Blackbird

Chapter 10: Seraphim

"An account of the ancient mesopotamian history and literature"

This was one of his dad's forgotten journal that he had painstakingly scanned and uploaded into his private server. He opened the scanned images one by one and read through the contents-

"The ancient land of Mesopotamia or modern day Iraq has been home to many mysterious civilizations dating back far more than modern academia currently suggests..."

- read Patrick curiously, he never had time to read these journals and he never imagined these would ever come in handy.He continued reading -

"Modern day mainstream scholars often do not bother to dig any further than the Akkadian or Sumerian cultures which existed around 4000 BCE and they are hardly to blame for there doesn't exist much evidence of such a pre historical civilization. Except for a few clay tablets and sculptures of the dieties worshipped by those people. I am talking about the Annunakis here - the dieties who were worshipped by the ancient people..

..."

- Patrick was intrigued when he read the word "Annunaki" and so he kept reading.

"The Epic Of Gilgamesh- an old poem belonging to that era mentions about these ancient people and their dieties..."

"Annunakis were Gods of the first civilization of the earth- this is what I've come to believe after my extensive research works. They helped to shape humanity's future- by teaching them about agriculture and crops, pottery and weapons, literature also seems to have propagated during that era as many cuneiform or clay tablets with curious writings have been discovered today- of course they are in a pretty bad shape but we can make out the important details necessary…Their accounts were recorded in the form of clay tablets and were held sacred by the later civilizations.People sang songs and wrote poems about these ancient beings but the records were lost in time. I believe that some ancient historians even knew the true language of these Gods and must have recorded in their cuneiform tablets…"

Patrick kept on reading and matching the samples of the scans with his papyrus. An hour later after an intense study he found out that the papyrus was not of that age and time but was merely an inspired work refering to the old ages- it was probably written during the middle ages by some unknown historian but it wasn't in any known language new or old! He reopened the scans again and continued reading-

"I call it 'the language of the Gods' because it cannot be spoken by any mere mortal- it can however be written down and understood or translated but can never be spoken in any human tongue…I have been fortunate enough to come by a peculiar looking tablet that was written in the same obscure language and have started to translate it… ", Patrick was intrigued and continued-

"I have made an attempt to reconstruct its vocabulary and grammar and made the following dictionary so that I can

continue to understand the ancient world…", Patrick opened the next scan and as soon as he did he saw pages and pages of weird scribbles and their corresponding meanings in English. He matched the scribbles with his papyrus. The words started to make sense. After an hour he made a crude translation of the language in the papyrus. It read:

"Here lies the gateway to anywhere and nowhere..."

-and then the rest was torn off. Then right below it were drawings of weird humanoid figures with elongated heads who seemed to worship in a circle around a portal looking structure that had a huge spiral in the middle. Patrick continued translating

the text beneath it, which had been smudged and torn in places-

"the true of heart shall pass,

with an offering of blood and sweat,

on the hand of the doorway he shall pour,

his true intentions and his soul...

Beware the greedy and evil ones,

for thou shall incur the wrath of Anki …

On a dark moonless night,

When one looks at the sky,

one shall find the passage …

white stones shall guide the way,

into the final place of the ancients…

The door leads to anywhere and nowhere,

to heaven or to hell…

Anyplace your heart desires,

and which your soul seeks truly…

Folow Orion in heaven,

Place thy hands on the gate,

Speak the lord's name thrice…

As in heaven, so on earth…"

He wondered why would anyone write such a poem- instructing exactly where to look and how to get there. Furthermore the Turkish word "Hoyuk" that was smudged out puzzled him too. The very existence of this word on an ancient text meant that someone in the modern world knew what this poem meant and had this text in his or her possession. Who knew that this old piece of ruin would hold so much mystery.

Somewhere in the city, March 26th, 9 a.m.

