River of Lethe
By: Kelly
To Max, my friend. Congratulations.
Prologue
"Heads up! Bowl cut Jake is behind that tree with a sniper," Max cried, as airsoft bullets peppered the dense shrub, behind which he and Kelly rested.
"I'll pop up and spray, while you run around and try to cut them off," Kelly said, nodding his gun muzzle towards a faint path.
Instead, Max pulled out a grenade apparatus.
"Plan B," he responded with a wry smile. Pulling the pin, he tossed it towards the tree, and took off running, Kelly close in tow.
They dashed along the path. Suddenly, Kelly ran into the back of Max, who had abruptly stopped still.
"What the fu…" Kelly began, until he saw at what Max was staring. In the middle of a small wildflower clearing, a black egg, roughly twice the size of an ostrich egg, stood. Max approached the egg slowly, gun falling out of his hand. He reached out towards the egg, paused, and turned around.
"Together," he said, with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. He and Kelly both knelt across from each other over the egg.
"One, two, three." At the moment of contact with the egg, their eyes roll into the backs of their heads, as they fell to the side, and saw nothing but blackness.
Kelly groggily raised one eyelid after the other, peering around what looked to be a lichen-covered cavern, two tunnels running in either direction, with faint natural light coming from both directions and from a natural skylight directly above. Suddenly, he saw Max run into the cavern from one of the tunnels, excitedly panting.
"Kelly, let's go! You have to come meet them," Max said. Kelly noticed his blue eyes now had prominent streaks of brilliant, almost ominous green in them.
"Meet, who?" Kelly stumbled out. A nagging suspicion and fear began to creep through his mind.
"I can't quite explain it. They told me you have to follow me now. Wait until you hear what they are capable of, of their plans to change our species, our planet!" Max yelled.
Something deep,intuitive inside of Kelly told him he shouldn't follow his friend.
"No, Max. Cut this shit out. Let's find a way to get home."
The streaks of green flashed as Max yelled, "No! I'm not going home. Nothing there can compare to them. You have to come with me."
"I won't Max. I don't know how I know it, but I shouldn't go."
Max cocked his head to the side, his stare gazing vacantly past Kelly's head, as though listening to his inner voice.
"No, I can't kill him! He's my friend," he mumbled.
Kelly reeled in shock, and yelled, "What the fuck did you just say?"
"I won't do it," he said to seemingly himself, still staring past Kelly. "If you make me do this, I'll end myself too," as he pulled a pocket knife out of his pocket.
Kelly began to say something, but froze as he saw Max shut his eyes in a tight grimace, slowly shake his head, then look back at him.
"I have to go now Kelly. They promised you won't die. I wish you could see what is possible with them." With a forlorn look into his friend's eyes, Max turned and ran back down the tunnel from which he came.
1
"Jonathan?" Neeko exclaimed, as the suspected host of his reality show nightmare walked into the cold room. "You need to explain to us right now what the fuck is going on. What the fuck were all those experiments, those creatures in that lab?"
The man coolly examined the remaining participants in the room, shivering. Irene was still on the ground with her injured leg, while Johnny and Miljan were tending her bandages. Six heavily armed soldiers had followed Jonathan in, yet they bore no insignia of a government.
"Relax, Neeko. You have all done quite well; you've done more for the human race than you can possibly imagine," Jonathan said with a hard smile. "For ten years, the Russian and American governments have been cooperating in a series of experiments to test Earth organisms' capacities for interactions with extraterrestrial beings.."
"Like aliens and shit?" Johnny cried.
"Silence," Jonathan warned, brandishing a small pistol in his direction. "This was the final test. You all passed marvelously," his smile widening.
A soldier approached with a ringing phone. The words "Aktaion Energy" could be faintly overheard in the brief conversation, before Jonathan took the move, and instructed the soldiers to keep everyone still. The soldiers assembled an intimidating position with arms raised as Jonathan stepped aside for a few minutes to take the call. When he returned, he instructed Miljan, Irene, Sabina, and Johnny to follow him. With a curt nod to his soldiers, he led the four out. On their way down the stairs, the five could hear a spattering of gunfire and several cries ring out from above.
