The Prophecies Trilogy (Omnibus Edition): A Dystopian Adventure

by Linda Hawley

  I breathed the fresh air deep into my lungs. As I stood looking out over the river in the early morning, I could see abundant wildflowers on the opposite bank, pushing their heads above the early mist. The remoteness of the park left me feeling an abundant sense of peace and joy. It reminded me of the years fly fishing with my dad, and I wished I’d had my pole and flies. We could hear the river move, even though it was slow moving in this part. The sound soothed my soul.

  We had the Kelty tent up quickly and insisted that Chow rest up for tomorrow’s hike. He kept saying that he looked worse than he felt, but he’d developed a nasty cold. When he coughed, it sounded gravelly. The only thing that encouraged me was that he didn’t have a fever.

  * * *

  “Is that bacon?” Chow asked, emerging from the tent. He looked a little better after sleeping.

  “It is. High protein for our hike, I figured,” I said to him.

  “Bacon and eggs before we alter the fate of the world,” he said, smiling.

  “You know me, Chow. If I’m not fed well, I’m a little grumpy.”

  He laughed out loud.

  * * *

  As we hiked away from the campsite, I looked back. Everything sat as we’d left it that morning, as though we’d return. I wondered if we would.

  “Are you okay?” Chow asked me as we walked.

  I put an arm around both him and Edwin on either side of me. “Everything’s just as it should be,” I said, resolute.

  The hike to Gorman Creek through dense vegetation was a bit strenuous. The sea of greenery was beautifully interrupted by yellow flowers that looked like wild daisies. Pale purple wildflowers popped up here and there, reminding me of mums. Many butterflies visited us as we hiked, and we were serenaded by birdsong. The air was so clean and earthy smelling that I felt as though I hadn’t really breathed in years. It seemed that the beauty of this place—and our purpose for being here—energized all of us.

  The tall ferns led us to the creek. The first thing I noticed was the fish swimming in the crystal-clear water.

  They must be spawning, I thought, considering how many fish were present.

  “What are they?” Chow asked, looking at the fish.

  “They look like Guadalupe bass,” I said reverently.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “I read about the park before we came,” I said, watching the fish. “Biologists keep finding new species in this area, including the Guadalupe bass,” I said, smiling.

  We carefully followed the creek towards Gorman Falls. Descending nearly sixty feet required climbing down on our hands and knees in some places along the fern-covered travertine slopes. I was glad we were wearing long pants, high socks, and hiking boots.

  When we reached the bottom, we made our way around the base of the waterfall. Looking up, the creek cascaded down multiple tiers, falling sixty feet. The mixture of the intense green vegetation with the power of the falls was mystical. It looked exactly as I’d seen in my vision during Amrit Vela. As I gazed across the pool and up to the falls, energy seemed to cascade right down into my solar plexus.

  * * *

  With a smile on my face, I reached out for Chow, and he pulled me into an embrace. Flashes of experiences we’d shared over the past twelve months moved through my mind like a slideshow. I’d first met Chow at the airport in Shanghai, in my dream. I remembered how he’d bowed to me in introduction. The image of the night he fought the agent pursuing me in the parking garage in Vancouver came to mind, making me smile. I also thought back to when he and I—from my sailboat—watched my house explode and then burn. It was a powerfully sad moment where time stood still. I remembered Chow’s glass apartment and how he’d tenderly made me its heir—being sensitive to my feelings about being homeless. I remembered Barcelona—and the fight that could have killed us both, and I especially remembered waking to him—alive—in the French hospital. It still filled me with intense emotion. Releasing one another from our long embrace, I held his arms and peered into his soft, kind, dark eyes.

  “There is not another person I would have rather gone through this with,” I said to him softly.

  “Nor I, my dear, dear friend,” he said, his voice wavering.

  I could not hold back my tears any longer, and he hugged me once again.

