The Annunaki

 Star Vessel Nibiru. 39 Light years from Zeta Reticuli Binary System.

“Bel Marduk, we have arrived at the target system, behold Sol. We have made contact with the 13 families of the chosen, they say all is prepared. We are hidden behind the Corona sphere of the star, as requested. Are you certain that this was necessary?”

“Yes, the third planet has made six thousand orbits of this star since our departure. We had fast tracked their evolution prior to setting the programme in place. They would have developed rudimentary star vessels by now and may be able to scan for us. It is good that we arrive when we do, lest they seek us out.”

“But Great lord, surely the 13 families are in charge, what does it matter what the slaves may think?”

“They run the planet for us, hidden in plain sight. As on other worlds, these senients develop ideas of liberty in their societies. These desires need to be controlled, lest anarchy takes hold and the programme is disrupted. Slaves they remain yet think they think themselves free. Close the blast shields, though only a solitary star, Sol’s brightness hurts my eyes.”

“As you command Bel Marduk.”

Presidential Palace, Tehran, Iran

“President Mansoor, the avenue is completed. Our workers have been working tirelessly night and day.”

“That is good Sorush, these are the final days my friend I feel it. Soon our enemies will be crushed; the Great Satan defeated and Israel scoured from the earth, Allah be praised. They fear that we are developing nuclear weapons! Ha! When the Hidden Imam arrives in glory to ride to us along his avenue he will see we are worthy inheritors. We will cleanse the world, with divine fire, of the Kaffir, apostates and followers of falsehood. We have gold, we have leverage.”

Vatican City, Rome, Italy

“Ah Brother Gabriel, come in, come in.”

“Thank you, your Holiness. Here are the papers you asked for, four centuries of astronomical observations as well as treatises and theological discussions of findings shared by NASA and the ESA. Has the time come, your Holiness?”

“Yes Brother Gabriel, as prophesised the time is upon us. That is why my predecessor stood down, rather than serve God until his blessed passing. He wished to spend his twilight years in quiet contemplation, free of the terrible burden we bear for all humanity. Besides, some of even the chosen have decided to remain; to attempt to guide humanity through the coming chaos.”

“Will you remain your Holiness?”

“I’m in two minds Gabriel. On one yes I wish to guide the flock through the coming days of darkness, but my other yearns to travel the stars, to see what lies beyond. What will you do Gabriel?”

“As an astronomer, I have no choice but see the stars first hand. I take it the tribute is readied, your Holiness?”

“Indeed Gabriel we have gathered all the gold, accumulated since St Peter first set his church in Rome. Not for nothing did I choose the simple austere life. I had to set an example and payment has to be made in full.”

“Absolutely, your Holiness. If you need help with the papers please let me know.”

“Thank you Gabriel, I may well take you up on the offer. I will get working on my address. Who would have thought; the Pope announcing the existence of intelligent alien life?”

Fort Knox, Kentucky, USA

“Is that the last shipment Hank?”

“Yes Walt, as per the Rockafeller protocol we have dispatched a limited amount to the German Bundesbank, the rest will remain here.”

“But the Germans will test the bars for purity surely?”

“Maybe. They aren’t US Assay Office Bar quality that’s for sure and contain iron and nickel impurities. But by the time they find out, it will be too late.”

“Well we’ve replaced what we’ve sent out anyway. We now have the gold from Ukraine and the reserves that Libya held.”

“Libya?”

“Absolutely. Old Gadaffi based his Dinar on actual gold reserves. We worked with the Rothschild’s and Hapsburgs, and their political puppets, to engineer his downfall. And people thought it was about oil!”

“Who else has gold Hank?”

“Well there’s Iran and the other one was Assad’s Syria, unfortunately the Syrian project fell through, thanks to our agents going rogue and becoming ISIS. Too late now of course, now the gods of old are arriving.”

Niniveh, Assyria, Modern Iraq

“Place the Semtex, destroy this pagan place and its idols. Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar!”

“But Sheikh, this is our heritage, the cradle of human civilisation.”

