Transcending the Legacy (2 page)

I retract my hand from Sebastian’s shoulder quickly. From his shaken reaction and frightened eyes, I can see I have panicked him. “It’s just me Sebastian.”

As he gathers his senses, he
shifts in his seat to sit upright then pinches the bridge of his nose. His voice is gruff and thick as he speaks, “It’s alright. I was just...thinking.”

I lean my head back on the head
rest and knowingly whisper, “Orion’s Belt and Jesca.”

I feel Sebastian look at me out of the corner of his eye curiously.

“The telepathy, it is starting to surface. Just little glimpses of thoughts here and there, but it is spotty.”

Sebastian nods, “Mine too.”

I collect glimpses of what Sebastian was trying to decipher. The words that keep rising to the surface of my mind are simple, but their painful impact is complex. I train my eyes on him. “The legacy says she is the one.”

Not wanting to say or
Believe them, the words feel foreign to me. I notice Sebastian release the hand rest and tighten it into a fist.

“The legacy says a lot of things. Things that we haven’t deciphered.”

Sebastian opens his eyes and looks at me. “I keep playing my visions over and over in my head, hoping that it is me that must surrender myself to save our world. It should be me.”

Sebastian looks beyond me and at Jesca sitting across the small aisle. He whispers, “She has seen an extension of what I have in her visions.
Yes, she is part of it because of her blood, her lineage, but she should not have to bear this burden.”

I feel a knot rise
in my throat as Sebastian says everything I have been justifying to myself for the past two hours. I whisper past the knot, “She shouldn’t, but she does. I had a premonition in the cabin before Japan. When you sent us to get Xander.”

Sebastian looks from Jes to me and waits for me to explain myself.

“We were readying the house for training and I was going to get the basement prepped. Jesca was standing in the kitchen and for one split second, I looked at her and saw a flash of something.” I close my eyes to pull the image to the front of my mind. “She is in a small room made of dirt and rock. It is underground I think. In the center is a blazing fire.”

I shake my head as the image of Jesca’s suffering tortures me. I continue,
“She is kneeling before the blazing fire, tears streaking her face and eyes closed. Then, she releases something within her, it emits from her like a flare and rises above her body.”

Sebastian interrupts with a shaky whisper,
“into an air shaft.”

I open my eyes and look at him, curious of how he knows. “Have you seen it in my mind?”

Sebastian shakes his head slowly, “No. In my own, my vision, but it was not Jesca. It was a young woman, a princess. Ezra, my vision has not shifted. I have not seen Jesca. Maybe you are seeing her because it is what you fear for her.”

I turn my head to look at Jes.
Her head is leaning against the seat and the window. She was asleep, I could sense it. I place my elbow on the armrest and lay my hand over my mouth. Under my breathe I say, “Yes, I fear for her. She is my daughter.”

She looks so peaceful, her mouth is parted as she breathes steadily.
I try to slip into her head, see if for once she is not having a vision and actually experiencing true rest.

Sebastian says, “I should have told you about the legacy sooner.”

“I understand why you didn’t. Protection. The less we knew the safer we were.”

Sebastian nods, folds his hands in his lap, and looks in Jesca’s direction again. “How did she react when you told her?”

“She didn’t react. She kept everything she was feeling inside. That is her way.”

Sebastian, “Sounds like a family trait.”

He was right, both Ana and I were like that.

Ana.

On a whim, I try to open my mind to let her in telepathically.

Nothing.

I try not to appear deflated as I ask Sebastian, “The abilities, will they return to their full strength?”

Sebastian nods, “We are beginning to acclimate and adapt to the evolved environment. Monica said it took her a couple of days to adapt with her modified Copula.”

“You know, the Copula has saved our lives Sebastian. If you had not gotten that vision as a child and obsessed over it, we would not be alive.”

Sebastian’s smile is weak. “Yes, but if I had not obsessed over it, we may not be in the predicament we are currently in.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Sebastian tightens his lips and focuses on the seat in front of him, silence falls between us for a moment before Sebastian ends it. “I haven’t felt her presence since we were beyond the veil.”

