H.E.A.R.T. Saga: The Children

by Linna Drehmel

  “That’s why I think you should be the one at the HEART stone altar. You can have your right hand on the altar, and then channel the energy from your right to your left. Then with your left hand on my back, you can release it into me, then I can channel it to my right wrist, split it with the grain of HEART stone, and divide it evenly down my hand like I would do to sand, using that to move the crank.”

  “Good thinking,” he said with enthusiasm.

  “If you’ve had enough Travelers’ Joy, I think we should get to it. Is the core drill very heavy?”

  “It’s pretty heavy if you have to lift it alone, but between the two of us I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem.”

  “Well alright then,” she said, bending down to pick it up. She stopped, thinking. “You know, I think we’ll need some other supplies.”

  “What supplies?”

  “First of all, it’s pretty dark here, so I think we should see if there are any energy lights. And we will need shovels because once we get down deep enough we may need them.”

  “Again good thinking, but I don’t think that we will need the energy lights,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “We will be using the HEART stone altar constantly and that will put off a lot of light, and I am not sure if there are energy lights here. Also, I don’t know if we have the time to go looking for them.”

  “But are there shovels? That is the question, because we need those.”

  “I’m sure there are shovels,” he told her. “I saw a small outbuilding on the side of the cabin.”

  “Good! Let’s go get them.”

  “No, you stay here. I’ll be right back.” He started to jog back toward the cabin.

  “Check for energy lights while you’re in there, just in case.” DraDonna bent down to look at the crank and felt a little tickle of excitement. “Maybe you’ll help us find what’s in the ground,” she said to drill, looking up to the squirming dark sky. “What’s down there?” she asked, not really expecting to hear a reply.

  “Did you ask me something?” DraDevon said as he jogged up to her with two shovels in his hands.

  “No, just thinking out loud,” she said with a smile. “Oh good! You found the shovels, but you didn’t see any lights?”

  “No I didn’t, I’m sorry.”

  “We will have to make do without them I guess. Let’s get to work.”

  DraDevon put the shovels down next to the altar. He then turned and put his arms around the woman who carried the other half of his soul and whispered in her ear, “No matter what happens tonight, I want you to know that I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said hugging him back tightly.

  They released each other and bent over, lifting the heavy steel core drill upright next to the altar. With her left hand, DraDonna grabbed hold of the cast iron ring that the crank was attached to, putting her right hand on the crank. DraDevon placed his left hand on her back and his right hand on the altar and said the prayer for powering up with the energy. “The HEART strengthens me with her energy,” he said, closing his eyes and concentrating on channeling the energy to his left hand and releasing it into DraDonna’s body.

  Not knowing why, DraDonna was filled with fear at the thought of what might be in the ground; but the feel of her husband’s hand on her back brought her comfort as the stream of the HEART’s energy filled her body with strength.

  She closed her eyes and channeled the energy to her wrist, splitting it, dividing it evenly down her hand to push the crank. At first she thought that this method was not going to work because the crank did not move. “It’s not working,” she called back to him in a panicked voice.

  “Focus!” was all he could tell her as he strained to maintain his own concentration.

  DraDonna took a deep breath and looked inside herself, finding the energy that was pouring from her husband and pushed it harder into her hand. This extra push was just what the crank needed to begin to turn. She continued to push hard and the crank moved easier and faster. There was a little fear in the back of her mind that because they were in the foot hills of a mountain, there would be rock and this would make it hard to drill. However, this was not the case. The drill quickly slid down through the ground foot after foot as if the soil wasn’t even there.

  DraDonna kept her eyes closed so she could preserve her concentration. She wondered how long it would take to get the full twenty feet when she heard and felt a loud vibrating clang. It was the sound of metal striking metal. Jarred by the vibration, they both fell to the ground. Stunned and not knowing what to think at first, they looked at one another. DraDonna asked, “What was that? Did we hit some kind of rock?”

