The Warrior's Beckoning

by Patrick Howard

  In the dream, I sat up and saw the others looking at me curiously. They seemed conscious of the dream.

  “Who was that?” Mary asked.

  “My guardian angel, I think,” I said.

  I heard a voice then, gentle and loving, speaking to us all. “Do not leave him,” it said, “for he will not last by himself.”

  “Uh…who?” Chuck asked, puzzled.

  “The Warrior,” the voice said. Everyone looked at me. I shrugged. “Stay together through this darkness, and light will prevail.” The voice faded.

  No one seemed to know what to say. Oddly, I didn’t need to hear them speak, as suddenly their thoughts were open to me; most were thinking that they would never leave me, just as I had not left them. I smiled, knowing that I would ultimately face this alone.

  “A lot of pressure has been put on you, son,” the chief said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “He found me, saving me when no one else came.” Mary sat beside me and took my hand.

  “And he came to me, offering peace and tranquility when all was lost,” Christina said, smiling.

  “Well, I just met the guy, but he’s a good guy to have at your side during a firefight, ya know?” Chuck said, laughing. We laughed with him, and George shrugged.

  “Yeah, the chief says he’s a heck of a guy,” the first merc said.

  The second nodded, smiling. “You’ve made a difference to me already,” he said. “I ain’t dead.”

  As I realized my deeds, I sighed. I had never thought of myself as good or special. However, my actions had spoken for me.

  I must accept the course the Lord has prepared for me and be who I am. I live by faith and by honor. I am a knight by honor and by faith, cleansed through the blood of Jesus and cleared of punishment by his broken body. This is who I am, and I now realize this.

  We grew silent, enjoying the peace of each other…our fellowship. Though I sensed a dark presence near, it did not enter the dream. It merely observed, perhaps looking for a weakness. Finding none, as we were united, it did not approach. It could not approach. What tomorrow would hold remained a mystery to us.

  The role we were playing seemed too grand, for each did not believe in the individual, but each other. I look to you, my Lord, for guidance. May your will be done.

  I awoke before the others, standing as I looked at them. They slept peacefully, even in the midst of chaos. I strapped on my ALICE pack and slung my M4 over my shoulder. I looked toward the others once more, and my thoughts raced. I couldn’t allow them to die, not for me. I wouldn’t allow it.

  I slipped out of the shop and stood alone in the street. There, I met a warrior clad in white armor. He was tall, and his skin was pale. His hair, long and white, fell upon his shoulders.

  “Will you go alone?” he asked in a voice both stern and tranquil.

  “I have no choice,” I said, looking into his white eyes.

  “Choice is what life is about. You know this well, Warrior. There is always choice,” he said, smiling as he placed his hand upon my shoulder.

  “I will allow them to die…not for me,” I said, my voice filled with burden.

  “No, you will not. You will do all that you can to protect them, no matter the cost to you. This is the choice of the knight, and this is your path. However, your path is not that of a lone warrior, but of a leader. Lead them, Warrior. You need them, and they need you. I will always be near—our Lord promises you,” he said, offering me his full compassion.

  At this, I trembled and bowed my head. “But how?” I said in a shaky voice as I began to weep softly.

  “You have experienced much—more than most. You have seen things few can even imagine. This sets you apart, and this allows you to lead. Through your actions, you have guided others,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine gently. “I will watch over you.” He vanished, and my weeping subsided. I returned to the shop, and the others began to stir.

  “Good morning…or evening. Whatever it is. I can’t tell in this endless darkness,” I said.

  “Yeah, good whatever it is to you, too,” Chuck said, sitting up.

  “Hey, while we’re throwing things out there, I’m Bill,” said the first merc. He pointed at the other Company man. “And that’s Josh.”

  “Nice to formally meet you,” Josh said, smiling.

  “Yeah, same here,” George said. “So, what now?”

  “Well, we’re going to need to hit the facility rather quickly,” said the chief. “It’s about twenty miles south of the city. And we’ll be hiking there.”

