Out of the Shallows – Chapter 1

*Scene 01* 4:44 (The Betrayal in the Prior Quest)

Love never fails.  I had always believed that to be true in principle.  Until a fateful night when I witnessed its sacred quest stone fail, and leave my friend Caleb to die at the brutal hands of hybrid monsters.  While their cruel bestial king took possession of the stone we had foolishly believed would protect us.

Those woods were dark and dead. No sunlight pierced their tangled, twisted veil or ever touched the stone cold ground. Its floor was gray with ash where ancient fires had once found fuel in that accursed forest.  For centuries, the place had lain in a perpetual night under a burial shroud of shadows.

Only torches carried into its forbidding darkness ever illuminated its winding footpaths, but they were soon snuffed out by the beings still moving within it.

I dare not say that these dark inhabitants were living, for though they all moved, spoke, and breathed, they continually abided in death.

It had been foolish for Caleb and me to ever think we could subdue the beast that had anointed himself king over this kingdom of dead creatures. But we believed in the power that ruled The Cordis Stone, and in our minds, there was a strong enough chance we could end this king’s terrible reign once and for all.

But nothing went as planned. That night of death became a living terror that has even followed me into The Surface World.

I can still hear the voice of that Beast King echoing through my waking dreams, resonating and vibrating out of the blackness of those dead woods.

“Yes! Run for your life, O man,” it bellowed laughing from the darkness, “Everything you love will be stripped from you.”

It’s booming laughter pounded my body with sonic fists, striking me from out of the darkness. I turned, trying to fend off the invisible blows, but could still see him in the distance, bathed in a throbbing red glow, standing powerfully upon a rocky outcropping, mocking my terror. 

Below him, in mosh pit silhouettes, a sea of his dark shadowy servants celebrated the savage delight of their king with barks, grunts, hisses, and chortling. Their hundreds of pairs of scintillating eyes turning towards us. 

“Your betrayal has given me the key to your most precious treasures. And the means….,” he growled, lifting the fiery red stone he had wrested from Caleb’s hand, bathing his monstrous face, and dead eyes in a swirling wash of red light,”…to find and destroy them.”

Only then, had I realized, in the stumbling confusion of our panicked flight, that the King of The Half-Men, the one his hybrid creatures called ‘The Pan’, had not spoken to both of us.

Though we both had fled together, Caleb had fallen. And they had taken him into the darkness.

And The Pan’s haunting, threatening words would be painfully proven right.

“Everything you love will be stripped from you. Your betrayal has given me the key…and the means…”

*Scene 2* 2:13 (The Memory Bridge Crossing)

I foolishly believed I could break the power of The Pan’s spoken curse, by resolving not to allow myself to love again. By closing myself off, walling myself in, and guarding myself against that vulnerability. But I was wrong.

That night of my betrayal and the subsequent death of my friends had been twenty-one years ago,…and after so long living in my resolve to remain only in the Surface World, I had begun to believe it had all been a dream.

Until now.
The recurring nightmare no longer ends with me awakening in a cold sweat, screaming. I feel a change this time. An inner door within the dream has opened and suddenly the world I now awaken to….is a surging sea.

I do not remember my body coming through the oculus portal, this time. Enduring the long airless passage between worlds for a mortal man is terrifying, so it is, perhaps, a good and merciful that I was spared that awareness.

It has been so long living out this nightmare on the Surface World. I was a fool to believe The Pan’s reach was so limited. I should have known better.

But I am here again, and that could only mean one thing.

That I, and the others I will soon meet, are preceded here…by a monster.

Only The One could have opened this doorway, and He never does so without a good purpose and reason.

*Scene 03* 7:33 (The Return to the Mid-World Beach)

By all accounts, it should be terrifying to find myself waking up, submerged underwater. But I am unafraid. This splash-down landing is familiar to me.

It is a baptism into a new world, one could not imagine existed unless they were called to see and experience it for themselves. But I feel this is just as it should be.

Like Peter, I fell under these surfeiting waves because I took my eyes off of the One who called me to walk these inner shores and the land beyond them by faith. But, be that as it may, I am back.

Mercifully, being awakened to a deeper place, once again.

The water here is fairly shallow–and I can almost touch the sandy bottom. I feel the roll and push of the tides, mimicking the rise and fall of heavy breathing. The sea around me is alive and I am held in it.

