The Red Phoenix

by Alex Carter

  We were ready to fully infiltrate the human world.

  Our initial forays ended in disaster. Our morphing skills enabled us to look exactly like humans but engaging with the humans in rapid verbal exchanges was difficult. We did not have any concept of small talk or social pleasantries. We came across as robotic and were far too eager to ask about where the light had come from. This was usually our opening question in any conversation.

  The humans did not react well to these questions. We had superior intelligence, but we were awkward, scary and no fun to talk to. We had absolutely no social skills and the humans did not want to engage with us. The conversations often ended abruptly. We had not appreciated the enjoyment humans obtain from social interaction. It was not acceptable to simply talk to a human, fail to engage with them and then kill them. We would not achieve our objectives in this fashion. To truly break into human society, we needed to develop our social skills. The only way to do this was to find some humans to practice on.

  Our observations of human media showed us that a small number of their races held most of the power in their world. We decided that these powerful races were more likely to know where the light had come from, so we focused our efforts on them. We sent our Hunters to kidnap a handful of humans from each of the most powerful human races.

  The victims were brought back to our headquarters. This is located deep underground where there is no light or heat. We attempted to practice our communication and small talk with the humans however they did not want to communicate with us as they were either struck dumb with fear or screaming in terror. The first group of prisoners proved highly disappointing and did not last long. We took very little delight in killing all of them after they refused to make small talk with us.

  We realised that our headquarters was not a hospitable place for the humans. In our original form we appear as giant shadowy demons compared to the humans’ weak, fragile bodies. The environment was not conducive to learning what we needed from them. We sent our Hunters out once more and they took the next batch of captives to a neutral, light area. This time we morphed our physical appearance so that we looked like them. We advised the humans that we needed their help to develop our conversational ability. We promised that they would be released once we had developed our skills and were able to hold satisfactory conversations. The reaction of the humans was very different this time. They were not frightened. Indeed, a couple of them made threats about what their leaders would do to us if they were not released immediately. We refrained from transforming into our demonic form but used large rocks to crush the two main renegade human’s skulls. Once the two rebels had been dealt with the others quickly agreed to help us.

  We worked on our communication with them. In the beginning the humans died on a regular basis due to the lack of care and attention that we afforded them. We learnt that they need to eat and drink frequently. They also need to sleep for long periods of time. New humans were recruited to replace those that didn’t survive. We gradually became better at looking after them. Eventually our communication skills and ability to interact improved.

  We were ready to try again.

  We do not have any concept of ‘Thank You’ in our world so none was given to the remaining humans at the end. We had promised to release them after they had helped us to achieve our goal. However, as our ultimate objective is to rid the planet of their entire species we reneged on this promise and killed them all. To make this experience more horrific we allowed ourselves the pleasure of morphing back into our natural demonic form and forced them all to watch each execution before it was their turn.

  Our enhanced ability to communicate, combined with our physical metamorphosis, now gave us the ability to infiltrate the human world. We had perfected our accents and dialect and now had the social skills to be able to blend in. We learnt from the human prisoners that we would need to create a back story of our lives to be accepted. ‘Where do you come from?’ or ‘What do you do for a living?’ were the most likely initial questions we would be asked. This information appeared to be important to the humans to provide them with a way of assessing how intelligent/wealthy/successful the other human was. We spent a long time creating a variety of personas that would be accepted by the humans we engaged with.

  Initially we made conversation with the nearest humans we could find. After those discussions proved a success, we started to infiltrate their world. We controlled our overwhelming desire to destroy every human we encountered and started to befriend them instead. We rapidly expanded our knowledge and understanding of how their society operated. Our superior intelligence and language skills earned us respect and we started to be welcomed and invited into their world. We took every opportunity afforded to us. We joined in social events, became involved in education and even took jobs. Nobody ever questioned who we were or why we were there. Nobody outside of our group knew that we were not the same as them.

  We blended in.

  Our mission now was to infiltrate all the major human races and nations until we discovered the driving force behind the light. Once we established where the light had come from, we could devise a plan to destroy it.

  Chapter 10

  I’m woken by the sound of pots and pans banging about in the kitchen. I look at my watch. It’s six am.

  “Six o’clock? No way!” I mutter to myself as I pull the pillow over my head to drown out the noise.

  “It’s time to get up Angel. Breakfast is ready” Arty says as she opens my bedroom door.

  She leaves the door open. The Flight of the Valkyries is blaring out from the radio in the kitchen and fills my room. As I hum along to the music, I feel a minor wave of excitement wash over me about the adventure we have ahead of us.

  “OK, I give in” I mutter as I drag myself out of bed and stagger into the kitchen.

  The breakfast table is an explosion of colour as the red and white gingham tablecloth is festooned with an array of homemade marmalades and jams, all of which are labelled in Arty’s handwriting. As I sit down Arty slams a giant plate of food in front of me. A mound of bacon, square sausage, eggs, mushrooms, beans and toast stares up at me from the table.