  “Oh, great,” Mary said sarcastically. I couldn’t blame her. She had looked near death when I found her.

  “Hey, a little exercise is always a good thing,” I said, smiling.

  “But a lot can hurt,” Christina said, laughing lightly.

  “Stock up on food and water. We have at least a five-hour walk ahead of us,” I said, tossing some MREs to Chuck.

  “Yum, yum,” he said as he stuffed them in his duffel bag. The others stocked up on food, water, and ammo, too.

  We set out soon after, proceeding south. The dark mass in the sky grew, and laughter was added to the whispering. The city was quiet, and there was no movement. Maintaining a steady pace, we soon hit the outskirts of the city.

  The radio erupted with a message. “Alpha Team to Bravo Team, sitrep immediately,” the voice said. The chief paused, looking at me before responding.

  “Targets neutralized, though we lost three men. What’s your status, Specialist?”

  “Proceeding to rendezvous point. ETA, ten minutes,” said the voice.

  The chief turned off his radio briefly and spoke to me. “Son, he’s alone. And you’re the only one that comes close to matching his power. We can follow, but it will be up to you to confront him,” he said, looking toward the horizon. “We’re about ten minutes away from the rendezvous point ourselves.”

  The others looked at me and then at each other and shrugged. We began walking, veering off the main road. The grass was gray and held no life. It felt as if death itself surrounded us. Soon the chief stopped us.

  “He’s just ahead, in the field,” he said, pointing.

  I walked into the clearing. A man stood in the center, his back to me. He was tall and muscular, with a powerful aura.

  “You’re the one…” he said, turning to me. Our eyes locked. “You are more powerful than you realize. I have only felt one other like you.”

  “And you will not harm her. I won’t allow it,” I said, staring into his gray eyes. He continued to stare into mine.

  “Eyes reveal much about a person’s spirit. Color and radiance lie in the eyes of those with creativity…and power,” he said calmly. “Yours speak of love and compassion. You hold within you a great power and much wisdom. That is, no doubt, why she chose you.”

  “And yours speak of cold and darkness. I feel your power, and I feel your intelligence,” I said.

  To this he smirked and walked toward me. “Truly, we are opposites,” he said, standing before me.

  Holding my M4 to the side, I allowed him to approach unharmed.

  “Each standing for something that defies the other.”

  “And what do you stand for?” I asked as we stared each other in the eyes. Neither he nor I flinched.

  “The weak bow to the strong, and those with power serve no others,” he said, grinning. “And you?”

  “The weak lead the strong, and those with power serve everyone,” I said simply and without apology.

  He smirked again. “See, we defy each other…just as light and darkness do.” He tilted his head slightly, studying me. “You don’t act like any of the others that I encountered,” he said in a curious voice.

  “Others?” I asked, matching his curious voice.

  “Yes,” he said. “Others have tried to aid her. You are the only one who has proven yourself. They came to her for selfish reasons, to use her, and then they left her. However, you have simply come
to help her. Not for love and not for romance, though both have spawned from it. Merely to save her…to serve her.”

  I nodded, then placed the M4 on the ground, followed by the Uzi and the .45.

  He smiled. “You have both courage and honor. I respect this. You will prove to be a worthy adversary.” He thrust his hand forward, focusing a wave of energy toward me. I was knocked back; I fell to the ground. He possessed powers I had never encountered.

  Jumping to my feet, I focused my own energy outward, channeling it throughout my body. This increased my speed and my strength, which I drew on as I charged him. As he readied to block, I slid to the side, thrusting my shin into the back of his knees. It knocked him forward, but he did not go down.

  He laughed. “Not bad,” he said, turning to me. “Allow me to show you…” With that, he focused his own energy, strengthening his aura to an overwhelming level. At a blinding speed, he kicked me, connecting with my side. Before I could react, he thrust his palm into my chest. As I stumbled, he began to circle me. “Come on,” he said, taunting me. “You’re much more powerful than this!”