In a panic, I might’ve taken in a gasp and swallowed only liquid breaths, but I realize what is happening before fear steps ahead of me to dictate my solely physical reaction.

I flail slightly, and then with a strengthened downstroke, I emerge up from those watery depths into the spray and foam of a surging sea. I am thrust forward and at last gain strength in my legs.

My head pushes through the watery ceiling. As the water clears from my eyes, I find myself staring at a mysterious beach that was not there when I drifted off.

As odd and surreal as all this seems, I am not disoriented. This place, the sandy shore, the rising sea cliffs, the rolled dunes of sand are all familiar. I have a certain degree of clarity that I have not experienced in years.  

My feet find purchase in the submerged sand, below the heaving shallows. I steady myself and rise to stand, water shearing off of my body.

I look down and, as I once did so long ago, again find I am waist-deep in seawater.

I was brought to this very shore twenty-one years ago, as a traveler, in much the same way.  I joined a noble cause, followed a struggling leader into the interior, embarked on a failed quest for a season only to betray a friend, lose my closest companions, and ultimately lost my way. But that is for another time, and not what I would consider the start of my journey, but only a precursor to it. The most meaningful beginnings start not at the peak of our success, but in the deep valleys, at the very darkest admission of our failure. It is from there only that we arise from the dust. That we are given the buoyancy to float up from the depths.

Water was a part of my arrival, even as it was a part of my departure. Only, in the evening when I left–when I was last consciously parted from this place, the water was much deeper…and I was drowning.

The water vacillates between feelings of warmth and cold. The lower undercurrent chills and tugs at my feet–trying to pull me out to sea–while the froth-crested swell of the warm upper tide shoves me forward toward the sandy beach and the dunes and sea caves beyond.

Much would have changed in the time I spent away. But still, I remember. Though the shores are slightly altered, and the storm winds have scoured the cliffs, and deadened the sea-side vegetation, I know this is The Mid-World. A place connected between one realm of human perception and the next. But, for now, that is all I am permitted to say of it.

As the wonder of returning settles into the realization of it, a part of me is shocked that I was allowed to come back here. I thought after so long, that hope of my return had faded. It is an uncanny and unnerving feeling, being back. There is both a sense of dread and relief in it. Like one who is lost, terrified, and wandering through a deep forest might feel upon recognition of a familiar landmark. A sense of returning to a comforting place one knew well, long ago in their childhood, but finding it very much changed and desecrated. Devoid of the many aspects that once made the familiar place seem safe.

Behind me, there is a large twisting hole in the sky.  A great whirlpool, suffused in otherworldly light that distorts the horizon and warps time and space.  It glares at me like a great lidless eye.  The inner iris is opening, and partially closing with an aortic rhythm matching the rising breaths of the sea. Oculus. The strange word forms upon my lips even as recognition dawns. The Eye of The Sea. It is a mysterious portal transcending the expanse between the world of the seen and unseen. It is only one of seven rumored to be here in this mysterious place. The closest one to this area.

The portal swirls and spins, dipping into the waves and spraying seawater, as the brow of the sky folds and unfolds inward and outward.

If memory serves, there should still be an inlet cave around the next bend.

And if this arrival is anything like the previous one, I know it is just a matter of time before there will be others arriving here.  They will not know where they are, just as I didn’t when I first came.  But what they will learn here, if they are open to it, will change them forever.

What appears to be sea-fog gathers down the shoreline and will soon be upon us.  My pulse quickens as I remember the living fog and the terrors cloaked within it.  I have a particular dread of it for I know it will steal parts of my memory as it had done with me in the past.  Forgetting is very, very dangerous.  Especially in this place.

*Scene 04* 7:46 (Breathe It In)

Something pursued the little girl.  Something that she could not remember.  Its form was clouded in her mind, but the terror of those moments leading up to that lapse was real enough for Miray.  She could feel them fading, but the panic lingered.

The thing pinning her down smelled of dead fish.

“Your friend that was is dead,” it sneered and hissed, spitting hatefully into her face as it growled, pressing her writhing, struggling body into the thick sand of the seashore, “and by now her putrefying flesh is rotting in the belly of a powerful prince of the power of the air and sea.”

Miray’s eyes went wide in horror and shock.  Pools of terror threatened to blind her.  The form would not clarify, it appeared distorted and unfocused as if watching its twisted face through an oil-smeared glass.

“He was so disappointed that you did not come, but he will meet with you later on the road ahead,” the voice was garbled, cruel, multi-layered, and androgynous.

