BLOGS

My first memory, for a long time, was of me waking up in the middle of a forest, naked, having no idea how I got there, where I’d come from or who I was. There was a pain in my chest; it was faint, but very persistent. I could find no scar or wound, the pain was not unbearable, so I ignored it as best I could and started to explore my surroundings.

I was in a forest of fruit trees. The trees grew in no noticeable order, peaches, cherries, lemons, oranges and bananas all grew together, not in rows but in large clusters. As I continued to explore, I saw the same strange clusters with nut trees and even on the ground. Patches of pumpkins, eggplant, and potatoes grew right next to onions, peppers and beans.

All around, there were shallow streams that fed from a large, swiftly moving river. There were several natural caves that could be used for shelter and none of them too far from a water source. In the river itself, there were several species of edible fish, swimming slowly enough to be caught in my hands. I tested this theory by catching several slippery fish and letting them go. I could survive here with ease.

I am not sure how much time passed before I grew tired once again and sought out a cave to sleep in for the night. As I drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that while I knew nothing about myself, I could name everything I came across. I knew that I was in a cave, and I knew that I was going to sleep and awake, though I could not remember having ever done either before. As my eyes grew heavy with the need for sleep, I finally gave in. In the morning, I would see if there were more than just fish alive in these woods.

I awoke painfully hungry. I had chosen a cave close to both fruit and nut trees. I went to the closest tree and shook free several pecans. I ate them quickly, followed by several gulps of cold stream water. I had killed the pain, but not the hunger. I would have to catch some fish…

… a blinding flash of pain took over my head. So intense was the pain that I could only see the color white. Almost as soon as it began, the sensation was just as suddenly all but gone. The pain had knocked me to my knees picked myself up from the ground, I saw something moving in a cluster of various berry bushes. I stood very still, not wanting to scare whatever it was away. I stood unmoving for a short time and finally I was rewarded for my patience. A small brown rabbit, and four tiny rabbits behind it, made a dash for the shelter of another cluster of bushes. My hands went to my breasts, which now ached for some reason. Babies. The very word made me smile while tears stung my eyes. Curious.

Still thinking of aching breasts and baby rabbits, I followed the same direction that I saw the animals go. I walked a long time in the same direction because I was hearing a sound that was so beautiful, I had to find the source. The further I walked, the fewer trees there were and more open fields of grass. Finally, the trees ended in a field of flowers of every kind. The smell was indescribable. It smelled liked everything at once. The sight was the beautiful. Hundreds of butterflies fluttered about and beyond the field was the source of the sound I’d followed. It was birds, thousands of them, all singing their own melody. They were perched in the branches of yet another forest. Their combined song rivaled any angel’s. I sat down in the flowers and listened for a long moment. As I sat there, several different creatures scampered by. Squirrels, mice, larger birds with no songs to sing, dogs, cats, even a sheep or two went by. I sat there and watched the creatures live their little animal lives. They ate and drank, fed their young, stalked their prey or ran from predators. As a pair of dogs chose me as audience to their mating, I felt the same ache in my breasts as when I saw the tiny rabbits. I was all alone. I was the only thing that looked like me and I was lonely.

I made my way back to the area with food, water and shelter, my home I guess, and almost immediately felt the urge to sleep. I was barely in the cave before I fell unconscious. When I awoke, I felt differently somehow. I did not know what it was but something was not as it had been before. My body looked the same, so the change wasn’t physical. Then it hit me. I knew more! I had a name for all of my body parts that I could not see, but was painfully aware of. I was painfully hungry again and I wanted meat. I knew now that I had to cook the fish. Yesterday, I would have devoured them right from the water, with no thought of cooking them. Now, I was aware that uncooked fish could make me sick. I also knew that if I got sick from the raw fish, which plants would make me better. I was now aware of poisons to myself and the animals. Overnight, I had somehow received a complete education in medicine. There was a lingering headache and I chewed some leaves, and soon the pain was mere memory.

My head filled with new information, I went in search of reeds to weave baskets, wood to build a fire, and clay for bowls and pots. I was apparently civilized now and no longer found a cave satisfactory. I started to build a shelter from wood and mud. After another ten nights in the caves, my house was done. I had formed benches from clay along the wall and woven a mat from soft, dry grasses to sleep on. I had shelves for my baskets and shelves for my pots and bowls.

I’d made a low clay table in the middle of the room and after spending my day exploring, gathering food or collecting materials, I would take a sharp stick and carve pictures into the table. Before long the table was covered with my picture stories and I started to draw on the walls of the caves, using flowers and rocks for colors.

It was around the time that I started drawing that I started to remember that again that I was the only thing like myself I had ever seen. It was also when I wondered why I knew the name of everything I saw but had nothing to call myself. Why did every creature have a mate but me? Why were the animals able to have babies and I wasn’t? I knew now that my breasts were meant to feed my young, but had no clue how I would ever have young.

“Why am I all alone?” I said aloud, looking up to the sky for some reason. “Where is my mate? Where are my young?”

No sooner than I spoke out loud, I felt compelled to sleep. I couldn’t have kept my eyes open if I tried. I fell asleep, right where I sat on the floor.

Awake again, I found myself on my mat and very hungry. I went to my shelf where I keep my food baskets, reaching for an apple and grabbing a dried husk instead. All of the food in my baskets were dried up or rotting. How long was I asleep?

I went outside to find more food and water and instantly forgot all about my hunger and thirst. I saw, not far from my door, another house. It was unfinished but nearly the same as my own. There was another like me! None of the animals had ever built a house, so I knew it was another like me.

I approached the house slowly and peeked inside. It was empty except for a low clay table and a large mound of clay along the wall where I had built the benches in my house. Small piles of weaving grasses, vines and leaves were piled in the corner carelessly, as if the collector was only gone to find more supplies. I quickly returned to my house and grabbed a pot and a basket. I gathered some nuts and collected some water and ran back inside my house to hide, suddenly afraid for the first time.

I heard when the other one returned; I risked a peek out of my door covering and saw only a pair of legs and arms carrying a large bundle of wood and dry grass. It was much more than I could have carried and I was strong. After so much time alone, I was now unable to leave my house to meet this new animal that walked on two legs like me. What if it was mean? What if it wanted to hurt me? Why had it built a house so close to mine? Where did it come from? Why didn’t it try to see who was in this house?

Not daring to make a fire and draw attention to myself, I sat and nibbled nuts in the dark and waited until I thought the other one was asleep to answer nature’s call. It was very dark in the area I used for this purpose but I knew it well. I finished relieving myself and ran back to my house as quietly as I could. I crawled over to my mat and it wasn’t there! I made my way over to my bench and found only a large mound of clay. I was in the wrong house.

“Please don’t leave.” A voice said to me, “I won’t hurt you.”

“Do you have fire? I need to see your face.” I heard flints scraping together and soon a tiny red glow burned in the pit on the floor. With no warning the fire flared up and I saw him then. His large brown eyes, black hair and beard, soft looking lips, and smooth brown skin like my own. He was larger than I was, and much taller when we stood face to face, but I was no longer afraid. He was like me. Larger, hairier and harder underneath the skin, but he was like me.

“I’m sorry if I scared you. They said you would sleep for several more days.”

“They? Who said that? Are they like us?”

“Not like us, no. they said you asked for me. Is that true?”

“No! I … yelled at the sky that I had no mate yesterday, then I fell asleep and now… you are here.”

“They made me for you. I am your mate.”

“Who made you?” I asked again.

“I have no name for them. They are the makers of all of this.” He explained, spreading his arms as wide as he could.

“I do not understand. What do I call you? I don’t even know what I am.”

“They told me that much. I am a man, you are a woman. We are mates. From me, will come your young.”

“Babies? You can give me babies?”

“Yes. They said we would know how before long. When we completely forget about them, we will know how to make babies. You seem to have already forgotten them.”

I had long forgotten them. I was only aware of having been alone for a very long time.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” I asked him. “At my house there is a soft mat for you and food.”

