their bodies using the most powerful light known, and that light was generated from gamma rays. But now as he and his fleet of nearly 20,000 soared the Universe with bodies recently charged, their magnificent bodies appeared brilliant like the neon tail of a comet. They traveled, nearing speeds of 60 thousand mps as they responded to the call for an immediate need for soldiers in the K10 sector. K10 was located further out in deep space than any of them had ever traveled and the Gemini could only hope that the distance of the trek would not deplete them of the firepower needed to be of assistance and of course, victorious.

This was not the first battle to occur in the region to which the Gemini was leading his troupes. The details of that encounter were now circulating the entire universe, from fleet to fleet and camp to camp by way of the plasma and hydrogen particles that like airwaves filled up the entire Universe. Even the peace loving souls who resided in Paracedios were being made aware of the tragedy. Though the details were daunting, the Gemini led with utter confidence, emboldening his right hand major, Norquis who was following close behind.

The journey began with a desperate communication from several of the satellites hiding out in meteorites near K10. The Gemini had heard the communiqué that was sent to any and all in the Celestial realm. The enemy had suddenly stopped in its tracks, they reported, and was now hovering one light year away from the K10 solar system. The enemy, a vortex of energy, spinning like a colossal cyclone used many tactics to destroy the territories of the Universe, but one of its most devastating weapons was the emission of galactic acoustic reverberations. The frequencies of its emissions were like bombs that used not fiery energy, but sound waves that could pull apart the smallest fragments of atoms and destroy with ease, massive worlds thousands of times larger than earth and stars much more vast than the earth’s sun. The position of the enemy was especially alarming for only several weeks prior it had been defeated and in a blaze of flames it fled. Yet now here it was again hovering quietly though surely there to exact revenge.

‘We’ve never seen such a specter.’ A satellite called Ethone reported. ‘Surely we can see not even one sector of the heavens for its girth is so massive it conceals the entire horizon!’

The Gemini was sure Ethone was exaggerating though the stories of how large the enemy had become from consuming worlds and space debris was reported in the chronicles as well. But so large that it concealed the horizon of space? That could not be, the Gemini thought with certainty.

As the Gemini led his Warriors though large expanses of dark matter unknown to them, his mind became preoccupied with the details of the last battle in k10 which ended in destruction despite the enemy’s retreat. The only silver lining was that though the soldiers had not won, neither had the Eblis and that was a tribute to a prominent Captain called Artavius. Under his command were over 100 thousand luminous and powerfully charged soldiers that had been in battle for eons. The fighting raged for days nonstop but he commanded such a multitude of divisions that when one unit had run out of fire power they could leave the zone, head for a Neutron star for gamma replenishing and return to the battle just as the next platoon was replacing those who had been fighting.  And this rotation went on and on as the battle and fiery flames grew in intensity.

The enemy was clever however, for when its beating was particularly lethal it would move itself in close proximity to the no fighting zone. There were in all galaxies areas that High Command deemed were no fighting zones. These were areas within a solar system that contained worlds that Neshma created for the purpose of evolution and life forms categorized as ‘blessed’. If the soldiers fired in these zones they would destroy the worlds and not only did they deeply loath this outcome, but High Command would take grave exception of the disobedience. And no one ever tested the High Command; neither had anyone ever laid eyes on them which made them all the more revered.

But one of the tactics of the enemy was to proximate itself to a nascent world and for endless weeks the monstrosity would linger there gathering its strength and healing its wounds so that it might withstand the army that was before it. But sometimes this tactic proved a self defeating maneuver for their foe who in remaining in one place, gave other platoons time to arrive on the scene.  There was written, several battles where when their foe finally emerged, it found itself confronted with the entire population of the dead.  In one of those battles 2 thousand years ago, the fully charged and eager Warriors let loose such a fury of fire, that it purified the enemy, dwindling it into an innocent neutrino particle!  This happened, as said long ago, for the girth of the Universe is eternal, and there are no speeds mercurial enough to make present fleets whose locations in light years are infinite in distance.

As the enemy lingered in inertia, Artavius was alert, he was shrewd and had been battling for many hundreds of years, yet he was even unable to predict the clever malice of his enemy, nor how quickly it could open his orifice and release such massive frequencies that thousands of miles of space quaked in response to its terribly disruptive sound waves! The enemy ejected itself from its resting suddenly and before the fleets could release enough power to wound it, it opened its orifice and released such excruciating frequencies that all eight worlds within K10 began trembling with awful velocities. Several small planets imploded almost immediately while the others vibrating resonance filled space with sounds that mimicked the cries of a horrified infant.  Suddenly a burst of light appeared. It was the great Ares who at the speed of light had traveled great distances to save solar system.

Artavius’ heart swelled with pride as he was sure that now their nemesis would be defeated just as it had been two thousand years hence. His massive command merged with Artavius’ seamlessly for they had fought together many times. The soldiers simply joined with the formations that Artavius had constructed. Within seconds of Ares arrival the light from their solar plexus exploded like a sun going super nova. The Eblis' vortex was immediately reduced to a 10^th of its girth from the force of the blast. Debris from its body splattered the dark matter of space with its skin marred in red luminous embers. Devastated, it’s vocalizing sounded like a weak squeaky hinge as it fled at the speed of light, spinning asymmetrically as though both inebriated and mortally wounded. Many fleets followed in pursuit while just as many remained as they were needed to coax the gravity within the system around the nearly imploding planets, thereby settling them back into their normal spherical forms.'

Gavin felt himself feeling strangely anxious and incredulous. He couldn’t have written this. He just wasn’t that creative, he’d never been the creative type. David was the artist and he was the mathematician. He was the logical one, the practical one. But now everything seemed different somehow. Gavin went back to the chronicles and then paused. Something he’d just read jolted him deeply and his mind felt confused all of the sudden.

'But before the arrival of Ares, the enemy was so close to destroying the system and reducing the splendor of Neshma to the soils of ruins nearly 1/2 of Artavius’ soldiers chocked up with fear and vanished from the Celestial realm to where they would become delusional ghosts on the surface of earth believing themselves to be human again!'

This was what was meant earlier, Gavin thought, when the chronicle stated that Warriors could dissolve and become prisoners of a realm of matter! It meant that Warriors were ejected back to the surface of earth where they believed they were alive again! Gavin got up from the chair and paced back and forth in the darkness. Why did it bother him so to read that ghosts were really Warriors who’d been returned to earth when they experienced fear in battle? Why did it bother him, he kept wondering as he paced impulsively to and fro.

 

 

‘I think we have damaged its core!’ Norquis yelled to the soldiers.

‘Continue firing!” The Gemini yelled back regardless of whether Norquis was accurate or not. Never cease, the Gemini was thinking. Never cease firing until the enemy was blind to their eyes, microscopic in proportion. They’d been firing on their foe for nearly an entire earth day, chasing it, and finding it when it hid in the dense and massive folds of space. After another long sustained effort, their luminosity was beginning to wan as they were all nearing microwave depletion. The Gemini had to make a choice. Fire until they were completely depleted, or save some firepower for an unexpected opportunity. The Gemini took a chance and ordered the fleets to cease firing on the enemy. He then examined his fleet. Many of them were glowing dimly while still others were merely transparent from depleting their reserves. The Gemini looked out into the Universe now visible from destroying nearly half of their foe’s mass. He was looking out hoping that even though he received no communiqué that others were on their way, he might see Ares’ or Artavius’ massive fleets lighting the black expanse of space. But as far as he could see there was nothing but the distant stars.'

Gavin didn’t want to read the chronicle any more this much he was sure of. But there was another part of him, a deeper part of himself that could feel the chronicle, as though it lived inside of him. As days passed Gavin began having dreams about the battles, but instead of the Gemini soaring through vast regions of space it was him! Days seemed to roll one into the other but his body remained sore from the accident and it seemed nothing had really changed though it had to have been months since his life was reduced to what it was now. It seemed all Gavin would do was sit in front of the computer day in a day out. He was sitting there now, staring at the Microsoft logo then to the bottle of beer and the beads of sweat that rolled down its curvaceous form. Suddenly he had a vision of the Gemini and his militia. He saw them as outlines of human form made of light and in numbers that reached the thousands. They were so radiant their blended light made them appear as one unified beam of the greatest sunray ever. From their solar plexus blazed a star like gem that radiated in all directions and that like a passing ray of sun their light fell upon planets and their moons simultaneously. The span of their laser like gems must have been many hundreds of thousands of miles. When they moved, it reminded him of a flock of birds, all at once they turned swiftly circling around meteors and moons. In an A formation they soared into the vast dark space. For a moment he felt a sense of freedom that was near ecstasy, he felt like he was out there too, and he could see colorful shapes of energy that when he mentally passed it by, communicated with him telepathically.

 

'We know you!' A nebulae uttered psychically at him. And then it marveled.

 

In the next moment he passed by a structure so incredibly vast, that he was unable to comprehend it. Gavin was attempting to keep up with the Gemini’s militia of light, but they traveled at maddening speeds that he couldn’t match even in his mind. He called out to get their attention, and the A formation of light, stopped on a dime then like some massive dinosaur turning, the tail of the fleet gracefully swept behind the anterior troops. Then hundreds upon hundreds of eyes were on Gavin and slowly as though they were unbelieving and curious, or else as though they didn’t want to spook him, they gingerly approached. Gavin could almost see the Gemini’s features, and with great anticipation he squinted his imaginary eyes but as soon as the features were about to flesh out, he found himself staring at the Microsoft logo again.

 

‘When Celestial soldiers are lost, it’s not the same as what happens on earth. All of those on this side of life have, as you would say, passed on. And though you can only die once, it’s still bad news for them. The Eblis feeds on fear, and fear is contagious, like viruses on earth, fear spreads from one mind to another through the electromagnetic waves that connect everyone. When soldiers lose their courage if unstopped, it can spread throughout the entire fleet! And once their courage is gone their psyches return to the planet of their origin. And there they live in hallucinatory dreams where they think they’re still “alive” in their previous lives.'

 

Gavin stopped reading. ‘Once their courage is gone their psyches return to the planet of their origin.’ It was like some part of him was communicating to him, trying to tell him something. The thoughts were almost within reach, but when he tried to mentally grasp at them, they faded like a snatch of wind passing by. He reached for the beer just then, took a long swig and continued reading.

 

'People on the planet call them ghosts, but no matter what they’re called, when a commander loses them, they lose fire power and in this war, microwaves, gamma rays and light, are the only weapons they have. Without a full complement of soldiers, they haven’t sufficient power. Without power, the Eblis destroys solar system after solar system!

 

The Warriors are in need of a Liaison, someone on the surface who is telepathic who could communicate with the splinters lost on earth and get them back into battle. There are nearly a billion splinters on earth, so the Liaison would have their work cut out for them. But the Liaison is the key. When the Liaison is able to contact the Warriors he will learn to see those who radiate light and those who don’t. Then the Liaison will have to learn how to overcome fear. This is no small feat, for you, you will have to awaken for this prophecy to unfold. You will have to awaken. You, Gavin, will have to awaken.’

Gavin stopped reading, he felt overwhelmed and his feelings were too much for him to contain. What if all of this was real and he wasn’t mad, he thought? What if there really was an enemy of God, an enemy that wanted to destroy all of life? Could it be that he was the Liaison and had already contacted the Warriors? After all, he felt like he was soaring through outer space several nights ago! And it just so happens that he is telepathic.

 

‘Very good…’ A unison of voices replied in regard to Gavin’s nascent acceptance.

 

Gavin looked around half expecting to see someone. And when he didn’t, his pounding heart skipped a beat or two. “Jesus…” he cried. “I am insane… I am mad….”

 

'It is mad to believe that in a Universe as vast as even what your scientists are aware, could contain only one stream of consciousness. One dimension to be perceived and only one manner of perceiving it? Now that is mad…'

Gavin rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. “Who- who are you? Are you the one writing the Chronicle?”

 

'No, we are High Command.'