“He marked you and all of the company from your world that will follow,” mocking her into despairing of all hope, “But never mind all that, child.  You will forget everything but your own name.  All your fears packed into this moment will fade.”  It quietened to see if the girl might be tempted to trust that reassurance.

Miray flexed in defiance and the savage being leaned in, hissing with vehemence, “Now get ready to taste the fog.”  Its cruel, unyielding hand, gripped her cheeks and jaw, forcing her red-pink lips into an ‘O’, “It will heal you of this unpleasantness.  Breathe it in.  Long and deep.  Its name is Oblivion.  Say hello.  It is waiting to meet you, and you will not miss this meeting.”

It shoved a knuckle into her mouth, but Miray bit its fingers.  It raged and slapped her face again and again.

Miray tried to hold her mouth closed.  She clenched her teeth, but the smeared-image being pinched her nostrils closed and savagely pulled her hair back.  It flailed and reached for the flat stone it had set aside and forced it cruelly between Miray’s lips, prising her teeth and jaws apart.  Her face stung with the coarse sand, abraded and raw from the repeated slaps.

“Shush, shush, shush!”, it cooed cruelly, as Miray wept and tried to scream but could not.  Tears poured copiously from Miray’s eyes.  She gasped for breath but her teeth were clamped firmly upon the rock held in her mouth.  Sand grit was in her throat, and she gagged and coughed allowing more of it to fall deeper down her throat, threatening to enter her lungs.

“Shut up or I will shove this further into your throat, you brat!  The fog is almost here.  When it comes, you…will…breathe it in.”

The fog was much closer now and would soon envelop them in grey mists.

Miray tried to close her lips around the flat rock, but the smeared-thing twisted the rock in her mouth and forcibly pinched her nose shut.  “Keep your pretty little mouth open, you baby slut!”  Miray gasped and mewled in pain as the rock’s unyielding edge cut into her gums and lips.  Blood filled her mouth, and she gagged on it, choking.  The thing pulled her hand away from the girl’s nose and backhanded her with it.  “I would gut you with this rock, but there has to be twenty-one at the beginning, so I cannot bash your head in yet.”

Tendrils of the reaching sea-fog drifted by, and the creature closed its feral eyes in a euphoria.

“Now you will see what it is like to taste the wet of the wind, little Surface dweller.  Your nightmares are just beginning, you little meddler.  We will burrow them so far into you so that your doctors will never find us.”

The creature stood up, climbing off of Miray, as the fog swirled and grew thicker around them.

It stood up spreading its arms wide, twirling around and around with the curling mists,  shouting and laughing to the sky, “Breathe in the madness!”

When Miray felt the pressure of the creature’s body leave her she quickly turned over, unable to breathe anything.  She was disoriented.  Her face stung from the repeated blows.  She gasped, but choked on blood and sand, the hard stone had fallen out of her mouth when she rolled on her hands and stomach.

The fog surrounded her.  Blocked her in.  She could no longer see the smeared-thing.  The fog was dense and gray and smoky.  It did not feel like a landed cloud.  The way her father used to describe it.  She forcibly coughed against the glob in her throat finally expelling the sand and blood.  Her next breath was desperate and though badly needed, fearfully unwanted.  She could not help it.  It entered her flaring nostrils and her panting, parted lips unbidden.

She could feel her mind begin to surrender to the gray cloud and her last desperate thought was to do as she had always done when she felt danger.  She ran.  She ran with all her might until she collapsed on the beach.  Before she succumbed to the things clouding out her mind she wrote a single word in the wet sand beside her and then all within and without went dark.

*Scene 05* 0:59 (Watcher in the Cave)

From the recessed darkness of a sea cave, just beyond the dunes built up by the surge at the shore, large eyes witnessed with pleasure and delight the subduing of the little girl.  She was a threat that needed to be dealt with, before the coming of the others.  The hook had been placed in the mind of the Traveler.  He would not know it until it was too late.  For now, it must dig in and wait.  It must follow where the man would eventually lead it to uncover the past that threatened its very future.

