Gabriel could feel a tingling rise in him. Although distanced from himself, he could make out small goose bumps lifting from the back of his neck. This was no way to live, and he knew it. They would be monitoring his home and family. If he returned or tried to communicate with them, who knows the damage the beasts would cause? They cared not for human life. To them, people are unnatural intruders. Scavengers who defile the planet in an unholy quest. Conversely, to those who know the Reptoids, they are the ultimate cause of human misery. If humanity could be free of that influence, human beings might be able to live in harmony with each other in this world. There was only one place Gabriel could think to go.
He laid out his plan, “I will descend this tree. I will return to the cave. Whatever it takes. I will confront those demons, and let’s see what else I can do.”
Gabriel could feel an intense satisfaction from his benefactors above. All at once, he folded his body with his mind and fell purposefully from limb to limb grabbing each with his hands just enough to slow the descent. When he reached the ground, he assumed a crouching position, and rapidly crawled on feet and hands back toward the place he had entered the woods. In the distance, he could see the men continuing their search. Once he found his old scent trail and followed it back to the stream, the men would have no way of knowing he had retreated in the direction from which he had come.
Chapter 13: Gabriel’s Final Battle
It took Gabriel two days of hiking in the North Dakota backcountry to reach the mouth of the cave. All along he had remained unclothed and detached from himself, guiding his physicality and caring for himself as a mother cares for her infant. He ate mostly bugs to keep up his energy and drank whatever clean looking water he uncovered along the way. When his body began to shiver, he would exercise it to maintain a livable temperature. Much of his traveling took place at night, and his feet were now bloodied, scab covered, and swollen. From his experience as a naturalist, he had learned to walk carefully when barefoot to minimize injury. Although the skin on his soles was thick and callused, it was impossible to avoid every sharp angled stone in his puppeteering role.
Along the way, he only encountered one main road, and managed to cross it when no cars were within sight. With his intimate knowledge of the county, he slipped through the traps the Reptoids attempted. Now, he was once again ready to enter the cave, and see for himself whether he was insane after all or if all of this was real. Neither outcome contained any definite silver lining, but he could see no other way. He felt compelled to confront his chosen destiny.
In preparation for this endeavor, Gabriel had prepared four good torches from a thick maple tree. Using a large rock he found shaped like an axe head, Gabriel worked the ends of the broken maple branches into forks, and he stuffed the openings full with birch paper and brush. Each torch would offer him only twenty minutes of light if he was lucky. The last step before venturing back into the layer of the unknown was to build a small friction fire to light the first torch. The other three were wrapped around his back with twine he made from wild hemp the man happened upon the day before. His only defense from the Reptilians was a sharpened rock he found near the cave entrance.
“Surely, they bleed. I will make them bleed with this,” he concluded confidently although he must have known neither the hand axe nor his weakened body was any match for the Reptilians’ awesome power and impervious scaly defenses. Confidence, however, was an absolute necessity at that point.
In no time, his arms commanded a fire from furiously rubbing one sturdy stick into a fireboard – the spark falling into some awaiting tinder. This was a maneuver he had perfected as a younger man; however, he had never been able to manipulate friction into fire so quickly before he had the ability to control the movements of his hands from beyond his own physical self. His torch was then lighted, and he was heading into the cavern. He felt as though a passenger to his body, traveling into the darkness. Within minutes, the light from the entrance was no longer visible. It was exactly the way he remembered. Every nook was consistent. “This is right. They are here,” he thought. But there were no sounds like there was before, and that had Gabriel worried.
“What if I was the one who killed those men?” he shocked himself at the thought.
It didn’t matter, and all that mattered now was that he was about to discover what lay at the end of the path that was his life. He could feel his spirit anticipating his own demise. There would be no way back to the life he once enjoyed. As the man traveled farther into the cave, he recalled the wonderful experiences of his days in the North Dakota wilderness. The wide-open blue sky with limitless potential. The crisp refreshing spring water he enjoyed during his eternal hikes. His wise father. His loving mother. His beautiful wife. His amazing new son. And now he was a warrior challenging an impossible foe for each of them. For all of mankind. He brimmed with pride. He was determined to kill every lizard man he could. Nothing but the ceasing of his physical heart would stop him.
