The Last Guardian

Superstitions

The shadow watched from behind the tree, it's eyes glowing red- it's mouth covered by a black cloth- it was a spy- a demon spy- whose only job was to watch and report Johnathan's movements. The winds were getting stronger- a storm was approaching but it kept watching Johnathan until he went back inside the Church. It couldn't lay a step inside the Church's hallowed grounds but Satan knew it wanted to - it was thirsty for blood- a Guardian's blood, which was supposed to give immense strength to a low level demon like him. It was total darkness everywhere- not even streetlights were installed on the nearby road- everyone treated the Old Church as an ancient ruin. But the supernatural powers knew the treasure that the Old Church held. The Demon growled behind it's mask and walked around the broken fence trying to take a peep at what's happening inside. But Billy had locked the giant wooden door and the windows were tainted dark. Suddenly he heard a low rumbling sound of a car engine approaching from a distance- being a demon he had heightened abilities- then he saw the glowing lights of a car- he immediately jumped and disappeared in the darkness. His name was Grim and he had been spying on Johnathan for a few days now. He had seen with his own eyes- the incident at Cooper's Town and how Johnathan was able to access immense powers- he had watched him from the shadows and observed his every move- he was pleased when he found out that Johnathan was a Guardian- for he had killed several before and had gained their strength. The more power Johnathan acquires- the more he can have once he had killed him. He laughed diabolically at the delicious feast he would have- as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop without making a sound.

Lisa parked her car inside the Church grounds and walked towards the door as fast as she could- Raven opened the door-

"Hi! Is everyone in?", she asked Raven as she anxiously went inside the Church.

"Yeah- come in-" replied Raven still busy in her phone.

Lisa walked towards the inner room of the Church where Billy and Johnathan were seated on a small table- the former busy reading some books while the later fast asleep on a wooden chair. The room was lit by candles everywhere and with the lighting and the smell of old books the place felt like a scene from an old western movie.

"Oh! You're here-" said Billy welcoming her back.

"Sit back and relax and read this-" he added handing her an old diary.

Lisa kept her things on a shelf nearby and sat on a chair beside the candle light- she opened the diary and started to read-

September 1988,Murmansk (near Lovozerye), Russia.

The eerie cold weather near the frozen lake Lovozero was making it very difficult to move forward. Linda Bykova and her four men team of researchers had spent three days and nights in this hunt for an alleged creature who seemed to have chased after a group of teenagers who came on a fishing expedition a few weeks earlier.Linda being an amateur cryptozoologist herself was very excited to finally discover a legitimate cryptic creature or atleast gather some proof of it to share it with her sceptical seniors. After all her last two expeditions on a bat like creature in Indonesia and the mysterious dog-like animal of Africa turned out to be just local myths and scared villagers spinning tall tales."I hope those kids are right!", thought Linda as the snow started to get thicker beneath her feet."We should set up camp for tonight" yelled Dmitri, who was walking in front of the group,"...up there in that cabin...it looks abandoned..", he pointed to an old shack made of wood on top of a small mound of rocks."That's the same cabin that the kids stayed in... that's where that beast appeared...I ain't getting in there.."said Oscar feverishly stepping away from the group. But Gregory grabbed him by the shoulders,almost lifted him and pushed him back into the group, "You want to die here in the cold,huh?". Oscar silently stepped back from the strong ox-like figure of Gregory whose grey fur coat made him look like the abominable snowman himself grinding his teeth in the snow.Linda consoled Oscar, the American zoologist and argued that they're safer inside the hunters cabin than outside,the cold will definitely kill you before the creature does...

A few hours passed. The four of them made themselves comfortable inside the cabin. Dmitri the local guide was staring into the fireplace sharpening his knife,lost in thought. Gregory had just finished his second bottle of rum and was greedily looking at the candy bar that Oscar was about to eat."Here,you can have it!",said Oscar handing Gregory the chocolate bar ."Hmh!" grunted Gregory and chewed it violently. Linda smiled at them and went back to writing her journal by the candlelight which she somehow managed to find in that single room cabin."A table,and a broken chair,few trustworthy men,and an intimading weather... I am on a journey to find perhaps one of the most important piece discovery of my life...",she wrote. The candlelight flickered as a strong breeze came gushing in through a hole in the door.Linda put her palm by the candle to stop it from going out.Half an hour passed and the winds grew stronger...

"10 pm...I will take a nap now...You take first watch..da?",said Gregory to Dmitri."Da!dobroy nochi!", replied Dmitri."Where's Oscar?",asked Linda. "He had just gone outside...toilet!...very weak bladder..",grinned Gregory."In this weather?I thought he was scared...Wait that's him...right?"said Linda pointing to a dark figure outside the broken window pane. "Da...looks like him..."

The three of them looked hard at the silhouette outside the window.The winds were howling outside and the old roof made a cracking noise. Linda grabbed her torch."What are you guys looking at!” groaned Oscar who was asleep in his sleeping bag underneath the table. Linda was shocked, "If you're here, who's that?".She shone her torch at the window and they all saw a face, hairy, brown with fur. Linda lost her voice, Gregory took out his gun but the face disappeared. Dmitri opened the door and he and Gregory both went out after it. Oscar almost fainted in his sleeping bag. The creature was there, Linda couldn't believe her eyes.