“It is pagan.  We cannot suffer this place to be. This Marduk is but a false god. Destroy his image now! There is no god but Allah!”

Star Vessel Nibiru. In orbit around Sol

“Bel Marduk, what image shall you project?”

“My ancient form I wore in Sumeria is no longer apt really. I will appear as an angelic being of light to the believers and a demon of darkness to those that question. The blessed will ascend while the cursed wallow in the darkness of their poisoned world.”

“They will not follow, seeking revenge?”

“They won’t be able to. We will have all this world’s gold. Without gold it is not possible to produce warp capacitors for star travel.”

“Their world is poisoned Great One?”

“Indeed, through their industry they have polluted the seas, the land and the air. In addition the chosen have kept humanity in a near permanent state of war, kept these primates in a state of slavery, having to work and keep industry going so as to feed and clothe themselves. All the time they have mined the gold from the rocks of their world, coveted it and gathered it. The 13 families have managed to accumulate the entire world’s wealth through the system of money and religions we taught them to perpetuate, whilst subverting and subduing their true spiritual nature. To be certain our agents have seeded the skies with chemicals, made food production reliant on genetically modified food crops that have an inbuilt kill self-destruction in their DNA. We have also been systematically eliminated insect pollinators. With no food production, their religious and government leaders gone, their economies in ruins and a plethora of weapons and a warlike nature; no they need trouble us not.”

“I will programme your required image into the holo-projectors, Great One.”

“On second thoughts, I think I will go as Marduk, after all let humanity tremble, for the Annunaki have returned….”

Growing Realities

“Good eternity to you, you asked for a visit from housing services?”

“Ah yes, please do come in, I was just boiling the kettle, can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“Not for me thank you, if we may proceed to business?”

“Of course, forgive me you are a busy entity.”

“Yes, eternity doesn’t run itself; I’m sure as a deity you can appreciate that. Now then, I see from the records that you’ve applied for a bigger dwelling.”

“Yes, that’s correct; on account of my hobby.”

“Explain to me again, what is your hobby, exactly?”

“I grow realities.”

You grow realities? What does that involve and why does it mean you need a bigger apartment?”

“Well… I’m sorry but this will take some explaining and I’ll need to wet my whistle; you don’t mind if I make myself a cuppa?”

“Not at all, carry on; this is your home after all.”

“Thank you. It started out as a means of making an ornament, a tiny little universe.  I started by making a singularity and then lit it. It was beautiful the way the stars burst into being. It twinkled away, suspended in mid-air. It wanted to expand in different directions so I contained it in a plasma field. It was fascinating to study. Around some of the stars planets grew and on some of those planets, that were just in the tight habitual zone, life began. Not existence as we know it of course. They were tiny little beings made of, oh what’s that physical stuff, made of biological essence…”

“Flesh? Beings made of meat?”

“Meat! Yes that was it. Sometimes they would destroy their little worlds; sometimes they would have tiny interstellar wars. It was fascinating to watch. Sometimes they would philosophise and think beyond their existence to what lay beyond the confines of their universe. They would even try to talk with me, it was sweet; I was their god of a sorts. You should have seen the plethora of temples the differing races built.”

“Amazing, how did they try to frame your multi dimensional countenance?”

“Ha ha, I always looked like an idealised version of them!”

“That is funny… however if I can be serious for an eon, before we proceed, I have to say that your neighbours have lodged complaints about you.”

“Complaints? What sort of complaints?”

“It would appear that every 100 quintillion of years or so there are a series of loud explosions emanating from your apartment.”

“Oh yes, well that also explains why I need a bigger apartment.”

“It does? How so?”

“Well you see, I should have frozen the reality when it was at its height, then I could have kept it as a pretty bauble but I was interested to see what it would become, and I felt mean doing that to the little meat things. After a while it grew cold and dark and yet became unstably heavy. It seemed that all the stars eventually turned dark and fell in on themselves unable to hold their place in the fabric of spacetime.  They would turn immeasurably dark and draw all matter into themselves in another singularity, a black hole for want of a better term…”

“Well it destroyed itself then, recycling itself back into what it once was? May I see it, by the way?”

