New World: Solstice Series, #5

By John J Blenkush

A maligned and shamed teenager transforms into our planet's only hope for salvation.

The Solstice book series is nothing like I have ever enjoyed reading before. The story of Jules from her humble beginnings to her foretold end is inspiring. Fans of Stephanie Meyer will immediately want to dive into this series. This book is a great read at twilight or dawn or midday. There is the potential aspect that the story could be only akin to Bobby stepping out of the shower.

The reader will have to determine how these stories appeal to them. If you are a fan of Suzanne Collins, then this book series is for you too. The constant keeping the reader on edge generates a hunger that feels like a game. The books are a sweeping saga seemingly about love. The love of Aaron and Julissa or is it the love of peace? What is the price of peace and what will you have to put up with or give up before reaching that goal? Read this incredible series and determine that for yourself. Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien will also love this series. I will be shocked if Apple+ doesn't come knocking to create a new tv show out of this series.  N.N. Light

• Language: English
• Publisher: John J Blenkush
• Release date: Nov 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393501589

John J Blenkush

John J Blenkush is the author of the critically acclaimed thrillers REDDITION and STACY’S STORY, (Kirkus) SANDMAN OF CAYE CAULKER and the epic SOLSTICE SERIES.  A varied professional career in aeronautics, engineering, construction, and IT security requiring extensive travel has instilled in John a wide-angle view of the world and its diverse inhabitants, stirred his imagination, and jump-started his foray into penning stories.  Besides writing, John loves the great outdoors, running marathons, and recreational mountain climbing.  He lives with his wife, Nancy, in Northern California.

Book preview

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day

you find out why."

Mark Twain

Resurrection

At the first whiff of putrid fresh air my lungs seize. Like a newborn I cry out, uttering nonsensical words. This forces me to breathe through my nose. A repulsive smell, similar to stale locker-room sweat or rotting potatoes, sears my nostrils. Tainted within is the odor of decaying flesh. I retreat to my safe haven, burrowing deeper into the oblivion I’ve come to cherish since my pod was launched out of Telos. Here I exist only in memory, floating through the sectors of a life lived without the burdened anticipation of living a life yet to come. This is where I find freedom. Where I find clarity. Where I reap peace. Knowing that I won’t be challenged. That my thoughts can travel the world around and never be altered by exterior forces.

I’m that little girl again, freed from being forced to learn new, only knowing what I know, discovery resigned to self. A naïve being only seeing and reveling in nirvana. Negatives have yet to rise. And, so, I play the reels of my short life over-and-over again, viewing them through rose-tinted glasses of bliss, same as those who see their lives flash before them just before death overtakes.

It's as Kriss’shon had said: Your life will remain in abeyance until you’re freed from the pod. The question is: Do I want to escape the pod? Do I want to continue with life? I can find no other answers than these: Not at this moment. Not when my first exposure to a returned life is steeped in stench. Not when I have to respond to external stimuli. Not with a brain so conditioned by the passing of time to remain flaccid, relaxed, and emotionally adrift that I can’t force it to function properly.

For how does one reengage after sleeping for decades? Or have I been out longer? Has a century passed? Do I care? Not at the moment.

I feel an abnormal thump on the pod, as though something’s banging the hull.

AS MY POD SHOT UP AND out of Shastina, I initially felt airborne. Soon after, my rocket plunged to earth. Like a torpedo, it dove beneath the water with such force I was squeezed into a small, tight ball, from which I felt I would never return.

I blacked out.

For what seemed a long time I drifted in and out of the dark stupor, always on the brink of returning, riding along the crest of consciousness. Sure, I was aware that I was breathing, that at times I felt hungry, that now and again my legs, indeed my whole body, twitched excessively. And then the pod rose, and I was bobbing. On water. Water at a level so high it had consumed 12,000-foot Mount Shastina? For this is where my pod had exited; at the top of Shastina, the same place where my wedding had been held. It was, I’m certain, up through the elevator shaft that our pods were driven by the explosion of water from the gullet of the mountain’s caverns. This is where I had sat and held accord with Jungo, struggling with my decision to return to my former life as a high-school student at Mount Shasta High or drop back below to Telos and become the Lemurian’s singular hope for survival.

The memory entrenched as I wake is of the pod swaying back and forth, swept to and fro by the waves. I open my eyes. Try to see. There’s light. Exposure. But no detail. Just foggy images of maybe...blue sky, birds flying, clouds hanging. And off to the side, viewed in my peripheral, for I cannot turn my head, are barges of...ice? Or is what I see imagined? Have I gone delusional?