  I allowed my mind to focus only on him and my eyes to focus on nothing. Nothing else mattered, save for stopping him. All else was blank to me. He lunged once more, performing a spin kick as he came. Blocking with one arm, I grabbed his ankle with the other and pulled him toward me. Before he could regain his balance, I thrust my elbow into his jaw and followed that with a quick jab to the nose. Blood flowed from both areas.

  “Much better,” he said, laughing, not fazed at all. “Can you levitate yet? Have you even seen it done?” he asked as he held his arms out and focused. Soon he began to float into the air, up and away from me. He was ten feet from me now, about three feet off the ground. “Come,” he said.

  I knelt to the ground and grabbed a baseball-sized rock. The Specialist watched to see what I would do. Holding it behind me, I focused all of my energy into that single point before hurling it toward him. In an instant, it struck his shoulder, which he now held.

  Smirking, he focused once more and vanished. He reappeared a few feet behind me, laughing, then vanished again.

  Closing my eyes, I began to feel his movement…and his energy.

  As he played his game, I learned to sense him. Soon, I was able to tell where he would appear next. My ears twitched as he vanished one last time. Pausing, I waited for him to appear just behind me to attack. Before he rematerialized, I positioned myself to counter his attack. He appeared, thrusting his fist toward me, but I was already beside him. I grabbed his arm and pulled it behind him before pushing him to the ground.

  “Very impressive,” he said, his smirk gone, his voice no longer filled with laughter. I held his arm tightly, almost to the breaking point. I lay across his back, pulling his arm toward me. Though it was only minutes, it seemed far longer.

  Without warning, an evil voice entered my mind, followed by the tortured screams of countless victims and the shrieks of an endless horde. Immediately, I became incapacitated and had to release my hold on him, rolling off him and curling up with my hands over my temples. I grunted and groaned and soon screamed.

  He seemed similarly affected, as he fell to the ground screaming and rolling, and I had to assume that he, too, was being tormented by visions of torture and darkness. The field where we cowered darkened as a black mass formed beneath us. Echoes of an evil laughter surrounded us, mixed with the sounds of frightened screams. I reached for the Specialist’s hand and took it. In response, he squeezed mine as we supported each other. We were now fighting a common enemy as we fell into darkness.

  We stood together, and the echoes subsided, leaving silence in their wake. A tall figure, clothed in darkness, approached us, laughing menacingly. We stood side by side to face it.

  “You cannot win, even together,” it said mockingly. “Why do you fight, even in the face of obliteration?”

  “It’s what I do,” the Specialist said, smirking at it.

  “It’s who I am,” I said, looking into its eyes, which burned with black fire.

  The figure laughed more before speaking again. “I will break you both and harvest your souls,” it said. We remained steadfast in the face of the threat, staring it dead in the eyes. It ran at us, swiping at us with its claws. As I rolled to the side, the Specialist phased out then reappeared behind the figure.

  Focusing a wave of energy toward the figure, he knocked it forward. The figure released a menacing laugh as it lashed out at him. As it took hold of him, I rose to my feet and charged it, ramming my shoulder into its back. This loosened its hold on the Specialist, and he tore free. As I moved to kick it in the side, the dark figure readied a block and backhanded me, knocking me a few feet back. Before it could seize me, the Specialist jumped into the air and kicked it in the head. It stumbled again and turned to face him.

  “Annoying fleas!” it roared, sending a pulse of dark energy toward the Specialist, knocking him to the ground, hard. When it turned back to me, I focused all of my energy into a single point—my fist—and swung toward its chest. The figure roared and fell to the ground.

  Immediately, I dove to the ground and placed my knees on its left arm. The Specialist pinned its right arm. We placed our hands against its chest and held it firmly to the ground.

  “Looks like we got you,” the Specialist said.

