StarGaze

The Holy Ones

Raghav walked inside what seemed like a palace, but larger. The whole city was filled with identical buildings, except this one. So this place was surely important. There was a large circular area with flowers all around, except the big round majestic place made out of golden stone. It had a large main gate that looked like it was open, but nothing inside was visible from the outside. There were windows about twenty feet above the ground, which were dark too (duh). As he walked through the garden and looked around, he saw beautiful pink colored flowers blooming everywhere. Strangely, the flowers turned at Raghav as he walked forward. It made him a little alerted, but what could a flower do, right?

Pinky stopped right at the palace's main gate. Raghav took a step inside but returned to her.

"I can't. All citizens are forbidden inside the pantheon." She hesitantly said.

"Pantheon? As in temple pantheon?!" Oh come on, you people are still not over the idea of gods?" Raghav said in disgust.

"No, we are. The people living inside have dedicated their entire lives to the survival of our species. Everything you see around us is because of the soulless deities. They guide us through things we are not capable of solving. They are the ones about to attack Earth. They are the only ones disconnected from the tree of life but they access it from time to time to check on our well-being." Pinky said, being careful to not speak ill of her superiors.

"Oh how very generous of them," Raghav said sarcastically. Pinky had spent enough time with him to understand his sarcasm, and knew that nothing good would come out of their debate.

"I cannot go, that is the one rule of this planet. Okay?!" Pinky said and looked down.

Raghav opened his mouth to say something but decided against it after seeing the determination on Pinky's face. She wasn't going in, and his mission was too important to let go. So he turned around reluctantly and told her that he would be out in a minute.

As he walked away while looking at the stony path, his steps became slower and slower until they came to a halt and he looked up with a glitter in his eyes. He turned around, charged towards Pinky, and lifted her before she could contemplate what was going on.

"What?! What are you doing?! Let go!!!" Pinky said as she trembled. She was scared out of her mind, but somewhere in the remote part of her mind, a spark was ignited. It was the spark of excitement. She had secretly wished that he could come back and take her in because only he could do that. Turns out, wishes come true.

Raghav didn't reply, but his plain face and frowning eyes said it all. He went inside, but as soon as he stepped in, a force field pushed both of him backward and he landed straight on the stone. Pinky landed on him, and both of them had an awkward moment where they locked eyes before quickly splitting.

"What the f**k?" Raghav said as he got up.

He figured out why the ancients didn't go inside their temple. And as he got up, he heard a swoosh and white smoke poured out of the windows of the pantheon. He knew what was going to happen now, so he stood up straight with his hands locked behind his back.

Five robotic bodies appeared out of the smoke, with some kind of propelling technology making them able to fly. The bodies were mostly white, and it seemed like it was more like lightweight armor than a body. There was a large blue circle on their chests. Some blue-colored lines were coming out of the circle which ultimately distributed into something like the human veins.

 Their faces were the most sinister you could imagine. The eyes were rectangle-shaped with the color blue filled inside. Pretty choosy with the colors, if you ask me. Ah yes, then there was the smile. An unusually large grin spreading from ear to ear and showing something like razor-sharp teeth inside. Okay, maybe not the most sinister you can imagine, but the combo of innocent eyes with a freaky smile was too weird to ignore.

They landed right in front of Raghav. After that, there was...well, silence. I think they wanted Raghav to introduce himself and Raghav thought that they had come to receive him and would greet themselves. But after nobody said anything, the deities struck up a conversation.

"We understand that you are human, but your DNA is strange. It is nothing like we have ever seen before." One of them said. His voice was echoing and futuristic sounding.

"Yeah, one of my parents f****d an alien. Seems like it worked out pretty well for us, didn't it?" Raghav said.

"So it seems." The deity replied in a low tone and turned back.

"Follow us into the pantheon." He said.

"Ah yes, about that. She is coming too." Raghav said.

"No ordinary ancient can be let inside the pantheon, and she knows it." The diety turned his head back and said.

"Yeah, but I would like this one to go with me," Raghav said, not threatening too soon as it shows weakness.

"We cannot do that. This one has already stained her memory by binding it with emotions. Even if we give her the inhibitor before connecting her to the trees of life, she will still project her emotionally influenced events that she witnesses inside the pantheon and it will affect everyone in this world. We cannot risk the peace of our species just because you have an ego problem." The diety said and started walking again.

"Well, that's okay, because she is not going in that shithole again," Raghav said.

The deities stopped in their paths. They knew what Raghav was going to say, but they wished he wouldn't say it.

"Because I choose her to be my assistant. I want a completely confidential assistant. And who is more confidential than a being who has made an emotional bond with no one other than me?

And as for the uplinks proving that Earth is not preparing for war, they are already inside the tree of life I took the liberty of bringing back. So now, let us both step in." Raghav laid out his intentions as discreetly as he could.

"As you wish." The diety said and lifted his hand.

A jolt of air and dust pushed all of them away from the pantheon and the deities flew inside.

Now if you think Raghav went out of his way to get Pinky inside the forbidden heaven because of his ego or some attraction he felt towards her, that's because you don't know him as well as I do. The simple fact is that he was scared. Yup, he was scared to go inside alone. He just wanted someone he knew to be with him. Man is, after all, a social animal.

So it wasn't about any attraction he felt towards the sweet alien girl or was it?