I force a whiff. Inhale deep of the air. It’s pure. Earthly. Not cleansed by machinery, nor filtered until purged of taste and smell. This is what I’ve grown to anticipate, maybe even before I experienced it. For isn’t this what Kriss’shon had pointedly impressed upon me? That I’d remain in limbo. Physically? Mentally? Emotionally? And when I asked what would keep me from suffocating while I was entombed in the shell? She replied simply, An air scrubber.

Her solution to the problem seemed sterile, unrevolutionary. I expected more. Something like a miracle-in-the-making, which would keep me from suffocating in my own spit. All I could ask was, Like the one NASA uses for their space station?

Much more sophisticated, Kriss’shon said. We expect earth’s air will be noxious after the Apocalypse. Ash from the volcanic mega-eruptions will be so thick no one will survive within their eruption parameters. It will poison the earth. And smother many of those topside. Kriss’shon also says something indicating my pure oxygen will be made from relatively clean water through electrolysis. A dire thought, given the earth’s covered by 71 percent water, which will likely be septic.

Many? Some will survive? I asked, stunned.

Kriss’shon’s eyes clouded over, as if in remembrance. In all mega-events, earth freezes. No human or creature, topside, can endure and remain alive. All are lost. Unless they find shelter and food, they will die.

Digging, I had asked, That’s what happened when Mu sank?

Kriss’shon had turned away. It was answer enough. I could only imagine how many loved ones, how many friends, how many Lemurians suffered and were lost. I wondered; How old was Kriss’shon when all this happened? Was she one of the forerunners to escape to the tunnels of Shasta?

I’d thought of Cherrie still topside, and all the others, including the Belials. None could survive the fallout. Not even the beasties. So then why would I want to return to this world? Sure, I and the other twenty-four encapsulated in the pods are to return decades if not centuries after the Apocalypse. But even so, what will we find? A moonscape? An earth scarified? Animal and plant life gone extinct?

But now that I’m here, I flick my eyelids in an attempt to wash away the scum that’s blocking my vision. Doesn’t happen. I’m left crippled with a pastel palate of colors to decipher. Blues and greens and splotches of white. And now and again, a black ribbon streaks through, which interrupts my focus, the little that I have, made so by the thick grime on my eyes.

It’s clear the stench is not being swept away, even though a breeze washes across my face and fresh air flushes out my nostrils, which implies the pod’s hatch has been blown.

Could it be, as Kriss’shon had said, If the pod senses decay, it will automatically blow the hatch.

To which I replied: Decay? You mean like my body rotting?

Yes, she had said.

So I’ll be dead.

You don’t have to be dead for your body to start decomposing. We lose skin all the time. Decay naturally as we grow older. But the pure oxygen you’ll be breathing in the pod will not only slow deterioration, it’ll reverse some of the damage already done. At least that’s the hope.

Some! I wanted to know.

Yes, you’ll be in a state of cryptobiosis. Your metabolic processes will slow to near stop. Like wintering animals, you’ll hibernate. Only your hibernation will be longer. The damage expected will be minimal. And if it isn’t, you’ll never know.

Neither of the choices sounds comforting, but I defer to optimism. But I’ll return, whole? Not frozen, roasted, or radiated?

Of course. If you drink this.

Kriss’shon handed me a rather large cup containing what appeared to be watery milk.

What is it?

A mixture of fungi and insects.

Right then I gulped and nearly lost the contents of my stomach. You want me to drink mold and insect guts?

Not exactly. It’s trehalose, a sugar, the kind fungi and insects make. It’ll protect your cells from damage, same as it does the tardigrade.

Tardigrades, I remembered, were also known affectionately as water bears. I had studied them in school. Micro-creatures, who can withstand extremes of cold, hot, radiation, and even lack of oxygen. NASA had attached them to their rockets, blasted them up into space, and, after returning, not only found the tardigrades still alive, but reproducing. Scientists have frozen them to near absolute zero, fried them in fire, and shot radiation into their tiny bodies, and yet they kept living. They’ve found them high up in the Himalayans and deep within the oceans. Neither vacuum nor extreme pressure would kill them. They’re everywhere and have existed on earth for millions of years. It’s predicted they will be the last life on earth just prior to when the sun dies out in four-billion years.

