The First Book of Gabriel: Seeker of the Light

By Gabe Rispoli Jr

From the time before the great pyramids were built, an ancient prophecy foretold that for the sake of humanity, when nature could no longer absorb the abuse of man, a newborn of unknown blood would walk among us. Led by the divinity of elders, he will change the world.

Join Gabriel and his close companions on this journey of mystery, danger, and intrigue.

As Gabriel must interpret riddles to find the path to the light, he must also learn on the way. As this journey will teach Gabriel about the altered genesis of man and his aggressive nature for self-fulfillment, it will also teach of man’s forced dominance of women and the abusive, unequal treatment inflicted upon them from the beginning to this day. Then the last but the most important lesson of all is the nature of this world and the destructive imbalance that has been caused by man. And within the imbalance of man and nature, Gabriel must learn how this balance can be restored. The ecological problems with the planet are at the heart of this imbalance.

As Gabriel learns what’s needed to start the reversal of all the damages, he learns the secret of why this world is so special and the true meaning of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514409237

Gabe Rispoli Jr

Gabe Rispoli Jr., born in 1956 in Staten Island, New York, is a storyteller from a line of storytellers dating back to a time long forgotten. Raised in both New York City and Miami, Florida, Gabe is married with four children. Within the commencement of his novel, The First Book of Gabriel: Seeker of the Light, he has crafted a fictional story based on his personal beliefs with a message of truth, questioning the validly of the history we’ve been taught, the conventional religious scriptures we believe, the suppression of extraterrestrial interactions with the governments of the world, and the illogical opinions of people that do not believe man is damaging the ecosystem of this planet.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Dream

Tuesday, 1:45 a.m., February 2, 2016,

Day 1

The sun’s burning heat upon the desert was lethal to lost stragglers. As the warm Southeast winds blew in from the Arabian Peninsula, Gabriel’s trail of footsteps disappeared as he trudged through the hot desert sand. It was the desert’s way of letting you know how insignificant you are. On the verge of hallucinating, Gabriel thought he had seen what looked like a water hole not too far ahead, but he knew the tricks played by the desert sun would not allow salvation of his unquenchable thirst.

As Gabriel closed in on this aberration, it became apparent that it was not a water hole; the scattered reflections now looked like jewels in the sand. Nonetheless, something real was causing the glare; as the sweat ran down Gabriel’s brow, he strained his burning eyes to get the images clearer.

On arrival, he wished he never walked in this direction. As he stood and stared, it was numbing to see the reflection of ammo casings scattered around clumps of bloody remains. It looked like the site of a grizzly execution. Gabriel just stood there thinking, what the fuck happened here?

Then a small object caught his eye; it looked somewhat like a dog tag stuck in the sand. He proceeded into the blood-splattered area to investigate, hoping that object would be a clue. But after taking just a few steps forward, the ground suddenly gave way around him. It was as if the desert sand was swallowing him whole. Falling, he reached out frantically to grab onto anything, but nothing was there—nothing but sands hitting Gabriel’s face as he fell. With a crashing thud that echoed through the darkness, he hit the ground and then silence, nothing but darkness and silence.

Wow, that fall was at least twenty feet. It was like falling from the top of that rock wall at the fair when I was a kid. I’m surprised I managed to land on my feet.

Standing there straining his eyes as they adjusted to the dark, Gabriel looked up to see why that blinding sun wasn’t filtering through where he fell.

Well, there’s no opening above my head, so how could the ground have given way if it’s still there? This is so strange. I didn’t imagine falling. What the hell could be going on here? Fuck, it’s so dark. I can hardly see what’s in front of me, just some dim candlelights. What kind of place is this?

Gabriel walked toward one of the lights and could see it was a small oil lamp fixed to the wall. As he gazed around the room, he counted seven of them. It was hard to make anything else out in this dark place besides the lamps. Trying to get his bearings, Gabriel started walking slowly with his right hand out in front of him, touching the wall with every step. The wall made him feel somewhat secure in this uncertain situation, but not enough to stop his left arm bobbing back and forth as if he was going to block a punch or throw a jab. His curious nature was one thing, but investigating in the dark was not to his likings.

