One Minute to Midnight (14 page)

"The two of you have found each other before,
many, many times. Some souls are just matched that way." Mom
said.

"What about the sad woman in the waiting room?
She’s doomed to that little room, forever?" Shaun asked.
"No, but she has to learn her lesson and she is waiting on a guide
to bring her to the center of learning. Suicides have to work
through the problems they were unable to cope with in their life.
We help them through it through classes and visits from loved ones.
Re-education makes the likelihood of another suicide less probable.
If she had waited three more days, her life in that body would have
been terminated under natural circumstances. But she’s just one
tragic case. There are millions and billions of rooms just like the
one you were in with suicide cases who are waiting for class." Dad
said.

"We feel that it motivates clients to take a
more serious approach to life reentry." Mom said.

"So, you aren’t my real parents, are
you?"
"We all come from the creator, so I guess you could say yes and no.
We’re as much your parents as you are ours, or anybody’s. Even your
parents in the last life were projections of a greater
consciousness that guides and directs
all
in the vast multiverse."
"Multiverse? There’s more than one universe?" Shaun
asked.

They both nodded and smiled at Shaun. He could
feel the warmth of their love for him, and fake or not. It was just
like being home when he was a kid. The images sledding down a large
hill together in an inner tube flashed in his mind and he smiled
back.
"When does the movie begin?" Shaun asked.

"Right now, at conception."

The screen came to life, and Shaun felt as if
he were suddenly transported to an adult theater. Two sweaty people
were rolling around together on a large bed, neither of them
looking older than their early twenties.
"Young parents? I can work with that." Shaun smiled.
Mom and Dad smiled at him and pointed toward the screen.

Shaun missed the climax, but then the camera
zoomed in to an army of tiny swimming sperm making their way to the
glowing egg in wait. The egg was well defended by shields, but one
little guy made it through as the others perished in a sea of
darkness. Nine months passed in the blink of an eye, and soon the
baby was pushed out of temporary storage into the waking world. In
no time the baby was a toddler, crawling and then walking like a
drunken sea captain as he explored his surroundings on jelly legs.
Images of childhood, laughter, and family love swarmed the screen.
His parents had been there for his first steps, for all of the
teeth he lost as a small child, and all the scrapes and
bruises.

On the screen, Shaun watched how one day his
father stopped coming home, and mom seemed very sad.
"Your father dies in an industrial accident, and not long after you
lose your mother to cancer." Dad said.
"That doesn’t sound great!" Shaun said.
"Life is what it is. You have to accept the good with the bad, and
good is just about to come around the corner." Mom said.

Shaun was twelve now, and living with his
grandparents in the country. One day he was walking down the dirt
road from their house, dragging a stick in the dirt and feeling
sorry that his parents were both dead, when he looked up to see a
beautiful brown haired girl with her hair tied back in a ponytail
walking toward him from the opposite direction. He could see them
talking, and then the movie flashed forward a few years and they
were making out in the back seat of his car.

"This is getting better." Shaun
said.

"Keep watching." Dad said.

Flash forward a few more years and they were
each wearing wedding bands and Shaun could see that a baby was on
the way. The children grew in a loving family, and soon they were
off to college and starting families of their own. Shaun and his
wife were very old now, and had traveled most of the world in their
retirement years. One night she drifted off to sleep and didn’t
wake up the next morning. Shaun, not having her there is not far
behind, and he too dies of natural causes, quietly in the
night.

"What do you think? Is this a good
life?"
Shaun cocks his head to the side, and smiles.
"I'll take it. When do I leave?" He nods.
Twelve years after his birth to a loving mother and father, both
gone way too early, Shaun Tillman was dragging a stick through the
dust and stones of a rutted dirt road leading to his grandparent's
house. His sadness at losing his mother was overwhelming, and there
were days when he couldn't even breathe. After her passing, Shaun's
grandparents took him in, and so far everything was going as well
as could be expected, except he was just lonely, and he wanted his
parents back. Lost in his grief, Shaun almost ran right into the
pretty brunette walking toward him. She was dragging her own stick,
and smiling at him. He jumped with surprise, which brought a
chuckle from her.
"Oh, uh, sorry, uh, I didn't see you standing there."
"Ha ha, don't worry about it. What's your name?" She
asked.

"I'm Shaun. Shaun Tillman. What's your name?"
Shaun asked.

"Bethany. It always has been."
Bethany said.

the cyclops and adriel

“
And there we saw the
giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in
our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. ~
Numbers 13:33

Adriel woke up very early
in the morning, dressed, and snuck quietly through her apartment so
as to not wake anybody. Her parents were fast asleep, but if they
caught her sneaking out again she was sure to be grounded. Adriel
looked out the window to see that a new day sun was just beginning
to rise over the rainforest. She would have to be fast to catch the
sunrise. She quietly closed the door to her apartment and took the
elevator down to the first floor. Outside, the world was waking up,
and nighttime creatures were turning in after another night in the
glorious land of ancient Egypt, twenty-five thousand years before
the birth of Christ. In two thousand years the landscape where
Adriel lived would be devastated by earthquakes, tidal waves, and
endless sand storms. However, her world teemed with lush plant life
and endless forests. Adriel took a deep breath of morning air,
filled her lungs with its sweetness and smiled as she greeted
another new day.

A brachiosaur was happily
munching on branches high above her head as Adriel passed by. She
touched the great beast's leg with her outstretched arm, and heard
it grunt from above the canopy. The dinosaur's skin was leathery
and tough, just like a tree trunk. These brachiosaurs were docile
creatures and very useful for carrying large blocks of quarried
stone for construction of homes and businesses. An iguana raced
over her foot, causing Adriel to jump.
"Silly lizard." Adriel said.

