Expectations: The Real World Behind the Curtain of Time

By Sarah K-N

A pastor is faced with a dilemma when his twin nephews, sons of his only brother, cry out to him for help. Faced with all kinds of strange happenings and unnatural events in their house due to their parents adherence with the occult; the childrens fears push them to break a pact of silence established by their father regarding the secrets of their household.

How can Ace help his nephews without letting the dark forces that torment their lives affect his own family? The more he struggles to help the twins, the more the Secret Society to which the boys parents belong rage their war of evil upon him. Only a living God could help Ace overcome this war and emerge victorious. But will he; Ace Cadman, have the courage to step into the supernatural realm beyond the curtain of time when his God calls him on the scene?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512799491

Sarah K-N

Sarah K-N grew up in Buffalo, New-York but matured in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of her adult life, she had a successful career working for the United States government. Her last years with the State Department were devoted to managing the Adoptions Portfolio for the US Embassy in Kinshasa, DRC. Upon her return to the U.S, she worked for a year as a Pharmacy Technician in Columbus, Ohio. Simultaneously, throughout her career, she worked at the side of a servant of God who has used his ministry to help free innumerable desperate cases from illness and bondage. It is through a mixture of these experiences that she has based her novels.

Book preview

1

The Ancestor

T his story takes place in the era of human government.

Among the multiple tribes that inhabited the earth, two distinct clans were descendants of the same family.

One of the leaders of these clans was named Wann, and he was chief of the Brogan village in the Torr Valley. To the west of the same valley, his cousin Ercole had set up his territory called Amaethon.

The Torr Valley stretched out its plush greenery for miles until its limits were unseen. The two leaders had settled in the same area due to its vastness and diversity of vegetation, but mostly, due to its fertility. The valley also benefited from protective boundaries, which were completely natural; the snow-capped, majestic Oba Mountains partially surrounded them to the south and west. The deep Magan Forest, which spread her protective fingers from the west to the north, and two noisy, bountiful rivers obliged any foreigner a long and difficult crossing to their lands from the northeast and beyond. These boundaries provided not only farmland, hunting grounds, abundant fishing, and gathering but also lush, safe territory for the women and children.

Great were the multiple resources in the valley for both clans, but the cousins who governed the two territories had their eyes on one particular gain: agriculture. Their ancestors had taught them and given them skills in the art of planting, growing, and reaping. Their main means of sustenance came from the earth. It was their inheritance, and they mastered it. No other skill among their people could rival that of a good harvest, and Wann and Ercole, knowing this, took their farming very seriously.

Having more crops than necessary to support their entire clan, the two groups lived peacefully side by side for a long time. Yet as the years passed and the decades quickly multiplied, the peoples waxed great in number. The families increased, the villages swelled, and the needs of the inhabitants grew as the family dwellings inched toward their boundaries.

Upon seeing this, Wann and Ercole quickly met and found a solution. Each leader had more than sufficient land for farming, and when the planting period came and found either tribe short of seed, then one group immediately intervened for the survival of the other. In this way both tribes lacked nothing, and harmony persisted in the valley.

When both cousins grew older, Wann noticed that his fields didn’t produce as abundantly as before, and this discovery worried him greatly. He did witness, however, that his cousin’s fields didn’t wane but continued to flourish as usual. The years passed, and he watched this occurrence at first silently, but when his elders and people began to complain about the same thing, Wann sought to meet with his cousin.

He spoke to Ercole about his concern, and the Amaethon leader’s solution was to provide his brother, at the time of planting, with two more portions of the seedlings reserved for his own clan’s crops for that year. This gift pleased Wann greatly, and, taking the seedlings, he immediately put his best people to work at planting them. He was confident that this change would solve the poor harvest his clan had suffered, but it didn’t. After this, convinced that he had been cheated with a poorer plot of earth, Wann again called a reunion with Ercole and his elders. Here Wann angrily expressed his concern that he’d been cheated with a poorer plot of land for him and his clan. The elders debated heatedly over this while Ercole stayed silent and listened carefully to the discussion. When the exchange of words turned almost violent, Ercole stood up and pleaded that they stay calm.

