The Return of the Watchers (Armageddon Rising Book 1)

by Denny Bennett

  “Good morning, everyone,” he said, smiling. “Here we say ‘God Morgen’ for good morning,” Iduna said, looking over to Yuki. “We say ‘Ohayou’ in Japan,” Yuki replied. “I see; ohhiyo. Oh-hi-yo,” Iduna said, repeating it several more times. “I was wondering when you were going to join us,” his mother said with a wink. A startled look came over her face. “Whoa, what is-” “Outside! Move!” Dorian shouted as the house began shaking. Glasses were clanking together and several pictures on the wall fell down along with a few of the ornaments on Iduna's Christmas tree. The three ran outside where several of the neighbors had already gathered, standing in the street and looking bewildered. The shaking lasted for about a minute and then stopped. Smoke was rising from the city in a few spots, but no buildings seemed to be destroyed. Sirens began blaring all around and most of the neighbors on the block were gathering together to discuss the earthquake they had just experienced. Dorian, Yuki, and Iduna stood outside for a few more minutes and then ventured back in when it seemed they could not tolerate the cold any longer in their pajamas. The house was in minor disarray, so they began to put everything back in its place and straighten up. “We’ve been getting a lot of tremors lately. I hope this settles down soon,” his mother said. “That was way more than a tremor, mom; it was about a minute long. Turn on the television; I want to see what’s going on,” he said. Iduna turned on the local news channel that was displaying an emergency alert for all of Norway. Pictures of the fires in Oslo, as well as demolished buildings and emergency vehicles scrambling to and fro filled the screen, switching back and forth. “It looks like it hit Oslo pretty bad. Eight point seven! They’re saying it was an eight point seven about ten kilometers east of Oslo,” he said, astonished. His mother had both of her hands on her checks in disbelief. “I’ve got to call Berjit and Nada,” Iduna said, reaching for the telephone. Dorian stood still looking at the television as Yuki started picking up some of the books from the bookshelf that had fallen over. The house did not seem to have suffered any apparent structural damage, just a bit to the contents that had been tossed around inside. “Here, let me help,” he said, bending down to assist. “She’s not answering. There’s no answer,” Iduna said, dialing again. Yuki looked over to a picture that had fallen off the wall. “Was this your father?” It was a picture of his mother, father and himself in front of a mountain waterfall. “Yeah, that was a good day for us. We were visiting family in Sweden and took a day to hike a trail. It wasn’t long after that my father started showing symptoms. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years later when I turned seventeen. He was one of the reasons I entered into the profession myself. He was a good man; very patient, caring. I miss him very much.” Iduna walked over to him, clutching the phone in her hand. “I miss him as well,” she said putting her arm on Dorian’s shoulder. She looked over to Yuki. “When Jorn passed my world was shattered. I had a house in Colorado that wasn’t paid off, two mouths to feed, medical bills and funeral expenses. His life insurance did not pay a whole lot and poor Dorian had to work several jobs so we could make ends meet. I was concert pianist, but by then I was unable to perform to that level after going through the ordeal of Jorn's passing. I still managed to teach though,” she said looking over at the piano taking up most of her living room. Several framed photographs taken from afar of with her performing solo at large concert venues adorned the walls. “I should try calling Nada again,” Iduna said with a sad look on her face. Dorian went to the kitchen and cleaned up the few things that had fallen and fixed himself a sandwich. “I’m going to hop in the shower before the world comes to an end. Do you need to take one?” he asked. “I already did while you were sleeping. What are we going to do today?” “I was hoping we could spend the day in Bergen, see the sights, eat at a restaurant or two, but after this, I’m not so sure,” he replied as he walked into the bathroom. After washing up he joined his mother and Yuki in the living room. They were having a conversation while watching the news on television. “Dorian, look at the television. Downtown Oslo is in ruins. I haven’t been able to reach my cousin, nor any of my friends,” his mother said in a worried voice. “There’s nothing to be gained from panic. I think we should all head to the cabin in case there are aftershocks or another big one. It doesn’t seem to have affected the area near Sognefjord,” Dorian said. “I’ll pack us something to eat. You get your things and we can leave together,” Iduna said, somewhat shaken by the day’s events. They piled into the car and headed about 80 miles northeast to their cabin, which was nestled at the bottom of a fjord that ran alongside several mountains. The cabin itself was a small three bedroom cottage about sixty years old. His father had purchased it just after Dorian arrived so they would have a special place to enjoy memories. A swinging bench in the back hung from a tree overlooking the water. Iduna would often sit there while reading a book or having a cup of tea in the summer. In the midst of winter it wasn’t a place you wanted to be for long before you froze to death. They spent many summers there fishing, skiing, and making friends whom they had lost touch with through the sands of time. The surrounding scenery was breathtaking and Yuki was taken aback by its beauty. The cabin had been vacant for some time, so it required a bit of cleaning up and dusting. The three of them traveled into town to pick up some new bed sheets and blankets, along with cleaning supplies and toiletries. Upon their return, they ate lunch and Dorian went out back to gather some old firewood that was piled up behind the cottage and got a fire going. It was getting dark out due to the shortened span of daylight during wintertime, so Yuki and Dorian decided to try and get down to deciphering the data that was compiled from his genome and the comparison to normal human DNA. “I know this may sound strange, but I’ve had some unusual dreams and visions involving the seventh, fourteenth, and twenty first chromosomes. It’s as if someone or something is trying to tell me something, so I think we should start there,” he said sitting on the sofa next to Yuki while Iduna was watching the news on television in the spare room. “I’ll take the seventh, you can look at the fourteenth,” she said. He copied the data from his chromosome and sent it to Yuki’s computer. They both spent the next four hours in silence, poring over the information. It was getting late so he checked up on Iduna, who had fallen asleep in her chair with the television on. “Mamma, wake up, you don’t want to be up all night,” he said, gently shaking her. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Oh, how long was I out?” she asked as she stretched a bit and got out of her chair. “It’s about nine. Come. Let’s all have some dinner,” he said softly, as if they were in a library.