  “I normally just have a piece of toast” I say in disbelief as I gaze at the mountain of food.

  “A measly piece of Toast? That’s not a proper breakfast” Arty says dismissively as she sits down and places her equally loaded plate on the table opposite me. “That won’t set you up for the day we’ve got ahead. There’s some extra on the stove if you want any more” she continues, without any hint of irony.

  “I’ll bear that in mind” I reply but my sarcasm is lost on Arty.

  “I’ve sorted out all of the climbing equipment. We can load it into the back of the Land Rover as soon as we’re done with breakfast” Arty says as she cuts a piece of square sausage and loads her fork up with a bit of everything. “Do you want tea or coffee dear?”

  “Just water for me thanks” I reply as I place a small piece of bacon into my mouth. It tastes great and instantly reminds me of hundreds of previous cooked breakfasts at Arty’s house. I suddenly feel ravenous.

  Arty pours me a glass of water from a massive jug which is on the table.

  “You’re in a very good mood this morning” I say as I stuff a fork-full of bacon, mushrooms and beans into my mouth.

  “Well we’ve got a genuine adventure ahead of us today, haven’t we?” Arty says as she pours tea from the cosy-covered teapot into a giant mug in front of her. “When you get to my age it’s not very often that you get involved in things that are truly exciting. All this talk of Blackout Comets and secret missions is quite thrilling really. It feels like we are about to embark on something mysterious which is definitely something to feel happy about.”

  “You are so right Arty” I mumble in reply as I load another large forkful of food into my mouth. “Have you thought any more about the letter and what it might mean?” I ask once I’ve swallowed my food.

  “Thought any mor
e about it? I’ve been up half the night doing research” Arty says with an excited look on her face. “I managed to find your grandfather’s file on the Blackout Comet” she says as she reaches under the table and produces a large ring-bound folder. She places it in front of where she is sitting. She opens the folder to a page with a cutting that looks very old.

  “It says in here that the earliest recorded full day eclipse was in the thirteenth century. That was 800 years ago Angel, when Henry III was ruler of England. Did you know that he was crowned when he was only 9?” Arty says with an excited look on her face.

  “No, I didn’t know that but what about the Comet?” I ask, encouraging her to get back to the point.

  “Oh yes, well according to the records from the thirteenth century, people talked of a blinding light sweeping across the sky which was followed by a day of complete darkness. It was believed at the time that the darkness was a result of God turning his back on the Earth to show his anger for the lack of worship” Arty says with an ‘isn’t-that-very-interesting’ look on her face.

  I nod my agreement that it-is-very-interesting and encourage her to continue.

  “This file has lots of cuttings and clippings which show records of a day of darkness occurring in different places around the world roughly every two hundred years since” Arty says as she flicks through the pages to show me the clippings.

  “Does it have any details on the most recent event?” I ask.

  “Oh yes dear. There’s quite a lot of information on that one. In here there are cuttings from lots of different newspapers which show that most of the big cities around the world experienced a whole day without daylight. Some of the clippings refer to a blinding light in the sky before the darkness commenced. No link was made to a Comet though and most of the reports blame the smog. Back then there were no restrictions on pollution and all the major cities had very poor air quality. The newspapers all blame the big factories and heavy industry for the lack of daylight on that day.”

  “So there definitely seems to have been days of complete darkness in the past but none of the reports link them to the Blackout Comet or report is as an eclipse?”

  “That’s right Angel. No link was made in the reports to the shooting stars that were reported by some people to have been seen before it happened and there absolutely is no mention of the Blackout Comet in any article. It would appear the Blackout part of Lux’s theory is sound and the records we have here indicate that it has happened consistently every 200 years. The only problem is that there is no evidence that the darkness was caused by a Comet” Arty replies.

  “That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t caused by a Comet” I say. “It might just be that the Comet does exist and nobody else has worked out that these occurrences keep happening every 200 years” I say as I finish the remainder of the food on my plate.

  “Your grandfather was totally convinced that the Blackout Comet was a genuine recurring phenomenon. At the time I didn’t really pay much attention to his theory but now that I have taken the time to read through his cuttings, I have to say that I agree with him. It seems too coincidental that these blackout days keep happening every 200 years for no reason. I personally think the Comet is real and if these records are correct it means it will be coming back this year” Arty says authoritatively.

  “Have you any idea what date it’s due to return?” I ask as I pick up the plates and take them over to the sink.

  “The newspaper articles from two hundred years ago vary a bit. Some of them state that the most recent Blackout day occurred on the last day in July and others the first day in August.”

  “July 31st or August 1st? They are both during my summer break! Excellent!” I say with excitement.

  “That’s right Angel” Arty says as she holds up a bowl which is filled with more sausages and bacon. “Would you like anything else to eat?”

