The Untold Mystery of the Phoenix

By Larry A. Visgar Jr.

In a land that was once the home of a very advanced people called the Chalri, now is the home of chaos, death, dis-pare, and more pressing War. A people that was once so advanced they're now scraping to survive the harsh land around them. They now try to fight a war against the very enemy that destroyed their entire culture, an enemy that keeps them from going back to their former glory, and that enemy is the Mutants. Now In this land of destruction and chaos is a silent cry for change, a cry for someone to break away from the beliefs of an ancient Prophecy, a cry for someone to take a stand and create the change they need.


In a small village called Chalro that cry will be heard. As a young man by the name of Gabriel faces many different challenges on the way. He doesn't just face the Mutant threat but also what the land has to offer such as, Randers, Rogue Soldiers, and vicious animals, Among other personal battles as well. With his friends at his side He will face his greatest struggles, with them by his side He will face what He is destined to be, not just a leader but much more then what he ever thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469194202

Larry A. Visgar Jr.

I was born in Phoenix Arizona on March 15th 1989, and my family moved to Beloit, WI three months later. I wrote the “Untold Mystery of the Phoenix” to show a different version of him, since every hero stands for something, I wanted to show why the Phoenix stands for what He stands for. I never liked mythology; and I think it’s interesting that I wanted to write about it, this book defiantly gave me a few challenges to work with. I like to work with science fiction, there isn’t really any rules just make it make sense.

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Copyright © 2012 by Larry A. Visgar, Jr.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-9419-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-9420-2

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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Contents

The Phoenix Myth

The Chalri Prophesy

Introduction

The Story Begins

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

A Very Special Thanks To

The Phoenix Myth

The Myth of the mystical fiery Phoenix Bird goes back thousands of years: maybe even to the days of Adam and Eve, according to one myth. There is only one Mythical origin and many different forms to the Phoenix, for the many different cultures. Many are similar in many ways with little differences, such as what bird the cultures Phoenix is based upon, and what God has sent it, how it behaves, and how it is reborn.

After the Phoenix has lived past its 500+ years, it builds a nest of twigs and it ignites with the bird inside it and both nest and bird are consumed. Then out of the ashes the bird is reborn. It embalms the ashes of the past Phoenix into an egg and then flies it to the Egyptian city to place the ashes. The reborn Phoenix will live to the extent of the bird before it.

The Phoenix is a very peaceful bird that symbolizes eternal life, rebirth, transformation through fire, and healing. The size has been said to be like an eagle and its feathers to be partly gold and mostly red.

The Chalri Prophesy

In an age of total darkness and terror of a supernatural war plagues sweep the land of man. Mutants take charge of the order. Fire reigns in the land instead of true nature. As the Immortal Soul arises, the time of the fiery Phoenix is near. With fear of the unknown all mankind weep in desperate hopelessness. The fiery warrior will come as a mystery but will act vengeance upon the weak, and will save the doomed.

Introduction

Hi there newcomer! My name is Morila. I am one of the elders of my people the Chalri. We have been around for hundreds of years. My ancestors had visions of the future: a time of darkness. They wrote many Prophecies about the darkness ahead; unfortunately The Words of the Immortal is the only one that has been found of hundreds of pages of the book. We have been at war for twenty years with the mutants. No one has a true explanation of how they came to be, just speculations.

We were at one time a very primitive race. Over the last hundred years all of that changed. Advances in technology occurred, medicine, economic, social, and religion. Our people were split up into many different colonies in the west section of the planet. Because we grew so much in numbers, we increased the number of villages our people live in so we could have more room to grow. We thrived as a civilization, but the war changed all of that. It came as a surprise to all of us. Their first strike was the most lethal; they took out our leaders, then they went for our military so we couldn’t fight back.

After the attacks, many of our villages were destroyed. However many Chalri’s were able to avoid destruction. Since then we have banded together and rebuilt many villages; however, we’re not as advanced as we once were. We have survived as a civilization and new leaders have risen. Also brave men and women arose to fight this war. As bleak as our surroundings look, we keep the traditions alive: school, church, weddings, games, life. I feel the time of the great Phoenix is near! As I await in our small village Chalro, I see great potential in our young ones. We stay prepared for great changes, for nothing in this time is set in stone. Anything can be undone. It all depends on how hard we want to work for it.

