Apocolyptica
Chapter 1
"Aiden, what are these strange markings here?"
Bill's gaze was focused on a certain portion of the wall. Aiden turned his gaze to examine what Bill was talking about.
"I don't know Bill. This marking resembles a human, but it has what looks like an aura around it. Maybe it's an undiscovered Egyptian god. The Egyptians have many gods; maybe it's possible that one hasn't been discovered. Maybe this one was a forbidden one."
Bill pondered the comment for a moment.
"That would explain why this tomb was already buried so deep under the ground before the sands covered it and buried it even deeper. The Egyptians went through great lengths to make sure that this tomb was never found."
Aiden nodded in agreement and then noticed something even stranger underneath the carving.
"Shine some more light over this way I think there's something carved in the wall underneath it."
Bill turned around and grabbed a lantern from the cold floor of the tomb and held it up high so the entire wall lit up.
"What do you make of this, Bill?"
As they looked at the lower portion of the wall they realized the importance of their discovery. The Egyptian gods themselves were bowing down to a human-like figure that was floating above them. Ra, Hathor, Sekhmet, Nut, Geb, Osiris, Seth, Horus, Isis, Thoth, Anubis, Ma'at, Amun, and Bastet were all bowing before the being floating above them. Aiden stared and then was struck with shock.
"Bill, this isn't just a new Egyptian god, it's a god that ruled over all of the other gods. According to these carvings, they called it Apocolyptica. We have to report this to GPE. Pull your camera out and start videotaping this. We need to send a live feed directly back to headquarters."
Bill pulled out a camera that had Geo Planetary Excavations painted onto the side of it. He set up a tripod and turned on the camera's built in light. He took a long roll of wire and a suitcase and headed towards the entrance of the tomb. Once he was outside he opened the suitcase to reveal a full keyboard monitor and mini satellite dish. He took the wire and plugged the end of it into a slot on the side of the monitor. He positioned the satellite dish so that it was facing northwest and a link began to upload. A beautiful woman appeared on the screen.
"Bill? Bill is that you?"
Bill's face opened into a large smile.
"Yes Mariya, it's me."
Mariya instantly looked concerned having noticed that Aiden was not present.
"How is Aiden doing?"
Bill quickly replied
"He is great! We just made a major discovery and we need to send live video feed to you guys back at headquarters so you can start analysis on it right away."
Mariya's fingers snapped into action at lightning speeds.
"Alright just give me a second to set up the system to record…and…ok start feeding it to me."
Bill unclipped a two way radio from his belt.
"Aiden, start the feed."
A minute passed and Aiden's voice came over the radio.
"Alright Bill you should be seeing everything now."
The monitor lit up with what the camera was seeing deep within the tomb.
"Are you seeing this Mariya?"
Mariya's facial expression changed to curiosity.
"Yes Bill. It's like nothing we have ever seen before."
Bill seemed pleased to hear this.
"According to the carvings we found Mariya, they called it Apocolyptica."
Mariya's voice poured with excitement.
"This is amazing Bill! I have it up on the main screen of the complex and everyone is running back and forth trying to make sense of it. This is big. We have to send more people out there! We have to get deeper into that tomb. So much we have to do and so little time to do it. I have to go Bill, tell Aiden I love him."
Bill gave her a salute.
"Will do Mariya!"
Mariya snapped to get his attention.
"One more thing before you head back inside Bill."
Bill turned back to the computer
"Yes?"
Mariya's face was completely serious now.
"I'll need you to stay in touch every thirty minutes so we can keep you updated on what the current situation is. I want you and Aiden to try and go deeper into the tomb without getting yourselves killed and try to find more clues to this 'Apocolyptica'."
Bill laughed.
"Yes ma'am!"
Bill killed the link and made a protective covering around the system with a tarp that he had in his backpack. After he was sure that the computer would be safe from the sand and the wind, he went back down to meet up with Aiden. Aiden's eyes were fixed with anticipation on Bill as he came down the tunnel.
"Mariya says she loves you man."
Aiden let out a deep grunt of displeasure.
