Pastimes of the Unseen

By Dean Vyas

There are forces around us, good and evil, that have total involvement in our lives, and yet we have no knowledge of them.
These forces, from a realm of spirit, are helping or damning us, simultaneously.

From the present day to far into the future, the line of the Priest family, from generation to generation, are siding with the forces of good. But what will be the outcome of this allegiance with these forces? Will their beliefs and actions be futile or efficacious in the greater scheme of things?
Similarly, the progress of humanity is splitsome venerating the benevolent forces, while a faction veers away into the hands of those evil. And these two aspects of the human race are in conflict; the Priests, therefore, are also embroiled. Wars result, and consequentially a renegade portion of humanity becomes a breed of cold monsters, half machine. They enact a final war
But who will emerge triumphant?
Whose philosophy is right, whose is wrong? And what to speak of the far reaching consequences for the spirit of these antagonistic facets of humanity?

The humble Priests find themselves implicated; they are to play a vital role in the evolution of humanity and an oppressed race enslaved by the cyborgs, where interstellar space travel, the terraforming of planets, and extreme genetic engineering become possible, where events of Biblical magnitude take place.

Pastimes of the Unseen is a story describing those forces around us, invisible, that are vying for our very body, and soul, wanting to destroy it or glorify it, and the consequence of our relationship to one or other of these forces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491885550

Dean Vyas

Dean Vyas graduated with an honours degree in Industrial Design, 1994, from Cardiff Institute of Higher Education. He is a religious fellow and had a Catholic upbringing. He regularly attends Church. His hobbies and interests vary from time to time but include hanging out with friends and going to the cinema. He lives in Cardiff, Wales, UK, and can be found on the web at www.deanvyas.com

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© 2013 by Dean Vyas. All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Dean Vyas.

All interior illustrations by Dean Vyas.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/02/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8554-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8555-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, places and events are used entirely fictitiously or else they are from the author’s imagination.

Contents

Prologue       The celestial bauble screams

Chapter 1       The storm arrives

Chapter 2       Humanity possessed

Chapter 3       Escape by any means

Chapter 4       Lesser of two evils

Chapter 5       Fire from the sky

Chapter 6       Nudge

Chapter 7       Plethora of flesh, concrete and steel

Chapter 8       The Collective of Light

Chapter 9       The nice civil servant

Chapter 10       Survival in the abyss

Chapter 11       If I don’t get some shelter

Chapter 12       The doomed multitude

Chapter 13       Machines and souls

Chapter 14       The Flood revisited

Chapter 15       Beware, the infidel in a suit

Chapter 16       Subsea shuffle

Chapter 17       The final tally

Chapter 18       Earth breathes again

Chapter 19       Revival of faith

Chapter 20       The new religious fervor

Chapter 21       Centuries pass

Chapter 22       The psychic factor

Chapter 23       The Transdimensional Gate

Chapter 24       New Creation

Chapter 25       Synthetic life?

Chapter 26       The monster unbound

Chapter 27       Grand designs of the fiendish

Chapter 28       Terror tactics and sabotage

Chapter 29       The second Eden

Chapter 30       Apex predator rampant

Chapter 31       The Propelux Engine

Chapter 32       Premonition

Chapter 33       Snake in the grass

Chapter 34       The dreadful lie

Chapter 35       Eat of the fruit

Chapter 36       Dark victory

Chapter 37       The bitter resignation

Chapter 38       Ultimatum

Chapter 39       The apple of God’s eye

Chapter 40       Lament of the New People

Chapter 41       The divine revelation

Chapter 42       Alight from the Heavens

Chapter 43       The empowering

Chapter 44       Escape from Dawkins

Chapter 45       A likely story

Chapter 46       As bad as each other

Chapter 47       Manna on the mountain

Chapter 48       The building of trust

Chapter 49       One-trick pony

Chapter 50       Homecoming

Chapter 51       The dark counterplan

Chapter 52       The demonic contravention

Chapter 53       Bringer of salvation

Chapter 54       Deliverance from evil

Chapter 55       A bitter secondment

Chapter 56       The teardrops ignite

Chapter 57       A grim discovery

Chapter 58       Freedom’s messenger

Chapter 59       The Devil’s prayer

Chapter 60       Earth’s vigil

Chapter 61       Hell’s gambit

Chapter 62       Scramble to the sky

Chapter 63       Best laid plans of mice, Earth and wolves

Chapter 64       Battlezone!