I drank the magic potion. But I was still concerned. So then why would the hatch blow?

Failure of the scrubber. Decay will accelerate. This is what will be sensed.

To what point? Will I lose fingers? Toes? An arm? Leg?

There’s no coming back when the body reaches the equilibrium of divergence between life and death. Unless...

What?

Unless mankind has medically advanced far beyond where they are today.

I think of Dr. Tyler Zischke, and of pluripotent cells, ones manipulated into making divergent tissues. Didn’t he say that I had them? That I am thee Holy Grail of medicine? That if I had stayed topside, I could have saved Jessie Nurge? Could someone—far off in the future—put this Humpty Dumpty back together again? Should I fail to return whole? And become rancid. Decayed. Like the rotten smell I sense now?

The tug on the pod increases. I hear the sloshing of water against the hull. Spray saturates my face. I can’t move, but I can feel. The water’s cold. And salty. I lick what I can off my lips. The taste is electrifying! Another sense returning, among the many lost. Forever?

The stimulation to my tastebuds spurs rapid memory recollection, all in the form of food consumed prior. Front and center is the acute taste of chicken-potpie. Oh, how I loved to pull a steaming hot pie from the oven and devour the gravy-laden chicken chunks, while savoring those jewels called peas! Soup contained in beads, which, when popped, caked the tongue, saturating the tastebuds with a paint-like coating. And I remember, too, the flavor of coffee, cowboy mud, as Dierdra, my mother, called it, where she would let the pot sit a tad too long on the propane fire, and so there’d be this burnt caramelized aftertaste with each sip. Except with my cup of coffee, I would temper the flamed taste with a dash of sugar, chocolate, and half-and-half.

I feel the pod ground out, perhaps grinding up on a sandbar, the same way our kayaks did on the Minnesota lake shores. This is followed by a strong yank. The pod settles in. Water beats against its sides, but the movement forward undulates and halts. I peer through my glazed eyes, searching, anticipating, longing for, and fearing what may come, whether that be good or bad.

And then it appears. Out of nowhere. A face. One which remains obscured by the haze in my vision and a hand clutching a rag over his or her mouth and nose. But, indeed, it is a face. Another human being. I hope beyond hope it’s Aaron. My beautiful Aaron Delmon. My husband. My lover. The soon-to-be father of the child I carry within my belly. I hope against all odds. And the odds beat me. For this face cannot be his, for the eyes, dark and angered, are not his. The pupils are but pinpricks, tiny holes centered in a dark noncolor, possibly black irises. But who has black eyes? No, this cannot be Aaron, for my husband’s eyes are blue, filled with life and hope and spirit. These eyes are glazed over, the result indicating this person is of the Walking Dead, more prone to hate than love.

This face disappears and another takes its place, one which seems to be scarred or painted or both. And this face, too, has a rag-held hand shielding its mouth and nose. This creature leans so far into the pod that its unruly hair grazes my cheek. I feel it, like the scrape of stiff grass against one’s shins. Grating to the point of hurt. Although muffled by rag, hand, and somewhat plugged ears, I hear this person speak, in guttural, raspy tones.

Julissa Grant? That you?

Nani? Cherrie? Dreadlocks? Pandora? Who are you? What are you!

The figure pulls back, stands tall over me, and barks what sound like marching orders. Hands reach in from all directions. I’m shuffled and lifted from the pod. And just as sudden, I fall back, as the fabric of my clothing disintegrates in their hands. Another order’s barked. The hands dig in and under me. Their fingers needle their way under my decimated body, clawing for grip. Webbing of some sort is threaded from one side to the other and laced together beneath me.

I don’t want to leave my cubicle, my safe haven. It’s relatively warm in here. Above, I feel the sting of cold air siphoning in, sweeping over me, propelling me into shivers. Or so I think. Because I can’t see or feel my body trembling. But it’s there, that memory, Aaron and I up on Casaval Ridge, sitting on the flat-rock, our lifeforce depleted, the frigid cold making inroads into our bodies, pin-pricking our minds with the dreaded thought of turning blue and freezing to death. And that’s when I kissed him and gave him the lifeforce from my core, and ended it, so that he might live.

All this time I continue to stare up at the creature barking the orders. Despite the gravelly voice, I can tell it’s a female, by the feminine lilt in her voice. When she leaned over me, I sensed familiarity, as if I knew her. Maybe in her mannerism, or the look in her eyes, even though all of what I see is blurred by whatever’s infected my pupils. Cataracts perhaps? From old age? Had life passed me by while I was hibernating in the pod?