  “You are a courageous, sensitive, and spiritual man, whom I am grateful to have known,” I said, barely able to release the words.

  He said nothing as he allowed his own tears to fall, but he moved his arms down from mine and bowed to me, slowly but resolutely.

  I returned his bow.

  Turning to Edwin, I could see that he was also emotional as he watched us. I approached him, and we clasped hands.

  “I’ve known you longer than Chow, but I feel that I’ve only really come to know you recently. You silently watched over me at Alter Hydro, and I thank you for that.”

  Edwin nodded.

  “You risked your life to help me escape the United States through the San Juan Islands,” I said, remembering his night approach on the Canadian sailboat identical to the Woohoo.

  “You did give me the title,” he said, serious.

  I chuckled. “See, that’s what I love about you, Edwin. You just give the facts, as they are.”

  Pulling him into an embrace, I said in his ear, “It’s been my pleasure to call you my friend, Wisdom Keeper.”

  He pulled back and then bowed to me, just as he had done many months ago in the San Juan Islands.

  I returned his bow.

  The two brothers hugged, saying things to each other in Korean. Then they parted, bowing deeply to one another. Both had tears streaming down their faces.

  “I guess it’s time,” I said, looking into their faces. They both looked serene, and their dark eyes sparkled.

  Filled with gratitude, I was happy to have lived a life that I was proud of as I thought of Armond, Elinor, my dad, Aunt Saundra, and Lulu.

  We faced one another. Putting my hands to my neck, I removed my Herkimer. Edwin and Chow did the same. I stared at the three Herkimers before us, remembering how they’d come to us and what we hoped they were about to do.

  “Just like before,” I said softly. “The meditation with the visualization first…then the Herkimers.”

  Chapter 42

  Closing my eyes, I began the meditation. Clearing away the images of my life took several minutes. After I had cleaned the slate of my conscious mind, I allowed myself to bask in the awareness of my soul. When I’d reached a state of joy, I began to visualize the Sun. Imagining the radiance of the golden-orange orb, I imagined the energy coming from it that gave life to every living thing on this planet. The beautiful Sun which fulfilled its purpose, day after day. I centered my mind on its power, merging my consciousness towards it and marinating this image in my mind.

  Opening my eyes, I saw Chow and Edwin open theirs at exactly that same moment. Together, we moved our Herkimers into position, touching the points.

  Immediately a blue course of energy filled the triangle and erupted from the center, straight up to the blue morning sky. I was hypnotized, my eyes following the light upward. My hand was locked in place as I held the Herkimer. I felt light—more than I had previously—and an image of the Sun bursting forth energy and color filled my mind’s eye. It was as if the Sun were just above me, close enough to touch it if I’d reached up. As it pulsed with a power before unknown to me, I could almost feel the motion of its surface rising and falling as a great ocean of fire. I felt my whole body vibrating, from the inside out. It was a spiritual experience instead of a physical one. It felt like creation itself.

  Just as I felt myself merging with the blue energy, it suddenly ceased.

  I looked down to the crystals to see if we’d lost contact. They were still locked in position by the three of us. I looked at my companions, who returned my surprised gaze.

  Light seemed to be coming from them, lighting up the space around the falls. I didn’t know how long
we’d been standing there.

  “Do I look the same way that you two look to me?” I asked them quietly.

  “Illuminated?” Chow asked, his voice peculiar.

  I nodded. “But alive.”

  “Yes, you do,” Edwin said.

  We disengaged our triangle of crystals.

  I giggled. “What just happened?”

  “I have no idea,” Chow said, then chuckled himself. “But I feel really good.”

  “Chow…your face,” I exclaimed.

  “What?” he said, reaching to it.

  “Brother, your injuries are gone,” Edwin said to Chow.

  Edwin turned to me, “So are yours.”

  My hands went to my face. “My bruises are all gone? Just like Chow’s?” I asked, unbelieving.

  They both nodded.

  I giggled.