Chapter 65       Love and war

Chapter 66       Who survives?

Chapter 67       Divine intervention

Chapter 68       Victory Earth

Chapter 69       Extinction

Chapter 70       Reward and punishment

Epilogue       Intense love

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Dean Vyas graduated with an honours degree in Industrial Design, 1994, from Cardiff Institute of Higher Education.

He is a religious fellow and regularly attends Church.

His hobbies and interests vary from time to time but include hanging out with friends and going to the cinema.

He lives in Cardiff, Wales, UK, and can be found on the web at www.deanvyas.com

Dedicated to my Mum, Dad and Sister.

Merriam-Webster

Definition of SIN

1

a : an offense against religious or moral law

b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible 

c : an often serious shortcoming : fault

2

a : transgression of The Rule of God

b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Jesus answered, It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Then the Devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the Son of God, he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:

‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’"

Jesus answered him, It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

Again, the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me.

Jesus said to him, Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’

Then the Devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Bible; Matthew 4:1-11—NIV, 2011

Vishnu’s Attendants Rescue Ajâmila

He saw how three characters approached him with fearful features, twisted faces and their hairs standing on end, who with the noose in their hands were ready to take him away. Terrified and with tears in his eyes he thus loudly called for his nearby playing child named Nârâyana. As soon as Vishnu’s servants heard the name of the Lord their master from the mouth of the dying man oh King, they came immediately. At the moment the messengers of death were pulling away Ajâmila from the heart of the maidservant’s husband, the Vishnudûtas forbade it with resounding voices.

Srimad Bhagavatam; Canto 6,

Chapter1:28-31—Bhagavata.org

Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me! For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you impure spirit!

Then Jesus asked him, What is your name?

My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Bible; Mark 5:1-20—NIV, 2011

Prologue

The celestial bauble screams

What was once a blue Earth was streaked and blotched with flaring red and orange, crying with disease and conflict. Dying with a failing immune system, raging out of control, so that its tissues were being devoured by its very own antibodies. Reducing and disintegrating before blind eyes. Before blind eyes?

Those sprawling and squirming on its surface were in ignorance of how and why, certainly, bar a relative few. The Earth’s blood was spilling and curdling, ruptures and lesions pockmarked its surface now, as the planet convulsed in death throes.

But the Celestial Landlord saw all and knew all.

No one had thought of the Earth as a living entity, but it was. Composed of a billion and more biological components, all working together to make it function as a whole. But now it was malfunctioning. The muscles—living organisms of lesser mental effectuality than the apex positioned human race, were being annihilated. The very bones of the Earth, the natural environment, were being destroyed—had over centuries been destroyed.

And what did the Earth think about its demise? What were its thoughts?

They were unknown, undetectable by any of its bodily parts, each composed of separate living entities in their own right.

But the Celestial Landlord heard clearly her agonized cries, ringing through the cosmos.

The Earth was riddled with cancer. Its very lifeblood was infected and skewed. The corpuscles, humanity, were devouring one another and the Earth’s flesh and bone. Decimated from the inside out.

Does one care if he grazes his elbow or has a blister on her thumb? Not really. Not much anyway. Minor disruptions to the machine don’t perturb the ghost driver as such. A few small blood vessels agitated and torn, a few cells ruined—but life goes on. The soul continues to inhabit the machine.

But it wasn’t just a malaise that she, the Earth, was experiencing now. Her body was at war with itself and she was on the verge of giving up the ghost.

The great soul that mobilized the planet was about to eject. The soul that had lived within for millennia was losing its corporeal form, her life in the once beautiful garment of two thirds ultramarine blue and one khaki brown, was ending.

Only one could avail through her desperate plight—only one who could take effective action to change her fate.

