“Well get in, man. Are you coming or not?” the man asked.
“Is this real?” Gabriel asked himself silently. “Get in!” he demanded of himself. Within moments of the truckers reaching the place where Gabriel had been waiting, he had hurled himself headlong into the van. His new friend slid the door closed, and the van took off down the unlit and mostly untraveled highway.
“Hey man, my name’s Gus,” the traveler announced a bit louder than necessary. “Me and my lady up there are going to burning man, man,” Gus laughed at his repetition as he lit up what looked like a hand-rolled cigarette.
Still confused and laying on the floor of the van with Gus’ head hanging over him, Gabriel uttered, “Did you see those guys back there?”
“No, dude. What guys? All we saw was you, right honey?” Gus answered.
“Yup. Right, babe,” the driver retorted.
“Oh, Oh, Oh…Sorry man,” Gus continued carefully ashing his cigarette in a nearby container. “That’s my lady, Vera. She’s the wo-man, man,” he annunciated deliberately as a sign of respect.
“Hey buddy. You hitching out here by yourself? Should I go back for your friends?” Vera inquired.
Gabriel stuttered, “No, no…thank you…for picking me up.”
“Man you look like you seen a ghost. Wanna hit this?” Gus offered his cigarette.
“No, Gus. Thank you,” Gabriel sat up waving his hand in front of his face to clear some of the fumes.
“So where you going, friend,” Vera inquired.
“Home…” Gabriel said as he glanced behind the van to see if anyone was following. A few miles back, truck lights popped up from the horizon. His mind raced, “What if it was the truckers?” They had followed him out of the diner. Why not continue down a dark and lonely road? “What did they want?” he wondered.
“The beast,” his mind returned. “They are controlling them,” he thought.
“No, that’s crazy,” he answered himself.
“Is it?” he responded. “Before today, would you have believed in giant lizard men?”
He did not have an answer for himself. All he knew was that he had to convince Vera and Gus to get off the road. Gabriel met back up with Gus’ steady bloodshot eyes.
“I think he’s tripping, man,” Gus informed Vera.
“Then why’d he turn down the joint?” Vera wondered.
“Maybe it’s peyote, man?” Gus offered. “He looks like a native.”
Vera turned from steering the van to examine Gabriel quickly. “I don’t think so, Gus,” she concluded. “I think he’s just scared of something, babe.”
“We have to get off this road,” Gabriel interrupted.
“What? Why, man?” Gus returned.
Vera looked back again, but said nothing. The pair awaited Gabriel’s response.
“I think we are in danger,” he said.
Vera saw something disturbing in Gabriel’s eyes. “Where should we go?” She lit up a manufactured cigarette.
“You aren’t listening to this guy, Vera? Are you?” Gus wondered. “He’s crazy or something,” Gus concluded. “What about burning man, man?”
Gabriel waited until the lights behind them had vanished from sight behind a turn in the road. “Kill your lights, and turn off the road up here,” he said.
Vera followed Gabriel’s instructions, and turned off the highway behind some tree cover.
“Turn off the van,” Gabriel added.
Gus finally had enough, “Man, what is going on, guy? Are you a secret spy or something? You better not get us pulled over by the cops!”
Gabriel waited for the truck to pass, and he reached for the door handle. He pulled the old door open saying, “Thank you, Vera and Gus, for your help. You are good people.” Gabriel then gracefully exited the vehicle, and began to walk away.
“Wait a minute, man. Are you going to be ok?” Gus wanted to know.
“I’ll be fine,” Gabriel answered in a voice he knew Gus couldn’t hear. The van door swung closed, the vehicle started up, and the pair reversed back to the highway to be on their way. “I know where I am,” Gabriel finished.
The evening air was beginning to feel cool on Gabriel’s skin. He was only a few hours away from his home. After all that had happened, though, he felt it was too dangerous for him to return to that place. He was a changed man. It took all his concentration to keep from thinking about his exact position in the backcountry. He couldn’t take a chance that the beasts would find him by reading his thoughts. His head focused on the ground, he only knew the general direction he was traveling.