Moving forward in baby steps around the perimeter of this chamber so defensively showed how uncomfortable Gabriel was. Although he felt at a great disadvantage, Gabriel kept going as if he were being drawn to keep moving forward.

As he went around the room, there was nothing much to see as he passed the first few lamps. The chamber seemed to be round and empty. But midway around the chamber, the wall came to an end. He found himself standing at the mouth of a dark opening. Gabriel stood there dwelling on the situation as he rubbed his chin, pondering his thoughts.

I wonder how far down this passage goes? I don’t see anything but a flicker of light down in the dark. Not too inviting, but it seems to be my only choice to get out.

Gabriel started slowly walking down this dark passage. That right hand of his never stopped touching the wall with every step he took. Walking further down, he came to one of those lanterns on the wall. It was so dim that it only illuminated a tiny area in the dark, but it was still much appreciated. Looking further down the passage, all he could see was another speck of light.

There was not much of an elevation drop from the start of this passage, but now that I passed the first lamp, there is a marked increase in slope downward. I can feel it in my feet. I’m going under, that’s for sure.

As Gabriel came to the second lamp, he realized by his steps and degree of slope that he must have dropped another eighteen inches between lamps.

I wonder where this passage is taking me.

In between the lights, there was just darkness. It was so dark somebody could be standing right in front of you and you wouldn’t see them.

Boy, with my imagination and all the horror movies I’ve seen, walking in this dark creepy passage makes me think of the most fucked-up shit.

Gabriel stopped by the next lamp. Standing there in his now dirty white sneakers, blue jeans, and white cotton T-shirt that looked grey, the sweat was dripping off his forehead. As he grabbed the bottom of his soaking wet T-shirt, he pulled it up to look at it under the light.

Man, I can’t find a clean, dry piece of shirt to wipe the sweat from my eyes. The more I wipe them with this soaking wet T-shirt, the more they burn.

Shit, what’s that?

Gabriel, standing with his back against wall, thought he had seen something moving out of the corner of his eye. Scanning back and forth in the dim light of the lamp, he looked for something at the edge of the light, but nothing was there. Whatever it was, it must be waiting at the edge of the dark, startled just as much by Gabriel’s movement in the light. This stalemate went on for a few minutes. Gabriel stood still waiting, and just as expected, the culprit showed up.

I see that fat-tailed bastard scampering into the light. Going up the path, that rat must be chasing the smell of blood from above. I wonder where he’s coming from.

Gabriel just stood there watching as the rat’s tail disappears into the dark. The added excitement and increased sweating didn’t make things better for him.

I know I’m dehydrating from all this sweating, and it’s just going to get worse with no supplies. I would turn around and get my ass out of here if this wasn’t the only way out.

Darkness itself unsettled Gabriel; he always slept with some type of night-light. He didn’t like total darkness. Inwardly he knew that as the years have passed, his anxiety with the dark had increased. But behind the anxiety, it was as if he knew something of consequence was awaiting him, always closing in, as it now felt closer than ever.

Regardless, Gabriel kept going forward; he could not stop. He felt like he was being pulled down this passage. Walking past each lamp, he counted the lamps as he went.

There seems to be the same number of steps and degree of slope going down between every lamp I’ve passed since the first.

Gabriel had this thing with numbers as he subconsciously counted everything. He’s been like that all his life. Lamp number seven was the next in line, and at that point, the floor leveled off. He could not see any lights ahead, just darkness beyond the last lamp.

Let me see. In between the seven lamps down this passage, I had six drops of eighteen inches, which is nine feet. So with the fall into the upper chamber, I must be close to thirty feet below the surface.

Walking forward a few steps in the dark, Gabriel came to an open archway to the right.