"Mariya answered the phone?"
Bill gave Aiden a sympathetic look.
"Yeah sorry bud, she was in a hurry because of the big news or I would have told you to come up there. The good news is we have to check in every thirty minutes, so at least you will get another chance to talk to her right?"
Aiden's expression lit up slightly.
"I guess so."
Bill started gathering the equipment.
"She said she wants us to go deeper into the tombs and try and find more clues to this new god."
Aiden stood up and began to help.
"Well we better get to work then Bill."
Aiden took up the lantern and grabbed the camera from the tripod. He began to slowly walk deeper into the tomb with Bill close behind him, holding another lantern.
"So what do you make of this all Aiden?"
Aiden had a puzzled tone in his voice.
"I don't know. This is all new stuff. Why would the Egyptians hide something as important as a god that was above all gods?"
Bill quickly replied
"Maybe they wanted to protect something."
Aiden focused his eyes.
"I don't know Bill, but I think I see a room ahead."
As the two men walked down the tunnel, it opened up into a large room that was covered in Hieroglyphs and pictures that were carved into the walls. As they walked inside the lanterns lit up the entire room. They noticed that out of all of the carvings on the walls, one picture that was directly in front of them seemed to stick out more than the others. It was a massive carving of Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun battling the newly discovered Apocolyptica. As they approached and light flooded the room even more, they noticed that this picture was elevated from the rest of the room. There was a shrine-like object in the center that had three steps up to a central square that contained a torch at each corner. Aiden was completely stumped.
"What is this Bill?"
Bill looked at him equally lost.
"I have no idea. I am just as surprised as you my friend."
As they climbed the steps the lanterns revealed that in the exact center of the square, there was an elevated, perfectly round tablet protruding from the ground.
Bill examined it closely.
"It must be a pressure switch."
They both agreed. Aiden began to make his way towards the switch. Bill looked very concerned.
"Aiden, I don't think that is such a good idea. It may be a trap."
Aiden chuckled.
"Bill, we have come this far. It is too late to turn back now so we might as well see what this activates."
Bill hesitantly agreed. Aiden inched forward and slowly put his weight onto the switch. The grating of stone against stone was loud and echoed throughout the room. The switch fell all the way down and came to a halt. Aiden let out a very nervous laugh.
"Well that was interesting. See, nothing bad happened Bill."
As he spoke those words, the door to the room slammed down and their lanterns dimmed and went out. The room came to life as the Hieroglyphs all began to glow an electric blue. Above each torch a blue globe formed that seemed to be made of pure energy. They started out small and grew larger and larger while they simultaneously moved towards the center of the shrine. They kept growing until they were large enough to contain Aiden and Bill inside them, then they fused together into a single sphere. The sphere began to spin rapidly, dust swirling around it faster and faster until suddenly it instantly shrunk into nothing. The room became pitch black, and slowly began to come into sight as the lanterns regained their light. The entrance to the room slowly rose back up, and the only traces that anything had happened were the swirls of dust left that surrounded the room, and the camera sitting in the dust facing the shrine. Bill and Aiden were gone. Aiden and Bill suddenly appeared in the center of a small, dark circular room with only one exit. They were on their hands and knees sick to their stomachs from the teleportation. They both slowly rose to stand at full height. Aiden was the first to regain his nerve.
"Are you ok Bill?"
Bill slowly rose and began to dust himself off.
"I think so, I'm just really sick at my stomach. What the hell was that?"
Aiden gave Bill a blank look.
"I don't know Bill, but I can tell you we are definitely not in the tomb anymore. We should get out of here and try and find out where we are."
Bill nodded in agreement.
"Ok that sounds like the best idea for now."
Bill and Aiden began to walk towards the exit and as they approached a blue force field appeared. They were both baffled by this technology.
"What the hell? Bill, this is beyond any technology we have ever seen."
Bill smiled.
"It must be Japanese."
Aiden didn't laugh.
"This is no time for jokes Bill!"
Bill stopped laughing.
"Sorry Aiden, I couldn't resist. I was just trying to lighten the mood up."