  “I know that sound,” DraDevon said as he helped his wife stand up with him. “That is the sound of metal striking metal. But what I don’t understand is why the drill stopped.”

  “We let go.” DraDonna answered simply.

  “No, that’s not it. We didn’t let go until the drill had already stopped.”

  “What does it matter, DraDevon? This is it,” she said excitedly.

  “I welded this core drill out of the strongest steel on the planet. It should chew through anything.”

  “I will admit that’s odd, but whatever it is, we have found it.” She bubbled over with excitement. “We really need to get digging and bring up whatever it is before someone shows up to try to stop us.”

  “You’re right,” he told her. “But we need more Traveler’s Joy and energy if we have any hope of getting this done before anyone shows up.”

  “Good point.” She reached into her pack, pulling out the remains of her stash of the vines, giving half to her husband. “It’s a big mouthful, but we’ll need it.”

  After swallowing the wad of the plant, they both placed their right hands on the HEART stone altar and recited the ritual words for energy. They felt the powerful tingle of the energy in their bodies.

  They picked up the shovels and dug at an amazing rate. Faster and faster the soil flew away as they widened and deepened the hole. Quickly the hole became wide enough and deep enough so they both fit inside it. They kept digging, following the core drill that was embedded only about half in the ground.

  “Look out,” DraDevon called to his wife as the large metal core drill fell smashing into the side of the hole, just inches from where DraDonna was standing. With a squeal of surprise she jumped to one side and said, “We must be close if the drill fell out.”

  “I know we…” DraDevon stopped. “I found it!” he said, thumping his shovel down with a metal clang.

  “Hurry!” she exclaimed. “Let’s find the edges so we can bring it up.” They quickly cleared the rest of the dirt out of the hole but still did not find the edges.

  Breathing heavy with effort DraDevon said, “We need to stop and get more energy.”

  “No, we can’t stop now; we’ve found it and we need to get it out!” she said stubbornly. With a feeling of panic rising in her chest, she dropped her shovel and closed her eyes for a moment trying to remember all that Tatiana had told her and shown her. “See! It’s everywhere in the ground.” Tatiana’s sweet voice echoed in her mind.

  “DraDonna,” DraDevon said kindly, placing a hand on her arm. “We need more energy if we are going to bring it up. It looks really big; looks like it’s everywhere down here.”

  “It’s everywhere down here,” she repeated to herself. It wasn’t just something that was in the soil, it was hidden everywhere under the ground. Then she finally understood what Tatiana has been trying to tell her. DraDonna felt like all of her blood drained into her feet.

  Sensing his wife’s mental anguish, he asked her, “What is it? What have you figured out?”

  “I get it! Don’t you get it? It’s everywhere under the ground! It’s under the ground everywhere, not just here or there… It’s everywhere!” She felt close to hysteria. “Don’t you get it? THIS IS THE GROUND! THE WORLD ISN’T REAL!” DraDonna turned her head up and yelled
again, this time at the dark squirming sky. “THE WORLD ISN’T REAL!”

  “If the world isn’t real, then what is it?” DraDevon asked her, not truly understanding what she was saying.

  “I don’t know what the world is……….only that it’s not real!” she answered him, sounding like she was close to tears.

  “DraDonna, we need to get out of this hole. You need some Traveler’s Joy or some energy. You’re not thinking straight! How could the world not be real?”

  “I am thinking straight, DraDevon,” she told him. “It all makes sense now. Think about it. Everything is the same everywhere. And this is under the soil everywhere.”

  DraDonna’s words began to sink into his brain. The look on his face changed from amazement to near panic. “We need to get out of here quickly, DraDonna; there are people after us who will kill us if they have to in order to stop us. We need to report this to someone; but who? We both think Ambassador Symon is behind this,” he said thoughtfully.

  “I know,” DraDonna replied. “I think he probably already knows, and that’s why he’s sending people out to kill us…so he can keep everything covered up.”