The Story Begins

As I awake from my deep sleep my mind stays fixated on my dream. I’m in the middle of terror and desolation as the people of Chalro stand still and cold. Darkness surrounds me, and fear gains control over me as the soldiers of Chalro and other villagers look to me for guidance. The temple behind me explodes in rage for the destruction the leader of the mutants caused. I’m like a puppet being controlled by a mythical master. As the orbiting moons switch from one side to another, the planets change places as well. I hear a loud roaring voice behind me as I turn in wonderment.

I then awoke from my slumber. (Deep breathless gasps) As I wonder why I would dream of such madness, my heart races in excitement. I look around my room in search of my things to get ready for teachings. Being in a time crunch I start tossing things aside, to and fro. They land in random areas: my bed, my battle assortments, even on my dinner that has sat for a few days.... Ew, I should take care of that. Ahh! Here we go! My favorite shirt: light rugged gray, sided with black, and a metallic blue cross stripe, topped in metal shoulder pads. Overkill maybe, but that’s how I do things.

I walk into the living room/kitchen for a quick snack of delicious permpberry bread. My taste buds water as I take the first bite, my body paralyzed with flavor. I then reach for water to wash it down, and think how refreshing it is. I go for the rickety door that stands between me and the fierce outside world. Walking outside, I already see familiar faces: my two best friends Raylo and Shalna. I meet them by the giant water basin in front of my Shalknar to go to our senior year of teachings.

I’ve known Raylo since I can remember. My Mom says we met fifteen years ago and we clicked right away. It really helped that we were the same age, I don’t remember a time outside our Shalknars when we’ve been apart. When we came to this village there was only a few baldnars. The population was maybe thirty at most. Raylo and his family were already here and were excited to see another little boy, since there were mainly Adults here and a few little girls. He and I were the only two boys here for the first few years.

Shalna came to our village five years ago. We were in class and our teacher introduced her to the class and sat her next to Raylo and I. She is at least three months younger than I am, where Raylo is two months older then me. The two of us became friends with her instantly.

As we’re talking we walk past at least two dozen Shalknars. They’re a fusion of a house and other pieces of wreckage put together. When the war started many baldnars were destroyed everyone had to start over. We didn’t just make makeshift Shalknars but bigger Baldnars as well. There are different names for different classes of buildings. A house is a Shalknar, a business is a Banar.

Even though there isn’t a government in these times, we have a small system: a law shack, a very small postal service, and for leaders we have the elders. Morila is a great voice in our village. He’s the adviser to a board of others that want the best for us. So the building we have for our small government is called a Glacknar, and a building in general is a Baldnar. The names are creative at best, and if you didn’t notice, the person that came up with the names used S for shelter in Shalknar, B for business in Banar, G for Government in Glacknar, and B for building in Baldnar. When I heard about the building names, I was thrown off and said it has to be a teenager. They sound like slang words. There could be more names for other Baldnars, but I have no knowledge of them.

My Shalknar is brick on the back end, scrap metal welded together—

quite poorly, I might add. Walls are strips of metal fused with wooden fragments, and the roof is made of many wooden pieces. All of them are different, because everyone has their own style of making their Shalknar. I’ve seen a lot of strange ones! Raylo’s place has melted tires for the roof, white plastic shards for room dividers, and the sides itself a crisscross of wooden pieces, chicken wire and metal strips to fasten it together. Okay, maybe it’s not that odd, but chicken wire for outside walls? I give him crap all of the time about it. He just laughs and says, Hey, my Mom picked out the materials. I just put them together where she wanted them. But I know it’s just an excuse for his bad taste. Now, Shalna’s place is built strong. They took their time making it. Walls inside are a mix of wood and bricks; the outside is a strong fusion of brick structure and metal outlines with a strong rubber roof so it’s built to last.

We kick up a fair amount of dust on the way while we rush to our teachings, for as I said before, we’re running a little late. Wind rushes by us and the scenery shoots past. It’s a nice hot sunny day with no cloud in the sky. Well, at least it’s nice for living in an apocalypse. The air has a musty, ashy smell that we try to cover up with many different scents. I fairly enjoy the apple simmer smell.

We nearly knock over a few people on the way in. As we enter, we’re scolded for the rude way we came into the school. The school isn’t that big. It’s the size of the old elementary school houses. They have different times for the different ages of students. Kindergarten up to fifth grade is from six a.m. till nine a.m. Sixth to eighth grade is nine a.m. til noon, and ninth to twelfth grade is noon to three p.m. They do it this way because it’s a small village and not a lot of young people, but there are enough to fill a small school. Roughly, I’d say there’s one hundred and eighty of us in this village of five hundred people.