I look down at my hands, folded in my lap. He had read me, knew I was trying to reach Ana.

Sebastian continues, “No matter time
or space, the connection will never break Ezra.”

I
Believe that. I have faith that once the essence of a human being has brushed with another’s, nothing can break that unique connection. My only worry is that Ana’s soul did not make it from the consuming realm beyond the veil, beyond Andromeda. Losing her physically was one thing. Her losing her soul...I can’t think about that right now. I need to be here for the others. “I noticed we are not flying into the states via Seattle. That would have been the shortest route from Japan.”

Sebastian, “Seattle would have us on the wrong coast. More land to cover to get to Georgia. We needed to be on the east coast.
Monica said the pilot can’t get us into JFK. There is a curfew, so we are landing on the outskirts of New York.”

“Curfew?”

Sebastian eyes me. “Because of the attacks. No landing or take off after dark. Monica said that is when they are most active.”

“They” were the things, the occupiers,
the Dwellers, that had come from beyond the veil within the past year we had been gone. While we were beyond the veil fighting to keep our souls from theseDwellers, they were seeping into our world, slowly stripping the souls from our fellow man. I witnessed a taking in the makeshift viewing room in Japan along with Jesca. I remember the crowd running toward the amateur videographer, then the grotesque, charcoal figure leapt into view, clasping a runner, and lifting off like a vulture scooping up its prey.

Sebastian’s voice cuts into my recollection.
“We have connections at Miller Army Air Field.”

It would be night when we land.
We could be touching down on a grand-scale wasps nest of these Dwellers. “Shelter?”

“Yes, twelve minutes out from the field, Fort Wadsworth.
Food, supplies, weapons, and man-power,” answers Sebastian.

“This man-power, they have obviously been implanted.”

Sebastian nodded. “Military and civilians among the group. Many bases have become make-shift facilities for shelter, supplies, medical needs, and scheduled inoculations.”

Monica told us about the inoculation schedule. Right now, each of us is on a maintenanc
e schedule to hold steady the levels necessary for our body to function in the current climate. We may not ever have to use it if our bodies adapt to the current element levels.

How
ever, if there is another climate shift, we will have to go through full infusion based on how dramatic the elements have been affected within our bodies.

Sebastian, “Human kind is a fighting species. This particular group formed shortly after Gabriel Griffin passed and the ‘occupiers’ began attacking.”

I have always known this to be true; human kind is a fighting species. Now that human kind has evolved, adapted, and survived the shift, they have become more resilient. “Harder to attack those that are implanted.”

Sebastian nods.

After Gabriel Griffin’s death, the Sondian strong hold and their vows that they had all of the answers to what was happening to our world and how to save it dissipated and our fellowship, those that had not been imprisoned or murdered, made their way through the chains of command to render aid. After the first symptoms of the climatic shift, all the lives that were snuffed out, the leaders could no longer deny the help our fellowship was offering them. Monica told us that a mass production of the Copula and implantation schedules began immediately. Headway was being made when the second wave of element shift rained down on our world. The implanted began to fail and we were burning the candle at both ends trying to first save those that were not implanted and then those that were implanted with element infused inoculations. How did those that were not implanted survive the first wave? Underground. They took shelter in caves and storm shelters. As the numbers of the implanted and adapted grew, the man-power to go out to search and rescue those that were not implanted began.

The second wave was the shift that took out almost a third of our global population. Shortly after,
the Dwellers began their attacks. At first, they were careful, cautious, methodic in their timing of the attacks by spacing them out. Monica said it would be weeks between attacks, but then there would be a chain of the taken. That was what they were calculating in Japan. It is hard to understand, but this was happening globally... Everywhere. Those beings that traversed into our world during the intersection through wormholes were not untouchable to these ‘occupier’ beings. They were considered a threat and the occupiers laid claim on our world by attacking and killing all life forms they encountered. Like any predator, the Dwellers began with the weakest and smallest. They got brave really quick though, and the takings became more frequent, sloppy even. Make-shift and true facilities quickly became the only sure fire guarantee for survival. Human kind as a society was living like rabbits in warrens, but they were alive, adapted, evolved, and living for now.