Am I old? How old? Years? Decades? Centuries!

There’s a chant of numbers and the hands all rise in unison at the end of the cadence. I’m slung from the pod. I hang in midair, surrounded by my rescuers, who are outfitted in military-grade outfits, male and female alike. And then perhaps I sense it or see it; My captors are transporting me out to sea, not to shore. To the last, they crane their necks and noses away from me. I don’t blame them. I wish I could escape the stench, a smell so atrocious I imagine even the carrion-eating vultures would hurl at the first whiff of my stench and die on the second or third inhale. The same birds who feast on dead skunks.

As I’m slowly lowered into the salt-water, pain, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, sears my nerves. Molten-hot daggers pinprick me like millions of poker-hot needles. I reflexively stiffen in an effort to rise up, as if I can escape the torture, but it does little good. Here’s where I find my voice, which is not much more than primal, grating sounds escaping from deep within my wretched body. I screech, holler, grunt, moan, groan, to no avail. The sadistic group, who have removed me from the pod, continue their march into the sea. I black out. And come to. Ever clearer. My brain and body wake through the sheer will to survive.

My sadistic captors halt. Another order barked. I’m lowered into the sea. A pause, then unbelievable, excruciating pain. Shooting daggers in and through me. The pain is immense. Indescribable. The salt-water sears my nerve endings and, if I didn’t know better, ripping off my skin layer by layer. I long to pass out, to close down any and all feeling. And I’m there. On the precipice of escaping when the face reappears, this time without rag in hand and I see; it is Cherrie! She’s smiling through grating teeth, cooing words of support, stroking my shoulder with her hand. Then her face turns dark. The lines on her forehead deepen. Her eyes weep. She places her hand, splayed full, in the middle of my chest. I try to shake my head. The movement doesn’t happen. So, I plead with my eyes. Please don’t do this! Please! No! I know Cherrie understands. I see the torment in her eyes. They’re speaking volumes. Saying, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She angles her head away. Focuses her moisture-filled eyes skyward.

But I believe she won’t do it. How can she! Aren’t we the best of friends? Sisters even?

I hear the grate of Cherrie’s teeth, the clench of her jaw. She grunts. And. Drives. Me. Under.

There’s a pause, as if all feeling—physical and emotional—equalizes and halts. I languish in the quiet before the storm, hoping beyond hope, the initial sear numbed my nerves, and I’ll be spared pain. I peer up through the water at Cherrie. She’s focused on me, her agitation apparent. Her mouth is curled in a snarl. The sound of her words are distorted by the burble caused by air escaping from my lungs. Cherrie flattens her hands on my chest, stabilizing me and preventing me from floating to the surface.

My imaginings are interrupted by an explosion of intense, overriding, searing pain. I lay, unable to thrash, for my legs and arms remain paralyzed. They’re immobile, like the rest of me. They say some of the most sensitive nerves exist in one’s head. I now know this to be true, as the saltwater bath feels like it’s tearing my face and scalp off. My eyelids, stiffened by the onslaught, won’t close, and so I stare up at Cherrie, her murky form hanging over me like the Grim Reaper that I envision she is.

For what seems an eternity, we stare into each other’s eyes; her dark irises projecting concern, mine projecting hellish hatred for the torture she’s putting me through. Rampant thoughts race through my head. Why’s she trying to drown me? Did she find Aaron? Tell him I’m dead? She became his lover? And now when I show up, she’s to be rid of me? Why, Cherrie? Why!

Cherrie pulls her hands free, releasing me to float to the surface. She nods to the others, who lift me up out of the water. By the mercy of God I’m deeply thankful, for the excruciating pain subsides. But then comes the tearing, the tugging, the pulling, the scraping. Many hands stripping away the tatters of my clothing, which has embedded itself within my rotted skin. Cherrie works my face, picking at bits and pieces of peeling skin, gingerly removing scar tissue.

I’ve been sunburned before. Had several layers of skin dry and peel. Spent days pulling it off, bit by bit. But I’ve never felt anything like this, where with every tug, every pull, every rip, a nerve ending fires off a shot of intense pain. And just when I think the torment is over, Cherrie looks to the others and nods. My eyes scream hateful words at Cherrie, call her every vulgar name in the book, but, because they’re trapped within me, they have no effect on her. Only me. In a good way. Exorcising my demons.