                                                                         

 

Gavin’s life slowly changed after that. And for the first time since the night of the crash he went outside and walked around. David’s condo was in a part of town very different from Gavin’s old neighborhood. It was the section of the city where artists and musicians lived. There was no rushing, no bumping and no rush hour traffic with the constant beeping of car horns. Yet what was similar was the cold detachment of his neighbors. He’d walked two blocks without a hello or eye contact from anyone! But as he was headed back to the condo something strange happened. It was the beginning of spring, the day was unseasonably warm and as he was walking in the direction of Las Cazuelas he noticed they’d set up the terrace. Seated at the tables were a few patrons dining comfortably in the open air. When he was about 20 feet away from the restaurant he noticed that some of the patrons had a kind of glow to them, it was like a cocoon that engulfed them in a light that had luminous particles floating aimlessly within the egg like envelope which radiated outward about 1 to 2 feet. Amazed he watched as the particles bounced against the borders of the cocoon, sometimes floating freely, and sometimes crashing into other particles where they would emit sparks from the contact of colliding. Gavin stopped in his tracks, he was tired too, but the breather gave him an opportunity to really study and marvel at the sight. After observing the unusual activity for a few minutes he was about to continue on his way when he noticed another bizarre occurrence. Aside from those that radiated the light were also some that were developing a dark fuzzy cloud that had begun rising up around their bodies engulfing them in a swirling mass of unattractive darkness. Then he noticed more and more people who were engulfed in this murky cloudy substance. Those with the light around them weren’t affected by the darkness, and some with the light were sitting at the same tables as those who had the murkiness around them! Gavin looked at their expressions, their demeanors and even how they were dressed. Did the ones with the darkness look meaner or were they different in some way than those with light, he wondered? But as he looked on he realized on the surface they all looked the same, there was no way to detect who was filled with light and who wasn’t! Then he heard a voice from out of nowhere.

 

‘That light you see shows that they have awareness.’ High Command whispered in his ear. ‘They are connected to us here in our region of space though they aren’t yet fully tuned in.

 

Gavin then noticed the light that surrounded some of them was actually coming from a stream above them which was pouring down into the crowns of their heads from a source as high as his eyes could see.

 

'Those who posses light on earth are not yet soldiers, but when the time comes, they are the only ones that the Liaison can trust. The ones that don’t possess light are unconnected to the Source. It’s hard for them to feel love. For them it’s a dog eat dog world.’

 

About a week later this ability of Gavin’s suddenly jumped to the next level. He was sitting on David’s bed when the phone began ringing. Staring at it he suspected it was his mom or Akiro calling. He was tempted to answer it so he got up and left the room instead. He tried walking as normal as possible, if he was going to be a fearless Liaison he needed to overcome this defect. It made him appear weak, he surmised, but try as he may, the limp remained. As he passed the window something outside it caught his eye. He turned awkwardly, reaching his hand out towards the wall for support as he maneuvered his frame to fully face the window and the scene beyond it. He was at the top floor and looking down at the street below everyone looked like small gracefully animated dolls and the cars looked more like toys zooming down the racing track of a child’s game. But then something in his perception changed, and everyone walking below who radiated light became instead of individuals, a unified radiant oblong cellular structure that spanned for as many blocks as his eyes could see! And those that radiated the murky cloudiness formed a similar unified structure too, but instead of the awesome glow of light, it looked sickly and twisted and churned like some sort of wounded cosmic worm.   The light and the darkness were at times parallel and at other times they crossed the other, each maintaining the integrity of its character. From that moment on, Gavin understood the concept in the chronicles that said that man was really a unified cell. Gavin also understood that the unity would one day translate into a battle that was sure to ensue against the ‘others’.

 

‘We need you to gather the splinters lost on the surface.’ High Command spoke, as always in unison. And Gavin felt a sensation of electrical currents coursing through his being every time they contacted him.'

‘The ones that you lost in k10?’

 

‘Yes. But we’ve lost more in the past. There are billions of splinters on earth. But you won’t be alone. We’re sending someone to help you get to the next level.'

“Who?” Gavin wondered.

 

'When you are ready they will appear and the two of you will learn to find the splinters. But that’s enough for now, prepare yourself and when you are ready we will contact you again.'

The sun was bright these days. Washing upon the shiny wooden floor its gleam lightened the room and beckoned Gavin to walk outdoors in the fullness of her glory. He heeded the call, and since that first stroll, walking outdoors became a daily necessity. And each time Gavin ventured out, he walked further and further. He even made a goal for himself- one day very soon, he would walk to the waterfront seven blocks away. Gavin longed to admire the vast river and feel the breeze that cut across its surface from the shores of New Jersey, the neighboring state across its expanse.

 

It wasn’t until a month had passed before he actually found the strength to attain the goal of making it to the waterfront. But on this day he finally did. And as he stood on the wooden piers looking out at the war ships rocking gently in the breeze he felt overcome with the beauty before him. This area of Philadelphia attracted tourists and admirers of history, and as he stood there now a small crowd began gathering around the blue plaque that told the history of the grand ships that were rocking majestically beyond the promenade. Gavin suddenly felt a desire to mingle even if it was only a brief hello or superficial comment about the warship the whose history was displayed on the plaque.  He began making his way toward the crowd and trying to mask his limp his steps were slow and labored. He felt awkward andn self conscious but no one stirred or glanced his way. When he was in their midst he thought someone might nod a hello his way, but no one did and he felt invisible. He felt lonely and an image of David washed through his mind leaving in its wake, a heavy feeling of grief.

 

Gavin turned away feeling disheartened and gazed down the coast which was lined with benches and trees. He decided to try to make it to a seat that was far from the crowd and away from the area where people walked. It was shaded by two huge willow trees and the closer he approached, the more inviting it became. His leg was beginning to pain him though and every step was accompanied by an immensely sharp ache that emanated from the left side of his ribcage. His eyes were cast downward as he tried to focus on keeping his balance and not collapsing onto the pavement.

 

When he finally reached the bench he fell with all his weight into a seated position with great relief. The sound of leaves rustling in the pleasant breeze distracted him pleasantly and from the corner of his eye he noticed a woman walking down the promenade. She was headed his way and was somewhat tall, thin and wore her hair boyishly short though there was nothing masculine in her gait or demeanor. He turned away from her feeling awkward and weak and recalling a time before the accident when he would have felt attractive and playfully bold, but not now. Though he’d turned away, he sensed that she was going to sit next to him. It was after all, the only bench that provided shade.

 

When she took a seat Gavin cautiously glanced at her and offered her a small polite smile which she returned. Finally someone acknowledged him! He thought. How long had it been since he looked into the face of another human being? But also there was something about her that was familiar. He thought about where he might know her as he admired the grand view of the water and the pedestrians walking on the pier. He had an urge to speak, perhaps to ask her about her day. She would be the first person he’d spoken with since everything changed. He cleared his throat and as he opened his mouth she turned to him.

 

“Though these are ships of war, I find them breathtaking…I suppose that’s odd?”

Gavin was speechless. Her voice, he’d heard it before! “Do I know you?” He wondered with a small astonished smile.

She had a slight smile on her face as well. “Yes, but you can not recall from where, can you?”

Gavin laughed, he hadn’t done that in a long time. “No, but I think I have an idea.” He was sure she was one of the nurses that took care of him during that period from which he had no recall. He didn’t want to talk about that time though, so he changed the subject. “I find the war ships exciting too.”

“I would imagine so.” She replied.

Gavin looked to her as she gazed outward. What an odd response, he was thinking. “Why, why would you imagine so?” He queried her curiously.

She took a deep breath and then turned herself to face Gavin. “My name is Enyo, and I was sent to meet you.”

 

Gavin looked on her, stunned and musing over who might have sent her. He wondered if he had missed a call from the hospital, but then again, how would she know to meet him here even if the hospital had called? He then thought about his mother. Had she hired someone to watch over him from afar?

“By High Command.” She said as though she’d read his mind.

The air that Gavin breathed in became caught in his throat. It took a moment before he remembered to exhale it. “You?” was all he could say.

She nodded. “Yes, I am here to help find the splinters and pave the way for the Liaison effort.”

Gavin felt himself fill up with a curiosity that was beyond words. “Does High Command speak to you too?” He wondered, but before she could answer he asked another question. “How long have you known about this stuff?”

“Since my accident in August,” she said and her voice was a little deep, but feminine and soft, it was soothing too, in an odd way.

“That’s when I had my accident…” He said realizing that she couldn’t have been a nurse but that she might have been a patient. Maybe they even shared a hospital room together. “Was it hard for you to believe? How did they contact you?”

“They came to me directly.”

“Directly?”

“Well, I’ve never seen them but-”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve never seen them either…”

The two of them were quiet for a moment and Gavin noticed that he felt an instant connection with her. They had so much in common, the accidents in August, the surreal experience with being contacted by High Command and the assignment to find the Warriors that were roaming the earth like ghosts!

“Where do we begin?” He thought to ask.

“Do you have any ties here? No one you need to...?” She asked the question, but seemed to know the answer.

“No.” He answered feeling a little guilty as he thought of his mom, Eli, and Akiro too.

“Then I know a place to start. Are you up for it?”

Gavin didn’t expect things to begin so quickly but what else did he have to do? There was nothing in his life to prevent him from this journey. And when he thought about it more, he felt almost eager to begin. He looked over to Enyo with some relief and noticed that she was radiant with light. He’d never seen anyone as radiant as her. In fact she was nearly translucent with a luminosity that extended far beyond the surface of her skin!

“Are you?” She asked him again.

He was distracted by her light, but managed to shake his head. “Yeah, I guess so.” He replied realizing she had no idea of how radiant she was. But his eyes were not as much focused on her face as they were focused on the tiny dust sized orbs of light floating around her like electrons bouncing off of some kind of invisible field.

“My truck is over there.” She pointed towards the hill that was a short cut to the road. Gavin knew he could never trek the terrain so he looked around for the steps that would take him to the street level.

“Oh, I see.” She said, and Gavin didn’t know what she meant until she knelt down and laid her hands on his mangled leg. Gavin watched the light from her body beginning to travel into his leg and then he could feel it, a sense of heat that began moving up his spin. “Let’s see.” She said removing her hand and standing up.

Gavin knew that she wanted him to stand up also, and when he did, he didn’t feel the pain that he had grown so accustomed to. Now he went to move his leg and was astonished that he had full control over the muscles. He took a step just to see what would happen and was even more amazed.  He was walking normally, just the way he used to. Still though, he didn’t think he could make it up the hill.

 

“Just try.” Enyo said. She was a bit serious in her demeanor, like he imagined a woman in the armed forces to be. Strong yet soft, but there was something very sweet about her too. She walked ahead of him in a quick gait and Gavin was surprised to find he was able to keep up. Then she took to the grassy hill and began to climb it with great vitality and ease. She looked back at Gavin as he followed, a bit unsteadily at first, but as his confidence grew, so did his ability to move with strength and agility.

 

“Wow…” Gavin said when they were at the top of the hill. His eyes were cast back to where they’d come. It was some distance and the hill was steeper than he thought now that he was at the top. He shook his head marveling at the experience. “What did you do to me?” He thought to ask. But all Enyo did was smile and then she threw him the keys.

“You like to drive right?”

Gavin smiled, he hated being in the passenger’s seat and when he and David would go places they always argued about who would drive. Gavin won most of time, but with that aside he mused over how Enyo would have guessed. He thought on this only for a moment, there was so much he didn’t remember that this fit nicely into that invisible file labeled ‘unknown’.

 

Gavin and Enyo took route 95 and headed towards North Carolina. The darkness of night slowly cloaked the day and then the sun slowly made her ascent and Gavin barely noticed he’d been driving for over 10 hours straight. He looked over to Enyo peacefully asleep beside him and thought Hope Mills was a good place to stop. There were signs that indicated the ocean was nearby and he wanted to stretch his legs and see if the limp was still gone. He parked a few hundred feet from the water’s edge and looked over at her before getting out. She was still sound asleep and he decided not to wake her. He closed the door of the truck gingerly and when he took his first step he braced himself for the pain- but there was none. And then he took a few more steps and found that his gait remained perfect. He decided to try his luck by jogging and then he picked up the speed and began running towards the waves.

 

It was exhilarating to run and feel the wind blowing against his body. He ran faster and faster until it nearly felt like he was gliding right above the thick moist sand. He felt free and when he spread open his arms, the breeze blew out his shirt like a parachute. He reached the edge of the ocean and the exhilaration grew quiet and was replaced by reverence as he watched the sun, a perfect red globe rise higher and higher into the sky. And then he saw something that was strange, a strike of lightening had broken through the multicolored sky. It didn’t vanish in a split second the way most lightening strikes did. Instead it remained straddled between heaven and earth and even began moving, slowly, but unmistakably in his direction. Gavin looked on incredulous and wondering if perhaps it was an odd tornado made of light. He backed away and when it continued towards him he ran as fast as he could! He was about 100 feet from the truck when he turned to look back. His heart was bumping so hard his chest felt like it might explode!

 

Gavin reached the truck safely but turning around for a last time found that the funnel of light was still there. It was retracting back up though, up into the stratosphere some 20 thousand feet above the ground level.

