The cross started to glow brightly to David’s eyes, and the room shined with its beacon. Frank’s yelling entered David’s ear and out the other; it was like an echo from a distant violin, loud and quick. David concentrated on the glowing cross, gawking at it on Frank’s neck while light reflected off his brown eyes, instigating him to turn away for a moment in fear and look at Frank’s eyes. As Frank’s voice grew to a louder reverberation, David attempted to speak, trying to bypass his shock and find his voice manually, grasping his throat and trying to breathe out words. He knew he was still breathing, but now he was trying to put some sound in his breath, so the next time he exhaled, hopefully sound would go with it. He breathed out, but no sound exited, so he kept trying to manipulate his voice box, again by grabbing his throat while Frank still yelled at him.
The next inhale came and then he exhaled, breaking through his shock with: “No, I’m not trying to get attention, I’m telling the truth. For the first time in my life I’m telling the truth, and wouldn’t you know it, nobody believes me!” After his exhale of truth, he noticed the mirrors formed a black substance on them, as if they were burnt and full of ash. The people behind the glass started to become afraid, as the black substance covered the mirrors completely, and not one person knew what it was or what was causing it. Frank looked at the mirror in back of David and noticed the black shield as well.
“You see it, too?” David asked as the cross began to shake on Frank’s neck.
“What’s going on, David, what’s happening?” asked Frank in a frantic fashion. The cross broke off from his neck and levitated in thin air. Frank looked up at the cross, swallowed a large amount of shock, and passed out, falling to the ground and giving out his last sound of gas before he surrendered to unconsciousness. David got up from the chair and ran over to the door, screaming for the guards to open it. But the people behind the mirrors had already passed out from the same experience that Frank had, and couldn’t hear David’s cry for help. He looked through a miniature window on the door that looked like a mail slot, and saw a guard down the hallway lying on the ground. It was as if every single person had passed out—every single person except for David.
He heard sounds of an angelic voice singing in the distance. David ignored the noise and ran to the other side of the room, while the levitating cross tripled in size. “What’s happening?” cried David, suddenly hearing a voice speaking from the cross.
“David,” the voice said. David turned away from the pulsating light from the cross, which caused a small second-degree burn to bake on his face. “David?”
“Who are you?” David screamed, watching as the cross opened up, and out came a figure that resembled a king. The frantic light vanished and when David turned he saw a man who he knew was Jesus. This man had a crown of jewels, a robe made out of gold cloth, and a face as innocent as a child’s soul, with a skin color that was not black, nor white, nor brown, nor yellow; it was the color of colors. A complexion of assorted colors, with his face white, his forehead darker, his chin and neck black, equaling one color that seemed perfect in beauty. Yet, when David blinked his eyes once, the King of Heaven’s color turned to a simple shade of tan.
Fear came over David, the fear of knowing who this man was, forcing his own shock-filled legs to buckle and causing David to fall to his knees. David’s face touched the dirty floor, his eyes only facing the ground, yet suddenly he heard footsteps approaching. He knew that it was Jesus coming closer to him.
“David, thou art the West, you must guide my army to the west,” Jesus demanded, holding out his hand to touch David on the forehead. “Find the Shroud, the map will guide you,” he added, as David looked up at him. Jesus touched David’s forehead and a jolt of pure, tranquil energy shot through his body, shaking his nerves, frolicking around his soul. David heard a loud clash, like thunder and lightning crashing against each other in a fight for the first summer’s storm. And then it ended, with David hearing his angelic King say, “Now I gave powers to David and the knowledge of the mission you must carry forth; go and find the Shroud!”
David’s forehead began to glow, a beacon of yellow emanating from Jesus’s touch. David watched as Jesus slowly stepped back into the cross that was now enormous. Suddenly, in a breath smaller than that of a fairy, the cross became small again and fell to the ground, bouncing on the ground twice, as David watched it in leisurely motion.