And that individual told her—it will soon be over—this hardship is but temporary and once your time of perseverance is complete you will be closer to me. I will reward you for what you have endured so graciously. Just a little longer and it will be over.

And so the frightened, agonized thoughts of the Earth swarmed electrically between the brain cell components on the planet, a personal chaos in the void of space, a frenzied panic, her soul on the verge of jumping ship but even so, still attached to the disintegrating gross material mass that had been its habitat for so long. On the brink, the body almost flatlining.

But, the Master knew, a panic that, though encouraged, could have been avoided. A fear that could have been allayed—a hardship that could have been borne. Earth was suffering but chose to make a drama out of the crisis.

The author of Earth’s fate soothed her, pacified her.

And so she made the effort to endure peacefully and with dignity through the dark night of the soul.

Chapter 1

The storm arrives

The floor shifted violently as the suburban, two-story, council-owned block rocked on its foundation.

Jack Priest, the seventeen-year-old son of Stacy Priest and brother to her daughter, Elly Priest, urgently ushered them to get under the dining table quickly, grabbing them by the shoulder and shoving them under, for fear that what was now a distant, early warning might be a ground zero strike on their home at any moment.

Quick, quickly, come on, come on! he urged.

The Priest family crawled under the large dining table for temporary shelter as the building ceased undulating.

The radio was on nearby, despite being shaken to the dislodged linoleum floor. Fragments of its plastic veneer had splintered off but it still functioned, as the broadcaster dolefully extolled the message. He was desperate in his delivery, shouting above a cacophony of rumbling and people uttering expletives, a considerable commotion from the radio station’s broadcast studio. Then there was a loud crack and crunching of concrete and building materials collapsing. The broadcaster’s shouting became borderline screaming as he told of the approaching storm. His grave message veered away from his script as he expressed himself in a frenzied spontaneity, as the chaos of his circumstance was all too apparent to the Priests, listening under the shelter of the table.

"People of the UK, this is a state of great emergency! Citizens, war is on! I’m speaking from the London Studio and the situation here is desperate . . . This broadcast won’t go on for much longer . . . I urge you to seek shelter from the strikes. Those of you in the heart of the city, get down into the cellars of your homes . . . seek shelter immediately. Those of you on the outskirts of the cities—leave entirely. Get away from the strike zones and stay in the country.

"We do not know for sure who the perpetrators of this gross abomination are but we strongly suspect combined terrorist forces that we know have acquired nuclear weapons in the last two years . . . They were hidden from us and on mobile launch platforms. That they would use, or are using them now, is no surprise . . . Tel Aviv has been leveled . . . reprisal nuclear strikes against those Israel suspects are responsible are happening as I speak, and in turn they are returning fire against those they think are responsible."

A thunder crack of shattering brick and steel, too big to be contained within the speaker of the radio, burst out, startling the three members of the Priest family huddled under the table, fearing that the next round of bombardment would be closer to their domicile.

The broadcaster sounded somewhat dazed. Citizens of the United Kingdom, as you can hear, London is under attack . . . We have information that similar attacks are taking place in major cities around the globe . . . that the terrorist organizations could arm themselves so powerfully . . . if indeed they are responsible for this heinous action . . . was something we never imagined possible. They have awakened the sleeping giant that is now this conflict!

From the radio, another huge grinding rumble of a tower block in violent torsion. Screams, followed by wailing and sobbing in the background.

"Truth is, now we really do not know who is responsible for the escalation of this horrendous act. There is no further information incoming through the web. This building is disintegrating before my eyes. Computers are down. Exits blocked with concrete and steel members . . . No way out . . .

But telecoms still functioning . . . His voice lowered as if with grim expectancy that his life would be a short one. We, I, don’t know who is responsible—the root cause . . . we suspect terrorist groups. But Israel and its allies have assumed these are merely proxies for the real aggressors, and have acted accordingly. There is a chain reaction of retaliatory strikes occurring between nations responding in kind to nuclear launches and some detonations . . . It’s escalating . . . Exponentially . . . everything—nuclear, chemical, biological, weapons are flying. There won’t be a droplet in a water pistol when this one is over . . .