Enyo awakened when he opened the door still frantic and filled with more fear than he’d ever known his entire life.

“What is it?” She looked alarmed.

Gavin was now beside her, and though he was safe it took him a while before he could answer her. After he composed himself he shook his head. “I don’t know… At first I thought it was just a lightening strike… but then it started coming towards me, chasing me!”

“Wow…” She said rubbing her eyes. “That’s pretty wild…”

He took a deep breath and glared back to the ocean’s edge but everything was serene again.

“Maybe it had something to do with our journey.” She surmised with perfect calm.

Gavin looked at her then back at the ocean one last time. “Let’s get out of here!” He said slipping the key into the ignition.

They were only on the highway for two more exits before Enyo told him to take the next off ramp.

“This is the town.” She said softly, her demeanor intense and quiet. It was as though she might have been trying to sense something in the atmosphere.

They passed through a small town with homes that sat on vast farm land that stretched for miles. Then they approached a long stretch of forest.

“Turn down there.” She said referring to a narrow dirt road that had a dingy sign with an arrow indicating it was for one way traffic only.

Gavin looked over at her after they’d been on it for some time. There was nothing around, just meadows and trees. Gavin didn’t know what to expect, but he didn’t expect they’d be traveling into barren wilderness.

“Stop…” She said softly glancing around. “Pull over there.” There was a grove of trees and Gavin parked to the left of them. Enyo got out and began walking into the wooded area beyond the grove and Gavin followed looking curiously around.

Enyo went in far enough to be hidden from anyone in the field but close enough to see it. She leaned against a tree and pointed towards the opened area. “Do you see them?” She said with her gaze intense and focused straight ahead.

Gavin stood beside her and looked in the same direction as she. The morning was still misty and it took a while before he saw anything. But then the area transformed itself into a foggy battle field. There were hundreds of soldiers dressed in Civil war uniforms advancing quickly towards the other side of the field where the Confederate soldiers were. A Union commander stood high upon his horse looking out into the distance with a telescope. It was like watching an old movie in slow motion. But then Gavin saw something else. He saw others in the midst of the battle who looked out of place. Some of them were dressed just like the Union soldiers, but they were made of light particles, others were dressed in the armor worn by Greek and Celtic Warriors, but they too were made of light. Yet even though they didn’t look to belong to the same era they were part of the action and running towards the same foe.

 

Gavin began to hear gunfire. It was loud and incessant and went on and on and on. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a cannon going off. An expansive cloud covered the entire field and when it began to clear there were hundreds of men lying dead on the ground. Around some of the soldiers was a cocoon of light and Gavin walked closer to the field, still remaining hidden, but closer to get a better look at the extraordinary sight.

The Commander began surveying the battle and calling out to his lieutenants. Three of them ran towards him to receive the new orders then they re-entered the field and even in the midst of the fighting gave groups of men the new orders.

As the men began to move into a new formation Gavin gasped. The soldiers composed of light who had fallen were now rising up again. For a moment they looked dazed, glancing around them as though they’d forgotten where they’d been but when they got their bearing, they courageously returned to midst of action as though they had only been knocked unconscious. Despite their bloodied bodies and wounds clearly of a gravel nature, they seemed unruffled and unalarmed.

Gavin turned to his side when he felt Enyo standing near. “Why do only some of them rise up?” He asked.

“Those that don’t rise up… they are like memories, shadows, they are just echoes of the past, so in a sense because they actually died here, they remain dead….In a sense.” She glanced to Gavin who seemed to understand her meaning. Enyo lifted her arm, closed her eyes and then held out her hand towards the battle. When she opened her eyes again, the soldiers of light, nearly two hundred of them, began running towards them. It didn’t look as though they were aware of Enyo, or whatever it was that she did. Instead they appeared to be running from something! For a second time Gavin saw that funnel of light again. It was extended for only a few seconds before it began retracting back into the sky. It seemed the soldiers might have been running from that, but as they closed in on Enyo’s position, the soldiers noticed the two of them and appeared stunned. It was Gavin however, that elicited a profound response from them. First their looks of dismay were intense, but then they faded and were replaced with an expression that seemed to be of vague recognition.

“What’s going on?” One of the soldiers asked the two of them and Enyo was the one to respond.

“We were sent to find you and the others.” Enyo looked at Gavin a bit uneasily.

“The others..? I don’t understand,” said a young man who came walking through the dense crowd. “Where are we?”

“My orders are to gather you and the others ensign. You do still follow orders don’t you?”

The young man saluted her but was still clearly bewildered. “Sir- I mean Ma’am!”

“Come, we need to get away from the battle and make a camp near the mountains. There is another battle, one far more important than this one and we need to increase our numbers before engaging.” Enyo turned and began the journey while the others followed eagerly. Gavin noticed several of the men glancing to him and looking as though they were curious about something but Gavin was just as in the dark as they were.

 

They marched through the dense brush for nearly an hour before they reached the mountains and once there the soldiers formed into small groups. Some were sitting around talking but others paced the grounds in an agitated and unfocused state. Enyo watched them intently before walking towards Gavin who was leaning against a tree still amazed that he was surrounded by what normal people would call the dead. Yet here they were communicating, aware and believing themselves to be alive!

 

“You see those over there?” She said nodding her head towards a group of soldiers.

“The ones that look unsettled?”

She nodded. “They’ve been on the surface for-“ she shook her head. “For centuries… I needed to get them away from the battle so that they could separate from the illusion.”

Gavin nodded, that made sense to him.

“Now that they’re out of the figment they’re reorganizing. Can you see that?”

Gavin looked over to them again. Several of them were walking towards the groups that were sitting and talking, while the others were looking less agitated and more centered. “Yeah… I see, but don’t they wonder why everything is suddenly different? The way you and I are dressed, the different uniforms that the others are wearing?”

Enyo smiled a bit. “Everyone makes their illusions work for them.” She said, and then became stoic again. “You and I will stay here tonight, and then tomorrow I will pick one of the Soldiers to be the leader. We’ll get back to our assignment, but while we’re gone we need them to stay together.” Her eyes cut out towards the splinters as they moved and interacted just like any living being.

“What battle are they being gathered for?”

“The Celestial battle, you know about that right?”

Gavin shook his head and thought about The Gemini. “Right…”

She nodded. “When the platoon is at its maximum size, then we can leave and get back to the important stuff.”

Gavin thought to ask her what the important stuff was, but she walked away before he could get it out. He sat down against a boulder at the foot of the mountain and fell asleep. It felt more like a state of twilight than sleep, but when the morning came he felt rested and wide awake. The soldiers were grouped together in units of around 50 and had surrounded Gavin and Enyo as though to protect them from enemies that might have been hiding in the bush. When they saw Gavin was awake a few began walking over to him just as he noticed that Enyo was gone.

“Morning Sir,”

Gavin nodded and mumbled ‘good morning’ as he wondered simultaneously where Enyo might have gone off to.

“Sir, what do we do next?”

Gavin basically told them what Enyo had told him.

“How long will you be gone?” Asked a soldier as others began to join the small crowd.

“…Long enough to gather another unit and return them here.” Gavin said feeling a sense of confidence welling up inside of him. They treated him as though he were their commander, and something in him felt like he could be their commander. He thought of how the chronicles described The Gemini and there was a part of him that wanted to be revered in much the same way.

“We’ll choose from one of you someone to take over command while we’re gone and then-“

“Sir, can I?” A raspy voice muttered from somewhere within the crowd of soldiers. The others moved aside as he made his way through the masses and when he was in the forefront Gavin looked on his face. It was scarred from battle, he looked brave as though there wasn’t a way he’d let anything dismantle the unit he and Enyo had until this point gathered.

Gavin took a chance and told him yes. “What is your name lieutenant?”

“Theseus, sir.”

“Well Theseus,” Gavin was solemn as he reached out to shake his hand. “You will command the troops while we are gone, and your orders are to keep everyone together. We need you to stay here so we can find you when we return. I am counting on you to keep the unit intact.”

“Sir, don’t you need protection? Shouldn’t you take just a few of us with you?”

“No.” Gavin’s brows furrowed as his mind zeroed in on the only thing that mattered. “We will be safe and you Theseus will make sure that no one leaves. Understood?”

“Yes Sir!” He saluted.

Gavin left the soldiers and noticing a few footsteps here and there began searching for Enyo. He found her a few minutes later coming from deep in the woods and towards the camp. Initially she was radiant and nearly translucent like the others. But when she saw him, her body began to solidify.

“Where were you?” He wondered still in awe as her body slowly lost its shimmering quality and became like normal flesh.

“I needed to get the truck.” She gave Gavin a peculiar look. “We’ve got to get back on the road. But first I need to choose someone to –“

“I did that.” He said as they came upon the camp.

“Oh?” She said looking a bit impressed.

“Theseus,” Gavin nodded towards the man. “He’ll keep them together.”

Enyo nodded, “The one with the scar?”

“Yes.”

“I would have chosen him too.” She said noticing that there was something different about Gavin. Something in him had shifted and he was beginning to take on the role that High Command had hoped he would and this gave her reason to believe that they would succeed and maybe even surpass the assignment given.

 

Earlier when Gavin wondered where Enyo was, she told him that she needed to go back for the truck. But what she didn’t tell Gavin was that she needed to be alone so that she could communicate with the other splinters out there, the ones that weren’t at the camp. Enyo could not only feel them, but she could communicate with them too! This communication was a one way street though. The splinters were too delusional to send out any communiqués and even what Enyo radiated out to them was perceived merely as their own thoughts. And so when she went into the woods alone, she instructed them to gather in Albuquerque New Mexico. It was a hot spot of paranormal activity due to the wars waged there during the Spanish Inquisition. In the minds of the splinters they would come upon the hundreds of battles that had gone on before and in that they were in reality Warriors, Celestial Warriors, it would be second nature to join the ranks.

III

 

When Enyo was communicating telepathically she felt the minds of thousands of splinters receiving her orders! That was many times more than she was able to reach before arriving in Virginia and she realized her abilities were growing exponentially. And too, she was excited at the prospect of being able to return so many to the camp, and ultimately, to the ethers. As Gavin drove she kept going inside her consciousness, connecting with their thought streams and sending the command out like Morse Codes through both the seen and unseen worlds. As Enyo did this over and over she suddenly sensed High Command telling her to let Gavin handle the face to face contact. She didn’t doubt their orders. His recent demeanor at the camp caused her to suspect that his talents might be surfacing and that he was ready for more control, so if High Command was willing to chance it, so would she.

 

Gavin had been driving for over 8 hours and it wasn’t until now that he noticed how quiet she’d been. He was about to ask her what was going on when he noticed a dark murky cloud in the dusk colored sky. It had just formed but it spanned for hundreds of miles across the once placid horizon. It occurred to him that it looked just like the kind of energy that surrounded the humans he was warned by High Command not to trust. As he glared upward in quiet amazement, he felt his heart tighten at the idea of what it might mean then he looked from the cloud to Enyo checking her for her reaction. It was clear that she couldn’t see it and he wondered whether he should tell her, or even how to tell her if he indeed decided he would.

“I remember something High Command told me in the beginning.” Gavin said not knowing how he was going to say what he wanted, but deciding to fly blind and see what came out.

Enyo was silent a moment, but when he didn’t go on she asked what it was that High Command had told him.

“They told me something, but it wasn’t until I saw it with my own eyes that I was able to understand...”

Enyo wondered what Gavin was talking about, but noticed he was apparently hesitant to just come out with it.

“What you’re going to say- is it more bizarre than us gathering up ghosts to send back to the ethers?”

He chuckled. “No, it’s actually not more bizarre,” he sighed. “But it is bizarre.”

She nodded.

“One day as I was walking down the street I noticed that some people had light around them.” He looked to her and smiled. “Like you, sometimes I see light around you, so I know I can trust you.”

Enyo gave him a small smile when he said that.

“But then… then I noticed that some people were surrounded by a dark cloudy substance… And after that I had another experience. I was on the top floor of my brother’s condo just looking out of the window and then I saw- it was incredible!” He shook his head imagining the scene in his minds eyes. “I saw everyone that radiated the light became connected to each other like one long continuous structure… like a neon tube that had dots of lights inside. The dots were the individuals, but the space between each person was still luminous. And it stretched out through the entire city for as far as I could see. And it looked like a cell, just like High Command said. But then there were those that were surrounded in the darkness and they were contained in a unified structure too…But it wasn’t expansive like the light, it had veins, or something that looked like veins that were twisted around every person- imprisoning them it seemed… But the structure churned in some kind of convulsive way….” His face was frowned as though he had a piece of lemon in his mouth.

