Michael: And the Manacle of the Gods

By Richard J Williams

Throughout the centuries there have been many wonderful stories told. Stories of gods, heroes, monsters and the individuals who have changed their own fates, and the story that is about to be told is no different. This is the story of an average boy who will learn what it means to be a hero and how to change fate, not only his own but that of others as well. While the main character may seem like an unlikely hero, he has all of the qualities that many great heroes have had in the past. Within this young man beats the heart of a champion, but like many champions he will be tested. This young mans name is Michael Richardson and he is about to go on the journey of a lifetime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477103616

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Copyright © 2012 by Richard J. Williams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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PREFACE

Throughout the centuries there have been many wonderful stories told. Stories of gods, heroes, monsters and the individuals who have changed their own fates, and the story that is about to be told is no different. This is the story of an average boy who will learn what it means to be a hero and how to change fate, not only his own but that of others as well. While the main character may seem like an unlikely hero, he has all of the qualities that many great heroes have had in the past. Within this young man beats the heart of a champion, but like many champions he will be tested. This young man’s name is Michael Richardson and he is about to go on the journey of a lifetime.

In the city of Houston, Texas lives a young man young man named Michael Richardson. Michael is what some people may call a below average young man. He is in his final year of high school and he doesn’t have any friends and he has never even kissed a girl. Ever since Michael was young, he hasn’t really stood out in any way, except for the fact that he is of mixed race. Michael’s mom is Irish and his father was half African American/Native American. With both of his parents being of different races, Michael has a very light skin completion. He is extremely shy, and is often afraid to raise his hand, because all eyes would be on him. Michael comes from a poor family. His father was a Marine, who died saving his platoon in the Gulf war when Michael was three years old, and thus everything fell upon his mother Harriet. Harriet worked hard to provide for her son, she even worked two jobs just to make ends meet. One of Harriet’s jobs was working at Kings Fish market, in the center of town and the other job was working at The Marina, which was an auction house. Harriet’s duties at The Marina were to catalog all of the items that came into the auction house and make sure everything was where it was suppose to be.

Harriet hated the job at the fish market, just because she would leave work smelling like fish, but on the other hand she would often get to bring home free food for her and Michael. While she worked at the auction house Harriet got to work in peace and quiet cataloging many of the auction house’s interesting items. Michael wished that his mother didn’t have to work so hard for many reasons. One reason was, that, with his mother having two jobs, he didn’t get to see her as much as he would have liked. The other reason is, Michael knows all that his mother has sacrificed for him and he felt that she should be able to take a break. Michael wanted to do so much, but he just didn’t know how to. Michael always wanted to be a strong man for whom people could look up to and respect. He wanted to be the guy in school with the most beautiful girlfriend, and he even dreamed of being famous. Alas, Michael felt that all of these things that he wanted were just dreams, dreams that he knew would never come true. Every night before he went to sleep Michael would pray and hope for something better, but little did he know that his prayers were about to be answered.

One night Harriet had to work late at the Auction house, and after she was closing up she received a late minute shipment. Since the building was closed Harriet decided to sign for the shipment and then take it to her home. Harriet figured she would just take the shipment to her home since it wasn’t very large. Once Harriet got home she opened the shipment, which was nothing because, it was a very small crate. Once the crate was opened she noticed that the only thing inside was a small box. Harriet worked at the auction house for many years and thus she inventoried many different antiques and rare objects, but she had never seen anything like this before. Harriet decided to look inside of her bag and check to see if this box was on the list for incoming shipments. After an hour of looking through paperwork, Harriet couldn’t find any mention of the box she was looking at. Harriet decided to call her supervisor Mr. Jenkins and ask him if he knew anything about this box. Mr. Jenkins explained to her that the box wasn’t a normal procurement. He said that the box had actually been found in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1970’s by an American couple fishing off the coast of Crete. The couple really didn’t know what the box was, and so upon their return to the United States, they decided to donate the box to a thrift store. The box was actually in the thrift store for over twenty years, even as the store exchanged multiple owners.

