Chapter 4: The Ritual
979 Words
The wind around us continued to howl. Bloodcurdling screams and cries flowed with the rushing breeze that smelled of fire & dust. There seemed to be some sort of taste in the air too; something that tasted like coins and raw meat.
Fels still stood there with her hands firmly grasping my shoulders.
Her eyes, though wide and quite attractive, looked menacing in this reddish lighting.
"So now what?!" I yell over the wind.
"We get you ready!" Fels simply replies.
"And? What exactly do I have to do?!"
Fels took her hands off of me and looked around.
She ran over to the peak's edge, standing beside one of those coin-operated telescopes.
"Get your ass over here!"
I walk over to her as another rogue piece of newspaper smacked me in the face. I brush it away, flicking the paper into the current blowing around us.
I was transported forward in Time...Damn...
I stood by Fels, spotting a view overlooking the city.
The city far below was on fire.
Buildings were set alight here and there, Smoke enveloped other parts, deep crevices that were nearly canyons split parts of the ground below, revealing nothing but darkness and more flames.
What on Earth is going on down there?
"It's time for the Harvest," Fels tells me, her gaze still looking towards the chaos-filled horizon. "It's too late for anyone down there...They're all dead...This world too."
"Can we stop it?" I ask her as I felt a chill shoot up my spine. "You mentioned a ritual of some sort..."
"Yeah. We can stop it now but it's still going to happen later on..." Fels replies. "We're delaying the inevitable, like Climate change or film remakes."
She chuckles to herself and then turns to me.
"We can stop it for now...or We can let this happen. You die and then we start over...Hopefully, we won't get thrown forward again. I f*****g hate it when it happens..." Fels continues, again barely making any sense to my ears. "The Ritual might help us maintain our hold if you choose to start over though...hopefully."
"Either way, We're going to have to do the Ritual...so, what do we do?" She finishes.
"Hold on...So why did you tell me to come here?"
"You were thrown forward without your, well our, permission and the only considerable course of action is to open your eyes...See what We have to deal with." She replies. "Hell on Earth. Fire, brimstone, the sky split open by lightning...the whole shebang."
"So this is God's wrath?"
"Well...a god...but not the God..." Fels replies cryptically.
Her words get more and more cryptic with each passing minute...
"So. Think now!" Fels tells me. "We die or we go for a redo??"
Everything was still too much for my head to wraparound. It was hard to reply. I didn't know what she was talking about. I didn't know what she meant by 'this god'...
But one thing was for sure...
There was no way in hell that I was dying today.
I go with my gut.
Something about my impending decision felt familiar...
A thought entered my head.
Did I already do this all before...?
"f**k it! let's do a redo!" I tell Fels, not knowing the repercussions of my choice.
"Good! Okay! Hold on!" Fels yells back and reaches into her jeans.
She pulls out two objects, two devices to be exact, objects that looked like an ordinary watch.
"Slap these on! Press the glass to switch it on!" Fels orders me. "That'll protect your structure from collapsing!"
I do what I was told. The "watch" beeped to life, revealing no clock face, but just a square of blue light.
"It's on! Now what?"
"Keep your mouth shut and ears open...by the time I finish, it should be all done and dusted." Fels turns on her "watch."
Her eyes lock on to mine, I briefly see concern & worry envelope her eyes.
"Ready?"
"Do I have a choice..?"
Fels chuckles.
"Okay...Here we go."
Fels begins to mumble, mumbling words I could barely hear over the mad wind.
She closed her and slightly bowed her head.
I stepped a little closer in an effort to hear her words.
The words that escaped her slim lips sounded completely alien. It was distinct yet subtle, and in a way, it sounded ancient.
As I tried to listen to the mysterious tongue escaping her voice, an image of an ancient society came to life in my head...
Tribal like individuals clad in leather-like animal skin gathered at the foot of an ancient pyramid...Above it was....I couldn't see it...
The images change...Shifting to a time, in a location that looks like a European village...I feel my head begin to hurt and my ears begin to ring.
A church...men, women, and children bowed in prayer before a small statue upon an altar...Tendrils again...Oh good lord..the blood...the death...No...Not again...No.
A scream in the wind briefly derails me from the torrent of images in my head, I see Fels again, her eyes still closed and head bowed.
The images resumed, this time showing me a scene from a more recent period in Time.
I'm seeing it from a first-person perspective as if I was there...Wait...Perhaps it was me...
A blue light...pain all over me...I was dying...I was-
"Jonathan!" Fels' voice snaps me out of my vision.
She's no longer in front of me, She was to my right just by the edge of the summit, standing in front of a quivering spot of air.
"Come on! Follow my ass!" She takes a step and disappears behind the quivering patch of air.
what the..?
Something innate inside yelled at me.
Go!
And I follow it, I run towards the strange sight and expected to fall right through it and fall to my death...but instead, I went inside it.
I suddenly felt weightless, as if I was outside my body.
Everything was black.
Everything was still.
A moment of peace...
Then I was pulled forward, deep, deep, deep into this unnameable blackness.
I saw a patch of light up ahead, growing, growing, growing into a massive star...
My eyes nearly burned from the sight...
And as warmth began to envelop me, I felt a pain shoot up the back of my head.
I begin to scream and everything abruptly turned to black...
- Writer
