Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Time is Running Out
Blinding light! Ugh I left the curtains open again Seth thought to himself. He covered his blue eyes with his right hand. Seth sat up and pushed power on his phone. It said 8:45 AM, Friday, August 30, 2013. “It’s only eight?” Seth got up from his queen-sized bed and walked to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and realized that his sandy blond hair was in shambles, no doubt from a hard night’s tossing and turning. He brushed his teeth then took a shower. On his way out of the shower he saw the same old shadow in the mirror he had been seeing more and more frequently.
Seth got dressed and walked into the living room to wait until The Corner Bookstore, where he worked, opened up. He had just sat on the couch when he heard a loud bang on the door followed by silence then three more bangs. Seth opened the door to see a woman standing there. She had solid white hair and was wearing what looked like a black wetsuit. She had a look of desperation in her red eyes that braced Seth for what she was about to say.
“They are coming and they will destroy everything. You know what to do.” She said.
The woman shook her head, spilling her white hair over her high cheek bones. “You don’t remember… That’s not good. I need to go I’ll be back in two days.”
The woman turned and ran down the stairs with such grace you would think she had done it a thousand times, muttering under her breath. Seth looked down the winding staircase only to see nothing. He walked back in the house to get his keys and phone.
Seth went down stairs, got in his car and drove to The Corner Bookstore parking lot and sat there pondering the conversation he just had. He got out of his small beat up Chevy Blazer S10, reading the sign he had read a thousand times: New Age books sold here. Seth walked through the door and was greeted by a warm “Hi! welcome to... oh it’s you, Seth. I’ve put a note on the counter of what I want done today. I have errands to do today.” Terry, the owner said.
“Okay I can hold it down.” Seth said walking past Terry to the counter where the computer was sitting. Terry frequently left Seth alone in the store, knowing that his daughter was coming to the store. He clocked in and looked at the note taped to the desk. It said:
1.          make sure all books are stocked
2.          call the three customers that have orders in today
3.          sweep the backroom
4.          make sure the open light is on this time
5.          and for God’s sake put some pens by the register

Seth laughed. He proceeded to walk around the store taking note of the books that needed to be restocked. About thirty minutes of walking and he had replaced all of the books.
The door made a ding as a customer walked in.
“Hi, welcome to The Corner Bookstore. What can I get for you?” Seth asked turning to look at the person that walked in the door. “Oh hi Chelsea.”
“Hi Seth.” Chelsea said with the look of fondness in her blue eyes. Then proceeded to take a look around the shop making sure to look extra flirty by batting her eyelashes and flicking her hair at Seth. “Dad asked me to come in and check on you.” She said peeking between two shelves at Seth.
“Well he only left about an hour or two ago. Not like I can burn down the shop that quickly.” Seth gave a seductive grin back to her. “Why did you really come?”
“I-I do you think...” She slammed a book down on the shelf next to her and in a huff of nerves and pheromones stormed up to the counter. “How long have we been friends?” she demanded.
“Um... since... a very long time. Why?” Seth asked taken aback.
“Am I not pretty?”
You are. Why do you ask?”
“We’ve been friends now for almost twenty years and you haven’t asked me out once... Why?” Chelsea said turning this amazing shade of red.
“You can ask me later when I get home,” Seth said tapping her lightly on the forehead with the spine of a book he was examining.
Chelsea just stared at Seth with a look that said absolutely nothing. “Seth, you are impossible. Now give me your key I relax after my final today.”
“What’s wrong with your place?” Seth asked.
“It’s not your place.”
“Okay I’m going to eat my lunch around here, so go to sleep and wait for me at home.” He said handing over the key.
The rest of the day was unusually slow for a Friday. Seth found himself standing at the counter most of the day until about ten minutes to closing time.
“Hey man,” the customer said walking in with a toboggan and sun glasses on. At first Seth thought he was going to rob the store.
“Hello, what can I do for you today?”
“I found this book in some of the old junk I inherited from my granddad. I was wondering what you thought of it,” the young man said pulling a book out of his black jacket pocket and handed it over to Seth. It was a small nondescript book with a tannish brown cover and the title read The Damietrae in big gold leaf print on the spine. Despite its humble appearance Seth’s attention was immediately captured by the book. It was like the book was calling to him.
“I would have to ask my boss about if he thinks it’s worth anything, but I want that book. I’ll give you twenty bucks for it.” Seth said unable to look away from the cover. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of white underneath the hood, but was too focused on the book to think anything of it.
“Sure that’s a lot more than I expected to get from it.” The man said grinning while Seth collected the money from his wallet.
Seth leaned down to put the book with his phone and keys. When he stood back up the man was gone and his money was on the counter. The door hadn’t even dinged. Seth checked around the store and in the back room to make sure there was no one else in the store before he closed up. Seth was scheduled to open tomorrow so he took the extra key from the cash register, locked up and went home.
When he opened the front door he was greeted by the wonderful smell of Chelsea’s baked chicken and mashed potatoes. She put this special blend of some kind of spices on the chicken and added extra pepper to the made-from-scratch mashed potatoes.
Chelsea walked out of the kitchen and hugged Seth for what felt like a little too long for a friend hug. “How was work?” She asked walking back in the kitchen.
Seth pulled the book out of his jacket and tossed it on the table in front of her. “A guy came in wanting to sell that to the store.” Seth said leaving the part about the book calling to him out.
“What is it?” Chelsea said sounding a little uneasy.
“I have no idea it’s a weird book altogether. It has these strange symbols and it’s bound in something that I’ve never felt before. But what’s with dinner? You hardly ever cook for me.”
“I figured my new boyfriend would like dinner after a hard day’s work.”