“Wow… I’ve never seen that…” She whispered with astonishment.

Gavin nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“How do you know?” She wondered a little amused.

“Because right up there in the sky is that murky cloud, but it’s really huge… it’s miles long, and I don’t know what it means.”

Enyo looked up squinting her eyes as if that might give her vision clarity. “Oh, shit…”

“What?”

Enyo looked away, she didn’t want to say, but she wondered if beckoning so many to New Mexico had somehow alerted the dark spirits who by their very nature benefited from the Celestial Warriors missing in action. Could she have inadvertently started a spiritual war, she wondered?

“What is it?” Gavin said vaguely sensing her thoughts through her mood. “Something’s really wrong. Isn’t it?”

“It may be.” She showed little outward emotion but inside of her was a whole different story.

“Tell me.” He said feeling like he could handle it.

“I can contact the splinters. I’ve been contacting them all the while you’ve been driving. Before I could connect with hundreds of them, but now I sense thousands of them receiving my orders.”

“What orders?”
“To gather in New Mexico.”

“A lot of wars took place in New Mexico.” Gavin said recalling his High School American history class. “A lot of blood was shed during the Spanish Inquisition… Millions of natives were slaughtered.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I choose the place. I knew it was loaded with energy…”

“But there’s a long history there. The battles lasted for centuries! Maybe the ghosts of the Inquisitors don’t want to stop fighting… Maybe they can’t…”

Enyo looked over at Gavin. “Maybe the darkness that you see are the spirits that don’t want the fighting to stop…”

 

Enyo tried to stop her mind from sending out the order to gather, but she couldn’t. Sometimes the thought just rose up into her mind and once it was there she knew it would radiate out just as though she had intended it to, which now, she hadn’t. She kept looking up into the sky hoping she eventually might be able to discern what Gavin had, but she couldn’t.

 

It was moonless and pitched black and theirs was the only vehicle on a straight highway that stretched out for more than 40 miles. They were two hours away from Albuquerque and Enyo didn’t quite like the thought of arriving in the dark. She looked over at Gavin and noticed that he looked intense and brave. He showed no signs of worry or concern. She didn’t know it, but Gavin was a million miles away and sensing the Gemini as though there were a projector inside his head reeling out a movie straight from the Astral Realm!

 

…The Gemini and his fleet needed more power. They had been getting their nourishment from microwave sources that existed in the galaxy, but now they needed to step it up and find a way to tolerate the much more powerful gamma rays. The order came from High Command actually. And the Gemini wasted no time gathering his units at their camp on Saturn and telling them about the new battle requirements.

As he relayed the wishes of the High Command there were audible gasps from the soldiers, and when he told them how long they would have to charge up, he noticed his troops glancing to each other with concern and doubt. They were instructed to tolerate 5 karios of gammas.

‘How are we to endure gamma’s for that length of time?’ One of the soldiers wondered.

‘Ares and his troops must be able to!’Another surmised and The Gemini agreed in measure.

‘Ares can endure much more than that.’ The Gemini explained. ‘‘And we have to at least try… We will endure what we can.’ He said wondering simultaneously where they were to find new systems where the gamma was rich. They had never even passed by a gamma source during their travels through the Universe. ‘Those who can bear it will stay, and those that can’t I give you leave to return to camp…’

Despite the rigorous assignment, exploring new areas of the Universe was always filled with immense anticipation. And once they were airborne The Gemini simply led his troops toward coordinates and galaxies they’d never visited but that were rumored to contain sources of gamma rays. It took over a month before they even traversed the regions of the Universe that were familiar to them, and only now were they traveling into new terrain.

The sector they were in contained amazing colorful gaseous clouds that stretched for millions of miles. Then there were pockets of space that contained such emptiness that the entire unit would simply loose flight ability and they would, without warning, find themselves free falling thousands of miles a second only to wind up in the middle of strange storm-like conditions that sucked them in like a massive vacuum cleaner. The mighty winds whipped them about and when they’d reach an area of stillness, the atmosphere was like a wall of cement that they all had to push against in order to proceed! The size of these storms was massive and added weeks to their already lengthy itinerary.

 

As this vision unfolded inside Gavin’s mind, he tried to see the Gemini’s face, but the speed at which he traveled made him and the fleet look like the blur of night lights taken with the slow shutter speed of a camera.

 

After three months of grueling travel, they finally they ended up in smooth sailing territory. They were on the edge of a twin galaxy named Ceuta. Most galaxies were shaped like elongated donuts that had billions of stars in their centers, but Ceuta had the formation of a figure eight. Just as a human embryo splits into two she had two massive bellies that contained splendid nebulae, billions of brilliant suns and millions of celestial bodies that glistened like the most breathtaking gems! But it was her other uniqueness that made her a wonder to behold. Hers was a galaxy of worlds made only of water and they appeared like shimmering crystal globes! The celestial stars these worlds orbited were giant ruby suns, which gave the side of the world that reflected it, a deep reddish hue. Though it was tempting to visit the surface of the worlds and experience the great rise and fall of its rhythmic waves the Gemini was looking for a star called Matador and after a few hours of entering Ceuta, its orbiting rays finally shone on them briefly like a rotating strobe light.

Matador was a nevieaton neutron star, his rays orbited the entire galaxy like a light house beaconing anyone who dared to enter the brilliance of his massive light. The troops had been on the go nonstop since beginning the journey and the Gemini took refuge on the moon Quisno to rest and so that he could get up the nerve needed to take them bravely onto the surface of the Star. It was un-settling to him for their solar plexus’ were being replenished even now as they camped several light years away from Matador. Neither the Gemini nor any of his fleet had ever experienced such a thing. Usually recharging consisted of landing on the surface of the micro wave resource where they would leisurely bath in the light. But this neutron star that was beckoning them was so strong they had to shield their eyes when his rays swept their way. It was like sitting in the front row of a celestial theatre watching a sun going super nova.

 

The Gemini sent out a communication to the Captain he shared a camp with, telling her that if she dared, she might join him. But she answered the Gemini immediately. They were on their way to the Crete galaxy.   The Gemini had a mind to turn around and join her but that wouldn’t do, not really. It would mean that he was afraid and fear wasn’t something that was particularly congruent with being a leader. He bid her luck then gathered himself together and told the troops that when the moon finished its orbit around the planet they would take their leave and travel to the surface of the nevieaton.

 

He had resigned himself to this challenge and was confident that he and his troops would give it the best they had. When he readied them for the journey he showed only his bravery and it seemed it was contagious for the entire platoon let out a loud cheer as he spoke with them about their task at hand. Each soldier was now eager for the challenge.

 

It was time, Quisno was completing its orbit and they were all standing ready to take flight as the shade that covered them in darkness was slowly overtaken by the blinding light coming from Matador. When the entire unit was fully engulfed by his radiance they flew into the shaft of his light and followed it all the way to its origin. The speed of their flight was the first thing they all noticed, for it had increased by thousands of miles per second. Obviously feeding from gammas even at a distance of several lights years was transforming! Once they landed they found his membrane was a pure white liquid the consistency of heavy wet snow. But it ebbed and flowed like an ocean and reminded the Gemini of times since gone and surfing the waves of earth’s oceans.

Matador was powerful, his body was so dense a teaspoon of his mass would equal the weight of a mountain. His surface not only radiated but it vibrated and emitted a soft rumbling sound as though he were actually a volcano about to blow. He felt dangerous and to make things worse, his light was blinding-literally! Nonetheless the Gemini began walking around sensing where and who he was checking in on though not being able to see their faces. He could sense that most of the unit were reclining as they usually did when they were charging up on light sources. The more he moved around the more his eyes acclimated to the brilliance and soon he could make out faces and see his troops. Some of them looked uncomfortable as though waiting any moment to implode into the atmosphere. Even if this occurred, they would simply gather themselves back into their previous form, but still it would be a bit embarrassing for that to happen. The Gemini knew anyone about to implode would just leave the surface than have that happen in front of others.

 

After he saw to his unit the Gemini sat further away, with legs crossed as though in meditation and his celestial eyes now adjusted to the brilliance he looked out into the misty radiance of floating light particles. In his mind over and over again, he willed himself to endure whatever was to come.

There was no sky to be seen, no dark space with so many stars twinkling. There was only the brightness and they’d been there now for 1 karios. It felt a little uncomfortable but not as bad as he thought it would be considering the strength of Matador’s gamma rays. When they’d been there for 2 karios he got up and began walking around and checking on his troupes that numbered in the tens of thousands. They were doing well and by the time he’d laid eyes on every member of the fleet, they were just passing 2 karios. The Gemini felt his body filling up to a point that surpassed anything he’d ever experienced! It was like being pumped with more air than the lungs could contain so that the tension felt near to exploding. He breathed in as deeply as he could and as he exhaled he felt the discomfort lessen…

 

Now that they’d been there for 3 karios he began seeing some movement in his troops. Those that were reclining were now sitting up and those that were already sitting were now standing. ’Breath in!’ He ordered. “Breath in deeply….” And when he breathed in again, he felt most of the discomfort pass. His troops looked a little better too but hundreds of them were anxiously pacing back and forth.

“You can do it!’ He shouted out to them. ‘You can bear this… this is nothing compared to the battles we’ve been in… This is nothing compared to our enemy, nothing compared to the pain felt by the worlds and suns he’s obliterated! This is nothing compared to the pain we experienced when we were on earth...! Breath in, keep breathing in deeply….’ They were approaching 4 karios and the Gemini was more concerned with his unit than himself. It helped to keep his mind from the overwhelming feelings he was experiencing. Also breathing deeply helped. It was as though the breathing expanded him somehow- as though breathing made more space for the powerful light to deposit itself.

 

‘We’re almost there!’ The Gemini said continuing to walk through the groups.   But some of them were moaning and holding their bodies as though to keep it from bursting apart. The Gemini made his way to each of them one by one, speaking to them privately, telling them they could do it, but if they couldn’t there was no shame in leaving.

‘No!’ Masai grunted, ‘ I won’t leave you Sir!’ He declared despite the excruciating discomfort. And his luminous body was rippling but shimmering and exquisite to witness. The Gemini could see Masai literally growing in power in that very moment!

“You can do it! You can bear this Masai!” He said as even he marveled at the site of Masai’s luminosity.

“I won’t leave you.” Masai said falling to his knees and doubling over. The Gemini felt his heart swell with pride and suddenly all the discomfort in his own body faded. He went over to several more of his comrades who were out of their minds with anxiety. Very near the breaking point their bodies were like crazed neutrons bumping into each other and spinning out of control. But no one would leave. Not one would abandon their Captain or the orders of High Command!

 

They did it. Somehow they endured 5 karios of the richest light they’d ever come in contact with. The Gemini ordered his fleet to leave the surface but he remained a while longer. A Captain should be able to endure more than his soldiers he thought as Matadors light made the particles within his body feel as though they were quaking near the point of combustion! He felt eager to leave as he eyed his troupe now only a line of light in space progressing deeper into the galaxy. He would remain though. He would stay until he could no longer see them. When they’d faded into the darkness the Gemini lifted up quickly and soared into the luminous atmosphere of Matador.   His speed was extraordinary and within seconds he was passing his fleet and making his way to the forefront of the formation. But to his fleet, he was only a blur that jetted past them and they all marveled some saying that he was traveling the speed of light or nearly. Their journey of 4 months was cut into mere weeks as they returned to their camp with bodies so luminous the initiates mistook them for Ares troops until they were close enough to see their faces.

 

Enyo took a deep breath and asked Gavin how he was doing. Her voice abruptly broke the silence and the darkness. Gavin felt like he was in another realm, another reality. He was marveling at what he was sensing while at the same time trying to think of how to answer her question.

“I feel ok, like everything is going to be ok.”

Enyo nodded wishing she had his confidence.

 

“Right here.” They said both even pointing at the same time. And then they looked to each other as Gavin slowed down to pull over.

“You feel it too?” Enyo asked somewhat surprised but Gavin only shrugged.

“I don’t know what I feel. But I feel that this is where we should be.” He admitted.

They had been on a narrow back road with nothing but forest on both sides. Though the night was moonless, the sun was just below the horizon but her radiance still illuminated the sky enough to give them some measure of visibility.

