The Awakening

by Tony Mazzarella

  Drew heard footsteps approaching the half-open door and knew immediately who it was.

  “My Cait! You’re okay?” said Franklin Kirby as he hurried to her side.

  “Yes, Father. I’m fine now.”

  “I feared the worst when Antonio called me. I’m glad you’re okay. I was so looking forward to seeing you, and I was thrilled when Drew called about the new find. It gives me an excuse to come out and see you.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked in confusion. “I was on my way to see you tonight. I thought you knew that.”

  Drew looked away as he realized his earlier deception was now going to come back to haunt him. He was just glad she hadn’t found out earlier, as her decision to save him might have been a lot tougher.

  “To see me?” Kirby asked in confusion. “Well, that would have been a pleasant surprise, but I assure you, I had no idea.”

  Cait instantly put the pieces together and turned her attention to Drew, who’d strategically placed Kirby between himself and Cait’s glare, which he was sure could inflict physical harm if he were directly in its path.

  “I’m sorry, Father. Drew had apparently…”

  Drew quickly interrupted, trying to deflect the conversation and save himself from her wrath, which was sure to be furious. “Kirby, as we told you on the phone, what we’ve found is simply incredible. We really need your help to translate what we’ve found in there.”

  “All in good time, my boy. I need to make sure my little girl is okay.”

  “I’m fine. I promise,” She smiled weakly. “I only wish we’d been able to show you what we found. It was truly incredible.”

  Drew sighed in mild relief, having successfully shifted her attention back to the find and away from him. As he snuck a sideways glance at Cait, though, her glare told him he wasn’t completely out of the woods yet. The tension was broken by Antonio, who excitedly entered Cait’s room then closed and locked the door behind him.

  “Were you able to do it?” asked Drew, bursting with anticipation at the answer.

  “Yes! Yes! It worked perfectly. I have them here,” said Antonio, waving a large brown envelope.

  “What’s this all about?” asked Kirby, looking confused.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Kirby. So good to see you again,” said Antonio, shaking his hand. “I’d better let Drew explain.”

  Drew took the envelope and turned away from the others. He pulled out several large photographic negatives from the envelope and held them to the light. With a look of exhilaration, he walked swiftly over to the light panel used to view X-rays and began hanging them.

  “Drew, what are you doing?” asked Cait. “Last I heard, you didn’t have any broken bones. Once I get you alone, it might be a different story.” He continued hanging the images until no more remained in the envelope, ignoring Cait’s threat.

  He studied them for a few moments, then turned to Cait. “I knew they were coming, and we were going to be forced to leave the dig. When I was waiting for you to get back, I had Antonio take high-resolution pictures of the images and writing. From the looks of it, I think we have it all. We’re in business!”

  “Yes, Miss Cait,” Antonio chimed in. “I was able to use the radiology lab’s photo development equipment to develop these while you slept. My cousin works here and was able to help me out.”

  “That’s amazing, Antonio. I thought these were gone forever,” said Cait, giving Antonio a kiss on the cheek. She knew these translations might hold the answers to her strange dreams, and more importantly, to the man with the mysterious green eyes. Antonio turned a bright shade of red as he walked back over to where Drew was studying the pictures.

  “Yes, it is amazing,” whispered Drew. “That’s farther than I ever got.”

  Antonio smiled, recovering to a somewhat paler shade of red.

  “If we hadn’t done that, the earthquake, or whatever it was, might have buried them forever,” said Drew.

  “What are these pictures?” asked Kirby as he approached the light panel.

  “Well, we were hoping you could tell us. The images tell a story, but without the full translation of the words, we’re really just guessing.”

  Kirby studied the images for what seemed like an eternity to Cait. She wasn’t a patient person to begin with, but she had a strange feeling they were all running out of time. She couldn’t explain the feeling of dread that filled her heart, but she knew it had something to do with the entity that came to her in her dreams.

  “This is incredible,” said Kirby as he removed his glasses. He pulled a small white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead, and sat in a small chair near Cait’s bed.

  “What is it?” she asked, taking his hand. She studied his face, which she realized looked much older than it had the last time she’d seen him. He was now fully gray, and the crow’s feet around his eyes were prominent. She was saddened that so much time had passed since she’d last been with her father.

  Kirby took a deep breath then went silent as he collected his thoughts. He tucked the handkerchief in his pocket, put his glasses back on, and stood facing the others with a solemn look.

  “Have any of you heard of the legend of the Awakening?” he asked.

  Drew looked at Cait and Antonio as they shook their heads, not having heard this reference before.

  “It’s understandable, I suppose,” he said.

  “What’s understandable?” asked Cait.

  “The legend of the Awakening has not been widely known to most people, other than a few who studied the hidden ruins near the Great Pyramid,” said Kirby. “This is not the first time I’ve seen this imagery.”

  “Are you serious?” uttered Drew, astonished at his revelation. “Kirby, I pride myself on knowing…”

  “Relax, Drew. This surpasses even your thorough archaeological knowledge, as vast as it is.”

