Chapter 18 - Ryan
As soon as I kicked the door down, I noticed something was completely wrong. I looked up from the flattened door and I saw the most bizarre thing I had ever seen. It was a giant altar with a blinding white light shooting out of the top. Surrounding the light there were four clumps of gems, one of which were ours. The gems were all orbiting symmetrically around the light, each gem reflecting itself off of the light, creating a multi-color effect. Beside the huge altar, was the psychotic voice we kept hearing' the man we had been hunting, Richard Morgan.
"You fools! You have interrupted the ceremony! The power of the elements will be most displeased! Do you have any idea what you have done?" The guy was a nut-job. The apocalypse mast have driven him crazy, because this guy really didn't seem like a doctor to me.
"What do you know about the gems Morgan? What can they do?" Haley asked with extreme anger in her voice.
"I shall show you my young mind slave!" Morgan exclaimed.
"Mind slave? You son of a bitch! You were that voice in my head?" Haley shouted in rage.
"Hahahaha!" Morgan laughed maniacally. "Do not let them come here Haley! Do not let them come! Oh wait, they are already here. You aren't a very good mind slave are you dear? Perhaps I should have taken control of a more worthy soul. Maybe Jeremy? Oh I'm sorry, he's dead!" Haley snapped when Morgan mentioned Jeremy. She ran toward him, when suddenly, she was lifted off the ground.
"Hahahah! there is no way you can survive the beam!" cackled Morgan. Haley then began to float towards the huge beam of light that was shooting out of the top of the altar.
"Ryan, cup your hands!" Wilson yelled. I immediately knew what he had in mind. I cupped my hands and allowed Wilson to jump off and into the gravity of the beam. Because of Wilson's light weight, he could float faster toward Haley to get her out. Sure enough, Wilson was speeding toward Haley in mid-air. A few moments passed before Wilson reached Haley, at which point they were dangerously close to the beam. Wilson pushed Haley as hard as he could to get her out of the beam, unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Due to the intense gravity, Wilson and Haley were both sent hurdling into the beam of light.
"Hahaha! there go two more members of your little group! You children failed to survive the apocalypse, not that you ever had a chance!" He cackled. As he did so, the room started to shake violently. Everyone was shaken off of their feet, including Morgan.
"What is happening?" Morgan yelled in disbelief. I looked back at the beam and the gems to see the gems start to orbit closer to the beam
"No! They are not ready!" Morgan screamed. Morgan tried to get up, but failed. The gems sank ever closer to the beam until they sunk inside. "No! We're all doomed!" Morgan yelled. A few moments after, there was a deafening shatter. The beam had exploded right in front of our eyes. I could only watch for a few seconds before I blacked out. When I awoke, the building was rubble. There wasn't any structure of the building that was intact, other than a strange floating circle of rings about 30 feet away. I approached them, walking among the rubble. When I got there, everyone else had suddenly appeared, except for Haley and Wilson. I hoped they were ok, and I wanted to look for them, but something was tying me to these floating circling rings. These rings were circling the piece of rock like the gems were circling the altar before the explosion. It seemed as if the gems had turned into these rings, but how? and why? I began to look around, looking for haley and Wilson, when suddenly, two of the six rings that were circling the stone broke free of their orbit, but kept floating. They then began to slowly sink the the ground, and when they hit the ground, they began to transform. The rings turned completely white and sparkly, as if made of fairy dust. They then began to shape-shift, as if trying to find a new form. Eventually, the rings shifted into human-like forms, still sparkling. Sure enough, when the sparkling subsided, it was Haley and Wilson's bodies that they shifted into. The only modifications to their bodies was that they had the very rings that transformed into them on the right ring fingers. Wilson's was black with a symbol on the top that looked like a black heart, but the middle was white and the edges were rugged. Haley's was white and had a not he top that looked like an upside-down 'T' with dashes extending diagonally inward from the corner where the two lines meet. Kind of like a 'T' with war-paint. We all looked back up to the remaining rings in the orbit of the rock, and once again, a ring broke off. Only this time, it launched itself away from the rock and kept going. We couldn't see it anymore, and we had no idea what was going on. I walked over to Haley and crouched down next to her. I stroked my hand through her hair and stared at her beautiful face. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She sat up and held her head, and Wilson stood up.
