OVERMIND (Fallen Drakon Empire Book 1)

by Diana Drakulich

  I can SEE.

  And in stunning detail. What had appeared as ordinary, nondescript dusty brown rocks and boulders were transformed. Now Carter saw intricate patterns and colors in the rocks, pebbles and even in the sandy dirt at his feet. He gazed in wonderment at the striations of mineral deposits and fossils embedded in the cliff face.

  He studied the fissure in the cliff face with new eyes. Directly illuminated by the rising sun, the fissure seemed to glow. Even to emanate its own light. Must be the reflection of the sun on minerals in the stone.

  Is that a giant double-headed eagle etched into the rock around the fissure? The outstretched wings... eroded but still... Yes it is...Unmistakeable.

  The spectral singing Voices were gaining volume. Rising. Falling in sacred harmony.

  The echoing, harmonic Voices reminded him of nights in his boyhood home in Virginia - standing out on the front porch listening to myriads of somnolent nighttime insects invisible in the darkness. Waves of rhythmic song rising, falling, coming from everywhere. From the grass, the hills and trees.

  Endemic to the night. Ever present. Vibrating with life.

  Shut up! Shut up! Carter wanted to slam his hands over his ears - anything to shut the Voices out.

  Shaking his head, he barely resisted the urge to fall to his knees. The Voices were totally out of his realm of experience. His reality was ripping apart at the seams. For Carter was an avowed atheist. He worshipped at the altar of Scientism. Everything in his world was linear. Nothing like this had ever happened in his entire life.

  The eerie singing Voices were entrancing, captivating, yet menacing. The Voices threatened his perceptions, his understanding of reality. He could not let the Others see him cracking up.

  This is an auditory hallucination. Something triggered it… But what? Is it due to stress? But the Voices sound so real!

  Spikes of fear tremored up the doctor’s spine. He desperately wanted to slam shut this stunning Door of Perception. A sedative, a pill, anything to make it stop. The Voices were a threat to his entire perception of `reality’.

  No one had ever prepared him for this. Numbers. Science. Books. Logic. These things ruled supreme in Carter’s universe.

  Chapter 42

  The singing Voices must be an auditory hallucination brought on by extreme stress.

  Mentally Carter checked out his physical condition. Pulse - a little elevated but still in the high normal range. No headache or pain in the brain. No blurring of vision or shortness of breath. On the contrary his mind was clear and his eyesight extraordinarily focused.

  Nope - not a psychotic stress attack. This is a valid experience.

  Even if no one else heard the singing Voices but him. Even if psychotherapists would automatically prescribe some dumbing down drug to cloud and dull his perceptions of `reality’. No - I won’t be put to sleep.

  Sleep - that’s what I need right now. Just shut it all out. I’m exhausted.

  But he couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to. He was too fired up. Too hyper aware. Something had triggered this illusionary mental state. If only he could figure out what it was.

  And then in the naked light of early dawn it came to Dr. Carter -

  The cosmos is boundless, energy-based, vibratory and constantly in flux. We have no idea of all that it contains. Of all that IT IS. We cannot put bars around `reality’. We cannot chain the Unknown Universe to scientific, numerical formulas. And that includes GOD.

  An MP standing in the background of the group caught his eye. The man smiled at him. A brilliant but cryptic smile. Mouthed the words - It IS.

  The man’s golden amber eyes reflected the rays of the rising sun. And Carter was caught. Spellbound by compelling, sphinx-like eyes under slashing black brows. Gazing into those mystic golden eyes, Carter was sure that if he could just look long enough. Stare deep enough. At long last - I will finally understand...

  He felt a quaking tremor inside himself as if something was breaking loose.

  The singing Voices rose in a full, deep-throated humming that vibrated through Carter’s very being. A crystal clear vision in the form of a long forgotten experience flashed before his eyes. He was a boy again, walking through a lush green field near his old home in Virginia.