I look over at Jesca again, still and peaceful. “She carries a blueprint of answers within her Sebastian. The mounds, the three stars; Orion’s belt.”

Sebastian rests his hand on my forearm, pulling my attention back to him. “The sooner we get her to Georgia, the closer to the answers we will be.”

The palpable smell of the trees. My feet and Roan’s treading on the crisp fall leaves beneath us. Roan’s voice is even and absolute in my mind, “We are almost there, Jes.”

The back of his figure comes into view as he walks ahead of me.
His hair is much darker, not graying.

My mother’s voice, Delilah
, is at my back. “Slow down, Ro, the mounds aren’t going anywhere.”

I turn to look back at her and see she is much younger.

Wait,
I remember this. This is real. It isn’t a dream. This happened when I was about nine or ten. It was my first trip to the mounds.

The climb along the rugged trail of stones is steep.
Roan is even out of breath as he huffs, “Almost to the top.”

The sun frames his body casting a glowing silhouette around him. His figure is darkened from the white outline.

I am winded, breathing faster and harder as the last few feet to the top push my body. Roan clears the top of the ridge and the sun blinds me for a moment. I pinch my eyes closed only for a second. It was just enough time for my comforting memory of my once simple life to transform into the equivocal puzzlement of the life I possess now, a vision.

The cast of clues quickly manifest, snapshot after snapshot in my mind.

Standing in the dark woods at a river’
s edge. Georgia, home.

Ana’s voice,
“Follow where it leads.”

Drudging through the creek, a fog settles
on the water as I splash through it.

The creek turns to a fast moving stream and I quickly stop.

I remember this vision from beyond the veil.
I divert my eyes to the heavens. Three bright stars crowning the three statuesque mounds atop the distant ridge. Orion’s Belt, part of the constellation, Orion the Hunter and the largest of the Etowah Mounds.

A whisper on the wind is all I hear. “It bears salvation.”

The familiar voice of Michael shatters the wind and sends a chill through me. “You will not be saved.”

I whip around, ready to react to his threat, but he is not there.
The woods have darkened and the wind has picked up. Sounds of a distinct thrum beat of a drum and chanting whispers are carried on the breeze.

Images race through my mind again; The team, Nate, Xan
der, Ezra, Sebastian, Siobhan, everyone, we are running through the woods and the dark auras, the occupier beings, that I have come to call Dwellers are not far behind. A glimpse of something I have only seen once before, the giant beings Nate, Ezra and I encountered the night of the intersection; Nephelim. It is a group of them and they are flanking us; running along side us, protecting us. With our abilities, we are fast, but not fast enough. They are surrounding us now, the Nephilim the barrier between us and them.

Abruptly my body is yanked up and away from my team, the Nephelim, and
the Dwellers. The pull is so quick and strong, the air is knocked from me and bright shards of light begin flashing in my eyes threatening my consciousness.

Before I pass out, the trauma of my body hitting the hard ground rouses me quickly from falling under.
A sharp pain rolls through my rib cage as I shift onto my back as best I can. Pinching my eyes closed, I force myself to breathe past the pain. The chanting has gotten louder, closer, and the words are not English. Even though I can’t understand them, my gut tells me the words being sung are not a threat, but a promise of protection.

The pain is softening and I’m able to
open my eyes to see where I have landed. I am in a cave; a red, claylike dome and I’m staring up into a small shaft in the ceiling. An iridescent glow flows through the opening and meets a small fiery pit blazing only a few feet away from me. Pulling back from the heat of the flames, I notice a face beyond the flickering blaze; an aged man with skin tan like leather and eyes the color of honey. Among the deep creviced wrinkles on his face lie markings, tattoos. My eyes trail to his moving mouth; it matches the sound of the wailing mantra I hear. The wailing is no longer a whisper, but a bold reverberation bouncing off of the small enclosed cave surrounding us.