*Scene 06* 3:40 (Awakening on the Beach)

When Miray awoke, she was alone, lying in the sand.  Her head throbbed.  Her cheeks were flushed and scraped raw.  Her dress was torn.  Her chest ached as if it had been pounded.  Her knuckles were bruised and she had blood in her mouth.  She pushed herself up on weak, trembling arms.  Frothy surf wet her dress legs and lower body.  The sea was trying to swallow her even as the graying darkness had.  It was silently receding from her now, making way for the splash of the building waves, pooling and rushing around her.  She glanced at her palms and the tops of her fingers peeking out of the shallow indentions in the rolled wet sand.  As the seafoam swelled through her fingers, she noticed a small pattern of shallowing, fading lines to the right of her palm puddles.  The pattern confused her for a moment, as the sea interceded again and wetly-erased the fading pattern away.

She was dazed.  Confused.  The sea salt in the water burned her cuts and abrasions.  Had she fallen overboard?  Why did her mind feel so foggy?  Her mouth taste so grainy and coppery?

She knew something was missing, but could not get her mind clear enough to know what she had forgotten.  She had a sense that there was something she had desperately intended to remember, but it was drowned somewhere within the fog.  Stolen from her.

Her mind had once been so bright, but now, in some places deep within, there was only dim darkness.  There were some very important fireplace pictures missing.  Images that she imagined she kept neatly arranged over the mantle of her mind and hearth.  She scrunched her eyes, crawling up on her bruised knees, putting her small gritty hands over her face as silent tears fell between her fingers.  She sniffled, “Mustn’t cry.  Mustn’t!”

Coughing away some of the sand, she lowered her hands and stood up as the foamy waves formed laces around her small feet and battered tennis shoes.

“Be a big girl,” she admonished herself, “You’ll find those pictures again.”

She blinked final tears away and watched the graying fog recede towards the southern bend of the beach and swirl around the edges of the seacliffs.

There was someone she was supposed to find.  She felt it as much as she somehow knew it.  Someone she had to meet that would help her find the missing pictures again.

*Scene 07* 7:18 (Meeting the Wandering Child)

The land before me and the rising swell of the sea behind me is much the same.  Twenty-one years have done little to alter it.

It is almost as if I had never left, but I know that is not the case.  A part of me abandoned it.

Though deep down, I know I carry this place with me always, I have not attended much to it.  Not as much as I should have…

Still, I am meant to be here.  Called, once again, to come back here.  To face what I fled from so long ago.

This is no accident.  My wandering sojourn has brought me back to the place where I departed and took the wrong turn before.

And more than anything, I cannot deny the knowledge that I have been brought back for a reason.  I have come around full-circle to the place of beginnings.  Twenty-one years of my circuits of the Sinai wilderness are complete.

The promised land still awaits.  A kingdom whose doorway lies somewhere to the east of here upon a precipice in the far mountains.  Guarded by a nightmarish beast who presently sleeps, but will awaken if one attempts to reach the door beyond.

I have unfinished business here.  I must undo what was done.

Words of the Ancient Text find my heart and mind, swirling in the cognitive storehouse of my conscious memory.  As I move forward in this mysterious land, I know that these grounding words will surface and meet my need at each juncture of decision, yet I still retain terrible doubts.

How much can I really see through the lens of my own harbored self-doubt?

I am fearful of what coming back here means for me.  Somehow, I must find the gate-stone we lost.

That I lost, rather, for I take full responsibility for what happened.  Perhaps that is why I was brought back, because I am the only one left of our prior company who can make it right.

I smell something within the tang and briny salt of the sea air.  Some kind of underlying rotten smell.  A kind of sweet sick decay and I am certain I have smelled it before.

Something else has come with me through the portal, yet I cannot see it.  But I know it is there.  At some point, it will manifest itself, but it is staying clear of me now.

As I slog forward, urged on by the press of the waves, I see the little girl wandering on the beach.

She is alone and lost.  Perhaps she is the first of the others.  She is probably scared.  I must not frighten her.

She sees me.  Our eyes meet.  And she begins to run…

Not away from me, as I expected she might,…but towards me like she was very glad and relieved to finally find someone else here besides herself.

She stopped a few feet from me and studied me a moment before putting her hands on her hips as if accusing me of hiding from her and running off.  She was about six or seven years of age.  A precocious, red-head with bouncing curls, a light dusting of freckles on her nose but otherwise very fair porcelain skin.  Her intelligent eyes danced as green jewels and she seemed to be taking in more of her surroundings and her quick assessment of me half-slogged, in a flash.

“I’m Miray,” she announced matter-of-factly, “And I can’t remember anything else.  Is that weird?”