"What did you do, you bastard," Miljan spit at him. Jonathan simply continued, although pulling a sub-machine gun out of a duffel bag in his hands. They reached a military supply truck outside. Jonathan instructed the four to get into the back, where he plastic zipped all of their hands behind their backs. They watched as he left the back of the truck, the canvas flap closing behind him.
"All of them are taken care of?" Jonathan said.
"Yes, sir," came a thickly Russian accent.
"Very good. Your planet thanks you for your service." Before they could react, he mowed his colleagues down with a burst of rapid fire from his gun. Job finished, he threw the gun down among the bodies with a small satisfied grin. He was greeted with looks of horror and confusion as he returned to the back of the truck, blindfolding each of the four. Before the black hood slipped over Miljan's head , he could swear he saw bright green lines coursing through Jonathan's maniac eyes.
2
"These bugs are enough to drive somebody absolutely fucking crazy," Dr. Hoffman said, swatting his exposed neck.
"Hope you had your malaria vaccination," Mike Tomley gruffly chuckled. "You must have some sweet blood, Hoffman."
The two were accompanied by a younger colleague from the Smithsonian Institute, Dr. Bailey Richards. They had come down to the Bolivian corner of the Amazon rainforest to study the gender structures of various native tribes. For four days, they had traipsed through dense jungle, canoed down muddy rivers, and battled the various insects at night, literally fighting for a few hours of sleep. Now, however, they were only a few hours of hiking from their target village.
"Jesus Christ, I am never going to complain about the humidity in DC again," Dr. Richards said. "Compared to this shit, it's …" She paused, craning her neck.
Tomley stopped behind her, beginning to ask what was up before she cut him off. She seemed to be focusing her hearing on something, though all the other two could hear was the cacophony of bird calls and and other signs of wildlife.
"Don't you hear that?" Richards asked. "It's some sort of pure frequency, almost too high to be intelligible." Before either of her fellow scientists could respond, she bounded to her left, rapidly pushing aside bushes and ducking below trees. The other two attempted to follow as quickly as they could, but not being as nimble as their younger female counterpart, they trailed behind.
"Bailey!" Hoffman cried. "Wait a moment! Where the fuck are you going?" Tomley was about the yell as well, but suddenly they rounded a large boulder and saw Richards standing at the edge of a clearing. None of them could manage a single word. In the middle of the clearing, sitting atop a stone seat, sat a statue of a young man. He was handsome, terribly so; he didn't seem to be made of stone, but rather an ancient brown, almost like the color of petrified trees.
"Get the satellite phone out," Richards said breathlessly. "We need to call DC."
3
Photos of friends and prized hunting kills lined James Rennie's congressional office. The big, bald man was sitting in his plush leather chair, staring across the desk at a slender blonde teenage boy and a ginger girl with a monstrously large forehead.
"What's going on, Big Jim?" the boy asked. "Why did we come here?"
"I couldn't get ahold of Barbie, so you two were the best I could get. I overheard something odd in the lunchroom of the Capitol, during a conversation between the director of the Smithsonian and another senator. It was something about a strange anachronistic statue found in the Amazon, emitting some type of noise," Big Jim gruffly said.
The two looked at each other.
"What does that have to do with us?" Norrie asked. Big Jim fished a tape recording device out of his desk.
"Just have a listen to this. I managed to find a sample of the frequency the statue was emitting." He clicked play. After just a few seconds of listening, Joe and Norrie's eyes went wide with recognition.
"That's the frequency you sang, Joe. To bring the… to bring it down," Norrie said weakly.
"I suspected as much," Big Jim said. "Get your passports ready. We're going to Bolivia."
4
Jonathan's breath fogged up the window as he stared at the passing grey streets of Moscow. Not a word had been spoken in the town car between his driver and him, since he had been picked up at the airport. As the car smoothly slowed to a stop, Jonathan heard the door across from him open and softly shut.