The ground, it trembles under me suddenly. My hands instinctively move to either side to catch myself from toppling over as the ground rises and falls beneath me, the tremors strengthening.
Instead of dirt, my hands meet cloth. Cloth?

My eyes flutter open and I focus on the fabric I am gripping. Self aware now, I see that I am flush against the seat and my hands have a death grip on the cloth armrests on either side of me. I turn to my right to see if anyone has noticed my erratic reaction to the vision and find myself staring into the blue eyes of my deceased friend, Angela Turner.

Startled, I jerk back from her
and cover my mouth, muffling my shocked yelp. It tears at my heart seeing her sitting here staring at me, knowing that she is only an apparition. I slowly release my grip on the chair and whisper shakily, “I’m sorry Ang.”

She shakes her head tenderly,
closes her eyes, and sends me her thoughts. “It wasn’t your fault, Jes. It was my choice,” she thinks.

She was so brave and she deserves to be honored for her courage. I have so much to say to her.
I open my mouth to speak again, tell her how she saved us all, but her solid frame quickly diffuses into the transient soul she has become and vanishes. The space she reserved is replaced with Xander’s hard stare from across the aisle. His brow is furrowed deeply and his viridian eyes are honed in on me as he studies me. What did he see? Did he hear me talking to Ang? The way I reacted after my vision? Xander shifts his body, like he is going to stand and come over to check on me. I shake my head at him, stopping him from making his move. Still trained on me, his eyes look lost for a moment as his brow softens. He slowly shifts back into his seat, but keeps his protective eye on me. His lips move with no sound, “Are you sure?”

I nod and quickly look away from him not wanting to cave and tell him I just saw part of our future, my
brave deceased friend, and I did need him. I lean my forehead on the cold glass window and let my eyes and mind wander into the dark night. It had been a year, 365 days since we had gone beyond the veil. It is a miracle that we traversed back to an active facility after learning from our team and the make-shift video room what our world’s evolution has entailed so far. The only reason it remained active was because of Angela and my other fellow guardians, but mostly Angela’s sacrifice. If she had not sacrificed herself, the other guardians would be as good as dead and we would have been left for dead on the tile floor of the Kyoto facility, failing like fish out of water.

The experience of Nate, Xander, all of us that returned from beyond the veil
splayed out on the ground barely breathing, dying, waiting to be saved by whomever remained in the facility has been seared into my brain forever. Re-implantation of the modified Copula was the only option of survival. None of us were given a choice in the matter. As we have learned from Monica, Jake, and the others that remained here while we were beyond the veil, it is the only option for human existence now. The mental trauma this discovery could have on an average, non-guardian, civilian would be unavoidable. For us, not so much on the mental trauma forefront. Before, maybe. Now, not so much. When Monica debriefed us, she said that civilians had little time for mental preparation when the proposition to either be implanted with a device that will offer the possibility of survival or die a slow death due to the climatic and element shifts resulting from the intersection. I run my hand over the small rigid scar that has formed from the re-implantation on the base of my neck, more out of habit, but some from remembrance of how reality has evolved.

Our abilities have been a
ffected. The new Copula and the infusion of elements along with the transformations of our core elements here on Earth have sent our inherited abilities for a loop. Telepathy, Lactrosis, Pyrokenisis, Ushering, all of them have seemingly disappeared. Monica says that she is not sure when or if they are going to come back. Noticing my rapid healing scar, hearing my mother reach out to me earlier, then seeing and hearing Angela has me hopeful that they will return; it may be our only defense. The vibrations, they are just a small tickle in my abdomen right now. They started when we traversed back to our world from beyond the veil. The warning of an attack, well in this case, warning against the predator stalking us. That is what it is doing now, stalking every living human to take, occupy, dwell in, then terminate. I can only foresee them getting stronger the closer we get to our final destination, the Etowah Mounds back home, in Georgia.