"What happened to you two?" I asked.
"That beam held the answer to all of our questions." Haley answered. "It told us what the gems were, what they were used for, and what they could do to people." She continued. Haley and Wilson began to tell us all about the gems and their purpose.
"Morgan was a scientist who studies the chemical reactions of stones against one another. He found the four chemical reactions that had never been tried before due to their unpredictability, and decided to try them to see what they would do. He was in the same building as the zombie virus was when it was first developed, but got away. He didn't complete the test on the gems, due to the infection, and wasn't able to fuse the green gems. He searched the country trying to find an appropriate lab, but for a long time didn't avail. he then remembered that he lived near an advanced science lab in Colorado Springs a few years back. He came back here and stored the gems in a storage unit while he fused the green gems, because he had no idea what the four would do if they were together and fused. At this point, he knew something was strange about them and didn't want to take the chance of them becoming too unstable. When he fused the green gems, he came back and collected the other gems. He then planted a 'controller' of sorts in the sprouter that was in the storage unit. Turns out that the sprouter was just a few zombies that were trapped in the same unit and got hungry. They bit each other so hard that they started to fuse with one another, and with the chemical energies of the gems, their chemical properties began to fuse as well. After he planted the controller in the sprouter, he left. He began studying Mayan mythology, and found out that the gem combinations, had indeed been done before, in Mayan times. These gem combinations were used in an ancient ritual, in order to crown masters of a certain element. He scouted the area in a search for an appropriate house for a ceremony, and found it. However, he noticed that he forgot the Orange gems in the storage unit. He tapped into the sprouter and discovered that it was dead, and he also saw that we were taking the gems. At that point, he transferred the controller to a bug on the floor, which crawled up the back of Haley's neck and attached itself. That is how Morgan ended up having mind control over Haley. He then proceeded to try to kill us in order to regain his gems. As we got closer to Morgan, the gems sensed their creator and wanted to go to him, because they were destined to. Inside the gems hold the power of the four elements; Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Once they were all brought summoned together, and once Morgan performed the sacred chants of the Mayan elders, the energies in the gems would re-focus. They then transformed into rings, rings that give the wearer the power of the element that the certain gem represents. The ring must choose it's master. However, if someone proves themselves worthier enough, they can steal a ring. If someone holds all the rings at once, they are known as the Elementum Magister, the Element Master. He would have power over all four elements." Haley's speech seem to run forever.
"So if the rings represent the four elements, why are there six of them?" I asked
"Because" Wilson chimed in "When Haley and I were sucked into the beam, we were going to die. However, the elements in our hearts had never been seen by the beam before. There is always darkness in my heart, so the beam manipulated int
o a ring. I now control the element of darkness. The same goes for Haley, she controls light." This all sounds so ludicrous, but then again, a year ago a zombie apocalypse sounded ludicrous. We all looked back up at the remaining rings. There were three left circling around the stone' the Air, Earth, and Water rings.
"They're analyzing the world for a worthier master." Haley spoke. Just then, they froze. Two of them launched away from the stone, leaving streaks of light behind them. The third stayed there, hovering in the air, unaffected by the laws of gravity or physics. Eventually, the ring joined it's brethren in takeoff, however, it didn't launch itself away from the stone, rather, toward me. It hit my ring finger with the force of a big rig, the force of the hit sent my body spiraling the in the air. After a few seconds airborne, I hit the ground, back first. Strangely enough, none of this had hurt me. In fact, all I felt was raw energy flowing through me. I looked at my hand and saw the ring shone as it's brethren did with Wilson and Haley. I felt myself becoming one with my element, I could feel my energy becoming bridged. The ring's shine faded until it looked like a regular ring, but I knew better than to think of it as anything but extraordinary. On the top of the ring was a symbol, it resembled an english 'H', but there were diagonal slashes int he spaces of the two parallel lines. The ring was blue, thus signifying that this ring controlled the element of Water. I stood up and stared at the ring. It had chosen me as it's master. Out of all the remaining people in the world, I was worthy.
Kinemortophobia (The Fear Of The Undead) Book 1 Page 18
