by Ross Buzzell
Jackson turns his attention back to Gustav. Danielle’s hands begin to shake and her mouth goes dry as she tries to catch her breath. She places them under the table, gripping them together tightly as she forces the emotion of being singled out and being responsible for such a large contribution to stay concealed. Gustav and Jackson begin to speak, but their words are nothing but muffled voices in the background. When there is a break, she looks up with a smile on her face.
“Please excuse me.”
Standing up, she walks out of the boardroom and into the small kitchen on the far side of a wall a few steps from where she just was. She grasps a glass; filling it with water she drinks the cold refreshing liquid. She goes to set the glass down when a pulse of blue light sweeps through the building. The light slams into her, and as it does, she drops her glass.
“Emissary,”
she hears whispered in her mind as she is knocked off balance. Time seems to freeze. Her mind is flooded with alien symbols and images of a massive war between what appear to be angels and some form of black wave. A weapon falls to a planet and brings it to life; the planet has two suns orbiting it. Humanoids rise out from the ground and wage war to take the planet from massive flying lizards. That war comes to an end and the people expand across the desolations of deep space. Their technology advances beyond anything even sci-fi has come up with. A man with the name of Lorian ascends to the position of High King and they bring peace to their portion of the galaxy. Another war breaks out with a species even this race fears. A special class is forged but the war only ends with the High King sacrificing himself with the remains of the angelic weapon that had brought life to their planet in the first place.
In a torrent of blue flame and shadows, the history of this strange world assaults her senses as she seems to be downloaded with every facet of their history. There is peace for a long time. They have small military skirmishes, but it is only in order to protect their allies until the day Xero rises to power. He has the best intentions but ends up nearly killing his entire race, who are only saved by all of the sick, and Konner being teleported to a nearly empty planet, Sol 3 or Earth. She hears thousands of years of voices speaking to her all at once and yet she can understand each and every one as if they were having a one-on-one conversation with her. A young man is presented to her; he has dark hair, nearly glowing azure eyes, black armor with a matching azure cape, and the crest of his house glowing on his chest.
“He needs you,”
a voice whispers as she sees his palace broken into.
“He must survive or the universe will fall.”
She sees him get run through.
“Find him, protect HIM!”
The visions show him fall to Earth then teleport someplace familiar: a beach near where she went to high school and spent many days lying on and swimming. After what feels like hours of having this history downloaded into her, she snaps back. The sound of glass shattering fills the air as she saves herself from falling by catching herself on a countertop. The blue pulse disappears behind her. She attempts to catch her breath, wanting to believe that what she has seen is a hallucination, but something deep in her gut tells her that it was all true. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of the microwave, her bright blue eyes glowing the same color as this prince she has just seen. Gradually, they fade back to normal.
“Is everything okay?”
Danielle looks up; a strange calm overtakes her as she nods. Arvid stands at the mouth of the kitchen. She pauses for a moment, glancing at the shards of glass that have exploded all over the floor.
“I have to go; will you get this for me?”
She steps over the glass, and in a trans-like state, she exits the building and walks to the street, almost as if her body were on autopilot. She waves down a taxi and climbs in and only says two words.
“Till Sigtuna.”
The cabbie begins to drive, and she gazes out of the window as her mind seems to file all of the information she has somehow just taken in into chronological order. Old memories from her childhood flood back, not just small ones either but everything, in vivid detail. She never had what would be considered a bad memory but whatever that pulse did changed something in the way her brain works. All of a sudden, she is not only able to remember the tiniest events, but the date and time that they all happened. It is not only the events in her own life, though; it is the events that occurred on this alien world. It takes over an hour to get to Sigtuna largely due to traffic, but the entire time, the same word keeps running on a loop through her mind. “Emissary.” The more she dwells on it, the more her mind shows her about this order of men and women who are dedicated to keeping the history of Boron safe as well as consulting and aiding in the protection of the High King.
As she dwells on it, she can feel the duties of the Emissaries almost ingrain themselves onto her, as if she has been brought up by them. Her mind grasps the concepts of what she is, what this prince is that she needs to protect, and what her duties are to ensure the survival of not only his world but hers as well. After about half an hour, her mind begins to settle and clear. She looks out the window; in the distance, she can almost see something. It is hard to make out, but it almost appears to be a soft yellow glowing outline of a human. She watches as they grow closer, the outline seems to be climbing up something very slowly. Within a few more minutes, they pass a weigh station for trucks. She taps the driver’s shoulder.
“Stanna här! Jag Kommer snart tillbaka.”
