Awakening the Mare (Fall of Man Book 1)

by Jacqueline Druga

I read the title out loud. “The Bible?”

  “It’s a compilation of books told by man of God’s word. Some believe in God, some don’t.”

  “Which God?”

  Davis laughed. “To man there is only one God.”

  “Ah, yes, Bon Jovi.”

  “Um... he goes by many names.” Placing his hand on my back, he took me to yet another doorway, this one leading to a flight of stairs. “Three years ago, a man named Jason came across the sea and had escaped one of the villages in Esperanza. He had lived there since he was eight years old. So, at twenty-one, he was a lot like you. We used books, old magazines and different things to help him understand our way of life. Even the way we spoke. See, we use a lot of expressions and clichés, and things called figures of speech. Those are probably the hardest for you to get. After his so called ‘light switch’ went off on his head, he asked if he could help. He designed the system you will experience now.”

  “Was your system not good enough?”

  “It was. But he brought up the fact that he was taught to read on a different level so some of the things we gave him were hard to understand. He said if he could see it, he’d learn it better. So we helped him build his idea.”

  At the bottom of the staircase was a door. Next to it a faded yellow sign. “Fallout Shelter?”

  “Bunker. Your home for the next week.” Davis opened the large metal door. Anxious and nervous, I stepped inside.

  29. The Time Bunker

  Marie stood from behind a desk with a warm, welcoming smile. “Hello, Vala.”

  “Marie will be your teacher,” Davis said. “Snake will stop by too. I figured since you knew them, they’d be best.”

  “Plus,” Marie said, walking over , “I lived a decent amount of time before the event, so all of this is stuff I remember.”

  Turning slowly left to right, I took in the room. The first thing I noticed was the lighting. There were no candles or lanterns. It was artificial. “How is that possible? It has no fire?”

  Davis smiled. “We use a lot of battery power. You’ll use lanterns at night. But during the process, this place gets the juice. It’s needed and we have some good, intelligent people that figured out batteries and diesel fuel. Stuff you’ll learn.”

  “We don’t want to overwhelm you,” Marie said. She took my things and placed them on a sofa.

  “Will this beat me down?” I asked. “I am ready.”

  “No.” Marie shook her head. “It may scare you at first, but I promise, we’ll have to drag you out of here by the end. You’ll enjoy it that much.”

  The room was overwhelming. There were shelves and more shelves of books, large pictures on the walls, toys, and some objects I didn’t recognize. One corner of the room was set up like an eating area. One similar to what I had seen in the forbidden Soap Opera magazine.

  “The entire idea behind this room is to make you experience it,” Davis explained, “because you can’t learn it unless you see it. When I was ten, we moved from a place called New Jersey to Nashville. I went from speaking one way, to sounding no less than a country boy in a year’s time. Because I lived that life, I became a part of it. You would be one lost and confused girl if we let you learn it on your own.”

  “We are going to give you a crash course,” Marie added.

  “You have that time capsule, right? This, in a sense, is a time bunker. And this is where I leave. Good luck.” Davis kissed me on the cheek. It was nice and it made me smile. After giving a squeeze to Marie’s shoulder, Davis left us. The door closed with a heavy thump.

  My stomach flip-flopped.

  Marie took my hand and led me across the room. “This way. I’ll explain the start.”

  “Do I need my Bible?”

  “No. That’s for you to look at when you want.” She indicated a chair. “This is where it all takes place.”

  The chair was large and fluffy, and it looked as if it could hold two people. I sat down and noticed the black square. It was large and perched eight feet from the edge of the chair. A picture frame with nothing in it.

  “This is called a television,” Marie explained. “This was an important part of culture and civilization. People viewed it to be informed, but mostly they did it to be entertained. It shaped many opinions. There would be things called television shows, some funny, some scary, and no matter how outlandish or silly, the shows still depicted how people were. How we talked, acted, and what life was like before the event. And to think, we haven’t changed at all, except we don’t have all the gadgets.”

  “How am I different?”

  “We stuck to the way of life we knew. The way of speaking that we knew. You were given and shown an entire new way of life, new way of speaking. You have no idea about these things because no one told you. You are like a fish out of water.”

  “Except I do not flop for air.”

  “Ah,” Marie held up her finger, “but you do. In a manner of speaking. You’re flopping around lost and confused because you don’t know what the heck we’re talking about half the time.”

  “I have my time capsule. Will that help?”

  “That will come in handy when we get to the episodes of Full House.”

  “Episodes?”

  “You’ll see. Like Davis said, the best way to learn this way of life is to live it. Or, in this case, watch it. You, my dear, are going be living the pre-event teenager’s perfect life. You will get to sit and watch television all day.”

  “All day?”

  Marie nodded.

  I looked at the black square. “All day?”

  “Yep, from that chair.”

  “It does not do much. It is just black. How can I watch that all day? I will get bored.”

  Marie laughed and reached down. Within a second the black turned to a beautiful blue.

  I gasped. “It is magic!”