A final violent wrenching and then the sound of tumbling tower block, accompanied by a smattering of screams and shouts. After a good ten seconds, the radio hissed silently as if the broadcaster and his crew (and broadcasting tower block) had been swallowed by a gargantuan, ravenous snake.

The trio shuddered under the cheap pine table, in fear that their home was in imminent danger of being the next building to be struck by a missile. Nothing occurred for some three minutes. Then, as they collected their thoughts, trying to remove the factor of fear, it became oh so obvious that the Ikea table they were under would not protect them from the direct strike of a twenty megaton warhead, if one happened, perchance, to fly through their window under remote guidance.

But the fear element was not one they could detach from easily, as the distant rumbles ensued. They were not sure whether they were small explosions close by, or larger ones in neighboring cities.

Cardiff was a medium-sized city and Jack figured that there was a 50/50 chance of it being bombed. But soon, as the rumblings became more prevalent, he reevaluated, seeing as either the city was already under direct attack, or else the smaller neighboring cities were. The larger City of Cardiff would therefore certainly be a target for a full scale attack, also, in due course.

Jack Priest considered the options, trying to isolate himself from the external bedlam, with a relatively clear head, juxtaposed with the other two’s, whose lack of conversation told of their terror, as they huddled under the table.

No, as they were presently situated, they stood no chance, were a large, (heaven forbid) nuclear weapon to strike their city.

They were based in the Grangetown area of Cardiff—fairly central, so close to centre that Jack half expected that any bomb projected would land directly on their heads. And they lived on the first floor of a council property, so the late broadcaster’s advice to move to a cellar was a moot point. Jack wondered and then remembered that the block of flats they lived in had no cellar anyway, so even making a dash for one downstairs would only leave them disappointed in a now we’re burnt pizza kind of way.

Stacy Priest, the mother of the two, clutched rosary beads in her right hand, while having her arms around Elly. She muttered prayers under her breath to the God that, on many occasions past, had gotten her out of tight fixes. Stacy was a staunch Catholic. Her faith had oftentimes bolstered her and enabled her to have a communion with God, who she believed enabled her to succeed through such trials. But this one was particularly extreme.

In recent times, the most long standing and severe was her relationship with her husband. The scar above her right eye, that had needed five stitches, was testimony to this fact.

He was a wife beater and waster and did little for her and the kids. He was not averse to snorting lines of cocaine, whenever he came into a bit of money. But by far his worst attribute was the extension of his bitterness, his propensity for violence toward the children also.

As best she could (and she was one hundred percent effective in such situations), she bore the brunt of his anger, becoming the wall between him and them. Probably more a punch-bag. His bitter, maladjusted nature’s manifestation had resulted in two times when she had been beaten so badly that she had to be admitted to hospital and many occasions when she was so badly bruised, that she had to overkill the foundation and avoid going out in daylight.

But God had answered her prayers that she be rescued:

Her husband, as harsh a man within the family environment as he was, in equal measure outside of it, was a pussycat. A couple of teenage hoodlums, fourteen and fifteen years old, had mugged him while he was on his way back from a visit to the seller supplying his coke. During the scuffle, he didn’t do much to defend himself, which might have made them reconsider intensifying their attack upon him. The body language he gave off made them think he was a sitting duck, which, in fact, is what he was. The two cocaine ducks had battered him and he was now at the local hospital—in a coma.

Even though this was not the way Stacy had wanted herself and her kids to gain their freedom, she was relieved that they were not the stress toys for her husband anymore.

There were many other times when her God had liberated her, from the moment Stacy first placed her trust in him, in her teenage years. And her faith she passed onto the children, thoroughly versing them in the Bible and a Christian lifestyle.

And now in her condition of despairing fear and worry, mainly for her children, she white knuckled the rosary and prayed for a miracle. Between her whispered prayers, she spoke to Elly and Jack, trying to comfort them but not really with a mental coherence, as shocked as she was.