Wow, I can see more lamps lit in this chamber. It’s hard to tell how big this room is. These lamps aren’t hanging on the wall. In fact, I can’t see any walls. The lamps are hanging off stands in a circle around something. Maybe I fell smack in the middle of a labyrinth. I certainly didn’t start at the beginning. And will you look at that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven lamp stands in a circle, seven lamps on the wall in the chamber above, and seven lamps on that dark passage down. My dad always said things happened in threes.

As Gabriel walked closer to the circle; it appeared the seven lamp stands were made of gold. The lamps were in a circle around a second circle one step down. In the lower circle was a stone sarcophagus chiseled to look like a knight in armor. It sat atop a black marble base with a real sword across its chest. But this was no normal knight; it had a lion’s head with seven eyes. The arms of the knight were down along its sides. It held the sword from its right hand across its chest, extending over the left shoulder. The hand piece of the sword was embedded in the stone hand of the knight.

As I look at this tomb, there are so many ways to see relevance in this imagery, with the numbers, with the lamp stands, with the eyes, but my well-being may rest on some fresh air and water. Fuck the relevance.

As droplets of sweat continued to run off Gabriel’s brow, you could hear the pace of his breathing increase. He then stepped down into the lower circle drawn by the luster of the sword and laid his hand upon it. Suddenly images started to flash before his eyes.

I see two men talking to a government official with armed guards. There are workers standing against the rocks. They must be with the two men being questioned. Something about the two men looks familiar, but their backs are to me. The government official just nodded to the armed guards. Holy shit, they’re firing their guns, killing the workers.

Gabriel’s heart rate spiked, shivers shot up his legs and arms, his hand and arm touching the sword was trembling, but he couldn’t pull back. The sweat was dripping off his forehead profusely as his eyes continually burned.

My heart feels like it’s going to jump out my chest. It’s pounding so hard. I don’t want to see anymore.

Gabriel then closed his eyes tight and pulled his hand off the sword with all his might. The images stopped. He opened his eyes, and lo and behold, the beast was standing right in front of him. Living, breathing, and looking down at him; the beast must be seven feet tall, towering over Gabriel who was six foot. But this beast was not dressed in steel armor as depicted in the stone carving. It was dressed much like an outfit worn by the crusaders. The beast was wearing black boots and black leggings, with a one-piece sleeveless white body covering that went from his neck to his knees. It was cinched at the waist with a five-inch wide black belt.

At the same width, a red band went down the center of the front from top to bottom. Another red band went across its chest, making it a big red cross, adorned by a huge red cape that went down to the top of its boots. Chain-mail covered its head with just the face showing as it covered its neck to the bottom; the Chain-mail also draped out to the midpoint of its shoulders. This beast held a gold shield in its left hand with an etched cross on it, and the sword was in its right hand.

Standing face-to-face with this beast makes me want to run for my life, but my feet feel frozen to the floor. I can’t move. This beast is looking me up and down. I want to get out of here, I want to run, but I can’t. I feel its eyes like they’re burning through my soul. Now it’s belting out a screaming roar that’s echoing through the chamber. The sound it’s making is deafening. My ears are ringing like a grenade just went off. My ass is dead. This beast is going to slice me up with that sword. The sound is so loud it’s making me dizzy, like it’s affecting my equilibrium.

As Gabriel stood face-to-face with this beast, all seven eyes were fixed on him.

Holy shit, blood is running down this beast’s face from all his eyes. This thing is probably going to eat me after it kills me.

Roaring like the deliverer of justice, over and over the sound continued to echo through the hall.

I can barely think in this deafening confusion. This is a real freaky scene. I have no idea what’s going on any more.

Gabriel tried to step back from the beast, but he could not move. He was panicking, frozen in the time of the moment. His feet were stuck to the floor.

I can’t move my legs, like they’re glued to the floor. This thing is going to kill me. I have to get out of here.

At that moment, the beast dropped his shield and grabbed Gabriel by his shirt with one hand and tossed him back to sword’s length. Landing on the outer circle, disoriented, Gabriel was looking at the beast face-to-face.

This beast is going to cut my head off.

