Finding Atlantis - Ch7
#6 of Finding atlantis
Okay, this is where things get a little weird. I'm not sure how this new narrator is going to work, so bear with me. Ariana's thoughts will be in Italics and Adam's will be in 'single quotes' spoken words will be the same as before. Well, here goes.
She had told me to clear my mind. "Just stay still and relax." was what she said. I was laying down on one of the tables. She was laying right beside me, holding my hand. And it was tingling. Then, gradually the feeling went away. All feeling went away. I was nothing, there was nothing around me. The only way to describe it is black, in every sense of the word. Suddenly, everything changed. I was standing in a bed room that seemed to be scaled up for giants.
No, the room wasn't bigger, I was smaller. I was running through the door. Clutched tightly in my fuzzy cub's paws was a brightly lit light bulb. I was running to show my mommy what I could do.
I found her in the kitchen, doing something on the counter. I couldn't tell what because I wasn't tall enough to see. I ran up to her announcing my presence with the clatter of my claws on the smooth stone floor, I ran over to mom and proudly held out my toy. "Look mommy, Look!" I shouted.
"Oh, look at you!" she exclaimed. "Wow, that is excellent Ariana! I think that kind of progress deserves a treat!" she walked across the kitchen and got a treat out of a jar on the counter. "Here you go." she gave it to me. It looked something like a dog treat, but oh so tasty! "Keep practicing!" she hollered after me as I sprinted from the room with snack in hand.
Then the world evaporated; the blackness had returned. Ariana had told me what to expect. I was living her memories as if they were real. The periods of blackness between was kinda disturbing, I had no idea how long it would last. Some seemed like I was suspended in the dreaded black for weeks, though it may have only been seconds. Then there were the memories. Some were sort of faded, others were incredibly vivid and sharp. In those moments, I was Ariana.
I spent afternoons hanging out with other foxes. I went through early morning training classes on the finer points of classical swordsmanship. It seemed that sword play was a popular form of recreation for the fox community, and I was good. I would spar constantly with friends. Even my teachers were hard pressed to win a match.
I went through school, where I learned about mathematics and physics that were well beyond anything humans humans had discovered. I was the youngest person ever to be given a Skeins award for distinguished contributions to society. For a type of propellent-less thruster that I'd invented.
I met a guy at a restaurant when I was out with friends. He was cute, so I let him have my number, and over the next few days we struck up a friendship. I was ready for it to become something more, but one night, while we were sitting on my couch, I heard him outside laughing. I walked over to my window, and there he was, leaning over Bella, one of my best friends! The next day he told me how he was going out with Bella and how happy they were. Like I was nothing more than a friend, or a friend of a friend. Then later I had to hear the same story from Bella. It was a pain that, as a human I had known well, and now I suffered through it just as if I had been the one who was being torn apart. I moved into a small apartment in a building which became more of a laboratory than a living quarters. It was there that my new roommate finished his work on Oracle, the computer program. He was another handsome fox but he too was taken, I used my talents to keep my mind off how lonely I was. In time I gained a reputation for being a hard worker and a great inventor.
As I grew older the world around me became more defined, more concrete and crisp. Then, without warning the experiences became absolutely vivid, more real than even my own memories.
I got a message from Bella to turn on the television. I flipped to the news, there was a story about an unidentified ship closing on Atlantis. It had ignored all attempts at communication and was landing at the south pole. The screen cut to a on site reporter. In the background were the grassy, open plains common in the aria. Siting right in the middle of the shot was a gigantic space freighter, the reporter was explaining that just minutes ago this ship had landed and they were waiting for some kind of signal. Fighters were gathering in the skies above, and ground troops were pouring in, setting up defensive lines around the ship, just in case.
He described the size of the freighter, saying that it was over five miles long, Roughly two miles wide and over six thousand feet tall! As I watched, a black slit appeared running along the length of otherwise shiny, polished metal side the vessel. I suddenly realized that it was a door, the entire side of the ship was being lowered! It slowly dropped all the way to the ground and things that were no more than specks started pouring out of it.
At this point I finally heard the rumble of the gate opening, and the ground shook as the percussion of the platform slamming into the earth finally washed over the camera. Shortly after that I began hearing a multitude of smaller pops like firecrackers going off. Then the reporter who had been speechless for the last few minutes suddenly fell limp on the ground. I could just make out the red spot growing through his fur where he had been hit, there was a grunt from of screen and the camera fell to the ground; the screed flashed black.
