Chapter 10: Starting Point

"What the hell? What the hell?" As if it were a mantra, Hank repeated "what the hell?" over and over until the slow descent stopped and they could see out the car windows again. Hank was amazed they were in what appeared to be a large, natural cavern with no decorations to relieve the rough walls. He looked for the source of the illumination and couldn't find it.

"Welcome to Oz Hank," Melissa told him.

"The name of this place is Retreat, or Refuge, either name will suffice," Mark told him. "There is another part of all this place is called Sanctuary."

"There is no way I could ever grow accustomed to this place," Rachel said as she looked around. The look of wonder on her face was akin to religious awe.

Melissa held Mark's hand and shared her consciousness with him. "Priesthood? My god, this is so far beyond religion we have no concepts to describe it."

"Something bothers me about Teacher," he told her in a non-answer. "There have been a couple of times when he was acting with an independence he claimed he didn't have."

"I noticed that same thing," she told him. "What can we do about it? Or should we do anything?" Then Teacher spoke to Melissa.

Melissa told Hank, "A bench is on its way for us. We shall all be taken to a part of this place none of us have ever seen before. When we get there, you'll be given an examination."

Hank was too overcome to answer. He stared at Rachel, then at Mark. A stray thought flickered through his mind and he wondered how he could possibly be a parent to Mark? He shook his head and answered his own question, I don't. In that instant Hank realized everything he thought he knew that mattered was either wrong or of no consequence.

Moments later a low backed bench arrived. It was long enough for all four of them to sit next to each other without crowding. It reminded Melissa of a pew like she had seen in some of the richer Church wards. Mark turned to face her and give her a short kiss.

They traveled down a long tunnel to another cavern, half again larger than the one they left. In the center was a silvery mass. Mark realized this was the place where Teacher resided in the Retreat

"Yes," Teacher informed Mark and Melissa, Hank had passed the "test." Parallel with the test, Teacher gave Hank a thorough physical and mental examination that entailed much more than any manmade procedure.

Mark let out a breath he had not been aware he had held in until he let it out in a single "whoosh" of expelled air. "Hank, you passed your test. You probably feel much refreshed right now, don't you?" Mark smiled at him as he took personal inventory of his own body.

"Oh. What happened? I feel strange." Hank looked at Mark and then Melissa. "Hoo boy, I feel better than I ever have in my life. What happened?"

Melissa answered Hank's unspoken question, "You were given a physical examination, checked for mental defects and so much more I have no words to tell you. At the same time, with Teacher's help, your body has also begun to repair itself, for want of a better description. In time you will no longer have so much as a scar anywhere on you."

"Shall we have a snack?" Mark asked. "I'm hungry." His remark irritated Melissa and jarred Hank back into the present.

Melissa made a face at Mark. You're always hungry. [Mental picture of a bloated pig.]

Mark grinned and told her, "I'm a man of great carnal appetites." [Mental image of the two of them having great sex.] She jabbed him with her elbow. Hank stared at the two teens and Melissa blushed

"They have food in this place?" Hank asked, still in a daze. His words drew the young couple back to the outside world.

"Yes dear, the food here is quite delicious as a matter of fact." Rachel patted his cheek.

They sat back on the bench and were carried to another area. They came to an abrupt halt. The passageway ahead of them was blocked with rubble. As they backed up and went to another intersection, Melissa asked, "What was that?"

"It is a dangerous dead area." Teacher responded.

"What is in that dangerous dead area?" Melissa asked.

"It is unknown. Therefore it is dangerous."

Melissa and Mark both filed that bit of information away for further consideration. Perhaps Teacher was not quite so omnipotent, or as omniscient as Melissa and Mark believed him to be. She reminded Mark of her earlier disclosure about Teacher's damaged and destroyed parts. Teacher seemed to not be aware of their side conversation about him.

After a short while they ended up in a room half again as large as the first dining room they used before. This one was different in the feel of it as well as the size. There were the small tables and chairs scattered around. "Teacher, could you show us the earlier inhabitants if this place, the first of the priesthood?"

Let's grab a table and sit," Mark told them. "The floorshow is about to begin."

"Are you certain?" Melissa began.

"No, but we have to start somewhere." He asked Teacher for sound.

The lighting brightened and little gnome like people in simple tunics wandered around them. The small people, none over four and a half feet tall, reminded Mark of artists renditions of Irish leprechauns, with a touch of African mixed in. They appeared cartoon cute to his eyes and yet, they still had a dignity that was all their own. Mark and Melissa smiled at the high-pitched voices speaking in a foreign tongue.

"What the... ?" Hank exclaimed.

"Think of this as a holographic projection. These were among the first Priests Of The Blood," Melissa told him. "They were the children and grandchildren of the Pure Bloods that got loose and mingled with the wild creatures outside their preserve.

The Pure Bloods were the ones who were supposed to evolve and rule this world and something else I cannot..." She frowned and took a deep breath, then continued, "I cannot quite understand. There seems to be another set of enemies that..."

Melissa thought hard, and then added, "It seems a few of the Purebloods Remained in isolation and evolved into what we now call Homo sapiens. They were a tall, golden skinned people. Then they were almost all wiped out in one of the many cataclysms that seemed to happen whenever they started to expand."