No, I thought to myself, not here it isn’t.  I wanted to say, welcome to the Mid-World, my dear fellow Surface Worlder, but I didn’t.  All of that would be explained in time.

We heard other voices just down the beach from us, as I knelt down and made our introduction mutual.

I extended my hand and said, “Well, hello there, my dear Miray.  My name is Brian.”

She listened carefully and thoughtfully, whispering my name to herself with an inscrutable look on her face.

“It’s not you,” she muttered finally and then noticed my extended hand and looked at it curiously for a moment.

Seeming to decide at last in my favor, she reached out and shook it, one emphatic pump only, and then smiled crookedly and said, “I am not a deer.”

And I responded, “Well then, are you a rascal?”

She beamed, winked at me and said, “Maybe.”

“Is it just you or are there others who came with you?”

She scrunched up her nose and shrugged.

“I think it is just me, but it sounds like there are others ahead.  I don’t remember, but I’ll find out.  Do you know where we are?”

I attempted to wring water out of my wet shirt and nodded, “I do.  I came here before.  But I don’t know when we are.”

She puzzled that one over for a few seconds and then looked off in the distance, “Maybe there is someone ahead that can tell me who I forgot.  I’m gonna see.”

“Okay.  I’ll be right there.  Don’t go too far.  Now that I found you, I wouldn’t want to lose my only friend here.  I will tell you all more when we join the others.”

She grinned at me, obviously pleased with my answer and then she skipped away toward the sounds of the group to make other acquaintances.

*Scene 8* 0:50 (The Xarmnian Scouts)

From a notch in the ridgeline, several Xarmnian horsemen watched the distant beach with interest.  The meddlers would eventually pass through to the west of them, but they were given instructions to let them pass for now.  Shihor had given them strict orders.  The flying creatures were proving to be a fortunate ally, as long as their lord and the matron both shared common enemies.  The beachhead stretched for miles along the coastline and the creatures had led them to the perfect vantage point to intercept them.  Now the hardest part would follow–the waiting.

*Scene 9* 2:58 (Following the Child)

I move to follow while she runs eagerly ahead, oblivious to potential danger.  Her free-spirited steps displaying the exuberance and happy curiosity of a child.  Such precious innocence, I almost tear up.

I glance back down the sandy beach in the direction from which she came.  The fog and mists are building from the south.  There isn’t much time, and I didn’t want to scare the child.

As I begin to turn away, something else catches my eye.  There are two sets of small child-sized footprints in the sand, each track about six to eight feet apart, but I think nothing of it.

Clearly, Miray has passed this part of the beach before.  No telling how long she has been wandering these shores…only the small footprints appear to be heading in the same direction.  I pause, staring at the separate prints.

Of course, I thought, She must have gone further inland and then passed back this way.  I was just seeing the bottom loops of her searching circuitous path.

I shake my head and almost laugh at myself, and plod ahead, trying to keep the young girl in sight.  Perhaps I am a little disoriented and not as clear-headed as I first thought.

There is something I am forgetting.

Something very important.

We must move inland soon to reach the valley where the shadows in the foggy shore cannot follow.  Even now, I feel something in the air.  Moving within the distant sea fog coming behind us along the shoreline.  The light is odd here.  It darkles with some grayish luminescence.   I cannot risk losing sight of the little girl.

She is an absolute charmer.  Miray is her name.  Beyond that, she told me, she cannot remember much either.

A sea dune intervenes, like a pointed finger, between the turn at the edge of the shore and the frothy water stretching out to sea.  The edge of the portal seems to recede into the bruised sea-cloud, lying beaten, cast and scuttled along the beach like a shipwrecked sailor.

I follow the separate sets of small footprints up the side and over the sea dune and see the gathering of bewildered travelers below.  I see the small red-headed girl milling around between the people.  She speaks to a few and then moves quickly on to another queue, flitting from one to the next like a hummingbird sampling nectar from blossoms.

They must be very confused arriving here by the sea-gate portal, but fortunately, I know a deal more than they do, and it is time I made their acquaintance.

*Scene 10* 3:05 (Arrival of Others)

I attempt to count the people I see as I quietly approach the crest of the dune.  They, like me, are all wet from being in the surf.  I estimate there are about twenty people, give or take a few.  It is hard to tell from this distance and the sky is not as clear as I had hoped it would be to get the expected count.

There were fourteen of us total the last time I was here.  But this time…more.  I quiet my breathing and try to settle the worried pounding of my heart.