  “Wait.” Leaning again, Marie pressed something else and suddenly the color disappeared and a grey and white heart appeared. There was music and a man’s voice said, “I Love Lucy.”

  What was happening? I filled with fear when I saw that inside the black square was a colorless house with a colorless little person.

  “Where is her color?” I asked.

  “This is called black and white. We’re starting at the beginning of television culture.”

  “How did she get in there?”

  “She’s not in there, Vala. This is an episode of a televisions show. This is pre-event culture. Moving images recorded and shown on this box. This is what shaped a lot of our world, and now, it’ll shape you. Um, I hope.”

  “Oh.” I sat back.

  “Just study, listen, learn, and be entertained. Feel free to ask any questions.”

  The moving images were similar to the newspaper images. No color. How advanced man really was at one time to create such a remarkable thing.

  I was seeing people inside the television. It was like I was a God, monitoring their lives and everyday events.

  There was something exciting about it. They were not there, but they were. While I did not quite understand how this was going to ‘shape’ me, I did not argue. I merely sat back quietly and with intrigue, watched this "episode" called I Love Lucy.

  30. Deconstructing

  By my third day in the bunker, I was in the flow of things. I absolutely loved watching the old television people. Laughing at their lives, understanding the wisdom the parents passed on to the children through lessons. The interaction between men and women. Something called relationships. Ricky and Lucy had a funny one. They used sarcasm a lot. Marie explained that was the show. They fought and made fun, but they loved each other.

  The other family shows were different. The parents did not insult each other like they did on Lucy. Despite what happened, in the end, there was always a lesson. It took me a couple of days to realize that. Pay attention, look, listen... learn.

  One thing was abundantly clear, something that was very different than in Akana. Men and women need
ed each other, they worked well together, and there was something natural about them becoming a team. They were not meant to be separated and treated as mere dolls.

  So many decisions were made based on the feelings or guidance of the partner.

  It was the way in the beginnings, after the dinosaurs of course.

  In the he Bible, Adam listened to his woman and they got in trouble, but they worked together. In Akana we are taught that once we realized the opposite sex was different, we were sinning. They were not to touch us.

  Looking back, it made no sense. Especially since Marie told me the truth about where babies came from. She drew me disturbing pictures and diagrams that she called ‘technical’ and ‘educational’ and ‘not scaled to size’. After her explanation, it made sense.

  If men and women in Akana did not touch, how did they produce children?

  Marie asked me, “Well, what were you told? What did your mother tell you about where babies came from?”

  For a second I drifted off to the dream I had a few days earlier. What I told myself was just a dream. My mother would never offer me willingly to the Sybaris, especially for her own benefit.

  “Vala?”

  “We were told when our bodies and minds were mature, the Gods would deliver a baby pill. We would swallow it and then the child grew in our stomachs.”

  “That’s not how it’s done!” Marie exclaimed.

  “I know that now.”

  “How do you feel about it all?” Marie asked.

  “The soap opera magazines make sense now. I feel silly.” Then I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Sometimes when I would look at the pictures, I would see a man and a woman looking at each other and it would make me sigh. It was beautiful and warm. I thought it to be a tale, because in Akana men and women do not look at each other like that. When they wed, they wed because they are told who to wed.”

  “That was the way things were for a long time, and that isn’t just Akana. Truth be known, Vala, it’s better to discover your husband or boyfriend by yourself, because that look is worth it. It makes your heart race, it makes you smile. Loving someone because you want to, not because you are told to, is an amazing thing.”

  “Did you love?”

  “Oh, yes,” Marie placed her hand on her chest. “Leo and I met when we were eighteen. Your age. I knew I loved him the moment I met him. When he kissed me, my stomach fluttered. It fluttered to the day he died.”

  I sighed. “That’s beautiful. How did he die?”

  “He died last year. Natural causes, not a Savage attack, just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. It broke my heart. I loved him very much.”

  Knowing her age, I started to calculate how long they were together. And before I could speak, something happened. My eyes… they grew blurry and they welled with tears. It was not tears of sadness; I had no idea why I wanted to cry. A tear rolled down my cheek and I swiped it away. “I do not know why that happened.” I looked at the moisture on my fingers.

  “You’re human, Vala, and it’s coming out. Those tears are showing that you were emotionally touched by something.” She squeezed my hand. “We are making progress.”

  “It sounds wonderful to have that. It makes sense now, why I felt the way I did at times. I hope one day to be kissed.”

  “You will.” Marie laid her hand on my cheek. “You’re beautiful, smart, and sweet. You will have lots of kisses in your lifetime.”

  “Just…” I exhaled dramatically, “no babies. The route to conception sounds traumatic.”

  Marie laughed. “You say that now.” Then she winked.

  We talked for a while, one like I never had with my own mother, and I loved it. Just before bed as I was making notes in the Bible, Davis stopped by. It was nice to see him; I had not had contact with him or Tanner in days.

  “I got something for you,” Davis said, sitting in a chair next to my bed. “I see you’re reading.”

  “Making notes.”

  “In the Bible?”

