Reading sample

THE CALL

by Antonella Dagostino

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Apart from Pippi and Lucky whose stories are very real!

Prologue

Professor Elyzabeth Twain is a renown researcher in the field of extraterrestrial languages. However, for a series of catastrophic events, she is forced to abandon her work. Now, she is completely depressed and no longer feels motivated in pursuing the truth but her fate is about to change...

Table of Contents

1. The arrival

I am in the countryside, the sun has already disappeared behind the hills. I can’t bear the absence of you, I can’t bear my own thoughts, I feel as if something really heavy is pushing against my chest. I have trouble swallowing my own saliva as if there were a knot in my throat. I can’t breathe. I jumped on my mountain bike and started pedalling as fast as I could, until I got here, in the solitude of this valley. It is only when I’m surrounded by nature that I feel in peace. I can hear the crickets and feel the gentle breeze caressing my face. Feel. I need to feel to be alive; I can’t live locked up in my own brain. The air is slightly humid but pleasant. Depression is like being submerged by a giant dark cloud where nothing really matters. I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t believe in anything anymore. I don’t even know why I am alive.  

There is a powerful moon rising tonight, I can clearly see the shape of the hills not too far from me: I love this valley. If there were a God, then I would like to meet her to ask the purpose of all this. Why do we have to go through so much pain and frustration? Why do we have to pay to exist? What kind of system is this? I was not the only one experiencing a nervous breakdown in my area, apparently more and more people were starting to pop. Many people I know of have cancer; for the first time in my life, I’ve come to realize how mortal we are, it’s like Death is always there to remind us that our time here is limited so we shouldn’t waste it – but we all do. Oh, please help me to find a better way, I can’t stand this lifestyle any more, please come and get me and show me the meaning of true love. I closed my eyes trying to calm myself down. I just wish some angels would come and get me out of this situation.

“We are coming.” A voice abruptly interrupted my train of thoughts.

It was weird because the voice came from my brain; it was a male voice. Hey, what’s that funny light in the sky? It’s moving like an airplane but it’s not an airplane. Oh my God, it’s coming this way, what should I do? Oh, it’s landing in front of me, the light is blinding me and who is this?

A tall yellowish being with huge black eyes is standing right in front of me, my vision is getting blurred, my senses are shutting down. I’m fainting.

2. Inside the Ship

I gradually regained consciousness in a very unfamiliar environment. I am inside a round room with strange symbols everywhere. Hey, wait a moment, those symbols… I think I’ve seen them somewhere. My head hurts. Am I dreaming?  There are also screens around me but I have no clue how to make them work. There is nothing really useful for me here, it seems like I’m trapped in a sort of sci-fi oval room. Hey, hold on a sec, that’s my shoulder bag over there, let’s see if there is anything useful inside. I don’t remember putting this book in my bag when I left. Anyway, this is the book I published for my PhD called The Book of Intergalactic Translation. Now I remember, yes, those symbols, they are the symbols believed to belong to an alien alphabet. Let’s refresh my memory by opening the book:

I did manage to translate two more symbols but because of their peculiar geometry, many of my peer reviewers told me that my findings were very likely to belong to a completely different species. The discovery was so important that I even ended up on the first page of The Daily World News.

However, my notoriety didn’t last long as some of the officials from renown government agencies immediately intervened to shut down our lab. They said that it was a matter of international security and if we had continued pursuing that path, we would have ended up in jail. Most of my assistants quit their job because they said it was not worth risking their lives but two remained: Alicia and Martin. Alicia would never let me down no matter what and stood by me until the very end. She died of cancer last year. It was only after she died that I realized I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved her. She was everything to me: my best friend, my fellow researcher, my faithful companion and my lover as well. I was planning to marry her before we found out about her condition: cancer of the lungs.  We had been together for fifteen years. The last year of our relationship was spent in and out of the hospital. A real tragedy, I’ve never been the same ever since.

I recognize some of the symbols now. This room is packed with a lot of new ones as well though. So do aliens have a language? According to prof. Illuminati, alien species only use verbal and written languages to create a bridge between us and them, apparently they only communicate telepathically.  “That’s correct”, again a voice interrupted my thinking, probably the same one I heard before.

“Hello? Can you hear me? Why did you take me here? What do you want from me?” No answer, the silence in this room is almost palpable.

“You will know everything in due time” the voice said.