Without a word, he led the way to my house and we lit another fire. We ate a meal of fruit and roasted meat and went to bathe in the river together. We talked and laughed and cried until the sun was up again. I found I liked this Man much better than being alone.

Several days went by. We slept embracing each other each night. He told me stories about the makers, but remembered less each day. One morning, Man woke me by pressing his outer organs against my thigh and I pressed my buttocks against him in return. It was in this manner that we discovered how to mate. As he entered my body I experienced divine pain and burning pleasure.

“Oh, no. I forgot, I was supposed to tell you something before we forget everything. A warning.” He said.

“What was it?” I moaned into his mouth.

He whispered something in my ear as he moved deeper into me. I did not quite hear him, but it sounded like he said something about a snake.

© Shayla E. Price 2011. All Rights Reserved

Here is a brief excerpt from my soon to be released book Supernature. I hope you enjoy it.

Excerpt from Chapter 1

It’s 9:00 am on the Fourth of July weekend and the temperature is already in the upper nineties.

Highway Patrol Officers Cliff Johnson and Brad Williams are on patrol down Route 377, also known as Dry Lake Road.

In the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest of Arizona the sky is clear and blue but the air is still. There are only faint sounds of life: a few birds, a few bugs, but mostly stillness.

“Quiet,” Officer Williams comments, as he drives the vehicle.  Equally unusual is the fact that he already has to crank up the AC.

Officer Johnson doesn’t reply beyond a grunt of agreement, looking out onto the monotonous stretch of desert-like land that they have been assigned to patrol ever since the two Hernandez kids went missing.

Normally during this time of year this area is teaming with life. The forest is home to over 400 species of wild life and it spans over two million acres of untainted wilderness with more than thirty lakes and reservoirs and more than 680 miles of rivers and streams.

Once two separate forests, Apache-Sitgreaves is now managed as one. It runs along the Mogollon Rim, which defines the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, the White Mountains in east-central Arizona and extends partially into New Mexico.

A favorite forest for tourists, hikers and nature lovers, the Apache-Sitgreaves terrain ranges from a desert-like environment on the outer perimeter to an interior of thick rich vegetation. The heart of the forest is lined with aspen, maple, and pine trees and is populated by deer, wild turkeys, elk, eagles and osprey. Among the smaller animals found in the area are rattlesnakes, squirrels, roof rats and black widow spiders. During the summer months the sounds of the forest usually play like a living orchestra. Birds sing, crickets chirp, frogs croak all playing their part of a natural ensemble. All this while hawks slowly circle over head and rabbits quickly scurry through the bush. But today the music is silent, the sounds are few and the feeling in the air is has an eerie stillness to it and the two patrol officers can’t help but feel uneasy in what has been their normal route for about four years now. 

This long deserted highway that is now under Officer Williams’ and Johnson’s jurisdiction stretches through the Sitgreaves portion of the forest from the small frontier town of Holbrook all the way to the mountain community of Heber-Overgaard.

Patrolling Route 377 may be part of their daily routine now but it wasn’t always. Originally, their job was to assist vacationers who were lost or had car trouble along the thirty-three miles of road.  But over the past two years things have changed because of the unusual high number of missing persons being reported in and around the area. In addition, many ranchers along the outskirts of the forest as well as the neighboring Native American communities have complained about missing cattle, unexplained horse and livestock mutilations, and other strange occurrences. Last year’s incident with the Hernandez kids put everyone on alert. A five-year-old little boy and his seven-year-old sister disappearing without a trace and two hysterical parents was more than enough for people to decide that this area needed to be watched closely. And with no bodies or evidence of foul play ever recovered, it only served to keep every one more on edge.  So Officers Johnson and Williams set out early each morning, driving their white and blue Crown Victoria police interceptor up and down Route 377 and keeping their eyes peeled for anything out of the norm.

Today it’s early on a holiday weekend and nothing seems particularly noteworthy except for the heat and the unusual stillness in the air. They’re traveling south down Dry Lake Road towards its intersection with Route 277, with Brad driving and Cliff riding shotgun. It’s a dry stretch of road lined with small shrubs, cactus and rocky sand. There is no real tree line in this part of the forest which is more desert-like than anything. The largest shrubs found in the area only grow to about five feet.

Cliff, a few years younger than Brad at age 32, reaches for the patrol car’s radio as his partner, muscle-bound and athletic, drives. He takes a sip of coffee in his right hand then clicks on the mic in his left saying, “Dispatch this is forty-nine.”

“Go ahead, forty-nine,” replies the voice over the radio.

“Heading south on Route 377. All’s quiet, nothing to report.”

“Ten-four, forty-nine.”

Cliff runs a hand through his close-cropped blond hair, still staring out of the window as he takes another sip of coffee, “Sand, nothing but sand as far as the eye can see. Damn, I’m getting tired of this,” he mumbles in between sips of coffee and adjusting his six foot muscular frame in his seat.  Yet all of his cop’s intuition tells him that something isn’t quite right out here, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the passing outskirts of that forest that had swallowed those kids.  Cliff didn’t have children, but having helped raise his younger siblings had fostered a protective side to him that made him want to get his hands on--

“What’s the matter with you?” asks his partner, a friendly African-American with ten years on the force.  Officer Williams could sense that something was wrong. 

“Nothing,” Cliff answers, eyes still fixed on that eerily still forest.

“Nothing? You barely said a word all morning. What’s eating you?”

“Nothing,” repeats Cliff, still staring out of the passenger side window.

“Come on, how long have we known each other, five, six years? You don’t think I don’t know when something’s bothering you?”

Cliff takes another sip of coffee and mutters, “It’s nothing--I’m alright.”

In an attempt to lighten things a bit Brad comments, “You know they say when you’re having problems it’s always good to talk to an elder,” Cliff turns and frowns at Brad, “and since I’m the oldest you should feel comfortable confiding in me,” he glances over at Cliff and flashes a wide grin.

“You gotta be kidding--you’re only six years older than me Bradley,” says Cliff as he turns back to the window.

Brad’s brow furrows with frustration as he lifts his blue baseball style cap and scratches the barely-there, closely cropped wool on his head.  He replaces the cap and mutters, “Just trying to help,” before focusing back on the road ahead and drives on.

Officer Williams is trying not to take things personally, knowing this dry stretch of desert road, bleak forest and now a brooding partner could easily get you down if you let it.  They’ve been driving in silence for twenty minutes and have just passed a sign which reads, ‘DESPAIN RANCH ROAD NEXT RIGHT.’

Brad glances over at his partner and observes Cliff still staring out of the passenger’s side window at the bushes whizzing by along the plain two lane stretch of road.

Brad decides to give it another go and launch full-steam ahead into a conversation.

 “You know you and Doris really should have come by the barbecue last night, we had a ball. Pat kept asking, ‘where’s Cliff and Doris? Where’s Cliff and Doris?’” Cliff says nothing but continues to sip his coffee, “we didn’t shut the grill down till 12:30,” he again glances over at his partner waiting for a response, but nothing. 

Undeterred Brad continues, “Woodberry came, Hernandez was there, Singletary came over, Brown and his wife showed up. Simmons came with another new girlfriend, I think that’s the third one this month, and even the Sarge came through for a while. Oh and you’re not going to believe this but Pepper showed up. You know that muscular dyke from the SWAT unit? And she brought her girlfriend with her, a drop dead gorgeous blonde with big tits. I had to stay at the grill so Pat wouldn’t catch me staring at her. But no Cliff and no Doris.”

After another slow sip Cliff mutters, “Doris and me had a fight.”

Progress!

With a slight grin Brad replies, “What! Again? What is it with you guys anyway? And I bet it was over something stupid, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you’re right it was.”

“All right what was it this time?”

Cliff looks over at Brad’s grinning, mahogany-brown profile then takes another sip before explaining, “It’s like this. We were going to come to your party. I was already dressed and watching the end of the heavyweight ultimate fighter match. She’s in the bedroom taking forever to get ready. Then she comes out, stands in front of the TV and asks me if her new dress makes her look fat.”

Brad winces and interjects, “Wait a minute let me guess, you said, YES.”