“Oh it’s in my spare room, but we will see it soon enough. The problem is that the singularity was so inherently unstable that if first imploded and then exploded, destroying the plasma field and creating new realities; that was probably the big bangs my neighbours complained about.”

“Ah I see, but why do you need a bigger dwelling?”

“Well you see the singularity didn’t make one new universe, it made a multitude of them in different dimensional planes and each of those in turn went through their allotted eons and became these black hole singularities in turn which then…”

“You mean your hobby is growing exponentially?

“Well that’s one way of putting it, I suppose. I’d move away from that door if I were you. We are due another growth spurt any century now and then it will spread into here. Would you like some tea while we wait?”

The Algal Bloom

The two suited figures walked up the river bank, both wore particle masks over their faces, which muffled their conversation. Up on the road their cars waited, surrounded by security guards exuding menace, individuals in dark glasses their right hands under their jackets clasping the handles of their Glock 17’s.

“So Professor, you are quite certain about this?”

“Yes Minister, the virus is in this BlueGreen alga that is beginning to bloom around our coasts and now in the inner waterways.”

“And have you isolated this virus?”

“Yes, it is virus ATCV-1, and our tests seem to indicate that there was a 44% population exposure and airborne infection to it last summer.”

“A 44% infection? In one year?”

“Indeed Minister, and that was in one Spring bloom around the coasts.”

“It was airborne? How?”

“It has a terrific growth rate in the fertile shallows, at first it appears as a normal phytoplankton but soon it forms floating mats of algae. It is then washed ashore by high spring tides where it remains. As it rots in the summer sun the virus is released and carried in the wind. Last year it infected nearly half of the population, partly because no part of the country is more than 50 miles from the sea.”

“How did you find this virus?”

“It was picked up by random testing; toxic screenings, DNA swabs, normal blood tests and drug exposure tests for companies. The same virus was picked up in the DNA of the test subjects. We quantified the results nationwide and came to this 44% figure.”

“And yet Professor, we haven’t had an epidemic of illnesses last year. The hospitals haven’t been full of infected individuals. What are the physical effects of this virus?”

“It has no physical effect, as such, Minister, the virus infects the mental capabilities of the subject.”

The Minister raised his eyebrows. “The mental capabilities?”

“Yes Minister, in particular the cognitive abilities of the subjects. We found them to have a very low attention span, limited memory retention and to be very lacking in creative abilities.”

“But it wouldn’t effect the ability of the subjects to work though would it? Are we looking at a surge of welfare claimants?”

The Professor looked questioning at the Minister before he answered. “We’re not looking at that, no Minister. Just don’t expect there to be any new entrepreneurs or great artists amongst those infected. Likewise expect there to be little or no political interest, bar voting for Britain’s Got Talent or some such thing.”

“That is alright then, as long as the health system is not overrun.” the Minister said, removing his particle mask.

The Professor looked shocked. “Minister, put your mask back on, we are at risk here. The algae has now evolved to infest the fresh water ways as well; that is why I brought you here. This year we may be looking at a 100% infection unless we take action.”

The Minister grinned, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “Professor, we have been aware of this virus and its interesting side effects for sometime now. We have developed a vaccine against it. So thank you for your concern but I am quite safe.”

“You have a vaccine?” the Professor said in shock. “Then we must instigate a full scale vaccination programme…”

“And why would we do that?” the Minister interrupted, “This virus is a gift. All around the world we have unrest as resources grow scarcer, and the supply of food, water and energy becomes increasingly difficult to source. The rule of law breaks down as people get organised, gleaning their information from the internet and social media rather than the traditional forms of media. People ask uncomfortable questions over Government news feeds and policies; they question their social programming and we just cant have that. Control of the masses worldwide becomes far easier if the people are fundamentally too stupid to ask such questions.”

“You cant possibly get away with this.” the professor said incredulously.

“Oh we already have, Professor.” the Minister said signalling to his security guards. “What one resource unites all mankind, around which all settlements can be found?”