She quickly locked the door behind her and crouched by the door trying to peep through the cracks. The room was almost dark,the candle went out in the rush,the embers from the fireplace were still burning red. Oscar was still unconscious. Linda waited anxiously for the men to return. Suddenly she heard a gunshot and then another and then it was silent again,except for the howling wind.Her heart pounded in excitement.

Five minutes later Dmitri followed by Gregory came back frustrated. "Afonya!...that was the damned creature...I shot it..I am sure..."said Gregory shaking his head in excitement."Did you see it?",asked Linda."No,but we found footprints...large...and its stride was more than four feet.. I'm sure",said Dmitri."Amazing,this proves that I was right...but you did not hurt it did you?",asked Linda.Both of them shook their heads.

The wind stopped howling and it was almost midnight. They all heard a long mooing call from afar.Perhaps it was the beast letting them know that it will be back.Linda couldn't sleep that night.Afonya existed and only they knew it.The four of them took off the following morning, Linda's eyes gleamed with excitement, every step she took into the thick snow led her closer to her discovery."Another journey begins...",she wrote.

After struggling through the dense sss forest for an hour me and my three local guides and Alicia arrived at the fabled-"city of the dead" built by the ancient aztecs. Huge ruins of pyramids, broken stones, pillars and pathways lay ahead of us in a clearing. Alicia was awestruck, "We did it - we finally found it!", she said,her eyes shining through her glasses. Our Incan friends too seemed relieved at the thought of finally getting the job done and returning home,but I for one was sceptical. 'Was it really supposed to be so-easy?',I thought staring at the vast ruined pyramid which was now covered with algae and wild plants.The lost city of the dead was supposed to be filled with immeasurable treasures and hence most difficult to find.Nevertheless I asked Paco one of our guides to lead the way.

We struggled to keep up with him as he climbed up the stairs swiftly. "Slow down!", I shouted, as he kept climbing ahead. He seemed to be in some kind of frenzy as if he were possessed. "Paco! slow down !", I yelled again, fearing we might lose him in the ruins. Paco looked back at me and I could swear I saw his face had gone grey and his eyes were green...a chill ran down my spine as I stared at that little boy running madly to the top of the ruined pyramid. "My friend", said Sergio one of the elder guides, trembling with fear as he placed his hand on my shoulder "the king has finally returned home".

A chill ran down my spine and I could feel beads of sweat dripping from my forehead.

I froze for a moment as I looked at the sheer madness ahead of me.Paco was relentlessly moving forward towards the top of what was once a pyramid like monument,which during the old days was most probably used for human sacrifices.He raged on like a mad bull, mumbling gibberish, occasionally slipping down,barely able to hold on to the flimsy rocks. The four of us hurried to stop him but the boulders of algae ridden rocks made it very hard for us even to step foot on them.

"The King-the lord-of Mictlan-has returned?",I wondered trying to remember the history of the place-which wasn't depicted in any map.It was once used as a temple dedicated to the God of the underworld -Mictlantecuhtli.Human sacrifices were performed by great priests of the temple who wore large skull like hats and painted their faces red as they carried out brutal acts of murder on top of the pyramid platform and hundreds of spectators would watch from below as they hoped that these inhuman acts would somehow please the deity.What a dreadful sight it would have been!

Paco had almost reached the top by now and as he laid his feet on the platform he let out a horrific scream and fell into some kind of hole.We could only observe helplessly from below."What on earth!- cried out Alicia-did you see that- he got swallowed in- he-", words failed to come out- we were all dumbfounded,but we had to reach the top.The old stairs were broken and we were holding on to crumbling rocks as we scaled the hundred metres tall ruin.Our hands and feet got covered in a strange slime like substance which seemed to ooze out from the cracks,and wild grass and climber plants wrapped round the stones made it harder to climb-still we had to move on.Sergio almost fell trying to hold on to a block of stone.Alicia was the one who reached the top first and we all stood there not knowing what to do.

A huge hole was in the middle of what was supposed to be a flat platform.We stared down into the dark abyss and shone our torches yelling out Paco's name.Strangely our lights couldn't even reach the bottom and all we saw was a slime and moss covered wall and an endless dark pit below.At this point I vaguely remembered some line I read in an obscure book -"He shall feast upon blood on a moonless night,he shall dance upon the bones of the dead...he shall rise..."I couldn't remember much but I knew it was a prophecy related to this place - Mictlan!

It was almost sunset and darkness would soon fall,we had to return to our camps,but we also had to look for the lost boy.Sergio and the other local guide weren't much keen on finding him as they only kneeled down and offered their prayers.I was furious at this behaviour at first but Sergio explained to me that he was taken as a sacrifice by the deity and that we could have done nothing to help him.Their superstitious beliefs saddened me-surely everything had to have a logical explanation, but I thought it would be more reasonable for us to go back to our camps now and look for the boy tomorrow.We all agreed to head back but as I stood there holding my satchel,I looked at the majestic scenery of the jungle.It would be dark soon and the dense forest was eerily getting silent.I could no longer hear the howling monkeys or the occasional roar of the jaguar nor the majestic birds of paradise,who are known to be notoriously loud with their shrilling annoying voices trying to impress their mates.It seemed as though nature was shying away creepily into sleep and the only thing that could be heard was the monotonous shrilling of crickets and cicadas.

