The First Darkness
by
Mitchell Gibson
Copyright 2012 Mitchell Gibson,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0846-0
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Prologue
Melvina struggled to cover herself with the tattered remnants of a shawl that she had stolen from one of the slaves in the lower dungeons. She knew that her situation was hopeless. Melvina and her sister, Salva, were surrounded, desperately attempting to flee from a growing mob of young gladiators that had been set upon them. Salva was barely 10 years old. Melvina had hoped to see her eighteenth birthday in a few days. That was before the centurions burned their home, slaughtered her parents, and took the two of them captive. Now their lives had been reduced to sport.
Salva had been wounded by the first band of men that had rushed toward them. They had been thrown into the arena naked, hungry, and covered in honey. The shawl provided little more than a scant semblance of dignity. Fortunately, Melvina had been able to pick up a broadsword that had fallen onto the ground during the struggle. She had nothing to lose by at least trying to use it.
Melvina’s brother, Taras, had taught her some rudimentary broadsword fighting moves, but in her dazed and weary state, she had little hope of holding the men off for any significant length of time. Salva was frozen with fear and Melvina circled her sister’s body warily. Three men lunged at her and she gored one cleanly in the liver with a clumsy but effective strike. The remaining two looked at their fallen comrade for a moment, kicked him aside, and renewed their awkward attack.
The crowd grew quiet as they approached. The other slaves scampered away and cleared a path to the two girls. Melvina looked at her sister, smiled, and began swinging the sword in wide circles. Her hand grew sweaty with perspiration as she nervously gripped the handle. The crowd remained deathly quiet. The two men laughed as Melvina quickly tired herself, swirling the heavy broadsword above her head. After a few moments, she could barely lift the sword. Faster than her eyes could follow, one of the men grabbed her throat and yanked her off the ground. Her tiny feet dangled above the dusty coliseum floor. She dropped the broadsword as she gasped for air. The crowd began a muffled cheer.
The young gladiators in training were expected to rape and murder the newly captured slave girls thrown into the arena. The act was considered to be a sort of reward for their hard work. The biggest of the two men grabbed the shawl and threw it to the ground. He pinned Melvina’s arms back as his companion ceremoniously removed his tunic. Melvina glanced to her side and saw that Salva was already being ravaged by three new gladiators who had rushed into the fray.
White-hot rage began to build within Melvina as she saw her sister screaming in agony as the men seized her body. The three of them grabbed her and attempted to hold her still. In a desperate lunge, Melvina tore her arm away from her attacker and grabbed a small bloody knife that she spied lying half hidden in the dirt. She thrust the blade into the chest of one of her attackers and then, just as swiftly, cut Salva’s throat. Bright spurts of red blood stained Salva’s face as she closed her eyes in anguished relief.
The crowd roared its disapproval at the sudden turn of events. The larger gladiator tore the knife from Melvina‘s hand and thrust the blade deep into her stomach. Melvina spit into his face and fell flat onto the dust of the coliseum floor. The weight of her attacker’s body fell onto her chest. The crowd cackled and cheered as the remaining gladiators flung their dead companion’s body aside and took brutal advantage of the fleeting moments of warmth that gradually left the dying girls’ frail bodies.
Melvina‘s fragile spirit slowly separated itself from its now lifeless body and floated silently into the cold night air above the arena. She tried to strangle one of the gladiators, but she could not grasp his throat with her spirit hands. She saw her sister‘s weak spirit energy hovering several feet above her blood-soaked corpse. She willed herself to her sister and grasped her form. Unseen by the cheering crowd, the two spirit forms walked away from the coliseum floor and disappeared into the silent darkness of the neighboring forest.
Chapter One
The Trouble with Beetles
Mitchell sat quietly with his legs crossed in the lotus position on the silk cushion pillow. Kathy, his wife of seven years, was out shopping for groceries, and his children, Tiffany and Michael, had not yet come home from school. He had planned all day for this moment. For the next two hours, with any luck, he would be able to meditate in complete peace and quiet, which was a truly rare commodity in the Gibson household.
Mitchell had begun meditating when he was a small boy. At first, meditation was the only way that he could get away from the stress of growing up hungry, cold, and poor in the backwoods country house that he called home. Soon, however, he realized that if he went deep enough, he could escape his body altogether and explore the neighboring cities and towns that his family rarely visited. Sometimes, on his nightly out-of-body sojourns, he would peek in on his brothers, Dennis and Chris, as they slept, and contemplate scaring the living daylights out of them with a ghostly nudge. He also wondered what it would be like to make himself appear to an adult, someone he didn‘t know, and scare them just for the heck of it.
After making the costly mistake of telling his pastor about his meditative exploits, Mitchell’s mother beat him with a peach tree switch. He learned to keep his out-of-body travels, and his more mischievous thoughts, to himself. Meditation was to become his very secret getaway from the life that he desperately wanted to escape.
His breaths came slowly as he willed himself down into a well-rehearsed trance. His heartbeat slowed evenly and his thoughts stilled to a calm and placid whisper. He felt his energy begin to center in his chest. The sensation grew to the intensity of a large, white-hot flame that slowly enveloped his entire upper body. Mitchell willed the energy away from his chest and up into his brain. The energy resisted briefly, but gradually submitted as he redoubled his efforts. After a few furtive moments, the flaming energy mass coalesced and obediently rose to his forehead.
Sometimes the energy was more cooperative than others. Over the years, Mitchell had learned to master the art of moving the energy mass to whatever part of his body that he chose. He learned early on that allowing the mass to remain in any part of his body other than the brain was a recipe for trouble. If the energy did not enter the brain, he could not get out of his body. There was no point to meditating if he could not get out of his body.
As the flaming energy mass bathed his brain, Mitchell willed his spirit to rise through the ceiling of his home. His spirit rose with practiced ease and floated over the roof. As he floated, he surveyed the forest behind his home. He had grown to love the countryside residence that he and Kathy called home. They had moved to North Carolina from Arizona five years previously. Phoenix was beautiful, but the congestion, smog, and crime had gotten to be a bit too much. Raising two small children was now their priority, and Summerfield, North Carolina, population 7,018, was perfect in many ways.
Mitchell hovered over the thick grove of pines that draped the two-acre plot upon which he had built his home. The April spring air was warm and sweet and it filled his being with peace. There was nothing quite like floating out of one’s body. Using his astral vision, he looked back into the meditation room and saw his physical body slumbering peacefully. He wished that he could do this every day. Time, however, did not permit that luxury.
Suddenly, he heard a loud explosion. At first, he thought he was hearing the peal of an approaching spring thunderstorm. They were common in North