  “Apparently, it’s also a healing energy,” I said, giggling more.

  Chow joined me in the giggles, while Edwin smiled broadly.

  “I do not think we created an earthquake this time,” Edwin said.

  “The falls are still here,” Chow added.

  I was relieved and smiled.

  * * *

  We hiked back toward our campsite. Five minutes into the hike, we verified that Chow had been fully healed by the energy by his hiking pace. He said that he no longer felt any pain in his chest, and his rattled breathing had vanished.

  The three of us were chatterboxes as we made our way back, comparing our experiences and what we thought it might mean. All of us experienced great clarity of our minds.

  When we’d nearly reached the camp, we met up with the road that we’d driven in on. Walking fifty feet, we came around a bend and stopped at an SUV stalled in the middle of the road.

  “It just died,” the woman called out to us. “We were just driving along, and it went dead—no power.”

  The three of us looked at one another.

  * * *

  “We’ve got a week to become really good fishermen,” I said.

  Chow laughed. “I have never fished a day in my life.”

  “I think you two are gonna get your first lesson tomorrow morning. I sure wish I had my fly-fishing pole,” I said with frustration.

  After coming upon the stranded woman, we’d quickly determined that we had created another EMP that had destroyed all electronics. She confirmed that there had been no earthquake. We didn’t know if the energy pulse was localized or not, but we doubted it.

  Our goal had been to send energy to the Sun, creating a massive solar storm—a geomagnetic storm. A geomagnetic storm would disturb the earth's magnetic field and could result in the same effects as an EMP. We hoped that those affects covered every inch of the earth, effectively rebooting the whole world. If we were successful, we’d just destroyed all modern electronics, the technology that government oppressors around the world were intent on using to enslave mankind. For all intents and purposes, we hoped that we were now living in the 1800s.

  Chapter 43

  “Who would’ve guessed you’d be the best pole fisherman in San Saba, Texas?” I called out loudly.

  As we strung up the bass, Edwin answered, “I seem to have many new talents lately.” He smiled as though self-satisfied.

  Laughing out loud, my gaze drifted to Chow, who sat at the picnic table, fussing with the tangled line of his pole.

  “Remember, every inch of that line is precious,” I called out to Chow, ribbing him.

  “So you keep telling me,” he snapped back. His fingers were raveled in the snarl, and his mouth was twisted along with it in concentration.

  I smiled to myself. It’d been two days since the event. Within ten hours of the pulse, an aurora had exploded from the skies over Texas. Since then, we’d been bathed in vivid yellows, neon greens, reds, and purples. From Edwin’s research into geomagnetic storms while we were still at the ranch, he said the auroras confirmed that we’d been successful in creating a celestial event. Auroras had only ever been seen this far south once before.

  We’d decided to stay here for three or four days, catching and drying fish, before heading back to the ranch. We knew there were enough supplies there for our whole team to last a full year.

  “One benefit to our new reality is that we don’t have a fishing limit,” I said to Edwin.

  “Do you mean that there used to be a limit to the number of fish you could catch in a week?” he asked.

  Laughing, I answered, “It’s worse than that, Edwin. You used to have to buy a fishing license, and then you could only keep fish of a certain size and only a certain number per day—like two.”

  Edwin laughed heartily as his eyes followed the string of fish from today—twenty-one long—none of which Chow had caught.

  I chuckled, proud of our accomplishment.

  “Wouldn’t you know this is where we’d find you, playing pioneer,” a booming voice said, looking down from her horse.

  My head snapped back at the sound, my eyes wide. “Woohoo!” I yelled, running towards her.

  Vanessa sat atop the black-and-white leopard Appaloosa mare that we’d seen at the ranch, sixteen hands tall. As I approached the horse, I slowed to a walk, barely containing my excitement at seeing her, the security team, and the extra horses.

  “Get me off this thing,” she said. “My trasero is killing me!”