After they got out of the truck Gavin immediately put some distance between himself and Enyo by walking ahead of her. He waved the branches of bushes and trees out of his way as he swiftly made his way through the forest.  It was dead silence, but he felt something was beckoning him, the thought that he had a date with destiny kept bouncing around inside his head too. “Well then. “ He thought to himself. “If you want to Tango- here I am!” He could feel the darkness now, not the night, but the dark spirits out there beyond the trees and thickets. He could discern their activity, they were running, and like evil forest creatures, climbing up trees to peer at him from above. They were fading in and out between the invisible and manifest world as they appeared first to his left or right, and then behind him so menacingly close he could feel the coolness of their electromagnetic field making the hair on his arms stand up straight.

 

“I can feel them!” Enyo called out in a loud whisper.

“Feel what?” Gavin checked.

“The splinters... They’re coming!”

That’s what he thought she meant. She could feel the fallen Warriors but not the dark ones that were at this moment circling them with dangerous intent. He almost wanted to tell her to turn back, but somehow he knew she would never do it. He even knew that she’d feel offended by the gesture no matter how gallant he thought it to be. He stopped, turned and when he began walking in her direction he was certain he’d passed right through one of them. He cringed, not from fear but from the oddness of the sensation. The sun was just beginning to peek above the horizon and her silhouette stood out against light that was beginning to beam in from beyond the trees.

“We’re being watched.” Gavin whispered. “The dark ones, the dark spirits are all around us. But I don’t want you to be afraid.”

Enyo was afraid, though. “Do you have a plan?” She said successfully hiding the surge of panic that injected itself into her every vein in her body.

“Yes.” He said, though he didn’t. “Don’t worry, I can handle this.” As soon as Gavin said that he heard a voice inside his head and knew it was the Gemini, the Captain from the other side!

 

They dark spirits are here to keep the splinters from returning. But when you are fearless, they are powerless.

 

Gavin, in return, silently communicated with the Gemini. “How will we gather the Splinters? What match are we to those who have supernatural powers?”

 

A Warrior will follow their Captain. They will follow his orders no matter what the dark spirits do. If an order is given by their Captain, their loyalty will reward his courage tenfold!

 

Gavin took a deep breath and made a decision at the same time. This was an all or nothing moment. He would execute the orders of High Command, and either he would be succeed or fail, come hell or high water!   Gavin walked in the direction of the dark spirits with a confidence that surprised even him. And as he walked towards them he opened his arms as if to say- ‘here I am.’

 

“What are you doing?” Enyo asked with some concern. ‘Was he inviting a war with them?’ She wondered with growing trepidation. “Gavin!” She yelled, but he continued for a moment longer. And then he stopped and he turned in each direction as though announcing himself in the boldest of ways!

 

The sun had broken the barrier of darkness and Enyo turned to look behind in the direction of the light. There was a vast mist rolling in towards them that came from the road over a mile away. She knew it was the Warriors she had summoned, and judging from how expansive the mist was, she knew that their numbers measured in the thousands!

 

In a moments time the smoke like clouds solidified into ghostly human forms that were in immediate motion and charging towards a still yet unseen enemy. Many of the splinters resembled Native Americans and other splinters though outfitted from the many eras of military conflict were running at their side, like the true comrades they were in spirit! Then a century old battle scene suddenly manifested along with the sounds and the musky scent of gun fire! The splinters, still believing they were alive, were engaging in battle.

 

Enyo looked ahead of her and saw soldiers from the Inquisition upon horseback as the dust billowing up from their beasts nearly concealed their fierce advance towards the Natives. These were the dark spirits, the ones whose intentions were to keep the Warriors asleep. In a prison of illusion, they seduced the splinters by engaging them over and over again in the same battle, all for the purposes of keeping them from returning to the Celestial battle.

Astonished and amazed by the scene before her she watched with riveting emotions as the glistening swords in the hands of the Inquisitor’s caught the gleam from the fallen rays. It seemed so real to her as she looked on the shimmering swords so nearly exquisite, if not for their sacrilegious intent.

 

There were no more trees in this reverie for the forest had disappeared and in its place, a dusty and blood covered field spanned for as far as she could see. And though the Inquisition had merely four or five hundred soldiers, they were donned in metal armor that was so highly polished it was blinding to the eye. When the rushing Natives reached their foes on horseback the battle exploded into vicious activity! Bows, arrows and deadly sharp spears from the Warriors soared high in the sky only to fall upon the protective shields of their adversaries that covered them like ancient metallic umbrellas. Afterwards, the futile gesture only maddened the enemy who met the arrows with decisive blows from their sharp bladed weapons, and their swinging blades caught flesh and bone with precise and merciless consistency.

 

The bloody battle waged on until Enyo could take no more. This was the past, this had all happened before and it was useless to see the profane slaughter! She used her ability to communicate with the Warriors and ordered them to cease and retreat. With her hand held out before her she watched expectantly for the battling to subside but her thoughts fell upon deaf ears as the fighting was too emotionally charged for the subtly of thought. She continued though. She had to continue. She shut her eyes as her brow furrowed from the force of her concentration willing her thoughts to radiate out into the battle field. When she opened her eyes she saw something to the right of her moving quickly. It was Gavin who had begun running into the midst of the fighting. He had found enough of an opening to position himself and as he looked around time stood still for that moment. He lifted his arm as if to halt the ghostly platoon and one by one the Warriors ceased and began to backtrack away from the Inquisition soldiers! Gavin had surpassed her expectations and the power he yielded surprised her immensely. An odd silence fell upon the battle field as the Warriors, still facing their enemy’s backed away from the battle ground. Suddenly a Commander from the other side began riding through the mass of enemy soldiers who were stationary upon their horses, dumbfounded and helpless as to how to respond to the withdrawal. The commander rode speedily, fiercely and looked defiantly upon Gavin as he screamed at his men to continue advancing upon the receding side!

 

Gavin stood his ground and as the Inquisitor’s moved forward again and began slaughtering those in their path even as they peacefully followed their leader’s command to fall back! But the enemy was heartless and wielding their swords with heavy and deadly blows they decimated those Warriors who were still within harms reach.

“Continue!” Gavin ordered and though his back was to his soldiers still moving away, he could feel their anxiety and frustration at seeing their comrades falling by the hundreds while they did nothing to halt the irreverent assault!

 

The noise was incessant, the clashing metal, the screams of the dying and the victory roars of their foes all rang out in the hellish circumference of the mile long field. It seemed it might never cease yet Gavin’s gaze was ahead of the slaughter behind him. Gavin’s sight was on the Commander’s cold eyes as he was still galloping towards him. Gavin’s gaze took notice of the Commander reaching for his sword and once it was pulled from its sheath he held it to his side as though to behead Gavin upon closer range. The Warriors called out to Gavin, calling him Captain, and feeling the greatest of temptations to protect him, yet Gavin’s hand, still raised high above him was his only reply. The Commander was within feet of him before he halted the great beast that rose upon her two hind legs in response to the sudden jolt of the harshly drawn reigns. But Gavin stood fearless and the enemy realizing he could not instill trepidation in his heart suddenly turned his horse round and retreated, his soldiers followed, galloping behind him and until they all vanished into the dusty ethers!

 

Enyo was speechless as she looked around at the thousands of Warriors who had obeyed the command of a man they had never laid eyes on. When Gavin finally turned around his entire body was lit up in a radiance that was so brilliant she was unable to see his features! Her heart swelled with respect and admiration, no longer was he the frail man who limped weakly and desperately for the reprieve of the waterfront bench. He was a Captain now, the leader of thousands of men and women who had given what they thought were their lives simply because they believed in him. And as he walked by the fallen Warriors, as though the light that surrounded him yielded the power of resurrection, they began to stir and rising up again, they turned to one another, extending hands to help the other stand erect.   And then they filed behind Gavin as he walked with a powerful, easy stride in the direction of Enyo.

Gavin felt different as he stood before the mighty and courageous Warriors. He acknowledged to himself with vague astonishment that there was something inside him that could render an entire platoon of dark spirits helpless and fleeing into thin air! Even as he stood there before these fallen ghosts, these men and women who in the Celestial realm fought an enemy much mightier than the Inquisitor’s he was humbled by them and eager to do whatever was necessary to restore them to their true glory.

 

“My orders are to amass an army to battle a foe that is far more dangerous than the one who fled from this battle field today!” His voice was throaty and rich as his volume resonated to reach each and every man and woman. What he said caused them to stir and they spoke amongst themselves wondering what enemy could be fiercer than the Inquisitors. “I know what you’re thinking…” Gavin said sensing accurately that it was a stretch for them to believe what he was telling them. “But there is one who would conquer entire continents, no, even entire worlds!… And every chosen man and woman is sorely needed… Our camp is many miles away, in the mountains of West Virginia. There are others waiting for you, and once you arrive, you will be waiting for still more. For there are many thousands of you that Captain Enyo and I have still to find!”He paused allowing them to absorb the magnitude of an enemy that could render entire worlds helpless. And once a silence fell upon the soldiers he knew that now he could continue and be heard. “Will you make the journey to the camp? Can I count on you?”

 

 

CHAPTER

 

Though he and Enyo hadn’t known each other long, and though they had only begun this assignment, it was clear to him that they had very different talents. And now they were headed to another hot spot in New Mexico to test their talents to the limit. Enyo was quiet and Gavin now understood what that meant. He understood what she was doing and he didn’t dare to disturb her though he had some important questions to ask of her. They had been on the road for three hours and he wondered how the Warriors were fairing in their trek to West Virginia. He was wondering if she could sense them, and let him know. Then he thought of Thesues and hoped that the dark spirits wouldn’t tempt either platoon into another skirmish that would deepen their slumbering imprisonment even more. Suddenly he felt his mind opening, it was a strange sensation that was hard to put into words, but he knew that he was connecting with the real time experiences of the Gemini and he felt eager to see what was to unfold.

 

Time was of the essence, the Thor galaxy was at stake and the Eblis was lightening fast. Twenty million miles away was the heart of the galaxy, it was its cerebral energetic field, the place where its intelligence and unique evolution unfolded. The Eblis could cover hundreds of thousands of miles in less than a second, and if the Eblis destroyed the heart of Thor, a domino effect would occur. Without the cerebral field all the celestial bodies would begin falling out of their protective trajectory around the sun’s force field and become like balloons floating aimlessly toward the cold icy depths of the galaxy where like pieces of china they would then incinerate and dissipate into nothingness. Then the galaxy itself would, in time, lose its integrity, the boundaries becoming elasticized, its mighty suns would be cast into space, colliding with comets, nebulae and other organs within the body of Neshma. This one defeat would in turn create millions more, and all the Eblis would have to do, was watch its destruction.

 

The Gemini had joined forces with the Great Ares and as they laid low upon one of the planets in the sector Ares walked over to a solider by the name of Daribi who was sitting beside a stream that flowed as far as the eye could see. Daribi’s orders were to locate the enemy and she’d been sitting away from the others in a meditative state as the sound of the flowing water calmed her mind so much so that she was beginning to sense the enemy. More and more, she could feel that it was hiding, and then she could see it, nearly see it, hiding with its black mass within the dark matter that surrounded them on every side.

When Ares was at Daribi’s side she simply pointed westward where there was an opening in the heavens that was free of any debris or celestial bodies.

Ares shook his head understanding her meaning and when he approached his unit of more than a million they all turned giving him their full attention. With a simple gesture westward he gave the silent command to fight. And in perfect order the Warriors lifted swiftly off the surface of the planet like jets being ejected from millions of launchers. As the enemy hid, so would they for their solar plexus’ were charged down making their spirit bodies transparent and offering them a stealth that would afford them the time to form into the battle formation. Then with speeds that reflected their eager intensity they spun around the hidden side of the planet charging their cores simultaneously. The Warriors then ambushed the Western sector in a colossal solar storm that spewed out massive amounts of gamma rays. Now was the time of reckoning. If Daribi was correct, their foe would immerge from its hiding to escape the nearly immeasurable temperatures. Several mammoth meteorites that had the misfortune of entering the path of their gamma rays shattered like a fist smashing a thousand eggs as an explosion that would equal trillions of atomic bombs detonated. The meteorites would not die, but the girth that they had proudly accumulated for the millions of years that they’d traveled the Universe was rendered back to the size of their infancy.

Meanwhile, the solar plexus’ of the Warriors, fully charged now dismantled their incognito status and revealed their brilliance that lit up space like the birth of a new and mighty sun having been just released from the cluster called the Eagle incubator. The sector now burned in beautiful but awful shades of white hot flames and now their foe scurried from its hiding place within the nebula. Its black evil jaws, miles of light-years across was opened and on fire as it moved swirling incoherently in search of safety. Ares was always fierce, and always on the verge of defeating the enemy began pursuing the foe himself and immediately the fleet reconfigured and following behind, released full and wide laser beams that latched onto their fleeing adversary.