They lower me back into the water, wash salt into my wounds, which cover most of my body. I retch and heave, expelling stomach acid. This time I’m blessed and allowed to black out. But only for a second or two, because when I feel the rush of water replaced by the brush of air, I open my eyes and I see; I’m being lifted up and placed in a sling woven of vines and broad leaves. The saltwater’s worked its magic, rinsing the mucus from my eyes.

Cherrie hovers over me. She grasps my shoulder with her hand to steady the ocean wave rocking. Hey, girl. Welcome back. We’re going to take you home now. You rest easy. We’ll do the work.

I see Cherrie point the way. She waves her hand, and my cradle lurches forward. I want to say something, anything, and I do. I’m screaming, but she’s not hearing, or pretending she’s not hearing. I can’t move a muscle, and even though I make a mindful attempt to rise, nothing on my body moves, not a muscle, a finger, a toe. Nothing! It’s as if someone or something is sitting on my chest, holding me down. I’m trapped in this shell of a body. My brain seems to be functioning as normal, but nothing else is. Except for maybe my eyes. I think they’re rolling, moving from side-to-side, but how am I to know? Nothing registers, giving me pause.

Nothing about me feels normal. The deadening sensation of unconsciousness fills my body, my arms, my legs, yet I feel my heart pounding, hard and heavy. My mind, more alive than ever, races to find answers. Inside, I’m banging away at the cavity of my skull, attempting to escape. But it’s obvious I’m trapped, with nowhere to go. My heart races. My breathing accelerates. I can’t get air. No matter how hard I try. My mind rejoins my body in subconscious sleep.

Slender Man

He comes, this man so tall and slender, from out of nowhere. One minute he’s not there, the next he’s standing over me, his eyes poking and prodding me. Although my brain remains in a fog and my body deadened, I’m keenly aware that I lie naked. Exposed. Only a thin netting, like those used to keep mosquitoes at bay, is draped over my scarified body, the one that’s been through a meat grinder.

By now I know any effort to protest by screaming is fruitless. Yet I do anyway. I kick and thrash and hurl my arms into the air. I yell so loud and hard I imagine my vocal cords rupturing. All of this action remains in my subconscious, of course. My body remains paralyzed. Unmoving. My words never leave the tip of my tongue.

Slenderman mounts me from the side. It seems to take forever for his long leg to advance up and over. And there he sits, on my chest, crushing the life out of me. My head’s angled to the side, apparently where it came to rest when Cherrie and her cohorts laid me down on this bed of rock, so I’m able to see Slenderman’s dog peering up at me. He’s smiling, actually laughing, the way dogs do when they’re ecstatically happy. I look for the tail and see a feathered stub. It vibrates in unison with the humming coming out of Slenderman’s mouth. And I see six legs. Six legs! What dog has six legs? Am I delusional?

There’re other voices. At the far end of the cave. Words spoken, but their clarity and meaning are lost in the span and broken rock of the cavern. Yet I recognize Cherrie’s voice in the mix. I yell out to her. Scream at her at the top of my lungs. And when she doesn’t answer nor race to rescue me, I search for her, to no avail. For all I see are shadows on the cave walls, dancing in the flickering light of a campfire, like banshees warning of the approaching death of a loved one. Namely me?

Slenderman creeps forward, inching his pretzel-formed legs into my neckline. My breathing turns erratic, for my windpipe is on the verge of being crushed. He leans over, adjusts my head forward, and stares into my eyes. I see he’s searching. For what? Death? Mine? Why? What have I ever done to him? His dark eyes probe me. And I sense what he’s thinking.

The child within you is dead. Rotting. Poisoning your core. You must extract it. Save yourself. Purge it from your body. Become what you know you have always been; impure. Sinful child with a dark soul. A vessel lost in a vast sea. Without direction. Selfish. Unwilling to help anyone. Unable to stand against the brute force known as conflict. Give it up. Or I will crush you to the ends of the earth.