Frank awoke with the black substance on the mirrors receding and vanishing to the sight. David passed by Frank and walked to the door in a hurry, looking at his hand while placing it on the doorknob and looking back at Frank for an instant. Hearing the sounds of gas birthing in the air, David knew Frank was beginning to awake. He knew once Frank awoke, he wouldn’t be able to carry out this abrupt, new mission he was told to do. Panic started to form in the sweat that grew from his pores. Frank started to wake more, shaking his head in a confused way while the panic grew in David’s mind. He was imagining the door opening on its own, when abruptly it did, without him even having to unlock it. The door slowly opened, with David perceiving his hand on the doorknob and how it made the knob glow with some sort of power he possessed now. While David was exiting the room, suddenly Frank got up from the floor, noticed David was escaping, and slowly walked up to him without David realizing it.
Frank got up to David, grabbed him by the right shoulder, and demanded, “Where are you going? The session isn’t over with yet!”
David understood through the thick, sticky humid air that Frank had no idea about the miracle which had just taken place moments ago. He smiled at Frank, replying, “I have to go to Grewsal now!”
“What’s Grewsal?” asked Frank while putting his eyeglass on.
“I’m sorry, Frank, but no more questions!”
David then ran down the hallway and Frank ran to one of the mirrors in the room, screaming, “David is escaping!”
One of the guards slowly woke up and saw Frank screaming, understanding his facial expression was that of panic, even though he couldn’t hear what he was saying through the see-through mirror. The guard looked around the dark room that was behind one of the mirrors, questioning out loud to the other guards’ who were first waking up, “What happened?”
The guard ran out of the dark room, and, seeing David walking down the hallway, he ran up to David and asked in a snotty manner, “Where do you think you’re going, you little shit?”
At that moment, David stuck his hand in the air and touched the guard’s forehead. A jolt of energy passed through the guard’s veins, knocking him out and causing him to fall to the ground like a rock.
Frank ran out of the room he was in and saw the guard lying stiff on the cold, white floor, and noticed that David was nowhere to be found. He ran into another room that was across the hallway, a medical room, and searched through the supplies for a syringe with a tranquilizer-like liquid, finding one in a glass cabinet. Frank took a chair and smashed the glass, grabbed the syringe and walked carefully out to the hallway, lowering his pace as he came closer to David. “David, I’m sorry for having to do this,” Frank said in sincerity before he stuck the needle into David’s arm. David placed his hand on Frank’s forehead, trying to fight the sensation of tiredness that the liquid in the syringe caused, and gazed into Frank’s eyes. Suddenly David’s eyes started to shift and fill with heavy gravity, saying, “You don’t know what you’re doing, I’m an angel, you bastard!” David fell to the ground and lay in the hallway stiff, with Frank trying to understand and contemplate why David would have so much passion in those words. What if he was telling the truth? But he stopped thinking and grabbed onto David’s limp arms.
Frank dragged David’s body back into the room they were in and placed him in the chair again, watching David’s face while he noticed a mark that was on his chest. Since his shirt was pulled down a little bit from Frank dragging him, the mark revealed itself even more. He reached down to David’s chest and pulled his shirt down even more to reveal the mark more cle
arly. That’s when he saw a symbol that resembled a wing. It was an angel’s wing. At first he thought it was a tattoo, but then he realized that it had ridges at every end of it. They were types of ridges that only a scar from being burned could give. He looked down at the floor and saw his cross that he remembered levitated in air, yet he thought that was a dream. He picked up the cross, rubbed it in his hairy old hands, and gazed back at David’s face, whispering, “Who are you, anyway?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Heartbeats raced in a mysterious, inexplicable dance, pumping quickly, equaling one rhythm that dilated each pulse to a higher beat. Jeremy, Michael and Gabriel sat together, apprehensive and perplexed, not speaking to one another, only hearing the faint whisper of a cool breeze rushing in through an open but barred window that cooled down the tight, humid office of misunderstood faiths. They didn’t stare at each other, but the tightness and discomfort worsened when Doctor Mary Callahan sat in the center of the office with the three boys surrounding her, being seated quietly, hearing her say in happy note, “Everyone, I would like you to welcome Jeremy to Grewsal.” The circle was still, quiet, like a myth’s secret, not wanting to reveal itself to the old or young, craving to not have any spoken words that would open up a new version of its story. Yet Gabriel smiled at Jeremy, as if he had a secret craving to be told, a beacon waiting to be seen, while Mary kept up her positive energy and spirit, smiling to them all in an attempt to reach their trust through benevolence and through her beautiful aura.
