CHAPTER 3:
Cracking the Meditative Seal
“What we deposit in every chapter, concerning what we have, is but a drop in the ocean.”
– Ibn al-Arabis
At Reapicon Labs in the capital city of Billicus, a young scientist sat in his personal lab looking at blood samples from random donors. Scurrying through documents on his desk, he carefully inserted a new specimen on the slide. His new lab assistant Qamora was a new hire at Reapicon. Three years ago, she was an intern and quickly got accepted because of the shortage of highly qualified workers. Young, determined, observant, and focused, Qamora made veterans look like amateurs. A former intern, she proved herself more than qualified and easily became the best junior scientist Reapicon had ever had.
“Hmm...something is wrong with this sample. Doesn’t seem to look right.”
Seeing his concern and feeling troubled, she assisted him with haste. “Something wrong Amenta?” she said.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Whoever this sample came from must’ve been extremely sick. This blood is corroded beyond recognition. Shit...I don’t know, it could have--”
“Multiple foreign pathogens?” she interrupted.
“Yeah exactly," he replied.
"We should probably look at it later, at least for now. We can report it to the Sachem (chief medical officer) and let him handle it,” Qamora suggested. “It’ll save us time. Plus, we gotta get the hell out of here soon, right? Our shift is almost over.”
“Damn. You're right," he admitted.
"Maybe just one more slide and we can go for a meal?”
She shook her head in agreement and handed him the last slide.
Medical files come slamming on their desks endlessly every day, especially when the research cases drag on longer than they are supposed to. Moments before reaching for the last slide sample, his body unexpectedly froze. His eyes rolled back as his lips turned cold. The edges of his mouth dried at both ends like crusts of bread. His senses rapidly fade away instantaneously as his pupils dilate. Qamora frantically grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently. His eyes opened slowly as he came out of it. His dark umber skin turned a yellowish beige, cold to the touch. The translucent green in his eyes darkened to that of an olive pickle – melting into the white sea of his eyes.
“Amenta! Holy shit, are you okay? What the hell happened to you?”
He could not respond right away. Instead, he just shook his head slowly up and down. Arms folded with frustration, the sachem of their department was looking down from the balcony above. He always wanted Amenta to stay after a shift to finish someone else's unfinished business. He stormed down the stairs biting his lip and stomping his feet.
“Mr. Nibiru! Tell me…is there an issue?”
Qamora attempted to answer, but the sachem forcibly intervened. “Miss Kati, if I wanted you to answer I would have spoken to you, now, would I?” He then looked at them intensely with a sharp brow and stern expression. “Mr. Nibiru let me inform you, we do not get paid if the work is not finished. If the work is not finished that would make us incompetent to the Nucleuz and therefore NULL in our attempt to survive. Am I clear?”
The sachem and Qamora then argued back and forth. They always had an opposing stance on the politics of the Nucleuz. Amenta quickly shot out his chair, grabbed his equipment, pushed the sachem out the way and walked toward the voice activated exit door. A woman’s voice loudly came out of the speakers above the ceiling requesting a passcode. Amenta responded back.
“Nibiru – AKU 08170. Permission to access."
The door beeped and slid open as he stormed down the stairs toward the lobby of the building. A steam of anger could be seen blowing out his ears. Looking through the clear glass, Qamora was afraid his condition would worsen even more. “Akita – AKU 03170.” Permission to access." Sprinting down the stairs as fast as she could, she grabbed the tail end of his coat. “Careful!” she exclaimed. Swiftly grabbing his arm with the other hand, she looked him in the eyes softly. Her small hands then wrapped around his thick wrists. “Look Amenta! Yes I know, he is a complete stuck-up asshole…but we all must survive here. Our survival depends on the Nucleuz, rather we like it or not.” He nonchalantly shrugged her off as he stuffed his equipment in the back of the vehicle, speeding off in the process. He drove far past his home on the outskirts of the city. That day was the last time he would be told what to do. A virtual message spoke loudly across the screen of the dashboard.
“It is for the best of the natives – for the natives. Until Emayrah calls us home we will serve and be of service to our fellow huemans. Nucleuz signing out.”
He sucked his teeth in disgust and turned off the intercom. The powers that be can drive a person to the brink of madness and doubt. Mardaath was full of followers – like a hive. A hive Amenta couldn’t be a part of. Representatives of Mardaath claim that they are only doing what is best to keep civilization in check. But there are laws that forbid Umaki natives from speaking out against the Nucleuz. Reapicon Labs is the top governed corporation ever built in Billicus.
Reapicons resources gave everything they could so that they could survive the following year. The workers are expected to stay in line with their agenda and stick to the mission. The breeze of the wind coming through the window as he closed his eyes. With each breath his shoulders lowered more and more. The red dwarf sun kissed the horizon with grace as it rose above the clouds, shining on every dewy pastel plant thirsting for sunlight. The view was breathtaking, and he enjoyed every second of it.
Arriving at the docking port and parking his CL5, he ran toward the departing ship. There was a loud man wearing a long orange raincoat, brown boots, and carried a black machete strapped to his waist. He stood five-foot-five tall with rugged short gray hair. He had ore skin, and eyes of bronze with a scruffy peppered colored beard. Standing at the ramp entrance greeting incoming passengers, he put one finger in the air, waiving it back and forth like a dancing fish. With his strong patois accent he yelled sternly, “It would seem the winds are coming in rough! Everyone must be inside once the storm hits!” The large ship was ready to take the seas by storm. Passengers hurriedly boarded the ship as well as Amenta who hurried right behind them, grabbing all his belongings along the way.