"Hello Dawn," he said, almost tiredly. "I found what we needed: four perfect anomalies. They were tested as much as possible." Dawn's black eyes examined him carefully.
"You understand there is absolutely no room for error, Jonathan. Every single human must join the kinship this time. If even one of the four don't function, the Earth's magnetic field may not wholly hold the dome. We can't have an dissidents this time; you know what happened in Chester's Mill…"
"Yes, I fucking know!" Jonathan exploded, the green in his eyes flaring as he glanced at her.
"Where are they, by the way?" Dawn asked, not disturbed by Jonathan's outburst.
"Safe," he replied. He returned his gaze out the window, as the car continued to wind through Moscow.
5
Big Jim, Norrie, and Joe deboarded their Avianca flight into Santa Cruz de Bolivia, slightly groggy and moving slowly. That changed quickly, however, when a dusty blonde man with a chiseled jaw came up to greet them.
"Barbie!" the two younger ones cried, as they embraced their old friend heartily. Barbie gave the two a big smile and greeted Big Jim with a firm handshake.
"Jim told me you guys may need my help, again," he said with a small grin. "I've got a car waiting for us. I called the head scientist with the number you gave me, Jim; they'll meet us there. It's about a three hour drive, then an hour hike. Hope you brought your bug spray."
All four exited the airport into the humid Bolivian air, then slid into an idling Land Rover. The drive was uneventful, the hike often was miserable - with Big Jim seemingly cursing without pause - yet soon they met the three scientists, standing near a large boulder with a friendly yet concerned expression.
"As you requested, Jim, we haven't filed our full report back to DC yet. It's just around the corner; you're going to want to see this," Dr. Hoffman said. Richards and Tomley turned and led the group to the clearing. Norrie and Joe had heard the frequency for about 30 minutes, yet now as they faced the statue, it was almost frighteningly loud.
"There's no mistaking it," Joe whispered to Norrie, as they inched closer. "It's the same frequency." Joe looked at Norrie, and she gave him a slight nod. They held hands and began to sing the frequency in harmony, facing the statue.
"What's going on here?" Tomley asked, starting to approach the pair, but Barbie stuck out a hand to stop him, and gave him a calm nod of reassurance.
The two continued. Gasps of surprise and shock arose among the other five, as they noticed the pallid brown tone of the statue slowly dim, replaced by a more vivid, lifelike color. They continued for several minutes, until the boy was fully colored again. His eyes shot open, and their song ended. He looked almost newborn for a few blinks, gazing around curiously, yet not quite in fear. He made eye contact with Norrie, then stumbled slowly of the chair. Joe and Norrie rushed over to help support him.
"Where am I? Who are all of you?" the boy slowly asked. His eyes shifted quickly to each member in succession.
"We would like to know the same thing about you." Big Jim demanded. The boy simply shook his head.
"I wish I knew. I don't remember my name, or from where I come. All I can remember is a faint image of a forest, another boy, and a cave of some sort. That's it."
"Well we need.." Big Jim began, but was cut off by Barbie.
"Let's just get him out of here and back to DC. A little rest may refresh some of his memory, and I can't stand one more minute in this humid hell hole." The three scientists began to protest, but something about Jim and Barbie's demeanours put them off.
"You're sure this place will do, Jim?" Barbie asked, looking around him at the neon lights and slightly dirty laminate countertops of the diner. The place was empty besides the middle-aged waitress and two older men at a far table. CNN was playing on several TVs.
"This is where the powerful of DC come to not be seen, trust me," Big Jim responded. He looked at the boy, who was nursing a cup of black coffee. "Thought of anything else, yet?" The boy shook his head, somewhat apologetically.
"Look at the TV!" Joe interjects. A representative from Aktaion Energy was being interviewed by a CNN reporter, and the group could just make out the closed captioning: "renewable energy…. Earth's magnetic field…. Tower installations every five hundred thousand sequare miles…"
"What do they think about this in the House Committee on Energy and Infrastructure, Jim?" Barbie asked. Jim was about to respond when the boy sat up straight at the TV and gasped. A picture of Jonathan had just appeared, the caption announcing the wealthy benefactor's role in the project. The boy stared for several moments at the face, then suddenly fainted onto the table.