From those first words— The child within you is dead—I emotionally implode. Am I to abort my child? The one who will be known as HeIs, the New World leader of the Lemurians? Aaron’s child? If so, everything I’ve done, from choosing to go below to Telos, to risking life and limb in the Discovery Tunnel, will have been for nothing. How can this creature, Slenderman, know my child lays dead within me? Certainly, if HeIs is to be stillborn, I would know it, sense it, curse it, yet I’m physically numb to those feelings. And maybe, I surmise, that’s why I feel nothing of the sort. Yet my mind is clearly awake and functioning. I would know if the infant, this precious miracle of miracles, inside me is struggling to the point of death. What Slenderman is saying is NOT true! Cannot be true! And, so, I reach out. Shout my words. Scream to be heard. Of no use. For the words I form in my mind never leave my lips, never echo through the cave.

I zero in on Cherrie and her cohorts off in the distance. They’re far enough away I can’t hear what’s being said, just the sound of their muddled camaraderie chatter interrupted by echoes off the cavern’s walls. They’re laughing, telling stories, eating some kind of fruit, even occasionally shoving one another in jest, all while prancing around the open-pit fire. Their ghostly shadows loom large against the rock structures. That’s when I take note: I know this place!

I look to the ceiling, where vines are growing. There I see hanging fruit, which resembles a cross between an apple and a pear, and I remember; I had called them papples. The ripe ones, as I recalled, gave you energy; the green ones made you sick.

It seems so long ago I carried Jungo from the elevator shaft to his home and laid him down...where I now lay? On his bed? Where then is Jungo? Back to dust? The ash I’m lying on? Only if his spirit were alive. He could tell me what to do. How to overcome this man who’s sitting on my chest without raising a finger, for, physically, I can’t even bat an eyelash.

Single-mindedness. That’s what Jungo taught me. If I can reach acute focus, then, just maybe, I can wish Slenderman away. I try. But I can’t close my eyes. Slenderman hovers over me. His eyes gouge mine. They won’t let me go. Won’t let me escape. I yield. Give him what he wants. Me, locked in obeisance. The servant paying homage to the master. For this is what I desire him to believe. I core into him, pass the gray-cast pale of his irises and into the blackened core of his soul. Where I find...nothing. Pure, unadulterated emptiness. No thoughts, no energy vibe. Zero. Naught a. Lifeless. Before the thought can be processed in my mind, I sense it spoken.

He’s not real.

And there stands Kriss’shon, at the foot of my bed, telepathically communicating with me. Slenderman disappears. So does his six-legged dog with the feathered stub for a tail.

And you...are? Real?

Your communicator would not be glowing if I weren’t.

I can’t see the crystal lying on my neck. But I know it’s there. For the light it’s emitting is reflected off the walls and the ceiling of the cave, illuminating and altering my emotion from one of despair to one of hope.

I remember back to when Telos was crashing down around us and I was lying in the pod, awaiting transport to the New World. What was it Kriss’shon had telepathed to me after reaching under her gown, ripping the cord from around her neck, and handing it to me? With this a part of me will always be with you. Use it wisely, for wisdom is what it seeks to extrapolate.

So...you live in the crystal?

Kriss’shon smiles. No one can live within inanimation, for is it not by definition, lifeless?

But everything is connected by energy.

Good. You remembered. The Law of One.

"So, if you’re not real, are you energy?"

Remember when we were in the luminarium, and we joined our subconscious minds?

I nod and reflect. We intertwined subconsciously. Entered each other’s thought streams. Swam together in a river of gen. I was completely vulnerable. And Kriss’shon took advantage? By taking over control of my subconscious mind?

So that was the plan all along? You use my body? To bear child? But take away my freedom. Control my thoughts?

Kriss’shon accelerates to the side of my bed. She sits down like a mother would as she readies to tell her child a bedtime story. I take note there’s no weight to her body, for the ‘mattress’ does not sag.

"Yes, I am imprinted in your subconscious. But I’m not in control. You are. As you have been since birth. And you will be to death. The subconscious is the essence of who you are. Fixed. Immutable."

I want to believe what Kriss’shon is saying. But then I remember something else she had said, Our subconscious mind is programmed from birth. We’re going to need to reprogram you.

We’re going to need to reprogram you! But then, too, I remember standing at the spindly-looking rock bridge, caught in the throes of fear, and what Jungo had taught me: One can only control subconscious programming through substitution, not by removal. If no one, not me, not Kriss’shon, not even the master Jungo, could alter my subconscious programming through removal, then are not those things learned from birth and stored within my subconscious still intact? I relax. Set my fears aside. Even though I still cannot physically move.

How’re you here? I question Kriss’shon. Are you not dead?

Physically, yes. Spiritually, not as long as you’re alive. A part of me, secreted away in your subconscious, lives on.

