CHAPTER 7
REVELATIONS
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“The path to truth is littered by the bodies of the ignorant”
Kensei, Miyamoto Musashi
" God remembers that we are but shadows and dust. Therefore what we do in this life echoes in eternity.”
Emperor Marcus Aurelius
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The blood cast it’s spell. Transforming Michaels mind, with it his entire perception of everything. Reality unveiled itself to him. A richly layered, finely woven tapestry of wonder unfolded.
The Aos Sidhe came from a different time and world. They were from ancient places now drowned hundreds of feet below the sea and buried deeply under desert sands.
Had they evolved on this world? Had they been created? No one actually knew. The oldest among them could not remember. Not even the blood held that knowledge. Some believed they had come from Aster, the fifth planet, now blasted into orbiting rubble
The blood does not hold any more than fragments of the knowledge of their beginning. Among the Aos Sidhe there were only faint fragmented memories of the long catastrophic fall.
What is known is that there are memories in the blood. Secrets, histories, encoded in their DNA. In their blood. Within each of them is encoded the memories, the experiences of every one that had come before them stretching back to the beginning. The memories, experiences of their direct ancestors waiting to be awakened.
Not every human is one of the folk. The seelie and unseelie court. the Aos Sidhe, or the Fomor. Though. Most Humans carry fragments, pieces of their DNA, fragments that grant slight advantages. Making them faster, stronger, smarter. Fragments that caused the great heroes from myth and history to exist. Fragments that birthed great leaders such as Agamemnon, Alexander, Arthur, heroes along with the nightmares, Caeser , Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, Hitler.
Among the humans of the far west, the Atlantic fringe of Europe, the blood was thickest. There they had ruled and or led them many times over the centuries. Among those people we are called by the name Fair folk, Aos Sidhe, the Children of Don. The good people, the seelie and unseelie courts. Y Tylweth Teg. Those are a few names. As for us, the Fair Folk we do not know what we were called by our progeniters, we have no clue. Not a snippet remained.
Very rarely is one of the fair folk born. It is a rare thing when those fragments, align. When they do, an, for lack of a better word, a larvae is born. That larvae looks just like the regular humans, although, a little stronger, faster, better eyesight, hearing, sense of taste and smell, better memory. Aside from those gifts, the Larvae lives, procreates, and dies just like all the Humans around it does. There is no way to tell a larvae apart from the Humans. At least, no way that Humans could tell.
One of the fair folk though could taste a larvae on the breeze. They can smell them, they can see the electromagnetic field surrounding them. Their “aura” so to speak, stands out like faint dancing flames, Quite a bit brighter than the scant flickers of the Humans.
These larvae cannot become an adult, unless certain enzymes, produced only by an adult Aos Sidhe, are introduced, usually via a bite. Those enzymes are part of the saliva. The enzymes awaken certain genes inducing a metamorphosis. Once all of the Proteins in the DNA are altered and converted, the Aos Sidhe are born anew.
No , the fair folk are not the walking dead, psuedo Draculas risen from the grave. The Aos Sidhe are very much alive. More alive than any other living intelligent creature on this world.
The Aos Sidhe are the true apex predator of all life on this spinning ball of earth, in this entire star system to be honest. Aos Sidhe are the Survivors, the inheritors. The Aos Sidhe are few,their numbers diminishing as the humans population explodes. Those expanding numbers diffusing those fragments of DNA, reducing the likelihood that the fragments, align and join. The more Humans there are, the thinner the blood, the fewer Aos Sidhe.
The fair folk were the first. That much we do know. The first creative, intelligent, self aware beings. As far as can be told. The first ones that arose on the grass steppes of the Middle East, Eurasia, the grass plains of Africa.
Fossils have been found. Ancient skulls that belonged to our distant ancestors. There have never been found, any transitional fossils however. No skulls or bones or traces of an evolution.
When they compared our ancestral DNA with that of the contemporary, ancient hominids. Absolutely none of it, not a fragment not even a partial amino acid or protein link, could be found in any of the hominids, in any creature, except the fair folk. The ancient skulls of our ancestors just appeared out of the blue on the steppes of Eurasia and the grass plains of Africa. They simply appeared, intact, whole, from where? We have no clear indication. That other world origin theory seemed quite probable.
About three or four hundred thousand years ago, the story began. The Aos Sidhe were the only ones with speech, fully upright, omnivores with opposable thumbs using tools of stone and bone. Far more advanced than any if the smaller hominids of Africa. The Aos Sidhe bore only superficial similarities with the hominids. There were three hominids that were encountered here on the third planet. Throughout Europe, Eurasia and South east Asia as the Aos Sidhe spread out across the world. Current science calls them Cro Magnon, Neanderthal and Denisovan.
The ancestors of today evolved and developed. Creating farms, then towns, cities. Evolving rapidly over time. They invented technologies far in advance of the twenty first century Humans of today. Cities became nations, nations became empires. Empires clashed.
What did they fight about? The same things empires always fight about. Power, access and control of resources, coupled with the need to continually expand, to grow, or the empire withers and dies. Wars are the survival reflex of empires.
These wars were fought with weapons the twenty first century barely imagines. Directed energy weapons, beams and pulses of Positrons, Electrons, Neutrons, Protons, Lasers, Masers. There were Thermonuclear bombs. There were advanced trans atmospheric air craft. Interplanetary Space Craft, Orbital facilities. Colonies on the fourth and fifth planets.
The most devastating weapons, the ones that brought those wars to an end were the planet killing point singularities. Temporary black holes that dissipated in nano seconds. There were biological and chemical weapons in the mix as well. Of them all, the Bio weapons were the worst. The singularities killed quickly. The bio weapons transformed people into horrors of excruciating pain and rage. Self aware disassociated creatures dying slowly in agony. In effect, self aware zombies that existed trapped within unable to control a body that decayed and rampaged feeding an unending appetite while experiencing the trauma and pain of the slowly dissolving bodies.