The boy felt as though he was flying, as he gazed at a large, opaque dome, seemingly plunged in the middle of the vast pine forest. Suddenly, the dome explodes in a blinding light. When the boy looks back, trees are flattened in every direction, pointing outward from the point in which the dome was but a moment before. He flies closer, to where the absolute middle of the large dome just was. Nine men are standing there, clothed in heavy brown furs. He can't make out their faces, until the one in the middle looks up, makes eye contact, and beckons to him. The boy holds the man's fierce look for a second, before plummeting to Earth.
"Try again Joe. More ice," Norrie said hurriedly, looking at the slumped figure. Suddenly, the boy stirred, then shot straight up in his seat.
"I have to go," he mumbled, his eyes vacant.
"What the fuck was that?" Big Jim asked. "What did you see?" The boy began to explain the vision, noticing that their faces went ashen at the mention of a large dome. After he had finished the description of the explosion and flattened trees, Joe quickly pulled out his phone.
"Why does that sound familiar.." he muttered softly. He flipped his phone around, and showed the boy the screen. Instantly, the boy nodded in affirmation.
"That's it." Underneath the Google search item "Tunguska Event", the screen showed various images in black and white or color of a vast crater-like field with flattened trees.
The others begin to pepper the boy with questions about the dome.
"I don't know," he said. "That is the first time I have seen something like it. Why are you so interested in this." Barbie began to respond, but Big Jim interrupted.
"We all have secrets kid," pointedly staring at the boy. "Some are better left unsaid at the time being. Do you have a location on that crater, Joe?"
Joe paused, then responded, "It's in Siberia." The others dropped the gazes.
"From South America to the cold ass tip of Russia in 24 hours," Barbie sighed. He looked at Big Jim and said, "I have a hunch we are going to want to know the location of Jonathan. Any chance you can get some intel, JIm?"
Before Big JIm could respond, Joe said quickly, "We have a friend from the d… from before, at the NSA. His name is Hunter."
6.
Big Jim and Barbie both had furrowed brows of concern as the SUV careened along the icy roads, dense pine tree forests creating an hi max impenetrable border on either side. Silence had subsided over the group for the majority of the time since the episode in the diner, all worried about the future and, for all but the boy, worried about their desperately forgotten past resurfacing.
"From the humidity of that fucking jungle to this icy shit show, we're seeing the unfriendliest corners of the Earth right now," Big Jim grumbled. "For once, I'd actually like to be back in…" He couldn't finish his thought, however, as he had to press the brake as hard as possible, causing the SUV to skid to an abrupt stop. Standing in the middle of the narrow road was a small girl, wrapped in a dense parka with a fur hood over her head.
"What the fuck…" Barbie said, putting his hand on his holster. Big Jim shook his head briefly at Barbie, then motioned for everyone to get out of the car. As the five approached, the girl had a neutral expression on her face, though her eyes never left the boy. Slowly, the girl raised her arm, pointing at the boy for a few moments, then turned and began walking into the forest. The boy looks at the others with an air of shocked surprise, then with a slight shrug begins to follow the girl. As soon as Barbie and Big Jim began to tail, however, the girl stops again, turns, and points solely at the boy.
"It's okay," he said shakily. "For some reason, I think I do have to go alone." He followed the small child for about ten minutes, silently winding along a faintly trodden path along the snow. She looked back briefly, before turning the corner. The boy stopped in his tracks; nine men were standing in front of a large cave entrance, all clothed in similar furs. They had an ancient look about them, a deep wisdom deeply set in their eyes. The little girl approached the man in the center of the nine, hugging him at his midriff. The man was large and muscular, with a thick black beard, yet responded to the girl tenderly. He then nodded at the boy knowingly, before walking into the entrance of the cave, grabbing a torch from just inside. The boy entered as well, followed by the remaining eight men and the girl. The chief man continued until the cave opened up a bit, where he lit a string of torches along the walls that illuminated the small cavern. The boy noticed a similar tunnel led away, across from where they had come. The man then held the boy's eyes for a moment, then pointed at the wall to the right.
