Seasons of Heaven

by Nico Augusto

  “They know everything about us, humans … My God…how is that possible? Nobody is informed about that … Where the fuck am I?”

  He questioned himself as he struggled to breathe in the dense forest. The vegetation seemed to be sucking in all of the oxygen.

  The forest he just entered didn’t let the air come in. It was difficult to breath, the vegetation was very dense. He walked and walked, eventually coming to a row of houses in the middle of the forest. James let himself through the rotting fence and examined the houses. As he’d suspected, they were deserted and in various stages of disarray. They were built in a haphazard manner, some along the sides of a stream and some were set back further into the trees. Some looked like they had been tall structures and what was left of them rivaled the trees for height. There were others that looked like a basic shelter, like the one James had built on the beach. The houses were partially furnished and looked like they’d been gone through the last time in a hurry. Now all that was left lay scattered around and covered with a fine coating of dust. Moss had found its way into the cracks of a few of them and had taken over the structures. The forest had continued its growth around them and if they’d had small yards in the past, one was indiscernible from the other now. The lazy river meandered through the center of it all and the weeds had grown up so thickly along the banks that they almost choked the water out as it tried to flow through it. It was obvious that no one had been here in a long time and he couldn’t help but wonder what had made them leave in such a rush that most of their things even seemed to have been left behind. He remembered what he’d read in the journals in the office he’d passed through. This must be the place where the Banished had gone to start over when they broke away from the Ancients.

  “You are already done, the second stone is just there…” a man’s voice came from nowhere to tell him.

  “Leave me alone!” James yelled out.

  “I like that James. You’re fighting back. You’re becoming stronger! You’re almost ready to become….”

  Behind one of the houses James suddenly saw a strange violet light flashing.

  He ignored the voice and followed the light. It led him to the entrance of a cave. Looking inside he could see that everything was illuminated. This cave was different from the others that he’d gone through since he’d been here. This one had vegetation growing in rows across the floor. James knelt down and upon closer inspection he could see that what grew there were not just abstract plants and weeds like he’d seen in the forest and jungle. Vegetables were growing, rows and rows of them.

  The daylight must have been too intense for the vegetables, making it impossible to make them grow in a conventional way. James realized then that he had not seen a single flower since he came here. He’d been slowly growing accustomed to the intense rays that came from the sun but he knew that a vegetable garden would dry up and shrivel under that kind of heat. The sun here seemed closer somehow and it spilled out over everything.

  James entered the greenhouse, and had to bat his eyes a few times against the ultraviolet light. It was actually giving him a headache the way it bounced off of everything in the cave. He lit his bunch of sage and the beam from the flame filled every corner of the cave. James had his nanigata ready in case it was needed. He walked through carefully feeling the squish of the vegetation underneath his feet as he did. The cave was deep but he eventually arrived at the back of it where he discovered the second irradiated stone. It was fixed to the wall like the first one but for some reason, this one was more easily removed.

  He removed it with his sabre with no difficulties and put it in his bag. He felt a sense of relief now knowing that he had both of the stones. He started back through the greenhouse, but before he made it halfway he began to become uneasy with dizziness assaulting his senses. Everything began to shake and the rocks along the walls began to shift and some of them slipped out of place and fell to the ground. Then James heard a terrible rumble that seemed to come from deep down in the belly of the earth beneath his feet. He began to run as the cave crumbled faster around him. The ground was shaking so hard now that he could barely stay on his feet. By the time he got to the entrance of the cave, the falling rocks had already begun to gather there. James had to climb over the small wall that had already formed there.

  Once he was back outside he heard another rumble and then the shaking became fiercer. He ran back towards the forest with panic in his chest as the structures around him began to cave in around their own foundations, falling and striking the ground with a mighty impact that sent dust and mud flying and crushed whatever was underneath it. James ran stumbling across the shaky earth until at last he was under the cover of the trees in the forest once more.

  The shadows began to come at him again and he once again used his sage and nanigata to try and protect himself. This time though he could feel their violence inside his body. It was as if they were passing through him, going in and out of his body as if he didn’t exist. It was painful and exhausting. He forced himself to continue forward and at last he came to the exit and ran outside, heading towards the village.

  James was running…he knew he was, but it felt as if time around him had slowed down. He felt dazed and he could feel the presence of something in the air. He stopped for a second, unable to move because of the presence that stood before him. This time the presence was different than the others. He could feel the presence of two entities, but these were light…good, not dark and evil like the others. The feeling that there were two other people there with him, next to him only lasted for a few seconds and then it was gone.

  James had just intersected with the future although he didn’t know it. His destiny had crossed paths with Yann and Ani in the pursuit of theirs. As soon as he knew he was alone once more and could continue to move forward he did, and in the distance he could hear the hubbub of the Banished increasing in volume. He ran for a few feet before at last collapsing and for James, everything went black.

