“From “The path of the gardener,” in the chapter on the gardener and their tasks.”
12.12.2056, Seattle, USA.
Stepping out in the cold after being inside the humid, polluted air of the pyramid temple felt like a slap in the face. As if the first metaphorical slap in the face had not been enough. For ten years I had been serving in this temple, to hear it was all a lie was more than sobering. What made it worse is that I came upon this truth after being offered elevation for my ten-year tenure at the temple. I had to get away from here, away from it all. The most important question though: was there still a safe spot anywhere on the world? As I walked to my car, I looked around and another thing which had never really bothered me, hit me, the world now seemed to have become greyer, as if parts of its former colour palette were missing. The black pyramid, with its split top pointing up into the grey sky, didn’t make it any better. Getting inside my car, I felt a bit safer but not relaxed, I started driving out of the city towards the Canadian border, remembering how it all began for me…
…It was the year 2045, I hit a bit of a low in life, but I had been invited to a party in my city. The City of Angels had been my home for my entire life, it’s open mind and free spirit had always been my inspiration. The party was held at one of my friends’ places, he had been working in entertainment for a couple of years now and had made quite a name for himself. When I arrived at the party a small crowd was already gathered in his apartment and most of them seemed to be gravitating towards one person. Shane Woolstone was one of the current “great ones” of Hollywood, not really someone I’d be interested in, so I went towards the kitchen area where I greeted my friend who told me to take whatever I wanted from the fridge. While I was rummaging in his fridge to find a beer to my liking, I hadn’t noticed someone coming up to me, so I jumped a bit when I saw him stand behind me after I found my beer. It was of course the wooly stone. He looked at me with those very dark eyes of his, there was a rumour he got those dark eyes because he made a deal with the devil, at that time nobody knew how close to the truth that rumour came. It seemed he was scaling me up in the way certain artists always seemed to do. “You look a bit down, my friend.” he started. “If you’re interested, I might have something that could lift your spirits.”
He went off on a fantastical sounding story of benefactors that could grant eternal youth and life in exchange for just a few years of service. At that time, I thought it was funnier than anything I had heard in a while, and I decided to just run with it. Had I known then what I know now, I would have run from it instead. Long story short, he brought me with him to those benefactors at an underground pub which before long would become one of the first pyramid temples in the world. And that’s where I first met them, “humans” who looked perfect in every way, except they looked just a bit too big in every aspect. The weirdest thing were their eyes though, they were completely black with wisps of red in there and they were surrounded by some of the most beautiful and handsome “regular” humans I had ever seen. As if an artist had sculpted them from the purest materials without any blemish at all. Back then it rubbed me the wrong way and I still had a chance to run, but I didn’t. And that’s how I ended up in the temple at Seattle, about to be elevated to become like one of those handsome humans I had first seen 10 years ago…
Lost in thoughts as I was, I didn’t realise I had been driving for 2 hours, I had left interstate 5 and was now following the North Cascades Highway. As I was driving along Gorge Lake, something caught my eye. Looking down at the lake, I saw a log cabin within the woods, but it was not the cabin that stood out. The colours of the trees, the sky and even the highway were different here, as if they kept the colours of years ago. It made me brake hard and get out of the car…the air was different as well: clear, open, spring-like even and this at the start of winter. As if an unknown force was pulling me in, I walked down the gravel path towards the door of the cabin…the only thing I could hear was a bird singing a lonely song somewhere down by the lake. As I approached the door, I was surprised to see it being opened by a small woman with dark hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I could say she looked just as ageless and beautiful as those women who had been elevated but her beauty was a lot more natural and the smile she sent my way really reached her eyes and increased her beauty a thousandfold. She had an aura of calmness and power surrounding her, it made me feel as if I was in the presence of my late mother.
Her genuine smile stayed in place while she asked me if I was lost and if I wanted to come in for a cup of coffee. Without really giving the command to my legs, I walked inside the cabin and took a seat at the beautifully woodworked table. She poured me a cup of coffee which smelled completely unlike the coffee I was used to these last couple of years, it brought back memories of the years from before the temple, as if the thing that dampens everything out there was lifted here. She had been silent for the entire time it took for me to get my coffee and take my first sip. She looked at me with those ultramarine coloured eyes and they bore into me as if she could see my soul…I was about to tell everything when the door to the cabin opened again and a man came in, he seemed quite mundane, not very tall at all until he looked up, the quality I had seen on her was visible in his face as well, he was a handsome man, very difficult to guess his age and with eyes in the most beautiful milk chocolate colour I had ever seen. He looked at me, then at, who I presumed to be, his wife, a warm smile formed on his face, and he dropped some logs near the fireplace. He walked up to me, stretched out his hand and introduced himself as Quentin. His wife laughed a bit and told me she had completely forgotten to introduce herself as well, her name was Lucia, and she was indeed Quentin’s wife. Both their handshakes were warm and welcoming, it felt as if they conveyed safety with just a simple handshake.