  “What about First Councilor Jude?” DraDevon asked. “Do you think we can trust her?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.”

  They tried to climb out of the hole using the shovels, but they were tired and drained of energy. Then they tried to climb the walls of the nine foot deep hole in the ground, but each and every time they placed a shovel in the ground, the soft soil would just fall away taking the shovel with it.

  “Well,” DraDevon said with frustration in his voice, “what are we supposed to do now? We can’t get out.”

  Feeling close to panic again, DraDonna closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself so she could think. She remembered the last time she dreamed about Tatiana and how the old soul kissed her on the forehead. The gentle and warm feeling it gave her then, DraDonna felt that again. DraDonna reached up and felt the spot where Tatiana had kissed her and felt calmness wash over her like a cleansing tide.

  “DraDevon,” DraDonna said as she opened her eyes and looked into the beautiful eyes of the man she loved, “I think we can climb out on the core drill.”

  “Do you think so?” he asked her with a spark of hope on his handsome, yet dirty face. “Do you think it will work? The embankment that it’s laying against looks pretty weak. I would hate for it to slide or roll while you’re on it.”

  “I think the core drill will be safe enough for us to climb out on. It should have plenty of traction for us to get out, and I’m not worried about it sliding, because if it does there isn’t far for it to go and there should be enough of the drill sticking out above the hole for us to use to get out. It has to work. What other choice do we have?”

  “Good point,” he admitted. “Let’s get out of here,” he said as he gave his wife a boost onto the core drill. But before either of them had a chance to go very far, they both saw a flash of blue light above them from the HEART stone altar.

  Hopping off the core drill, they looked up to the edge of the hole with cold fingers of dread gripping their souls. The head and shoulders of JorRobert appeared above them.

  Punishment

  23

  “Well look what we have here,” JorRobert said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Two energy mad science offenders nicely captured in a hole for me.” He laughed at the astonished look on their faces. “I would say that the two of you are probably surprised to see me alive.”

  DraDevon stepped forward and pushed his wife protectively behind him. “I wasn’t trying to kill you JorRobert.” DraDevon cautiously informed him. “I was just defending myself and protecting my wife.”

  “Sure you were. I have been told to bring the two of you in so you can be punished for your offenses against the HEART.”

  “What offenses? We haven’t done anything wrong,” DraDevon said, trying to distract him for a few moments so he or DraDonna could think of some way for them to get out of this alive. “Besides that, how were you able to find us? We took the necklaces off.”

  In answer to DraDevon’s question, he took a few steps closer to the edge of the hole and knelt down. He held out a little book that he had in his left hand. “The images you sketched were helpful, but the things that led me right to you were the energy stamps in the corner of the images. Very smart. Thank you,” he laughed.

  “You took that from the tool bag you ripped from my shoulder, you energy mad thief,” DraDevon said, feeling anger rise in him at the thought of JorRobert violating his privacy.

  JorRobert laughed at him again. “Do you know how stupid you sound? What are you going to do to me from down there? Throw dirt at me?”

  “I beat you once before, JorRobert. I can do it again.”

  “I don’t think so. What’s going to happen is you and your mad wife are going to come out of that hole and turn over any other notebooks and other information on the HEART offensive project that you have been working on, and then you are going to come with me and let the Ambassador and his Councilors punish you with the negative energy.”

  “Get mind wiped little Robert; your pitiful words don’t scare me.”

  “How about this?” JorRobert asked, ignoring the insult as he brought forth his right hand to show them what he was holding. It was an odd-looking thing that was shaped somewhat like an uneven carpenter square, but with rounded edges. It was made out of HEART stone instead of metal. JorRobert gripped the longer end, closed his eyes for a moment to focus all the energy in his body and then forced it out through the emitter. A short yellow burst of energy shot out of it and sizzled through the air, striking the core drill with a deadly array of sparks and leaving a molten hole in its wake.

