Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2)

by Robert Storey

  Sarah shook her head. ‘I know what I saw.’ She snatched the flashlight from him and moved inside. ‘And I’ll prove it.’

  Chapter Two Hundred Two

  Sarah moved deeper into the mountain, her eyes searching the interior of the cave as she shone the light over cracked walls and fallen boulders. Nothing stirred within, nothing except a pervasive layer of rock dust that swirled around their feet as they walked.

  Ruben slowed and then stopped his advance. ‘Sarah, there’s no one here.’

  Sarah ignored him. She knew what she’d seen: a woman, with short blonde hair, much like her own. She crept deeper into the cave.

  ‘Footprints,’ she murmured, prodding the ground with her toe. At least, it looked like the dirt had been disturbed. She squinted at it. It was hard to tell.

  A noise to her right made her swing round and her eyes grew wide.

  Illuminated by Sarah’s flashlight, twenty feet away, a woman stood inside a deep fissure in the cave wall. She looked round as Sarah’s light remained on her.

  Shocked, Sarah yelped and took a step back. The woman who looked at her didn’t just have the same hair, she had identical hair. The woman who was looking back at her was Sarah.

  She was staring at herself!

  Sarah’s doppelganger smiled, the terrifying effect making the hairs on Sarah’s neck prickle in fear.

  Sarah’s twin then looked back at the wall, put her hand against it and walked forward through solid rock to disappear from sight.

  Ruben rejoined her. ‘What did you see? What is it?’ He looked at the empty fissure where she was looking.

  ‘I saw her,’ Sarah said, dumbstruck. ‘She was right there looking at me.’

  ‘Who was? Your friend, Trish?’

  Sarah shook her head. She knew how it would sound if she told him. They all think you’re mad anyway, she told herself. A little more won’t make any difference. She approached the crack in the cave wall, hesitated, and then moved inside to stand where she’d seen herself standing moments before.

  She suppressed a shudder, shone the flashlight on the wall and reached out to touch its surface. It was a solid slab of rock and there were no concealed entrances, either.

  And then she noticed it: a carving beneath the layer of dust that clung to its surface. She brushed it away with her hand and realised it matched Anakim script she’d seen before.

  ‘Sarah, what is it?’ Ruben wormed his way in beside her to see what she’d found.

  She glanced at him. ‘What do you know about spiritual gifts?’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked up at the wall above them and realised the entire slab was carved by Anakim hands. ‘I think I’ve just had another vision.’

  Chapter Two Hundred Three

  ‘And you’re sure it was you,’ Ruben said. ‘Not someone who looked like you?’

  ‘I think I know what I look like.’

  ‘I’m just saying, we normally only see our reflections. We can look quite different when we see ourselves how others see us.’

  ‘And you think I’ve never seen a photo, or video of myself?’

  He gave a shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘It was me, all right,’ Sarah said. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Unless ...’ he said.

  ‘Unless, what?’

  ‘Unless you’re remembering because you were here before, and it’s not a vision at all.’

  Sarah didn’t want to think along those lines, as it once again implicated her in the gruesome deaths that plagued this site. ‘It wasn’t a memory,’ she said, her voice firm.

  She shone the flashlight higher. ‘Perhaps they used this for rituals of some kind. Or as a proclamation, like the ancient Egyptians did with their stelae.’

  ‘Can you read it?’

  She shone the light on him and noticed how close he was as he gazed up at the ancient stone. Her eyes lingered on his strong jawline, thick stubble, and a bead of sweat as it trickled down his temple.

  He looked at her. ‘Well, can you?’

  She looked away, feeling guilty. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at the script carved by ancient hands. How did I do it before? she asked herself as she stared at the meaningless symbols. She concentrated, but an understanding wouldn’t come.

  ‘It’s not happening. I can’t read it.’

  ‘Relax,’ Ruben said. ‘You did it before, you can do it again. See from your heart, not your mind.’

  She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Her mind cleared and she slowly opened them and looked at the carvings afresh.

  Again, she could only see abstract symbols, but just as she was about to say it was pointless, a word came to her unbidden.

  ‘The flood,’ she said, touching a symbol.

  ‘Keep going,’ Ruben said.

  She touched the carving next to it. ‘The flood reached the heavens.’

  She looked up higher. ‘They write from top to bottom, in columns.’

  ‘Like Egyptian,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, like Egyptian.’ She read on. ‘The flood reached the heavens and covered the mountains,’ – she traced her fingers over the next set of symbols – ‘the air burned and the seas boiled. Fire came from the skies and death ruled the earth.’

  Sarah paused for a moment. Reading the text gave her a pounding headache and it was all she could do to stay focused. She leant back against the rock behind her, wedged, as she was, inside the fissure.

  ‘If that doesn’t sound like an asteroid strike,’ Ruben said, ‘I don’t know what does.’

  Sarah wiped away more dust to reveal carvings of constellations. ‘These are the same as those that were on the frieze. The same as those Konstantin showed me in real life.’

  ‘Another warning?’ Ruben said.