  Dinner came and went and his mother asked what they were working on. Yuki looked at Dorian, waiting for him to come up with an answer so she wouldn’t have to lie to his mother. “Were trying to find out what is in my blood that makes me different and why some people would be after it,” he answered, to Yuki’s dismay. His mother sort of snapped to attention with a shocked look on her face.

  “It’s okay, she knows about it,” he said looking at both his mother and Yuki. “I suppose that statement applies to the two of you. Of course my mother knew about me being different, but she obviously doesn’t know about the recent events we’ve experienced,” he said to Yuki. “Mamma, don't worry. I trust Yuki; she's one of the few people I know that can help me sort through all this and make sense out of it,” he said with a smile looking towards her. “Arigato,” she said, with a humbled expression. Iduna, however, did not have a peaceful look on her face. “Are you going to tell me what you are talking about?” she asked, sounding short of breath. He spent the next half hour explaining all the events that had occurred over the past several weeks and showed her the object fused to his skull. His mother's expression turned dour, as if she could scarcely believe what she had heard. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Oh....I completely forgot about it until now. This must be what she was talking about. I think it’s time, then,” she said to him. “Time for what?” Dorian asked.

  Iduna got up and went to the bedroom she was stayi
ng in. “It is a good thing we came to the cabin. I had forgotten I left it here,” she said, her voice muffled. The sounds of shuffling and furniture being dragged were heard from her bedroom. Several minutes later she returned with what looked like a piece of metal in her hand, about the same thickness as a credit card, in the shape of a heptagon. It was a bit bigger than a standard postcard and shimmered with a translucence similar to the garment worn by the alien that he had seen in Hawaii. She scrunched it up in front of them, then set it on the table and it returned to its natural shape. “What is it?” Dorian and Yuki asked in unison. “I have no idea. I had forgotten about it all these years. I left it in the cottage a long time ago when we first started coming here. She just told me to give it to you when the time was right, that I would know when. At first I carried it around everywhere we went, thinking something was going to happen, but nothing ever came of it so I stored it away and completely forgot about it until now. I always knew you were special Dorian; I knew from the moment she gave you to me,” Iduna said, looking uncomfortable. “Umm, mamma, who are you referring to? Who told you to give this to me? Are you telling me the representative from the adoption agency here in Norway gave you this alien-like object and handed me over with some cryptic message about knowing when the time was right? Or is there something you haven’t told me?” “You were not brought to us from an adoption agency Dorian.” “What? What are you talking about?” Doria asked. “Your father and I decided it would be best not to tell you, out of fear you would leave us or say something to the wrong people and end up like one of those lab rats,” she said with a look of shame on her face. “I thought that all you knew about my biological mother was her name. What are you saying? That she dropped me off?” he asked in disbelief. “I don’t know if it was your birth mother, dear. The person who handed you to me was not like anyone here on this planet that I have ever seen,” she said, lowering her voice. “She was much like the one you described earlier; a head full of fire, almost alive, but no heat. Her eyes were terrible and powerful; radiant. I cannot put it into words. We thought she was an angel. The sound of her voice was comforting, as if many were speaking at the same time in harmony. Somehow she knew I wanted a child but was unable to conceive. She said that she had watched me for many years and that I would be a good mother for you. Your father was there also; otherwise I think he never would have believed such a crazy story. We were both petrified. She handed me this object and told me to give it to you when the time was right.” Dorian and Yuki looked at each other in bewilderment. “We had no idea what you were going to be like, you know, like Superman or something,” Iduna said with a laugh. “It almost seemed like that story. You are not that different from the rest of us; perhaps a bit stronger and faster. Well, that and of course your hair and those eyes of yours. You still look the same after all these years. Honestly, I'm just grateful you didn’t have a tail, or could disappear. Who knows what mischief you would have gotten into then huh?” she said smiling. “Your eyes?” Yuki asked. “Custom full eye contacts. Worn them since I was a child. Not that I need them to see, but you can imagine what someone might say