  “No! I’m totally stuffed!”

  “That’s what I like to hear! OK then, now we are fed and watered I think we should get going. Skye is over one hundred miles from here.”

  “A hundred miles?” I reply, disappointed. “How long do you think that will take?”

  “Not too long with my driving dear” Arty replies with cheeky smile.

  Chapter 11

  Our superior intelligence, powers of metamorphosis and communication skills enabled us to integrate into the human world. As our goal was to acquire knowledge, we targeted places of learning. We infiltrated as many educational organisations as we could. We expected to discover the information we were looking for quickly however it soon became obvious that there was disagreement amongst the humans as to where the light on the planet they now called Earth had originated from.

  The oldest theories derived from what the humans call religion. Most of these theories involved the concept of a ‘Supreme Being’ or a group of ‘Gods’ who created everything in the universe, including light. There were many, many variations to these theories and numerous stories as to how the world had begun. We investigated every single one of these different religions and attempted to find evidence of these Gods and Supreme Beings. Despite the enormous volume of literature available and the massive following that these religions had we were not able to find any tangible evidence that light was created by this source.

  The other major theories about the creation of light came from what the humans call scientists. Scientists devote their entire life to studying concepts ranging from the size of a single atom to the volume of the universe. We investigated all the scientific theories around the creation of light. The most popular theory devised by scientists was the concept of a Big Bang. They believed that in the beginning all matter was concentrated into a single tiny point. The Big Bang theory stated that this tiny point of matter exploded and created the entire Universe including the celestial body they call the Sun. The major issue we had with this theory is that it stated that the Earth, the Sun and the remainder of the galaxy were created simultaneously by the Big Bang. We knew that was simply not true as our planet, the one the humans now referred to as Earth, existed before the Sun. ‘The Earth’ in those halcyon years was a beautiful dark paradise and had no need for light. The Scientists were happy with their Big Bang thesis, but we knew this theory was flawed. We had witnessed the introduction of light to the Earth ourselves.

  Our search for information on the source of the light needed to stretch further. We investigated every theory, legend or folk tale that referred to the creation of light. We left no stone unturned and analysed every single story that we came across, however unlikely they seemed. Most of these tales were documented in ancient manuscripts and books. The vast majority were pure fantasy. We constantly strived for information on the source of light, but we continued to find nothing. We started to believe that it would never be possible to discover anything about the true source of light and that it would not be possible to return the planet to darkness.

  Then, just as we started to abandon all hope, we heard about a book that was exactly what we had been searching for; The Legend of the Albedo Prism.

  This book documented an entirely different theory as to how light had been created on Planet Earth. We heard that it had been written by a former President of one of the greatest nations on Earth. This book was highly controversial and was vilified by the humans. It was banned by the leaders of all the major human nations and they decreed that every copy of the book had to be destroyed. It was believed that all copies had been eradicated however we discovered a legendary tale of a single surviving copy. This one remaining, mythical book was rumoured to have been stolen by a renegade human and smuggled to a small island. The island was called Haiti and was considered by the rulers of the other human nations to be a hostile. The humans that lived on Haiti were unlike the other human races and had developed their own unique religion that they called Voodoo. Many of the religious followers of the other races were frightened by the Voodoo beliefs and saw them as having magical powers. None of the other human n
ations had any desire to invade Haiti to try to recover the last copy of this book. The human leaders announced that the story of this last surviving copy was a hoax.

  We needed to investigate if there was any truth in these rumours. We had no fear of the Voodoo beliefs or the humans that inhabited the island of Haiti. We needed to find that book to investigate the truth behind The Legend of the Albedo Prism.

  We sent a team of Hunters to Haiti to investigate whether the book still existed.

  Chapter 12

  Less than two hours after leaving Arty’s house we arrive at the base of Sgurr Dearg on the Isle of Skye. Our climbing equipment and supplies for the day have been carefully arranged by Arty into two backpacks. We change into our walking boots, hoist the packs onto our backs and set off. Arty briefed me on the basics for the climb during the drive here. Sgurr Dearg is one of the highest mountains in the UK and summits at over three thousand feet. Most the day will involve walking and scrambling which won’t be a problem for me as that is something I have been doing with Arty ever since I can remember. The big challenge will be the final peak which is a vertical fin of rock that can only be conquered by what you would call genuine rock climbing. This narrow blade at the very top of the mountain is known as the Inaccessible Pinnacle, or the ‘In Pinn’ as the locals call it.

  The sky is blue and there is a pleasant breeze as we set off. We start in tee shirts and leave the windcheaters in our backpacks. I have no idea whether the mysterious letter or the secret mission are genuine or if they are just a bit of fun thought up by Arty to keep me entertained during my holiday. I’ll find out for sure later but either way it feels like we are embarking on a thrilling adventure.