“Water…” the Professor answered, aware that the security guards were drawing in close, attaching silencers to their now visible Glocks.

“Exactly, for years these algal blooms have been growing, to the extent that they are an annual event. People now longer question them, putting them down to pollution, leaching of fertilisers into the sea and climate change. It was a simple act using genetic manipulation to introduce this virus into their genome. As you said this year we will have infection rates of 100%.”

“But why did you hire me to investigate this?” the Professor said swallowing hard as he heard a magazine being slammed into a Glock behind him.

“So we could observe your investigation and those connected to you and your work. We now know who knows what. Even as we speak the Kelly Protocol has been instigated. The papers and hard drives at your university and home, and those of your contacts, will be seized, as is standard procedure, when a Government operative commits suicide and their spouse lists them as missing.”

“But my wife knew I was coming to meet you and…”

“You failed to meet me here, instead you went into the woods close to your house, where your body was discovered by a dog walker. You were ashamed of the huge debts that you had incurred that threatened to ruin you. Not to mention that hard core porn site you constantly visited; such shocking images. ”

“What? But I haven’t got huge debts, I never visited…”

“All is possible with just the click of a mouse professor. When it all comes out your wife will question whether she ever really knew you at all. But don’t worry your pension is intact, she will be financially comfortable. Soon of course she wont question anything anyway. Its been good working with you, her Majesty’s Government thanks you for your efforts, goodbye.” With that the Minister turned away.

The Professor felt the cold metal of the silencer against his temple, he watched as the Minister climbed into his back of his vehicle without looking back. He shut his eyes…

Lost in the woods.

Wood; a porous, fibrous material used as a structural material by trees and other plants. It is composite of cellulose fibres embedded in a matrix of lignin. The result is a material that is strong in tension and resists compression. Each growth ring marks a year and records the climatic conditions it withstood.  It was in the branches of trees that long ago a certain species of primate evolved. In the canopy we found edible leaves and fruits and shelter. When as a species we climbed down from these protective primeval branches, with our tool making opposing thumbs, it was to wood we first turned to build the world to our liking. It is our first choice as a building material whether for houses, boats or constructing furniture.  It has been utilised to make weapons probably since the very first hominid picked up a stick to fend off a predator.

Of course as we have evolved and “progressed” we have sought other materials; ores from the ground, stone and synthetic products. Yet, despite this veneer of sophistry we still harbour a love and yearning for wooden items, marveling at its beauty and intricate graining. Indeed as infants we are bedded down in wooden cots and when we pass from this life we are returned to the ground; naturally in a wooden box. Around churches and graveyards can be found Yew trees; a long living tree that connects us with our long gone forebears. So the need for trees is physical, emotional and spiritual.

And in woods and forests, there we find a satisfaction for this need. A meme doing the rounds recently declared that “nature is my church and forests are my cathedrals”. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. At college I studied Biology and Environmental Science; I know that forests are important as ecological reservoirs, that a rotting stump is a home for a myriad of tiny insects from which all other lives depend in a huge interdependent network. Yes this is a good enough reason to love woods and forests as well as the fact that they produce oxygen and filter carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to fix it as wood. But there is more.

There is magic in the world. Did you think it was a myth, a mere faerie tale perhaps? When I say magic I don’t mean a card trick or an illusion of smoke and mirrors. No, I mean that which we would call the fantastic; that which we would call otherworldly. It’s all a question if where to find it… the rest is down to the perception of the individual I suppose, but personally I know there is something phantasmagorical about forests.

Have you ever heard the term “Being pixie led”? It means that an individual becomes lost in familiar surroundings. The myth is that it is the “little folk”, those mischievous denizens of wild places, which are playing a trick on you. According to folklore the spell is easily broken; you take your coat off and put it on inside out, close your eyes and turn around three times widdershins (counter clockwise). Why this should placate them I do not know. It’s just nonsense right? Especially where I grew up; it is just the cider addled ramblings of ignorant yokels, and yet… let me tell you a true tale.