As the boy approached the wall, his breath quickly left his body. A series of primitive drawings were sketched onto the dark stone in a spiral. Their images were still legible, yet the fading ink suggested these were quite ancient.
The first, a large half circle around a small village - the dome.
The second, a dark-skinned woman with black hair, staring outwards.
The third, four pink stars, arranged in perfect symmetry.
The fourth, fallen trees and two eggs, one black, one white.
The fifth, two boys running through a forest.
The sixth, a statue of a seated boy, with dark hair.
The seventh, a large man giving the seated boy a white egg.
The eighth, at the middle of the spiral and directly below the fifth, two boys, each with an egg, one black, one white.
The boy's gaze lingered for a moment, as some primal emotion began to surface from deep within. His mind raced as he processed the images.
"Max," he mumbled, from some hidden well of memory. The boy stared for one last eternal moment, then slowly turned back around. The man was standing in the middle of his men again; he had tears welling up in his eyes, as he cradled a large white egg. The man and the boy shared some transcendent moment that could never be captured by spoken word. Then, the man gently handed the egg to the little girl, who approached the boy again, transferring the egg to his arms. As she took one of his hands in hers, she pointed towards the tunnel that led back out to the forest. The nine men began leaving one by one down the opposing tunnel, until finally just the girl and boy were left. With one final squeeze of his hand, she too departed down the tunnel.
As the boy approached the road again, he could overhear Big Jim talking to someone on the phone, facing away from the others. The boy instantly drew the other's faces as he reappeared; each turned silent and ashen immediately.
"Just talked to Hunter," Big Jim began, turning around. "He found…" A moment of stunned silence passed, eyes darting between the egg and the boy's equally startled face, before pulling out his handgun and angrily aiming it at the boy. "Where the fuck did you find that?"
"Hold on Jim." Barbie stepped in between the two, then asked diplomatically, "tell us what happened. The boy carefully described the small tribe of men, the cave, and finally the series of cave paintings.
"The same thing happened to them, but how did they get this?" Joe muttered, nodding toward the egg.
"Listen, I still don't understand what is going on, truly. I have never seen any of those men before in my life, and I don't have any clue what happened to all of you. Something in those cave paintings triggered something in my memory, about two boys. I have a suspicion we need to find that man on the TV. Jonathan," the boy said. Big Jim examined him closely, his handgun still half raised, before exhaling a heavy sigh.
"I just got off the phone with Hunter," Big Jim said. "He has been tracking Jonathan for the past few hours, but his digital trail just disappeared."
"Where was the last place he was seen," Norrie asked.
Big Jim fell silent again, a look passing over his face that the boy hadn't seen before, but instilled the deepest fear in Barbie, Joe, and Norrie,
"Chester's Mill."
7
Big Jim, Norrie, Barbie, and Joe all stopped for a minute, exhaling deeply as they saw for the first time in a while the large water tower that read "Chester's Mill".
"It feels surreal, doesn't it," Joe said. His heart panged every time he thought of the town due to the death of his gorgeous sister, Angie.
"So, did your NSA friend tell you where Jonathan is?" the boy asked, growing impatient.
"Not exactly," Barbie said. "Unfortunately, I think I have a pretty good idea where they are," muttering something into Big Jim's ear. Big Jim nodded sullenly, then turned the car off the main street, heading out towards the city outskirts. It was approaching sundown as the boy saw the massive abandoned factory loom ahead.