I tried to think of how should I begin, “Is everyone here?  Let’s call the roll, shall we?”

That would be unfair to them because they do not yet know the importance of sharing their names and revealing who they are or believe themselves to be.  That felt…off.

For the time being, they must remain strangers to me.  All will be explained in time.

Each of us is part of something larger than we can imagine.  A grand story, written by a Grand Designer.

Back in the Surface World, among my circle of friends we’ve lost some very precious people.  There are no words to assuage the grief caused by their untimely exit.

Their absence creates a reminder that life is but one breath away from loss.

They were unfinished stories.

I should have known that it would be these particular thoughts that would confront me upon my return here.

In my subconscious mind, I did know and that is why it has taken me so long to finally be willing to come back.

Running away from problems, or drowning them out with distractions, fillers and other illusions, never make the problems go away.

They only grow.

Larger and meaner and more deadly with time.

In the end, they breathe and become living and sentient monsters…

I mentally gather the weapons of warfare to me, that I have learned are most powerful in this strange land.  An Ancient Text which transcends space and time and becomes embodied in flesh and power.

*Scene 11* 6:07 (Sowing in the Seventh)

From atop the edge of the sea cliffs, the hidden mercenary stood with his hands resting upon the hilt of his sword. The metallic-gray clouds twisted into the sky forming a giant Gordian knot and silhouetting his shadowy form against their silvery light. He stood back beyond the edge of the cliff, so his form would not be seen from the beach skylined against the clouds. But he could still see the gray sands of the shore and the foaming lines of the sea clearly, and the wet, new arrivals.

The Oculus had appeared hours before. They had seen its glow from their small waiting camp in the early morning hours and had approached the cliffs. The Xarmnian patrols were rumored to be about, but The Storm Hawk and Lehi had kept them further back, running interference. Not fully knowing why The Resistance wanted them to, but were happy to assist when they received the request. The Storm Hawk was rumored to have once been one of the Surface Worlders, so the less she knew of his present mission the better.

The two infiltrators were in place.  They’d descended the cut into the slope, and soaked themselves in a tide pool just beyond the bend of a dune.  He saw them join the others on the beachhead below, and he knew at last his assignment was complete.  Now he would ride back and report to Tobias and the others, and get his double-portioned rations and sowing seed promised him. He would then take his family out and return to farming, far away from the towns.

The two agents were naive enough to have the chance of pulling this thing off. The Surface Worlders, on first arrival were never what one might have considered to be readied warriors anyway. They were exposed out here. Unprepared for the harsh realities of this world, because they were too much under the influence of the assumptions of this World being, too much, like their own. The two were fools. Naifs. But they would be fools among fools, so they would fit right in.

The Resistance knew that one day the Surface Worlders would be back, and they were more certain of it, than any of their sworn enemies.  There was some mystical influence coming from the old Marker Stone.  Those in the Resistance, at least, agreed upon that, but in many ways, to his mind, it could not be relied upon. There were certain useful truths in it, but there were also too many inconsistencies.

So, every seventh year, he brought the Resistances’ two delegates and they came to the eastern sea cliffs to watch for the opening of The Eye of the Sea and the entrance of the unwitting interlopers. The Resistance had once welcomed their arrival once before. Believed it to be a sign that the Prophecy of The Marker Stone was being fulfilled.

But that was before.

The Stone Quests were a failed hope. And finding Excavatia was only a dream of superstitious mystics. Stories only believed by children, before the hardships of life matured them into becoming realists and skeptics.

Though there were many faithful prophecy believers still within the Resistance, their influence was failing, and the Realists and Skeptics were steering the resistance efforts into a more pragmatic approach towards insurrection, and enticing the dormant, and smoldering embers of suspicion and nascent fratricidal war back into flame. But the Surface Worlders, naive as they were, still had to be watched and there was no better way to watch them than from within their company.

Though they never began with The Stones of Virtue in their possession, somehow, always, a Stone found its way to them.

Whatever these Surface Worlders were planning, it would not be good for the Resistance movement.  They would stir the Xarmnians up and then life would again become the hell it was before.  The Surface Worlders would leave and return to their own world, but the results of their meddling would ripple like waves across The Mid-World and impact all who lived here.

Noadiah had been a fool, but at last, she’d come to her senses and conceded to their plan.  Then she’d disappeared, leaving them without a Seer.