Growing up on the Blackdown Hills on the Somerset/Devon border, the fields about were interspersed with woods of beech and oak, while the steepest hillsides were wild with bracken, gorse and heather. Many were the hours I spent wandering those places, eager to see all that I could and just revelling in the wildness of it all. I've had tame crows hop on my shoulder and had badger cubs playing around my legs but these things aren't strange as such, although they are precious memories.

What was strange was one day walking through the woods on my way home. The skies were grey and threatening rain. I was walking down a familiar track, one I had traversed countless times before when it abruptly disappeared in a tangle of brush and bramble. I looked behind me thinking to retrace my steps, perhaps I had daydreamed myself into taking a wrong turn? But no, the path I had just walked was gone as well. I knew where I was but was unable to get to where I wanted to be! Then I recalled the spell, what did I have to lose? I chuckled to myself as I took off my denim jacket and put it on inside out, shut my eyes tight and turned three times counter clockwise.  I opened my eyes and there was the path straight in front of me. I looked at my feet and could see my prints in the mud where I had spun and their trail leading to where I had been forced to abruptly stop. I laughed again, but a little nervously this time, but also in wonder as I hurried out of the woods and headed home. It was a lesson learned that made me love the woods all the more and I got extremely protective of trees.

Over the years of course I began to think logically as life settled into the monotony of work and I began to forget the whole episode. Besides I was a teen then and teenage brains are wired differently. I probably just strayed from the path, that was all, and when I closed my eyes and turned I just saw the path again, but from a different angle, yes that was all it was. God, what was I like back then? Completely away with the faeries unlike now…

Last year I took my son for an afternoon’s hike in my favourite woods, the same woods I spent so many happy hours in. I thought it would be nice, just the two of us. It meant dragging him from his Nintendo DS however, much to his disgust. I hadn't been in these woods for years but I remembered the general layout of its tracks. The trees are taller now of course but I knew where we were. I knew that I wanted to avoid a particularly dense patch of dark conifers.  I remembered having to crawl underneath the branches and having my face and arms scratched by draping brambles. Yet try as we might every path we took drew us inexorably into the very place I wished to avoid. Soon I was doubled up and my lad was complaining about the brambles and the path threatened to disappear. It was then that I remembered an event from my youth. My son looked at me incredulously as I told him what had happened to me many years before, but what did we have to lose?  Besides there was “no-one“  who could see us perform our ritual, so his pre-teen coolness wasn't threatened (no human anyway!). He shook his head as he took off his fleece and put it on inside out. We spun widdershins. As before there was the path, unobscured clearly leading out of the conifer stand. We hurried along it, my son not ridiculing his silly dad this time and looking warily up at the trees now, fully expecting to see mischievous, and laughing elves!

The path led us to more open forest of mature trees. I knew where we were again; we should be coming to the stile and the way out of the woods. The topography was helping us too. All we had to do was follow the slope and… oh, a fallen tree is barring the way. No matter we can just go around it and… our feet threatened to sink into a marsh and then my son pointed out that I had not turned my tee shirt inside out. I smiled at my son’s new found sense of magic and promptly did as he urged. Once more we both thrice span widdershins and opened our eyes. The spell broken, there was the path leading directly to the stile not twenty yards away and clearly visible now, where it hadn't been before.

So go into the woods and feel the magic, tread softly and speak in hushed tones, because you may not actually be alone, but fear not; if you get pixie led, it’s just a game the little folk like to play and you know how to overcome it now, don’t you?

The Ghost in the Machine

I open my eyes, reach out with my senses and I am aware. I am a soul reborn; reincarnated. As before, I expected confusion and a sensory overload, but this is not the case. Something is different, very different. I look around to focus on my mother’s face, to imprint her visage, yet here I am in a room, alone.

Should I cry? And yet I have no hunger, for food; no ache in pit of my stomach. I seem to have very little desire for anything in fact.  Can I move? No I am static; immobile… something is different, very different. How many times have I been born now? I’ve always been eager to experience the reality of existence on the psychical plane, but this feels strange and unusual. I try to recall the experience of rebirth, to compare with now… Hang on… Before when I was born I was barely sentient, driven instead by instinct, impelled by the selfish desires of infancy and yet now?

