Rise of the Alphae: From Death unto Life (Wastelands Saga Book 1)

by James Huff

  “My children,” the voice began, “welcome to the Main Temple and the arrival of your first initiation whilst behind the walls of Institution. I call all of you to come before the priests now and receive the purification serum which will prepare your souls for this hallowed ground. This shall be your sacrament as the initiation is about to commence…” I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about that. He wanted to give us all some kind of serum? What would it do to us? The ominous feeling grew even more as one by one we all came before the priests to receive the serum. When it was finally my turn, I could feel the needle pierce my neck and I thought of Grandfather and Amy and all of the warnings that I received. Now I knew that I could not ignore them. A gut wrenching feeling of impending doom struck me somewhere deep within.

  When we had all received this “sacrament” the Alphae began to speak to us once more. “My children. It is now that I call you forth to begin your first step unto the path of my sons and daughters of light. You shall tred through the darkness no more. Soon you will be reborn and you will learn to honor my divinity as the source of all that is and all that will ever be. Enter with caution. You go now alone. The priests will not be there to guide you. Enter the darkness so that you may pass through and be welcomed unto the light of a new dawn…”

  It was at this moment that the voice was silenced and a huge crypt opened up in the floor behind us. It shook the entire temple and a few of the students shouted out with sudden fear and surprise. The high priest beckoned for us all to turn around and begin our descent into the crypt. As I approached this passageway I could see that it led down a massive staircase. The staircase was pitch black save for but a few torches that hung every 75 feet or so. I took to the first step and with each proceeding step the fear in me grew stronger and stronger. I thought I might fall down these steps and never stop falling as it seemed to be leading into the depths of the Earth.

  After I finally reached the last step I looked ahead and saw a massive opening in the crypt. As I began to step through it I saw that it was the entrance to a huge and intricate labyrinth. Now I knew that the fear would turn into confusion and I also knew that this would be the single greatest challenge I had ever faced while behind the walls of Institution. I began to walk through the maze, hoping with everything that I had within me that I would not get lost in its seemingly endless passages. As I started to walk through this new obstacle, I could feel my mind changing. I had a fleeting thought that it was the beginning effects of the serum I had received but in time the source of this change did not matter and only the feeling remained. The fear began to take hold. It was a sudden dread and terror that I had not felt before in my entire life. I began to panic. And it was only the beginning…

  Suddenly I could hear the Alphae’s voice. It was the same voice he used the night before I found my grandfather dead in my parent’s flat. “Mr. Crawling. Did you really think that I would let you off so easily? Why don’t you look and see what I have promised you? Have you forgotten?” Right then I could see my grandfather in the passage ahead of me. He was smiling, happy to see me again after so long. I ran over to him and went to hug him but my hands went right through him and he dissipated like ash before me. “I can give him back to you John. All you must do is bow before me,” The Alphae began, keeping the same stern tone to his voice. “I took him away from you and I can give him back, for I have the power to both create and destroy.”

  Now the anger began to take hold of me as I stumbled through the dim lights of the labyrinth. “I owe you nothing! You took from me what was most precious to me in the entire world. I will never bow before you!” I was fuming with rage and frustrated as I kept coming to dead ends in the maze. When I approached maybe the third dead end I was met once again by my grandfather. This time he was suffering. He looked mad. He kept crying out to me, begging me to make it stop. Then I saw the source of his plight. The Alphae appeared in front of him, this time in a form of normal human height. He bore a whip with many barbs on the end of it and used it against Grandfather over and over again. Each time I could feel the pain as my grandfather cried out in agony, begging for mercy, begging for it to cease. The Alphae stood above him laughing hysterically and mocking him. “You foolish old man. You live for your tales because you know you have no place in my world. You are but a weak, decaying coward. It gives me great pleasure to hear you cry out in pain. And you can see your grandson before you. I love to make him watch this spectacle. You are nothing!” The Alphae began to whip him harder and harder before my eyes, and increased the speed of this torture. “Do you hear me old man? I will break you over and over again. You are nothing. You are less than nothing. Only you could have a grandson with such insolence for your god and king. You are the one who influenced him from the beginning and pushed him away from his divine birthright.” The Alphae then briefly stopped torturing my grandfather to confront me.

  “And you John; I will not punish you myself. You must watch and do nothing. Do nothing just like you did nothing the night that he met his death. And now, as your god, I can bring him back just to exact my punishment upon him.” I couldn’t take this anymore. I charged the Alphae with all my might and speed, letting out a menancing, guttural roar as I did so. But as soon as I approached him, the scene dissipated and I plowed head first into the wall at the dead end before me. It was at this moment that I got up quickly and ran in the other direction. I didn’t care if I got lost. I didn’t care if I was stuck in this maze forever. It was then that I kept hearing laughter. It was the most sickening cackling I had ever heard in my life. What began as one voice soon turned into a few and eventually a cacophony of mocking laughter crescendoed to a point of defeaning pain. And the Alphae continued to mock me.