As for what the school teaches, they have a set of important subjects to teach each age group. Only the necessities are taught. Kids are taught language skills, reading, writing, and math. Grades six to eight are the same, but instead of writing they work survival skills into the works. Nine through twelve is mainly survival, advanced language, history, and science. Each group is assigned a teacher, so it’s much easier for the teachers to keep up and know the students, even though some of us don’t really like that angle.

Our teaching house’s outside is made of brick. The roof is made of rubber, and the floors of wooden boards. We don’t have desks, but more like pews, with small narrow tables to work on. They are slightly separated so that if someone needs to get up, say, to use the bathroom, they can do it with ease. We do have a chalk board that we found in an old basement nearby, and we found chalk in a store that wasn’t completely destroyed. Yesterday we had a test on our subjects and, well, today we get the results. I’m not really looking forward to it. I feel I did well on survival, language I think I’m safe. I’m pretty good with our history, but just don’t ask me about politics, economic issues,or really anything that happened before the year 4000. Even that time is way beyond my scope. Now ask me about the year 4255 and I can tell you what events took place, since this is the year 4275. It’s kinda sad, but yet not so much. Since all of our advances were destroyed, if it wasn’t for the older people in the village that tell us what happened before the disaster, we wouldn’t have any knowledge of it. I was born only three years after the war started, so I only remember fragments of what happened. And it’s not like we can boot up our Akra and upload from our nakwat streams now. Yeah, now we have to rely on those older than us for the information we need. We can just browse around between villages and search the surroundings for information, but many of the elders advise against that. So like I said, I only know a little about prewar stuff, but I know a lot about what happened in the past ten years, since I am seventeen. Science hasn’t always been a strong suit for me, so I feel I am going to fail this one.

I go to my shelf to put my stuff on. Yeah, we have shelves instead of the lockers we had in the past. These are easier to put up. I’ve also been told that everyone has better things to put their time to than to find and shape the materials needed for a locker. So....we get shelves, or as I like to say, We’re getting shelved!

As I walk to my seat, my arms are full of my main four books, plus some crib notes I took down. I pass by my unfortunate followers (and I use the word followers very loosely): the three most annoying guys in the village, Ralam, Maple, and Sheader. Ever since we met them in grade six they’ve been hounding us. Every once in a while, we have an intense moment where there is either about to be a fight and the teacher stops it, or tensions get high and anger rises. Then nothing but a stone in the back of the head to the both of us can stop us. Already I can tell this may be one of those moments.

[Ralam pushes Gabriel’s books onto the floor and pushes down Raylo. He gets into Gabriel’s face, inciting him to fight. Which he sometimes does, but this is somewhat different. He responds to the look in Gabriel’s eyes.]

.... Five Minutes Later....

She goes on with about twenty other names. Before she gets to us, I fiddle around with my scrap sheets of paper. I start to draw the symbols that were shown in my dream this morning. I draw myself in a scene of darkness and fire in back. Surrounding me are hundreds of people just standing there in what seems to be amazement. There are many soldiers, wondering what they should do to help. As I start to draw the blowing-up temple, the teacher passes my test results to me and comments: Gabriel, you surprised me! You did a very good job.

I actually get excited and very curious, and check my results. In Survival I got an Excellent. Language: excellent. History: C-minus. Good, I’m still passing. Now science.... What!!!!!

[Shalna whispers to Gabriel and Raylo, questioning it.]

Now we go into study hour while she looks at all of the sheets. I’m studying further into survival, because I’ve always been very interested in the topic. That and language, mostly because in the outside land both subjects are the most important of all we will ever learn. I like to focus on the most important. For everything else, my mind tends to just shut off. Shalna and Raylo think I’m just lazy, that I don’t take anything seriously, but that’s not the case. I’m studying survival so I can fine-tone my skills. I already periodically leave the village and venture off. Once in a while I come across a mutant, but they never track me here. I make sure of that. Well, language is handy because you never know when you’ll have to talk your way out of a situation. I haven’t had to yet, but I’m sure the time is very soon. Shalna is studying more on science because she thinks the Mutants were once like us. She feels they were experimented on to look the way they do. Someday she wants find the cure for them. She’s also a great survivalist; I would hate to get on her bad side on the outside! She pretty much is great at all of the topics we study.

Here is question one of ten on my survival guide: What do you do when you’re cornered by randers? Well, if I don’t feel like fighting anyone I try talking my way out. If that doesn’t work....well then, let the bodies hit the floor.