The beast then swung the sword over Gabriel as if to behead him and crashed the sword against the stone encasement. The sword sliced into the stone and imbedded itself into the chest of the knight. And as if the beast struck itself, it fell to the ground as the gash appeared across its chest. Blood started pouring out as it was mortally wounded. Blood was pouring onto the ground into the lower circle around the stone sarcophagus.

Gabriel was shaking, not fully realizing what had just happened. He felt dizzy like he was going to pass out from dehydration. Now fixated on the blood flowing out of the beast, he watched as it was filling up grooves etched in the stone floor. The more the beast bled, the more a message started to become visible. And as more and more blood filled the grooves, the more Gabriel could see the message.

The sweat from his forehead was burning his eyes. He tried to focus! Gabriel’s heart was pounding. The blood now filled up the grooves. Just as he glimpsed the engraving in whole, the lanterns blew out. Gabriel jolted as he opened his eyes. Lying in bed, naked, dripping in sweat, his heart was pounding wildly. It was the dream.

CHAPTER 2

Visions and Premonitions

Tuesday, 2:00 a.m., February 2, 2016

Day 1

Twenty years of this hell and tonight, it all changed. As Gabriel lay in bed, he thought about what had just happened.

Fuck! That dream kicked my ass. I feel like a beaten dog. It’s never been like this before. After twenty years of waking up to the same dream, tonight I moved on to something very different. I think the visions in my dream that became so much more defined tonight showed me a glimpse of the etching for a reason. I remember a doctor told me my dream could be my own visualization of a trauma that eventually I would have to come to terms with. Boy was he wrong. This dream finally told me something. It showed me a riddle. Now I must figure out what all this means. I need a drink and a shower.

Gabriel gingerly got himself out of bed and walked into the adjoining study. He opened the fridge and grabbed his pitcher of ice tea. Rosie, the head of the household and cook that has been taking care of Mr. Gabriel’s needs since he was a child, made a fresh pitcher of tea for him daily. Gabriel poured himself a large glass of iced tea and downed it like he had just walked across the desert.

Still without a stitch of clothes on, he walked back into the bedroom to the master bathroom and turned on the hot water in the shower. Gabriel loved taking hot showers. The water was now steaming up the bathroom, so Gabriel stepped into the shower to rinse off. Enjoying the shower massage spray and how the hot water made his whole body tingle, Gabriel stood there for a while, enjoying the moment.

It was 2:00 a.m. The phone rang! Gabriel was still in the shower. The voice mail took a message. Gabe, it’s Paul. I’m in Jordan. I found the tomb. We must talk. I’ll call you at noon your time tomorrow.

Gabriel came out of the bathroom, lay on the dry side of the bed, and passed out.

Gabriel used to have this dream nightly when he was young, but as he got older, it only happened once in a while. When he was twelve and the dream first started, it was happening nightly. Gabriel’s mom took him to a medical center, which was really more of a center where they do studies with children. When Gabriel went, they were in the middle of this extensive study on children diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Child prodigies that showed signs of autism were also part of the study.

Apparently, they benefited from enhanced abilities of heightened senses, memory, and attention to detail without suffering autism spectrum disorders. Dream studies were being done on the children that stayed overnight. One of the studies the doctors were looking at was a connection between recurring dreams and repetitive behaviors. That’s where Gabriel fit in. His repetitive nature to count everything with his high capacity of working memory and the ability to manipulate numbers, along with the reoccurring dream, was of interest to the doctors running the study.

Gabriel was allowed to sleep overnight six times over a two-week period. Each night he stayed, the next morning he was observed interacting with the other children or taking skill tests till noon when his mom would pick him up.

One morning, the doctors took Gabriel in their test room where all the children did different types of tests to evaluate their enhanced abilities. A very difficult test with heavy storage demands to show a correlation between individual differences in reading comprehension and how that reflects differences in working memory capacity was given to Gabriel.

A list of twenty complex sentences was read out loud by the subject, and then the list was taken away, and the subject was asked what the last word in each sentence was. In a result of thirty college students, the number of final words recalled varied from two to five. The child prodigies tested in this study recalled six to ten final words.