The driver pulls off to a small parking lot. Danielle gets out and walks into the woods; she follows the outline of the being as he pulls himself up. After a few moments, she comes to a stop as she sees a clearing that clearly has just experienced some sort of sinkhole. She stays behind a tree as she sees a strong, stony arm shoot from the ground. The moment she sees him, she gets flashes of what he is and what line his genes came from back on the alien planet known as Boron. She continues to watch as he pulls himself fully from the ground and falls to his side. He has a tall, thin yet strong form and long brown hair that falls to the side as he lies down. After a few moments, he gets up and begins to freak out, getting up and looking at his hands. This causes Danielle to shift slightly, which makes a noise echo through the silent woods. Two massive stalactites form out of each forearm as he yells out, searching for her.
“Who’s there?!”
he yells out. She can tell that he is scared. Why shouldn’t he be? His body is mutating before his eyes. Before revealing herself, she speaks softly, empathetically to the terrified man.
“Be at peace, Doug Stephenson.”
Chapter 5:
Doug’s Protolith
The roar of the engine fills the voided silence of the green forest. Its trees stretch high above as Doug navigates carefully between them. His hands are clasped tightly around the leather of the jeep’s steering wheel as he wrestles with the car to keep on the untrodden path ahead of him. The revving engine vibrates the entire car as it lurches over rocks and small ledges. The top of the jeep is down as the man driving calls out loudly over the source of nature’s disturbance, the wire from his earbuds swaying with each lurch of the car.
“No sir, I’m about fifteen miles from the office right now. I just wanted to let you know I am checking out that new cave I found the other day. I figured we could use it for the campers when it starts back up again next month… It’s okay; I actually bought the land so we won’t need to go through legal as much this time…”
Doug brings the car to a lurching halt; he puts it in park and gets out after shutting it off. Before him, in the midst of a small clearing, is a hole that opens up into the ground like it was one of nature’s secret bunkers. Doug looks down the hole for a second and a sly smile forms across his face.
“Yes, sir, I am here now, I’ll be sure to send plenty of pictures… Most certainly, sir. This is going to be a wild adventure… talk to you later, Robbins.”
Doug presses a button on the
headphone wire, which hangs up the call, only for it to be replaced by blaring music. Doug turns and walks over the moss-covered ground and back to the jeep. He swings the back open; grabbing a tattered helmet with a light mounted on the top, he runs his fingers through his dark, long hair to keep it out of his face before putting the helmet on to pin it in place. A red bag with the emblem of a camp plastered on the back sits in the center of the trunk. He grabs it and slings it over his shoulder before taking a large pile of climbing rope that he previously tied together with itself.
Doug makes his way back to the clearing. He looks at some of the trees around him, and their trunks are thick and strong, good for anchoring to. Finding two trees that are close together, the adventurer anchors his rope to the larger of the two before making a backup anchor to the smaller. Each huff of breath causes a little bit of steam to form in the air as it is a cool morning. After tightening the anchors together, he steps into his harness, synching it up his body and ensuring that it is bound tightly around his thighs and waist. The last thing he wants to have happen was have the harness fail him. Doug makes his way to the edge of the hole and throws the remaining length of the rope down into the darkness. As the fabric disappears, he gnaws on the inside of his cheek for a moment as his fingers find their way to his mutton chops, which are connected by short stubble that protrudes from his chin and upper lip.
“Hmm.”
He hesitates for a moment, reaching back into his bag. Doug pulls out a large cylindrical translucent piece of plastic. He breaks it over his knee, which causes it to begin to glow. After shaking it a few times, he drops it into the hole to see how deep down it actually is. After a few seconds of free-fall, the glow-stick bounces against the stony ground with a “splash,” indicating that there was water down there. He turns his headlamp on, slowly inches his way to the edge of the hole backwards, all the while testing the strength of his anchor, which holds firm. As his heels get to the edge, he looks back as his heart begins to race. He loves things like this; nothing makes him feel more alive than exploring the outdoors.
“Time to have some fun.”
Doug loosens his grip on the rope and leaps backwards into a freefall. About halfway down the cavern, he tightens his grip and jerks the robe behind his lower back. This causes him to jerk to a stop and begin swinging in the large dome-like cavern that he now hovers in the center of.
As he swings, he looks around a bit, allowing his light to scan the dome in which he is. Slowly, Doug turns himself upside down, changing his “brake” hand position to his chest as he slowly descends toward the cavern floor, muscles flexing as his rope rotates him as he gets closer to the ground. Upon being mere inches from it, Doug rotates back over and places his feet firmly on the rocks beneath him. He takes a deep breath with a smile on his face; the air is cooler and damp down here but refreshing like drinking pure cold water on a hot day.
“Oh yeah… I’m Spiderman.”
Doug loosens his harness and steps out of it. Grabbing a few more glow-sticks, he cracks them and tosses them around the edge of the cavern. Doug peers up at the hole he has just descended from. The sun peers shyly through the trees; only a few small rays of light actually make it through the trees, and of those, even less shine into the cave, certainly not enough to use as a light source. The glow-sticks reach peak luminosity, giving the cavern an eerie yellowish cold feel.
“I am so getting a raise for this.”