  Drew took a deep breath and listened intently to his mentor of over twenty years. He knew that if there were answers they didn’t have, Kirby would.

  “We swore never to speak of this when it was originally found,” continued Kirby. “The ancient Egyptians believed so deeply that the Awakening was real, they passed the tale onto their ancestors even up until today. It was a powerful story which, if proven true, would change humanity forever. Religions would fall and chaos would reign. We kept it a secret for so long, but I don’t know how much longer we can.”

  “What is the Awakening?” asked Cait impatiently.

  With a strained look, he faced Cait and the others and said the words that sent a cold chill of fear through Cait’s entire body.

  “The Awakening is the end of the world, my child.”

  Chapter 5

  “What are you saying?” asked Cait, her voice faltering.

  “My dear, have I ever told you the meaning of your name?” asked Kirby, staring back at the light panel.

  Cait shot Drew a sideways glance they had shared many times before, when Kirby would go off on a tangent in the middle of something intense. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he had no idea where Kirby was going with this. Cait shook her head in agreement.

  “No,” she answered. “I assumed you just liked it.”

  “I do, my dear. Very much.”

  Cait smiled widely at her father.

  “In its true Egyptian form, it means ‘crowned.’ I thought it a suitable name for my princess, and your mother agreed. She held your name second only to her first choice, which was Kesi.”

  Cait began to giggle, holding her ribs, which were badly bruised from her escape from the collapsing chamber.

  “What is so funny, Miss Cait?” asked Antonio in puzzlement, finding none of what had been said to be even remotely amusing.

  Drew smiled as he recalled the meaning of the name. Kirby also cracked a small grin as he explained to Antonio.
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  “Kesi, in ancient Egyptian, means ‘born of a troubled father.’ I think Cait’s mother, God rest her gentle soul, was a pretty good judge of character.”

  They all had a good laugh, relieved to have the tension broken even for a few minutes.

  “I came upon a similar name to yours, my dear, forty-five years ago, when I and two others discovered a small chamber outside Giza, far away from the Great Pyramid. We really had no business digging there—although we did get the needed permits to do so—and there was no reason to assume we’d find anything of any significance. We had no permits to get near anything important, so we settled for a small dig site just outside a peasant village. We were just students trying to make a name for ourselves in the field. We’d basically spent all of our money to get to Egypt, and we’d hoped this would at least give us well-needed experience. We didn’t realize we’d stumble onto the greatest secret mankind would ever know.”

  “What secret?” asked Drew. “You’ve never mentioned any of this before.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” said Kirby. “Let me explain further so you can understand why. When we started excavating what seemed to be an ancient slave dwelling, the villagers became very hostile to us. Our lives were threatened, but we were too young and stupid to leave; nor did we understand why they were so protective of this site. After all, the government had issued us the permits, so it was a perfectly legal dig. I think the villagers had assumed that no one would want to dig in this insignificant spot, so they had felt secure up until our arrival.

  “As we started to uncover this small, ancient peasant home, we began to put together the pieces of an unbelievable story. A slave named Hagiel had escaped a horrible calamity, which he had documented on stone tablets. He’d been forced to help finish the Great Pyramid as one of tens of thousands of slaves. In his story, Hagiel referenced a creature who could assume different shapes and appearances, forcing them to work as thousands died from exhaustion. He had been used by the creature as an engineer over the whole construction because of his skill in rudimentary mathematics and engineering. As the great pyramid was completed, thousands of slaves were buried underneath, to seal the secret for all eternity. Knowing what was going to happen, Hagiel escaped through a secret chamber just before the final blocks were put in place, entombing the slaves. He’d planned his escape for years and had designed this chamber so that his secret escape vent would go unnoticed and undiscovered, even by the other slaves.”

  Kirby pulled out a small notepad and began enthusiastically illustrating Hagiel’s escape route for the others.

  “His planning was brilliant,” he continued. “Each stone placed for over a year had special cutouts that fit together with the others like a puzzle. When this section of the pyramid was assembled, the gaps in the blocks formed a tiny crawlspace that led to a makeshift spiral staircase all the way up to the surface, if…” He tapped his finger on the image in his journal. “…you knew where to find the secret entrance. It was simple mathematics; geometry, to be exact. Only Hagiel knew what the shapes of the blocks would form when placed together. He personally saw to the placement of each stone, knowing someday his life might depend on it. He escaped and made his way to the peasant village outside the city, where he spent the rest of his life.”

  “Oh my God,” exclaimed Cait. “Our discovery proves Hagiel’s story could have been true.”

  “Yes, it would seem to,” said Kirby. “I have feared this for many years and prayed no one would ever prove it to be true. The fact that my daughter has done so has to be more than mere coincidence.”

  “Father, you said something about the meaning of my name.”

  “Yes,” he said, looking troubled. “The story continues. After Hagiel escaped, he felt the world needed to understand certain truths going forward. He had wisdom well beyond his primitive century. He knew the story of this creature had to be passed on, but that it must also remain the secret of only a few, who could keep the knowledge from generation to generation. As your discovery proves, they were hiding something with the Great Pyramid.”