  ******

  HEAVEN

  REYNALD’S OFFICE

  Reynald was hurriedly gathering documents off his desk, shoving them into larger books so that he could carry them with him. He was trying to take as many as he could, grabbing the important ones first….

  An anxious looking man stuck his head into the office and asked, “Are you coming? We are waiting for you!”

  “I am coming!” Reynald snapped back. He was agitated as he stuffed the rest of what he had in his hands into his bag. He followed the man out into the magnificent, bright landscape. He was at the top of the city with about twenty other people.

  “Pardon! Please, listen to me… This day is a particular day. A man appeared in Heaven without being asked to do so! You see, we cannot completely control nature; it has its own ways. This man is dead here, in Heaven. Normally that’s not possible, only the dead can come in here. However, this is what happened, he is dead here and that means that we could have been wrong…”

  “Where did he come from?” a man asked. “He brought a horse with him…”

  “It doesn’t matter! What’s important is you! Start over, build a similar place, other civilizations need hope. They need you.

  “You are leaving us?” was the question of numerous voices at once.

  “No, this is merely a shift in power… you can do it better than me…” Reynald told them.

  “What do you mean…?” was the question asked by the voices almost in unison.

  “Please calm down. You have to carry on. Find another place and bring hope into it. I have to stay here…”

  “Who will guide us?” One of the men asked.

  “She will … You knew that would happen one day, Titias! Come here, it is your turn…Guide them well!”

  “I will do so,” the beautiful woman said.

  “But what do we do with … you know … with the Banished?” the man asked.

  “I am the only one responsible,” he said. Then after a long pause he said, “They are s
taying here. When you leave, I will lock the keys! And now, go! Hurry, to the Infinity Field!”

  Everyone took their personal effects. They would be heading south to the place they’re supposed to leave from…Infinity Field. It’s a door that makes it possible to travel in time and space. What’s left of the Ancient’s were about to do that…travel beyond death.

  After they were gone Reynald returned to the city. He made his way down the stairs, jumping on each fourth step. He arrived to the ground floor and pushed a door that was hidden so well that one who didn’t know it was there would hardly notice it. He entered a long corridor and came to another set of steps that went down.

  The second set of stairs led him down about three hundred feet into the dark. They ended outside and he was back in the forest. The exit his itself underneath the vegetation. Reynald created this place; he knew all of the details.

  He headed quickly west then, the south tower coming into view as he did. Its ochre color along with the rocks that floated mysteriously around it gave it a surrealistic quality.

  As he exited the forest he faced a flat stone lying on the ground. On either side of it was a big statue, a Moai made on the Rapa Nui Island and brought here by those that helped him create this place. Reynald pushed on the stone. It resisted because of the tangled vegetation but suddenly opened up.

  There were more stairs and Reynald went down them. These stairs ended in a room that was over two hundred and fifty square feet. There was a mirror in the center of the room about three feet high by six feet wide. It shone as bright as a star in the clear night sky. It used to be the heart of the vessel…a sort of hydrodynamic magnetic engine…a secret source of energy. The engine was capable of recognizing feelings and thoughts, technology that was coveted by humans. This was the main thing that made the construction of Heaven possible. When Reynald got closer to it the mirror turned off. The light ceased to emanate and the ground began to shake. The towers and the keys were locking themselves.

  “Maybe one day… You will reactivate yourself. I hope you will feel their hope, their despair, their sadness…” he said.

  He took the path upstairs towards the exit and once outside he put the flat stone back on the entrance. He had to leave now. He knew that without its heart this place was dangerous. It would begin to eat up his and anyone else here’s thoughts. It could easily drive a person mad. Reynald had never found the solution for that problem.

  “We are only souls in this place and if the soul cannot share its feelings with the surrounding nature, it is lost,” was how he explained it.

  Reynald came back to the lower entrance of the city, not far from the dock. He took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and opened the small door.

  He entered a room that looked like a small hut. He pushed in on another door and entered another small room. In the middle of the room lay a man. The man was maintained in an artificial coma, he was breathing using artificial breathing assistance. Through the astral journey, he was connected to someone else on the Earth. Two cables exited his spirit and outside the cabin, plunged into a splendid lake.

  Reynald had created this system as an emergency way to go back to the Earth.

  Now, all the books and notes he had in his bag were a real treasure of knowledge. He was nervous but happy at the same time, about to see the planet he cherished so deeply. He couldn’t take anything with him. He had to memorize everything. Even if he had left his original plans on the Earth, he disposed of the documents on the walls and started reading all the information out loudly. For the next twenty minutes his highly effective brain was in maximum focus.

  He took two cables and his shoulder bag and then he ran and jumped into the lake. He plunged more and more deeply and finally he lost consciousness.