Over the next days I learned from gossip that there was an invasion at the south pole, I heard all kinds of rumors claiming every imaginable situation, but none of it really sank in until I got a message from the military. It said that I had been asked to join the board of defense's technology division. They needed help developing a new fighting strategy. And that every educated fox was asked to report to Cains to begin work. Of course we all went, as foxes we were few in number but known the world over for our inventive minds, and we were proud of that fame.
The next flash of blackness left me standing at a screen looking over a map of enemy troop movements, we had gathered a tremendous amount of data, with the help of Oracle, we were on the verge of breakthrough. Then suddenly the world exploded! The back wall of the Laboratory we were working in was blown away, and small metallic warriors began pouring into the room. They opened fire on the unprepared lab workers. It was nothing more than wholesale slaughter!
Fortunately I had been working along the back wall near where they had blown the hole in the wall, the didn't notice as I slid underneath the desk where I reached out and with all my might grabbed the leg of one of the attackers and shocked him. He went down in a heap without a sound. For some reason I felt that it was necessary to take the sword that I had stashed under the desk earlier and slice off a chunk of finger. Up until that point we had no tissue samples of the enemy hopefully that could help us find a weak spot in there armor.
By some miracle I was able to slip out behind them unspotted. I ran and didn't look back.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the curb in the middle of a street I didn't recognize, I was alone, the street was deserted I was watching the golden sun sink down between two buildings.
"Are you alright?" I felt a finger touch my shoulder. I turned around and saw a light gray cat. He said he knew what had happened to my family, and that he could take me somewhere safe. Not having any other options, I went with him. The took me to a small house on the outskirts of Cains and introduced me to the other members of his band of warriors. It was Turk's band/family.
I stayed with them and regained my strength. We ran operations behind lines to stop sieges of Cains before they could begin. I worked constantly to make new weaponry designed specifically to fight this new enemy. Then one afternoon, while I was out training with a bow and developing a new hardened arrow head, I saw something come crashing down out of the sky, I saw the small white ship slam into the ground at the other end of the clearing. I had heard of the things that came through the nearby wormhole Maybe this was my chance to see one up close.
When I got to the Wreck there wasn't much left, just a few scattered parts and the large chunk that remained of the cockpit. I peered through the busted windshield and saw a being unlike anything I had seen before. It had almost no fur at all, and it's skin was pale, but it opened it's eyes at me. Large blue eyes, that seemed to be staring off into nothing. "Shit, its alive!"
I immediately called out to anyone nearby, I heard Turk answer, He was coming. I asked the poor thing if it could hear me and I heard it mutter something. I was going to have to cut it out, I didn't want to scare it so I decided it would be necessary to knock him out for a while. I said I was sorry for what I had to do, and shocked him on the forehead. His head drooped and I set to work cutting him out with my sword. Once I had him free, Turk helped me carry him back to one of the huts we were staying at, mine actually.
I found a note book in the wreckage. It said that he was Adam Dennis, head of some project called dark sparrow, supposedly he was an inventor who worked for the air force. Huh, Kinda like me.
He was human, but I knew from school that he wouldn't be human for long. We kept him sedated and the changes went well. I found myself spending every spare minute at his side, to my surprise he was turning into a handsome fox, about my age. I tried not to but I let my mind wander, wondering what It would be like when he woke up, how would he react? I began sleeping beside him, he didn't produce much body heat, and I was afraid of hypothermia, at least that was what I kept telling myself.
I did lots of research about humans, I was surprised to find out that they 'courted' potential mates, sometimes for years. It was strange that a race with such short lifespans would take so long to find a mate. I would have to play it cool If I wanted him to like me.
Most of the memories after this point revolved around me, Adam, it was like standing outside my own body watching my life. I won't go into it further, because at this point you already know the story.
the memories went right up to the present. after I had walked into this room and laid down beside myself, I was plunged back into blackness once more. After a while I began to feel my own legs again, my own arms, and the room where I had just laid down in Ariana's body appeared around me. Wow! I can't believe what he lived through. 'What?' There was a voice in my head, Ariana's voice! Adam! Wow, your voice is clear.
"I can hear you." I blurted out. "you, your in my head." I was still to stunned to formulate thoughts much beyond that.
I told you we would. That means the phasing was a success!