if they saw this,” he said, pulling the lens away from one eye to reveal its glowing green color, which almost appeared to be illuminated from within. Yuki just put her hand to her mouth in amazement. Iduna continued, “Anyway, this belongs to you.” She placed the object on the table. “It doesn’t appear to do anything apart from returning to shape when you crush it,” she said, once again demonstrating its remarkable ability. Dorian slowly brought his hand over the object and picked it up. “Aaaaagh!” he shrieked with a terror-stricken face. Yuki and Iduna were stunned. “Just kidding,” he said with a devilish smile. “Oh, you! I’m going to give you a big hurt for that,” Iduna said, reaching for the wet dishrag on the sink and hurling it at him. “Whaaaat?” he asked, in mock protest. “Lighten up, everyone, sheesh.” He focused his attention on the object once more. Holding it in his hand he began to see faint symbols light up on the object. “There’s definitely something there, can you see it?” he asked holding it up for them. “I see nothing there, dear, where?” Iduna asked. “Right here,” he said pointing to the symbols on the object. “I don’t see anything either,” Yuki said, straining her eyes to see what was there. “What does it say?” she asked. “In the common tongue it reads 'One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them', he said, smiling again. “Can you take this seriously for once?” his mother said, her patience wearing thin. “Okay, okay. It just reminds me of that, the way the symbols light up on this thing when I hold on to it. I can see dots along one of the edges in groups, and the next edge has symbols. On the next edge are other symbols that are different. Each edge has a different set of symbols. Below the set of dots are more dots, different in number; then to the right below the first set of symbols are different symbols but similar in their manner, and so on. Yuki, do you have any paper? I’ll copy them down.”

  She handed him some paper from her calendar and he started to trace the symbols as they appeared on the object. He flipped it over and found more dots, symbols and such like those on the front. After about four hours he managed to finish writing everything down.

  It was getting late and he was tired from the day's events, coupled with the jet lag, so they all said goodnight to get some rest.

  That night he had another nightmare, more real than the last one, where he saw the same beings trapped or imprisoned in a cavern. It was as if he was being forced to watch their suffering and suffer with them. He awoke to Yuki shaking him. “Get up, sleepy head, we have work to do,” she said, pressing down on the mattress and generally annoying him. “What time is it?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck where the ice-cold imbedded object was. “It’s almost noon. We’ve been up, ate breakfast, talked and walked. I thought you were going to sleep the day away,” she said looking frustrated at him. “I can’t help it, Yuki. Whatever this thing is on the back of my head, it seems to have an effect when I sleep. I saw these beings howling and shouting at me, mixed with this terrible feeling of dread and gloom. It’s been getting worse each day. I don’t think I can take much more of this. I’m going to have to try and get this thing off somehow.” She put her hand on the back of his neck where his hand was and touched the object. “Ow! It’s freezing cold. How can you stand it?” “Believe me, it’s very painful. There’s something going on here, I wish I knew what,” he replied. He went into the bathroom to warm up some water and soaked a washcloth in it, using it to heat up the object on his neck. It seemed to help lessen the pain a bit so he continued by taking a shower until all the hot water was used up. “What are we going to do today?” Yuki asked through the bathroom door once the water stopped running. “I need you to try and scan a copy of what I wrote down last night so I can email it,” he said. “Who are going to send it to?” Iduna asked in place of Yuki. He opened the door wearing a towel around his waist as steam poured out of the bathroom. “I’m going to send it to the linguistics department at the University of Cambridge and see if any of the symbols represent any known languages. We don’t have a scanner here in the cottage so you and mom may have to go into town,” he said. “What are you going to do?” Yuki asked, feeling left out. “I’ve got to try and get this thing off of me. Mahin mentioned the people behind the strange email might be able to help. If that doesn’t work- well, I’m going to saw the damn thing off.” Iduna walked over to him and gave him a hug. “I hope you know what you are doing, dear.” “I don’t have a clue, but I have to try something. Yuki, could you come here for a moment?” he asked, still wearing nothing but a towel. She felt heat rise in her face and followed him inside the room. He closed the door behind them. Water droplets were beaded on his muscular chest.