  As the boy Carter walked, a flash of bright scarlet and black at his feet caught his youthful eye. The budding scientist stopped. Knelt to investigate.

  Before his eyes was revealed a group of scarlet and black bugs, all perched one large green leaf. Young Carter studied the bugs a few moments. Shrugged. Just bugs. Nothing to see here.

  He dismissed the sight and passed on, to the rest of his life as a successful scientist.

  From the moment he stepped away, Carter never thought of those red and black insects again. The incident entirely forgotten. As if it never happened.

  But IT had happened. Some part of his brain had recorded this very ordinary incident in perfect detail. And suddenly he was there again. But this time his sight was so vastly magnified, that he was THERE on that single green leaf with those red and black bugs.

  One of the bugs was eating, placidly chewing on the edge of the leaf. Two other bugs were gently touching antennas, clearly communicating. Another pair of bugs were calmly engaging in sexual intercourse.

  These were not just a bunch of insensate insects sitting on a leaf. This was a society of tiny beings locked in their own world. Locked into a unique dimension of existence. And at that precise moment, their whole world was this one green leaf.

  Abruptly, Carter’s vision changed. He found himself suspended in deep space, surrounded by boundless blackness and far away twinkling starry lights. Before his eyes was revealed a pair of immense stone feet. Feet so monumental they filled the entire scope of his vision.

  He could see no higher, no wider than these infinitely huge stone feet suspended in space. Majestic. Mysterious.

  Placed straight ahead, side by side, the feet resembled those of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh seated on a towering throne of stone. Feet so immense, Carter was dwarfed to insect size in comparison.

  His limited vision could not see the entire presence. Could not comprehend this boundless majesty suspended eternally in time and space...

  The vision flashed and was gone. Carter found himself back in the barren Nevada desert, standing with a group of confused military police. Thunderstruck, he gazed blindly around the barren landscape.

  Caught in a state of extreme Cognitive Dissonance, Carter experienced an earthquake within. His corner on reality was crumbling, breaking apart. Mentally he was staggering, flailing for a pillar of stability to cling to.

  Automatically he began twisting the gold ring he habitually wore, his thumb rubbing the inlaid black onyx. Carter’s father had given him the ring when he graduated from high school. Back when things were sometimes still good between them.

  Inside the ring was engraved Reggie, Love Always Dad. He never took it off. For some reason he flashed on that happy day. Felt his father’s presence. Missed him. Deeply.

  `REGGIE’ - a Voice called out, clear as day.

  A sharp pang stabbed the doctor’s heart. He would know that Voice, that unique inflection, anywhere.

  `DAD?!’ Carter’s head jerked up. Swiveled around. A world of wishing and longing in his cry.

  Impossible. Dad is dead. His logical mind said. It was an auditory hallucination. Still Carter was sure he heard his father’s Voice.

  As a man of science and logic, Dr. Carter thought he knew the difference between fantasy and reality. An eerie chill shivered his body. Then he `saw’ something that rendered him speechless.

  DAD.

  Chapter 43

  His father hovered before him.

  But this was not the sad haggard face of the bitter old man he remembered at the end. This was DAD in his prime. Except for the stunning fact that his father had never looked this good in `real’ life. And that shocked Carter most of all.

  During the early years of Carter’s bo
yhood, his father exuded positive energy. That was before bitterness, jealousy, anger and deceit had infected and twisted his father’s mind.

  The mood swings became so violent, so intense, it was as if his father was possessed by an entity. Of course that was ridiculous. Psychologists would label his father’s extreme mood swings as `bipolar’ and `schizophrenic’. Dr. Carter fully agreed.

  Carter rarely dreamed anymore. He didn’t allow himself to dream. Some of his dreams frightened and disturbed him so much that he repressed them. But there was one dream he could not forget…Of his father being burned alive. Of his father’s face contorted in agony as red hot flames consumed the lower half of his body.