  “Yes, is that wrong?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “They speak a lot like me.”

  “Yeah, actually they do.” Davis folded his hands. “Are you, uh, understanding us more now?’

  “Oh, yes. Lucy has taught me a lot. Ricky not so much, he speaks oddly.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Was Moses a Mare?”

  “Was Moses a what?”

  “A Mare?” I swung my legs over the bed. “I was reading about him and the kings and queens. He was raised as one and was thrown out for defending man. He led them away from bondage and performed great feats. Was he a Mare? It goes along with the story we are told of how man defeated the Ancients.”

  “Moses was chosen by God.”

  “So God created Mares?”

  “In a sense. He does a lot.”

  “Bon Jovi is crafty in many ways.”

  Davis smiled. “HE is. And here.” He handed me a book. “This is from the library. I have been studying day and night about controlling your sort of telekinesis gift.”

  “What is that?”

  “Telekinesis is the ability to control things with your mind. You threw the poison cassette at the Sybaris because you wanted it to destroy him, and it did. You have that ability. I’m working on how we can bring that out. This…” he pointed to the book, “is all on you. I want you to work on this.”

  I glanced down to the title of the book. “Transporting With Your Mind. How To Have An Out of Body Experience and Astral Project.”

  “That’s an ability you have. Only you can take it one step further. You can communicate with those around you. If you go somewhere, you have the ability to be seen if you want.”

  “Davis, I have had this happen twice. I told you about the one time, but the other night on the beach; I do not know if it was a dream or if I was there.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went back to my village and my mother as giving her blood for payment to Nito. She was promising me to her. It seemed so real, yet, why would my mother do that? Was it a dream?”

  “I can’t tell you, Vala. Only you know. You’ll know for sure when you actually try to do it.”

  “You knew my mother as a woman, not as a mother.”

  “I did.”

  “Would she do something like that?” I asked. “Would she sell out her own child for her own benefit?”

  “Vala, I will not talk negatively about your mother.”

  “Please?”

  Davis took a deep breath. “When your mother sets her sights on something, she does it. Your mother came west for a better life. When she heard about the Sybaris offering a better life than what she found, she set her sights on that. She didn’t want to run, or be hungry. All she wanted was to be safe. She had a great life before this world went to hell.”

  “She did?”

  “Oh, yeah. She was rich. Like the Ancients are. So much money. She was spoiled.”

  This news surprised me because I never knew that about my mother.

  “When your mother knew that a child was the key to getting in, she set out to get pregnant. I begged her not to go. I followed her and she promised that she wasn’t planning to sacrifice the child.”

  “Why did you not stop her, Davis?” I asked.

  “There’s no stopping your mother.” Davis stood. “Now, please, will you read that book?”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll let you rest.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “Good night.”

  “Davis?”

  He stopped. “Yes?”

  “Was my brother ... was my brother your son?”

  Davis hung his head low, then peered at me through the tops of his eyes. “Yeah, Vala, he was.”

  “I am so sorry. I truly am.”

  “Me too.” After giving me a sad, forced smile, Davis turned and left.

  I lifted the book. If not for anything else, I would learn for Davis.

  31. Projecting

>   The first night that I read from the book Davis had given me, it happened again. The spinning sensation. I likened it to when I was a little girl and I would turn around and around and when I stopped, everything spun around me. This new internal sensation was followed by a feeling of release and flying. My spirit escaping my body, soaring out of the bunker, only this time I did not go home to my village.

  It was odd because there was a moment when it happened that I thought to myself, I know I am sleeping but I am aware.

  I soared through the door of the bunker up the stairs and through the museum. I could hear the screams of the Savages as they conquered the streets. Once I passed through the museum, I slipped easily through the door as if it were air, and saw Snake seated on the top step of the museum. He was drinking from a brown bottle and he looked sad.

  He would take a drink, then a Savage would drop down from the sky. It would move to attack him, then Snake would shoot it with an arrow, take another drink and wait for more Savages.

  The next morning when Snake arrived to introduce me to the world of ‘color television’, I asked him about what he had done the night before. At first, he told me he was hanging out at home reading. I dismissed my experience as a dream, until I told him about it. It was then he told me that he actually was killing Sybaris while getting ‘drunk’. It was a bad day for him. The anniversary of his son’s death.

  That alone confirmed that I was indeed doing some sort of out of body traveling, so all that remained was me being able to control it, learn to do so while I slept, and then eventually develop the ability to do so while I was awake. There was a chapter in the book that mentioned bringing a ‘trigger’ into my dreams. A trigger means to think of an object as I fall asleep. It will cause my subconscious to bring it into my dream. When I see it, it would ‘trigger’ me to know I was sleeping and in turn transfer me to a lucid state, enabling me to transport.

  The next two nights I was able to do so. Setting my traveling goal on a simple one, I remained in Angeles City, watching the Savages try to take victims.

  To be able to achieve the ultimate goal in transporting, I had to be able to do so at will and not only when I was sleeping. The book told of using something called ‘white noise’ and to focus on it.