As long as the brachiosaur
was here she knew there were no tyrannosaurs or velociraptors
nearby. Worse yet was the siats, three times bigger than the
tyrannosaurus, with just as many teeth, but faster and equally as
irascible. The presence of larger plant eaters was like an early
warning signal, so if they were running, humans should too. The
first morning rays illuminated the crystal capstone atop the
largest pyramid, projecting a gorgeous prismatic rainbow across the
land. Energy flowed from the sun down through the shafts inside,
causing chemical reactions that allowed their machinery to run
during the day. At night, her city ran on backup battery power, and
the plant held enough juice to supply them for three days without
sunlight. Most people took these structures for granted, but not
Adriel. Whenever she could sneak out, she would sail across the
lake to the Sphinx, climb her back, and marvel at the engineering
masterpieces of her people.

After about twenty
minutes, Adriel climbed down and decided to go pluck a fresh apple
from the trees just beyond her city. All manner of treachery lay
beyond their walls, and it was by no means safe for her to venture
out alone, but Adriel rationalized that it would only take a few
minutes to grab an apple, and she would return in no time. The
guards were on a shift change and never noticed the small
eleven-year-old girl walk right past them, and out of the open
gate. The apple grove was only about a hundred yards from her city,
so she jogged over to get under cover before one of the wall
sentries spotted her. She disappeared into the trees and found one
that had several low hanging red apples. Just as she was reaching
for a bright red, juicy apple she heard a snort from the other side
of the tree, and then someone coughed.
"Who's out here? Early riser as well, eh?" She asked.
Thinking it might be someone from the city; she turned around the
tree and came face to knee with a giant.
"Hello, little girl." He said in a booming voice.
"Ugh, unk, uh!" Was all she could utter.

In her startled state,
Adriel fell backwards and hit the ground with a
thump
. She grunted and hoped the
giant would ignore her and move on, but she was wrong. The giant
knelt down as Adriel sat, frozen in place. She looked up and
realized that the giant was a cyclops. The cyclops has a large
head, is generally bald, and has one giant eye positioned directly
in the center of their head, just above the bridge of their nose.
It blinked as Adriel tried to think of a way out of her
predicament. The cyclopes were mean as snakes, and often added
humans to their diet when the mood struck them. They were dragon
riders, and tamers of majestic creatures from the old ages; they
were the few that still knew how to speak the dragon tongue. Adriel
knew this cyclops had not walked all the way out here, but so far
there was no sign of his dragon.
"What have we 'ere? You look lost. I'm Henry, pleased to meet you
little girl." The cyclops said.
Adriel got up to run, and felt the hot, stinking sulfur breath of
Henry's pet dragon on her neck. She closed her eyes and stopped
breathing for a moment as her mind played a worst case scenario
where would be cooked and gobbled up whole by the large fire
breathing beast.

"L-l-let me go, please?"
Adriel pleaded.

"Not a chance. You're my
new prized possession, til' I eat ya, that is." Henry
laughed.

One of the human sentries
had seen the top of Henry's head sticking out of the tree tops and
fired a laser beam. The shot was a little high and seared Henry's
neck, which only served to piss him off. A massive dragon rose up
on his back legs in the distance and breathed a gust of fire toward
the city.
"No need to stir up the bees, Selk. Let's get our little trophy and
take off before things get real interestin'." Henry
said.

His neck
was singed and he could smell the burned flesh as Selk took to the
air with Henry and Adriel on his back. A vimana air ship armed with
laser cannons rose from behind the city walls and gave chase as
Selk darted with lightning speed. Two more joined the first and an
aerial dogfight was under way. Henry put Adriel in the right side
bag that was hanging from Selk's saddle. Inside, Adriel became
nauseous as the odor of decaying meat struck her nostrils like
death carried on a foul wind. She could tell there were bits and
pieces of other humans in the bag with her. The dragon swooped and
dove through the sky and Adriel tumbled in the bad, mixed with
skulls, femurs, rotting chunks of meat, and various weapons left by
their owners after being eaten.
A laser hit the bag and Adriel tumbled out, almost falling to the
ground, but managed to grab hold of a strap and hang on, dangling
in the sky. A dagger rolled out of the torn bag nearly falling to
the ground far below, but Adriel grabbed hold of it with her free
hand, and put the knife in her right cargo pocket. Adriel scrambled
up closer to the bag and held on to the strap with both hands as
the vimana's fired one laser after another.

"Idiots! I'm in here, stop
firing!" She grumbled.
The dragon turned to the side, slowed his flight, and allowed the
vimana's to go right by him, and then he blasted them with fire,
cooking two of the ships like turkeys in an oven. They dropped like
rocks to the ground while the last one fired a beam that ripped a
hole in the dragon's right wing. It screeched, bolted forward and
snatched the vimana in its claws. Selk violently shook the flying
machine as he crushed it between his razor sharp claws, and then
tossed the flying machine away. Henry, and Selk had escaped, and
Adriel was still alive.

"Way to go, Selk. I
believe that little skirmish just sta'ted a war!" Henry
yelled.

"You're blaming me? I
acted out of self defense and personal preservation! What about
you? You're the one who took the girl. Fool, now the serpent’s
going to have your head." Selk replied in dragon’s tongue.
"I'll be fine, it ain't gotta' know. Maybe I can hide her
somewhere." Henry said.

"Return her and face
judgment. You know we can't afford a war with the humans. Not yet.
This type of thing always causes problems with the Nephilim." Selk
said. The Nephilim were giants from another world who had seeded
earth with human life. They acted as a balance of power and
interceded with violent fury whenever warfare erupted against their
human experiments.