Mary showed her benevolence to all of her patients, even the ones she detested. Ever since she graduated medical school at the age of twenty-two, she developed a strong bond toward the sick, treating them as if they were unicorns with a broken heart, trying to mend them so their beauty could be seen by all, forever, everlastingly. The ones she disliked she still treated the same. To her, a broken heart was the same in all, whether it’s evil or not. Now that she’s twenty-six, she treats all of her patients like they’re her own children, stepping up from her unicorn allegory to actual human beings. It was a small step to some, but a large one for Mary, indeed.
Mary noticed the smile from Gabriel, but didn’t see one on Michael’s pained face, so she went on with her speech, continuing with, “Also, I would like to welcome you, Gabriel. Grewsal is a very good institution that will help you all deal with your problem…. Now, you all know why you’re here, but I want to hear from you guys. Let’s start with Michael. Michael, why are you here?”
Michael gazed upon a wall that was directly behind Mary, staring at it, knowing that a cross, which was hanging on the wall, was something that his interrupted eyes should observe. With Michael still perceiving the cross in a strong look, he demanded in strictness, “Before I tell you, I want you to remove that thing, that cross!”
Mary turned around and saw the cross hanging. “Why do you want me to remove it?”
“Because, I just do,” he replied in crazy laughter.
Mary got up and took the cross from the wall. Walking back to her seat while holding the cross, she looked it over. She held it up to Michael, questioning his fear with, “Why are you afraid of this? It’s not going to hurt you….”
Michael slapped the cross from out of her hand and it fell to the ground. Jeremy and Gabriel were in a frightened trance, and watched the cross hit the floor face-up. Michael shot up from his seat and ran to her office door, screaming out a low moaning noise, desperately trying to open it; it was locked from the inside, as well as the outside. Mary got up from her seat and tried calming Michael down by hugging him, but he pushed her away, yelling, “Don’t you ever do that to me again. You don’t realize how much grief and pain that cross caused me….” He pounded on the door in a desperate attempt to escape. “It’s evil!” yelled Michael.
The pressure was thickening in the room. Screams and anger could be felt by Jeremy, perceiving Michael shouting at Mary, with the single cross still lying on the neatly buffed wooden floor. The screaming stopped when Jeremy got up from his seat, and said, “I don’t think it is!”
Michael, Gabriel and Mary turned to face him, hearing his words reverberating through all their minds; they were words of truth. His words, their deep overtone, meant that he knew the reason why they’re seeing statues move about, and why they’re in Grewsal; all this came from one sentence. No noise existed in the room, except the memory of Jeremy’s sentence that pounded in Gabriel and Michael’s minds like a rusted nail being driven into an oak tree by a jackhammer. To Mary, it was her curiosity that allowed her to stare at Jeremy after he spoke his words. She craved to know what he meant by that sentence, while Gabriel and Michael knew what he meant, and yearned for him to say it—a cure. At least that’s what they thought.
“What are you talking about?” asked Michael.
“The cross, you said it’s evil, and I’m saying it’s not,” replied Jeremy, while Mary and Michael slowly sat down in their seats again, listening closely to what seemed to be a theory of Jeremy’s. They all listened in an interested fashion, while Jeremy began to explain something he didn’t ever think would come out of his mouth.
“We’re all here for the same reason, a reason that all of us feel is kind of crazy.” After Jeremy ended his words to take in the next breath of air, a buzzer shot down the silence and went off in the room.
“Hold on, Jeremy, I’ll be right back,” Mary said. She got up from her chair and walked over to the door, waiting till one of the guards unlocked the outside of it while she unlocked the inside. She finally exited the room, not knowing that Jeremy proceeded to explain his theory.
