The Alien Orb (2 page)

If he had only known all those years ago
what would end up happing, he would have forced himself to forget
about such ventures.

Sounds were now screaming out at him and he
realized how loud they had become, from the abyss below, as if a
gateway into hell were there, with him suspended over it on a thin
rope, spinning endlessly, waiting to descend into its hideous
reaches.

How had they managed to talk him into this?
One minute they had been chasing treasure and the next a castle
mysteriously appears into it, and he had been dumped with their
theories, and then with the shaft.

He jerked, startled, hearing a sort of
scream, almost human but somehow different, as though out of a
distant strange place, and he visualized it out in space, in
blackness.

There were traces of rotted vegetation
floating in the light coming down from overhead, as they still
continued to climb out.

Some of the blocks of stone about him
resembled the stones in Egyptian pyramids. They were strange things
to use to build, but they were hard to penetrate, and needed in a
good castle.

He realized sounds were now not emerging
from under him but coming were from somewhere above, and then they
started emerging about him and he listened intensely with
confusion.

Sounds
manifested everywhere as though invisible creatures were
surrounding them, and strange glowing and swirling forces formed
and went about them and telepathic figures like spirits with
shrouds swirled about it, wailing and screaming, and he partially
entered a dream state, and as it increased he believed he was
holding onto reality.

A bright explosion of colors exploded out
making him come to, and realized the thing below him had reached
him and he opened his eyes wide and examined his surroundings and
saw that he was no longer in the shaft, and dazed and confusedly he
examined his surroundings and an immense whirlpool of shifting
outlines magically shifted by, and he studied everything and
realized that he had no body or proper presence and was some form
of energy formation shifting around with other similar formations,
and that he was swirling out into a vortex of reshaping energy
patterns that replaced reality, with transforming elements altering
to something that he could not recognize.

If he had died and gone into the afterlife
why was it so strange? Why it was there mesmerized him! Was he
classified as being anything? Where was it? Reality was no more
than magically spinning patterns and he wondered how worse the
situation could get, realizing that he could be trapped there for
all eternity!

Chapter 2

The Lost Castle

The whole story
was incredible now and Bryson could hardly believe anything, and
what had occurred. The events of the past weeks were astounding and
he could hardly believe that they were on the trail of another
treasure quest.

The last
shreds of sunlight had vanished beneath the wood behind them, and
well below the horizon, with the deep black winter night there
engulfing them, and Bryson studied his surroundings over and over
trying to explain why the wood so closely resembled the wood
surrounding Grovnor Castle.

The wood
looked almost the same in places, and he considered their search
for the castle in what must be one of the most desolate regions of
the US. They had not seen anyone for many miles, and planes even
seemed to avoid flying there.

The fifteen
members of the team (including him, and Merton and Mortimer), had
been put together by him and Mortimer, and were mainly made up of
archaeologists, scientists, ex-military, and explorers, who had
experience in searching, examining, documenting, and detecting what
they might miss, or there to help or defend them.

The adventure
brought him back to life after a long length of inactivity and lack
of anything of interest. At times he still could not believe that
there was another castle, and that anything existed there! And that
there had actually been a similar castle near Grovnor Castle at one
time!

The last
castle exploration, after all the findings and evidence they had
collected, in the end seemed to add up to little, and he still now
occasionally thought they had found something else.

It was winter
and deep snow shrouded the jungle of vegetation around them, and he
realized again that they would have to camp there. And having not
slept outdoors in winter he gasped at sleeping in such thick cold
snow, and considered if they would find his remains there one day,
and wonder why they had done it.

The snow
landscape was untouched by human hands, and at times empty of
sound, and had a deep silence that he had only heard in thick
winter snow landscapes. It reminded him of another world! An empty
wood absence of life with faint mist surrounding regions around
them.

What was
shocking was how easily they could get lost, and he was unsure if
they even knew accurately where they were. They knew where they had
come from and what they would eventually arrive at after days of
falling a compass, but not what was there about them. They had been
unable to get a helicopter to search, but if they had waited and
went far enough he was sure they could.

There was
nothing to recognize anywhere, and he watched some of the men
attempt to use communications devices to give updates on what was
happening without picking up anything.

They were all
getting too exhausted wading through the deep snow areas to do and
recognize anything significant, and the first peculiarity he
noticed was a distant hum, similar to a distant engine whirling,
out at an unknown place, which shadowed them, and drove him insane
trying to identify it.

Their legs
almost became stuck in deep bogs of stinking vegetation buried
below the snow, which resembled quicksand as it grew in depth, and
they were hidden, even under intense lights, and Bryson started to
wonder if they could even find somewhere that they could actually
camp over. There was a definite look of a swamp emerging around
them!

A cold haze edged its way over the trees and
undergrowth and they started slowing, and allowing themselves to
rest. It was nothing like anything that he had seen elsewhere.

He could not get if it was a strange
environment about him, something strange existing there, or a
combination of things that created different reactions.

Strange vapor clouds shifted about
their sides, always shadowing them, at about the distance
–
as if they were
probing them, and analyzing them for some purpose.