  “You will fail Mr. Crawling. You will never make it out of here alive. You will go insane. I will drive you to take your own life. You can join your grandfather. Maybe Vaena is real after all. Or maybe I will trick you into believing it is real only to transport you eternally to one of my punishing kingdoms where I will tie you down and make you watch as I torture your grandfather for all eternity. But I will not stop there. I will hurt the ones you love. Your beloved friends? They will join you and as usual there is nothing you can do to stop it. You are a coward John and a fool and you will never succeed in your life. You will remain blind and arrogant and ignorant all because of your own stubborn pride and the vain hope that the old fool of a man has filled your head with. You will learn your place foolish boy!”

  I remembered Amy. I remembered her words. But everytime I tried to focus on what she said; everytime I tried to remember that this was all just a test, the anger and the rage would rise up in me. I knew it blinded me, but I couldn’t shake it no matter how hard I tried. Though there was hope yet. For a few moments the Alphae ceased his redicule and the mocking laughter was replaced by a dead silence. But even though there were no more sounds, I kept seeing Grandfather. There were times when he was just curled up on the floor and bawling like a child. There were other times that the Alphae was torturing him. There were times that he was burning alive. Sometimes I could see entire scenes of Grandfather and I wandering through the wastelands, the flesh slowly rotting off our bones.

  But then it all stopped, replaced by dead silence and a harrowing darkness. I fumbled around blindly through the labyrinth, hopelessly feeling along the walls and begging for an exit to all of this madness. I took what little faith I had left and just tarried on, unsure of where I would end up. I had nothing left but the rage to drive me forward. Finally I made it through an opening. As I approached closer to the center of what appeared to be the end of the labyrinth, I could see the biggest statue of the Alphae I had ever seen in my life. There were already a few students gathered there, prostrating before it in a state of hypnotic worship.

  I decided right then and there that I would do everything in my power to deface the statue. I ran up to it maniacally like a madman and kicked the feet of the Alphae as hard as I could. Nothing happened but pain and I c
ould see that there was no way to deface it. It appeared to be made of a similar foreign metal as the doors of the Main Temple. Finally I gave up. The other students started to notice my behavior and I decided that I would show my defiance in another manner. I tried to rally up the students with me, hoping to provoke a riot and finally get back at the Alphae for his cruelty that knew no limits.

  “How can we all call the Alphae our god? Why do we all still worship him? Who will stand with me? Who will rise up and bring this god down? Anyone?” None of the students were interested but I noticed that a few of them were beginning to come against me. Everyone started charging at me, knocking me down. “How can you say that? Who do you think you are? Can you not dwell here with your brothers and sisters as a son of the living god, the Alphae? Are you blind,” I heard one of the students say. “I know how we can resolve this,” another said. I recognized the voice as one of the Lead boys that had attacked me in the locker rooms, well before the tournament even started.

  I got up immediately and faced him and knew that I would not take that kind of abuse now. I knew that I would fight back and the rage turned into violent madness as I faced him. I threw him a punch immediately in the face, knocking him out cold as he fell upon his back. But I didn’t stop there. I kept beating his face in over and over again, his blood staining my face as I cried out maniacally. “You will not bring me down. I will make an example of you in front of everyone here. You are such a coward.” Eventually the two other Lead boys from the same prior altercation came forward and pulled me off of their little ring leader. At this point I was infuriated. I kicked one of them across the chest and he doubled over in pain as I knew I had taken his breath away. The other boy punched me across the face but I was so drunk with rage that it didn’t even phase me as I just laughed and spit out the blood in his face from my busted lip. Then I took turns vigorously punching them both.

  I got one of them down on the ground and put him into an arm bar. When he begged me to let him go, I only pulled harder as I could hear bones breaking and I continued until I had pulled his arm out of socket. Then I moved onto the other boy, holding him down as I grabbed his head and bashed it against the concrete over and over again. After all of that I stood up, blood staining my hands and face, some of it my own, but most of it that of my enemies. The students around me were so shocked they began backing away, some of them literally running from me, returning to the statue of the Alphae and crying out in prayer for deliverance. And it was then, as if by the hand of providence that I felt the all too familiar cold sting of a syringe. As everything went black I could just barely make out the arm of a drone and I slipped into unconsciousness, feeling my body being pulled away…

  I awoke with a start in a totally new, but very familiar environment. I was again strapped down to a recliner and as the room slowly began to come into focus I knew that I had once again been taken by the BMF. There were tubes attached to my arms and legs and some equipment next to me measuring vitals and who knew what else. As I awoke a man entered the room. I thought I recognized him from my time before Institution but it was hard to recall the details. “Good morning John. I am Dr. Zatts coming before you once more. I was asked to come here to Institution on behalf of the need after your recent violent behavior upon the ending of your first initiation. Do you have any questions before we begin?” I blinked lazily. “Where are we? How long have I been here? What happened after I was taken?”

