Meltdown Ophilion - Book One

STAGE_TWO - - - 13_ALTERATION

The three teenagers decided to bring the safe up to the surface before examining the other objects. They needed a change of environment - natural light. They needed to see the green around them again and breathe the air of the open sky. Each of them had donned their necklace, tucking it safely under their jackets. The forest they reentered, as they emerged from the cave, was not the same one they had been in before their discovery. They had found something so profound and unique that, although they could only guess what its purpose was, changed the way they perceived everything.

They climbed the rise and once again stood at the edge of the low cliff, overlooking the forest. They could see the crater to the right, now that they knew what to look for. They understood why they had missed it on their first attempt to locate it. From this angle, being completely overgrown with large trees and thick bushes, it looked like a dip in the forest floor.

They placed the two halves of the sphere on the grass and sat down, panting. A flock of rolel birds flew through the trees nearby, chattering in high-pitched frequencies. Their frenzied conversation abated as they all landed on a treetop in almost perfect unison.

Hanthran shone brightly overhead, its light filtering through the large, dark green leaves of the calipo trees that overshadowed them from the west. Gazing over the spectacular sea of green they realized what they had been missing their whole lives. Listening to the birds and the wind, and feeling the warm light of Hanthran on their skin and in their hair, they wondered if they had, this whole time, been living in the wrong place. They realized that they could sit there for many days, many seasons, and still appreciate this view. A few minutes passed in silence as they contemplated their new reality.

Orion shifted his gaze from the treetops to the safe. Celli and Fel followed him. "Should we see what this other stuff is?" He asked slowly. His voice was hoarse and low. He felt that he should not rush or think too hard but just allow the next artifacts to reveal themselves to them in their way.

"Yeah," Fel answered.

"Your turn then."

Fel reached in and drew out the silver jeweled object. He turned it over in his hands as Orion and Celli watched. He pressed on some of the black inlaid jewels without result. He stopped and cleared his mind – something he was not used to doing – although in the free-zone it seemed natural enough. Then he sensed something. He followed this feeling and placed the object on the ground in front of him, then placed his palm on the large central jewel, and two of his fingers on two of the eight smaller jewels.

Without warning, the object came to life in a flash of light. Fel quickly withdrew his hand to find a high-definition hologram projecting from the central jewel.

"What is it?" Celli whispered.

Fel looked intently at it and shook his head. The hologram was clear and bright even in the noon-day light. "It looks like the map of a star system... but not one I've ever seen." He looked closer. "A small yellow star... nine planets... look; this one here looks similar to Ophilion." He grunted. "I wonder where this could have come from."

Orion looked over at Fel, "Try another combination."

Fel reached his hand through the hologram, placed his palm on the central jewel and touched two of the smaller ones, different from the first two. He withdrew his hand to reveal a new projection; another star system unfamiliar to them. After three more tries they saw a projection they were familiar with; the Hanthran system - their system.

"Have you ever seen anything like this projector?" Orion asked.

Celli and Fel shook their heads in unison. Fel reached down and touched the large jewel once and the projection faded. Whatever this was, it was not native to their world, that much was clear. These things from the safe, the sequence of coincidences that led them to this location in the free-zone, produced waves of contrasting emotions that were difficult to process. They felt their former lives being eclipsed by what they were experiencing.