Ares had many opportunities to dissolve the enemy yet each of those skirmishes were close to planets that were considered sacred. The enemy was clever however, and traveled the Universe in cloaked form. If only the battles had occurred in open space, the Eblis would have been defeated a thousand years hence. But now they were in pursuit of that which intended to defeat the Universe, yet it was pathetically scurrying away burning in a blaze thousands of miles wide! The four divisions continued with their unremitting firepower when suddenly huge planet sized chunks of its body began turning to ash and were floating like ghostly mist into the empty space- and still the troops were relentless, merciless as the rotation of soldiers ensued without even a moment of fire cessation!

Ares, The Gemini, his comrade and Kevial pulled back behind the others following but waiting patiently for the right moment. All the while for the Gemini and his comrade, Norquis, it was an amazing thing to watch. Having always been in battle with their own units, never did they observe the war and what it looked like from afar. The Gemini was learning much from this detached observation yet there were no words to describe it, for nothing on earth could compare to the deadly forces of laser and the radius of light which emanated from each of Warriors solar plexus. A human would be unable to fathom the collective gamma power that the troops emitted, nothing, not even the sun was ever as broad or as powerful as the light that exploded and delved into the enemy. But neither could any being on earth imagine the size of the monstrosity nor the pitiful size it could be reduced to when in battles, it was nearing defeat.

The war would be over when the Eblis was the dimension of a neutrino particle- something so small as to be invisible. But in the meantime, when it wasn’t obliterating planets, it was feeding on solar systems, ingesting the Universe in its attempt to contain all that existed within its belly and become a grotesque copy of God!

Gavin focused as hard as he could to get a glimpse of the Gemini and as his mind closed in on the vision like a camera lens malfunctioning, it blurred and became fuzzy.

“Can we stop for a moment?” Enyo interrupted Gavin’s vision and it startled him.

“What?” He asked not having really heard her.

“Can you pull over? I’ll only be a moment.”

Gavin did as she asked but still a little dazed watched her as she walked into the woods. When Gavin could no longer see her, his mind was transported back to the battle and the last thing he heard was the voice of Ares speaking with The Gemini.

…‘I look forward to fighting with you again.’

 

Had they won the battle? He wondered. No, they couldn’t have, Gavin surmised from Ares comment. He tried to restore the vision in his mind, but wasn’t able to. He was only able to sense a vast sweeping motion and he knew that it was Ares and his troops leaving the battle scene. His mind was now firmly back in the present but it was hard not to think about the fierceness he’d just experienced. Though he was not involved in the skirmish, it emboldened him and something in Gavin almost wished to be among the dead just to taste the awful privilege of saving the Universe from an enemy that would be God. The thought of what life would be like to be under reigns of a malevolent all powerful force was inconceivably terrifying. And Gavin lifted his eyes to the clear sky and the brilliant sun and felt his heart dedicating itself to the pursuit of the Splinters and returning them to the ethers.

 

The sun was warming the cool predawn temperature quickly, it would be a hot smoldering day, he thought to himself. And then his eyes squinted as a strike of lightening above the trees caught his attention. It didn’t take long for Gavin to realize that this wasn’t a normal lightening strike. No, it was like that rod of light he saw when he was at the beach that morning so long ago and then again in the battle field in Virginia. It wasn’t moving, not yet at least, but remained straddled between heaven and earth like a streamlined tornado made of light.

Gavin felt tense as he kept his eyes on the luminous funnel, but when it started moving, his tension turned to extreme fear. It was coming for him again! Somehow he knew it was coming for him! Gavin didn’t know what to do, Enyo was still in the woods, but he had to get out of there! He put the truck in reverse, looked in his rearview mirror and after making a u-turn, with a lead foot sped with maximum velocity down the road!

He looked into the rearview at the funnel of light. He’d left just in time for it was positioned right where the truck had been parked. He kept driving for a while longer and when he looked in his mirror again, he saw that it was gone but there was a tiny figure there where the light had been and he knew that it was Enyo! Slamming on the brakes he pulled over as screeching tires filled the inside of his truck with the smell of burnt rubber. His eyes caught the reflection of his face in the mirror and he saw beads of sweat rolling down his temples. He had to get back to where she was on the side of the road. He never should have left her, he thought with some regret.

When he pulled up she opened the door before he’d fully stopped moving. “What the hell!?” She said sliding into the seat. When she slammed the door it closed loudly.

“It was that-that lightening, that rod of light that I saw before!” Was all he could get out.

Enyo still looked really irritated.

“What do you think- I shouldn’t run is that it? You’re thinking I’m a coward?” His said in a voice sounding heavier and deeper since that last battle.

Enyo turned her face and looked out at the trees that were passing in a blur. She didn’t have to tell him that’s what she was thinking and then Gavin felt a little silly for not standing his ground. Hell, they were hunting for ghosts and facing evil spirits, what else could be scarier than that!? The next time he saw that light, he was going to see what it was, he was going to stand his ground and face his destiny! At least that was the plan.

 

                                                                       CHAPTER

 

Gavin was preoccupied with his thoughts and when Enyo started looking towards the trees he suspected that she could feel the splinters and would ask him to pull over, but she never said a word. Eight hours passed by now and Enyo still couldn’t feel where the next the meeting ground for the splinters would be. With the afternoon nearly spent Gavin couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong.

 “What’s going on?” He finally asked.

She only shook her head and looked less certain than he’d ever seen. He continued driving and when they were an hour outside of Santa Fe all of the sudden he was hit with a wall of energy. It felt like driving through the Bermuda Triangle where an alternative reality existed right inside the old one. He could feel the dark spirits so pervasively it was like the air was heavy but there was also an odd and eerie chill! He looked over to Enyo thinking if what he felt was real, that she would have to be feeling it as well!  15 minutes went by and when she gave no indication of sensing it he decided to probe.

“So you feel anything?” He wondered.“No… I’ve been sending out a command to gather at the coordinates, but not even one soldier has responded.”

Gavin hesitated.  “…Maybe someone has responded.” He finally put in.

“What do you mean?”

 “I think there’s going to be an ambush…” He said now certain of what he was feeling somehow.

“What?”

There was a white neon sign of a motel a little ways ahead, and something was calling him stop there.

“What are you doing?” She asked when he turned into enter the parking lot.

Gavin was about to tell her what he was feeling when he became distracted by a sudden darkness that fell upon them. Gavin looked at his watch and couldn’t figure things out. It was 8:00 p.m. but instead it looked more like 2:00 a.m. He got out of the truck wondering if it was a storm that was coming on but the air was still and not a cloud hid the stars in the evening sky.

 

“What do you feel?” Enyo asked. There was a strange intonation in her voice that sounded as though she was testing him, as though she sensed something and wondered if he did too.

“I don’t know for sure. But I feel like we are surrounded by the dark ones! I feel like there are thousands of them all around this place!” He looked around and then he noticed Enyo heading towards the back of the motel looking like she expected to find something there. He followed her but had the kind of feeling that made him think someone was going to jump out from a hidden nook and do something vile to them. Evil was all around and he couldn’t shake the emotions no matter how brave or ready for them he was.

 

There was a pool, its surface catching the glimmer of the lights around the terrace caught Gavin’s attention, and then his eyes were drawn to the sliding glass patio doors that led to one of the Motel rooms. Every room was dark except for this one and Enyo made her way to the side of the door then she pointed to Gavin to stand where she was so that he would be closest to the door. Gavin turned to her as he repositioned himself but she put a finger to her lips to shush him.

 

Something inside the room stirred and Gavin inched over as far as he could to peek inside. What he saw caused his heart to plummet to the pit of his stomach and his knees nearly gave way.

                                    

 

                                                                     CHAPTER

 

 

The night had now become so still it was surreal. It was as though they were inside of a photograph and the only thing that moved was inside that motel room, and the only sound was a chorus of crickets that was slowly becoming louder and louder as though they were everywhere. In disbelief Gavin snuck another peak into the room and again a massive chill covered the surface of his skin while simultaneously a piercing dose of adrenalin surged through him like a high voltage battery! It was David. David was the person inside the motel room!

 

Gavin looked over to Enyo who was staring at him with an intensity that was unmistakable. “What’s going on?” He said. ” I’m seeing David’s ghost. He’s a Warrior?” he asked. “He’s a splinter?”

Enyo didn’t say a word and so Gavin continued to peer through the glass doors with an intense feeling of longing and curiosity towards his brother.

 

David was standing in the middle of the room. Gavin could tell something was very wrong. There was something was on David’s mind that was deeply troubling him. Gavin tried to get inside his head, but he couldn’t, all he could do was watch him as he opened a water bottle and walked to a window less than five feet from where Gavin was. Seeing David that close was overwhelming for Gavin, he looked so real, so alive. Tears filled up in his eyes and dropped heavily onto his cheeks. Gavin took a deep breath and tried to compose himself, but everything in him wanted to open those doors go inside and embrace him. Maybe if they spent just a few hours together that might be enough, it might make life worth living again. And it didn’t matter that he was a ghost, it didn’t matter that he was a splinter. They’d be connected again, and even when he went back to the other side, this time they’d keep their telepathy- just like the telepathic connection he had with the Gemini. Gavin’s emotions were overpowering as he thought of his brother, and he was stirred to the utter depths of his soul!

 

David was still standing at the window looking out at the stars. He was thinking of Gavin. He was out there somewhere, but the telepathy that was as natural as breathing just wouldn’t work anymore! Only weeks ago they were communicating practically every day. But now it was like Gavin had just vanished from his life totally and David felt lost and empty without him. He took a few really deep breaths to get relaxed and imagined Gavin in his mind’s eye. Then he stood in front of the mirror and looked into his own face…but still nothing shifted.

 

Suddenly out of nowhere David could sense that it was the dark spirits that were blocking his thought frequencies. He could feel something like an interference a energy -like a force field was blocking his mind from reaching Gavin!   As David continued staring in the mirror Gavin suddenly felt his mind break through to David’s and he heard a voice, but it wasn’t David’s voice. It was someone speaking inside his brother’s head!

 

“Want me to tell you what your brother is doing since you’re havin’ a tough time?”

 

What it said peeked Gavin’s attention. The voice was nasty, it was sarcastic. It was the voice of one of the dark spirits. It had broken the barrier into David’s mind but David ignored it by not answering back.   He took a deep swig of the water and sat on the edge of the bed contemplating whether to turn on the TV or not.

 

“He and his troops are getting their asses whooped by the Eblis… in fact, in a few minutes I expect Gavin to choke up and become a card carryin’ member of our ghost unit right here on earth…they’re our prisoners ya know? They’re our bitches... Yeah, they don’t know it, but we keep em busy. You gotta just love mankind for all them wars…’ It chuckled. ‘ The Civil war, the Titans, yeah, they were brutal, my favorite…All we gotta do is make them think they’re fight’in for God and country and they forget all about that silly business up there in the ethers…”

 

David stood up anxiously and began pacing back and forth.

 

“Whatta you gonna do then Mr. Liaison?… You gonna disintegrate the Cap’in too?”

 

“Gavin…!” David said in anguish, and his tone was deeper than it usually was. It reminded Gavin of his voice now, that deeper raspier voice he acquired since that last battle.

 

“Did he ever tell you his little motorcycle fiasco wasn’t no accident?” The voice had a malicious and teasing edge to it. “He meant to kill himself. He was tired of you being in his head, makin’ him feel like he was some kinda freak!”

 

David felt his entire body go numb. “Fuck you…” he said trying to hold back the sudden rush of tears.

 

“No, Mr. Liaison,” the voice suddenly sounded like a chorus of voices. “Fuck you!”

 

 

Gavin could hear everything and went for the sliding doors to burst inside. He had to tell David that it was all a lie, but Enyo grabbed his wrists. “You weren’t supposed to run that time.” Her voice was so soft and hypnotic it distracted him from his concern for David.

“It was written that after the second journey you’d be ready…” She added

“Journey?” Gavin suddenly felt disoriented. “Ready for what?” He asked feeling his chest actually pounding in response to the powerful pulsating blood from his heart. “What is it?” He asked as beads of sweat began rolling down his face. Before she could answer his mind was transported back to the night of his accident.