Turning to Wann, he said, We are brothers. Shall we fight over land? If it pleases you, we shall exchange our sides of the valley. If then your crops regain their strength, that is good. If they do not, then my clan and I will leave you the Torr Valley if that is your wish, and we will go and find another land to harvest. Both of our peoples have waxed great. Perhaps the valley will produce better if one of us moves on.

The Amaethons were greatly displeased with their leader’s words, but they protested not because of the laws of their customs. Seeing their displeasure, Wann smiled and shook his brother’s hand in agreement. It shall be as Ercole said.

According to the two leaders’ agreement, the people worked hard to change sides of not only their land but also their habitats. It took them six months. After half a year, Wann and his people were settled and rejoiced as they awaited their abundant crops. And so for years the Broganites enjoyed more abundant crops than those of the Amaethons; and convinced they had indeed been cheated, they relished in their newfound blessing.

As even more years passed on, Wann noticed that again his lands began to thrive less than those of his cousin, and this disparity irritated him. The more he traveled through Ercole’s country or simply ran his eyes over his neighbor’s terrain and testified of its abundance, the more jealousy took him over. He was certain that his cousin had done some injustice and that wrong had been done him and the Broganites. He knew the next step was to have the Amaethons leave the Torr Valley, but this wasn’t enough. He felt that somehow, no matter where they went, the Amaethons would prosper.

One day when Wann returned from his fields, he entered his abode and angrily refused his wife’s food. Violently, he shoved his bowl of succulent meat to the side. Instead of eating, he sat under the stars and contemplated from afar his cousin’s sprouting crops, early again this year. Day after day, week after week, he continued to examine the land before him to the west, and his jealousy gave way to anger, and his anger dragged in reasoning.

Pondering the full counts of events, he finally told himself, that the only thing he could do to change this fate was to destroy Ercole’s harvest. For even this year, his gatherings were promising to be more abundant than those of the past years, and that thought alone consumed him.

Day after day, week after week, he quietly meditated on the best way to act, and immediately he omitted the idea of using fire. The use of such a method would make it too easy for him to get caught, because the dryness of the valley’s summers never rose high enough to cause any kind of damage, and that had been so for centuries.

Since the Torr Valley solely belonged to their two clans, a careless destruction of one’s lands would immediately be attributed as the fault to the other, so he pondered some more. Wann knew one thing: no matter which way he was to seek to appease his bitterness, he was never to get caught. For if it ever happened to appear that he was defaming his brother, disgrace would fall not only on him and his name, but also on those of his ancestors. This shame would also carry into the future, up till the seventh generation, to those of his descendants that were to come out of him. It was unthinkable.

The moon shined brightly that night, and its beauty seemed to inspire Wann as a scheme dawned on him. Finally, he understood what he had to do; he would bring the destruction of Ercole’s harvest in a natural way, through terrifying locusts.

Since winter was already at its end and spring would be fully present any day now, the period of these solitary insects was at hand. Being that the timing was perfect, it would appear absolutely normal when the locusts entered their gregarious phase and briskly attacked as ravenous swarms.

Satisfied, Wann jumped up and grabbed his walking stick, ignoring his wife’s calls as he headed for the mountains. He didn’t have to go far. A few feet away from his habitat, he distinctly followed the sounds he sought and bent down in the wet grass. With a rapid movement, he caught a locust in his hand and stood up fully to examine it. Under the moonlight, its wings looked agile yet powerful.

Once more satisfied, Wann returned to his home. Placing the insect in a basket, he poked holes in the cover before setting it on the sill of the clean hole they used as a window. As soon as he did this, he became ecstatic and joyfully went to his wife’s table to eat her food while he chatted and laughed with her.

During the months that followed, Wann fed and raised the locust by his own hand until the time came for his next step. That day, when the greenness of the earth came to maturity and Ercole’s farmlands were ripe with all sorts of blessings, Wann took his locust and the small bundle of food his wife had prepared for him, and he set off for the hills. On to the caves of Govannon he went. Having left his abode before midnight, he advanced with swift and confident feet, guided by the light of the full moon.