The sun had now crept behind the mountains as the four of us tried to find a way down this dreaded place.Sergio was the first to climb down,Alicia and I were going next.As he made his way down,Alicia drew a sharp breath and pointed towards the ruins that lay below.A thick fog was engulfing around the pyramid.It was strange and unnatural as winter was months away.The other guide started to tremble in fear and hurried to climb down the slope.I tried to stop him but something must have spooked him,for he wouldn't listen and was determined to leave the place. Suddenly the pyramid began to rumble as though it was hit by an earthquake.The whole thing was falling apart brick by brick.Alicia screamed and grabbed my arm as I called out to Sergio-"Come back up!Its not safe...grab the other guy!".Sergio quickly held out his hand to his friend who was a few feet away from him holding on to a broken piece of boulder which would likely give away at any moment.But before he could reach him the boulder broke away and fell down taking the poor local with it.We could only hear a fading scream and a dull thud as he was quickly swallowed by the strange fog below.Sergio knowing that he couldn't do anything else had now quickly climbed up.The three of us were barely able to hold on to each other as the rumbling continued and the fog was getting thicker.Behind us was the dark abyssmal pit and the way back home was engulfed in the ever growing sinister fog.All we could do was to hold on to our dear lives.But then the rumbling stopped.

We were shaken with fear and awe.Alicia was still holding on to my arm and Sergio was trying to catch his breath.I for one was trying to get a hold of the bizzare events that had just occurred and I couldn't make any heads or tails of it.We were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no help from the outside world and this horrible place wouldn't let us leave. Somehow my scientific beliefs were completely shadowed by the paranormal.

It was completely dark now and we decided we had to make another attempt to leave.I shone my torch at the pit behind us -it was dark,but I noticed that the walls of the pit were now completely covered with slime and it was moving as though it were alive! It moved slowly but steadily-outwards and upwards towards the edges-through the cracks- towards me-my heart began to race and my ears were filled with the screams of our dead companions. Impossible! - I murmured.But then I heard Alicia calling out to me which broke my trance.She and Sergio had found another way down ,through the broken stairs-parts of the stairs that broke off had now piled up below us making a crude platform towards the ground,but we had to jump.We shone our lights and jumped one by one,onto the platform and a few moments later onto the ground which was still surrounded by the fog.We held each other's hand and moved ahead carefully as we could barely see and the light from our torches reflected back from the thick fog.Still we moved on,the ground below us cracked and I felt as if I was stepping on bones and empty skulls.Alicia kept repeating that the place was cursed and once we were out of here we would never come back.

Almost half an hour later, after struggling through the fog,we saw some lights ahead of us.Apparently some of our local friends had come looking for us for knew the dangers of this place. We finally felt safe,and God knows how grateful I felt to see them.They wrapped us up in blankets,gave us some water and took us back to the camp.I looked back at the doomed place,there was no fog,and the pyramid was now clearly visible under the moonlight.I held Alicia's hand as we walked back tired and hungry. I said to myself- "some secrets are better left buried."

"Astra inclinant, sed non obligant."

On Christmas eve Chloe sat watching the stars outside through the window . Her father had been smoking and drinking again and her mom was preparing dinner as the guests would soon arrive. Chloe felt like going outside for a while, to get some fresh air - the cigar smoke was becoming unbearable inside - life was too lonely for a 16 yr old. She opened the door and stepped out, "Its not that cold!", she thought and closed the door behind. The stars twinkled in the hazy skies and the moon peeped out lazily out of the clouds. She sat down on the stairs and thought of the days when she was a little girl and her father would gift her something on every Christmas eve- this year he sat silently staring at the fire and said nothing- the war had taken everything away from them and these days he spoke very less . Chloe sighed and drew a long breath...

Someone was coming... Maybe Uncle John from Dakota... Chloe stood up to greet the man but was surprised to see a shabby old fellow in a rugged coat slowly limping towards her. She was scared and turned towards the door but the man called out to her, "Say missy, sorry to bother you but it seems like I am lost..." She turned around and said, "Where are you headed Sir?". "Well I've been looking for one J. Stinson around these parts." said the man."I've never heard of him." replied Chloe and turned towards the door. "Wait!"said the old man, "I've something for you" and handed her a silver strung necklace with a blue pendant. "Why thank you, but it doesn't belong to me", said Chloe staring at the beautiful necklace. She looked up to find that the man had suddenly disappeared, as if the darkness had simply swallowed him. She was simply awestruck and looked at the pendant again, tiny words shone from it in the dark, "The stars will guide your way"... Suddenly there was a loud noise of something crashing into the woods... Chloe hurried back inside and closed the door.

*Wordt Vervolgd *