  Ahh! It burned Carter’s heart to remember it. But it was just a dream. Not a sign.

  As a boy Carter had worshipped the ground his father walked on. Dad was so buoyant, so full of positive, constructive energy. And his father had imbued his son with self belief in his own talents, in all that Carter was capable of accomplishing in life.

  As a toddler his father used to hold him in one arm and point to the night sky. `You will know all the stars in the sky Reggie.’ His father used to say.

  His generous father, who was incapable of passing someone in need without giving money or aid.

  By the time Carter entered his teenage years, his father had begun to change. Drastically. Even to the point of despising and furiously rejecting his own son. By the time Carter graduated from college, he and his father were estranged.

  But in that moment when Carter `saw’ his father again, mere words could not convey the radiance that streamed from his father’s face. It was sublime. Surreal. Carter could not remember his father ever looking so alive, so happy in real life.

  His father said nothing. Just looked at him. Looked through him. The vision appeared and was gone. A flash so riveting the image would stay with Carter forever.

  A chilling realization fizzed through the doctor’s mind. As a scientist, this vision of his father presented a deeply puzzling conundrum. For he knew himself as incapable of imagining such subliminal radiance. As a confirmed atheist, such a radiant, ethereal vision was beyond his realm of conceptualization.

  Believers are simple-minded cowards who only believe in God because they fear death. Educated, intelligent people know that Man has no Soul. Dust to Dust. This life is all that is and ever will be.

  He remembered a t shirt he used to wear at Virginia Tech. Across the chest was proudly emblazoned - ‘People who believe in imaginary friends are stupid.’

  Well I know I’m not stupid. That logic compares to what the Scythian sage, Anacharsis, said of the Olympics - `Only the Greeks would make those who never excelled in sport the judges of those who do’.

  Up until this stunning sunrise he had never had a psychic experience. So who am I to judge?

  Utterly confused, dazed, Carter’s intense frustration and fury over the disappearance of the alien evaporated. Intense feelings flooded his mind, gripped his entire body. He found himself fighting to control an avalanche of explosive, illogical emotions.

  Eyes burning with unshed tears, he wanted to sob out loud. To open his arms and laugh at the sky. He wanted to sink to his knees. To rock back and forth - Thank You Father! Thank You…!

  Dr. Carter avoided emotions the way most people avoid rattlesnakes.

  By a powerful exertion of will he kept his rampant emotions in check for fear of what the Others might think. Never let them see you cracking up.

  He gazed around. The singing Voices were silent - as if they were but a figment of his imagination. The smiling MP with the golden eyes that reflected the rising sun was also gone. As if he never was.

  Was it all just an illusion? A Trick of the Mind?

  But WHOSE Mind?

  Then for some strange reason Carter pictured Margie Crestwood standing before him in the privacy of his office. I wonder how Margie looks without her glasses?

  He saw himself gently taking off her glasses. Staring deep into sensitive blue eyes.

  Her lips look full and soft. When she’s not whining. Or being snippy. Carter saw himself palming her cheek. Pulling her close…Brushing his lips over hers in a tender kiss. Oh yeah...

  Rocking gently into her body...

  Not a vision. A fantasy that could be his reality.

  Heh. I can just imagine Margie’s shellshocked expression if I did that. He grinned to himself. Gah. Now I KNOW I’m going crazy. Margie Crestwood?! I can’t stand her!

  Not anymore. Apparently. I wonder what Margie is doing tonight?

  Carter looked down at himself - his gangly pudgy body had never known the magnificent physicality of the male animal he was born to be. That ended today. Everything in balance.

  And Margie Crestwood? Her pushy, office bitch persona was the neurotic reaction of a lonely neglected heart. Carter knew he could rise above her brittle walls no matter how tall. Deep down the real Margie waited. For him.

  Suddenly Dr. Carter threw back his head and laughed at the sky.