Wann knew the locusts had no master and that none could tame them, so he intended to get some help. After walking for roughly three hours, he reached the caves hidden under the hills his grandfather had always spoken to him about. Sliding into the heart of the caves, which somehow resembled tombs, he began the ceremony necessary to call to the world of darkness, invoking Abaddon.

Once he was through, little time passed before an evil entity appeared to Wann in the form of blackness and a thick smoke. This malefic vapor entered the insect according to the desire of the Brogan village chief’s request. Though this destructive insect had no master, he, Wann, desired to become its leader.

Immediately, he spoke to the insect and sent his locust to gather an army. He ordered it to return at the time of harvest so they may fulfill his will on Ercole’s farmlands.

Knowing the day and hour of the coming of the insects, the leader of the Brogan village became even more jovial and kind to his brethren, the Amaethons. He encouraged his people to work side by side with their kin to ensure a full harvest. Then in the evenings he tarried outside and watched the starlit skies.

And so he sat at the back entrance of his house again in the evening time of that specific day. Feeding on his hatred, he narrowed his eyes to sharpen his view. He watched the preparations of the gathering being made more earnestly in the Amaethon village as they worked side by side with the Broganites. That night, though, he didn’t have to wait long before; as expected, he saw what appeared to be something like a black fist rising in the east. He became quite excited, knowing well that this was the moment he had anticipated for months.

The sinister cloud drew near with great speed, and Ercole’s clan, seeing its approach, sounded the alarm so the entire village could flee for cover. Their leader, who had sounded the alarm, noticed that the mass of locusts was so great that it covered his village in complete darkness. Immediately, he knew it would be impossible to fight off the migrating locusts naturally as they had done in the past. Last to leave the scene, Ercole stayed where he could attentively watch the disheartening event. Watching the insects’ speed on arrival, he was astonished to witness the storm of insects swiftly pass over his cousin’s fields and fly straight toward his own.

The Amaethons also examined the scene and were just as bewildered to see with what momentum a great part of their harvest was devoured without the cursed insects touching even a hair of their brother’s crops. Just as swiftly as they appeared, the insects were gone.

The habitants of Amaethon stayed motionless for a long time after the departure of the threatening locusts.

After a while, Wann watched while his cousin called out to his family to work, instructing them to remove what was lost and to salvage all that could be recovered. Quickly, Ercole and his clan understood that the part of the fields the locusts had managed to devour was absolutely lost.

After two days, just before dawn, believing that the danger was past, Ercole and the Amaethons were shocked to see that while they had quickly been gathering the rest of the immense crops, the mysterious cloud suddenly reappeared yet again.

As the first time, it came with terrifying speed and yet again passed over the Brogan fields.

The cloud of winged misery struck the fattened harvest of Amaethon for a second time, but Ercole’s fields were so vast that the evil locusts were still unable to destroy the entire stretch that had remained before their determined time called them off once more.

Like a gust of wind, the darkness of terror disappeared, and the clear sky reappeared.

This time, Ercole left his abode quicker than before, and his clan followed, standing behind him when he stopped to examine his fields. Through the silence, all the people understood that these happenings were out of the ordinary.

Without hesitation, Ercole called a meeting and quickly spoke with the other elders of his village. Once they were finished, he commanded a group of the elders to stay with the people and continue gathering all they could. This night they wouldn’t sleep, but children, women, and men alike, all those strong enough to work, were to rotate in groups to salvage as much of the crops as possible.

Ercole himself chose seven fattened calves that had no blemish upon them and seven fattened ewes, and, taking his walking stick along with a few servants, he went his way. Crossing over the Torr Valley, passing the Govannon caves, he marched on, heading straight for the peaks of the chain of mountains called Corydon.

Ercole was on his way to seek the face of God Eternal, the God his fathers had spoken to him about, He who had created Adam and had called Abraham to serve him.

After Ercole presented his sacrifice and called upon the almighty God, the Lord indeed presented Himself to Ercole in the mountain and spoke with him.

Having received his answer, the chief of the Amaethon village started back home and reached those of his village the following day before the sun rose.