“Should I even go back,” he wondered. “What about my wife? My Son?”
“We will eat them whole,” a distant promise invaded his mind. It continued, “You cannot beat us. You are weak. You are nothing. No one will believe you, stupid human.”
Tears began to stream from his face. He could barely motivate himself to go any farther.
“They need me,” he cried out.
“No one needs you, Gabriel. You’re stupid. You brought this upon yourself, and now you must suffer,” the evil thoughts continued.
Gabriel fell to his knees. The only sounds he could hear were his own sobs. He just couldn’t take it any longer. Physically he was near collapse. Mentally he wondered if he was going insane.
“Maybe none of it was real,” his mind rationalized. Then his mind went still. The voice that had plagued him went silent. Finally, he looked up, and saw an old building lit by one lone florescent spotlight. Bugs swirled within the pale blue light.
“It’s the Peterson’s,” he thought. “I have to ask for help. I’ll tell them I need to see a doctor. Maybe they have something for me to eat.”
A door opened and slammed shut on the other side of the metal building. A man emerged from the darkness some two hundred yards from Gabriel.
“Who’s there?” the man demanded. “I’m armed!”
From beneath the fluid and emotion, Gabriel managed to call back, “Jim, It’s Gabriel. Don’t shoot!”
For a few seconds there was no return. Then shots began to ring out. One shell whizzed so close to Gabriel’s head, he thought it might have grazed him. He fell to the ground a broken man. Sobs escalated as he waited for death.
“Now do you see,” his thoughts returned. “You are nothing.”
“No!” he cried. “I’m someone. I’m a person. Jim, don’t shoot. Please Jim. Don’t listen to them.”
“You’d better get your ass off my land,” Jim Peterson called out as bullets were fired indiscriminately in Gabriel’s direction some landing close to the broken man’s face. Gabriel could feel the dust pick up from the impacts. Pebbles splashed his body. Floodlights beamed in Gabriel’s direction moving closer and pitching left to right. It was a semi truck. Gabriel could hear its engine roaring toward him.
“Oh, God,” Gabriel thought. “Oh God, help me. Please…please…”
The most brilliant light Gabriel had ever gazed upon opened up from the sky. It was so intense, it made everything else appear as silhouettes. The power to the truck and nearby buildings was immediately disabled. Gabriel slowly began to be lifted from the ground. An intense calm spread throughout his being. There are no words for what he was feeling at that moment. God, it seemed had heard him. Gabriel lost consciousness. As his thoughts faded away, he could barely make out gunfire and two people approaching as he continued to rise into the air. He gave himself to the light.
Chapter 5: Holding on and Letting Go
The sun had risen substantially in the early afternoon sky. It was looking to be a bright and cheery day. Maahe felt as though he may have ruined any chance of enjoying it, though, as Hakota’s young face streamed with pain and sorrow for his father.
“Should I stop?” Maahe asked knowing the answer. He had surprised himself with his self-composure. He wasn’t at all sure how he would get through the story without breaking down himself, but so far he had done so brilliantly.
“I wan
t to know everything,” Hakota replied wiping the snot away from his nose. It wouldn’t do much good to do the same to his eyes because the tears would just continue anyway. “Tell me, grandfather.”
“You see that dark patch out there?” Maahe pointed to a rock formation about a mile away.
“I see it,” Hakota squinted at the distant anomaly. The boy turned his attention back to his grandfather, his eyes still holding onto the pain. A few cars raced down the distant highway while the two were parked on the side of the dirt road. Folks didn’t tend to travel the way Maahe and Hakota had taken.
“That is the cave, Hakota,” Maahe added dramatically.
Hakota’s view swung again to the spot. He was fixed upon it as though he had traveled there without his body. The sorrow began to lift from the boy as his thoughts were replaced by trepidation.