“You were supposed to ask me first.” Seth said smiling. “I take it you went to your parents and got a few clothes?” Seth asked noticing a Walmart sack with clothes in it.
“Yeah I told them I would be staying with you. After I told them, my dad said ‘it’s about time’.” Chelsea said laughing.
“Well there’s something I need to tell you before we go any further with this.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m older than you…”
“I know that already. You were born eight months before I was.”
“No, I don’t know when I was born.”
“So you have amnesia?” She asked sitting next to Seth, putting her head in her hands on the counter.
“Yes and no. I was found as a baby in what used to be Tunguska, Russia in 1908.”
“So you’re… a little over a hundred years old?”
“Yes.”
“Why do I remember you as a kid?” Chelsea asked beginning to question things between the two of them.
“Every thirty years or so I revert back to an infant. Through the last century I’ve been moved by my families all the way from Russia to Germany. In Germany I became a scientist for the Nazi party. Then when World War II broke out I defected to the United States, where I assisted with the war efforts. That is until I reverted to an infant in 1944. Then I lived an uneventful life in Arizona until my wife at the time left me because we couldn’t have a kid. I left the state to make a life in Texas. Where I helped establish a corporation that later would buy most of the restaurant franchises in the country. In 1973 I reverted back to an infant. I had just started working for a small computer company in 1989 when I found out that I had stage 4 mesothelioma. I reverted to an infant, which cured me, in 1990.”
Chelsea remained quietly stared into space trying to slowly come to terms with this information.
“What do you think of this?”
“You are either crazy or telling the truth.”
“Do you need me to prove it?” Seth asked.
“No I believe you. This is just a lot to take in.”
“If I didn’t live it, I wouldn’t believe it either.”
“Wait a minute. If you were a baby how did you survive?” Chelsea asked.
“In my first and this life I was adopted, but the others I remained alive without eating or drinking until my body was able to handle moving around.”
“You sat there wherever you reverted? How do you know that? Babies don’t have memories.”
“I don’t know how I remember. I guess I’m built differently than most people.”
“Obviously.” Chelsea said laughing.
Seth laughed and grabbed a fork and knife out of the cabinet and set them on the island counter. “How long are you staying?” He asked Chelsea.
“That’s up to you.”
“I almost forgot, this morning a weird woman came to the door this morning.” Seth said cramming a fork full of chicken in his mouth.
“What was so weird about that?”
“She was taller than me, she had white hair, but was young, and red eyes. She also said that someone was coming to destroy everything and that she would be back in two days.”
“You had an interesting day today didn’t you?” Chelsea asked. “Well what do you think of that? Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know really. It happened too fast.”
Chelsea put a piece of chicken on Seth’s plate. “Well what are you going to do about it?”
“When she comes back I’ll tell her to leave me alone.”
“I meant to prevent wackos from getting in.” Chelsea said letting out a giggle.
“Har, har, har you’re so funny.” Seth proceeded to stuff his mouth with mashed potatoes then finished by asking, “How did your day go?”
“After I left you, I went over to my English class,” Chelsea said rolling her eyes, “My professor graded all of our end-of-term papers, I did horribly. Out of a possible five, I got a three.”
“What did you write it over again?”
“The Bloody Countess, Elizabeth Bathory.”
“Carnage and mayhem, always a good start. I thought about doing my paper over her, but read somewhere that she was an actual person. However, she did not bathe in blood. I’m not sure if that’s true.” Seth said punctuating his words with waves of his fork.
A few minutes later, Seth had finished his meal. He looked at the book and opened it and thumbed through the pages, which looked more like a spellbook than any other type of book he had ever come across. It had strange symbols surrounding the text written in some strange-looking handwriting.
“This book makes no sense.”
“Well I’m going to take a shower now. I did an immense amount of sweating to make you that meal.”
“ It was really good. Thank you Chelsea.” Seth said kissing her.
Chelsea grabbed her bag and headed to the bathroom, leaving Seth alone in the room with the impossible book that made no sense. He opened it back up and continued looking through the pages. In the first chapter, the book looked to be some kind of story punctuated with a series of three characters. The second chapter was full of pictures of strange plants and diagrams with brief sets of characters between each picture. The third chapter was completely different from the other two. It has odd drawings of different geometric shapes mostly enclosed in circles followed by a long string of characters.
About the time Seth finished thumbing through the book, Chelsea walked out of the bathroom in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. “Ready for bed?” She asked turning her head to Seth.
“Yeah, why are you sleeping in fleece?” He asked getting up “It’s like 9 million degrees outside.”
“You also keep the air conditioner at sixty,” Chelsea said plopping down on the side of the bed opposite of Seth.
It wasn’t long before Chelsea was snoring lightly. Seth fell asleep thinking about the book and all the interesting things inside yet to be figured out. He was asleep for what felt like hours when he had this dream that began normally with him going to class. He sat most of the way through Chemistry, until there was this loud bang outside that blew in the windows and shook the building. Seth jumped up out of his seat to look out the window.
The parking lot outside the building was replaced with a hole as wide as a semi trailer and deep enough that the bottom was not visible. Suddenly a wall of flames jetted up out of the hole. The resulting shock-wave collapsed the building Seth was in. It felt like a load of bricks landed on his chest, but miraculously, he survived.
Seth pushed as hard as he could on the debris, but it weighed more than he could move.
No Seth, he heard in his head. He knew Chelsea was in trouble.
The debris weighed nothing anymore. Seth sat up and saw Chelsea running towards him with two big black scaly creatures complete with horns and wings. As soon as Chelsea was clear, Seth extended his hand, woke up and shot a deep orange fire out of his fingertips.