 

It was nearly a year ago, but he could see himself on his motorcycle racing down the boulevard hitting close to 90 mph! It was dark out, and as his speed accelerated the street lights became just a blur. And then, as though in slow motion he saw the tail lights of a shiny black car backing out from a parking lot. Gavin was quick, he swerved his bike around the car but there was no way to avoid the full impact. Though only a fraction of the car met with his bike, Gavin’s speed maximized the impact and the clash sent him flying through the air. Everything stopped then and about eight other vehicles frozen in time were paused as well. And then everything began moving again, and the scene was frantic as the drivers and their passengers all jumped out of their cars rushing towards to him as he lay on the side of the street.

 

Gavin heard the ambulance sirens and then he saw the paramedics working on him frantically. Shocking his heart with the defibrillators over and over again they tried so desperately hard to save his life but in the end he felt himself floating peacefully above his own body and looking down at himself laying there mangled and lifeless… His mind then focused back on David. He was the one that was dead, not David. David was the Liaison, and he, could it be, could it be that he was The Gemini, the Warrior whose face he could never see? He looked over to Enyo now realizing the horrific truth!

 

Then his emotions changed gears. The feelings were pushed aside and his mind began calculating the new reality. He knew why he was feeling the dark spirits; he understood now what was going to happen! The dark spirits had taunted David, telling him that he, Gavin was a Splinter that they were going to turn into one of them! And now David was going to go out into the field to where they were to fight them! Gavin watched helplessly as David grabbing two long crystals connected by a silver chain began walking out into the pitched dark night and out into the brush. He could sense David’s feeling of rage. It wasn’t long before the low hum of the locusts began to fill up atmosphere with the sound of them flying above the trees. The volume grew exponentially as they got closer to where David was and David looked up but there was nothing there, at least not yet. But Gavin’s vision was more expansive than David’s and he simply willed himself above the trees where he saw them. There was a swarm of them, millions of locusts so dense they filled the dark horizon with their black soaring mass!

 

The dark spirits had been coaxing David, wanting him to confront them, and a chorus of them rang out. “We got you – you little fuck!”

 

A cold fast breeze cut through the air and out of nowhere the swarm of locusts swooped down on David. He didn’t even have time to think, all he felt were the locusts crawling all over his body and the weight of thousands of tiny limbs scratching against his skin and creeping like lines of soldiers towards every cavity on his body!

 

Frantic, Gavin ran towards him and helplessly tried to swat at the insects, but there were too many for his efforts to be successful, the more he killed, the more there were to take their place.

 

David could feel them marching towards his ears, his eyes and nose- their aim was to get beyond the barrier of his flesh, where once inside his body, the dark spirits could use him as their host and influence him to do their bidding. It wasn’t only Gavin they wanted to turn, it was him as well!

 

With tears in his eyes Gavin fell to his knees. All he could do was watch the attack until David stopped fighting and fell unconscious. In a sudden flash Gavin realized that the rod of light that he’d been running from was really a portal. It was the entry way for him to return to the Celestial realm! The anguish he felt at losing the opportunity to go back into the Ethers was sickening. If he had, he could have prevented what was happening to David now. But he hadn’t and as he thought about his life for the past few months everything began to make sense. He was a ghost in David’s condo! And when his mother and Eli called, they were calling David, not him! When he walked down the street no one ever made eye contact because they couldn’t see him! Gavin was the splinter! He was no different than the ghosts he and Enyo were gathering up and they all must have been given the same opportunity to enter the portal, yet just like him, they fled not realizing it was their way home! He glanced to Enyo wondering if she was human or if she was she like him, a fallen soldier.

 

She walked over to him just then and extended her hand to him. “Sir, I’m your comrade, Captain Enyo.” And when Gavin shook her hand in his minds’ eye he saw a barrage of battles pass before him like animated snap shots and he saw her by his side in hundreds and hundreds of Celestial battles!

“I choked?” He asked.

“We all have, and in the past you’ve rescued me from this God forsaken illusion- on more than one occasion.”

Gavin shook his head but disappointed and embarrassed he walked away.

“Sir you are a brave Captain! So new to the other side, you were given a command of thousands! High Command compares you to a young Ares!” Her voice was filled with so much admiration and emotion he turned to her almost believing what she said was true. “You’ve reached heights in months that took others years to reach! Sir, you and the Liaison were prophesized about! For a millennia the Universe has been waiting for you!”

It felt true. What she was saying felt true!

“But how can we save the Liaison, how can we save David…?” He asked of Enyo.

 

Enyo and Gavin traveled through time. The dark spirits had gained entry into David’s body that night that he was attacked by the locusts and now as he lay in bed he tossed and turned as though he were going through the withdrawals of a drug addiction. He was sweaty and feverish and in danger of being lost forever to the evil agenda, there seemed to be no hope.

 

“What will happen to him?” Gavin wondered and then he and Enyo were transported to a white villa in Santa Fe. They were looking at Eli, who had been like a father to him and David. He was speaking with a man who looked like an Indian. He had a long ponytail and was introducing himself to Eli. He said his name was Santi and he was a Shaman.

 

Santi was speaking quietly and calmly with Eli as they looked on David whose half shut eyes were as black as coal, but who was at this point subdued and out of it as though in a drunken stupor.

 

Santi took a deep breath. “Well, from what you told Professor Aquenes, you guys have been involved in a spiritual battle. I see that he gave David an Orgonite generator.” Santi said referring to two long crystals that were shaped like numchuks and connected by a 10” chain. The orgonite crystals increased the electromagnetic field of anyone who used them. In this case it would protect David from the negative forces of the dark spirits but it also had the power of transforming the dark spirits into harmless atomic particles.

 

Eli nodded that he was right about the Orgonite.

“And so you are to defeat the soldiers of darkness- whose entire purpose has always been to conquer life by infiltrating the virtuous.”

“By possessing us?” Eli checked with a worried look on his face.

 

In just the same way that Gavin had been given the Celestial Chronicles, so had David but months before Gavin became a splinter. It took a long time for him to believe that he wasn’t crazy and months more before he was able to fathom his part of becoming the Liaison they spoke of. But before he could begin hunting for the splinters he needed to contact Gavin’s physicist girlfriend, Akiro. He needed her to construct a high tech electromagnetic device, and EMF that could guide him to where the splinters where in any part of the country. After that he was informed by High Command that she and Eli were chosen to become his partners, so David decided to trust Eli and tell him about Gavin, about the Celestial battles, and the great task of returning the splinters. He shared less with Akiro since telling her about Gavin seemed cruel somehow. In her mind they were simply ghost hunting, but in time, all three of them were traveling the mostly Southern states in search of haunted venues.

 

“Contrary to popular thought they don’t take over the bodies of human beings.” Santi said in response to Eli’s question. “They seek only to control our thoughts.”

Eli didn’t like the idea of David being controlled by the dark spirits. He frowned and felt anxious to hear how Santi was going to help them.

“I have a sweat lodge in the back. People come to my villa when they wish to be cleansed. And they do this by experiencing the vision quest.”

Eli nodded, but really didn’t understand. “So, this Vision Quest. What is that?”

“I hoped you would ask.” Santi went over to a window and motioned for Eli to look. “That is where it takes place.” He said pointing to the sweat lodge.”

“I’ve heard of this before.”

“Yes, and we need to get David in there for as long as it takes to cleanse him of the dark energy…It may be hard for you to bear, so I want to warn you that this first step is a hard one. It’s not pretty Eli, but I know you want to save him so that you can get back into battle.”

“Why will it be hard?”

“It’s different for everyone. But whatever his weakness is, and whatever your weaknesses are will surface. You will ask me to let him out and-“

“No!” Eli was sure of this. “No, I won’t. We have to do what it takes!”

Santi smiled again and patted Eli’s back. “My friend, you will ask me to let him out but if you want David back, then I will tell you no. Right now, while you’re in your right state of mind I need to ask you, what do you need to know to trust me when that time comes?”

Eli didn’t think he would ask Santi to let him out. “Believe me, this is not a problem. I’m all in.”

Santi nodded, almost condescendingly. “Yes, but just in case, what would you need to know to trust me?”

Eli was still sure it wouldn’t happen, but he thought about it none the less. “Ok, well, if he stays inside is there any possibility of him” he gestured widely with his arms, “dying or something?”

“No…” Santi shook his head.

“And if I asked you to let him out and you did, what would happen to him?”

“He would continue to be more and more under the control of the dark spirits… And eventually, he would be become our enemy…”

Eli nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “Okay… Then let’s do this…”

 

They were ready for the vision quest and Santi sat next to David as though he were about to counsel him, but instead he just sat there quietly as though he were meditating or communicating on some level that Eli couldn’t sense. Eli looked around the room and noticed the wall was covered with crystal orgonite generators. They looked just like the other artifacts that dressed the holistic surroundings but Eli realized that Santi must be a hunter as well. When he heard Santi begin to speak his attention was diverted.

“I know you feel weak,” Santi was saying to David. “This is hard for you, yes?”

David nodded. “I feel like I’m… Like I’m far away… like I’m not in my own body… I just want to sleep….” He leaned his head heavily against the back of the sofa.

Santi smiled calmly. “Yes, well I have something that will help you. Eli is going to take you to my sweat lodge.”

“A sauna, that’s good,” He had a dreamy look in his eyes. “I can relax then.” He nodded. “I like that…”

“Yes, “ Santi’s brows raised and he smiled at Eli knowing that the relaxing part would last for only about 15 minutes. In an hour he’d be screaming bloody murder, and in 3 hours all hell fury would be loosed in that place and by that time Eli would beg for Santi to let him out. But for now things were good and Santi helped David up from the sofa and Eli took over from there, walking him out to where the lodge was and leaving him with a few bottles of cold water that would be as hot as the air in the room in a few hours.

 

When Eli returned he exhaustedly sat down upon the sofa to relax. The three of them had been on the road for over a month before David was attacked. He and Akiro knew that something was troubling him. David’s abilities had grown and though he hadn’t told anyone, he didn’t the EMF anymore because he could feel where the Splinters were and communicate with them. But lately, he was also being contacted by one of the dark spirits, one of their head commanders. He was saying things to David to get him away from Eli and Akiro so that he alone would face his evil platoon, and when they succeeded, they ambushed him. For days now David had been in a bad way and each day that passed, he was becoming more aggressive and vile. That was why Akiro wasn’t there now. David had been an evil brut to both of them, but Eli knew he had to do something and he hadn’t slept in days as he tried to figure things out. That was when he got the idea of calling Professor Aquenes. He’d counseled them when they first began this journey and he had a feeling he’d been able to help them again. Thank God he phoned him, and it just so happened that they were 50 miles away from Santi, the man who the professor assured Eli would help them. Even though Eli wasn’t sure if this was all going to be successful, there was something about Santi that made him feel hopeful that David would become himself again.  He must have dozed off to sleep, because the next thing he knew, he could hear banging coming from the sweat lodge. Eli sprang up and rushing out into the night bore dreadful thoughts of David being attacked again!

“David, what it is?” Eli could hear him sobbing through the wooden door. “What is it David!”

“I need some fresh air… I just need…”

Eli put his attention on the lock, it was rusty and old and was difficult to lift up smoothly. Then when he remembered what Santi told him he took his hands away as though a shock had suddenly scorched his fingers. “You’re going to be okay David. Just try to relax.”

David was right on the other side of the door. “What, you’re not going to let me out? You’ve locked me in here!?” David’s voice was heavy and rich with anger.

“You’re going to be okay David…” Eli said feeling even more guilty than when he first locked the door.

“What are you saying Eli? Are you saying that I’m some kind of fucking prisoner? You locked me in here?!” His voice sounded as though he had two sets of vocal chords. He was filled with rage now and

Eli didn’t know how to respond, he didn’t know what to say.

Santi was standing on the patio checking on them to make sure everything was okay. He could see Eli and though he couldn’t hear what was being said, he sensed that Eli was already starting to go weak. He began walking over to the lodge and when he reached Eli, he touched him on the shoulder. “You have to be strong.” He said quietly. “This is nothing compared to what it will be like later on…”

Eli rubbed his eyes and his face and then tried to get himself together. “David?”

“Let me the fuck out of here, you bloody traitor!”

“David?”

“Open this God dammed door, you bastard!” He banged on it so hard his fists had to be near bloody.

Eli looked at Santi who shook his head.

“Oh God…” David mumbled. “They’re here… the dark spirits... Eli help me! Oh God, they’re attacking me!.... Open this God damned door!”

Santi was standing beside Eli now and Eli looked over to him with fear and worry on his face.

“We’ve got to let him out!” He whispered desperately.

Santi didn’t say a word, but he wore a small comforting smile.