“When I first saw the statues moving, I was afraid because I thought I was crazy. But now I see that you and, and—?” Jeremy mumbled, pointing toward Gabriel.
“Gabriel,” Gabriel smiled out.
“Thank you. But now I realize that you and Gabriel see the same things, too. Personally, I feel a lot better knowing I’m not alone with this so-called ‘sickness’!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, man: we are crazy, you’re just in denial,” shrugged Michael in a defensive manner, seeing Gabriel picking up the cross from the floor from his peripheral sight. “Idiot, don’t touch that!” he yelled out, hitting his brother Gabriel’s hand and causing the cross to fall to the ground a second time.
Gabriel stared at the cross while it lay on the floor and then looked up at Jeremy and Michael. Silence took over the room again, and Gabriel stared at both of them, hesitant to say something he wanted to say ever since he had Michael and Jeremy in the same room as him. So he crossed his fingers and asked, “Guys—I was wondering—did the cross ever speak to you before?”
Jeremy picked up the cross and asked, “Why?”
Michael got up from his seat quickly, seeing Jeremy holding the cross in his hand, and shouted, “Drop that,” scaring Jeremy and hitting his hand, causing the cross to fall a third time.
Jeremy looked at his hand, the one that Michael had hit, which triggered his rage. He went over to Michael and punched him in the chest with his fist to quell the fury that filled quickly inside of him. Jeremy then screamed, “Don’t you ever touch me again!”
“Guys!” Gabriel yelled out, seeing his brother punching Jeremy in the face. The fight began, tumbling and throwing each other around the room, destroying everything in sight. They hit Mary’s desk and tumbled over it, breaking the barred-up, half-opened window and shattering it to pieces. Gabriel didn’t know what to do, or where this anger came from. Gabriel dodged them over and over again, as they both wrestled and rolled around the room, with Gabriel only seeing fists flying and hearing curse words of evil. Gabriel scanned the room and saw the cross on the ground. He picked it up and screamed, “Stop it—stop fighting right now!”
Without any hesitation, Jeremy and Michael stopped as soon as Gabriel’s scream ended, watching Gabriel as he walked over to his seat again and sat down in it. The sun that was shining through the now-broken window landed on Gabriel’s image; it was like a s
potlight, a beacon that came from the heavens. Gabriel stared at the cross and then at them, saying in a mild voice, “This cross spoke to me before. It was Jesus who spoke to me.” Jeremy and Michael sat back in their seats again and listened to Gabriel as he admitted his experience to them for the first time. “He said that I’m the East, whatever that means. He said for me to guide his army to the east!”
“What are you talking about, bro? Who said that?” Michael asked while Gabriel peeked at the cross again.
Gabriel paused for a second, relaying his thoughts of confusion, trying to place the puzzle pieces together. He then replied, “Jesus told me…he said to find his Shroud, some map is on the Shroud. He also said something about the Kerchief of Veronica, and that some other map is on that, too!”
Michael grinned at Gabriel, laughing at his supposed ignorance, giggling out, “Gabriel, I hate to ruin your moment, but the Shroud was already found by someone.”
“What’s the Shroud?” asked Jeremy. Michael looked at him in shock. The room became dead silent again; it became filled with the sound of their heartbeats, their heartbeats that pumped faster every second that went by.
Michael laughed out loud. “Dude, you don’t know what the Shroud is?”
“No, I don’t know what it is. What’s the Shroud?”
Suddenly the door to the office flew open, with all of them being startled by the words, “You mean the Shroud of Turin?” It was Mary, walking into the room. She sat down in her chair again and smiled, looking at her messy room. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re getting to know each other. Your question was: ‘what’s the Shroud?’, right?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Well, it’s a piece of linen that was used as the burial garment for Jesus. Right now it’s on display in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin, Italy. I know a lot about the history of the Shroud, it says that it measures fourteen feet by three inches long, and is three feet by seven inches wide. The Shroud that’s in Turin actually shows two faint images of the front and back of a crucified man, it even has the same markings as Jesus at the time of his death,” Mary explained as Michael began laughing.
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