Hundreds of chattering passengers were aboard the ship as it floated further away from the dock. Amenta overheard passengers talking so loudly amongst themselves that even a bird in the sky could hear everything they said. It was rumored that the captain had told someone the weather could worsen beyond belief, destroying the ship and killing everybody inside it. This news almost made him go into a full panic attack. Amenta decided to ignore the rumors and began sightseeing on the edge of the ship. The sky turned a violet purple as the pink clouds glowed behind the sea, reflecting onto the surface of his eyes. It is as if the opals from the sea came alive, moving his spirit into a place of serenity.
The shining of the red sun on the glossy wooden deck kissed Amentas nose with a blanket of burning heat. Suddenly, a big red fish with magenta fins swam the opposite way the ship was going. “I wonder whats is going on?” he said with one brow raised above the other. Suddenly, a grayish blanket began to wash over the sky. Then more fish swam in hoards in the opposite direction. The winds had also picked up speed. Birds above the sky flew higher and higher until their bodies became dots in the sky. The air had felt misty, and the water trembled as the waves grew higher by the minute. Rapid footsteps with a screaming voice came storming from the quarterdeck to the bow. It was the captain.
“Everybody - get down! Head to the bottom quarters…NOW,” he screamed.
People were scurrying around like insects, pushing to get to the quarters below the boat. Things immediately took a turn for the worse. Before Amenta could move a muscle, the waves became two-hundred feet tall and blocked out the sunlight above. He was stricken with immediate fear. Clenching his hands tightly until each fingernail pierced palm to a bloody red. The pupils in his eyes enlarged, making the white around them disappear. His mouth stuck wide open as the saltwater hitting the bow sprayed onto his tongue. The bitter saltiness jerked his body out of shock. A tower of water came hailing down like a cannon from the sky. Looking around, he noticed there was someone holding the quarter door latch open for him.
“Come on run!!” they screamed.
Running toward the quarters as fast as he could, he tried to stretch and reach the quarters latch. The slippery deck made him lose his footing. Without warning he fell face first into the mainmast, knocking out cold from the impact. All everyone could see was his long reddish-brown dreadlocks covering his face as the water, like a blanket of death, began swallowing his body. The world went completely black.
Specks of shimmering light began flashing behind his eyelids. Images of his mother’s eyes and smile came first. Then grassy knolls, a rich oasis, and elevated plateaus of land grew from her eyeballs. There were geometric structures twisting and turning into solid towers. Each reaching heights so profound, that they pierced the clouds above. Amenta became numb to the feelings of this new world he was witnessing.
As he walked toward these buildings, a stretch of smoke pulled onto him and dragged him away before he could touch the vibrating stone of the towers. The smoke dragged him into a pool of filmy purple liquid. It would be a struggle to keep his head above the rotting pool which seemed to grasp onto every limb he had.
Globs of purple slime poured from his mouth causing him to vomit until tears came from his eyes. Soon, he would not struggle anymore. What was once a lightful experience had now disappeared beneath a depth of putrid hell and turmoil.
“Nenda kamtafute.
Tafuta Kichaa.
Tafuta KICHAA!"
(Go find her now. Find the shard - Find the SHARD!)
The voice's words spoke with great fortissimo and force. Not too long after that, the blinding darkness transformed into a flickering green light. Faint voices were screeching out piercing slurs too painful for ears to bare. Rising from the pool of rotting purple, his skin was melting off the bones. All that was left was his head and plush green eyes. “Mother help me please I need you.” He said while suckling the flesh hanging off his lips.
Death couldn’t come quick enough. Every second felt like hours of excruciating suffering. Moments later, he felt something suddenly rub gracefully across his face and then ---
SMACK!
“Dammit!!” he exclaimed as his body shot up off the ground. Amenta woke up swinging and wanted to know who it was that smacked him in the face. Looking around he realized he was on a beach full of blue sand and wavering trees.
There were hundreds of people standing around coughing and hugging each other crying tears of gratitude. The captain was walking around picking up pieces from the ship and luggage that had washed up on shore.
“He is alive! He is alive everybody!”
He looked at the man with both eyebrows raised toward his forehead. His face spoke a thousand words and there were not enough cuss words in the world to fit how he felt at that moment. “You know…you could’ve just thrown water in my face,” he said quietly while gritting his teeth and tightening his lips. “My head it...it hurts.”
“Yes, I know, sorry about that. I did not have much time to think so I just reacted. Plus, I think you had enough water for today don’t you think?"
The man held out his hands so he could help Amenta stand up on both his feet.
"C'mon! Let me help you up.”
He shook off the sand from his clothes and squeezed the water out his locs until they were dry. As he stood up, he realized the man he wanted to punch in the face was very tall and muscular in stature. Amenta felt like a child standing next to him. For such a soft baritone voice, he had an intimidating stature. The man had brood shoulders, long limbs, veins popping out his hands, neck, and legs. Such a put together specimen this man was. He stood at least seven feet tall and full of all the right genetics Gods had to offer.
“My name is Chomille Aster, and I am going to help you find what you’re looking for, even faster. There are wonders you have to see. Long, wide, fresh and free. Dimond city is the place to be."
“Nice to meet you Chomille. I am Amenta Nibiru. I am starving, my head is pounding and I am on a quest to find out what the hell is going on here."
"Where the hell are we?"
Chomille pulled out a folded map from his knapsack and handed it to him. Amenta needed guidance and did not want to get lost on the watery horizon. Atai-Khemu was such a rich and vast land that anybody could get lost in its sea of green terra and bewildered fauna. If the map was correct, they had to be at least thirty miles from Dimond city. Everything was such a blur after the shipwreck and all his belongings were eaten by the raging sea. Following Chomille seemed to be the only choice he had. Atai-Khemu was such a vast land that anybody could get lost in it.
They could find the city and shelter - but not without dying first.
-END OF CHAPTER 3-
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