THE SLIDE: Part 3

Chapter 32: The Second Task

The Churn, A Pocket Reality, Time Travel — 20th Century

“How do you feel?” Farha asked.

“Cleansed and beginning to feel like me again,” Hrez said, and his entire body relaxed in one breath. “Thank you, Farha.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled.

“I will rest and then look at you to see what’s what,” Hrez said to her.

Under the Dungeon

Zed, Q, and A entered the dark, low space. Lights, triggered by motion, automatically came up. They sustained their brightness and occasionally dimmed and remained less luminous.

“What’s with the lights? How is it they are dimming?” Q questioned.

“This is a dark place. But I suspect X is making his presence felt. He dwells in darkness,” Zed said with a bit of glee.

“Is this the place that K made for us?” Q asked.

“Where is K, anyway?” A asked.

“K made it for them without telling us. That’s one reason they could escape detection. As for K, we thank him for this cloaked space and damn him for betraying us. He has been eviscerated,” Zed said, bristling with his own sense of personal power.

“What of the Berber and FI?” A asked.

A dark thing, a large tentacle, three feet in diameter and easily nine times in length, slid across the entire east wall of the cloaked space beneath the dungeon. It was momentarily visible in the dimming light before it was enveloped by the darkness it created as it moved. Zed and Q saw it and they all heard its slither.

In a Mining Tunnel east of the Slide

Farha had salvaged some remains of furniture to complement their bedding. Hrez returned from the Slide and into the tunnel as the last light faded from the sky. Farha started a fire in an old stove that she had salvaged.

“Very homey and sweet. Don’t get too comfortable. Tomorrow we leave for your next lesson,” Hrez stated. She nodded “yes”.

Farha prepared a mushroom and tuber broth from a camp stove military issue while Hrez explained the next task:

“We will be joining a team of two or three monitoring someone like you, only he is not aware of who he is or how important he is in the larger picture. You do not yet see the larger picture either. You must remember to practice restraint and follow my lead. More importantly, you must follow the pointer or way-shower of his team. Understand?”

Hrez took Farha’s wrists and then her hands. His deeply brown eyes stared into her eyes. A small, thin smile appeared on his wrinkled face. “Is good,” he said.

Twelve Hours Later

Hrez stood as Farha summoned the Churn. It came and attacked her by pulling her off the ground into the cutting swirl of the winds and then dropped her dead center. She pulled the winds aside with her hands and parted a space for Hrez to step through. She held her arms out perpendicular to the ground and centered herself.

The swirling of the Churn at the top grew steady and a white space appeared. Her impulse was to lift her hand and arm as Hrez had done before. This time, her arm seemed to be on automatic. It went up along with Hrez’s. They flew up into the vortex. She watched as the mind of Hrez focused on the destination of time in a pocket reality.

An incredibly tall individual — maybe a man, Farha surmised introduced himself.

“Welcome, call me Tasha.” He ‘spoke’ through the mind/heart/body connection. This is the Princess, or Mah’Mam. My watcher, Ted, is over there, seated at the game table. We’ve been playing a card game called hearts.

Tim — is “an anointed one”. I watch over him. Princess watches too and is involved with him as a part of him. He is only peripherally aware — if that. Ted watches me, watching Tim. This is Tim’s big night.

You may watch him drive his vehicle from his therapist’s office about 60 miles from his college. This therapist is an impoverished, ineffective healer with self-serving evil intent, unbeknownst to Tim. I have l opened a space for you both to experience Tim and his world. I remind you that he has infective emotions, so practice compassionate neutrality for his sake and for yours. If you do not there will be severe consequences.

Zed’s Secret Office

Q ran from the instruments in the space under the dungeon, along the long narrow corridor, up the secret staircase in a panic. He fussed at the security screening room and burst into Zed’s office.

“What’s wrong?” Zed looked up from the paperwork on his desk.

“We’ve been blocked from tracking the Berber and FI.”

Zed laughed. “Not to worry. X just informed me that they are near to evil.”

The Pocket Dimension

Tasha, Princess, Ted, Farha, and Hrez gathered to see and experience Tim as he fell to sleep in his dorm room. The events began assembling and unfolding in simultaneous time.

Awakened, “Door opens.” Tim shouts out. Friend comes in switches light on, slaps the cutting pliers on the bureau drawer — he is irritated and filled with judgment towards Tim, a wee kitten escapes and runs under Tim’s bed, a young woman enters, Tim fully awake, triggered by his male friend with the pliers grows enraged instructs /permits young woman to get the kitten, she does, slams the door. He’s up.

Time freezes: Tim stands. He slaps the top of the bureau with his open hand and says,

“That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m done.” He opens his prescription bottles, takes the pills, takes the pills from a large bottle of aspirin from the shared bathroom, cries, closes his eyes thinking he is dead.

Nothingness.

Previous: Chapter 31 — Time Out of Joint

Next Chapter:

Thanks for reading. Comments and questions welcome. Conclusion of this smaller story is in The Sacrifice (continued) happens next.

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