Under Wann’s distant regard, Ercole gathered his village and informed them of what the Lord had told him. At the next attack, if there would be a next attack, the Amaethon village would be ready.

The following day, which would make two days, Ercole and his clan were working in the fields when they witnessed the arrival of the cursed insects. All the people flew into their habitats, but Ercole stayed near the fields and awaited their coming.

Without warning the mass of locusts blackened the skies and air, swiftly advancing. Once having passed over his cousin’s hectares, they began their merciless descent on his own crops, but this time something strange happened.

Just before the apparently famished insects struck Ercole’s field, God Eternal sent a bolt of natural lightning through a gathering of clouds. It brutally struck and burned the leader of the locusts Wann had tamed, sending its sizzled blackness spinning to the ground. Since the head locust was destroyed, the entity that had inhibited him no longer had a body through which to work, and it fled the premises. Since the leader of the locust army was destroyed, the rest of the insects suddenly fell into total confusion and scattered dramatically, speeding off in different directions, not knowing anymore what they were called to do nor how they were to go about doing it.

Wann of Brogan, who watched the entire event, was astounded. Jumping to his feet, he tried to understand what just happened. What he had witnessed was a natural phenomenon; nothing supernatural had caused the lightning that naturally struck their valley this time of year. So how had it so dramatically consumed his faithful leader? His fury raged under the cheers of the Amaethons.

Impatiently, angrily, he waited a few more hours for night to fall before creeping into his cousin’s fields. Having captured the spot in his mind where his beloved pet had fallen, he carefully pried the ground through the dark until he finally found what he was looking for.

The insect tamed by his own hand lay on the ground, close to his own fields, completely scorched. Wann picked up his locust gingerly, shedding an angry tear at the sight of its destruction. Enraged beyond control, he grabbed his walking stick, which he had placed on the ground. Holding the insect in his hand, he left his enemy’s fields as stealthily as he had come. Then, without even passing his home, he headed straight for the caves of Govannon.

Once he arrived, he repeated the ritual he had performed at other times, then angrily, he asked his ancestors whether this indeed was the most power they could muster. How could his own cousin, who had no knowledge of the other dimension, so easily outsmart them?

And so it was as though a bottomless pit opened, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. The air was darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke a form appeared, that of a supernatural being. Abaddon used the blackness and thick smoke as a cover and coat. Appearing before Wann of Brogan, the sinister being stood tall and frail with long, silky black hair like that of a woman hanging down over his face, as though he were ashamed to show his real self. When he spoke, his voice was calm, clear, well spoken; and yet he still didn’t look up.

There, the spiritual master of the locusts revealed to Wann a power that was much more destructive than the one he had just used, that of the supernatural locusts, the ones who could come without being seen and destroy an entire nation in one visit.

Amazed, Wann pushed the spirit to reveal to him the portal that would give him access to this force, declaring his strong desire to see all his cousin’s resources, with both his clan and village completely destroyed. Absolute annihilation was what he desired for his cousin and village, this time until the latter had no seed or representation left to his name.

The evil entity listened attentively to the man’s demands and reassured him that he could grant his desire on only one condition; that Wann, chief of the Brogan village, would yield his life to him and those of his descendants for seven generations to come. In this way, the winds of the locusts would always be able to avenge and protect Wann and his descendants of all their enemies, always ensuring them a prosperous and blessed life above those who hated them.

Blinded by his own jealousy and envy, Wann easily believed every word announced to him, and the chief of the Brogan village quickly consecrated himself and his descendants to the supernatural being. At his approval in that day, a covenant was made between Wann and Abaddon. Pleased by these terms, Abaddon showed his true face.

Rising in the air, the entity looked up as the silky hairs on his head stood up on end in an instant and vibrated wildly. The sound it made was like that of chariots with many horses running into battle. His face resembled that of a man’s, but he had no eyes. His terrifying teeth, were that of a lion’s.