When Gabriel was tested, he not only recalled all twenty final words but also was capable of reciting all twenty sentences word for word. The doctors determined Gabriel’s attention to detail and heightened memory retention were so advanced that he was in a class all his own. The charts on his dreams were also very unusual in that his levels of brain activity were much higher than the doctors normally see during sleep. None of the child prodigies the doctors were studying were close to the level of Gabriel’s heightened abilities, and these prodigies were the most gifted children on file.

The doctors also had an advanced theory that although autism was being addressed as an impairment, with most autistic children having disorders, the autistic range of enhanced abilities could be linked to using the area of the brain that is unused as they say. It was sort of like tapping into a photographic hard drive as needed.

This also played into the interest the doctors had with Gabriel after witnessing him retain all the information in those twenty difficult sentences in just one read and then demonstrating total recall. The doctors never showed Gabriel the sentences again, but they asked him in the testing room on his remaining four visits to recite the sentences again, and it was done each time with not one mistake. The doctors had never seen anything like that.

How much more Gabriel, the prodigies, or any of the children in this study were capable of was a mystery. Most in the medical profession that knew of this study thought it was way outside the realm of excepted theory. While working on the premise that these children were generally looked upon as individuals with special needs, were not only using that part of the brain we do not use, but also had the capability of consciously downloading into it like a hard drive. This was something the medical community looked upon as science fiction, but not to the doctors in this study.

Gabriel was classified as a prodigy with the full range of autistic-enhanced abilities and no disorders. He also was classified as the highest-rated child prodigy they ever evaluated.

An observation on how Gabriel interacted with the autistic kids, on an entirely different level of awareness from everybody else, was also something that the doctors found very interesting.

Gabriel, up to that point in his life, had no previous encounters or schooling on children with special needs. He was just starting seventh grade at twelve years old. At times when he was out with his mom and had seen another child that seemed different, he would ask, What’s wrong with that kid, Mom. His mom would always say, Some children are special and live a different type of life because God made them like that, and they needed special care.

Gabriel felt bad when he saw a child that was not able to play with all the other kids and pretty much left it at that. The doctors, though, could not understand how Gabriel’s communication skills, with the children that had the least amount of communication skills, were on an entirely different level from the most accomplished doctors in the field. When interacting with all the children in the big play area, the children that spoke and played with no one gravitated to Gabriel and interacted with him like watching two normal children play. It was more astonishing to the doctors than Gabriel’s memory storage capabilities. These were children that did not communicate with their own parents like they did with Gabriel. And this was in their first encounter with him.

Gabriel left the study with two revelations: First, he became much more aware of how different he was from most kids. Second, when his mom was enrolling him in the study, he overheard her tell the doctor he was adopted at birth.

It did not matter to him; this was his mom, as far as he was concerned. But it did make it difficult for her to answer any of the doctor’s questions about anything passed down from his parents.

It seemed Gabriel’s adopted parents were very wealthy and could not have children even with the best fertility doctors trying to make it happen. So after exhausting all avenues, they came to terms that it was not meant to be. Now in their sixties, they felt it had to happen immediately for them to have any time to raise the child. They needed an heir and were willing to do whatever it took to get one. So they contacted a very good friend in Italy who knew of their situation and wanted to help whenever they were ready.

Once the money was transferred to the church as a charitable contribution, they flew to Italy in the friend’s private jet and picked up the boy at a church in Rome and quickly flew back to Miami. Gabriel’s parents had papers showing he was born in Italy from a traveling mother who was a U.S. citizen. They had a death certificate that showed his real mom died in childbirth and a birth certificate that showed no father on record. Being the only next of kin, they were given custody of this beautiful, healthy baby boy.

This also enabled Gabriel to possess dual citizenship, Italian and U.S. passports from birth.

Gabriel woke up late because of that dream. That would be around 7:00 a.m. He normally was up at five.

He grabbed his cell phone and saw he had a message.

