The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" (11 page)

Suddenly,
the amulet started burning my chest with intense heat. Alarmed, I heard the
trampling of earth behind me.

A
shrieking voice rang out, ‘I told you to stay out of my business, and you
didn’t listen!’

‘Wait,
who—’ I asked, but before I could turn around, two palms slammed into my back,
decisively shoving my body into the air. The last thing I heard was his answer
to my interrupted question.

‘Travis!’
he yelled.

I
remember in flashes, seeing the cliff, water, and sky, repeated over and over.
I could not scream; my throat was tightly constricted with fear.

I
was flailing in the wind, just like when I fell from the oak tree at the Red
Bricks. Through my eyes, tiny dots of light speckled my vision. These were
blinding and painful. Travis blasted me so hard that my shoes flew off my feet.

Suddenly,
I felt the welcome force of
The Intervention
enveloping my body.
Overcome with exultation, I found myself frozen in mid-air. Out of the corner
of my eye, I saw a tall male stranger on the other side of the river, watching
from the docks.  My last thoughts were of joy, because someone was there to
witness it.

Weightlessness
was the state of my body for a moment. It was if I was nowhere, and that I was
nothing, all at once.

Indeed,
there was nothing but the echo of my thoughts populating a dark, black void.

Then
I snapped out of it.

Instantly,
I slammed into the cold white floor of a shiny enclosure. Aching with stabbing
pain all over, I pushed myself up from the floor, totally shocked that I didn’t
fall into a watery grave—or worse, finding myself into dismembered pieces
amidst the cruel jutting edges of an unforgiving cliff face.

The
floor transitioned from a blindingly luminous white to multi-colored, then
slowly faded. Feeling faint, I and hurled myself up to my feet, but I collapsed
back to the floor.

I
scanned my surroundings. The room was gleaming white all around, and seeing
glossy walls, I crawled to one side to touch it, throbbing with curiosity. Up
close, the wall seemed transparent, but was as solid as rock. Incredibly, the
wall had radiated heat when I touched it, unlike the floor, which was cold. As
I looked closer at the mysterious wall, I saw thousands of tiny holes dotted
all throughout in a meticulous pattern. I lay upon my back and yelled, ‘Where
the hell am I?’

Then
a voice, soothing and deep, massaged my mind. The bass of the male voice felt
calming and tranquil. He was telling me to be still. I was putting together a
retort, but my eyes grew weary and my body still felt weightless.

My
mysterious charm necklace was cool and comforting. To my surprise, the walls
instantly changed color, from white to a sort of tan. But contrary to my
initial impression, it wasn’t a change of hue. As I looked on in fascination, a
sappy, syrup-like substance spurted through these millions of tiny holes! The
floor was rapidly being coated with this liquid, and I momentarily flipped my
lid as the substance spread to the floor and soaked the soles of my socks.

The
liquid continued to rise. The prospect of a dam bursting broke in through to my
skull, and triggered my survival instinct. I pounded against the walls until my
knuckles bled, I shouted, ‘You are going to drown me, you jerks?’

The
room filled extremely quickly. The thick substance continued to flow beyond the
height of my shoulders. As the fluid lifted my body upwards, the space between
the ceiling and the liquid dwindled to about an inch. My window of survival was
closing fast.

I
turned my chin toward the light that shined upon the enclosure, took one final
breath, and closed my eyes.

A
voice, clear as if it was actually in my mind to begin with, calmed me. I
prayed to God in thought and the man said, ‘No need to pray, Theodore, you must
take in the fluid, swallow it, breath it. It will be painful at first. However,
your body will remember its benefit.’

When
you are near death, and the person—who you think is out to take your
life—offers you a way out, you take it, unless the way presented is morally
repugnant. Otherwise, you are better off dying.

The
voice echoed as it tailed off. I acquired a warm trusting opinion of the voice,
and inhaled the liquid. Despite my clear self-command, I found myself choking
on the liquid. My lungs caused me to convulse as they gasped frantically for
air. Ignoring my base instincts, I forced the liquid down my throat.