Jack had been the first to regather his faculties and some four minutes after the first and, so far, largest tremor that had shaken the block they were in, he spoke to the two. Listen, Mum, Elly, we’re going to have to leave here. It’s much too unsafe, he urged them. He embraced the two, trying to squeeze the fear from their tensioned bodies. On letting go, seeing them still huddled with wide eyes, he knew it hadn’t worked. C’mon, we gotta find a cellar to wait inside, ‘til this is all over, he said loudly, as another explosion provided the soundtrack for his words.

Where will we go, Jack? ventured Stacy, who herself now tried to gain more control, looking at eleven-year-old Elly to gauge her demeanor. Everyone will be dug into their cellars like fleas on cats—they won’t open up for us! she said with a tense urgency.

We’ve got to try, was his short answer. He could see that there were tears in Elly’s eyes. He wiped them away with his fingers. C’mon!

Stacy’s riposte was based on fact. There’s no cellar for this block—we’ll have to leave it and try another place—

"Then let’s do it. C’mon, we need to go now, before the next explosion is a direct one!"

Jack was braced for action but the other two needed coaxing. He knelt by them, and firmly pushed them forward with his right arm, his other supporting him on the linoleum floor. Slowly, they began to budge, with the reluctance of ostriches lifting their heads from the sand that had covered them.

As they scrambled in a crouching fashion to the door of the kitchen (having just left the false security of their position under the table), there was an almighty, elongated CRACK of a detonation that landed in the vicinity of their block of flats. The floor jolted as the building was displaced, warping, the floor timbers blown upward and through the linoleum. Simultaneously the window shattered, sending shards of glass flying through the kitchen, billowing with dust and debris. That they were hunkered to the floor had saved them from the glass shrapnel, from the now smashed and deformed, high-level, kitchen window.

The three had been hurled to the far wall, opposite side to the window, as though the building were a vehicle that had undergone a crash test. They lay sprawled on the lino, pierced with jutting fractions of floor timber members.

Jack had been behind the other two as they had made a dash for it and a few small fragments of the glass windowpane, blown to smithereens, had ricocheted from above the height of the kitchen work-surface toward him. Where they had struck him, on his T-shirted back and upper arms, were some minor, bleeding lacerations.

Elly had been snuggled close to Mum, Stacy, and though stunned by the blast, was unscathed. For brief moments she was struck numb, dazed.

But Stacy had been injured by the shattering timber planks that had shot through the plastic lino as she and Elly together had attempted to reach the door. The canvas shoe on her right foot had not offered any protection against the spear of fragmented softwood that had sheared through it and her lower calf muscle. She moaned in the pain that was now washing over her, the other two silent and stunned.

Gradually, some twenty seconds later, Jack came to. Are you . . . okay? Mum, Elly? He tried and succeeded in breaking out of his reclined posture on the floor, timbers poking up either side of him.

Young Elly, disorientated, Yes . . . I’m all right, I think. Stacy’s right arm was still loosely positioned around her shoulder.

Stacy’s groaning made it clear to Jack that she had not fared so well. She gave no reply to his question but she was conscious. She was the last to gather her mental balance. The rosary, which she still grasped in her left hand, she struggled to place around her neck, as confused as she was.

Even so, her faith was so prominent that she tenuously related to it at that moment—she tried to assert to herself that sometimes things get worse before they get better. Even following prayer. She had identified this occurrence in the past. Things can get worse, before they get better. But it works out in the end. It certainly gets better. There’s reward at the end, she tried to convince herself. Such had been her past experience.

And in her anguish, she mentally struggled with herself to believe that the God she was so devoted to was with her in this crisis, holding her upright, and helping her to get through this torrid challenge. She coaxed herself that it was he himself who had put her in this situation—for a good purpose.

On more mundane and humdrum days she had thought of these hardships (which, to varying degrees she knew God presents all individuals) as a means by which he causes the afflicted one to come closer to him and grow in faith, tempered in the fires of suffering, as eventually he brings them through that hardship, to be rewarded on the other side.

But in the pain she felt now, it was harder to believe in, or relate to, this theory and the lessons of past experience—that there was a pot of gold at the end of this particularly grueling rainbow. On the one hand, due to previous life experiences, devotional habit and in her desperation, she felt the need for God—while on the other she was slightly more distanced from him by hurting, and the questions, Why me? Why us?

Her faith was