Number two: When you’re in the middle of nowhere, what do you eat? Anything you can possibly find! If you’re starving why be picky?

Number three: What do you do when you’re surrounded by Mutants? [Gabriel pauses on the answer while he thinks out loud.] Well, my book says to look around you and to find help before anything. If that fails, try to outrun them, which is very stupid because mutants run at least forty miles per hour. That’s what the book says, and I’ve seen a mutant run twenty miles per hour. So outrunning them won’t be an option, unless you find a way to distract them, since they do have brains the size of a dime. Distracting them is still a long shot, though. I’d rather just fight them, even though that’s not any better. If I’m going to die I’d rather die fighting. [He writes down Fight the mutants.]

Number four: You see a group of teenagers about to leave the village, to go to the vast wasteland. What do you do?

This sounds like a trap! I think I’ll say I’d turn them into the Shaper (that’s what we call the sheriff), so that I don’t cause suspicion.

Number five: You’re wounded in the wasteland, and it’s serious. You estimate you have one hour to live. What do you do? That’s easy: try to stop the bleeding and run for help or to a nearby village.

Number six: "You come back to your village to find it has been taken over by mutants. You see there are still survivors. What do you do? I’d sneak past the mutants and work my way to the holdings. I’d let the survivors out and fight back!

Number seven: "You find yourself in the unique position of needing to trust a rander, and the rander has to trust you. You both are surrounded by rogue soldiers who want the tides of war to stay the way they are. With very little chance of escape, you have few options:

1.   You can surrender to them, and maybe be killed later.

2.   Join them and help them in their evil cause.

3.   Team up with the rander and fight your way out.

4.   Just stand there and let them kill you."

Wow, those sound like bleak options. I think I’ll go with #3, even though I haven’t had many dealings with the randers. Oh! By the way, if you haven’t already noticed, randers are raiders. For some reason they prefer the name rander. I guess they want individuality from the past literature we’ve read of raiders; maybe they didn’t want to be affiliated with them and wanted their own name. Now the last three are more on What would you do? It’s not really textbook related. I see it as the village wanting to see who will cause the most trouble. Do I answer? Of course I do. What’s the worst they can do to me if it’s true?

Number eight: What would you do if you started to mutate? I would pray my mutation is cool and hope I can control it.

Number nine: A child is lost in the wasteland. What do you do? I offer to bring the child back to the village. If the child refuses....well, I tried.

Now this is a bit direct for my taste. It has nothing to do with survival; it’s more on the topic of history or religion.

Number ten: Do you believe in the Phoenix? NO. It drives me crazy when people ask me if I believe in the Legend. I prefer not to answer them because it causes a division in the village. Many in it believe the Phoenix will save everyone. I, for one, don’t want to rely on some myth to save me. I’d rather forge my own way.

Our Teacher, Ms. Mada, usually gives us ninety minutes to study and work on our papers. For the first ninety minutes she goes over our last topic, introduces the new one, and gives us the new assignments. Then we study. Hey Shalna, what are you studying?

Raylo and I agree. The Noblem is a great old statue in the middle of the village....at least everyone thinks it’s a statue. It’s a huge piece of metal with two ends sticking up, kinda like a dove. That might be what it was; the front part is missing, so all that’s really left are half of the two wings. The people of the village made it a park, so a lot of the other kids like to play on the semi-wings. Us teenagers like to just sit around it and hang out. As we’re walking to the Noblem, we stop at one of the four villages wells, where we sit down with La-ash and talk.

In the dream I drew, I was standing in the middle of a ruined village. So many people were standing around me with their backs to me. They had a cold look on their faces, as if they were scared beyond measure of what was in their presence. I turned around and see many solders standing behind me, ready to hear their orders from me. Then the Temple that’s behind me blows up in outrage of the shape of the land that was caused by the enemy leader. Then I felt like I was being controlled by someone. The rest is a blur. The usual things I see are the people in the main village and the temple. Off and on I see soldiers. The feeling of shame is usual. I also feel fear of leadership. Sometimes I’m fighting in the wasteland with hundreds of soldiers. Pretty often, I see a giant shadow killing many people. I only faced him once, and that one time I was able to keep up with him. I remember it being the hardest fight I have ever fought. He shoved me down and I felt so much fear and I looked up and saw his foot racing toward my face. It was that time I woke up screaming and so scared of what I saw and felt.

[La-ash cuts them off]