  Ah - It feels so good to be Alive!

  He would keep trying to save the world from the Arkon Deep State. But for now there was this moment - the vision of a gigantic, pulsating red-orange ball of plasma rising over the horizon.

  The Sun - Oh my God - the Sun!

  The sun was literally shaking, throwing off incredible eruptions of pink, purple and turquoise blue energy. The sun seemed to bounce, dance and spin before his eyes, blasting out alternating waves of brilliant fiery energy.

  And when he gazed out at the horizon, even the earth itself seemed to be rolling.

  Pulsating.

  Vibrating.

  As if the solid earth under his feet was joined with the sun in a vast multi-dimensional force field.

  Stunningly intense waves of golden orange, royal blue, pink and lavender were blazing across the majestic rippling lake and boundless sky. Overwhelmed by an indescribable sense of awe, Carter felt the whole world turning...turning. Coming alive.

  Spiraling toward the Coming of the Light.

  And it came to Carter that he had never seen the sun before…

  Nihil Sine Deo

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  Read on for preview chapters of OVERLORD, Book #2 in the Fallen Drakon Empire series

  O V E R L O R D

  Fallen Drakon Empire Book 2

  A Story of Forbidden Love

  Text copyright © 2017 Diana Drakulich

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without express written permission of the author.

  Mankind has Free Will?

  The Overlords of the Deep State laugh at the idea.

  Thinking your thoughts are your own -

  You do the parasites’ will.

  Chapter 1

  On his way to make his report to General Bren, Captain Varkov paused on the walkway to look down on the slaves toiling in the gigantic open pit mine below. The racket of drills and earth moving equipment were making a thunderous cacophony of sound. But Varkov was oblivious to the racket as his fierce gold and black raptor eyes sought out the figure of a certain slave. One among many.

  Ah, there SHE is.

  The slave’s tall lithe body leaned against the heavy pneumatic drill, pushing it into the sheer rock wall. The violent shaking of the powerful drill was vibrating her whole body.

&
nbsp; Vera Mackenzie. He had casually perused her file. Several times. Originally kidnapped as a breeder, she was found to have the wrong blood type. Her rare blood type was not conducive to producing Arkon-human hybrids easily subject to mental possession by the Overlords.

  Vera had also failed as a sex slave. She obeyed but refused to submit. 28 years old, Vera was a high school history teacher from Richmond, Virginia. From a liberal Christian background, Vera had trained in low level taekwando. She actively practiced meditation and had worked intensively with a Sufi mystic. All red flags.

  Varkov knew that Vera Mackenzie should never have been abducted in the first place. Her training and education are too strong and she’s too old. Breeders and sex slaves start at 12 to 18. The idiot that kidnapped Mackenzie must have been short on his quota. That or blind drunk.

  Sex slaves were conditioned with pain, then rewarded with pleasure, creating cognitive dissonance in the brain. Slaves were expected to cry and plead for mercy when pain was applied. To beg for orgasm when pleasure was introduced, but abruptly taken away. The training was geared to make that rarely allowed orgasm the Holy Grail of the sex slave’s miserable existence.

  In time the slave would begin to crave the pain in order to get the pleasure. Pain = Pleasure.

  Arkons are Strigoi - energy vampires who feed on strong feelings and emotions: fear, pain, suffering, pleasure, orgasm, all grist for the Arkon titillation mill.

  But Vera had developed the mental control to minimize both pain and pleasure. She refused to act as anything more than a passive bystander at her own rape. An Arkon male could take no satisfaction in that.

  Thus Vera had been sent to work in the mines for the rest of her miserable days. Varkov shook his head in disgust. A waste of quality human stock.

  His piercing, calculating eyes traveled down her body. She will not last long under these conditions. In a few years her lungs will be shot, her body reduced to a wrack of bones. Unable to meet her daily quota of ore, Vera will be terminated, her organs extracted and sold on the Dark Web.