Wann was filled with terror at the sight of the true identity of the supernatural entity, and he quickly sought for cover to hide himself from the horror presented before him. There was nowhere to hide. It was too late; the covenant had been sealed. A shadow and thick smoke left the king of the locusts and encircled Wann, and at that moment, the germs of life in Wann’s loins were consecrated for seven generations down. From this point, Wann’s family received a representation in the spirit world, a familiar spirit. The sole intent of this spirit was to ensure that the Broganites and their descendants would be chained in spiritual darkness for 280 years. That the alliance contracted here would be upheld in each generation so that no one in Wann’s bloodline would serve any other God but the god of Abaddon.

When Wann finally left the depths of the hills of Govannon, his whole appearance was transformed. His dark features were darkened even more, his hair scattered, giving him the appearance of the very same entity channeling him.

Back at the village, only two days passed before the insects returned. But this time, there appeared to be no locusts, but only clouds that gathered as a tempestuous storm. When the people saw this coming, they fled toward the mountains, for this time a great terror preceded the storm. They fled, but all weren’t hasty enough to escape from danger.

The destruction by the storm was fatal, and their entire land, including part of the Amaethon village and its habitants, were destroyed before Ercole’s people could realize what happened.

Upon seeing this, Wann was satisfied, for he said to himself, Nothing more will raise up the goods of his enemies.

Heavy with sadness due to the loss of his people, Ercole sought out the Lord while his own clan mourned loudly at their loss. The chief of the Amaethons clearly understood his cousin Wann was behind all the happenings when he witnessed his joy after the events. The Broganites openly rejoiced at their triumph while his own people, save the elders, stayed bewildered and confused.

Due to what had just happened to his people and his goods, Ercole went to seek the face of the One who created not only the locusts but also Abaddon. Elohim, He Who Exists on His Own, the Creator of all things, the giver of life and at His will, the destroyer of both body, spirit, and soul. Once again, the chief of the Amaethons quickly left for the mountains of Corydon.

The Lord God spoke to Ercole and told him that not only should he seek His face, but all his people were to do the same, and a small group was to present themselves before Him.

Thus, it happened that Ercole called his people together to seek the Lord’s face, and they made themselves clean. He, in turn, along with the seven elders of his clan brought themselves to the mountains of Corydon. Ercole then said to his elders, Prepare me seven altars. And Ercole himself offered a ram on each altar. Again he said to the elders, Stand each one by his sacrifice, and I will go over there, a little further away from you. And then he went to a high place, upon one of the seven hills called Séla, which means Rock,. There on this rock, He Who Is, sent His messenger before Ercole.

A rumble and a quake and the rocks shook as though they would open up beneath Ercole. The chief of the Amaethons, afraid of the angel’s coming, fell rigid on his face. Lifting his eyes, he looked, and behold there was a mighty man clothed in linen. He wore a belt of fine gold. His body was like chrysolite and his face as the appearance of lightning. His eyes were like fiery torches, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words was like the voice of a multitude.

And Ercole said, I erected seven altars and placed a ram on each altar, because we know that one day You alone will come and save us from the oppressor. Because I know a ram is the sign of Your coming.

Ercole who alone saw the vision, then heard the voice of the messenger say; Go down. Return to your people. I will put words in your mouth and you will proclaim them.

So the chief of Amaethon returned to them, and behold the seven were standing near their holocaust, and the elders of the people looked on him from afar.

Ercole spoke before all and said, He Who Lives will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor. Who is the cruel oppressor? Who has set traps for others, spoiled his brother by violence, and did that which is not good among his people? Lo, even he shall die in his iniquity.

And unexpectedly, Ercole pronounced a mysterious word. Eggs of the serpent he broods, and unceasingly he spins spider webs. This is why he who eats of their eggs dies; and if one is hatched, out will come a viper. All who listened to Ercole were astonished, yet they glorified He Who Lives for promising their deliverance.

And so it was that the Amaethon clan began working their land from naught with patience and endurance. They planted new seeds and rebuilt their town under the open mockeries of the Brogan clan and their chief while the latter finished gathering the multitude of their fattened harvest. Wann scorned, because he knew all their efforts were in vain. But he was rendered speechless when only weeks later, behold, his cousin’s fields began to bring forward fruit even more abundant than the first—to the point that the way the two fields were in comparison before no longer was so. Now the fields and harvest of the Amaethons were by far more prosperous than those of the Broganites.

