Part 19 (1/2)

I can only imagine the fright my dad must have felt facing Rhonar alone. But that can't be any worse than the sheer terror Omar must have felt. The guy can barely breathe without whimpering in fear on a normal day, let alone a day when he's being shot at or potentially gored by Bob Sapp's inhuman cousin.

”Down we go,” Kane says.

I look ahead and see we are descending down another tunnel, deeper into this place. It begins to spiral to the left at a constant arc.

”At least it's not more stairs,” Kane mumbles thanking this place on behalf of his damaged ribs.

We continue our plunge deeper and deeper into the Earth, not knowing when we'd pop out and to what we'd find.

”How deep do you think we are now?” Nicole asks after fifteen minutes of silent travel.

”Give or take...maybe another 500 hundred feet deeper or so. That would be my guess anyway,” Kane answers. ”What do you think, Hank?”

I haven't heard a word. I'm deep in thought, reliving everything that's transpired here today. ”Um...sure, sounds about right,” I finally answer in a monotone, trance-like state.

Kane stops and turns. ”Okay Indy, what's going on in that noggin of yours?” He motions for us to sit and rest, which we gladly do. He leans against the left hand wall, while Nicole and I plop down against the other. ”Every time you zone out and enter La-La Land you end up having some sort of epiphany. So what's going through your head right now?”

What's going on in my head? He should have asked, what isn't going on in my head. I have about 99 different things swirling through my noggin right now, but my brain is so fried I can't focus enough to figure any of them out. So I start with the most obvious one.

”What do you think this place is?”

Both Kane and Nicole looked surprised I'm asking them their opinion.

I see their shocked looks, ”You guys are just as much a part of this as me. We need to brainstorm and come up with something. I have a bunch of partial conclusions, but could use some help piecing them together.”

”It's a prison.”

I snap over to my left and look at Nicole.

”It's a holding cell for Nannot,” she continues. ”The elders must have locked him away down here.”

”It would explain the elaborate construction of this place and why it was never recorded in any historical writings. I asked my dad the same thing and...” I get choked up and catch myself mid-sentence. I never realized how worried I was over my father's safety.

I feel a soothing hand on mine.

”We'll find him, Hank. I promise,” Nicole says. She then gives it a gentle squeeze and lets it linger there for a split second before pulling it away. She then draws both her Ruger's and inspects them, ending the moment.

I glance over at Kane. He gives me a double eye-brow raise-the universal sign for oh, baby and hubba-hubba.

”Anyways...” I continue. ”I asked Dad the same question. Why build such an elaborate place for a myth that was supposedly pure folklore?”

”Believe me, it ain't folklore anymore,” Kane says also drawing both his weapons, checking each weapons slide and both magazines.

”Agreed, but it still doesn't answer the question, why build it?”

”To contain, The End?” Nicole asks.

”That's half the answer. The other half is...why was he contained and not destroyed?”

They both nod their heads in agreement. We conclude our talk, not being able to formulate a concrete hypothesis on this place or at least put anything solid together. There are just too many unanswered questions still. I go to stand, but Nicole grabs my hand again, but this time not as gentle, and pulls me back down...hard.

”Not a chance, Hank,” she says. ”You need some rest.” She looks over to Kane for support and the big man just nods, actually looking a little intimidated by her stare and tone.

I relent and stay seated and agree to take a break. We all need a second to regroup and with Kane's recent injuries, it's probably not a bad idea. He needs it more than Nicole and I, though he'd never admit it. He would actually make a really convincing Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail movie. I can picture him missing an arm and a leg hoping around shouting, ”It's just a flesh wound!”

We agree on a shorter half-hour rest. After that we'll pick up our search for the others and hopefully find some more answers and eventually a way out.

”Let's just hope the morons didn't blow up the stairs completely,” Kane commented as he closes his eyes.

”G.o.d, I hope not. I'd really like to see the sun again,” Nicole agrees.

They lay down, Kane facing up the incline towards the known threat and Nicole facing down the spiraling tunnel, towards the unknown. I'm left in between two of the most bada.s.s people I've ever met and decide to stay put leaning up against the wall. I glance to both watching and smile as both Kane and Nicole lay on their backs, crossing dual pistols over their chests-like a pair of Egyptian pharaohs holding a crook in one hand and a flail in the other.

I close my eyes and ask the architects of this place for answers. I also say another prayer to the Nightmares roaming the cavern and for the two we slew earlier. I even add a prayer for us and for Omar and Dad, that we see each other again.

Before I fall asleep I feel a nudge against my foot and realize its Nicole's. I smile in the dark and give it a tender nudge back, but don't let go. We lock ankles in a private embrace and drift to sleep.

What I could use is a solid power nap.

What I didn't need was another dream.

But, what I got...were answers.

36.

I open my eyes and find myself in the same chamber as before-the one from my previous dream-except something isn't right. The world is in black and white, with some shades of both sprinkled in. It sort of looks like I'm watching an older movie.

There are no flaming lamps floating on the walls, no obsidian bonfire frozen in time and no psychotic, wannabe warlord ranting about taking over the world, killing billions, and using me to do it. It's just a very large, very bare, void of nothingness. Plus, the cave sounds like it's crumbling, like an A-Bomb was dropped above it and the shock wave is now pa.s.sing through.

There's a colossal pillar to my left, the size of a redwood. It looks like a giant stalagmite and stalact.i.te fused together after years and years of dripping.

Like some of my previous spelunking adventures in America's Midwest, the roof of this cave must be made of limestone. The stalact.i.te would have dripped calcium-among other minerals-to the cavern floor where it would build up to form a stalagmite. As the water drains through the rocks above, it would basically eat away at the limestone, causing it to bleed down and form these majestic columns.

There must be a huge body of water above me, I think, then, remember where I am. Possibly a sea or part of an ocean-the one that ringed Atlantis in its heyday.

Then, I see something around the back of the pillar. There's a slight glow coming from what I guess might be a lantern or possibly a small fire. I slowly and quietly peek around the base of the stone column and see that the light source is neither a lantern or fire, but a crystal of some sort. But gemstones don't usually glow.

It's then that I see the people sitting around the glowing jewel, three of them to be precise. It looks like they are finis.h.i.+ng up a conversation, but I must have just missed it since they aren't speaking, they're just sitting staring at each other.

After watching them for what seems like a full minute and not seeing one of them speak a single word, one of the tall men stands, his back to me.

Come brothers, we must return to the surface and try to restrain our fallen brother and forgive him for what he has done and for what he will do next.