Cliff shrugs his shoulders and looks at Brad like a little puppy that soiled the carpet and replies, “Well, yeah!” Brad bursts into laughter as Cliff tries to explain, “Well it did make her look fat. What was I going to do lie?”

“Then what happened?”

“She threw a beer can at me. Hit me right in the back of the head. That shit still hurts,” says Cliff as he reaches under his cap and rubs a spot on the back of his head.

Brad laughs even more, “And I bet the two of you spent the rest of the night making up, right?”

A long devilish grin forms across Cliff face, “Man it was great!”

“You know it never fails with you guys. I think you both are crazy. I think you guys just start fights just so you can have make-up sex.”

“Come on man you have to admit, make-up sex is great!” 

“Yeah I’ll admit that but me and Pat never fight as much as you guys. You guys are crazy.”

“Come on man we’re not that bad.”

“Are you kidding me? What about last year’s Christmas Party?”

“Okay, we were both a little drunk.”

“Halloween?”

Cliff gives a devilish smile and says, “We made up after that.”

“And Cancun?”

“Come on now you can’t talk. What about that time we caught you and Pat at Sunset beach?”

“What?”  Brad’s dark-brown eyes widen in mock innocence.

 “Last year in Jamaica? You remember now?”

“Oh boy, here we go again. If I told you once I’ve told you a thousand times we weren’t doing anything. We were just holding each other.”

“In the nude?”

“It was a clothing optional beach!”

“Okay, and?”

“Nothing, we were just enjoying each other’s company,” says Brad in a sheepish tone of voice.

“I’ll say you were enjoying a whole lot more from where I was standing.”

“Oh shut up. It’s bad enough you saw my wife naked.”

“And that’s not all we saw. Doris couldn’t stop laughing,” replies Cliff as he begins to laugh out loud.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough,” says Brad in a serious tone.

“What’s the matter is somebody getting sensitive?”

“Well how would you like it if someone caught you and your wife--?”

Brad trails off, glancing out of the driver’s side window for a moment, before putting his eyes back on the road.

“You and your wife doing what?” interrupts Cliff.

“Nothing.”

 “Ah hah, I got you! Come on, admit it already! The two of you were doing it on the beach weren’t you?”

“Oh grow up. Hey, what about the time you tried your uncle Bill’s Viagra and had a five-hour erection? Now that was funny,” Brad begins to laugh uncontrollably, “I’ll never forget the phone call: ‘Hello, Brad? It’s getting bigger! It hurts and it won’t go down’,” Brad laughs so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes.

All mirth dissolves from Cliff’s face.

“Hey, that wasn’t funny. That really hurt.”

Brad chuckles, “I bet it did. I don’t know why you took that stuff in the first place. And how did they make that thing go down anyway?”

“I had to go to the hospital man; you know how embarrassing that was?”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah after the doctors stopped laughing they pulled out this super long needle and stuck me.”

“Stuck you? Where at?”

“In my dick! Can you believe that! In my dick! It hurt like hell!”

“What? They stuck it in your dick?”

“Yeah, they said they had to drain out all the blood.” Brad begins to laugh even louder while slapping the steering wheel with his hands.

As Brad shakes his head, laughing heartily, something catches Cliff’s eye through the passenger side of the patrol car.  At first he thought it might be some rags strewn by the side of the road but as the vehicle approached, he knew it had to be a body.  A small body.  Could it be a child?  Another kid? 

He reaches over and nudges Brad’s muscular forearm, pointing. “Hey, hey, hold on a sec. Slow down partner.”  The urgency in his voice causes Brad to sober up immediately.

Brad slows the vehicle and now they could both see a small framed figure lying on the ground about 200 yards off the side of the road partially obscured by some shrubs.

After slowing down the vehicle Brad leans over his partner to get a closer look while pulling the car off of the road.

“What is that? Is it a body?” asks Brad.

Cliff still squinting replies, “Jesus I think it is,” he swings open the door just as the car comes to a stop and jogs off toward the figure on the ground. Brad jumps out and follows. As the two men approach the figure they notice a bare-footed young woman in her early thirties lying on her stomach. She’s very pale with short dark hair, wearing a pair of badly torn jeans and a ripped tee shirt, both lightly splattered in blood. Her eyes are closed and the left side of her face is in the dirt. Parts of the woman’s face and arms are dark red, dry and clearly sun burnt. She is also covered in dozens of small cuts and scratches.  As the two officers examine her they also notice that her feet are dirty, bleeding and blistered. On her right cheek and on her right forearm there are what appear to be large reddish swollen abscesses both about the size of golf balls. The abscesses are dry, peeling and slowly leaking a yellowish puss. Cliff looks down at the woman and softly calls out to her. “Miss, can you hear me? Miss?” There’s no response. The woman just lies there very still and breathing slowly, showing little sign of life. Cliff kneels down and checks her neck for a pulse with two expert fingers, “She’s alive! But just barely, better call it in.”

Brad unhooks his portable radio from his belt and calls the dispatcher as he briskly walks around the area looking through the bush, “Dispatch, this is car forty-nine, over.”

“Go ahead forty-nine,” the radio crackles back.

“Ah, we have an eleven forty-seven on route 377 about one mile south of Despain Ranch Road, requesting Medevac ASAP, over.”

“Ten-four forty-nine, requesting Medevac for eleven forty-seven, route 377, one mile south of Despain Ranch Road, there’s already a chopper in the area, ETA about twenty minutes, do you copy?”

“Ten-four Dispatch, twenty minutes.”

Brad walks back over to Cliff and the woman and hunkers down next to them, “Chopper will be here in twenty. What do you think happened to her?”

“I don’t know. Her breathing is very slow and she’s covered in all these cuts almost like she’s been in a fight with a cat.”

“Damn, she does look real tore up,” adds Brad.

Cliff looks at the wounds and twists his face, “Have you noticed that odor?”

“Yeah, smells like she was sprayed with vinegar,” Brad slowly scans the area around the woman, “strange, this is real strange. You hear me partner?”

Cliff looks up at him slowly, “I know what you mean.”

For fifteen minutes the two officers sit with the female while they wait for the medical helicopter to arrive. They check her back pockets for any signs of identification and repeatedly check her pulse and breathing. As Cliff kneels by the girl’s side Brad searches the surrounding area for any clues as to what might have happened. He follows some partial tracks from the woman leading south but only manages to find blood spattered foot prints in the sand. While kneeling down to study one print he stops and looks around slowly. The silence they noticed earlier seems especially oppressive now.  “What could have happen out here?” He thinks to himself.

He begins to scan the area more intently. There’s nothing around, normally in this part of the forest there are birds over head, flies buzzing around, even the occasional scorpion scurrying by. But today there’s nothing but silence. The stillness unnerves Brad and he stands up and begins to make his way back towards Cliff and the woman.  Just then Brad’s radio crackles to life, “Car forty-nine, Car forty-nine this is Medevac two, do you read?”

“Go ahead Medevac two this is forty-nine, what’s your ETA?”

“We are five minutes out forty-nine, Just thought you should know we just flew over a camper off the side of the road about two miles south of your position. Appears to be abandoned, could belong to your Vic.”

“Ten-four Medevac two, we’ll check it out as soon as you clear station.”

“Ten-four forty-nine.”

Brad approaches Cliff and knees beside him, “Chopper will be here in five.”

“Great.”

“The chopper spotted a camper down the road. Could be where she’s from. We should check it out when we’re done.”

“Right!”

“How is she?”

“Still no response, no movement, nothing, and her breathing is getting even slower.  You find anything?”

“Naw, no clues, but…I don’t know, it seems a little weird but remember I mentioned how quiet it is out here?  Something’s not right.”

Cliff slowly looks around and scans the area then turns back to Brad, nodding, “Yeah it’s pretty quiet today isn’t it?”

“Yeah, a little too quiet if you ask me. It’s giving me the creeps.”

“I know exactly what you mean.  Like, it’s kind of--”

“--Dead,” his partner finished.