  ‘Yes, and the Anakim are not the only ones to have done it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Sarah looked at him. ‘Have you ever heard of Göbekli Tepe?’

  Ruben shook his head.

  ‘It’s an archaeological site in Turkey. It was found in the late twentieth century, but was built twelve thousand years ago and, depending on what theories you hold to, predates Stonehenge by six thousand years and the pyramids of Giza by seven thousand. The interesting thing about the site is that a series of strange symbols on one of the structure’s pillars were discovered to be astronomical symbols representing constellations and a comet, or a swarm of comet fragments. The amazing thing is, they used software to depict where the constellations would have been in the Turkish night sky and narrowed down the impact to 10,950 BC.’

  ‘That’s clever,’ Ruben said, ‘but not amazing.’

  ‘It is when other archaeological records show a mini ice age started at the same time. It’s thought the site was used not just as a temple, but as an observatory, and the pillar on which they found the symbols acted as a record of the event.’

  ‘Another message through time,’ Ruben said, impressed. ‘You really love this stuff, don’t you?’

  ‘It takes my mind off things.’ Sarah ran her hand over the wall. ‘When I’m working, everything else falls away and it’s just me and the discovery.’

  ‘Do they know who built it?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘It remains a mystery to this day.’

  ‘Perhaps there was an Anakim influence.’

  ‘Maybe there was,’ she said. ‘There’s a theory the Anakim are the race that spread pyramid building around the world, although it might equally have been another race of humans, lost to history. Whoever did build Göbekli Tepe, you’re right, they did leave us another warning, a warning through time, via depictions of constellations and a tale of death and destruction by an asteroid strike which sparked floods and a mini ice age. I used to wonder how many more warnings we would get before it was too late, before all life was wiped out. Now I know. The sad thing is, the warnings were here all along. In the news, at the cinema, in books ... it’s like you said, we stopped listening.’

 
; Ruben frowned. ‘In books,’ he murmured and then looked up at the Anakim symbols. ‘Can you read it again, what it says?’

  ‘The flood reached the heavens,’ she said, feeling her headache returning, ‘and covered the mountains. The air burned and the seas boiled. Fire came from the skies and death ruled the earth.’

  ‘Et aquae praevaluerunt,’ Ruben said in Latin, ‘nimis super terram opertique sunt omnes montes excelsi sub universo caelo. And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.’ He paused for a moment and then continued. ‘The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered. And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beasts, and of all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all men. And all things wherein there is the breath of life on the earth, died. And he destroyed all the substance that was upon the earth, from man to beast, and the creeping things and fowls of the air, and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noe only remained, and they that were with him in the ark.’

  Neither of them spoke for a moment as Ruben’s words lingered in the cave, much like the dust particles that floated around them.

  ‘Genesis,’ Ruben said. ‘Chapter seven, verses nineteen through twenty-four.’

  ‘Another Biblical warning,’ Sarah said.

  ‘And one that matches this carving.’

  ‘It makes sense; if Heaven’s Gate is here, somewhere, they would want people to know about it.’

  ‘Can you read any more?’

  She looked up at the wall and then shook her head. ‘It’s gone again.’ She rubbed at her temples. ‘It hurts if I keep trying.’

  They remained in silence for a moment before Sarah spoke again. ‘I don’t understand; how did the Anakim influence the Bible?’

  ‘Maybe text was passed down from Anakim to human. Or ...’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘It’s simple.’ Ruben looked at her. ‘The Bible is the word of God.’

  ‘You think God is speaking to us through our language again? Isn’t the end of the world supposed to be a supernatural event?’

  ‘He’s not just speaking, he’s shouting ... screaming at us. And what’s more supernatural than an asteroid strike? It’s a natural phenomenon, but on a supersized scale.’

  Sarah remembered something. ‘I found the first pendant near Mount Ararat, in Turkey. I said on my satellite request form that I was looking for Noah’s ark.’ She looked at Ruben in shock, as her previous notion came to her once more in a flash. ‘What if I was looking for the ark, without even knowing it? The underground bases, both human and Anakim, what else are they if not giant arks for life?’

  Ruben smiled. ‘What else, indeed.’

  ‘And God led me here,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I thought you said he abandoned you, or didn’t exist?’

  Sarah’s thoughts returned to her present circumstance, a brain-damaged failure with no friends. A person addicted to a substance that was prolonging a miserable life. Her face dropped.

  ‘You can still turn this round,’ he said. ‘Just believe. Believe you can find the gate, and you will.’

  ‘I caused the tunnel to collapse. I condemned my friends to death and stopped us finding the only thing that can save billions of lives. Whatever I touch turns to dust.’

  ‘And it will continue to do so, but only if you keep believing it.’ He grasped her shoulder. ‘Wasn’t it you that led us here in the first place? Wasn’t it your drawings? Didn’t you have a vision to see there was a tunnel behind the frieze?’

  Sarah looked into his sparkling green eyes and then looked down at the ground.

  ‘He lifted her chin with a finger. ‘Listen with your heart, Sarah. Not your mind.’

  He lent forward and she thought he was going to kiss her on the lips again, but instead he kissed her forehead and then turned and worked his way back out of the fissure and into the centre of the cave.