It’s kind of funny, this voice sounds completely emotionless as if it were coming from a cyborg. Now, first thing first. How do I get the hell out of here? There are no doors, just screens everywhere and a lot of phrases written in that alien language. Prof. Illuminati believed that when aliens write something, it’s because they want to communicate with us. Why don’t they write directly in English then? Anyway, it’s like the crop circles, there are symbols everywhere but never a direct message or at least, as far as I understand. One of the screens on the left is flashing with symbols, let’s see what happens if I place my hand on it. Bingo! The screen reacts to the warmth of my hand, it’s like a touch screen but I don’t really need to touch it because it detects my body temperature from a short distance. Now, I see a list of symbols which I’m sure must contain some sort of instructions to get out of here. Let’s have a look:

How am I supposed to translate this? Let’s see, prof. Illuminati stated that the alien language can be read like the Chinese, namely, from top to bottom and from right to left. Let’s hope there is a hidden message or something relevant, last thing I want is wasting my tim..

“There is”, the voice interrupted me again.

So you can hear every single thought of mine right? Well, good deal! That means that we won’t have any secrets from now on and, because you are so keen on my thoughts then you should know that I have a pimply ass.  That’s so unfair, you can read my thoughts but I can’t read yours.

“You will in due time”.

“Really? When is this due time you are talking about?” I said loudly.

“Be patient, you are not ready for that yet”.

“Ready for what? What am I? Some sort of experiment? Who are you? You are not going to answer that? Are you?”

Suddenly a vision interrupted my thoughts. It was a yellowish being with big dark eyes, probably the same one who took me here.

That’s kind of scary. What’s the meaning of that vision?

“Is that how you look like? Is that why you don’t want to appear to me? Well, there’s always plastic surgery, everything is fixable nowadays. You know what? Don’t worry about how you look because you have already scared the hell out of me. Please, manifest yourself.” I said confidently but in reality I was terrified.

It’s been five minutes already and so far nobody has manifested. I might as well go back to my translation. I can sense that you are watching me so make yourself useful and try to help me out with this translation. Luckily, I always have a notebook, a pen and a pencil with me which prove to be invaluable in situations like this. My smart phone is not working, there seems to be an invisible barrier preventing electric and electronic devices from functioning. I can’t even switch it on, it seems completely dead. I’ve heard about this from abductees when I was collecting material for my research on extraterrestrial intelligence. They all said that their machines, cars or whatever devices they were using when the spaceship was hovering over them, stopped functioning at once as if someone had pulled an invisible plug. Now, I’m in a similar situation but nobody can turn off a traditional notebook and a pencil. I know, it’s a bad joke but what would you do if you were in my place? Let’s quickly write down those symbols and see if I can manage to make sense out of them.

Hmm, this reminds me of when I was a child. I used to complete little games published in a pastime magazine where the letters had been substituted by numbers. The secret was to look for a number repeated twice with another number in between which normally corresponded to the word non. Next. I had to check commonly associate short words such as be or is… I think I’ve spotted one!

Now, I need to look for possible pairs, for example if the last word is die, which is normally the infinitive of a verb, it’s very likely preceded by the word to thus the next recognizable symbols is the letter o.

At this stage, it becomes clear to spot other commonly used words such as going, which means that we can add two more letters to our translation: n and g

Ok, I think I’ve got it. So something or someone is going to die and because we are dealing with aliens here, my educated guess is the word humanity. Let’s see.

So this is a threat! The aliens came here because they want to kill us all. That’s really scary!

Suddenly, a noise resembling the whistle of a referee started ringing in my head, getting louder and louder; I’m loosing consciousness again.

3. The Bigger Picture

As I opened my eyes, it took me a while to focus my vision again. Standing in front of me there were three beings, this time it was not a vision because they stay there a long time, staring at me. I don’t actually know how long it’s been since I passed out but I do know that despite their presence, I don’t feel scared, on the contrary, I feel completely at ease.

"That’s because we are controlling your emotions – the familiar voice spoke again.

“May I ask the reason why you brought me here? I mean, if you want to kill us all why are you doing it one by one, there are billions of people on Earth, it will take you ages this way.”

"We are not killers, we are here to help. You were chosen because you have been in contact with us ever since you were born. Look at your memories if you need proof."