  The figure looked at us in turn and laughed. “What I have shown is not even a shred of my true power,” it said, an evil grin forming. With ease, it knocked each of us aside and held us to the ground with an invisible force. “One of you is almost corrupted. You know which one,” it said, circling us.

  We struggled fiercely but remained stationary. We could not move, and we could not fight. “This is not the team to face me,” it added, looking at me. “Though together you are powerful, you are not united. You fight a common enemy, only to fight each other once more—one of warmth and one of cold. You can never stand as one. I leave you, Warrior, to choose your next path. To choose your true ally. Then I will destroy you both.”

  A surge of hatred and rage enveloped my mind, causing me to black out. It was too much—the anguish of realizing that the dark figure had been right, that the Specialist and I could never work together as a team, not entirely. We had a common enemy, but we remained enemies as well.

  At this moment, I knew it was her. She was my true ally. Only she and I could work together to defeat this entity. Our love for each other brought us close, and we were becoming one. I had to get to her, and soon. The darkness she faced must be immense, a nightmare incarnate. Wanting so much to tell her that I was coming, my mind cried out to her. Soon, I began to see what she saw…and feel what she felt.

  The Beginning

  THROUGH HER EYES, I saw her past. She was a little girl, sitting on a bed in some sort of laboratory, hooked up to machines that measured her synaptic activity and psionic potential. Oddly, she seemed calm, as if she had always known it would happen. A clean-shaven, middle-aged man in a white lab coat entered. He wore glasses, and his black hair was streaked with gray.

  “Do I have a name?” she asked, looking to him.

  “No,” he said, brushing her off quickly. As he examined the machines, he looked toward a woman sitting behind a window about three feet above them. She nodded to him, and he exited the room.

  “Well?” she asked as he joined her. They both turned to watch the girl through the glass before he replied.

  “Her ESP level is off the charts. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows what we’re thinking at this moment.”

  As he said this, the girl smiled and said to the empty room, “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, then, she most likely knows what’s going to happen next,” the woman said, turning back to the scientist.

  “She knows more than we do. Continually, she refers to someone she calls the Warrior, a man who will arise in her darkest hour…a man of love, compassion, honor, and valor. She even drew a picture of him.”

  “Sou
nds like a typical child’s fantasy of a knight in shining armor,” the woman scoffed. “Yet…intriguing. Where is this picture?”

  “She keeps it in her room, above her bed. She says it keeps the monsters away. I have a copy of it, if you wish to see,” he said, pulling a picture from a manila folder.

  “Of course,” the woman said, leaning beside him.

  It felt so odd…I was seeing things through the mind of a little girl who could see through the minds of others. The picture that the two studied was of me, in uniform. I wore combat fatigues and held an M4.

  “Apparently, this is the man he will grow up to become. Currently, the two are the same age. We have his name, and I’ve compiled his records.” He handed the woman the rest of the folder. As the woman leafed through it, I saw that it contained a picture of me as a child stapled to a form that listed a brief description, with my address, age, and the names of relatives. Other papers were records from my schools, doctors, and known associates.

  “Watch him,” she ordered, turning back to the girl. “He may be of great value to us.”

  That was the past. In an instant, the vision moved to just a few years ago. The girl, now a young woman, sat in her room, looking at her drawing of me. Often, she spoke of the day I would come to her… the day I would rescue her. A new scientist, a younger one, conversed with the same woman outside. Their thoughts and words were clear to the young woman—and, through her, to me—though they were a few rooms away.

  “We’ve found more information about this so-called Warrior of hers,” he said, pulling up some charts on the computer.

  “What’s this?” she asked, studying them.

  “It’s an ESP test, given online. It measures all areas of ESP by giving questions with randomly selected answers. Only someone with ESP can get them correct. He scored 99 percent—higher than everyone else who took the test. He’s very powerful.”

  “Almost in league with our specialist,” she said.

  “Yes. Save for the combat gear, the drawing matches his current photo exactly,” said the scientist, holding up the two photos.