“I showed it to Gabriel when he was about your age,” grandfather added holding his chin a bit higher to keep from plunging into sorrow. “I told him never to go inside.”
Hakota once again lost his composure and he had another outburst. “He did it for me!” Hakota cried. “He did it for mom and me,” he shook.
Maahe was not expecting that. All the time he had blamed himself for his son’s death, he never imagined Hakota would do the same. “No, Hakota. It’s not your fault.” Maahe realized, “It isn’t anyone’s fault but the beasts.”
Maahe breathed a free breath for the first time since he lost Gabriel. Hakota’s tears again began to relent. For what seemed like eternity encapsulated in a timeless moment, Hakota and his grandfather sat together in the cab of the truck gazing into the distance. Both had finally begun to understand that there was much more to this life than the pain they clung to – a pain neither of them could hold onto any longer.
“We all must go into the unknown,” Maahe finally observed. “C’mon, son. Let’s go.” Hakota hesitated as Maahe opened his door. “It’s ok,” he assured him, “There are no more beasts in that hole.”
Hakota, intrigued, stepped from the truck. Maahe led the boy through the brush as though he knew the best way forward.
“I’ve been coming here for quite a while, off and on,” Maahe informed his grandson. “Sometimes I just sit and feel the wind on my face, and I talk to your father. Ask him how he’s doing. What it’s like on the other side of the veil.”
“What does he say?” Hakota asked him.
The grandfather smiled and told Hakota, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
The two sat on a large flat rock overlooking the cave entrance. Maahe continued the story. The wind blew lightly, caressing the young boy’s cheeks. Maahe could feel his son’s presence.
Chapter 6: Gods and Monsters
When Gabriel awoke, he was surrounded by three extraterrestrials. He was not afraid. The beings stood only about five feet tall, but had extremely large, hairless craniums, no noticeable noses or ears, and large black eyes. They did not wear clothes, but had no determinable genitalia Gabriel could discern. Their skin was a pale green-blue combination. One of their hands reached toward Gabriel’s head. The being had six elongated fingers.
When the hand reached Gabriel’s forehead, an intense pressure relieved itself inside the man’s head, and thoughts and feelings flowed into and out of him freely. At first, he only heard a whisper, “Hello, Gabriel. We are here to help you.” The words were more like feelings than words. It sounded familiar to the man.
“You…” Gabriel started, “I know you.”
“Yes,” the being projected now removing his or her hand. “And we know you,” the being continued. “We have been with you all along. We guided you out of the cave. We sent the van. Even before this day, we have been with you.”
Gabriel remained still and now became aware that he was on a table seemingly made of light. He looked around the room where he lay. Brilliant white light emanated from everywhere. He felt as if he was floating, but he remained fixed comfortably to the table. Time appeared to slow in this environment. He was in awe of the space people. The man regained his composure, and relayed a thought, “Why?”
The beings looked at one another clearly impressed with the man’s lack of fear. Then they all looked back down at the man as if they were all part of a single consciousness.
“We have been watching you for many, many years, Gabriel. We have been interacting with you…” the being projected.
Gabriel interrupted, not yet able to control his thoughts in this new reality, “Yes, I know. I have heard you…in my head. You’ve been with me all along.”
With an astounding amount of patience, the being agreed, “Yes, that is true. We have an interest in Earth. We study your species with great care.”
“But, the monster,” Gabriel interrupted again.
Again the being reached a hand out slowly and touched the man’s forehead. His mind at once stopped racing. Gabriel was able to lie back and merely observe. The extraterrestrial then slowly removed the hand as Gabriel reclined. Thoughts flooded his mind. They came all at once, yet communicated an enormous amount of information clearly. He couldn’t tell which of them was communicating with him or if it was all of them at the same time.
The beings relayed the history of their involvement with Earth. They had arrived some five hundred thousand years ago from a distant planet much smaller than Earth. They came to this planet as explorers and scientists to gather resources such as gold and precious metals. They created Homo sapiens.
