The Alien Artifact 8 (15 page)

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Authors: V Bertolaccini

Tags: #science fiction, #dark fantasy, #alien artifact, #astronomy, #monsters, #extraterrestrial, #new books, #arthur c clarke award, #science fiction classics

BOOK: The Alien Artifact 8
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Anders never
recognized anything there and kept wondering where the structure
was, and why they all acted strangely to the outside world, and why
they kept talking of the lower world, and he even surprised them by
claiming he had been put there to start over again and repent, in
another attempt at entering an afterlife.

Anders spent
most of his time studying everything that he met with in
fascination, and they confused him by their reactions and that they
might be going to encounter aliens visiting there.

Their
investigations of finding a way down to the ground and world below
were useless, and they were convinced that they had used another
means to get there and they tried finding it, but it proved
useless, and they only had the energy sphere, where Anders had
appeared from, and most of them believed something was there, and
had put them there for a reason.

 

Chapter 7

 

The Exit

 

Golden radiances of the morning beamed
straight across the top of the pinnacle, and created an immense
shadow of the pinnacle’s shape stretch across the landscape below
for many miles, pointing to the opposite horizon, where the
nighttime darkness vanished.

The top of the pinnacle was the same except a
sphere of blackness was floating in midair over the central region,
which had just been found there by them, and all the shuttle crew
and Anders were there, and Anders was the most curious, and
strolled around it examining its shape, confused, and was staggered
at the outside world he had not seen, and regularly stood with his
mouth wide open watching stars of colossal size doing strange
things.

The sphere had clearly recently appeared
there and nobody there could account for it being there, and
Rosenberg, who had found it, had thought the sphere had some form
of intelligence, which they still had not proven to be not, or
anything.

Cronenberg watched Anders, still amazed at
him, and with horrific thoughts, realizing what was there could
pull virtually anything out on them, and he was amazed that there
definitely were diamonds on Mars, and Anders had confirmed it, and
the diamond or crystal he had was not it, and he was now sure that
the scientist, with Anders, had been going to check it, and he
wondered again why Anders had been put below in the structure, and
thought over what Anders had said about it.

They never knew where they were but at least
they had Anders, and lots of information he had about the
scientist’s discovery of them, and he wondered if they could
return.

Looking at the top of the pinnacle it was
clear that something had flattened it with its incredible weight,
and he could not grasp if it was deliberately created or something
had happened there!

Had something of immense weight, like a large
solid meteorite, smashed into it?

Their search of the structure below was
useless, and the sphere there did little, and they were unable to
activate it again, and he was sure there were actually objects
inside the pinnacle keeping the pinnacle up and stopping it
falling.

Had something smashed a region off the top of
the pinnacle away and had whatever was there held the rest of the
tower and structure from being damaged and smashed away.

The hideous condition of the world below was
now even more obvious and astounding, and had been subjected to
incredible damage. He even liked being on the tower and finding its
wonders, and he knew they would even miss being there, if they
escaped from there, and he wondered if there was a way to create a
gateway there – and some day sell holidays to there, to see the
amazing world!

They were all now positive the sphere there
was not from there and had appeared there for a reason, and they
waited for something to happen, and when it did it surprised them
with its swiftness and unexpectedness and he glided away, with the
others, out of the universe, and they shot through blackness, as
they left the universe, and stars shot by in streaks as they
blasted through the gateway, voyaging away.

 

Chapter 8

 

The Circle of
Mirrors

 

All the Astronauts gasped, when they came to,
lying across the ground, looking around them, and at a circle of
mirrors surrounding them.

Cronenberg leapt onto his feet first,
staggered at missing what had happened, trying to recall losing
consciousness, and he joined some of the others, and cleaned dust
away from his spacesuit faceplate, and examined what the circular
region they were in, and the mirrors evenly going around its
radius, and he saw the circular ground was made of some strange
alien material, and covered over in dust, and it seemed to connect
the mirrors.

He examined what the strange mirrors were,
from the central region, watching them go around him in a perfect
circle, and felt like he was being watched, and not just from
through the mirrors themselves, which he sensed and knew were far
more, and he eventually moved behind the mirrors and saw that the
mirrors were not visible there, and there was nothing there, and he
stood considering what they were, as the entire circle was like
some highly advanced device, and he even considered if magic
existed and that they were magical.

Further out from the circle of mirrors he
realized it was another pinnacle, and walked around its edge, and
it was identical to the last one, but the colossal pinnacle was on
top of a colossal mountain, and there was no way to get down, and
they were trapped again.

The surrounding world and sky was also
staggering and Cronenberg stood with his mouth open staring at a
vast world like Saturn, with massive rings, stretching into the
atmosphere of the world they were on, and the Saturn world
dangerously covered most of the southern horizon and its rings went
across the eastern and western horizons.

The world was either doomed to destruction or
had some phenomenon holding the worlds apart!

The astronauts lifted their faceplates when
they realized there was air there and Cronenberg gasped at the
smell of peculiar gases, and some of the astronauts filmed the
world with their spacesuit cameras, and examined the strange
mirrors up close, and walked through them from behind, proving they
were not there from behind, and at a close distance from the front
saw they were not mirrors but something else reflecting light.

The sun of the world was the only normal
thing there, except the world’s orbit of it was far faster, and it
was racing into the horizon, and the sky was swiftly turning
darker!