Tobias and Sanballat had then stepped in, and proposed a more feasible solution to throwing off the oppression. But a lot was riding on this plan.  The Capitalians would not appreciate being incited to return into the land beyond the wall, but they must.

And then the two brotherhoods would finally destroy each other upon a final field of battle.

Yes, he and his family would be long gone before that happened. Far away, sowing his own seed and reaping his very own harvest, away from the winds of war.

*Scene 12* 3:56 (Memories of the Past Beginning)

As I stand upon the large brow of the sea dune, contemplating and looking down upon the new arrivals below, I notice they are looking up at me, wondering, since I do not immediately descend.

By now the little girl has told them about our brief encounter. That I may know something about this place they find themselves in, and what secrets it holds for why they are here.

I once stood where they are standing now. Bewildered. Unsure and afraid of what might be happening. I fully sympathize with what they may be feeling, but I also know I must be careful with what I say.

I remember the voice of the man who led us and his admonishments like it was only moments ago rather than years.

“Listen carefully to what you hear. Measure and consider what the people of this land say. Apply sound principles you have known from past experiences. Aligned to the Truth Codex all you perceive on this journey. Strive to be a studied person of wise counsel. There are many deceptive illusions in this place.  Be a considerate companion of your fellow travelers. We need wise counselors.”

Had I heeded these words of wisdom; my friend would still be alive and that once-human monster, The Pan, would not have in his possession what he does…

In view of that, I wonder if I should ever be forgiven.  Jeremiah was perfectly justified in…

Already, I have almost said too much.

I am supposed to lead these newcomers into the interior. But I am fearful of revealing too much too soon. This place, this Mid-World, is like and unlike the world, we all left behind on the other side of the sea-gate. I am fearful that I will not be able to gain their trust, yet the compelling of the call still rests on my shoulders and heart. Fear of rejection has too often been an impediment to action in my life, but the One still calls me to obey and leave the results up to Him. As hard as it is, I must trust the call because of who it is that called me.

I sigh heavily, surrendering the tension I feel and mentally committing my will to His quiet voice. “I am coming, Lord. Give me the courage I need,” I pray quietly as I move forward.

I have been stalling. Delaying the inevitable. I can feel the urgency. Like there is a danger far worse than that of the fog rolling toward us.

I descend the far side of the dune and all eyes turn toward me.

“Here goes…,” I mutter.

The small group is coming this way. It is time they came to know me and I them. The journey to the gate is long, and the path to get there is uncertain.

*Scene 13* 7:50 (Welcome to the Mid-World)

“You, there!” one of the men calls out to me, “This little one, says you may know something of where we are.  What’s the story?”

Others are following, gathering.

“Welcome to the Mid-World, my friends,” I say raising my hands to encompass and indicate the group should draw near.

“That remains to be seen,” another muttered, “This place does not seem all that welcoming.  We’re all wet and cold.”

“I have been sent to collect you all and lead you into the interior.  There is a storm coming and we need to get further inland before it hits these shores.”

“What about this thing we came through?  I’m not sure I want to leave the only entrance to wherever this is if I cannot get back to where I came from.”

“Despite what you may think, you are not all assembled here by accident.”

“You mean someone did this to us?” asked one.

“Who?” another asked.  “Can’t we get back?”

Questions came at me from all sides, tumbling over each other, but I chose to respond to only the ones clearly heard by the group.

“You can.  But aren’t you even curious to find out why you are wanted and needed here?”

“Where is here?  Are we dead or something?”

“If you where you would not be wondering where here is.  You would already know for sure.”

“You are talking in riddles, sir.  How do we know we even can trust you?  We don’t even know you, or anyone else here for that matter.”

“Now that is the first and most important question you all have asked me.  It is critical that you start asking these kinds of questions if you are to participate in a quest in the Mid-World.”

“Quest?” one said, almost laughing incredulously, “What a nut job!”

“I think someone drugged us and is playing mind games,” one whispered loudly to another.

“I knew I should not have had that third vodka martini, before bed.  These are the kind of freak dreams I get…” another muttered.

“I doubt this is a dream.  I feel wet and cold and the sand and salty air feel real enough.”

“Perhaps we’re in one of those sensory deprivation tanks, somewhere. Or aliens have abducted us,” the questioner then turned an accusatory finger at me.

“Dude, are you an alien or some head shrink researcher or something?!”

“No.  It is more complex than that.  I’m none of those things,” I answered defensively.