In the background the low rumbling sound of the four bladed Bell 407 helicopter can be heard approaching.  The sound steadily grows louder as the red and white chopper slowly appears overhead. The pilot hovers for a minute while he looks for a clearing to land. Brad covers his eyes and Cliff angles his broad, muscular frame in an effort to shield the young woman as the machine kicks up a cloud of dust. The skilled pilot softly lands the helicopter just in front of the officer’s patrol car on the side of the road. As the engine slows to an idle, two paramedics dressed in bright orange jump suits jump out, one carrying a medical kit and the other a portable gurney. Both wear pilot helmets and multi-pocketed vests loaded with bandages and other small medical tools. They run over to the two officers and their victim.

Dave, a short stocky seven-year veteran of the Medevac service, crouches beside the young woman on the ground. His partner Nancy, a thin light skinned young woman with freckles, quickly runs to the other side and applies the inflatable bag of a portable blood pressure machine onto the woman’s left arm.

Dave examines her body, being careful not to move her too much as the extent of her injuries are as yet unclear. While wearing protective gloves he examines the abscesses on her face and arm.

 “Damn! I’ve never seen anything like this before. How long has she been like this?”

Scratching his head Brad responds, “Don’t know, we’ve been here for about twenty minutes. Don’t know how long she’s been lying here before that.”

While closely examining her burnt skin Dave then says, “Must have been at least an hour by the look of these sunburns.”

Cliff then jumps in, “Have you noticed the odor? Kind of like vinegar.”

Dave leans closer to the woman and sniffs, “Seems to be coming from these big sores.”

Suddenly a steady beeping emits from the blood pressure machine. Nancy checks the LED display and calls out its readings.

“Blood pressure’s 55 over 40!”

Dave looks up, “Not good, not good at all”

“Is that very bad?” asks Cliff with a look of concern.

“Yes it is, very low, probably due to dehydration. She could slip into a coma if we don’t get her some fluids and to a hospital ASAP!”

Nancy pulls an IV bag of clear fluid out of her medical kit and attaches it to the woman’s arm.

Dave pulls out a small light from his vest and shines it into the woman’s eyes as he pulls them open with his other hand, “Her eyes are dilated and her breathing is erratic and with the low blood pressure she’s in real bad shape. We have to get her out of here now. Come on, give us a hand.”

“Where’re you going to take her?” asks Brad.

“The trauma center at Lincoln Hospital in downtown Phoenix. We can be there in about thirty-five minutes.”

Dave gently lifts the woman over to one side as his partner Nancy slides the portable gurney under her back. The two officers assist the paramedics in lifting the woman up and carrying her to the waiting helicopter. After securing her inside of the copter the two officers back away and watch as it slowly rises into the air and speeds off.

Brad turns to Cliff and says,” I don’t know what’s going on but we need to check out that camper.”

“You’re right, let’s get a move on it. Someone has to know what happened to her.”

The two officers enter their patrol car and speed south down Route 377 with lights flashing and sirens blaring. About two miles down the road they come upon a thirty foot motor home parked about 200 yards off the side of the road among some light brush. Brad spots the camper’s tracks and follows them up to the rear of the vehicle. He cuts the engine and kills the lights as the two men cautiously step out of the patrol car.

With their hands on their weapons they slowly approach the right side of the motor home. The camper, a Bigfoot 3000 series Class C motor home built around a Ford E-450 chassis, is white with brown stripes and has the side door wide open, broken and hanging off the bottom hinge. The windows along the side of the motor home are also broken. Brad and Cliff exchange knowing glances, silently encouraging one another to proceed with caution.  As the officers approach the camper they notice debris scattered around the campground: torn clothes, broken furniture, and trash.

Cliff moves alongside the camper and presses his back against the wall of the motor home on the left side of the open door, Brad approaches from the right. Both men draw their weapons as Brad yells out toward the opening, “This is the police, is there anyone in there?” After a pause he continues, “Is there anyone in there?” after no reply he motions to Cliff as he aims his gun toward the dark interior. Cliff, with both hands on his weapon quickly swings into the motor home as Brad follows.

Inside, to the right there’s a small dinette and the cab of the vehicle with a small bunk bed on top. Dishes and papers cover the floor.  Bloodstains are splattered all over dishes and up the walls in no particular order; some stains are even on the ceiling.  To the left there’s a small bathroom, with a missing door, and a narrow hallway leading to the back bedroom, also splattered with dried blood.  Cliff looks at Brad grimly and mutters through clenched teeth, “Jesus, what the hell happened in here?”

“Looks like one hell of a fight,” Brad replies, his voice barely above a whisper.

The two men slowly and carefully walk around the ransacked area, shuffling through broken dishes and torn papers. After finding nothing more than broken furniture and splattered blood on the walls, Cliff, with his gun held up and pointed, cautiously moves toward the rear of the camper. He moves down the narrow hall with Brad following close behind. They cautiously push the bedroom door open and gasp at the horror within. Lying on a blood-soaked bed are the remains of a white male in his early thirties. The thick stench of blood and death hang heavily in the hot Arizona air.  There are no legs, just a right arm, a head, and most of a badly mangled torso torn from the rib cage down with the spine still intact. The head is disfigured and covered with gashes and scrapes similar to the ones the young woman had. The man’s face is cut up and the left eye is hanging out of its socket by a few veins. The left arm is missing and appears to have been ripped out at the shoulder. In the right hand is a Glock-19 9mm semi-automatic handgun and on the bloodied bed are about fifteen 9mm shells. The room is in a shambles and bullet holes pepper the walls.  Flies swarm the inside of the room and crawl all over the body. Brad and Cliff struggle for breath at the horrific sight. In their line of work both men have seen death but nothing as grisly as this. This body was ripped apart!

Brad’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open in shock, before he quickly whips out a handkerchief and covers his mouth and nose. Cliff steps back from the bed with the back of his hand over his mouth, trying to control a gag reflex. He re-holsters his gun and unclips his radio. “Dispatch, this is car forty-nine, over.” There’s a moment of no reply so he tries again. “Dispatch, this is car forty-nine, over.”

“Go ahead forty-nine,” the voice on the other end answers back.

“Dispatch we have a one eighty-seven on Route 377 about four miles north of Route 277”

“Ten-four forty-nine, one eighty-seven on Route 377”

“Requesting CSI, possible connection with earlier eleven forty-seven.”

“Ten-four forty-nine, notifying CSI, please stand by.”

As Cliff holds the radio Brad re-holsters his gun and moves around the bed, being careful not to disturb anything. On the left nightstand at the head of the bed he finds a photograph and calls his partner over to look at it.

“Looks like this is our Vic’s place alright.”

Cliff looks down at the picture. It’s a photo of a couple in their early thirties sitting under a tree with a little boy. The woman is the same one they found up the road.  She has an air of quiet confidence about her, with excellent posture and an aura of strength.  The man by her side is clearly the same one as the one on the bed—at least, what is left of him. 

“And we have another problem on our hands,” comments Cliff.

“What’s that,” says Brad as he examines the photo closer.

“What’s wrong with that picture, Brad?”

“Ah, shit! Where’s the kid?”

“Right, hopefully he got away like his mother.”

“Cliff, remember what shape she was in?”

“I know. How old do you think he is?”

“Looks about eight or nine.”

Cliff’s jaw tightens and he shakes his head.

“Jesus, Doris has a niece that old.  You remember Tammy?” He shakes his head again and looks away.  As he does so he happens to glance at the floor by the night stand and notices a black rectangular object. 

 “What’s this?” After pulling on rubber gloves Cliff picks up a battered and bloodstained black wallet and looks inside. “Damn!”

“What you got there, partner?”

“Looks like our Vic here is an FBI agent.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Naw, Agent Allen Henderson, look for yourself,” he holds the open wallet for Brad to see. 

There was a photo of a nondescript man in glasses and a white collared shirt.  It appeared to be the same man in the photograph on the nightstand and in the messy pool of blood, bone and the remnants of organs on the bed.

“Man, this case keeps getting weirder and weirder. And did you notice the odor in here?”

Cliff nods his head, “Sure did, vinegar.”

“Just like the woman.”