As the night sky emerged, and blue sky
vanished, they watched large meteorites blasting out of space
everywhere in the distance, in the southern horizon, scattering
beams of bright light, and he saw that it was in fact the merging
of two solar systems, being pulled together, and the world’s solar
system had been damaged by it, and one of its major planets, the
Saturn world, was being pulled into it, and on one of the horizons
he discovered the cause, and that they were at the center of a
galaxy and were being pulled into a black hole, and he started
spotting more and more of the destruction it had done, and he saw
the whole sky full of debris from destroyed worlds and suns.

 

Chapter 9

 

The Haunted
World

 

At night the mirrors of the circle of mirrors
altered into different and altering views of clusters of gateways,
going back into them in lines into what looked like infinity.

In the end they chose to enter one, which
left them staggered, as they walked through and shot through an
infinity of gateways, going back in lines everywhere, and they were
all entirely different, and they had never seen anything like
it.

They entered one with more and shot into a
colossal dome, the size of a solar system, full of gateways
everywhere, with views of incredible places and things, and they
were able to randomly choose the most interesting.

Once they emerged into it they immediately
became trapped there, in a dark strange wood, with altered trees,
freezing in deep snow, where they spotted strange dark figures
hiding behind trees, examining them, while mysterious lights
startled them, and they heard them occasionally violently smash
things about them, but they had weapons in their spacesuits.

What staggered Cronenberg the most was
that they never knew how to return, and as
they rushed away, they held their belief
that they would be saved once again and that there would be an
eventual conclusion, but the snow grew thick and shrouded
everything everywhere, creating a mind-bending landscape, while a
massive moon swiftly emerged above, swiftly orbiting the world, and
they soon became too exhausted to recognize anything.

It was shocking
how lost they were, but the moonshine showed them the strange
mind-bending landscape ahead!

The sounds of the life forms and other
strange things hidden away there became dangerous and astonishing,
and at times they came screaming out of the dark endless alien
wood, and also through what sounded like shafts in the ground
somewhere, and with a dangerous fury that stunned Cronenberg, and
no matter how much they tried their thoughts never seemed to
properly achieve stable recognitions.

For some reason he began to believe there
were supernatural regions in the universe, and that they had
entered one version, and he was surprised that the others in the
shuttle crew mentioned it openly, as if they knew he had known it,
and he tried to grasp what the place and places were for, and
considered all the gateways and their destinations, trying to grasp
what the place was doing there. He was sure that they had
discovered far more than they realized and that it could prove the
existence of colossal magical abilities and energies and he
analyzed everything in a far greater degree, searching for an
answer.

Out of nowhere
a colossal light emerged from the undergrowth, and pulsated like a
living thing, magically illuminating the deep lifeless snow and
trees everywhere they looked, and seemed to silence the noises and
life forms surrounding them.

The light
allowed them to see everything across their front more, and they
spotted what was a structure buried away in the trees, and
Cronenberg realized that it was an alien form of castle, buried and
hidden deep away in the landscape and wood, and he examined it
astounded at its immense size and how it could be built there, and
he wondered if the whole world was covered by the trees and wood
and if the builders normally built their structures there, and he
had a sensation that the structure had colossal power, which would
eventually leave him staggered!

The deep snow
and cold turned to a nightmare, and their legs sank into stinking
vegetation and muck that started to resemble quicksand, and another
light emerged deep in the undergrowth and pulsated like a living
form, magically illuminating the snow and trees going everywhere,
and they increased their speed.

The
castle became the most blissful thing he could think of as he saw
the dangers there and it
radiating through the wood
like a spellbinding castle, and they forced themselves
on.

Its appearance, amidst the hell there, was
staggering! It was like a dream phantom castle glowing in shining
moonlight, like it was magically glowing.

Behind them the shifting lights of glowing
life forms became vicious and darted about everywhere in the
blackness and landscape, and Cronenberg thought he saw ghost images
of intelligent humanoids doing hideous things.

 

Chapter 10

 

The Lost Castle

 

At the front of the colossal
extraterrestrial castle structure, when there were no more trees,
and they were about to reach its large entrance, the whole
structure
lit and
radiated through the whole region, mass of trees and foliage,
silencing what was there to their astonishment, with its colossal
powers, and they examined its colossal size going out into the
distance all around them and its height going away high over the
trees, where a thin fog slowly got thicker and engulfed
it.

Vivid streaks
of colored lightning exploded all over the top cloud region, and
they saw the peculiar sky surrounding the fog, surrounding the
castle, and it altered like a form of atomic explosion had blasted
out, and massive blinding colossal stars further out blasted out
their bright light.

Entering a veil of mist, forming at its
entrance, created sensations that they were being summoned there,
for some hideous purpose, and they blindly entered the ghost oasis,
out on the edge of reality, on the bounds of what lay beyond the
universe, bordering death, near the depths of hell, with them
seeking sanctuary and reality.

On their entrance, and exit from the
hideous jungle, the entrance closed behind them, trapping then
there, and the interior illuminated it dim light, and Cronenberg
heard vicious
heavy
beast sounds furiously exploding out outside, clearly making last
attempts at threatening to destroy them.

Somewhere over to the side of structure they
heard powerful movements rapidly taking something near them, and
they wondered what was protecting them, and had stopped them doing
anything to them, and Cronenberg gasped and saw a faint colossal
ghost shape in an area of deep blackness inside the structure,
further along a corridor, and it altered to demon shape floating
through the darkness, snapping massive jaws, before it
vanished.

The situation was bad and Cronenberg wondered
what the hell the place was doing there, and why such a place
should and could even exist, without destroying itself!

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