Suddenly, I could see the world as a toddler. Oh my God I’m a toddler again, look at those tiny hands. I’m lying in my cradle but there is someone right next to it, it’s one of them. Those yellowish beings. Again, I jump forward in time, I’m about five now and I’m having dinner with my family. My mother keeps talking about my imaginary friend sitting right next to me but as I look, I can’t see anyone apart from one of them: again! Time keeps moving forward, I’m thirteen year old at junior high school, I’m crying desperately in the bathroom because they had bullied me at school. Nobody is there apart from one of them who keeps handing napkins to me to dry up my tears. The vision keeps moving forward in time until this very moment where I am here with them, finally.

“Why couldn’t I consciously remember you?" I asked.

“Because we hide your memories of us in the deepest part of your unconscious to prevent the Draconians from finding them."

“The whom? Why are those people looking for me anyway? I haven’t done anything against them."

“Not yet but you will. They are not human, they belong to another race which have been banned by Source from entering the higher spheres. I cannot tell you everything now because you are not ready yet but we must accelerate your process of awakening because the Draconians are getting closer."

“Why is humanity going to die?"

“Because people have completely forgotten about Source and keep following the fictitious world created by the Draconians. The Draconians need humans to believe in them in order to exist. The moment you cease to believe in them, they will vanish from this world. Your entire world is made up of thought particles and only if people strongly believe in something then they can see it materialized in front of their eyes. The Draconians are the ones who created politics and religions though not all of them have bad intentions. A few of them are willing to die to save humanity but unfortunately they have to act undercover because if the other Draconians find out they will end up killed.”

“And what am I supposed to do? Free humanity from the Draconians?"

“Exactly!"

“Hey but look at me. Do I look like the Mahatma Gandhi to you? How am I supposed to defeat such powerful enemies?" I asked cynically.

“That’s why we have taken you… and a few others, to do the job. You will be instructed step by step. We cannot tell you everything at once because the truth is impossible to understand from your level of consciousness. You have passed the first test: the translation. Now we are going to take you back to your room and tomorrow you will wake up feeling well rested and peaceful. You will think that this is a dream so I’m going to give you a symbol to remind you that this is actually real: we are called the Guardians. Here, take it and always keep it with you."

“Wait, I have more questions to ask you, please...”

My eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, I can barely keep my eyes open. The Guardians in front of me are starting to fade, swallowed by an ever increasing cloud of darkness.

The alarm clock seems louder than usual this morning, I feel a tremendous pressure on my temples as if I had been run over by a truck.

Strange, I can’t remember how I got back last night. I took my bicycle for a ride and went to the valley as usual but after that I can’t remember a thing, apart from a strange light flashing in the sky. The doctor told me that people suffering from depression often experience memory loss. But why did I go to bed completely dressed? I even kept my socks on and it seems that I also didn’t bother showering. Was I feeling sick? Perhaps I need to wee wee first and wash my face to be able to completely wake up. As I’m lowering my shorts to sit on the toilet, something falls out of my pocket; a strange metallic item. I pick it up and start examining it while still sitting on the toilet. Suddenly, I have a flash; I see a yellowish hand giving me exactly the same object and then I clearly see the face of an alien with huge black eyes. I haven’t been drinking nor taking drugs for a very long time so I know from my deepest self that those visions are real. As I focus on what happened last night, I try to recollect the details but all I can remember is seeing a flash of light in the sky and I can’t go past that memory. However, I seem to hear a voice echoing in the background of my thoughts. The voice keeps saying

“It wasn’t a dream. Keep the metal object with you and wait for further instructions."

My head is spinning, I suddenly feel very sleepy, I must go back to bed, ahhhhhh. In a matter of seconds, I’m deeply asleep but I’m aware of being asleep. I know because the furniture in my room are shaped differently and the colors are too shinier and brighter than usual. My brand new chest of drawers is dark brown but in this vision, apart from looking like a piece of furniture which was popular in the 1930s, it’s bright pink. I would never buy a bright pink chest of drawers and I wouldn’t certainly buy that stuffed yellow puppet on top of it. It looks so funny with long legs and arms, let me pick it up to see what it’s made of. As I lift up the puppet, suddenly its weight becomes heavier and heavier until I can’t hold it in my hands anymore and I drop it on the floor. The puppet starts growing bigger and bigger until it’s actually much taller than me. It’s yellow with huge black eyes and it seems alive."

“Elyzabeth, wake up, it’s time to get ready. Wake up! Wake up ". This time

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Antonella Dagostino
Bildmaterialien: Antonella Dagostino
Cover: Antonella Dagostino
Lektorat: Antonella Dagostino
Satz: Antonella Dagostino
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.10.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-3767-6

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