Cliff’s radio squawks to life, “Car forty-nine, Come in forty-nine.”

“This is forty-nine go ahead,” Cliff answers.

“CSI in route to your location. ETA thirty minutes. Command advises to secure the area.”

“Uh, ten-four dispatch. Please advise command that victim is FBI and we may also have a missing child.”

“Ten-four, forty-nine, will advise.”

“Well looks like we’re stuck here for awhile. Better make the most of it.”

“So much for a quiet holiday.”

Both officers leave the motor home and walk quickly to their patrol car. Cliff snatches several rolls of caution tape out of the car and hands a few to Brad.  The two hurriedly rope off the area around the camper attaching the tape to the trees and brush around the camper. They work quietly while wondering to their selves what could do such mangling damage to the man inside. 

Cliff keeps thinking about the little boy somewhere out there, with a dad who clearly died fighting and a mom who seemed about to lose the fight for her life.

After they finish they return to their vehicle, lock the doors, and wait without another word for the Crime Scene Investigators to arrive.

After about ten minutes another patrol car pulls up behind theirs. Driving it is Officer O’Brien, a young two-year rookie and in the passenger seat is Watch Commander Lieutenant Maddox. The gray haired Maddox is a twenty-year veteran who was part of the investigation of the disappearance of the two missing Hernandez kids that Brad and Cliff worked on. He’s a pot bellied stone-faced bull of a man with a head of white hair who’s known for being tough on the officers under his command but for some reason he seems to have a soft spot for both Brad and Cliff.

After seeing the newcomers exit their vehicle Brad and Cliff exit their own.

“Lieutenant,” says Cliff as he nods to the approaching Maddox.

“Johnson, Williams,” Maddox nods back, “so what do we have?”

Brad and Cliff slowly glance at each other for a moment.

“Well? What is it?” Maddox asks impatiently.

Cliff steps forward, “Lieutenant, we have a real mess in there,” he says as he points toward the camper, “first we found this unconscious woman up the road and then we traced her back here and find a bloody massacre.  We also think there might be a missing little boy! This is the craziest thing we’ve even seen!”

“Alright, alright calm down,” Maddox turns to O’Brien, “Let’s check it out to see how bad is really is.”

Cliff glances over at Brad.

“You want to know how bad it is. Lieutenant it looks like someone put that guy through a wood chipper!” shouts Brad, “I mean he’s missing his whole body from the waist down!”

Maddox and O’Brien give each other a glance of disbelief.

O’Brian looks at Brad and comments, “Come on guys.”

Cliff and Brad just stare at him in stoic silence.

Seemingly unconvinced about the level of savagery reported, Maddox and O’Brien move to enter the motor home to examine the scene for their selves. After barely five minutes the two men hurry out of the camper with a look of repulsion on their faces. O’Brien vomits beside the camper, and then gasps, “Who or what could have done that?”

Maddox, mopping the sweat from his forehead, nose and upper lip looks at Brad and asks, “No other clues? No sign of what happened to the boy?”

The heat was starting to weigh down on them.  The heat and the silence.  Brad removes his blue baseball cap to wipe perspiration from his brow before pulling the hat low over his brown eyes. “No, nothing,” he replies.

“You know the feds are going to be all over this one. They don’t like it when something happens to one of their own.”

“You think it could be some kind of terrorist attack?” asks Cliff.

Maddox looks at Cliff and says, “Don’t know. These days anything’s possible. Remember when those terrorists cut that guy’s head off on the news? You never can tell these days. But what I do know is that we’re going to need more help out here.”

Maddox glances over at Cliff and says, “Johnson, Get on the horn and call Air Search and Rescue we need some eyes in the sky if we’re going to have any chance at finding that kid.”

Just then in the distance a faint siren could be heard growing steadily louder. Maddox stares south down Route 377, “Sounds like the cavalry’s finally here.”

You know, a lot of Photoshop users spend a lot of time making great designs. Picking every color,layer, and tool. We use our brain and creativity to come up with stunning visual treats for all to look at.

There are little hot-keys and shortcuts around Photoshop, all to make navigation easier. I'm going to show a basic but very useful palette in Photoshop called styles. Do you take notice when go and shop for your favorite clothes the verity thatrsquo;s available? Sure you do! Thatrsquo;s in a nut shell what styles are. Check out the rest @ http://www.blog.ewebsitegraphicdesign.com/

Don't know if ya'll heard about the Brotha Felipe Smith first brother to get his manga published in Japan. He's black y'all and he got his joint put in a magazine dominated by japanese creators

Felipe Smith

"I'm going to commit suicide..." she said.  "What?" was the murmur from the assembled crowd. 

She began to tremble.

"I can't do it anymore.  I.....don't know ANYTHING!  I don't know how I got here...wherever here is.  I just....was..."

"Come on now honey..." the one closest to her started.  "Stop that nonsense."

The trembling became more of a sway...back and forth. 

tick.....tock....

"I just feel like....I have to go.  I HAVE to leave this place.....make a sacrifice."

Just then, the sky opened.  The beam of light shone on her.

"See......it's for me!  It's my time....."

A great sigh permiated the air as she was lifted. 

The sacrifice...made.

She rolled down my face....that single tear......and helped my soul to heal.

Be careful what you wish for...

Allandra set her dials for landing. “This is the one
Leonardo! I can feel it! Just like the readings indicated!”

“Humph!” her partner retorted, but with a smile in his voice. “ITS says that
every mission. We've never find anything but plants – not even an
animal. And I had my heart set on a pet, space monkey... Why don't
you give it up, babe?”

She laughed throatily. “Now you know I can't do that.” Besides
this time they're right.

The young astronaut couldn't see Leonardo. But she knew he was there,
traveling parallel to her descent. They'd been in space for a week and

both were ready for some R&R, even it was on the surface of an unexplored

planet. Moving through the crusty, mist-filled atmosphere, Allandra reduced

her speed: coasting the tiny ship in.

Her heart sank.

From a distance the dust that surrounded the atmosphere had  given off a
shimmering, mauve glow – hence the name: Red Stone. But up close, it was an

ugly, crater-filled rock covered in red dust.

Intergalactic Space Travel's (IST) readings had been wrong.

The astronaut spotted a plateau between two boulder, a small valley, and
headed for it. She easily maneuvered the ship into a smooth landing.
She was operating a probe: a craft roughly the same size as the small, private

planes so popular during the 21^thcentury. Yet probes had the weapons capacity

and power of the much larger phoenix crafts. Allandra scanned the surface. With

the naked eye, it appeared to be mid-day.
Or whatever passes for mid-day on this desolate rock.

She pressed the blue button on her console, activating a test of the
atmosphere.

“No readings of intelligent life species, no readings of other animal
species,” a mechanized voice intoned. “Oxygen levels too low to sustain

human life. Analysis indicates acceptable levels of toxicity.”

That means it's safe for us to get out.
She activated her ship log, and began speaking. “This is Lieutenant
Allandra Rex, commander of Probe 12. It is 2600 hours Earth Time, Day
seven of the Probe mission. Lieutenant Leonardo Cash and I have
landed on Planet Red Stone. There is no sign of life.”

But we could still find something – oh, I hope so! 

“Preliminary analysis of the planet indicates that there's not enough

oxygen to sustain human life...” Keep it simple and straightforward.

She'd learned this the first year in the space academy.

                                *         *         *

She clicked on her helmet communicator. “How you doing
over there?”

“Copathestic baby,” Leonardo's bass voice responded.

“What about you?”

“Just making the rounds.” She pushed another button on her suit and
Coltrane began to softly play.

Allandra was a curvaceous, yet petite young woman with cafe au lait skin
gray eyes, and shoulder-length, black hair. Many of ITS astronauts
thought her beautiful. Leonardo was no exception. But she had no
interest in romance, unless it was casual.

She' d had her heart broken her first year at ITS Academy by Professor
Sidney Barnes, her mentor. Sidney was a slender, lithe man, ten years
her senior, with piercing blue eyes. He'd easily seduced the
wide-eyed young cadet, who hung on his every word.  Even now Allandra
could remember his touch [censored].