I touch the cold glass with my finger tips. It is ironic
how precise and heightened my senses have become, but my metaphysical abilities have weakened since the re-implantation. Everything appears brighter, sharper. Every smell has identifiable distinct layers of aroma; it has become three-dimensional. Cold and hot does not feel like it used to. Before, temperature was only felt on the surface upon touch. Now, the sensation of my finger tips on this cold glass window courses beyond the tips of my fingers, through my veins and settles into my legs. The speed I possess has become more refined as well, my agility more precise, effortless, but I haven’t had the opportunity to fully try it out. My only chance was when I was searching for Ezra, Nate, and Xander.

I suspect my speed will be used sooner
rather than later, just like the other guardians. The Dwellers, Michael if he is still alive, they already know where we are headed. They know that the Etowah Mounds hold the answers we need to save our race and our world. If Georgia isn’t crawling with the Dwellers yet, it is sure to be once we land. The same thing happened when we ascended the veil beyond Andromeda. The Dwellers knew we were there immediately.

I think back on Ezra’s and my talk before leaving the facility; telling me about the legacy I have inherited from my ancestors and
the connection with the Etowah Mounds. He told me about Sebastian discovering records of the Onoch name in Georgia records of local tribes. Ancient Indian mound builders, the Creek Indians. He couldn’t rely on his parent’s. Their hands were full with my grandmother and Sebastian’s sister, Elisabeth, and her afflictions; visions, crippling headaches and sleep paralysis being the tell tale sign of the bloodline’s curse. Sebastian had it in mild form, but Ezra said that his son’s did not show signs of the inherited afflictions. Ana did, just as her mother did. For a moment, I wonder where she went after leaving my mother with Sebastian. I take note to ask him when I get a chance.

Ezra told me about Jaeger Sanderson, Michael’s father, and how he had involvement in the legacy.
He didn’t disclose much, but enough for me to realize that our family legacy and Michael’s family’s legacy ran parallel and he was determined to stop Whatever we needed to do to fulfill our end of the legacy.

This legacy was a mystery and Ezra needed to simplify it fast for me.
He told me that the ancient Indian tribe, the Creek Indians, thought they could seek protection during times of war from beyond our world. The protection would be conjured from rituals by those that held pure, unfathomable energy and strength within their souls. The protection surfaced within the person as abilities, gifts, to act as guardians of our world during times of evolution and catastrophe. Ezra said that the ritual and the legacy became buried when the Native Americans were forced to evolve with civilization. I figured it was those that immigrated from Europe and Ezra confirmed it. The supposed passive invasion on their tribe was not so, violent and oppressive. If the natives were going to survive, they needed to evolve which meant burying their ritual and hiding the legacy meant to protect our world. It stayed buried until Sebastian unearthed it.

I hear movement to my right and notice Nate’s eyes
were closed, but he is shifting in his seat aggressively. Protectively, I shift toward him and Xander, but he holds his hand up to me, stopping me from advancing.
Wait, did he read my mind? Is his telepathy back?
I try to slip into his mind, but I get nothing. Xander is completely turned toward Nate now, watching him, his hands poised just in case he needs to wake him. I try to slip into Nate’s head now, but there is a void. I can’t reach either of them. Xander takes his hand and rest it on Nate’s shoulder, instantly settling him into stillness. Watching Xander be protective with Nate reminds me of Nate settling me with his touch…before the veil. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Sam playing close attention to Xander and Nate’s interaction. His concerned look stirs my suspicions. My eyes dart to Corinna. She is watching Xander and Nate as well. Why are they watching them like that? Sam’s eyes catch my own for a moment before he takes hold of Corinna’s hand in his and lifts their intertwined hands to his lips. Corinna looks away from Nate and Xander, and focuses on Sam lovingly. Abandoning my suspicions, I turn back around and lean my head back on the headrest.