That
moment was as close to death as I had ever been.

 My
self-induced drowning was agonizing and traumatically devastating. I could no
longer ingest any more liquid. My final breath snuffed out, I saw stars. There
was a soft tingle in my oxygen-starved arms and shoulders. Was I dead? With the
last bit of energy left within my body, I lifted my right arm.

 ‘He
has awakened, my King,’ someone said near me, while my vision crept back into
existence.

In
a similar deepness of tone to the first voice in the enclosure, someone spoke
with an authoritative tone, ‘Don’t try to move or speak, or you will suffer
great pain. Your body is in a state of expelling the dephlocontis mucilage.’ I
started coughing the remnants of the alien tan-colored mucus from my esophagus
onto my cupped hands. ‘You have been at rest for a few hours in Earth time. It
isn’t customary for us to cleanse a body with tonic during a teleport. However,
within your temple, we found a sinister and vile curse.’ The speaker paused,
and turned his head to ask his supervisor if I could speak yet. Yes.

‘Are
you familiar with cancer, Theodore?’

My
vision finally became more clear. In awe, I saw the speaker. Before me was a
majestic royal subject, who was pacing behind the glass door. He was highly
decorated from the ground up, with merits and commendations. His forearms were
encased in decoratively organized shards of a golden substance. His head was
fitted with a levitating crown. It looked like it was made of the same
substance and brilliantly jeweled. The glare was so strong that I could not
stare at it too long without my eyelids filling with tears.

He
had a cape of hair draped from trapezius level of his shoulder blade to just
past his waist. The cape was braided with beads of light, dyed with a wide
range of colors, and was well groomed. He was extremely hairy, covered with
dark brown hair all over his body, not like an Afghan mountain hound, but still
intimidating. The texture of the hair away from his face was like that of a
well-groomed man’s beard; long enough to appear like a pleasant, lush pattern,
but not so short as to jut out like harsh bristles. He was encased in an
incredible armor, consisting of a pliable and flexible rocklike substance.

 Back
to the question about cancer. ‘Y-y-yes sir, my great grandfather Willard died
from it,’ I said, feebly trying to muster up a voice. Once again, my eyes took
in the magnificence of the being before me.

A
robotic individual who was observing a holographic tablet in the background
interjected, ‘He speaks about the man who dishonored his marital contract on
February 2, 1982 at 3:22 p.m.’

‘That
is of no matter,’ the regal figure exclaimed toward the robotic thing beside
me. He turned back toward me, ‘You must know. You were riddled with leukemia,
as the earthlings call it. You may recall feeling the overwhelming sensation of
fatigue and weakness or pain upon your knees, elbows, and spine. During your
transport here, we analyzed your molecular makeup, and found the abomination.
It was simply deleted from your composition. It is a precaution of ours to heal
a body, once the curse has been removed, with the tonic of a dephlocontis tree.
This should explain your submersion in the fluid. I apologize for that,’ the
king said.

‘Who
are you, what am I doing here, and where is
here
?’ I demanded.

‘Don’t
speak, and listen please, as you would to your grandparents. My name is King
Trazuline Halperin. I am Zane’s Chief Defense Advisor, and King of the planet
Karshiz. You were brought here because of your overexposure to a multiversal
terrorist.”

As
I slowly mulled over the majesty’s name, it dawned upon me. ‘King Trazuline….
K.T.! You sent me the jeweled necklace!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes,
Theodore. That was the only way we could ensure your safety and locate you for
the teleport. Right now, we are orbiting the planet of Sephera. You are an
organic creature, created of living carbon. Therefore, you are not here in the
manner most beings are. The populations that reside on Sephera are mainly
digital and spiritual in nature. They are not extracted from life, but rather
from death. Their fate, if you will, led them here. Your fate has not been
decided yet, and your business here is of extreme danger. A risk we willingly
took up. We brought you here in reaction to a growing dilemma. You should know,
Theodore, there is an evil smothering Earth and threatening the serenity of
Sephera.’ He turned to robot, ‘Prepare the chamber.’