Professor Barnes was exquisite in bed and brilliant. He was also married

with four children – something he managed to keep from her until he'd
had her over and over, in every imaginable position.

Just the thought of him still hurts.

After Professor Barnes Allandra kept her eyes on the stars and the planets

beyond them. They would would give her what she yearned for.

And they would never leave her.

Allandra was born in 2065: 50 years after Planet Earth's decline. The same
year IST began building the probes: lightweight spacecrafts that
could humans could live in for years, if needs be; and that moved
fast enough to break the sound barrier – traveling millions of
miles within weeks.

In 2065, global warning had accelerated. The final stage in Earth's
destruction had begun. Temperatures of 150 degrees scorched the
planet. Tidal waves, monsoons and cyclones tore it apart.

Those who could afford it moved underground. Food became the

world's most valued resource. The rest were herded under domes.
Scientists scurried to genetically reproduce fruits and vegetables –
with horrible side effects.

Money still ruled the world. But money was becoming worthless. That's when

the government saw the writing on the wall and created IST... and the probes:

spacecrafts designed for one purpose, to seek out planets capable of
sustaining human life.

Copyright 2011 Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved

• Hypknowlogy is actually a compliation of all three of by books in one. That's right, the whole trilogy in one book.
• At the end of the book it has a Q&A section where all the questions were those sent in by fans/readers etc.
• This book is currently only available online and even then only available for purchase through my personal online bookstore.
• At this reduced price the purchase of Hypknowlogy is the equivalent to getting one book absolutely FREE.

tell me what you think

They wanted water
Bought it by the spaceship load
Now we have none left

Diabetic blood
Vampire bites and wonders
Why is it so sweet?

Lyons and Grant Multimedia LLC, a newly formed Black owned and operated New York based book publishing company, is now opened for business. Our mission is to give new writers of color the chance to publish and distribute their work when the big publishing house will not.

We are looking for talented Black writers who want to get their stories published and onto the shelves of national bookstores. If you already have a completed manuscript and would like us to evaluate it please contact us at info@lgmmedia.net. If it is already edited we have a distribution network already lined up and can go to print within a month or two. Your book will also be converted into an ebook for distribution to both the iPad and Kindle markets.

We are looking for all genres even short stories. We are also interested in illustrators for cover designs as well as interior graphics.

If you are a writer with a story please forward us the following information:

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Mailing address

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Brief author bio

Synopsis of story

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We are NOT a vanity publishing company. So not everyone’s work will be selected and there are no costs involved. All authors maintain all rights to their work.

Well, it's been an interesting ride this summer writing the Priestess Saga. Doing the initial drafts on my cell phone was also interesting but not my cup of tea. The main thing was to prove it could be done. In the meantime, I think a well woven storyline in the tradition of ancient stories and myths was produced. I do believe those of you who have followed the story all summer will be pleased with the end. As for what's next for the Priestess? Not sure. But, I'm not ruling out anymore stories, just right now I'm going to concentrate on other stuff. Anyway, thanks to those of you who kept up with it all summer and for those of you who discover the Priestess for the first time.

All Hail the Priestess!

I listen to people. It's just what I do. Pay attention to the words, but even more important, I pay close attention to the tone of the voice......the inflection.....the cadence.....Very subtle clues that mean everything. .

The words on my door tell the story...”Lead Jeneice Roberts, Audio Succor”. Not a whole lot to it.....I help people based on the things they decide to share. The only issues arise when my....clients....omit important parts of their “stories”.

My unofficial office is situated on the 8^th floor of the Wilmount building on the northeast side of Linherst, in the great sub-common of Thorson on this ball we call Teeren Prime. I've been here most of my life......since my gens came to help make Teeren Prime habitable. To hear them tell the story, TP was a great wasteland, full of deafening nothing, save for the one water cache just south of the last land mass. At one time, there was great debate over re-organizing the entire planet......allowing the most wealthy first access to whichever acreage they wanted, and leaving the rest of my people to luck and chance. Finally, the planet decided for them....

In 2971, the seven Lower Zone islands suddenly shifted and moved further south. When they were completely out of view of the main mass, a scout drone was sent to investigate. All of the data retrieved indicated that the seven never existed. Imagine that.......the seven prime pieces of real estate....vanished.

No matter what they tried, the Orchestrates could not convince the 6 Primes to reconsider and purchase land on the Main. And the 10 years of construction began.....

Today, Linherst is the cardinal post of TP, housing mostly states and their kindred. On the outskirts, most Ares Elite reside.

Then you have me.

As a genaive, my genfem noticed I had a “talent” for deciphering if someone was lying. She reported this information to the Ares Elite Proper, who suggested intensive testing. It was soon decided that I would be trained to be an Ares Elite Civ, one who works for, but is not part of AE.

The one thing that could jeapordize my position is the one thing I've never shared with anyone. What they call a talent, I call “cast”. It's almost like a faint picture in my head...a scent that no one else can smell.....or just a certain feeling. I've been “casting” for so long, it's truly second nature to me.

Second nature.....

Second chances....

Upon completion of my training, I was given my first appointment as Audio Succor for the AE civ reserves and proceeded to examine ,my first case.

The wife of Grand Marshall Levins had gone missing.

And he lied from the very beginning.

I sequestered him for just under 2 hours. All the while he remained calm and fixated on getting just the right words out.

His last sentence sealed it..... “She was the love of my life....she was my everything....”

I typed on my infopad. “Hmmm.....” just audibly escaped my lips. Grand Marshall Levins sat up straighter in the well appointed young finox leather chair. His sudden movement caused the material to lightly squeal beneath him.

“What is it?” His voice was firm. “Oh......” I placed the pad on my desk. “It's nothing GM Levins....” He interrupted....”Please, call me Aldin.” “O.K. Aldin.....” I stood and crossed to the front of my desk, purposely obscuring his possible view of the infopad. 'Lady Levins has been missing for just over a week. The AEP have looked into every possible explanation....situation.....route......but nothing has turned up. Her family on Rolant has not heard from her, and she has not been recorded as taking a transport off of Teeren Prime. And speaking to you.....to be honest......” I shifted my gaze to meet his. “Well, it poses more questions than it answers.”

His facial expression shifted from a look of absolution to slight confusion.

“Such as?” he demanded. “What question? What questions?” His body language intensified; changed....became more guarded. I felt my pulse rate increase.......heat began to build in my ears.

“Well....Aldin.....” I rested back on my desk. “It took you three days to admit her as missing.....”

“Yes...” he interrupted. “See, Larise has this habit of going off on her own sometimes. I didn't think anything of it until I hadn't heard anything from her....”

“O.K. So you just now deem it important to share this information?”

He turned his face slowly to the side. “I......It should be in the initial report.....”

“I studied the report before this meeting, and there is absolutely no mention of her solo sojourns....”

“Look civ....” his demeanor seemed a touch hostile. “You need to process this information and find my wife!”

“Find your wife? We both know where your wife is.....Aldin.....”

I pressed the indented area on the call unit to summon the in house cap/core team.

He rose from his seated position and smoothed his hand through his thinning hair. His back looked tense, revealing the fight or flight response. I hoped he made the right decision.

“How.......My life......Over......”

The partitian glowed the emergency red for a split second before retreating to allow cap/core access.

“GM Levins.....” The civ attired agent spoke with absolute authority. “Your duty is forefit.”

I averted my gaze, yet I knew what was to come.....

The agent closed the gap between himself and GM Levins. He positioned his dominant hand at the base of Aldin's neck and performed the gene extraction through a small pinprick. Through the same entry point, the injection flowed.

It took a matter of seconds for GM Levins to fall to the floor in a hump of flesh that would never again know a normal life.

One of the Cap/core agents knelt beside him and secured the thin strap around his neck, making sure the command node was situated on the injection site. The light flickered a barely visible yellow prompting GM Levins to stand. “Protocol Delta Prime 4....” The agent spoke aloud. “Follow...” And with that, GM Aldin Levins proceeded behind the agent through the partitian.