Nobody said anything about it but most
looked like they were wondering if any of it had intelligence, and
sometimes pondered vaguely watching it linger over deep pools of
slime in the mind-bending landscape.

When more confident it existed Bryson
watched it to find out what form of life it could be. What did it
use to exist? What was it doing?

He wished he could get some samples from it,
but decided to wait or leave it, and they would check if it was
dangerous.

Gusts of freezing wind blew and withdrew
simultaneously in opposite directions, blowing and sucking, giving
him the feeling that something invisible nearby was breathing over
them, something of supernatural or alien nature, like a hungry
beast breathing over its prey, perhaps with saliva dripping from
its mouth, or something was there and the environment was reacting
to its presence and its paranormal powers.

Though the tiredness and lengthy day were
affecting him and most of the others, Merton and Mortimer, the two
paranormal scientists loved it, he was sure, and seemed to come to
life more, as they always did in such situations, and at night.

They had become famous celebrities and the
media had given them coverage for weeks at one point, and their
technology had vastly improved, and if they found anything they
would bring in all their new equipment to investigate everything
that they could.

Since
their investigations of Grovnor Castle and all the proven details
had been released,
what everyone had experienced
there, people
’
s thoughts on it had seemed to alter more and
more in the direction of there not being anything there, and there
being no evidence of anything, and he had seen the problem again
and again that people were not going to believe anything unless
they were confronted with it, and that the two scientists had work
to do.

He never got why they had not become
conventional scientists like him! Surely they were good enough to
become immensely wealthy and could lead the way in some other
field?

Many of scientists were working on what it
had been at one point, and again they all returned to their
original thoughts.

Even though he also wished to investigate
everything there, as they were sure to experience something, going
by all the facts given. Yet he was starting to remember all the
dangers and last encounters that had occurred.

The two paranormal scientists had tried
informing others, not with them now, of their investigations of
paranormal disturbances that could be there, and had soon withheld
their research from them when they had found out that they did not
accept anything of that nature, without total positive proof, and
they avoided giving any details of anything of that nature,
especially to the people there that had been in the military,
including Mitchell, the head of them, who were there to help them
and with any dangers and to investigate further.

They had given Mitchell some of their
findings and thoughts of paranormal activity and strange
occurrences occurring there, and he had given them his thoughts
about it and that he was not fully sure what to make of it as they
had not proven anything.

On the day before they had arrived there
Mitchell had been amazed at the findings of the scientists when
they had given him more, as they had believed that they should, as
that they believed they would encounter more.

Nobody, not even the two paranormal
scientists, knew what was there, and they withdrew saying
anything.

Mitchell had wished to join the two
paranormal scientists, as he had wished to investigate things
further, and if they had found something, and he mostly wanted to
find the treasure and anything else buried away there,

As they journeyed on Bryson watched the gray
mist thicken, and it start to surround them, and snow and swamp
pools increase.

As they marched on behind Mitchell they
almost walked into the mist, while ignoring it, and more and more
of them started getting nervous and begin complaining to Mitchell,
who ignored it at first, with being so determined to achieve
something. They knew the vague region of where the castle was
supposed to be, as they had checked some of the region it could
only be in.

Bryson
’
s legs became stuck in deep bogs of
freezing water and he knew that they would have to do something
soon, and watched the others and noticed that they were mainly
holding back complaining.

It was then when they slowed that he
properly looked about, and realized that the fog formed a perfect
circle right around them, at the same distance all the way round,
and was intensifying, and he wondered what they were trapped
in.

“
Where are we going
...?
”
one
of Mitchell
’
s men finally spluttered, fighting for air,
furious that he had been put in a situation.

Mitchell stopped and showed how annoyed he
was at the way things were going, and walked back towards them.

“
We better agree to something
...
”
he
moaned, giving glances about at things and the mess of his
expedition.

“
Where can we go?
”
Merton continued, wondering
what they
’
d
do next. Barely able to realize what the outcome of such a
situation could be.

Mitchell removed his phone and tapped it
repeatedly against his large jaw, as he now had a habit of doing
when in deep thought, considering trying to use it again to get
help, which he really knew would not work, and which had been his
main answer to such situations before they had lost using the
communications.

It was then as they all waited for the
outcome and his solution that one of his men shrieked out from
behind them, and they turned slowly to see what was there.

The man had removed his gun and he swiftly
fired it at something hidden in the trees, like an ancient
gunfighter, and it swiftly smashed into a tree, with the loud
explosion temporarily deafening them and sending piled up snow
falling from the trees all around them.

All of Mitchell
’
s men removed their weapons
and stood in a circle covering every area around them.

“
What
’
s there?
”
Mitchell asked, vaguely confused,
not seeing anything but the surrounding mist getting in the
way.

“
You
never saw that
thing
...” the
man that fired the shot moaned, slightly satisfied by his dramatic
display and the deadliness of his weapon.

Everyone
stood confused, especially by what he meant by
thing
!

Then, out of
nowhere, a light emerged out of the mist, and Bryson stood
considering if it was what he had seen at the last castle or if it
was something new.

Its radiance
pulsated like a mechanical life form, magically illuminating the
snow and trees, stretching shadows from everything everywhere.