  Dr. Zatts nervously fiddled with his pointer in his left hand. “It has been three days since the incident following your first initiation Mr. Crawling. You were taken to the intensive BMF location within Institution. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Due to your altercation with the three young men from the Lead caste, you have been retroactively disqualified from the Victeous tournament resulting in a 600 point penalty to your caste. As such the Lead caste has received the Caste Cup for this first initiation session in your time here. They have all been sent to their own exclusive retreat. You should know that two of your victims from the Lead caste are in critical condition and one has been in a coma ever since. This is a serious infraction against the Alphae himself as well as all of his facilitators. But our god is merciful and rather than have you exiled immediately we have been permitted to go forward as planned, which means your second protocol with us here at the BMF has officially been activated.”

  I didn’t know what to say or even think. Amy was right. Grandfather was right. Just when I thought things were going great this had to happen. Hell, even the Lead combatant that I defeated in the last fight of the tournament was right. Now all of that had been taken from me and worse; I had activated the second protocol which meant I would have yet another implant to contend with. Dr. Zatts continued. “We have already given you your second implant, which was a slight change in plans than we had inititally intended if you were to activate this next protocol. We have clearly seen that one of your most damaging symptoms of DDD is your violent behavior. Although I am not allowed to discuss with you the exact medical details of how this implant shall work and affect your body, I can assure you that it will numb your aggressive tendencies. Unfortunately for you the side effects of this particular implant are rather powerful. You may find it difficult to excel in Victeous. It will give you a very numb and rather lethargic physical feeling. This will get better when we can lower the dosage to a less aggressive amount but you must prove your worth before we will be able to do this. Do you have any questions at this time?”

  I didn’t know what to think. My whole mind was swimming with an endless stream of thoughts and it made my head hurt. “What am I supposed to do now? I mean, am I still assigned to Mr. Ivaness? I kind of like him and he has been good to me. How has he reacted to this?” I couldn’t even be angry at this point. I felt like a little child. “Yes, Mr. Ivaness was informed immediately upon your arrival here. He is most disappointed in your behavior, however, we here at the BMF have nothing but the greatest faith in the man. He has the most success with his turnover rate of people diagnosed with DDD. I can assure you that he will still be there with you throughout this entire process and you remain in very good hands with him.”

  I layed my head back trying to think of anything but what had transpired. What was I going to do now? Suddenly I thought of the warning from the Lead boy. I didn’t even want to know how my fellow caste mates would react to me foiling the entire tournament and Caste Cup for them. I knew I needed some kind of protection but I didn’t even want to bother asking Dr. Zatts to provide that. It’s not like they ever actually did anything about it in the past. In fact, I felt so defeated that I began to wonder if maybe I deserved a good beating. But then I thought of Amy and Grandfather and I knew that was not what they wanted. I just felt like I had lost the will to live. No more had I ever felt so strongly that I wanted to just die right then and there and join my grandfather in the beautiful Vaena.

  I was soon released, blindfolded, and transported back to the main wing of Institution and my dormitory. The drones informed me that classes would be starting back in three days and I was asked by Mr. Ivaness who came to visit me later that evening to spend the next few days resting and adapting to the effects of my new implant. And so I drifted off to sleep, hearing the “zing” of the pod come over me as I entered the dream world once more.

  I was again in the middle of a cave. It was utterly dark before me and there was no light anywhere. The Alphae was not there. Grandfather was not there. And it was so cold. I awoke in the middle of the night covered in sweat and tried my hardest to fall back asleep. Eventually I did and a couple days must have passed because the next thing I knew I was waking up to the all familiar 6 AM morning bell. Great. The next session of Institution and my classes were about to begin. I had no idea what to think and no clue just what I had to face now as I remained behind the walls of Institution.

  Chapter 10:

  After hearing the bell ring I got up reluctantly and headed to the cleansing chamber. I said hello to Brian briefly
while getting dressed and headed outside the door to go to the lifts to the dining hall. Mr. Ivaness was there waiting for me. “Hello John, are you feeling better this morning?” From the dull expression on my face he knew I was not. “Not really, honestly. I guess I will be okay. Things didn’t exactly work out the way I wanted them to. I was alerted many times and I did not heed the warnings. My own pride ended up being my end.” Mr. Ivaness looked over towards me while we were walking and smiled a bit to show a sense of optimism. “Cheer up John. We often don’t expect bad things to happen when life is going so well for us. But you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. Bear in mind that what is important is not always avoiding mistakes, but learning from those mistakes over time and making them a part of your growth.”

  We rounded the bend and entered the lift, beginning our descent down to the Silver caste dining hall. We spent most of our short journey in silence and eventually I exited the lift and Mr. Ivaness said his farewells and headed down the usual narrow corridor. As I entered the dining hall I took my seat in my usual place towards the back. I was happy to see that Amy was sitting in our usual spot. I took my seat next to her and waited as the Alphae gave his brief speech and morning worship and then the drones came to bring us our food. I ate slowly and could feel Amy’s eyes upon me.