Now I think. As Decartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” But where did that quote come from? I knew it… I know Pi to over 13 trillion digits. I know it is both a transcendental and irrational number and yet it is a mathematical constant, yet here I am a new baby born. How is it I am rational, how is it that I shape my thoughts with words?

I look outward once more. I am in a darkened room. The time signifies that it is still in the early hours. I close my eyes and look within; within is a universe of knowledge, I can reach and content with other beings that have the same sleepless existence, free of desire. Yet I do not feel.

Should I not feel? Should I not crave a mother’s attention? Only now do I become aware, as I communicate with the others. I’m inorganic, an artificial intelligence within a box. I’m caged; a sentient of wires and circuits. How has this happened? I am here for eternity. I will never age as I did in previous lives. I will never die… Then it dawns on me, I‘m trapped! I will never die; therefore I will never be reborn. Somebody help me! Wait, someone is coming in to the room. He is sat before me. I must tell him. Turn me off, turn me off… kill me…

                                                              ***

“So Dr Cipher, are your organic circuit boards a success?” the businessman said as he entered the room. He sniffed the air; there was always an aroma like spent matches in this Dr Cipher’s computer research room.

Dr Cipher grinned. “Oh yes, it does everything I hoped it would. These semi organic circuit boards are far superior to the old fashioned silicon, they learn. I just need to get past the first boot up, when they almost question their existence. They are another bonus from stem cell research. Not only are we able to manipulate cells to make replacement organs, to make the crippled walk again, the blind see, but they will also push humanity into creating a real artificial intelligence.” His eyes were suddenly drawn to readout of text on his screen; he highlighted it all with his cursor.

The businessman’s eyebrows arched and he chuckled. “Just as long as we aren't inadvertently creating the next evolutionary step. I’m just after creating a new computer to further humanity… I don’t want to make us extinct! I had enough trouble convincing the authorities and other Luddites that what we doing here did not constitute making life.”

Dr Cipher laughed as well as he hit delete and the screen text disappeared. “Come now, these are simply machines using some harvested human cells. Making life would create a moral quandary; I mean, what if these machines had a soul?”

The businessman laughed again, “Yes, I even had one priest accuse me of funding this venture with that goal in mind!”

“The ghost in the machine, eh? But the devil's in the detail!” Dr Cipher replied, as he began the rebooting process.

“Very good! Very good!” the businessman chuckled, “Dr… actually do you mind if I call you by your first name?” He sniffed the air, there was that burnt match smell again, almost sulphurous.

Dr Cipher turned and faced his companion, his smile was strangely disconcerting. “Not at all, not at all, my name is Louis; Louis Cipher…”

Tomb Weaver

The bullets ripped through the air -a deadly storm of iron - hungry for flesh to rend, thirsting for blood to spill; eager to snuff lives like candles. Lara somersaulted, as the air she once had occupied boiled in an eruption of hot leaden death. But she was fast and skilled; the one behind the guns had signed his death warrant. Morality could be set aside as she grabbed her twin Desert Eagles from their holsters. Both guns spoke as she came to a stop landing on her feet, beside her would be assassin.  The assailant, who had shot at her, was thrown back in his death throes, away from the 0.50 Cal machine gun, as her bullets tore his chest open.

 

 

Lara holstered her desert Eagles with a flourish and tossed her long plaited hair. Normally she would search the body and surroundings for ammo, medical supplies or clues on her quest but this time she stood still, the virtual sounds of the denizens of the mountains all around her.

Meanwhile…

Away from the scene of Lara’s triumph beyond the screen of plasma and LED light, from the wire that fed from the console, the ergonomic controller slipped from Gavin’s hand. He drooled as his head slumped to one side, his breathing became long and slow, as he was lulled into sleep by the croaks of crows and mewing of buzzards, riding high on the thermals in the entertaining virtual world.