After the fifth planet was destroyed, becoming the asteroid belt, fragments of which rained down across the surface of the fourth planet destroying the atmosphere on the fourth planet, eradicating the colonies. By mutual unspoken consent and driven by fear, Point singularities were no longer used. That was when they began throwing rocks at each other. Mass divers and low thrust ion engines steered the asteroids to their targets. Gravity did the rest.
The orbital facilities were quickly wiped out. No one could protect themselves from the small asteroids used. An asteroid the size of a small house, would hit and explode with the force of Nuclear weapons. These rocks were infinitely safer, leaving no radiation, no radioactive fallout. Craft were launched from the earth, physically traveling to the new asteroid belt and nudging them, controlling them so that they would hit cities, space ports, missile silos, laboratories.
The end was far beyond imagining. The climate drastically altered. Devastation covered the earth. The ice at the poles and the massive continent spanning glaciers began melting, bringing massive floods across continents. The seas rising, in fact, the seas rose over three hundred fifty feet. While those horrors occurred, the true night mares walked the earth. Biological weapons, plagues, diseases, chemicals that destroyed central nervous systems, that induced forms of insanity in the masses. Bioengineered weapons that walked, fought, destroyed. Nightmares that would haunt the dreams and memory of this world forever.
Civilization was virtually wiped from the surface of the planet. There were a few survivors that managed to hold out in two remaining cities. Horrific changes had been heaped upon the world, and, to the people. Biological and chemical weapons had altered the survivors. They had lost the ability to produce certain blood cells, certain enzymes. They had lost the ability to reproduce.
There was no source for the needed tranfusions, except the survivors themselves. Artificial blood could sustain them for short times, but still killed them in the end. The peoples genetic damage was beyond their ability to repair. Raiding occurred between the cities, to capture sources of the blood and enzymes needed to live. The Gods battled amongst themselves.
Their scientists, began manipulting the DNA of the few surviving hominids, altering and combining Denisovans, Neanderthal, Cromagnon. The three could interbreed without manipulation to begin with which made them perfect to work with. The hybrids were a bit more intelligent, and robust. But their blood could not sustain the people. In desperation, the scientists began taking DNA samples from the survivors, then by splicing the undammaged fragments from many hosts, they could create one intact Dna strand. That strand was introduced to the hybrids. Thus, were Humans created. Created as cattle, hamburgers on the hoof.
The new species thrived. They were fairly intelligent , learning quickly. They had short lifespans, fourty to fifty years, but, they reproduced rapidly.
The Humans, thrived, and as their population grew, expanded from the survivors cities in the Euxine basin, under what is now the Black Sea and What is now under the Persian Gulf. The Humans spread to every part of the world.
About thirteen or fourteen thousand years ago, the final war was fought over control Of the Human herds. That war, is where the legends of Atlantis and Lemuria came from.
That war destroyed all but a hand full of the survivors, who had fled the destruction with nothing but what they could carry on their backs. The remnants of the cities were drowned beneath two new seas. The Black sea, and the Persian gulf. That flood is where the surviving Humans, developed the great flood myths, Atlantis, Lemuria, the war of the gods. All based upon true history.
Those that fled along the Danube river into Europe, and the Don, up into the Steppes of Ukraine, established themselves, herding the human cattle. Becoming their Gods. The Aesir, Vanir, The Aos Sidhe, the pantheons of Greece and Rome. Some survivors of the Fomor fled into South Asia and into Africa where they became the gods of the humans there.
These Gods taught the humans new wonders. Metal working, gold and copper, writing, mathematics, astronomy, agriculture and Civil engineering. In return the humans offered worship, and Blood Sacrifices. Less than a hundred an fifty ” gods” had survived that final war on earth.
The centuries passed, most of the old “Gods” died off one by one. Slain in the continued skirmishes, battles between the arrogance of the Fair folk and the cold calculating evils of the Fomor.
Heroes, great leaders arose among the Human herds. Their farms became towns, became cities, became nations, became empires. The human herds were copying their gods, mimicking their creators.
Around six or seven thousand years ago, the first of the new “gods” were born. This greatly surprised the very few of the old ones that remained. The transformation process was discovered, new gods were born. Only one or two every half century or so. The Elder race was slowly being reborn.
The Humans brought blood sacrifices and worship. Over time the old gods passed and the new gods reigned. The cattle herds grew abundantly.
It was discovered that occasionally, one of the new gods could impregnate a human. “demigods” began to be born. As the human population grew, fewer and fewer of the “gods” were born. As the human empires developed, the gods feared they could not control these massive populations and began to withdraw, to go into seclusion.
Morgan, Michael had learned, was part of the Morrigan. Somewhere, Lugh, Thor, Odin andn the Fomor Quetzalcoatl/Set still walked. Isis, Athena, Brighid, Amaterasu, and of course Morrigan, were all known to still be walking among the Humans as well. Exactly how many and who had survived was not known. The Fair Folk remained a fractious and war like people.
Now, they were reduced from gods to stories of vampires , stories to frighten children. Essentially immortal, they preyed upon the humans, predators now hiding in plain site.
Humans had evolved, developed technologies, numbers, and could now kill, or capture and experiment on them. Secrecy was now paramount. If the Humans ever discovered them and ever began to study or experiment upon them, terribly horrible things would ensue. Not just to the Aos Sidhe, but to all humans as well. The truth of their existence must never be revealed lest everything be destroyed, all life consumed.