  “Does this scare you?” JorRobert asked with a murderous tenor in his voice. “This is called an emitter. All I have to do is focus all my energy down to the grain in my wrist and then release it in one hard burst into the emitter; it then pushes the energy out so fast that the energy becomes hot enough to burn through steel! Just imagine what it would do to flesh.” JorRobert’s voice darkened. “Now get out.”

  DraDonna and DraDevon climbed out of the hole the using the core drill like they had planned earlier. Their arms and legs were shaky with fear and exhaustion.

  DraDonna’s head was already buzzing with panic from her discovery that their whole world was a lie, and now her sister’s husband was threatening to kill her. She felt like her soul was being crushed by all of these horrific events. Then an awful thought hit her with a cruel blow: “Where is JorMelony?” Where was her sister?

  DraDonna approached JorRobert with more boldness than she felt and looked him in the eye. Even though the mad gleam in his eyes added more fear to her soul, she still held up her mask of bold courage and asked him, “Where is my sister?”

  “My wife is none of your business. She will be safe as long as you cooperate. So you just need to shut up now and come with me.”

  “What did you do to her?” she yelled in his face.

  A little of JorRobert’s control snapped he quickly raised his right hand and hit her across the face with the emitter.

  “What’s wrong with you?” DraDevon bellowed as he started to charge at a man who would dare hit his wife, but stopped short as JorRobert swung the emitter around and planted the end of it on DraDevon’s chest.

  “I don’t think you want to move right now,” JorRobert advised him. “I will burn a hole in the middle of you without giving it a second thought.”

  “JorRobert,” DraDonna said, using a soothing voice, trying to calm the homicidal man, “my sister loves you, and I know that she wouldn’t love you like she does if you were a violent person. I don’t think that you will do anything to hurt us.”

  JorRobert laughed in a way that frightened her further. “I guess none of you really know me all that well, do you? But go ahead, test me. See if you like what happe
ns.”

  DraDonna began to see he was right; she didn’t really know him. She fully believed now that he would kill DraDevon. Besides, he had already tried to kill him once today, so what would stop him from trying to do it again? Switching tactics, she still tried to talk JorRobert down. “I still don’t think you’re going to kill either of us, or you would have done so as soon as you found us in the hole.”

  “I was told that I only need to bring one of you in to be publicly denounced as a user of science and punished in order for the plan to work. Actually, what I was told was to bring you and the evidence in and kill DraDevon if you don’t cooperate. And I would do that happily.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to conceal the panic in her voice.

  “Don’t you now?” he asked, amused. “I guess you want to see me burn a hole in the middle of your husband.”

  “I know Ambassador Symon doesn’t like me very much, but I don’t believe for one moment that he would tell you it’s okay to kill anyone!” she said, as the feeling of panic grew stronger. “Ambassador Symon is a servant of the HEART; he would not do that.”

  DraDevon cleared his throat to get JorRobert’s attention. “It’s obvious that someone has sent you out here to get us. But my wife is right; it could not be the Ambassador who sent you out to do this. So who was it?”

  JorRobert laughed once again, ignoring DraDevon’s question. “You guys just don’t get it.” He placed DraDevon’s notebook in his pocket and held out his left hand. “You will now give me the other notebooks; both yours and TynLexa’s.”

  Slowly and reluctantly DraDonna pulled the first notebook, then the other out of her pouch at her belt.

  DraDevon, taking advantage of the fact that JorRobert’s attention was off him, grabbed the emitter with his left hand and swung his right fist, smashing it into the side of JorRobert’s face and stunning him. It was not enough to loosen his grip on the emitter.

  DraDonna also sprang into action. She drew her foot back and kicked the back of his knee, but the fact that she was tired, hungry, and energy deprived made her kick not as powerful as she intended. Instead of sweeping his leg out from under him and causing him to fall backwards, giving them the advantage, he fell forward on top of her.