"Park here," Barbie whispered. "Kill the lights, and we'll sneak around back. Jim, don't hesitate with your pistol." Barbie pulled an extendable automatic machine gun out of his duffel bag. He led the group through a slightly adjacent door. The factory smelled musty and old, clearly not having seen use in several years. Barbie ducked down an alcove that the boy hadn't even seen, which led to a subterranean passage. The passage slowly transitioned from concrete steps to unpaved damp Earth. They followed the tunnel for several minutes before hearing a voice ahead. Quickly, they ducked behind a large object, Big Jim and Barbie peering around into the opening. For only one of several times in his life, Barbie was petrified with fear. Four figures sat in Earthen seats, petrified like the boy had been. A lithe black woman had her hands on the fourth, seemingly finishing up the petrification process. She had dark hair; the boy was reminded of the cave painting with a shudder. An empty concave crater was in the exact middle of the four seats. Aside it, resting atop a smooth onyx stone pillar, was a black egg.
"He should be here," the boy softly muttered to himself. Suddenly, Big Jim un-holstered his pistol, brandishing it wildly and emerging into the softly lighted clearing.
"Turn around slowly, Dawn," he yelled. "Put your hands in the air." Dawn paused, seemingly unfazed, and rotated with a wry smile on her face that made Big Jim's blood run cold.
"Hello, James," she said coolly. "Tell me, how is your family?"
Before Big Jim could respond, a shot rang out, echoing around the chamber, and the hefty man thudded to the floor, shot in the back. Three more shots rang out, and the boy was stunned to see Norrie, Joe, and Barbie all drop dead around him, shot in the back by an approaching Jonathan, carrying a large assault rifle.
"Wait!" the boy yelled, jumping up and making his way into the light, holding the egg. Jonathan approached him slowly, aiming his rifle. The boy was startled to see green lines coursing through the whites of his eyes. When the two made eye contact for the first time in fifteen years, a shock of recognition and awareness flooded them both. The boy's memory instantly came back to him, now face to face with his old friend.
"Look at me," the boy yelled. "This isn't who you are. They're controlling you. Your name is Max. Don't you remember me?" The green streaks stuttered, as his progress faltered and he looked inquisitively at Dawn.
"Don't listen to him," she yelled back, though a look of worry clearly passed over her face. "Shoot him now!" Max turned again with the gun, though Kelly could see that the green tint was slowly disappearing.
"Your name is MAX! My name is Kelson," the boy cried, pleadingly. "You have to remember, Max. I was your best friend. I still am your best friend!" Max stopped deathly still, the green streaks abruptly disappearing, replaced in their stead by a collection of tears.
"Max," he whispered, his voice tinged with regret and sorrow. "Kelly." Fury blazed in his eyes as he swiveled to Dawn, firing five shots into her chest. She dropped dead. During their conversation, however, she had subtly placed the black egg in the middle of the crater. It was now beginning to vibrate violently and spin, shooting green bolts of light along the ground and into each of the four anomalies.
"No!" Max screamed, sprinting over to the crater, grabbing the egg.
"Max, wait!" Kelly yelled. Max screamed in anguish and exertion as he slowly pulled the black egg out of its spot in the crater, holding it tightly with a look of fear and pain on his eyes.
"White...Egg…" he stuttered. Kelly grabbed the white egg and placed in the center of the crater, where it began instantly to spin the opposing direction, glowing white and sending pulsating bursts of white light into the four. Any brief sense of hope was instantly extinguished when Kelly turned to his old friend still desperately grasping the egg, the color draining from his face, his breathing beginning to grow shallow.
"Just let go, Max! Please!" Max shook his head jerkily.
"Can't… Must… absorb ... energy," he spat out.
"You have to! You're dying!"
A slow, sullen shake of his head.
"I'm… sorry… for everything," Max said, his eyes still shining but moist. "I'll...always...be...your friend."
Suddenly, Max and the egg began to glow a brilliant light. The two made eye contact one last time, before an explosion of white light caused Kelly to shield his eyes. When the light dimmed, Max and the egg had disappeared. The four anomalies began to stir in their seats, as Kelly fell silently to his knees.
Without his notice, a Monarch butterfly fluttered to his shoulder, rested for a moment, then flied away up the tunnel.