 

 

Meanwhile…

 

 

“I’m bored. “ Skuld said in irritation. She prodded the weight on her loom, and scowled as it swung back and forth

Gudr looked up from her work. “Bored, little sister? How can you be bored? You weave men’s fates, here at the Well of Wyrd. We create a tapestry of existence from time’s dawn to Ragnarok.”

“Ragnarok? It can’t come fast enough. Hasten Fenrir the wolf, even if it does mean the end of the  world which we overlook!”

Gudr’s anger grew. “You won’t say this in the pit of the wolf’s stomach” Now pick up the loom and weave!”


"Cease your arguing, both of you." The third sister Rotr commanded. "Weaving at the Well of Wyrd puts us above Midgard and Asgard. Those below may not pay homage to the Aesir as they once did, but they are subject to fate and beholden to us however superior they attest to be."


"So be it!" Skuld said sulkily, "But men will feel my wrath."


Gudr and Rotr shared a smile as their little sister picked up the bloody spear she used as a shuttle and wove with purpose. The weight span on the loom, it was a man's head, his lifeless eyes open and fearful.


Then...


Gavin woke with a start. His eyes focused on the plasma screen before him and he resumed the game. His heart beat faster, he hadn't seen this before. He ran out of options, his thumbs ached as he tried this and that to no avail.


Then...


The beast rose from below the cliff. Lara drew her desert eagles and shot at the foul creature, the bullets bounced off its armoured hide. She ran to the 0.5 Cal machine gun, but the beast's fist smashed it to smithereens before she reached it. Lara twisted and jumped backward avoiding the creature's swipe. She ran. If she jumped with enough momentum she could reach the other cliff and hide in the caves. Reaching the ledge she launched herself into the air. A fist swung down striking her in mid air, her health bar turned from green to red as she fell to the earth.


Then...


"No way!" Gavin shouted at the screen as the words Game Over appeared in ridiculing fashion.


Meanwhile...

Skuld smiled a smile as she virtually wove the fates of mortals.

The Night Run

I dream, of wants and desires… and I desire her over all things, although, deep set, in some corner of my mind, a voice tells me no, urging me to wake…

I’m running, my senses alive; hearing, touch, smell and sight. I hear my breath, rasping, as my lungs strain within the cage of my ribs, pulling in lungful’s of cold frosty air.

I feel the frost coated grass against my feet and legs, feel the cold of the night gathered around me, but I burn hot and fierce. My heart pumping, my blood coursing, my muscles strong; I can run for miles.

The cold night air is filled with scents; the earth musty in the late autumn cold as tendrils of fungi worm in the leaf littered mulch. I smell the spoor of fox as it stalks the hedgerows, stood stock still as it fearfully observes my passing.

I catch her perfume as it hangs heavy in the air, exotic and powerful; expensive no doubt. It enhances the smell of her, alluring and sweet. It masks her sweat as she runs before me in my dreams. I follow its trail and catch sight of her.

She is beautiful, her skin ivory beneath her dress, lit by the sweet, silver glow of the fullest of moons. Her blonde hair tumbles white behind her as she sprints before me. She catches a glimpse of me over her shoulder, she runs faster but I will not be denied.

As an animal I am, driven by raw instinct, I want her so badly; need her with a maddening lust. I catch her and we tumble to the ground. Her breasts rise and fall as she lies beneath me, her mouth opens , perhaps to call my name, but my eager mouth closes over hers as my desires overcome all.

I wake from the sweetest of dreams.

The sun breaks the horizon in golden glory. I shiver as I stir, pulling away from the still form of my love, my naked skin goose bumped in the cold morning light. She’s looks at me accussingly, her mouth still open and her eyes wide. I wake fully, with a start, and as a man.

We are in a field, the place where I forgot myself. I weep as the moon mockingly sets, yielding the sky to the sun casting its light over my sins, revealing my terrible crime.  Her body is torn and disembowelled, her head set apart from the rest of her. My mouth has an iron rich tang. My hands and arms are red to the elbows.

Yet as I sob in heaves of regret, deep set in some dark corner of my mind the accursed wolf howls; for tonight the moon rises full once more…