Completely confused at witnessing this, Wann from his backyard thought to seek reinforcement from the caves. Afraid of the locust master’s anger, he called his elders and went with them. Before they entered the Govannon caves, the Brogan chief spoke to his elders of the covenant made with the locust master. The elders agreed to defend the alliance made, and each offered a drop of his blood in a cup. Wann made a mixture of their blood with wine and had the elders drink of the cup. Once the elders drank, they were spiritually initiated into the alliance, along with the generations to come out of their loins. Thus, they entered the cave together. Pleased at the new recruits, Abaddon received them and promised them even greater victory, declaring that at this next advent, not one Amaethon would live to tell the tale of the Torr Valley.

Two days later, the winds obeyed and set themselves on their way to destroy for the last time. They headed for the Amaethons’ land, the forest, and any other green thing that bordered their village. This time their command was simple; a war that would result in genocide.

The locusts came as a blackened roll cloud, darkening the endless skies with their approach, a frightening shadow of stupor that grabbed the hearts of those who watched from their homes. But this time, they were still in rapid flight when He Who Is sent a counterattack. A detachment of swift clouds—copious, luminous, and white; called Shin’an, which means thousands or ten thousands, literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands—came from the west to confront the darkness, openly threatening the shadows by their brilliance and magnificence.

Looking up to heaven, Wann of Brogan saw the heavens open, and there appeared flames that rose amid the heavens. There were darkness, clouds, and gloom. He could see it; as a witness of the reflection of a show, a spectacle no other soul in the Torr Valley was able to perceive.

Standing between the earth and the sky, the glory of the Lord appeared, and Wann witnessed under this glory, a work of sapphire stone, such as the sky itself in its purity. And she shone like a pillar of cloud, resplendent amid their valley, and he who saw it was filled with awe.

And suddenly a voice like the crack of lightning was heard: ABREC! which means kneel. And silence reigned in the midst of heaven and earth so that the prophecy that says, Every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth shall be accomplished.

The glorious beings that gave the order to Wann had a dreadful height and width … and their appearance was the wheels of the Almighty. Glorious wheels and chariots of fire; and the chief of the Broganites fell to his knees from fear. The authority he witnessed was so powerful that the locusts of darkness had no choice but to recoil in terror at their sight.

And so war raged between the two powers in the heavens, lightning after thunder, darkness after terrors, a confrontation never before seen. The heavenly beings bound the invisible powers of evil by their powerful words, which manifested themselves as electrified horsewhips. The shadows didn’t prevail, and the army of the Most High took them to a place called Hinnom. There they bound them with invisible chains of darkness. There they closed the portal of the cave from whence they came out for the years, decades and centuries to come.

The Amaethons who had survived the previous attacks by the locusts and the entire clan of Brogan stood out in the field, watching the sky. They gazed at these supernatural white clouds as they encircled the black shadows, creating the shape of a spinning funnel before the dark clouds were snuffed out under the pressure of the light. Quickly thereafter, visible for all to see, the swift white clouds also receded.

On his knees before his people, Wann was terribly shaken; for he was the only one to see the real war as it had unrolled. The chief of the Broganites reached out to the sky under a trembling body. As much as his eyes betrayed his spirit, his heart failed him; for the locust king had lied to him. Once the sky cleared up, his body became rigid and fell to the ground dead. Dead before his people and all his riches.

2

The Angel and the

Commission

Sometime in the Twenty-First Century

A t around ten o’clock in the morning, the tall, dark-featured frame of Edward James Lanston entered his mansion; he was an almost perfect duplicate of his ancestor Wann of Brogan. Continually conversing with clients through an earphone with unceasing charm, he gracefully shifted his most important meetings and appointments from the morning to the morrow due to a splitting headache.

Dropping his keys on the mahogany console, he headed toward the luxurious sitting room while his servants promptly rid him of his attaché case and overcoat.