  “Yes! Exactly!” said Drew. “It appears to be a giant abyss.”

  “I think Drew suspects it’s the passageway to hell,” laughed Cait.

  Kirby’s expression remained stoic as he looked at her.

  “He may not be that far off, my dear,” he said, sending a wave of terror through her very soul. She knew her father would never lie or say anything to cause her fear unless it was absolutely true.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, trying to sit up.

  “I’m saying that this abyss, as you called it, was something that should have ended the world then. As the story went on, Hagiel wrote that the creature found one person to bond and communicate with, to understand the creatures that walk the earth’s surface. It seems that for eons, this creature has come up from the depths of the earth’s core to determine if the time is right for the Awakening. The story says he bonded with a young slave girl named Khaheet, first through her dreams, then eventually by revealing himself to her in his physical form.”

  Drew snapped to attention, realizing the implications of Kirby’s words and Cait’s description of her experience earlier.

  “Something unexpected happened as he merged his being with hers. He fell in love with her—a love so great, he held off the destruction of mankind for her, the same destruction that killed off the dinosaurs and who knows how many countless other species over the billions of years of Earth’s history.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Drew with growing frustration. “What is the pyramid hiding?”

  Kirby walked over to the x-ray light panel and pointed to the backlit image of the giant creature devouring the fleeing slaves.

  “This is the secret,” he said, his hand shaking. “These are the creatures he summoned for the Awakening. They are living fire, residing in the earth’s core. They tunnel up like giant, ravenous insects when summoned by their master. But this one made it to the surface, creating this massive passageway, which could have led man back to find them and exposed the secret before it was time. In the past millions of years, the Awakenings have been far apart, so the fractured earth would have time to heal millions of years in advance of the next Awakening. I also think this entity might have been surprised at what he found this time; intelligent creatures with the same basic make-up of himself. Beings capable of not only fear—but also love and other complex emotions.

  Unfortunately, this new curiosity wasn’t enough to deter him from his plan. The creature knew, as Khaheet did, that the Awakening was only postponed and that man’s extermination was inevitable. It would only be a small period of time before the creature once again called his minions up from the fiery depths, and they could not be discovered in their hibernation until it was time. His apparatchiks would wait tirelessly for their orders, which were simple: awake and destroy.”

  “That’s an incredible story,” said Cait, pulling off the sheet. She winced as she stood up from her bed. “Do you actually believe this could be true?”

  Kirby pondered Cait’s question and paused for a moment, still staring at the imagery before him.

  “I wasn’t sure until I saw your pictures. As we uncovered Hagiel’s story, we thought it was just a legend or fiction of some kind. But as we began to speak to the villagers, we learned that they knew the story as well, in every detail. It had been passed down from ancient times, and they spent every day waiting for the next Awakening, which they were sure was coming. Don’t you see? This proves that his story was true! The slaves trapped under the earth with the same depiction of this creature as Hagiel’s story—it can’t be a coincidence.”

  Cait thought about her dreams as Kirby’s voice faded and became a distant echo of indistinguishable sounds. The creature found someone to bond and communicate with, she thought to herself. Is that what was happening over the past few weeks? As panic began to
overtake her, another emotion found its way to the surface—overwhelming guilt. She’d been finding comfort in some strange way with a creature that was quite possibly going to bring about the apocalypse. If Kirby was right, then history was repeating itself and if Cait was right, the creature had already taken physical form. If the legend is true, then he has already chosen me. She thought, as her hands began to tremble in fear. I am to be the conduit for this monster to bring about the end of the world.

  The room seemed to spin as she tried to calm the terror that took her breath for a moment. The faint sound of Kirby’s voice got gradually louder as she emerged from her thoughts. Kirby was still speaking, as if only a few seconds had passed.

  “What happened to the girl?” she interrupted, afraid to know the answer. “What happened to Khaheet?”

  “He stayed with her until she died at about the age of thirty-five. He made her queen, and together they ruled ancient Egypt. They eradicated any record of either of their existences as they constructed the Great Pyramid and forged the great lie of its creation.”

  Kirby walked to the light panel and pointed to the imagery of the slaves. “Apparently, the last thing these poor souls did was dig her burial chamber in the depths of the Great Pyramid, so far down that she would never be found. The creature made her a chamber of solid gold and entombed his love in this secret place. They also said he left something in her tomb inscribing the date of the next Awakening—the destruction of humanity. It was his promise to her to put off the Awakening for a certain time after her death.”

  “Why have you kept this secret for all these years?” asked Drew, his irritation no longer hidden. This anger wasn’t lost on Kirby, as he knew of Drew’s insatiable desire for knowledge—especially something of this importance.

  “Because,” said Kirby, now turning and facing them, “I believed it. If word of the legend got out, you and I both know people would have destroyed that pyramid trying to find Khaheet’s chamber. And what if they found the tomb, and it was proven to be real? Would man just sit by idly and wait for the alarm bell to ring on their destruction? True or not, chaos would be the result, and I wasn’t going to be responsible for it. But now that evidence of the Awakening actually exists, this changes everything.”