  If I can find the gate, she thought, I can find Trish and Jason. But how?

  Just believe it, she told herself. Just believe and try.

  She could feel her resistance building again, a resistance to failing, to ending up with nothing. To the hard work that would lead nowhere.

  They need me, she thought. Trish and Jason need me. I could save millions of lives.

  ‘You could also end them,’ said the traitor who remained within. ‘You could make things worse, you could destroy the gate. You could injure your friends, if you haven’t already. What if the tunnel collapsed on them, the collapse you caused? They could be dead, or worse, buried alive. You’ll just end up failing, like you always do. Don’t forget you’re possessed, you’re a killer. They’re better off without you. The world would be better off without you.’

  WHAT AM I DOING?! Sarah thought, horrified at her crazed mind. I have to try.

  ‘Besides,’ said the other voice in her head, a voice she hoped was hers, ‘what have I got to lose?’

  Chapter Two Hundred Four

  Sarah stood in the middle of the cave, closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. She knew there was something she should be seeing, but the more she tried to grasp it, the more elusive it became. A familiar sensation clouded her head and she knew it was time to take her drugs. But she also knew, if she did, it wouldn’t be long before she’d have to take another shot, and then another after that. The last injection had worn off even quicker than the one before. It was almost becoming the only thing she could think about. She suppressed the feeling as best she could in the hope she could reverse the trend; it was either that, or she would have to admit she had a serious problem: another one.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she said, with her eyes still closed. ‘I don’t know where the other entrance is.’

  ‘You can’t, if you believe you can’t,’ Ruben said.

  Sarah grimaced, he wasn’t helping. An asteroid is almost here, she thought, her anxiety increasing. Trish and Jason are depending on me. If I don’t solve this, I may never find them.

  A crackle of sound made Sarah open her eyes to see Ruben moving to the cave mouth with a military radio held to his ear.

  Sarah followed him into the daylight.

  ‘They want us to return to camp,’ Ruben said. The pulsating whir of a helicopter’s rotors murmured in the distance. ‘They’re getting ready to leave.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ Sarah said. ‘I asked Avery to leave me some supplies.’

  ‘What? On your own?’ Ruben looked shocked. ‘What about Konstantin? You can’t stay out here all alone.’

  ‘My friends are still missing. I’m staying until I find them.’

  ‘You still think they’re alive?’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘You saw what I saw,’ Ruben said. ‘There were a lot of bodies. How do you know they weren’t among them?’

  ‘I can feel it. I’d know if they were dead.’ She touched her heart as to confirm her certainty. ‘And what happened to belief?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You told me to believe, and now you’re telling me you think my friends are dead.’

  ‘I’m just trying to be realistic. When the next asteroid hits, civilisation will start to disintegrate. You don’t want to be on the surface when that happens.’

  ‘And where else will I go?

  Ruben hesitated. ‘EUSB Italia?’

  Sarah recalled the dismantling of the Sistine chapel during her time in Vatican City and realised it wasn’t restoration she’d witnessed, but a full-scale relocation. The world was moving its final treasures before the coming storm.

  ‘Sarah, there’s still time. Think. Where is the other entrance? Where is Heaven’s Gate?’

  Sarah growled in frustration. ‘I don’t know!’ She returned to the cave.

  As she neared the Anakim script Ruben caught up with her and grasped her shoulders. He shook her. ‘You do know! You must know. We didn’t come all this way to fail!’<
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  She pushed him away. ‘Look around, we already have!’

  He shook his head. ‘We only have, if we think we have.’

  ‘Stop staying that!’

  ‘Why? Because you think you might start believing it’s true?!’

  ‘No, because I know it’s not!!’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were so selfish.’ Ruben walked away.

  ‘What?!’ Sarah ran after him. ‘What did you say?!’

  ‘I thought you were a woman of courage, not a coward.’

  She slapped him round the face.

  Ruben didn’t react and she slapped him harder.

  She went to hit him a third time, but he caught her wrist.

  She struggled against his iron grip. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Millions are depending on us,’ he said, ‘and you moan and whine like a child.’ He let go and she fell back, tripped and fell to the floor.

  She stared up at him with hate-filled eyes, then searched in her pockets and withdrew her drugs pouch. With shaky fingers, she unzipped the case and fumbled for the needle, but it fell to the ground. She went to pick it up, but Ruben got to it first.

  He held it up as he knelt before her. ‘This is not the answer.’

  ‘I need it, give it to me.’

  ‘It’s addictive. You need to take smaller doses. Avery should never have let you self-administer.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ she pleaded, hating the sound of her pitiful tone. ‘Please, I need it.’

  ‘You don’t. Not yet.’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘Because I believe in you.’

  Sarah wiped away a tear. ‘You believe in me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  He hesitated and she moved closer to him. ‘Why, Ruben, why do you believe in me?’ She stared into his eyes, searching them for a sign of something which might take away her pain.

  ‘Because, I ...’

  She got to her knees. ‘Why?’

  He reached out and took her hand in his, his face a mask of anguish. ‘Because I care for you.’