Chapter 1
Philip Castle
The degeneration of my once strong body was a cruel joke. Or maybe a relentless waking nightmare. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.
My life had been one of extreme privilege and opportunity. Wealth had been in my family for generations. The Castle lineage was one of flawless breeding; only the strongest, most intelligent, beautiful people were attached to the surname. We were, in fact, among the most powerful families in the world. Relatives had been leaders in the most successful business ventures in history, and some were elevated political figures. It was an absolute absurdity that this disease had attached its retched tentacles to my body.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this for me. I was too wealthy, educated, and successful to die this young. At the time I received my diagnosis, I was at the point in my life where I hadn’t fell in love or had any children to carry on the impeccable Castle bloodline. Or the bloodline once thought impeccable. My blood was tainted with the rare genetic disease, and I would be the first to die before ninety from a cause outside of an accident.
In life and in business, there were always ways to negotiate a better return on investment. I was ready to negotiate and sacrifice to get what I deserved out of this life.
When I was first diagnosed with the illness, I was fifty. The doctors said I’d experience a slow decline and eventual death. But I wasn’t about to roll over and let it take me. I had resources that would help me live as long as possible while I worked to find a cure. Some would call it denial, but I called it hope. The hope to have everything I could ever want.
If you asked someone who knew me, they would tell you that Philip Castle was a brilliant businessman, who played as hard as he worked. For most of my life, I traveled the world, visiting places most of the population only dreamed of. I’d met the best and brightest people. I’d done everything on most people’s bucket list and then some. I’d enjoyed the spoils of my life so much that I never settled down and had a family.
My parents imparted the importance of family into my sister and me at a very young age. We were expected to find worthy partners and continue the family name. Arranged marriages weren’t uncommon in wealthy families. Families uniting with other families of the same status or financial means was commonplace. Money breeds money. My parents wanted me to marry for business reasons, but I wasn’t ready to settle down and compromise, so I continued with my life as a bachelor while my younger sister stepped in to take the burden.
Alyce, my sister, had married into the Harringtons, another very powerful New England family. It was a fantastic union of two families. She had a daughter, my niece, Angelina. Unfortunately, my sister was killed in a car accident. A few years later, my brother-in-law passed from cancer, and Angelina went to live with my parents. She never had a good relationship with her father’s side of the family, so when my parents both passed away just as Angelina was reaching adulthood, I stepped in and became another parent figure.
Angelina, who had changed her last name to Castle shortly after my parents died, had been another welcome distraction. Focusing on her made it easy to avoid the fact that I had not settled down or had my own child. While she was attending college at Princeton, I continued traveling and running the businesses. Angelina eventually took over, proving she had the same Castle tenacity within her. She continued to learn and strive for greatness. Her confidence, intelligence, and ruthlessness made for an excellent successor. Above all, Angelina would do anything I asked of her. Nothing was off the table when it came to protecting the Castle name.
After all the doctors’ appointments, testing, and experimental treatments, it seemed I was a lost cause. No amount of money or power could stop this dark shadow that would cloak me, then slowly and painfully kill me. But despite the odds, I would never stop fighting.
I hit a point of panic when second opinion turned into third opinion and so on. The prognosis wasn’t good, no matter what resources I had thrown at doctors. I refused to give up and was willing to look at alternative ways to cure the disease or extend my life long enough to find a cure.
At my very last appointment—a sixth opinion—the doctor had mentioned a holistic healer in South America. Of course, it came with a disclaimer. The doctor insisted I not expect anything, but if I wanted to talk to the “witch doctor,”—my words, not his—he would support it. Without much more to lose, I headed to a remote area in South America to meet the man who would change my life.
Fatigue had overtaken many parts of my body by this point, and I began to trip over my own feet. The progression of the disease moved quickly, and the time I had left with a fully functioning body was running out. I would soon be confined to a wheelchair.