Lucia brought me back to our conversation and asked me what I wanted to tell when her husband came in, as she was curious what I was doing there. So, I started my story of how I had come to serve at one of the temples ten years ago, by now the existence of the temples and the promise they held was common knowledge, so I didn’t have to elaborate on that. I told them how I had caught a conversation between one of the “givers” as they asked us to call them and an elevated human. He was asking him how the hunt had gone, which piqued my interest, so I kept on listening. It seemed the elevated human had been on the hunt for prey to complete the elevation in the coming day. I had never really heard anything about how elevation exactly went, they had just told me it was painless and one of the most wonderful experiences you could have in your life. But what the giver spoke about made my blood run cold, it seems for elevation of one human to take place, the life of another human was taken, one life in exchange for immortality. The elevated human summed up the humans he had collected: babies, orphans and homeless people bought, abducted, and taken. They were all being prepared now to be used as a sacrifice. That was not what I had signed up for, nobody ever told me I would thank my immortality on the taking of the life of another human. I would not and I could not understand how all those elevated humans I had met up until now had gone through with it, but maybe they weren’t told before it was too late, or they were drugged during the ceremony or… And now I was scared, scared they had found out I left, and they were going to hunt me down to become one of the sacrifices myself or even worse, who knows what they are capable of. Telling this story made me feel hopeless and really scared. During my story neither Lucia nor Quentin had given any comment, they didn’t even look shocked by what I told them.
When I ended my story, Lucia shared a look with Quentin and she took my hand into hers, which as strange as it might sound, made me feel at ease at once, as if this world could end but I was completely safe with these two people. She told me that since I had been so open about my experience, she would tell me a story as well, it might answer some of the many questions I must have. She assured me I was completely safe with them, the givers wouldn’t even dare to approach this house with malintent. She started by telling me that I had been incredibly lucky to arrive here, since both her and Quentin were part of an order of humans called the “amants immortels”, they were true immortal humans, not created by any outside force but because they had found their true other half. Their order was founded many centuries ago and had quietly and slowly been working to improve this world and the life of all humans. Only very sporadically new couples were added to the amants immortels, it seemed very difficult for people to meet their true other half during their lifetime. They were two of the lucky ones. There was a lot more to tell about the order but that had no importance for this situation. Now she turned her story towards the “givers”. Up until a century ago, two species of extradimensional creatures had portals on this world. They had mingled with humanity under many different names in different places and times, but the name I would recognize the best was angels and demons, although those were not their true names. They came from two different dimensions and had been adversaries for many millennia, both in their respective dimensions and in all other dimensions they visited. After the amants had seen them importing their war into this world, using religion and so called holy scriptures, the amants had decided to intervene, so 300 years ago they made a covenant with both species, making Earth a neutral zone and setting some boundaries for both species so they could no longer use humans for their own benefit. The ultimate sanction for breaking the covenant would be the closing of the dimensional portals they used, which entailed a de facto expulsion since they could not survive here after the last of their dimensional portals was closed. About a century ago, the “angels” had been in breach of one of the major articles of the covenant and because of that they were denied access to Earth when the amants had closed all of their portals. Now, to come to the present situation, the amants had never gotten any information out of any of the temples but if what I told them was true, the demons were in breach of the covenant as well and as a repercussion the amants would have to close their portals.
She asked me if she could see my memories since they would be proof enough for the amants to act upon. Even though I didn’t know what was going to happen, I agreed, she just took my hand again and the feeling of warmth I had felt before enveloped me, together with a strong feeling of unconditional love. She asked me to think of what I had experienced in the temple today and my memories flooded in, but something was different, they were very clear and I wasn’t the subject myself, it felt as if I was observing my own memories and next to me were Lucia and Quentin looking in on it all as well. None of the feelings of dread or anxiety went with this review of my memories, it was as if I was a just a neutral onlooker. As the memory faded, I was gently returned to the present, the first thing I noticed was that her hand had grabbed hold of her husband’s hand as well, this must be how they share thoughts and memories. Lucia thanked me for sharing this memory with them and they told me they had to gather with the other amants to see what they would do about what they had seen. Quentin said I could stay in their cabin until they came back, which in the worst case would take a couple of days, he assured me it would be very safe here and that they would be very grateful if I could take care of their dog during their absence. There was more than enough food in the house for a couple of weeks, so I wouldn’t starve during their absence and as such I could wait to hear what they had decided. The woodlands around the cabin were all part of the property, so I was free to take long hikes down to the lake and the surroundings. After I agreed to stay and take care of their property and their dog, they took their coats of the hangers at the door and left. I looked out of the window when they were walking up the gravel path and suddenly, they were gone, not as if they faded into the surroundings, but a sudden disappearance, as if one moment they were there and the next moment they were gone. Yim, their dog wasn’t very impressed with their disappearance, though, he just let out a small sigh as he put his big head on my lap.
On the afternoon of my second day I was walking the shore of the lake and Yim was, as was his habit, constantly getting things from the woods to show me, he wasn’t really interested in playing fetch or such but he seemed to love getting branches or rocks from the woods, to lay them at my feet just to show me. When the sun started to set, I decide to head back, halfway back up to the cabin, I felt something happening, as if the wind suddenly changed direction, one moment it was a cold eastern wind which seemed to shift to a milder western wind in the blink of an eye and the sunsetting colours of the sky seemed to intensify just a little bit as well, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. When the cabin came in sight, I saw the familiar silhouettes of Lucia and Quentin walking towards me…