‘Why
should I care? I am only a teenager,’ I said.
Who was Zane
, I pondered
to myself.
What was Sephera
?

‘Our
nemesis extracted a man about a week ago from the future. You would know him,
I’m afraid. We have conclusive data that the so-called David, the young man who
led you to the river at Taylors Falls,  was actually Travis Jackson.’

I
gasped. Whoa—Travis had actually transformed into someone else? And why did he
stage his own disappearance?

 King
Trazuline nodded solemnly at my aghast reaction. ‘He was extracted by the
Dacturons, because they wish to use him to meddle into the affairs of the
Urilians. He is no longer of your time.’

My
eyes widened. ‘He—he is of the future?’

The
king sighed. ‘No. Not that either.’

‘I—I
don’t understand, your majesty.’

‘Travis
is no longer here or there, but he is extremely dangerous still. It was a
change that left us feeling extremely vulnerable. Travis’ future self murdered
his fifteen year old version with a merge.’

My
hands began to shake.

‘Travis,’
the king continued, his eyes squinting, ‘has been wholly transformed into an
unstoppable force, powered by hatred. He is attached to no time or place and
can move freely between our realms. We estimate his age to be twenty-two.’  He
began to pace left and right, ‘We are not entirely sure why he has been
frequenting your house or why he attempted to end your life, so he could get
you a one-way ticket to Sephera, but we do know that it has something to do
with the home in which you live.’

‘A
moment sire,’ the robot whispered to King Trazuline.

Bowing
his head at me, the royal left the room through the automatic sliding doors to
confer with his subject. The hum of their discussion slipped through the
slender gap of the doors, but I could not make out the words. I sat there
nervous and inundated with thoughts. I wondered what the Dacturons wanted with
my house. They were using Travis to get to me.

The
king and his subject re-entered the room, seemingly content.

 Pushing
aside the thoughts of Travis, I had to know who my rescuer was. I gazed at his
majestic garb as he towered over me. ‘Sir, so you are really a King?’ I asked.
‘Your armor is intense.’ I once again admired his armor.

He
said, ‘Yes, I am a king, and this is traditional battle gear in my culture. It
is comprised of metals foreign to your land. What seems to be a crown my boy,
is actually a rolesk entrusted to me by Zane. Rolesks afford us the ability to
manipulate Dietons.’

He
stopped for a moment to stroke his fingers against an emblem on his armor, and
like one of my old transforming figurines, his armor simplified into a shield
that he slung over his back. I was stunned at this display of what seemed to be
magic.

He
said, ‘I apologize, I was getting hot. Where was I? Dietons. They were designed
during an age of nanotechnology near the beginning of my time. It is a concept
upon which your planet spent lavishly in the future.’ His voice deepened. ‘They
just barely scratched the surface!
We
are the ones who perfected the
technology. You previously referred to these Dietons as
The Intervention
.
You are unfamiliar with nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has to do with
technology on an atomic or molecular level. In other words, too small to be
observed by the naked eye, but still intensely signifi—’

He
was interrupted by another alien being from across the room. He said, ‘Sir, if
I may, the boy may have trouble comprehending all that you speak of. We must
not assume he can fathom these concepts. He must first evolve, at least at an
intellectual level satisfactory for our purposes.’

I
sucked in my breath, as he stood out so easily. Over twelve feet tall, he
triumphantly towered over the others. Like an angel, he had symmetrical wings
tucked neatly behind his torso, encased in a golden material. As I looked at
him, I admired him. He was of great nobility as well, just like King Trazuline.
He too was crowned with a rolesk.

This
being turned his head toward me and gently said, ‘No offense, boy. I am not at
all in disbelief of your capabilities. I am just concerned about your capacity
for this overwhelming amount of knowledge in such a short time.’ He placed his
hand on my shoulder and continued, ‘I’ll cut to the chase. The Dacturons are
the enemy. Travis is working with them, and you are our only hope.’