When I arrived in Colombia, I was greeted by my guide, Arturo. I paid a premium rate to have him take me to the healer, who I could only assume would do nothing more than take my money, rub some sort of ointment on my body, and give me an herbal supplement. I had little faith that this healer could help me.
When I met Abaru, it seemed my previous assumptions would be true. He preached of quieting the mind with meditation, eating clean—all that mumbo jumbo. However, I was willing to try. I spent a month with him, cleansing and balancing my body and mind. During my time in Ciudad Perdida, I opened my mind, body, and soul. It worked. That was the first time I saw Natalie.
Abaru was a proponent of the use of psychedelics in healing the spiritual and physical. He said it took your mind places that it otherwise could not go to seek answers to the most burning questions. The experience was quite intense and successful.
I saw her during what I could best describe as a trip. She was a young woman, maybe twenty or so. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I had seen many beautiful women.
The young woman stood high on a cliff overlooking a vast, unsettled body of water. Waves crashed at the base of the cliff, signaling a storm to come.
Her nearly black hair blew as if it was doing a mysterious dance, covering then uncovering her face. As I approached, noticing more of her characteristics—caramel flawless skin, obsidian eyes, high cheekbones, pouting full lips—I instantly fell in love.
She came close to me and knelt, bowing her head as if I were her liege, and surrendered a red-covered book, bound in black leather. It was bothersome to me that she had felt she needed to kneel, so I did the same, but she still would not make eye contact. I gently grabbed her chin and lifted her head so I could meet her gaze.
What happened next was a scene I’ll never forget. It began with red-tinged tears streaming down her forlorn face. I was taken aback by the sight.
“Hiatch-Eth-Sur-Asha,” she whispered, with bloody tears streaming down her face. They continued flowing as the stream overtook her entire body until she dissipated into a beautiful pool of ruby-red liquid. All that remained of my love was the book. Hiatch-Eth-Sur-Asha. The Book of Life. It was all an unfortunate enigma, as I had no idea what it all meant until I woke about nine hours later.
Abaru insisted I’d been out for hours, but the entire thing felt as though it had happened in a span of a few minutes. Rehashing the vision with him made me realize how crazy it all sounded. I, Philip Castle, was in South America with a guru, taking psychedelics in hopes of coming to terms with my slow and painful demise. I had been so level-headed and rational my entire life that I was fighting tooth and nail against taking one ounce of stock in what my expanded mind had just shown me. Albeit, I was willing to believe the woman I had met existed somewhere.
Abaru had clung to my every word as I described the vision. His knowledge of the elusive Book of Life only validated what I’d witnessed. He told me the book had been based on a scientist’s experiment with channeling different beings in different realms, timelines, and galaxies. The title had even carried from a language not known to anyone but the author. The intrusive memory of feeling completely ripped off by the situation angered me. Mostly I was angry at myself for being so damn desperate. The practical Philip Castle would have walked away from this situation before it had gotten this far, but that version of me was completely absent at this point.
I learned from Abaru that the text was very real, but also very hidden. The average person could not look up this book in the reference section of the library. The book was kept by a group of people that made sure the contents were never revealed due to what it contained. Fortunately, everyone had a price.
I acquired the book two years after I began the quest. The contents were fascinating. Creation, evolution, spirituality, life and death. It all made perfect sense. My interest piqued in the chapter that talked about our cellular makeup as humans and our DNA.
Our DNA constantly evolves as we as humans find the intersection between energetic alignment and the physical. When that happens, our bodies become better, stronger, attuned to the higher power. This means that we can better manipulate energy, such as our bodies, to heal themselves, fixing the parts of the DNA that hold genetic abnormalities that cause diseases like mine.
The theory was well and good, and if I’d had time, maybe I could have come close, but I was not afforded that luxury. As I studied the book, my body continued to decline, but more revelations came in the form of a shortcut. Since I didn’t have time to evolve my own DNA, there was a chance that something or someone could do it for me. The realization could only have been brought on by an unexpected brush with fate.
I wasn’t a man who believed in providence, but my tune on the topic changed the day I almost died six years ago.