Mark added, "Let's first eat, then Teacher will show us the beginnings of our ancestry; this includes both lineages, both the Pures and the Mongrels." He looked across the table at Rachel and Hank

"Neither Melissa nor I have seen what we shall all be shown after we eat.

"Mark, we need to discuss these other enemies I got a hint about."

He agreed and answered aloud, "Later."

The food arrived. Hank took a hesitant bite of some small cake. "Good," he murmured and began to attack everything on his plate. This time Teacher had anticipated them and did not wait for Melissa's or Mark's directions. Melissa noted that Teacher was somehow evolving or changing and able to take even more independent and voluntary action on his own. This concerned her.

After their meal was over, the real show began:

The over twenty feet tall beings they saw were old beyond all human reckoning, if there had been any humans in existence at that time. They came to the new, only a few billions of years old, Universe and began work with feverish desperation. Melissa could sense they were old, so very old, and they were dying.

They had lost much of their purpose to exist. Yet, a few of them still clung to their remaining short spans of existence. They were determined to create their own heirs.

They harnessed the waveforms that are the essence of all matter in every Universe they had found thus far. Then began the tedious job of Creation.

Each Universe has a Spirit or sentience that demands to exist and progress at its own rate. The newcomers did their best to subdue the young Universal Spirit and dominate it as they changed the fledgling Universe to their own needs. They persisted and slowly overwhelmed the young Universe. It came at a great price. Their numbers dwindled to half their original. Their life forces began to weaken at an even more rapid rate.

At last came the time of the new Creation:

Throughout the young Universe the newcomers created boiling cauldrons of gasses that coalesced into burning, unstable masses of molten matter. Those masses threw off much of their substances into globules and clouds that condensed and became planets, planetoids or cosmic waste.

The process was repeated over and over again until the young Universe was filled with the life essence of the newcomers. However, out in one remote section, far from all the Creation that occurred elsewhere, the young Universe began it's revenge. On one insignificant planet in a lonely planetary system it began a Creation of its own, using all its own waning Essence to begin life on the third planet from the sun. Perhaps it created too well...

Out of the steaming seas of methane, ammonia, water and all the other elements of this system, land masses began to appear, until soon there was a giant continent perfect for the task at hand.

At a deliberate pace, the process of Life and evolution began and the Mind of the young Universe began its revenge.

The clouds dispersed and the protozoa gave way to the next level of life, which gave way in its turn. Life fought with life for supremacy and crawled out of the life giving seas and began its existence on land. Most died, but a hardy few survived and continued their climb upward.

The small planet teemed with life. The rapid progression was not haphazard. Each new level of life was the building block for the one that followed.

The life forms on the small planet all shared one common trait. They were hungry, so very hungry.

Cold-blooded reptiles made way for their descendants, the warm-blooded mammals. Until finally, some two hundred millions of years ago the final stage began as small bipedal creatures knuckle-walked on the earth and played in the trees. Tails were lost and the various bipedal animals lived, played and died. Some of those creatures inherited the hunger for change.

Then came the great catastrophes as a large hunk of space debris slammed into the Earth. The third planet from the sun acquired a moon. Volcanoes, earthquakes and great tidal waves threatened to destroy all the Spirit of this Universe had wrought. Finally the super continent began to fracture and drift apart.

Many of the changelings escaped from their Eden and mated with the original bipedal stock. They reverted and forgot the greatness that was almost theirs. Only bits of knowledge of their history survived in legends. The Young Spirit of the Universe worked mightily to again achieve its goals.

"Good grief," Hank said. "We just witnessed The Book Of Genesis in a more palatable form." Rachel took his hand and sat in dumbfounded silence.

"We don't dare show this to my mother, Melissa told them. "There is no way she could handle it, not yet anyway."

Rachel yawned. Melissa sighed and looked at Mark. Hank looked too numb struck to drive home. "We might as well stay the night here," Rachel suggested. Mark asked Teacher if there were any problems with that arrangement. There were none.

Rachel told her son, "Please show Hank and I where we will sleep." Mark's heart went thump and stopped beating for a bit. His stomach had queasy thrills running through it. He scowled at his mother.

"You had best get used to it Mark," Rachel said in a firm voice. She looked at her son with a steady stare. "I have given myself to Hank and he has given himself to me. Your father is a wonderful memory that gave me you. Hank is my wonderful present and future."

Then Mark at last accepted his father was truly dead. He had to accept it. Hank had been his dad's friend, as well as his attorney. Mark realized Dad would have understood and given them his blessing. Mark felt better.

"Are you all right now?" Melissa asked him.

"Yes. I understand now." Mark's spirit felt free.

"Good, our room awaits us." She smiled at him and held out her hand. Mark took it and was led to their room.

Once inside a room similar to the one where he had slept when his mother and he spent the night, they undressed and stared at each other. A warm sweetness swept through his body. Mark saw her with lover's eyes. He saw Melissa as both his lifelong mate and companion. They opened our minds and their hearts to each other and embraced. It was good.

The got in bed and laid in each other's arms. "I love you," he whispered when they finally drifted off to sleep after they made love...

The next morning they awoke, still locked in each other's arms. "Are you awake?" she asked her mate for life.

"Let's stay like this forever and never move again," he told her.

"I have a better idea. Let's shower and get something to eat." She smiled at Mark and kissed him on the lips.