by S. E. Meyer
Frank looked at the glyphs Hosea was trying to read. “It says the three Kings followed the star in the east to find where the Son of God was born.”
“That’s what I thought, but how is that possible? How could the Sumerians write about Jesus several thousands years before he was even born?”
It was Lucas who answered him. “I’ve read that story many times over the years and in several different languages. It all makes more sense to me now, but that’s definitely not a story about Jesus.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hosea, cocking his head to one side. “What else could it be?”
Lucas moved closer and pointed at the first marking. “You see this here? It’s talking about the three kings from the east. The Ancients referred to the three stars that make up the belt of the constellation Orion as the three kings, or sometimes the three wise men. Orion can be seen in the eastern night sky. Now the next part refers to the kings following the bright star in the east. The brightest star in the eastern night sky is Sirius, which hangs lower in the horizon, just to the left of Orion. So if you can picture an imaginary line running from the belt of Orion, through Sirius down to the eastern horizon, you will find the exact location that the sun rises on December 25th, or where the sun is born. The sun of God, spelled s-u-n, not the Son of God. The ancients used to say that the sun died on the shortest day of the year. The shortest day is the first day of the winter solstice on December 22nd. The days do not start to get longer until December 25Th, which is when the Ancients said the sun was born. So you see, they are explaining where in the sky and exactly where along the horizon the sun will be visible on Christmas morning.” Lucas scanned the group. “Do you understand now? That’s how they wrote about events back then. They made it into a story that wasn’t to be taken literally, but rather symbolically.”
“What are you saying Lucas?” asked Hosea. “That the story of Jesus is just a reiteration of more ancient writings? Are you saying there was no such person as Jesus?”
“No, I'm not necessarily saying there was no Jesus. But if there is such a person, his birth had nothing to do with wise men, stars in the east, or December 25th as I've just explained, all of those things are symbolic. But the two stories bear an intriguing resemblance don’t they?” Lucas finished with a grin.
Frank was running his finger over the outline of a glyph and suddenly stopped. “What’s this?” he said. Just above his finger was a picture of a pyramid with its capstone removed. The capstone was pictured hovering just above it with two discs in the background, shining gold rays through the small space in between. The square shape Frank was running his fingers along seemed slightly indented. There was a ridge that ran around the inside of the indentation with jagged edges. “I’ve seen this type of edge before!” said Frank excitedly. The group hovered around to look and Frank pulled something out of his jacket pocket. He quickly unfolded a cloth bag and pulled out the small pyramid. Lucas moved in next to Frank to get a better look. Frank lined up the base of the pyramid with the square indentation on the column. The jagged edge of the pyramid base fit perfectly into the jagged edge of the ridge in the pillar. Frank pushed slightly and the pyramid slid into the pillar as the stone behind it slide backwards. “It fits!” he said excitedly.
“What is it, what would that be for?” Lucas asked no one in particular as he bent to get a closer look. The group stood and stared for a moment and then John noticed a slight vibration. “Do you feel that?” asked John.
“Feel what John?” responded Jenny.
The vibration became louder and the whole group could now feel it. John placed his hand on the smooth column. “It seems to be coming from here, from the pillar”
“Can you turn some of those lights off Lucas?” asked Frank pointing at the two nearest floodlights on the floor. Lucas walked a few feet over and switched them off, turning a forty foot area around them to near darkness, except for the light still coming from the next set of floods. Lucas soon realized why Frank asked him to turn out the lights. The markings in the column began to glow and were steadily becoming brighter. Suddenly there was a bright flash. The light coming from the column became so bright that everyone had to turn away. As they did they noticed the light from the column was projecting the markings Frank had been reading onto the walls around them. The light from the column reflected off the gold inlaid glyphs on the walls, illuminating them as well. Soon the two sets of glyphs ran together, one over top of the other in layers.
“Mask of Palancar,” Frank whispered, “it’s doing the Mask of Palancar trick, by itself on the walls see?” he exclaimed. “This is a similar language, but not quite as easy to translate. I found some when working with the pyramid but was never able to completely decipher it. This is amazing,” Frank said as the group watched the light show in awe. It was reflecting and refracting from so many directions the markings almost seemed to be in 3D, like you could touch them. There was a large cracking sound and everyone in the group made a startled jump. They all turned to see where the noise had come from.
“Look” Lucas yelled, and pointed at the doorway they had come through. “Does it look like it’s moving?
“I think you’re right,” responded Hosea as he peered at the opening. A foot wide piece of the wall on the other side of the smaller room began to slide across the floor like a large sliding door. There seemed to be no end of its length as it continued to stretch out from the opposite wall.
“It’s closing! Come on, we better get out of here,” Lucas said with a worried look in his eye.
Frank was still trying to read the walls. Jenny grabbed his hand “Come on Frank we have to go.”
“Just another minute now, this is incredible,” Frank argued.
Jenny looked at the doorway again. It was definitely getting smaller. Lucas and Hosea began to jog towards it as Lucas yelled over his shoulder with more urgency. “Come on!”