  This wasn’t Reynald’s first experience with astral travel. He knew that once his body reached an optimal level of relaxation as it had now, his consciousness would simply be lifted from his body. He would be aware of things then, but outside of his physical body. He would be free then to float weightlessly and to see things from a different vantage point. The world when he was on an astral journey held no boundaries and seemingly no time. The places between the beginning of his journey and the destination held only calmness and beauty and light.

  GREENLAND

  Once at his destination Reynald would again lose consciousness only to be pulled back into it by the freezing cold of the water around him. He was completely submerged and overhead he could see ice that was inches thick making an essential tomb of the water. Reynald knew what to look for however and when he found it, he began to swim upwards towards it. There was a perfect round hole in the ice. The hole was just large enough for Reynald to pull his body up through. Once he was on top of the ice he reached up and opened the door of the office that was carved out of ice. It was a part of the landscape and if one didn’t know it was there, it was hardly visible. Once inside, Reynald dropped to the floor. Every one of his muscles ached and as he lay there on the floor drooling he was “waking up.” He finally got up slowly, holding his head in both of his hands. He felt sick and began to vomit. He tried to grab any receptacle to use it, but in vain. He coughed hard; the travel was more than exhausting. It used every muscle and nerve fiber in his body and placed a great deal of stress on them. He vomited an orange liquid, a kind of ectoplasm, energetic rejection that appeared during the astral journey. He did it before only once and it was just as violent.

  He was in his office which resembled the one he used in Heaven. The other twin was lying on a stretcher, connected to numerous cables. Reynald got close to the wall and began stripping of the wet clothes he was in. He was freezing. Once he’d gotten them off he took a thick towel and dried himself off from head to toe, using friction to warm his aching cold muscles. He wrapped himself up in a thick, thermal blanket and sat for a while until his body temperature had returned to almost normal. Then he went over to the closet against the wall and took out dry clothes. he put on thermal long underwear first and then pants and a long sleeved shirt. Then he put on snow pants that had a bib that connected over his shoulders like a pair of overalls. He slipped on a heavily padded jacket then, a thick hat with ear muffs attached, insulated boots, gloves and then a scarf. He opened the door and in front of him as far as he could see was the icy desert. The snow was all around and the temperature is under -20°C. The building he just left resembled a metallic dome.

  He took the path in front of him. On his right he saw the housings of the Inuit’s. He always appreciated the people living close to nature. He stopped in front of a small house and rang the bell. A man came out, they know each other. The two of them exchanged a few words in Eme-sal, a fine version of the Sumerian language.

  Reynald entered the courtyard, and the man disappeared into the house. He came out again right away accompanied by five sled dogs. They were magnificent, resembling wolves.

  Reynald stroked their heads and attached them to the sled. It took only a few moments to get his means of transport ready. The two men exchanged few more words before saying goodbye.

  The sled got moving very fast, the five animals were particularly strong. Reynald had to go to the city of Nuuk and start his new life there as a terrestrial. He knew that he had to be careful not to lose his way in the middle of this white plain. He took all he needed to nourish himself and to make a fire. The journey was going to last at least a dozen days.

  During the journey, he started writing down all the information he had memorized before leaving Heaven. His account started like this…

  “This story will let you travel through time, live the life of different characters, immerse yourself into the different periods and various religious beliefs that exist. You will live through the eyes of many innocent people. The hardness of my tale takes its roots in the obscurity of the evil locked up on our planet, the evil which expresses itself in the desire of men to seize power over other people. But as long as the physical evil exists, its opposite has to exist as we
ll, in order to keep the balance between both of them. All the choices made by love serve as the shield against the evil. Through life and death, between the earth and Heaven, through time and seasons, men and women have to untangle the mystery of this grievous story. In this compendium I will mention, as precisely as my memory permits it, the moves and the actions of these heroes that created this unique feeling, proper to their species: love.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “DESTINIES COLLIDE”

  JAPAN

  Tonobu “Roshi” traveled to the ancient temple in the center of Hamanashi City.

  The streets were calm, and the moonlight seemed to freeze everything that tried to move. Henchmen from the Roshi clan had come to get rid of him. What was supposed to be simple revenge was about to become a terrifying slaughter. Tonobu was a strong warrior, but armed with the legendary katana he was virtually invincible.

  He entered the temple gently, assassinating a few men and disemboweling them. The fight lasted a few hours and many of the men he killed never even saw him coming.

  At the center of the temple was a garden where the final confrontation took place. Each dead henchman from his own clan left a trace of himself in Tonobu’s spirit.

  In the garden he created a moment of panic. The temple was completely devastated and the final fight took place on a white floor, with only a few trees left.

  After the confrontation, Tonobu escaped his village, leaving dozens dead in his wake. He himself was injured.

  He took his horse and headed north, setting out on a long journey. Still losing blood, he arrived at the old sanctuary. He arrived at the entrance just as he loses consciousness.