“Lead Roberts.....” the remaining agent began. “Please.....

I interrupted....”I know........report.....” I slumped in my chair. “ As soon as Vid forwards the encoded pod recording to me......” He seemed to sense my irritation. “Yes ma'am...” I was happy to see him leave. The vapor at the entrance swirled and settled into the solid closure. It was still clear so I spoke “mute” and the opening became more opaque.

Even after all the times during my intern I had witnessed the agents perform this task, it still seemed to suck the energy from me. My entire being felt listless and wasted. But, as usual, protocol demanded it.

I took a deep breath in an effort to compose myself....while in the back of my mind, a vivid show of what awaited GM Levins haphazardly rolled on like a feature film.

“Jeneice.....” The call unit glowed a faint green. I waved my finger down the right side to respond. “Daylyn.....What is it?” “Just wanted to know if you cared to do a late lunch......”

LYONS & GRANT MULTIMEDIA LLC (LGM), is ready to release their first novel "Supernature" penned by H.V.Lyons. They are looking for reviewers who are interested in reading and writing a review on this upcoming science fiction adventure novel.

The story was inspired by song writer Jean-Marc Cerrone's 1977 smash hit song by the same name, Supernature is a story about genetic engineering gone awry. After a series of strange incidents in the Arizona desert along with unexplained disappearances on a California beach an unlikely team of investigators and scientists join together to unravel a mystery of global proportions. Something is causing animals around the world to mutate, evolve and breed at an accelerated rate endangering the lives of thousands. All of the evidence points to a substance created by a suspected eco-terrorist working for the world’s largest biotechnology company. It becomes a race against time to find a solution to halt the spread of the mass mutations. If they fail it could mean the end of man kind.

So far the reviews have been positive. Here are a few:

This is a great science fiction read. - Barbara Hightower

The story goes full speed ahead. - Ami Blackwelder

This book gave me the creeps, but held my interest. - Brenda M. Lisbon

If you enjoy a suspenseful sci-fi thriller, then Supernature is an excellent choice. - Roger Wilson

Contact us NOW info@lgmmedia.net

www.lgmmedia.net

From the ansible memoires of Exalted Scout, Glendale Mokoto, Hero of the Exodus Wars and the Fall of Earth. These are an amalgam of the earliest recordings before he was presumed lost one hundred years ago.

Two hundred years ago, I was nothing special. I had no extraordinary abilities or talents. I was not blessed with superhuman strength like members of the New Order, genetically manipulated to be the perfect human specimens, trained and bred to be the ultimate warrior protectors of the human race.

I did not augment my mind with sentient mechanical intelligence like the Cognoseti, who became human predictors of the future of man. It was their wisdom that discovered the Earth's greatest hidden secret; that we were not the first creatures on Earth to evolve into sentience. These human machine hybrids would later house the first true machine-descended intelligences in human history.

I did not mingle my DNA with those of animal species to garner advantages lost by the development of our bigger brains. The Transformed, whose malleable DNA allows them to absorb genetic traits of other species, would lead our Humanity in the exploration of new worlds after we lost our home in the Sol System.

You see, I was just a baseline human, good genes, nice teeth, good skin, and until it fell out in my fiftieth year, a nice head of hair. Two hundred years ago, I was also the most celebrated hero; indeed, I was the last hero of the Exodus of Man. They named a starship after me, they named a continent after me, they named thousands of children after me. And to me that is a strange thing, seeing how I did not actually survive the experience.

To ponder this, and to explain why you are now able to know any of this, you have to know a bit more about Old Earth.

I remember the stink of the war. It got up into your nose and never left. You could smell the burning flesh, the expended rounds, the fear, exhilaration, the bloodlust, the sheer terror of the Henrenki boiling up out of the ground in every major city on the planet.

I remember the fighting, the endless fighting, the bravery of those young men, their ceaseless dying, wheat before the scythe. When we retreated, the Henrenkai came, wave after wave, like the ocean filling in the beach of our dead. I remember them swarming over our positions, and even with machine guns blazing, bullets tearing into their nacreous, resilient flesh, they kept coming.

Things looked hopeless until the New Men appeared, with their mysterious talk about the Art of War, talk of the brush strokes of their weapons, their mastery of the battle-dance. In those days, all we knew of war was the spastic struggling of the uninitiated to battle. We had been too long at peace. Our struggles for survival, even before He came, all but absorbed our attention. But even after generations of peace, we were still a warlike species and returned reluctantly to the field of battle. Every man woman and child was armed because this was a war without quarter and without mercy.

When the Cognoseti revealed His existence, He rose from the oceans, the Ancient Enemy of all who live in our galaxy. We did not know He was legendary. We did not know what scars He and His kind had swept across the face of the galactic empire. We did not know what He wanted, only that He destroyed all that we had, with malice and forethought. We did learn one thing: when He rose from the Pacific Ocean, we realized the nature of our enemy, He had the might of an entire world, buried within our own.

Mechanically-sentient, He created weapons like the Henrenkai from His very flesh, the organo-mechanical body in which He fell to Earth billions of years ago and hid in the iron core of our planet. He hid because He was pursued by the greatest species our galaxy had ever spawned. He hid and waited until they passed away or forgot; we are not sure which. When He arose again, He had been all but forgotten by everyone in the galaxy. How could they not; nearly three billion of our years had passed while he slumbered.

So we were forced to fight Him on our own, tiny simians against a god-like machine who had tried to enslave an entire galaxy. He fought us on land, sea, air, and even in space. What could we do against an enemy so incredibly powerful? He destroyed a third of the human race and had barely awakened. We lost all hope.

Then we received a signal from space. It appeared on every communication band, every wavelength, every technology, all at once. If you were watching anything, listening to anything, it appeared and told you to be ready. A prophecy had sent them back to us, and it was now time to leave our world. They told us to gather as much of our world as we could carry. We did not understand, but we gathered our resources, every animal, every plant, every insect we thought we could find and catalog. We even set aside entire islands, marked with force fields to make them stand out.

We had no idea of what the Sjurani were capable back then. We did not know what to expect, but their message gave us hope, so we fought on.

I remember the first time I saw their ships. They blotted out the sun. We fought a retreating battle to their designated pick up points, and they gathered us up with tractor beams, entire cities, whole islands. It was rumored they took the entire African continent. They landed in their reptilian regalia and fought alongside us, as terrifying as the Henranki in their own way. Garishly colored in silks and metal, reptilian, festooned with gem-encrusted scales, loud, large, and boisterous; think of Old Earth fraternity boys armed with plasma cannons and rocket launchers and you will know something of the Rex, a warrior-breed of the Sjurani. They helped us hold the line against the Ancient Enemy while we fled. They claimed they were dinosaurs who had been born on Earth millions of years in the past. We were too desperate to care. And too foolish to realize why that was more important than we knew at the time.

Evacuation took two weeks, and I and my battle-brothers stayed and fought until the very last ships were leaving the planet. Hundreds of millions were moved to ships every day, each scarred with the loss of someone or something precious.

The Sjurani told us He was soon to waken. Once that happened, we would stand no chance at all. The Ancient Enemy had only one agenda, and that was leaving the Earth. And we could never allow that. Our planet's gravity well was the only thing that prevented Him from opening a gateway to another Universe.

But we could take the fight to Him: A suicide mission. We fought to reach the Ancient Enemy and infiltrated Him with the help of Sjurani technology. We carried into Him an antimatter weapon, created by the Sjurani, with the force of a billion Hiroshima bombs. A weapon far more powerful than anything Humanity could ever create. His arrogance in being shielded from outside, made him believe he was invulnerable. Once inside His armored shell, we could use short range teleportation to penetrate deep into His neural network. Three groups entered the alien machine. Even if all three were successful, they told us our weapons would not kill Him. But we could wound Him, perhaps even lobotomize Him, for a time.

This would allow the two hundred million humans who agreed to stay behind to cover the final retreat. The West Coast of North America was destroyed in this final battle. The Rocky Mountains are all that remain of that coastline. One billion humans left the Earth in that two week period with some of the most terrifying fighting ever seen in any war, any conflict.