“No, we have to get him out, they’re going to kill him! I can’t do this… Nevie, she would never forgive me if she lost David too.” There were tears in Eli’s eyes when he imagined having to tell her the real reason he and David were away. “You heard him, they’re attacking him…“

“They’re no dark spirits in there. It’s all in his head.” Santi’s voice was calm, convincing even, but David was still pounding on the door like a mad man!

“I just need to make sure he’s okay!” Eli pleaded as he paced away and then back to the door again.

“We talked about this. Remember? And I told you this would happen. Just center yourself and realize this is all an illusion…”

“He’s not being attacked?” Eli checked and Santi shook his head. “How can you be so sure?” He wondered feeling frantic still. “It’s the reason we’re here. They attacked him before!”

“Because…” Eli said and opened his arms, gesturing around. And then as though the stars in the sky had fallen, the air was filled with radiant glowing orbs. “We are surrounded by Angels.” Santi turned and began to walk away. After a moment’s hesitation Eli followed Santi back towards the Villa. But before they stepped inside, David started throwing his body against the door. The sound was so loud Eli wondered if he might knock it off its hinges. But when he glanced to Santi, Santi just shook his head as though that weren’t a possibility.

 

Gavin looked worried and troubled as he wondered what would become of his brother.

‘I want to show you something.’ Enyo said quietly, her voice jarring the memories of going into battle with her. How many times had that voice soothed him even when things seemed to being going terribly wrong? ‘Will you come with me?’

But Gavin didn’t want to leave David, not again, not after finding him for what seemed like almost a year!

Enyo gave him a warm but slight smile. ‘He’s going to be fine. Come… trust me.’

Gavin nodded and suddenly they were transported two months into the past where they were watching Eli, David and Akiro, driving down the highway in Eli’s black landrover.

 

The hood of the jeep was down, the day was clear and the road seemed to belong only to the three of them. Eli looked over to Akiro. They had just entered Arizona and for the past 20 minutes she had barely looked up from the EMF device, not even for a second. There was a long stretch of flat land and about a mile or two beyond that were trees. Akiro pointed, saying that would be a good spot to park and Eli suspected she was up to something. He couldn’t see the lights from her EMF but he had a feeling it was detecting paranormal activity. Meanwhile David was in the back of the jeep being quiet as usual. When Eli pulled over Akiro practically jumped out of the jeep. She gave a good show of pretending to stretch and even let out a nice long sigh, but within seconds she was headed towards the woods!

 

‘Nice try,’ Eli thought, not believing her theatrics for even a moment. He looked back at David who was now sitting on the ground leaning against the wheel of the jeep drawing frivolous designs in the sandy soil with a long twig that had been lying on the ground. Eli decided not to say anything and he turned to follow Akiro into the bush.

 

David was lost in his own thoughts, they’d been on the road for days, hunting for splinters and running into dark spirits who at this point, were just a presence that posed no problems. But David wondered if that might change soon. And as soon as he had that thought, he could feel their pervasive and heavy presence coming from the deep in the woods. He suddenly looked around for Eli and Akiro and when he realized that they’d left him he shot up and rushed into the woodlands to search for them.

 

Meanwhile Akiro had her EMF detector out. It was leading her into a clearing of about 50 feet in diameter. Surrounding her were large smooth rocks placed in a crude circle, the area looked to be a place where rituals were performed and as Eli followed he began to feel as though hundreds of eyes were hidden in the thickets and looking at them! It felt eerie, evil almost. And then the temperature dropped so much he could see the condensation forming from the air that left his mouth and nostrils as he breathed. His heart started pounding as he strained to see what appeared to be staring at him through the thick foliage!

David could sense everything now and he began running through the woods as the sinister energy in the atmosphere was building to a critical level! He started calling out to Eli and Akiro, but it was Eli who finally heard him, and answering back, David was able to follow the direction of his voice.

Eli squinted his eyes as his attempt to see the spirits panned out, and he spotted misty dark figures far off in the woods. This was the first time that they were visible to him! There were hundreds of them filing in like an army of soldiers heading towards the circle of rocks where Akiro was. It was amazing!

 

David found Eli and when Eli looked to David he was startled speechless. David was enveloped in the most radiant light he’d ever seen and Eli marveled as he realized he was now able to detect the extraordinary. Only now did he fully understand what David had been seeing since their journey into the supernatural began. Then he noticed David’s expression change as he looked over to Akiro and next to the dark spirits in the woods who were fast approaching her. She was no more than 40 feet away, but David started running towards her though she hadn’t noticed and was still fixated and stunned by the red numbers on the EMF that were rising mercurially.

 

The crackling of the twigs beneath David’s feet caught her attention and she asked David what was going on, but David was now in front of her and facing what seemed to her as only a field of trees. But David’s gaze was on something far more sinister than trees, for his eyes were locked onto one of the soldiers in the foreground whose dark pupils were cold, and vacant.

 

The army was dressed in military garb, and once they’d all gathered about 40 feet away, they came to a stop. The soldier in the Lieutenant’s uniform was the one that David’s eyes had fixated on, and standing at the head of the army he now began to approach David.

 

“I know why you’re here.” He had a southern accent. “But we ain’t goin’ no where.”

 

David reached for the oblong crystals hanging from his belt, they looked like numchuks , but were ancient weapon that would amplify David’s magnetic field and offer him protection from the dangerous free radicals that the dark spirits emanated from their energy fields. “Well, I’m not a man of many words… But your time is up…”

The soldier’s expression changed as his scowl became less pronounced. He looked back at his troops then again at David.

 

“We ain’t troublin’ no body, I just as soon call it our business and you go on your way.”

 

David gestured with open arms and smiled a little. “…Or, we can do it the hard way.”

 

Gavin smiled with pride. David was courageous, fearless even. But then again, he’d always had a badass side to him!

 

Akiro couldn’t see or hear what was going on, but her EMF was going off like crazy! As for Eli he could see the dark spirits and could sense anger building up in the air. He finally went over to her and grabbing her wrists pulled her, against her will from out of the circle to where it was safe. Suddenly the soldiers began advancing, running towards David with vicious scowls on their faces. David remained unmoved, he held out one hand as though to halt them and then with the other he began twirling the Orgone generators like a martial artist! From his palm radiated a light that began forming a cocoon around him while the crystals emitted a high pitched sound that filled up the entire area. Eli couldn’t hear the sound, but he could see the light surrounding David growing to the point where it hurt his eyes and blinded him from seeing what was taking place!

 

The soldiers now were close enough to David so that they began lifting swiftly off from the ground to pile onto him, but the light around him was like a shield, and when they pounced onto it their bodies instantly exploded into thousands of particles! Some of the dark spirits in the back who saw what had happened retreated, running and disappearing back into the ethers while those more brave continued with the attack as though the light might be weakened from their efforts. At the same time something else was going on. Sixty or seventy of the enemy soldiers abruptly fell to the ground. Eli could see them, and he saw a dark murky substance leaving their bodies and then a field of light beginning to replace the darkness, merging with the fallen soldiers and then becoming a radiant egg like structure that surrounded and he supposed, protected them as well.

 

The other soldiers, cold and hardened to the bone were still advancing with full force and with great determination one by one, they leapt up above the light that was surrounding David as though they might find an entrance or portal somewhere. But when they penetrated the edges of the light they disintegrated, not into particles, but into nothingness! David’s power was amazing and even he was astonished! The battle went on for another 20 minutes or so, with 10 to 20 soldiers being utterly obliterated at the same time over and over. But soon the light around David was growing pale! Eli, now able to see the fighting again, saw the last few spirits encouraged by the dimming rushing towards David roaring with inhuman vocal chords as they leapt, plunging into the barrier of light as though they might burst through. They did not dissipate as quickly as the others and instead maintained their form and their struggle to break through, but in a moments time they too dissolved into the air. Eli could see that David looked weakened, and Akiro sensing something was dreadfully wrong with David tried to pull out of Eli’s hold to get to him. But Eli kept her near just as he kept David in his worried gaze.

 

When the battle was over, the soldiers who had fallen and who had become radiant with light were rising up and once they saw David, they began running eagerly towards him. It was only now that Eli realized they were Celestial Warriors who had become possessed and under the control of the dark spirits.

 

“Captain, I apologize!” One of them sobbed. “I couldn’t fight the evil… Sir, I couldn’t resist its-“

David held out his hand. “But we have no time to regret do we?”

“No sir, no sir...”

“Your orders are to return to the camp!”

“But where are we sir? What happened to us?”

“You’re on earth, but before this you were in the battle at K10.”

The soldier looked disheartened. “Sir, can’t we return to K10, surely we’re needed!”

“But there is no time for worry is there?”

“No, no Sir.”

 

They think he’s me.’ Gavin replied wondrously as he looked on.

Enyo smiled and shook her head. “Yes, this is why he was chosen. And this is what he was before the ambush. But he will be even stronger after the vision quest is completed!

 

A light appeared and the Warriors vanished into the ethers. And once they were gone David collapsed to the ground.

 

‘It’s okay’ . Enyo assured Gavin. ‘ He’s not yet used to the power of light the way we are.’

Gavin didn’t say anything, he was too amazed and too proud of David for words.

‘Do you understand now? Enyo wanted to know.’

Gavin nodded. ‘ He will gather the splinter’s?’

Enyo nodded.

‘And those in Virginia, he’ll take care of that, but they will think he is me?’

Enyo smiled and nodded again.

‘While I was lost in this dream state David was down here fighting.’

‘Shall we return now?’ She asked and Gavin nodded, and just as he did the rod of light shot down from the sky and moments later they were back at camp.

                                                              

 

                                                                                       CHAPTER

The glow inside the Red Eye of Saturn was especially beautiful when the sun that was shared with Earth was setting beyond a mountainous range that soared many thousands of feet into the atmosphere. Above the surface of the planet was a tempest that been raging for a millennia, yet the eye of the storm where Gavin and Enyo’s camp was located, was peaceful and the landscape was breathtaking.

Gavin and Enyo walked towards the vast green flat lands where the troops were, most of the soldiers were playing, and some of them, a game that was like the earth sport, football. From their palms they spewed bursts of flame that formed into balls of fire that they threw high into the stratosphere. Some Warrior’s men and women alike would leap up and descend in a display of spectacular inferno. Others would race each other at mercurial speeds to catch the fiery globe. The mood was light hearted, but when they saw their Captains approaching, all the games ceased and they approached the two of them eagerly. It was as though Gavin had only been missing for a day, for no one seemed particularly startled to lay eyes on him.

Norquis, Gavin’s first in command nodded to the two of them and then addressed Gavin directly.

“We’re ready and charged up sir. The others are already in the Zeus sector.”

Gavin looked out at the thousands of men and women who served under him and his admiration and pride welled up within, the memories of his fragile year on earth were gone and in his heart he felt only a fire that burned to neutralize their foe once and for all.  Gavin nodded and glanced to Enyo who was speaking with one of her own commanders as well for she too was readying for combat.

 

Within an hour Gavin and his troops arrived upon a battle lit up in a blaze of intense heat. Ares and his unit were issuing out a fiery massive spread of sustained gamma rays upon the Eblis who was completely consumed by fire! Never before had Gavin seen its entire body in flames, and had never seen so much of it, nearly charred in a mass of red embers! Stunned but not wasting a moment, Gavin ordered his troops to join in. And with their solar plexus’ freshly charged with light, they maximized the heat by a square of 200. The immense body of the monstrosity electrocuting into ash lit up space in a conflagration that burned like a sun thousands and thousands of miles across!

Only moments after Gavin’s troops joined in, the enemy got on the move and attempted to flee but the Celestial Warriors followed in intense pursuit still firing until chunks of flesh, the size of continents melted off like toffee being pulled till the strands separated from its body and dissipated into the deep black crevices below the action! The troops pursued the enemy swiftly circling Zeus’ small moons and dark invisible gullies that increased speeds by 10 fold! And despite Ares’ unit being nearly depleted of the gamma rays stored in their core the heat in space was well passed a million degrees Celsius and continuing to grow!

This was the life that humans called death, yet it was the dead that protected all that lived. And for the Celestial Warriors many of them had died a thousand times, falling back to earth only to be resurrected to the epic battle that had the balance of all life, in all the billions of galaxies in its grasp! It would all end one day, when the enemy like a cancerous cell was finally reduced to a single and helpless particle of light. And then the Celestial soldiers would retire to the tranquil life, rejoining with their loved ones and soul mates on Paracidiceous, that place called Heaven…But before that would ever happen, it would take the brave efforts of the Celestial cells and the Liaison to once and for all, extinguish the enemy whose ultimate goal was to swallow the Universe and become a god.