His thoughts accompanied him to the steep drop off where he and the prospectors had repelled. Now on his third torch, he dropped it to the bottom, crouched, and waited for any commotion. Nothing happened. No movement or sound followed the intrusion of the fire into the pit.
“Perhaps they’ve moved on,” he pondered. “It doesn’t matter. I will follow them into the depths of hell for a chance at the sight of their blood.”
On the wall of the cave, Gabriel could make out a small creature crawling past. With one swipe, he grabbed it and was chewing it in his mouth. He swallowed the protein, it’s legs still wiggling on his lips. As if to test himself, he dropped his hand axe at the same time he began his descent. The rock won, but he was a close second. From two feet behind his own body, he found the handgrips easily, and he gracefully reached the bottom within minutes. He unpacked another torch and lit it from the one lying on the ground, which was almost extinguished. Diligently, he picked up the hand axe and moved toward the spot where the prospectors were devoured. He found their bones stripped completely by the tiny inhabitants of the cave. He wasn’t insane after all. All of this had occurred, but was it Gabriel who had killed them? “Did I invent the lizard men?” he wondered disbelieving his own version of the truth. He gripped the weapon tightly, leading the way with his last torch.
In the room where he believed the Reptoids had held him down, the walls no longer glowed. It looked now as if the whole twelve by twelve space had been carved. A small stone doorway was visible on the opposite side. From the pure black within the doorway, a faint cry reached the man. His instinct carried his feet toward the noise. On the other side of the doorway, was a long hallway stretching miles down into the Earth, gradually taking the man closer to the center of the planet. He had gone through the last torch, and relied on his hands to feel the way – a nearly impossible dilemma for a person guiding themselves from outside their own body. Twice he had rammed his face into a twisting corner until finally, he saw a glimmer of light. As he came closer to the entrance of the Reptilian’s inner city, he became aware that blood was streaming down his face as the new light bounced against his skin. The cries grew louder with every step. Even as dislocated as he was from his physical form, he could hardly miss the troubled breathing of his body caused by his own internal fright. He remained with his back against the wall just inches from peering into the Reptoids’ domain. He wasn’t sure if the beasts could see his presence, his spirit, his extradimensionality, and Gabriel hesitated to look into the unknown place filled with terrible intermitted cries of pain.
When he finally garnered the courage to look, he discovered an enormous space of abounding dimensions. Glowing pillars lit the inner sanctum. The distant walls were covered with holes like portals into sleeping quarters. The smell of decay hung in the air within the city. In the distance, Gabriel could make out a throne on a raised area toward the center of the cave city. Reptoids walked the expanse at a leisurely pace. There were thousands of them inhabiting the cave city. It looked like a ci
ty of the dead, a cavern of vampires. From one of the pits dotting the floor, one of the lizard men pulled a pale, thin woman by her long dirty hair. Her naked body seemed a rag doll as the creature forced her toward the throne. Upon it, a large beast sat with red glowing eyes. Its head was more ornate than the rest of the creatures. A brightly colored fan apparatus lifted and fell from beneath its chin. Appendages like horns adorned its head.
With one quick jerk of the guard’s hand, the woman’s head was torn from her body and was presented upside down to the beast on the throne. It licked the blood from the person’s exposed neck, twisted the cranium into two pieces, and devoured her brains. The remainder of the person was dismembered with ease by the captors and thrown around the floor to be shared by lizards that gravitated toward the fresh kill. Gabriel could see a hierarchy to the madness. Subordinate Reptilians were driven away by larger beasts. Hissing sounds and crackling bones echoed around the expanse.
In front of Gabriel, emerged a large Reptoid. It had smelled him.