Apparently, since no one knew how to open the box, it was just put into the thrift store’s storage area. When the newest owner took over the shop, he found the box still in the back. Since it still could not be opened, he decided to sell it. He went online and searched for any antique dealers that might be interested. His search seemed never ending, until he found a buyer that was interested the box, an auction house called The Marina. He sold the box to them for one-hundred dollars American, afterwards the box was shipped to the Marina. Now that Harriet’s boss has explained everything to her, she has a better grasp of what’s going on. Her supervisor Mr. Jenkins told her to wait until Monday to bring the box in, and Harriet didn’t mind because that meant she could spend more time with her son.

While Harriet was on the phone with her supervisor, Michael was in his room reading a book. Michael loved to read fantasy and comic books, and since his mother could not afford the buy him a video game system, reading was his source of entertainment. Michael had read almost every science fictional book there was, he was even fond of history books. Unfortunately, his choice of literature didn’t make him popular at school. As Michael sat in his room he couldn’t help but think about a girl named April from school that he had a huge crush on. Michael had been crushing on her for a long time, but he could never build up the courage to go talk to her. The sad thing is that Michael has sat next to her for four years, but she doesn’t even know who he is. With boredom and a strong sense of self loathing going through Michaels mind, he couldn’t help but overhear his mother talking on the phone. While Michael found his mothers job at the Marina to be boring, he couldn’t have been more proud of her.

As Michael lay back in his chair and looked through the crack in his door, he saw an odd looking box sitting on the kitchen table. Michael got out of his chair and went into the kitchen, he asked his mother what kind of box was this he was looking at. Michaels mother told him that she wasn’t really too sure, and that it was a late shipment that came in for the Marina. While Michael though the box was unusual looking, he also found it very familiar looking. Some of the symbols on the box looked like ancient Greek, but Michael wasn’t sure so he decided to do a little research. While going through some of his books, he found some of the same symbols, but Michael wasn’t quite sure what they meant. According to Michael’s books, the markingss on the box are in relation to a mythical object called the manacle of the gods. Michael laughed and thought that this didn’t make any sense, because he was just looking at an old box and mythology is just that, a myth. Michael picked the box for a closure look and as he held the box and rubbed his thumbs on two symbols on top of the box, he began to hear a strange sound coming from the box. Michael sat the box down and moved his hands across the sides of the box and he felt air escaping, air it seemed was coming from inside of the box. Michael backed away from the box because he could hear the sound of the air coming out, getting louder and louder, until the upper half of the box burst open. Michael had his eyes closed, afraid that something might hit him in the face. Once he opened his eyes, he saw that the box was open. As Michael moved closer to the box, the reflection of something in the box was blinding him. Once Michael looked into the box, he saw with amazement, a manacle or at least that’s what it looked like. Michael couldn’t really believe that a manacle was inside of the box, it was very pretty, and it had a silvery/ grayish color to it. Michael had never seen an object with this type of coloring before. The strange markings on the box seemed to be on the manacle as well.

As Michael picked up the manacle with his right hand he was very surprised at how light it was. It almost didn’t have any weight to it at all. Suddenly, the manacle latched onto Michaels left risk. Michael tried to pull it off but with no luck, soon he noticed that the manacle was glowing and the glow was becoming brighter and brighter. Michael was really scared and he couldn’t believe what was going on. He ran outside to see if there was something in the garage that he could use to get this thing off of his risk. While Michael was searching for something he could use to pry to manacle off of his risk, Michael felt a strong surge of power flow through his body, and it nearly knocked him to the ground. Michael found himself running to the front door to try to get his mom, but his body began moving very slow and then all of a sudden Michael’s entire body was engulfed by a bright white light that seemed to have come from the manacle. For Michael it felt as though he had simply fallen asleep, but the reality was far different.

Michael awoke dazed and confused, and when he looked around, he found that he wasn’t in front of his home anymore. Michael was in a strange land from what he could tell and he knew that he was very far from home. Although Michael was in a strange place, he felt calm, and for him this was a little strange. As Michael looked around, he found that he was inside of a crater. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was the one who caused it.

When