It was Paul calling from Jordan. He listened and then set the phone to remind him at 11:55 a.m. He needed to catch that call.

How strange, he thought.

For the first time in twenty years, I have woken from that dream, actually seeing the message on the floor. And at that same time, Paul calls from Jordan at two o’clock in the morning. Something’s aligning!

CHAPTER 3

Paul Calls from Jordan

Tuesday, 12:00 p.m., February 2, 2016

Day 1

Gabriel felt haunted, as the minutes seemed to drag waiting for Paul’s call. Trying not to anticipate too much on what Paul meant by, I found the tomb was easier said than done. It was their college reunion five years ago that Gabriel and his buddy Josh had got together with Paul, Thomas, Michael, and Peter. The six friends made a pack that they would reunite every five years after graduating from college together. It was time to start getting in contact with the guys this year for a ten-year reunion.

Josh, Gabriel’s childhood buddy from South Florida, where Gabriel lived, crossed paths with Gabriel more often. But since Josh relocated to the Tampa Bay area in Central Florida on the West Coast, Gabriel had not seen him in person for a year. Gabriel also had seen Michael and Peter while on business in Manhattan once or twice since the reunion. But not Paul and Thomas who lived in Los Angeles as Gabriel’s work kept him on the East coast. So the reunion up to this point was the only time all six reunited.

Gabriel lived in an eight-bedroom two-story estate in Coral Gables that his parents left him. It had an attic and a tall tower room that was high enough to see the sun rise from the ocean to the east and had an unobstructed view of the sun setting in the West. This was Gabriel’s favorite place to watch the sky.

Looking down from the tower, you could see the luxurious rock garden, a flowering garden, and herb garden. Four patios were scattered throughout the landscape with a perimeter of royal palms around the whole property. The palms were lined with hedge and flowering plants. Royal palms also lined both sides of the main drive-in from the gated entrance.

Aside from the gardens, there was a huge pool with a diving board, a tennis court, and the newly renovated Florida room that Gabriel expanded and turned into a gym with hot tub, sauna, and steam room. Then there was the guesthouse, a nice cottage with two bedrooms. Gabriel converted this into an office, a boardroom, and an archive for the family foundation. This foundation raised funds for many charities his parents supported. The main house hosted the fundraisers at the estate. That was pretty much what kept Gabriel busy since finishing college.

The estate had three live-in caretakers. The head of the house was Rosie, the Jamaican-born housekeeper and cook that practically raised Gabriel. Then there was Jose and Juan, two brothers from Cuba that had worked for Gabriel’s parents for over thirty years. Jose was the gardener, and Juan did everything else, as he was a jack-of-all-trades, which included plumbing, electric, all the house repairs, and upkeep of the estate vehicles. The three of them keep the estate going whether Gabriel was there or not; they had been doing it since he was born.

The phone rang; it was Paul, always so punctual, right at noon.

How you doing, man? Gabriel answered.

Gabe, you’re not going to believe this, but I found the tomb in your dream.

Are you shitting me?

No, Gabe, just like in your dream. You know I listened to you all through college talk about that dream every time you had it. I know it very well, Gabe. This is without a doubt the tomb in your dream, right down to the number of lamps hanging on the stands and that knight with the seven-eyed lion’s head.

That’s unbelievable, Paul! How did this happen? You finally received a grant and permission to do a dig in the Dead Sea and found the tomb in my dream?

"Yes, but that’s not where the tomb is. It was an accident that we found it, or maybe it was meant to be. I really don’t know what to think anymore. But it’s in an area that’s off limits, very close to the Royal Tombs in Petra, which is why you need to get over here quick. I don’t know how long it will be accessible before somebody finds out we found it. And don’t come alone. Bring the guys for the college reunion to Jordan. You need to travel in numbers and need people around you that you can trust. I have a feeling, Gabe, that something is happening, and this is part of it. The guys will work out great. Do it fast. We don’t have a lot of time. E-mail me the travel details, and don’t come into Jordan from Miami. Come in from Europe. You’ll