Gabriel’s eyes shot open at the revelation. It was all beginning to make sense to him. “They worshiped you,” he thought.
Again the beings looked to each other impressed with the deduction. “No”, they finally admitted. “They worshiped themselves and each other. They followed their leaders. They made up their own stories. We are simply observers. Scientists. Explorers.”
The man was beginning to get a hold on his own thoughts. He subtly interjected once the being had completed the ideas, “Why did you create us?”
“We created you to carry on our genetic heritage,” the being replied. He, she, or they continued, “We are unwilling to remain physically on Earth indefinitely, so we merged with a species that demonstrated an intriguing ability to care for others of its own kind. Advanced species, we have discovered tend to evolve in similar ways. Your ancestors had the unique capacity for love, albeit only the beginnings of this powerful and important genetic characteristic.”
Gabriel’s body went numb as he came to understand what the being or beings had told him. “All the wars. The violence. The pollution. Evil and illogical fears. It was all due to the human condition - arriving on Earth and coming from Earth simultaneously. We are at odds with ourselves down to the very fabric of our chromosomes.”
“Much of what you are referencing is in fact not the result of your genetic make-up,” Gabriel was corrected. They continued, “Much of the evil to which you are referring is the result of interference from the Reptilians, the beasts you encountered. They have been here for far longer than either of our races. A remnant of the dinosaurs that survived the last great meteor shower by hiding underground. They have some advanced technologies, although not as diverse as our own capabilities. They have preyed on people from the beginning of the experiment. They intensely dislike your species because they view you as an unnatural and unwelcomed intruder to their planet. They are incapable of love. Much of the strife, fear, anger, over competition and aggression, and the like can be attributed to their interference with the minds of humans.”
Gabriel thought he was special, and his feelings of disappointment were hard for the extraterrestrials to miss.
They went on, “The minds of those who develop illogically believing themselves to be inferior are riddled with unsubstantiated fears. This is the doorway to the thoughts that they seek out individually. But there is another way into the mind of a human who is too strong to be manipulated by one Reptilian. If many join together to reach out to one person, they may penetrate any person’s mind
, no matter how confident and loving. They may even kill with this weapon if allowed to fester for too long. They can drive any person insane. That is what happened to you. Before we intervened, many reptilians had focused all of their mind control abilities on you alone. We are surprised you were not destroyed in the dessert before we arrived.”
The beings continued, “Currently, the Reptilians have indirect control of almost every facet of human life. They have infiltrated every level of Earth government, your news media – now turned propagandists, educational dictators, vast numbers of corporate directors, the wealthy elite for the most part, and of course, the entertainment moguls. All of these disciples of the misinformed reinforce behaviors that isolate humans from one another and their natural caring tendencies. Those who are beyond the control of the Reptilians can only look on in horror as their world is gutted and their one-time friends are turned into self-important demigods.”
“Why don’t you stop it?” Gabriel asserted.
“We have been unwilling to become directly involved until recently. Over the millennium, our kind has sought to live as harmoniously as possible with the Reptilians. We are sympathetic to their concerns because they were here when we arrived. To some extent, they have valid arguments, although their fears are misguided. We believe balance is attainable between your species, the Reptilians, and ours, and so we have made concessions and formed peace agreements with their leaders in the hopes that eventually all life on the planet Earth could become harmonious with each other and the environment. That is the reason we have been reluctant to interfere in their under-handed dealings until now. We respect all life, even that which threatens our plans and purposes. It had been our sincere hope that eventually, after enough time had passed, the Reptilians and humans could develop equilibrium with each other. It appears to us now, however, that this may not be possible as the Reptoids are determined to undermine our creation because they refuse to recognize your species as anything but intruders upon their territories. Once again, the peace between our kind and the Reptoids has been disturbed as a result of their continual breach of our previous terms. This is the fifth time a conflict has arisen between us.”
Anunnaki Volume One: Rise of the Warrior Page 3