As they stood their moving their hands across the smooth surface of light a voice sounded out of nowhere. The voice was loud and menacing, but harmonic and angelic. It started as a whisper and grew to a booming yell.
"Do you realize what you have done! You have just put the entire human race in jeopardy! All that we have worked for to keep Earth from him has been compromised!"
The voice shook Bill and Aiden's very souls as it grew sharp and piercing. Aiden began to timidly speak.
"We, we don't know what you're talking about. Who are you? Where are we?"
The booming voice roared back.
"Silence! I am Ra, as your race has deemed my name."
Aiden and Bill looked at each other completely confused. Bill finally rose up the courage to speak.
"You mean Ra, as in the Egyptian god of the sun?"
Ra's voice now became soothing and concerned.
"The human race has always been too curious. You do not even realize the importance of the discovery you have just made."
A rather large man suddenly appeared in front of the force field. He held an object up to the force field and when it made contact the force field blurred and then faded. Ra's voice boomed again.
"Follow that man because you must see what your actions have done. You must see what we have worked so hard to do."
Aiden and Bill cautiously stepped outside of the room. The man led them down a long hallway that was lit in the same bluish light that the previous room was. As they walked the section they were in lit up with the blue light and went back to pitch black as they passed. They came to a large round door that was made out of a metal that Bill and Aiden had never seen before. The man put the object up to the door and the door split from the center into eight pieces. Each of the pieces went up into the wall in a spiral like manner. They walked into a massive room along a bridge made of the same material as the force field. The bridge was suspended in mid air with a circular end that looked exactly like the one in the tomb. As they stepped onto it, the room turned pitch black except for the circle they were standing in which was lit a bright blue. Bill and Aiden noticed that the strange man had disappeared.
As they were about to ask each other about it, a man in a robe appeared in mid air in front of them. They could not make out anything but the outline of his body due to the darkness of the room. Aiden spoke up.
"Who are you?"
Aiden suddenly heard someone talking to him, but inside of his head. He looked at Bill and it was obvious by the look on his face that he was experiencing the same thing. In an angelic tone it began to speak.
"I am the one earth calls Ra. I am ruler of this ship. In your language it would translate as the Boat of the Sun."
As he spoke those words, the room began to gain light, but it was not from an artificial light. The light seemed at first to come from the billions of stars that began to show from the spherical ceiling of the room. Bill and Aiden both stared in awe of the beautiful sight. There was a large object in the center of the ceiling however that stuck out among the stars. Ra began to speak out loud this time.
"The object you see now is the sun."
Aiden and Bill look dumbstruck and were about to speak when Ra cut them off.
"The reason we are so close and are not incinerated or blinded is because I am blocking the heat on this side of the star. We are on the precise opposite side that is shining towards the earth, so that the planet does not notice a difference."
Aiden was the first to ask.
"So you are really in control of the sun?"
Ra focused his gaze upon Aiden.
"You misunderstand Aiden."
Aiden was petrified that Ra knew his name without it being spoken.
"All will become clear to you both in just a moment."
As he spoke those words he disappeared and the room lit up. They were in the desert again. Ra began to narrate.
"Long ago, when the first civilization was born there were a select few that were gifted. They were drawn together by a psychic connection and formed a friendship. This group of people is known by the human race as the Egyptian Gods. There was one particular person in the group that seemed to always, stand out amongst the rest of us. As you recently discovered you would know him as Apocolyptica. This particular 'god' was always particularly aggressive. He was quick to anger, and ruthless to punish those that were not amongst our group. His mind and mental power developed much faster than our own and he would use it against his enemies to torture and torment them. As we grew up, our psychic abilities expanded and by the time we were the age of five in your world, we were smarter than you could ever possibly imagine becoming. We formed a council to oversee our civilization. We established a land that you now call Egypt. Egypt at that time was lush and full of vegetation. It also was much larger. The 'Sahara Desert' used to be completely forested and all belonged to Egypt. The Nile River was there even then and is one of the last remnants of what took place in our time.