Today he’d left his company early due to his wife’s persistence, after a severe migraine that had woken him at three o’clock in the morning gave no sign of letting up. Walking over to the couch with pained steps, the mansion’s owner sat down to remove his jacket and tie as he finished off with the last prominent client. Pulling off the burdensome earpiece he used for communication, he set the object on the glass-and-marble table proudly standing beside him and lay down on the plush sofa. Placing his legs on the armrest, Lanston mentioned to the servant who had just finished picking up his belongings that he needed nothing else. He wanted to be left alone.

Already feeling the soothing effects of the pain reliever he’d taken in the car on his way home, he closed his dark eyes and tried to rest, but a strange sensation came over him.

Just as sleep promised to completely draw him into its paralyzing arms, Lanston suddenly saw a man standing before him in another dimension. Hidden in a whir of flies, which hummed rapidly around its master like a spinning cloud, the intruder standing in the airs filled the atmosphere with darkness and terror. Without further hesitation, the man attacked the representative of Wellington’s secret society boldly, knowing his own real identity was perfectly masked.

Edward Lanston, distracted just for a moment by the grotesqueness of this vision, gave the concealed man just enough time to swiftly throw at him something that resembled a fiery dart. As this dart sped toward him, it lengthened into an arrow; and, riding on the arrowhead, Edward saw an imp. The arrow and its flames seemed to disappear beneath the foul creature, and the grinning imp quickly transformed into a hideous black fog.

This little life, which had taken the shape of a shadow, had a mind of its own; and once released from its owner, it sped with dizzying speed toward the sleeping man, attaching itself painlessly to the base of Edward’s neck, completely covering the area of the cerebrum. Edward James Lanston watched helplessly as the hideous shadow of darkness now penetrated his head like a mist and disappeared. Reaching the central nervous system, the entity penetrated Edward’s brain and immediately found what it was looking for, the group of cells supporting and protecting the nerve cells.

Panicked before he could even understand the shadow’s intent, Edward wanted to counterattack but realized those precious seconds of idleness had cost him and that his lack of reaction had left him vulnerable and exposed.

The tormentor, using the form of darkness and shadow to possess its host, now easily perverted a healthy glial cell. This perverted cell immediately created a clot and then a chain reaction.

Quickly, the life behind the now-abnormal astrocyte cell began to multiply at such a speed, that it became impossible for a panicked Edward to divest himself of the entity, no matter how hard he tried. The mitosis sped up and multiplied cell upon cell, cell upon cell, as the life quickly worked to build itself a body. In no time the body was made and it took on the shape of a crab. There it became bright red as it went along, greedily filling itself with its victim’s fresh blood yet never being satisfied from the sticky fluid off which it lived.

Still lying under the influence of an artificial slumber, Edward watched as his own head of jet-black hair suddenly filled with thorns, but it wasn’t the end. In a few seconds, he watched in fear as these dark needles invaded his entire body, and he began to suffocate under its possession faster than it took for the disease to spread throughout his brain. By the time Edward felt death creeping into his struggling consciousness, the apparently innocent-looking imp had transformed itself into a cell resembling a crab, and the quantity of life fluid this living cell drank grew to the level of one thousand crabs one hundred times its size.

As the tumor cells began to infiltrate the surrounding brain and the man’s spinal cord, great tremors ran through his physical body, and Edward was about to die in his vision, when he saw a powerful entity in white come to him from eternity with great speed.

Seeing the arrival of the heavenly messenger, Edward’s oppressor cried in terror. With one glance, the powerful, heavenly angel caused the dark spinning cloud to dissipate from around the concealed man, the master of the imp. The flies scattered in terror, revealing the agent’s face before his victim. Edward clearly saw one of the council members of the same secret society in which he was a member. The man, doing everything to conceal his face, fled before them in confusion.

In his last moments of unconsciousness, as he returned his attention to the luminous being, Edward examined the beauty and magnificence that surrounded the entity, like glowing metal, and heard him say something. Unfortunately, despite his will to understand, he was unable to grasp the meaning of the words that rang frighteningly behind him like thunder. Astonished, Edward watched when the entity waved an open hand over his body, and the long thorns that had sprouted all over his being dried up immediately and fell away to the ground. Turning into ashes, the thick, black thorns mixed away with