  Laughing out loud, I goaded her. “City girl rides a horse.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. I smiled at her playful gesture.

  As she dismounted, Chow caught her in his arms, and they embraced as though years had passed. It touched my heart.

  * * *

  We made a campfire and were roasting fish while Vanessa bathed in one of the natural spring pools not far away.

  “I almost feel refreshed,” Vanessa said when she returned, coming over to our group.

  “Feel better?” Chow asked her.

  “I will in about two weeks, when my bootie recovers from that ride,” she said seriously.

  “Wanna sit?” I asked, gesturing to the place near the fire.

  She seemed to snarl at me.

  I smiled to myself as she remained standing.

  “Okay, we’ve been waiting. Tell us about it,” I prompted her.

  She forged ahead, knowing we were eager to hear the news.

  “We first knew something was up when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration broadcast an emergency message that a solar storm was coming to Earth. They said it was a monster—bigger than anything in recorded history. They warned that it could knock out satellites and fry entire power grids and all sensitive electronics. They said it would affect the entire earth.”

  Inside myself, I was filled with nervous excitement. She certainly had our attention.

  “Did they say how long it would be before it would hit?” I asked.

  “They guessed between one and three days. But the warning came, and within one hour, we lost contact with the world. After your trial run—the one where you fried the electronics at the ranch—we had protected the new equipment, expecting that you three would do it again. So we were prepared. This time, though, it wasn’t localized. It looks like you created a real whopper. On the way here, the things we saw made it look like Armageddon.”

  “Were you ever in danger?” Chow asked her seriously.

  “Not with the firepower the crew’s got with us,” she said, pointing to the security team who surrounded us, listening. “When I say Armageddon, I’m really not kidding. We saw one plane that had fallen right out of the sky. You wouldn’t want to know what we saw,” she said, grimacing.

  Chapter 44

  We rested up at the campsite three days, allowing Vanessa’s backside to heal. Witnessing the colorful auroras was like watching deity paint a beautiful canvas, night after night. The morning that we were to leave for the safe house, I hiked back towards the falls at first light before anyone awoke.

  Passing through the dense green vegetation felt like déjà v
u, and I pondered the events of the past year. As I carefully made my way down the slopes of Gorman Falls, it simulated the struggle I’d endured, and all I’d lost. The lower I climbed, the more unsettled I became. I’d never expected to live past the third prophecy. I’d expected to die the day we fulfilled The Prophecies—I had expected to return to Armond. By the time I reached the bottom of the falls, my soul was troubled with unanswered questions. Instead of turning the way we’d gone before, I moved behind the roaring falls, towards the cave that lay within.

  Crawling upon my hands and knees to reach it, I was soaked by the fall’s spray; I hoped it was washing away the despair I felt. The earthy smell and pure moisture seemed to open every pore of my body as I reached my destination.

  As I sat on a huge boulder with the falls crashing directly in front of me, I finally reached inside myself and opened up the box I’d been stuffing full for a year. The thrashing of the pure water against the rocks and earth below drowned out the sobs that I could no longer contain.

  “Why did it have to be me? I wasn’t strong enough to endure it all! You asked so much of me, and I lost so much!” I screamed, pounding my fist on the slick rock.

  The power of the falls drew out all the grief I had, and images of dark days played like a horror film across my vision, my tears adding to the water that fell.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe in the power of the falls crashing around me, but my chest was constricted. I drew my hand to the Herkimer that still hung around my neck and removed it, holding it in both my hands. As my salty tears drenched it, a vision opened up to my mind’s eye.

  I could see three years of hardship ahead. During these first years after the reset of society, evil exercised itself. As people in cities around the world starved, the lowest of humanity clustered themselves together, forming gangs who pillaged whatever they could. Millions died. With their electronic weapons disabled, governments were useless to defend their citizens. In those years, good people suffered everywhere in the world. There was no utopia on the earth. Evil tainted everything, and a dark film covered everything.