“What kind of a quest?  Why should we bother?”

“Because you very lives back in the places where you have come from depends on it.”

“How melodramatic of you to say that.”

I bow slightly to the speaker.

“Allow me to present myself.  My name is Brian.  I am, like you, from the world, you all came from.  Because that place is the locus of creation, we refer to it as the Surface World.  So, I too am a Surface Worlder.”

“I’ll bet he’s one of those dufuses that lives in his parents’ basement, sits in his underwear and a white cotton T-shirt smeared with Cheetos stains, playing video games all day.”

A few chuckled at the mental image, and I knew, with this crowd I was not getting off to a good start as their designated leader.

This is the very thing I feared the most.  The mockery.  If I did not get them to take this seriously soon, we were all going to die here.

“Oh, God,” I silently prayed, “What do I do to convince them?  To gain their trust before it is too late?  I can’t lead these people.  I wish You had picked someone else.  I am the worst person to do this.  You know what I did the last time.  I am too afraid.  Please pick someone else, God.”

I then felt a small hand grab mine, I looked down and saw a crown of deep red curls, and a pretty face scrunched up and looking at me intently.

“I believe you Mister Brian,” she said simply, “Tell them it’s real.  You must tell them even if they don’t believe.  If I knew what I forgot, I would tell them, but I am still missing it.  Please tell them.”

“Precious and blessed child,” I said, gently squeezing her encouraging hand.

“For you, I would do almost anything,” convicted that what I was fearful to endure for The One, I was more than willing to do for this sweet little girl.

I took in a deep breath and then boldly faced the muttering and suspicious group, unconscious of where the determination of strength came from as I spoke to them further.

“Believe what you will.  But there is danger coming to us all if we remain much longer.  That sea fog, coming in from around the bend will be on us soon.  We must move inland and get beyond the sea cliffs to the descending valley on the other side.  You can follow or stay.  It is your choice.  But we…,” I looked down at Miray and smiled at her, and she wrinkled her nose and smiled up at me, “…we are going forward.”

As Miray and I turned to walk past them, I saw another little dark-haired girl, about Miray’s age or a little older, scowl and her eyes flashed daggers at Miray.  She clearly was not happy, but one by one the others followed us up the shoreline, winding up a switchback sandy grade and over the hill overlooking the sea.  Reluctantly she followed the group at last, as an older girl came back and took her hand.  She smiled at the girl who came back and they seemed to chat quietly as we wove between sea-weathered rounded boulders, and made our way down into a shadowy valley below.  For some reason, I knew the sea fog would not follow us there.  That it would move along the shore and skirt the ridge, but not pour over it into the valley beyond.  We were somehow safe in the shadow.

As we walked down, I heard some of those following behind speaking low among themselves, thinking I could not overhear.

“What do you think of this Mister Brian?”

“I think he’s full of crap, but we’ve nowhere else to go and there is no way I’m sticking around back there getting stuck in that fog.”

“Where do you think this place is?”

“I don’t know, but somehow I think I came here once before with my dad.”

Stunned, I stopped in my tracked and turned around to see if I could spot the speaker.

They all looked so innocent, but some blushed, realizing I had been aware of what they were saying.  I could not discern who the speaker might have been, so I turned back around facing the front.

“What’s wrong?” Miray asked, a concerned look on her face.

“Nothing,” I lied, “Nothing at all.”

*Scene 14* 1:08 (Going Inland)

The sun is, even now, at our backs.  The road stretches out ahead of us into the fading and darkening horizon.  The starlight above us begins to sharpen as the day yields its cooling place to the night.

Ascending the hillside leading up from the beachhead, I am almost as wary of the looming shadows, as I was of the sea fogs below.

I know it is not safe to be traveling at night, but we have no choice.  We have to get to the road and then to the valley beyond it.  The fog bank on the seashore now obscures the entire coastline.  Fogs here are dangerous.  Not all of them, but enough to make one avoid them.  There is something in them that makes people forget.  We’ve walked a fair piece, but there is a much farther place that we have to go to.  I say further, but that is not entirely true.  In some ways, it is very close.

By the time we reach the crest of the hillside, it is almost daybreak.  The sun’s glow gives a gilded edge to the mountain peaks in the distance.  The dawn is still a few hours away, but we feel the promise of it.  With the daybreak, comes the hopeful promises.  The chance to make those wishful dreams that linger in fading memory a work in progress towards fulfillment.