Bishop opened her eyes and saw the ceiling of her room, her heart was racing, her forehead was covered with sweat and dirt and she was lying on the floor in her room. She sat upright and looked around- it was indeed her house , her room!

"But I was with my team...in that base...the sphere...", she spoke to herself.

She felt as if she had just woken up from a dream - a lucid dream. She stood up and walked towards her bed and noticed her clothes- those were the same clothes that she was wearing in that base- the same blue jacket- black jeans and black boots. She sat down on her bed and turned towards the mirror on the left of her- her face was covered with dirt- she tried to wipe it off...

"What on earth is happening?", she thought,

"why do i feel like I was supposed to be somewhere else?", she was having trouble with remembering , her thoughts were scattered.

She checked her pocket and found her phone- she clicked it open and immediately noticed the date- March 26 2013. She was shocked- although she couldn't remember much, but she atleast knew that it was supposed to be the 28th not 26th of March today! But she calmed herself down and tried to retrace her steps- the first thing she recalled was that she was with a few more people, but not here - somewhere else. Then she remembered being somewhere around military men and seeing a sphere- a huge metallic sphere. But how could she be at teo places at the same time? If she was dreaming in her bed then why was she fully dressed for outdoors and her face was covered with dirt? And for god's sake what's up with the date??

He guessed as if someone had taken care of him while he was unconscious and brought him here in this barn. He thought he must be in some kind of tribal village. But how did he reach there? He tried to recall his past events and remembered Rocko beating him black and blue until he lost his consciousness. But what happened after that?

"God … my head hurts… ah!", groaned Patrick.

Suddenly the door opened and a little kid wearing some sort of middle eastern clothing with a tiny hat on his head stepped in with a pot of water in his hands. He saw Patrick and drew a sharp breath as if saw a ghost and dropped the pot on the floor and ran outside screaming.

"Hey kid wait…ah!", said Patrick trying to stop him.

But the little boy ran out as fast as he could. Patrick tried to stand but he felt dizzy, so he sat back on the bed. A minute later a woman entered through the door along with the boy- her face covered under a veil. Patrick could only see her eyes as she was wearing a black gown which covered her entire body from head to toe.

"Selam!", she said to Patrick and asked him if he's feeling better now in her native tongue.

Patrick could only make out the word "Selam" which he knew was a greeting in Turkish- he had often heard the word in the camp, but he couldn't understand the rest.

"Selam...", he replied, "can you tell me how I got here?"

The little boy who stood by the door gighled in amusement. Apparantly Patrick's language sounded funny to him.

The lady politely went up to him and checked his bandages. She then said that he's healing quickly. Patrick didn't understand a word and simply looked at her.

"Um...can you understand me? Can you tell me how I got here?", asked Patrick again , this time slower but the lady simply looked at her and told him to rest for a while.

"Damn! where am I ? ", said Patrick in frustration.

The lady then said something and walked out of the door with the kid. Patrick surmised that she was simply asking him to rest. But how could he rest? After all Hans had almost tried to kill him. And the doorway?The myth of Anki?

"Wait! Did it work? Did the gateway actually brought me here? , thought Patrick as he began to remember that dreadful night.

He immediately got up and opened the door to take a look outside. What he saw left him awestruck.

He was in some kind of a village in the middle east- there were clay huts everywhere and people were busy going about their daily lives. He was in a barn that was constructed a few feet from the ground with bamboo and hay. From this elevated position he could see the entire village. Some men wore white gowns and were mostly busy herding camels and goats, some men were busy making tools and pottery. The elderly women wore beautiful gowns with their faces veiled and they too were busy carrying clay pots of water and attending to little kids. There were palm trees everywhere and even little bushes of exotic flowers in some places.

Patrick saw lines of houses as far as the eye could see. The village stretched on for miles in all directions but one particular image surprised him the most. From where he was standing he saw four huge pillars and a dome far away in the desert. The dust and sand made it quite blurry but he could still make out a gold and white coloured shiny dome a few kilometres from the village.