As our council matured we developed the ability to read people's minds and were eventually able to even move large objects with nothing but a single thought. When we reached the age of around twenty in your world, our minds had matured so much that we were able to stop our bodies from aging. We were even able to morph our bodies into different forms. We began to wonder why we few had such powers as compared to the rest of the Egyptians. We each sat groups of them down with us and all of us pried into their minds to try and discover why they did not possess the same abilities we did. We found out that there is a mental lock on a normal human's brain. We couldn't answer why we were able to unlock it within ourselves or if we were just born that way. Apocolyptica felt threatened by the fact that there could be more than just us. He suggested to the council that we put an additional psychic barrier within the human mind to prevent it from being unlocked in the case that more humans like ourselves were born. We took a vote and out of the fifteen of us, eight voted that we implement the barrier. We took all of the Egyptians and grouped them up and focused on their minds. The barrier was created. With each child had after that, the barrier would be in their genetic code and would be passed on from generation to generation unless removed by one of the council. We also decided that we would wipe the Egyptians memories of everything they had known of us before. This is why the referred to us as gods. Without the previous knowledge of us growing up with them, they could only view our abilities as supernatural. They were clueless to the fact that the same abilities lay dormant within their own minds.
We decided as a council that we needed to explore the rest of the planet and expand the civilization. We each split up and went separate directions in groups of two. Even though we knew how things worked, we had no idea what dangers may lay in other areas of the planet. Apocolyptica and I were designated as partners. As we were traveling we came across something rather interesting. There was a massive crater in the ground with the meteorite still intact. Your scientists later rediscovered it in the region you know as Arizona. However, we had already taken the meteorite long ago. As we approached the massive hole we realized that there was a strange metal buried deep into the center of the crater. We approached the object and Apocolyptica reached out and touched the meteorite. As soon as he touched it his skin exploded from his body and what was left turned into a being made of pure energy. It also granted him the knowledge of where and how to use the metal. We were able to transport the meteorite back to Egypt.
Upon arrival we were greeted by the others who were obviously curious of the new discovery, and Apocolyptica's new appearance. It was at that point that Apocolyptica's natural aggressiveness combined with his new found power began to slowly corrupt him. He taught us how to use the metal to create ships that were able to travel through space. Everything you see in this room is the direct result of what we learned from him and that meteorite. As time went on, humans began to become overly curious. Even though most worshiped us, there were a select few that urged to understand how our powers worked. This number started to increase at a rapid rate. The council was gathered in order to discuss a solution to the problem. There were mainly two sides to the argument that ensued. Apocolyptica wanted to exterminate them all. Even though the barriers were put into their brains, he still felt extremely threatened by the humans. My side on the other, wanted to find a more peaceful way to resolve the problem. Apocolyptica and a select few others decided to take matters into their own hands. They started slaughtering the humans by the thousands. The rest of the remaining council and myself confronted them. A massive battle took place and the land was forever changed by it. Most of Egypt had been completely leveled. I am sure as geologists you two know what really lays below the 'Sahara.' There is evidence of a once lush land full of rivers and foliage. Your satellite imaging technology has shown you that.
Our battle left a permanent scar on the land. Both sides equally worn from fighting wanted to seek a truce. It was decided that instead of destroying humanity, and destroying the planet, we would leave earth and humanity to grow on its own. We used our powers together and buried Egypt in sand. We all parted ways. As years passed and we watched humanity grow and advance on its own, it came to our attention that Apocolyptica was planning to wipe humanity out once again. He released a plague upon the people. Your history deemed it 'the black plague.' Both sides reformed and this time a battle in space took place. As the fight was going on I sent Geb, which the Egyptians called 'God of the Earth', to wipe the plague from the land.
The battle in space went on for centuries until both sides had to retreat for supplies. About halfway through the fight however, Apocolyptica disappeared. He just recently showed back up and is more powerful than ever. He also found something lurking deep in the universe. It is a Leviathan and has the capability to destroy a planet and absorb the thermal energy as sustenance. Now here we are, preparing for our next assault. You two have come into the picture and Apocolyptica knows it. This changes everything."