Frank felt for the small pyramid still inside the column and pulled it out. The bright blue light immediately disappeared and the only light they could see was coming from the floodlights that were still on in the next room. Jenny pulled on Frank's arm and he dropped his phone with a loud crack as they all began to run back the way they had come, through the smaller room and towards the doorway. “Hurry!” Hosea yelled over his shoulder.
The doorway was only a few feet wide now as Lucas and Hosea ran through it. The other three were several steps behind and as they got there it had nearly closed. John stopped short of going through sideways, realizing he would be crushed as the huge stone continued to close the gap. Frank looked around for something to wedge into the crack, but it was too late. There was nothing the three of them could do except watch the gap close to a few inches. The stone cut the large electrical cable running through the doorway as it closed the rest of the way and sealed completely with a shuddering thud that echoed through the larger room behind them. The room immediately became pitch black and deathly silent.
“Oh my god, I can’t see anything” whispered Frank. “Are you both okay?”
“I’m okay, “ said John and then he immediately called out to Jenny.
“Yes, I’m here and okay, wow I really can’t see a thing,” she said. They slowly inched closer to each other until they could hold hands and then they all sat on the cool stone floor.
“What are we going to do?” asked Jenny. “We’re trapped in here”
“Yes, a half a mile underground.” Frank whispered.
It was John’s turn to talk. “They’ll come get us out of here, Lucas and Hosea got out and they’ll figure it out.”
“John, did you see how thick that wall was before the lights went out? It will take a lot to chisel through that, and are you sure they made it out?”
“Pretty sure, yes and they’re not just going to leave us in here,” responded John.
“I’m sure you’re right, they will come back for us for sure. Just a matter of what we’re going to do in the meantime. We’ll need water first and for
emost or we’ll have to hope that it doesn’t take more than a few days for them to get us out of here,” Frank said as he stood up. “Let’s see if we can feel our way back to the pillar. I’ll put the key back inside of it and that should at least give us enough light to see. Let’s hold hands, it would be very easy to get separated in this kind of pitch black,” Frank cautioned.
They all held hands with Frank in front and Jenny in the middle holding one of Frank’s hands and one of Johns. They slowly headed back down the corridor to the first smaller room and then out into the larger one feeling their way along the walls.
“It feels like we went too far,” John said after they stumbled along a while. “We must have passed the pillar by now.”
“We must be close,” responded Frank. All three of them could tell by their voices and the increased intensity and speed of their breathing that they were starting to panic. “We need to think this through logically,” Frank said. “Let’s fan out in this room and use our voices to know where each of us are. That should help find it a little quicker.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” asked Jenny. The darkness was creeping into her bones and her voice was shaky.
“Yes” Frank assured her. We’ll be fine. We just have to remember that this room is exactly as it was the first time we were in it. It’s the same size and shape, and looks exactly the same in the dark as it did when it was lit. We can't let our minds get carried away and tell us anything different.”
As dark as it was in the room, it could have been as small as a closet or as big as a sports stadium and there would have been no way to tell the difference. The only way they could somewhat guess its size was by the echoes of their voices. The three spread out moving slowly away from each other calling out in hushed tones as they felt blindly in front of them.
“Oh” Jenny said.
“You found it?” asked Frank
“Oh, sorry no, it’s just the wall I guess” Jenny responded back. Things went on this way for more than an hour. Every so often one of them would find the wall at the other end of the cavern.
“I just don’t understand, we must be walking right by it,” Frank said in a exasperated tone.
“Well, I know in this dark I could walk within inches of touching it a hundred times and would never know it,” replied John.
Jenny was feeling along what seemed to be the opposite wall from where John and Frank were. Her hands slid effortlessly along the smooth glass-like finish of the stone. She felt a small indentation in the wall and placed her hand on it. She leaned forward slightly to rest against the cool rock and was about to say something over her shoulder to John when the wall in front of her suddenly slid forward. It moved so effortlessly and quickly that Jenny lost her balance, falling headfirst into the opening. She fell with a smacking noise as her palms slapped the flat stone in front of her and her chest felt the full brunt of the fall. She gasped as the wind was knocked from her lungs. She still couldn’t see anything, but she could feel the doorway she just fell through close behind her. Jenny was alone.
“Jenny” yelled John in the direction of the noise. Both Frank and John heard the unmistakable sound of someone falling down hard.
“Jenny,” John yelled again. “Are you okay?” He found himself jogging towards the direction of the thud.
“Jenny!” John yelled even louder. Her name bounced back to him off the acoustic walls and filled his ears. He began to panic and started on a full out run. He felt like he should almost be where he heard Jenny fall when he ran into something at full tilt. He smashed his face into the hard surface. Falling sideways, he could feel a sharp pain in his jaw and could taste blood in his mouth. Frank heard John’s collision, allowing him time to stop short of what John had just slammed into. He almost tripped over John, lying on the ground holding his face. Frank knelt down beside him.
“John, are you alright?”
“I, I… I don’t know,” John screamed in agony. “It hurts Frank!”