Doug mutters to himself as he flips and retrieves a flashlight from a pouch in the bag he had specifically designed to hold the light so he would not have to take the bag off his back to retrieve it. He clicks on the mag-light. It sends a beam of bright white light slicing through the darkness. The cavern is made up of boulders mostly, but there are spots covered in slick, packed down mud. Stalactites, stalagmites, and pillars litter the outer circle of the cave and a small creek flows past his feet, opening up to another chamber of the cave. As the light moves back near the center of the cave, it stops as it falls on something that reflects his light. He cautiously takes a few steps forward and approaches the stone. Kneeling down, he runs his hand over it, cleaning off the moss that has grown on it. As the rock is revealed to him, he stops and lets off a befuddled laugh. The stone is silver with pieces that appear to be translucent amber strewn throughout it. He does not know much about geology, but this is something different. This is not any ordinary stone. This is a meteorite, the likes of which is one of the toughest elements known to man.
“Pallasite!”
he whispers softly before he glances down for a second when something moves near his feet. Quickly, the cave diver directs his flashlight downward to see the creature better. It is a small newt with brownish skin that turns to a yellowish-red closer to its belly. It has found its way onto Doug’s shoe and is not moving. As the light hits the newt, there is a brief color change, as if it has a blue tent to its brown skin.
“Hey there, little buddy, you are beautiful!”
he speaks with the newt, fully aware that it will not speak back, but the conversation is always nice to have. Gently, he wraps his fingers around the creature and picks it up to get a better look. Out of nowhere, a blinding flash of blue light surges through the cave and passes through Doug with enough force to push him forward a few steps. He staggers a little bit as he begins to feel strange, like pins and needles all over his body both inside and out. Still holding the newt, he looks around in confusion.
“What the…”
Before he can finish his thought, the ground begins to quake around him. He looks up as pieces of the ceiling begins to cave in and collapse around him. In a flash, Doug drops his light and begins to run towards his rope, pushing off of the meteorite to get moving faster. Before he makes it three steps, everything goes black as the entire cave collapses in on him and his little newt buddy.
Doug gradually comes to, his head throbbing as he lies where the meteorite once was. He coughs since there isn’t much air left. He fumbles around in the dark, groping for his flashlight; eventually, he feels the stiff cold aluminum of the light. He blindly fumbles around the cylinder until he feels a small rubbery circle, which he immediately presses. With a click, the light flickers back on, and he looks around at the small semi-circle that the rocks collapsed in. He runs his hands over the stones and shakes his head.
“Thank you for protecting me… now how am I supposed to get out?”
He prays softly to himself. Glancing over to his shoulder, he sees the newt perched on him like a bird. It licks its eye. Doug laughs a little bit as he begins to probe the claustrophobic walls that threaten imminent death.
“I’m glad to see you survived, little buddy… any ideas on how to get free from here?”
The newt licks its other eye. Doug shakes his head.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
A large piece of granite stands directly above Doug that appears to be loose. The adventurer shakes his head as he positions himself off to the side of it and puts his hands against the cold, muddy stone.
“This is so stupid, Doug. What are you doing?”
Something in him tells him to push, so he does. He braces his feet into the ground and puts all of his strength into the stone, and the sound of the rock shifting fills the small opening that surrounds Doug as he falls forward. His light falls from his hands, but his vision changes. He can’t explain it, but looking around, he sees an outline of all of the stones and rocks around him, almost like sonar of the Earth. He looks up and only sees black, but that does not prevent him from pushing forward. He gradually raises his hand and feels around for a grip. Curling his fingers, he slowly pulls himself through this strange dark corridor around him. “You’re probably just concussed; count your blessings that there is a path,” he thinks to himself as he continues the grueling climb; each pull of his arm feels like he is dragging himself through thick mud. His body is heavy and sluggish, but if this is a way out, he is not stopping.
After what feels like hours of
dragging himself, he feels cool air kiss his skin. As quickly as he can, he slams his open palm on the once mossy and now rocky surface. Pushing himself as hard as he can, he manages to get a knee out of the ground before the other foot rapidly follows. He falls to his side, trying to catch his breath as exhaustion overtakes him. In his field of view, the newt scampers right in front of him, looks in directly in the eye as if to say “thank you,” and proceeds to lick his eye and scamper off.
Doug places a hand on the ground; his body still feels heavy, but he chalks it up to exhaustion. That is until his eyes focus on his hand; it is grey and made of stone. Where his joints would be are cracks in the geode that makes up his hand. Quickly, he pushes off of the ground and holds his other hand before him. They are both made of stone; he shakes his hands as panic begins to set in. His heart races as he runs frantically over to a tree that has fallen due to the cave in. He rubs his arms against the bark in a desperate attempt to get whatever is on him off. He does not even feel the friction as the weaker bark chips away at each one of the powerful thrusts delivered from his forearm.