Once the antimatter was placed, I, the last survivor of three dozen of the finest warriors of two races, made my way to the surface, killing everything in my path. I waited. The never-ending supply of Henrenkai continued to boil forth from the Ancient enemy. In that last moment before detonation, I lay down my exhausted weapon and the Henrenkai stopped, confused by the act.

With seconds remaining, I assumed the battle occurring in space had interrupted my teleport, and I resolved myself to dying, free of anger and the corruption of war. I vowed never to wage war again. My death would keep my promise.

I opened my arms and the battle-enraged Henrenkai charged me, their razor sharp talons poised to shred flesh from bones. In those final seconds, time slowed as I watched them. Close to me, I studied them in a way I had never before. Their anatomy was a marvel: Bones of carbon fullerenes, talons sharper than the sharpest steel. Wide, predator-set eyes, excellent for determining the distance to me, their prey. I could smell their hot breath, a cinnamon overtone, and I closed my eyes, ready for death. No fighting, no resistance. I felt the antimatter as it detonated. A shockwave swept through me. I could feel it in my very atoms.

Suddenly, I could see the blast wave of energy and could feel my atoms snatched away protectively within the teleport sheath. I felt my body dying as the waves of antimatter, converted to gamma rays and cosmic radiation, were transformed into the most powerful kind of destruction in our universe, in the perfect release, the ultimate annihilation of matter. No man can ever say he sat in the heart of a star and lived to tell others of it. Neither could I. It would have been breathtaking if I had a breath to take.

In that eternal second, I violated causality and was in two places at one time. I was trapped in the containment field, experiencing a quantum reality, existing in two places and in neither. I was onboard the ship in a viewing chamber teleported, so they thought, to allow me, with the remnants of my species, to see the death of my world. Such a weapon would destroy the Earth as we knew it. I watched, both detached at a distance and intimately aware of the death throes of my home planet.

For a moment, as I violated causality, I could be anywhere and any when; I moved through time and space, and I could see the Ancient Enemy's arrival on Earth three billion years ago, fleeing, He crashed into a small planet in an unidentified star system with a small yellow star. I could feel His terror, I could feel His near dissolution, His flesh, burned with a fire like a solar flare, tearing His substance apart. He submerged Himself into our planet, and the rocky surface extinguished those flames and His terror subsided. He sank into our world, and His screams grew quieter, until after an eon, He slept and forgot.

As I stood there in the middle of the greatest energy release since His arrival, I realized He would not die. He would survive just as He did before. Our work was almost in vain. His massive, nearly indestructible bulk would provide one benefit. Those who remained behind would not be wiped out from the weapon. They would be stranded on a world still trying to kill them. The thought was terrible, and the last thing I remembered.

I was the last human to leave the Earth two hundred years ago, an unwitting and unwilling hero of a war we all but lost.

I woke several years later on our way to Toranor, a system of Gaian super-worlds created by a race of highly-advanced beings called The Precursors. No other race in the galaxy has ever come close to their level of technological capability. They were as far beyond even our Sjurani benefactors as we were beyond ants.

The Toranor star system had trillions of sentients living in harmony in what was called the jewel of the Corvan Empire. Now homeless, Humanity and the Sjurani were offered a place on one of their lesser worlds. I knew I would never call this place home. I had seen too much, done too much. There would be nothing for me here.

All that I valued died with Earth.

I asked what a single man could do in an Empire of sentients with magnificent technologies, making our human achievements, even in the year of our Lord 2475, seem like children's toys? How could I distinguish myself?

By providing the one thing all Empires need: New boundaries. I became a Scout. I was told the role of a Scout was a solitary one. I would be provided a robot companion if I desired. My job would be to map stars toward the center of the galaxy for planets capable of being terraformed by the Mariovel at some point in the future. I was promised the knowledge of the Empire at my fingertips and all the time of my life to read and learn it.

It was then the Sjurani revealed to me that I had died during the teleportation. They had never tried to teleport during an antimatter explosion. No one ever had. My mind was able to be reconstructed, but my body had died. They took my mind and placed it within a robotic shell that mimicked my own form so well that I was never aware of the change at any time.

I was angered at first. I walked around for almost a year, on Galtan II, our new home, knowing something was different, but not knowing what. Galtan II was like all of the worlds of Toranor, beautiful, diverse, fantastic. The knowledge that all of these worlds were created by a sentient species that was not God, boggled the imagination. Imagine a star system with twenty habitable worlds. The knowledge would turn our ideas of science and religion on their ears.

Galtan II boasted a forest that spanned the entire equatorial band of the planet, one giant forest whose myriad trees were connected by their root system into one organic supercomputer, a single hive mind which could separate segments of itself to communicate with other forms of life. One of the most amazing world-minds in this part of the empire. Yes, there were others. Since the Botani did not choose to live in the colder parts of the planet, we were offered the other two thirds of the world to live responsibly on. With the technology of the Sjurani supporting our own, we could be good neighbors.

The Sjurani told me that what they did, they did for love of my heroic sacrifice. They created an entire technology around saving my life. I learned later they held my psychic resonance in an energy field that consumed the energy of a world for years. I felt guilty once I learned what was done on my behalf.

I learned that my condition, once successful, because of my heroic stature, spurred a whole division of baseline humans to make the transition to the robotic. We were called The Transcended. They gave up their flesh to become the first robotic-human hybrids. Were there consequences? Certainly, but none of them ever considered it an unfair trade, except perhaps for me. I would have liked to have had the choice.

When I was appointed a Scout, the Corvan empire made a starship for me; since I was no longer a living organic, they made something faster than had ever been created before. I named it Hayward's Reach after a small seaside town where I lived the quiet life of a writer before the end of the world came for us all. Before activating the ship, the greatest generals, admirals, and Sjurani Rex came to see me off. They said wonderful things, heroic things about me and my sacrifices. I didn't listen.

All I could hear was the loneliness. No, the alone-ness that space offered me. I thanked them. I climbed aboard my ship and synchronized my ansible to an ansible station here on Galtan II which would relay my reports. Since an ansible could only be paired once, something about quantum entanglement, it was the most critical thing I could do unless I wanted to communicate relativistically.

My pilot was a Conscentia, a sentient intelligence housed in the mechanical body of a woman. She was the first of her kind, a mechanical version of myself. I started life as a man and became a machine. She started a machine and became a woman.

Her name was Pele. She named herself after the mythical goddess of the legendary Hawaiian Islands that are no more. When I asked her about her name, she said once she had studied human history. The tale of the Hawaiians fascinated her, and she had taken it upon herself to study all of the notes on Earth's Polynesian cultures. Our ship was equipped with a distillation of all of the knowledge of the human race. We would also have an upstream of new ideas and achievements when time and bandwidth permitted. When I asked her why she was coming with me, she said since she would never get to see Hawaii, the next best thing was to discover a place like it somewhere else.

She arranged our path through the empire and indicated we would reach the edge of the Empire in as little as three jumps and three months using their Gate system. After that, we would be on our own, moving at approximately thirty-two times the speed of light. It would take us three thousand years to cross the galaxy. We would be taking the scenic route, flying through as many star- dense systems as possible. We were the fastest things in the Empire, streaking away from all that I knew, and I was glad to be doing it. It was unlikely we would survive the journey across the galaxy. The Sjurani estimated we might live for four hundred years with careful maintenance. We promised to change our oil regularly. Pele laughed. The Sjurani just looked quizzically at me.

Sitting down, I called up a data-screen. The words were queued up from earlier in the day, waiting for me. Pele was sitting at the nav station monitoring the ebb and flow of the aether. I read out loud as would become a tradition for the two of us in the decades to come: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."  

I had always wanted to read A Tale of Two Cities, and at that moment, it seemed appropriate. I never had the time before. Taking my companion's hand, this new season of light illuminated our souls as we fled into the core of the galaxy, to see things no man had seen before. I, once being the most ordinary of men, had transcended the human experience for something never done before. It was, indeed, the best of times.

Hayward's Reach © Thaddeus Howze, 2011, All Rights Reserved