His head was swimming and he could feel a throb pounding into the left side of his skull. Frank felt around for the cause of John’s misfortune. He suddenly stood up. “Well John. I think you’ve found it! Although not under the best circumstances I might add.” Frank circled the pillar feeling for the indentation where he had placed the pyramid earlier. “Where is it? Let’s get some light in here so we can go see how Jenny is doing. You hear that Jenny?” Frank yelled. “We’re coming! Ah, here it is.”
John could see a faint blue glow coming from Frank’s direction. The thought of Jenny sent a fresh supply of adrenaline through his veins and he managed to stand up although his head felt as though it would split in half. “Let’s have a quick look at you John,” Frank said as the light was becoming brighter. “Broken nose I should think” Frank pressed on Johns jaw.
“Ow, Jesus Frank, that hurt,” John cried out.
“No broken facial bones it would seem, but no way to know for sure without an x-ray. You will have a bit of a bruise for a while that‘s for sure,” Frank explained.
“I’m fine!” John said as he backed away from Frank a few steps. The light was getting bright enough to see the entire room again as the glyphs began dancing along the walls. There were two thoughts that immediately popped into John’s head. The first was how stupid he felt once surveying the room. It seemed ridiculous that it took so long to find the pillar. The room didn’t seem so big now that he could see it again. The second thought that immediately filled his mind was a question. “Where was Jenny?”
The light seemed to intensify all around them as it reflected from every angle. It also seemed to gain substance and the pair soon found themselves inside a large blue square with wisps of blue fog all around them. They looked around the room and along the bare walls.
“Where could she have gone?” asked John
“I don’t know, the only way out of this room is the way we came in and that’s back in the opposite direction. Maybe she banged her head and was confused. She could have staggered right past us in the dark and we wouldn’t have seen her and I was in the middle of peeling you off the pillar.”
“Well, lets head that way and go as far as we can see.”
They called out her name as they walked back into the smaller room and then through the narrower corridor where they first entered their new prison.
“Jenny!” John yelled as loud as he could. He was beginning to feel panicky again. “This doesn’t make any sense Frank. She has to be here somewhere!”
They headed back out into the large cavern where the pillar stood. “Look,” John said as he pointed above their heads. Something came into focus, grainy at first but then became more detailed as they stared at it. It reminded John of a TV station that was being tuned in, before digital networks when there was such a thing as a snowy picture. It looked like a sphere, moving through the liquid light.
“There’s another one,” Frank said, pointing. Soon the entire room cleared and came into focus. There were several spheres of different colors and sizes and they were all moving through the air above their heads. The objects seemed to be rotating around the pillar in the middle of the room. Frank and John walked around the entire perimeter calling out Jenny’s name as the three dimensional images continued their course around their heads.
“I just don’t understand,” said John. “She was here! She was right here!” The last scream John let out made his head feel like it finally split in two. He could feel blood trickling down his face as he fell to his knees. In shock he watched the spheres. Everything in the room had sharp focus now. It reminded john of a planetarium he had visited as a child, only this wasn’t happening just above his head, but all around him.
“Space…. the solar system,” John said.
“Yes, yes, exactly John, It’s our solar system,” replied Frank.
It was space, but not just any area of space. They both stared at what must have been a perfect 3d imaged model of the solar system within the milky way galaxy. It was like
they were standing in the middle of it with all of the planets, the sun, stars, and comets, swirling around them “It’s so beautiful,” John mumbled.
Frank agreed with a slight nod as Earth swung out over their heads on its way around the center of the room. All of the planets were visible. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.” This is truly incredible, are you okay John?”
“I feel… A little dizzy… where’s Jenny?” John flopped down over to one side onto the cool smooth stone.
“I don’t know, she can’t be far John, you took a pretty good hit to the head there, probably in shock.” Frank pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and sat down next to him. He wiped some of the blood from John’s forehead. They both couldn’t help but continue to watch the activity above their heads. Slowly the solar system began to shrink, or the view of it zoomed out and the solar system shrunk to the size of a small car. Except for only the furthest planets from the sun everything was tightly spinning their way around the pillar at the center of the room above their heads. Then another small cluster of spinning objects seemed to come closer, straight out of the Milky Way. As it came closer they could tell it was another solar system, only smaller. It continued to plot a path across the room towards the sun in the center of the room. It soon was close enough to count how many planets were circling the dim orange star. There were seven in all. Five of which were very small and very close to the small sun, the sixth was about earth sized and was further away and finally the seventh planet was very large. It reminded Frank of Jupiter in size and color with its brownish red tint. The smaller solar system was on an elliptical path to our sun and was traveling almost straight up now from underneath the Earth. It swung around the sun along with its planets, steering clear of our solar system almost completely. It looked as if it would make it’s loop around without incident when Frank realized that the seventh planet was far enough away from its sun that it would strike a path across the plane of several of the planets within our own solar system. The large planet made its way around it’s orbital path and Frank could see Earth was moving closer into its arc. Frank and John both watched in amazement as the large planet and Earth passed within a few feet of each other as its foreign sun made an almost perfect circle around our sun and began heading back in a downward direction and was soon again just a small cluster of tiny spheres. John felt like he was going to pass out and his head was in too much pain to fully comprehend what he had just seen. “Where’s Jenny?” he asked again.