Gabriel gasped and desperately attempted to batter the creature across its head, but the thick armor scales barely showed any sign of the blows. It broke Gabriel’s arm at the wrist, and the rock fell to the ground. The man, now inches from the ground, was being held up with one paw around his suffering neck. He could hear the cervical disks popping. His feet convulsing, he was drawn back into his body. The pain immediately rushed his senses and he screamed in agony. His defeat had come far too quickly to offer any condolences for what he was about to endure.
Despite the pain, he intercepted a powerful demand.
“Bring him to me!” the command came from the beast on the throne. “We have been looking for you, Gabriel. Now you have returned to us!”
The grip on Gabriel’s neck relented, and the man could sense the pleasure the beasts experienced at the sight of the weak individual now before them. All evil eyes were cast upon his naked, bruised, bloody, and emaciated body. His mouth was dry, and his head ached. He felt as if he might lose his vision. At that point, he would not have minded if he did.
The queen never rose from her throne. Now, she peered into the man’s eyes with delight as he was dragged closer to his inevitable demise.
She beamed an image of the man writhing in pain into Gabriel’s head. She would enjoy his torment. The man looked back at her, lost and confused. This was not the way he imagined the end would come. He would do anything to destroy them, but was helpless. There were no more tricks. Only his inevitable doom lay before him. He gave up.
“No!” she exuded. Her lizard eyes penetrated deep into the man’s brain, and he became a motionless heap in her claws. “They’ve interfered with him,” she concluded as she scanned his torso.
The creatures all at once began to hiss.
“This isn’t right,” she continued. “Get him out of here!”
Then another voice entered Gabriel’s mind. “Gabriel,” it was the extraterrestrials. “Go to the white room.”
With that, the man entered the white room and a door sealed the path behind him. He saw only a flash of brilliant light and felt pure ecstasy.
“You did well,” they told him.
Chapter 14: The Story is Told
“So, what happened, Grandfather?” Hakota asked Maahe. “Did they eat him?” the boy’s eyes large as the harvest moon.
Maahe smiled, “No, Hakota. They didn’t eat him. They were destroyed by him. You see,” the grandfather continued, “the extraterrestrials had planted a small nuclear device in your father without his knowing. If they would have told him, the beasts may have discovered it before he got close enough to take out the entire nest.”
The boy began to realize the sacrifice his father had made. He concluded, “So, he blew up?” The boy’s face twisting in agony.
“Yes,” Maahe answered proudly. “He destroyed the nest and took all of those monsters with him. I remember the day very clearly. Everything around here changed after that. People became nicer. They were awakened from their sleep, you know? Many could become themselves for the first time in their lives.”
The two sat for a few moments absorbing the moment. All the air was still like the universe was awaiting the boy’s response to the grandfather’s story.
Maahe continued, “The news entertainers reported a naturally occurring Earth quake in the area, but I knew the truth.”
Suddenly, the boy realized the flaw in the grandfather’s story. He turned toward the wise old Maahe.
“But grandfather,” he wondered, “How did you know all that for sure?”
The grandfather smirked at the quick thinking of his grandson.
“Don’t you know, my son. Don’t you see them?” The old man motioned toward the sky revealing a hovering silver craft to the boy. It was cigar shaped, hovering motionless, and silent.
“They told me,” the grandfather explained. “The Anunnaki.”
Chapter 15: A Hero is Born
The Anunnaki moved gracefully within their craft, observing the Earth through the portals. Gently they caressed the air triggering the metal in the walls of the craft to shift and glow, slowly panning the ship on the sloping horizon of the blue and white planet. An orb of light, red mixing and dancing with orange and blue, came sparking through the silver wall into the area before the face of one of the beings.
“You who were once called Gabriel,” the being projected with its mind. “We have been waiting for you.”
About the Author
Charles Orange is the author of Feral Species, a series of essays that explores the probability that Homo sapiens are the result of ancient extraterrestrial manipulation of our hominid ancestors’ chromosomes. Charlie lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
Anunnaki Volume One: Rise of the Warrior Page 6