You’re dead. But you exist within me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.

You’ve lived most of your young life by seeking wisdom from the Bible, correct?

I nod, or think I do.

And those who were the source of this wisdom, are they not gone? Long dead?

Of course.

Then think of me that way. Gone. But a source you can tap for guidance.

"You’re going to be in my head? Always?"

I’m there when you need me. Same as if you tapped any other source for guidance.

I stare at the ceiling. Tears overwhelm my eyes, drowning out my vision. I want to cry out. For all things that have gone wrong. For all those who have died. And for all those who are left behind to face an uncertain future. Have we now been reduced to living in caves? Am I never to physically move again? I lash out at the only person who can hear me.

If you’re so full of wisdom, then why is it I’m paralyzed!

Oh, child. You’re not paralyzed. Your brain has woken up before your body. That’s all. Which is a good thing.

How can not being able to move be a good thing?

Because you would do more harm than good. Your body needs time to heal. To resurface from the depths of dormancy.

How long will that take?

Depends.

On what?

Do you remember single-mindedness?

Of course.

And how you arrived at it?

By moving the pearls.

One at a time

Redundancy.

Yes. Heal, my child. Kriss’shon offers a hand to caress my face. And although I do not feel skin-upon-skin, I feel her loving energy pouring into me. This is where you need to go. Singularly focus all your energies on healing your body. Cell by cell. Fiber by fiber. Appendage by appendage. Until wellness fulfills your need.

I can’t close my eyes, but I can close my mind. I stare at the ceiling. Invite darkness in. And do as Kriss’shon suggests; single-mindedly focus on healing my body. I fall into a trance-like state, from where there may never be a return, for my resurrection is far from certain and maybe my only exit from this nightmare.

New World

There were times when I was floating around in the pod I’d slip into wakefulness. Not the full-on kind most people have as they go about their daily activities, but a half-baked consciousness that would allow a thought or two to travel through my brain. These were like micro-bursts of memory. Something someone would experience as postcards from their past.

One reoccurring dream—if you will—was of this little girl, perhaps three or four years old, sitting at a table. She’s reaching out with her right hand, which is holding a rather large black checker. Sitting before her is a large checkerboard, with all the pieces, red and black, appropriately displayed. The game, I assume, has just started. There’s a slight smile on the girl’s face. Long blond hair frames her boyish cheeks, for they’re overly large in contrast to rest of her feminine features. There’s no movement. Just a picture. A still. A moment caught in time. No perspective going forward or backward. But it gives me fodder for thought. If only I can think, which I could not at the time.

But now my brain is awake, ready to seek single-mindedness. To find and heal my cells, my body. But how do I achieve such extreme focus? I remember asking Jungo, Shouldn’t I be able to go back? and he replied, Not to that instant. I remember him saying time had moved forward, that the moment was gone, and not many could or ever would return to when single-mindedness held authority. And yet, this is exactly where I need to go if I am to heal, per Kriss’shon, my mentor.

It dawns on me; instant isn’t a constant. It’s fleeting at best. Yet when I had moved the pearls, it took time, more than minutes, perhaps hours. Days? And yet when Jungo found me on the floor weeping, it was as though no time had passed. Was this the secret? Halting time in perspective? From my viewpoint? And in doing so, allowing emotions, thoughts, and even physical ailments to catch up and heal? Could this be the magic of single-mindedness? To still time? As Jungo once told me to do?

I’m here, lying on this bed. Jungo’s bed. In a cave. Watching Cherrie and her cohorts dance around a campfire like there’s no tomorrow. I can’t move. Physically. Can’t talk. But I can think. I can, if I achieve extreme focus, halt my progression of time, allow my body to heal and catch up. But I need pearls. Many pearls to move. Redundancy. And I find them. In the little girl’s hand.

The checkerboard lies before me, painted on the wall of the cave. The blacks are on one side, the reds on the other. The blacks are bad cells needing replacement; the reds, good cells, filled with life-sustaining plasma. I challenge no one but myself, moving back and forth as if hinged to a swing. The game soon becomes dull, boring, redundant. I move blacks where reds can jump them. I move them from the board. More replace the ones I remove. But I keep repeating the process, over and over and over again.

The cone of my thought stream narrows, closing in, pinching down to a pinhole, squeezing time into a strand as thin as the fiber of a hair. And there, in the stoppage of my