Beyond the Veil (Dawn of Hope, Book 1) Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Irden Forrest - All rights reserved.

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  Table Of Contents

  Part One: The Veil

  Chapter 1. Awake

  Chapter 2. Encounters

  Chapter 3. Found

  Chapter 4. No Turning Back

  Chapter 5. Mistake

  Chapter 6. Bigger Problems

  Chapter 7. The Shrine

  Part Two: Transformation

  Chapter 8. Unleashed

  Chapter 9. Reawakened

  Chapter 10. Danger

  Chapter 11. Revelations

  Chapter 12. Uncertain Fates

  Dawn of Hope

  Book I: Beyond the Veil

  Part One:

  The Veil

  Chapter 1

  Awake

  Zachary Linus bent over the wreckage and commenced his search. The military transport ship had been hit by an anti-air missile and its occupants left for dead. This area was too heavily contested for troops on foot to go out in search of survivors to take prisoner or loot any downed aircraft; however, the ship had been carrying a considerable amount of cargo so it would be a juicy find for anyone who got to it first.

  “How long do you estimate it’s been down here in these dusty fields?” Samantha asked without turning. Zachary — Zack to her and other close friends — was her slightly older brother, but she was the one keeping him safe while he ransacked the remains of the fallen vessel. A rifle was in her hand, the same one she had been carrying for months now. It was trustier than anything that the Imperial or Conglomerate forces issued. Her eyes were peeled as she licked her lips and scanned the surroundings once more from behind the ship’s bent wing. It offered something of cover if she was fired at, but she certainly didn’t have enough ammo to fight anyone if the moment came.

  “Hours at best,” the young man said. He was seventeen, though his face and manner didn’t show it. “I can still feel the warmth in the metal around me. It hasn’t been too long since the fires were burning on the inside. I—” He froze. He had found something.

  “What is it?”

  “Food…Finally…” His stomach ached, and Zack was suddenly reminded of the last time he had eaten. It has been three days now since I ate that loaf of bread with Sammy. I can’t believe we’ve actually found a whole shipment of military rations…

  Samantha turned down to glance at him for the shortest instant, but it was enough. A grin spread across her face as she looked back at the lands around the fallen ship again.

  “Open it and start packing. We need to get out of here.”

  As Zack began to rip apart the netting holding the containers together, he heard a gasp from beyond. Oh, no. His small pistol was in his hand immediately, the clip long emptied but the weapon itself posing some sort of threat to anyone that might come at him.

  “Don’t try anything stupid, I’m armed,” he threatened. His sister was sitting tensely on top of the wreckage; her attention shared from covering the ground around the ship and keeping an eye on what was happening below her inside it. “Come out, stripe.” The word was a derogatory term for Conglomerate soldiers, who marked their (mostly) navy blue armor and helmets with a single dark red line. Zachary and Samantha were neither Imperial nor Conglomerate — they were simply innocents caught in a ridiculous war for resources in a decade of great crisis and shortages of energy, food, water and everything else needed to keep a world going.

  The sigh turned into a whimper and Zack’s eyes widened. He holstered his gun and went further into the ship’s wreckage, past the food containers and other items.

  “What are you doing?!” Sammy shouted nervously. She couldn’t see her brother anymore and knew that if he got hurt, they had no medicines or bandages to save his life.

  Long seconds passed and all Samantha could hear was the rustling beneath her, the sounds of a struggle. She gave up on her task and slipped down from the wing into the remains of the vessel. If something has happened to him, I’m putting the last five bullets of this rifle into his attacker, I swear!

  “It’s okay.” Zack came out from behind the container, lifting a hand at his terrified sister. Something was slung over his back like a sack of meat, except it wasn’t a sack at all.

  The little girl’s shy eyes darted between Zack and Samantha as she breathed quickly and painfully. She had been hurt during the ship’s crash but had somehow and miraculously survived among the deceased crew. Her tanned brown skin and big eyes made her look like an exotic little princess, but at times like these, a cache of food was much more valuable than an interesting companion.

  A decision had to be made. For Zack, it was easy. Samantha, however…

  “We must concentrate on getting the food out of here. I can’t do it on my own. Leave the child behind or at least make her walk.”

  “I can’t. You know that. Look at her; she’s wounded.” Zack hugged the girl closer and began to climb out of the wreckage. Sammy punched her fist into one of the containers in frustration. Beans, corn, rice, flour and so much more. I can’t just leave behind half of what we could have taken with us over a girl we don’t even know. She began to climb and stared at her brother as she saw him resting the girl on the sand.

  “Zack…”

  “I have decided. A life over some pounds of food seems rational to me.”

  The little girl pushed him away softly, and both siblings were alarmed by her sudden confidence.

  “Stop arguing, please…” She fought to catch her breath, the dust and metal of the ship’s wreckage probably having clogged her lungs, “My name is Faye. Believe me, guys, I am grateful that you rescued me and I’ll make it worth your while. Bring the food; I can walk. Slowly, but I can walk nonetheless.”

  Zack stood there in the sand, staying still for a few seconds before nodding and jumping up onto the ship again and entering it. Slowly, he threw the containers out of the ship onto the sand below where his sister stood, waiting to catch them. When enough of the boxes had been removed from the insides of the vessel and rammed into their bags, he leaped out.

  “So tell us, what happens now? Why are you saying things like you’ll make it worth our while? We don’t need you to convince us. We’d keep you safe even if none of what you’re saying is true…”

  The girl shook her head.

  “I’m not lying. This ship is not Imperial or Conglomerate-owned. Yes,” she added as she saw Sammy beginning to protest, “It was Conglomerate owned, but my rescuers had hijacked it until this happened and now they’re…” Her eyes went watery, and she stifled a sob. “It doesn’t matter. We were on our way somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “To a guy.”

  “A guy?” Sammy shifted the rifle in her grip. She was getting tired of this.

  Faye turned and began to walk away. “To a guy who is going to save this world.”

  Chapter 2

  Encounters

  Both Zack and Sammy were strangers to these lands, their desperate search for food taking them further than ever from what they considered their base back home. The sand was thicker and stretched further here, the desert wilder than what they knew. The fighting was much worse, and every few minutes an explosion echoed in the distance. Let’s hope they stay in the distance, Zack thought with a nervous look at the helpless little girl in front of him.

  Faye didn’t seem fazed by what was going on around her, however.

  After a few hours, Samantha began to lose
her patience.

  “How far are we? We haven’t even stopped to eat any of the food we’ve dragged this far.”

  “Oh…right, the food. Let’s eat.” Faye’s behavior was strange, and Zack began to imagine if she had felt any hunger herself since she was so distracted about it.

  The quickest meal they managed to pull off under the circumstances was a couple of cans of beans each on bread with a bit of corn on the side. It was the best thing the brothers had eaten for weeks.

  “How far are we? You didn’t answer my question,” Sammy said with an ugly gaze.

  Zack shot her a heavy look of his own. Stop treating the little girl like that, it said. Samantha rolled her eyes at him and nodded in acceptance.

  “We’re close. An hour at best.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know yet, but the man we’re meeting has discovered something important.” Faye brushed herself off and walked away again like last time. The two siblings shared a look and grabbed their bags. What’s the worst that can happen? Zack wondered. That it turns out this was all a trap and we get captured? At least we managed to eat, I guess. Wouldn’t want to die on an empty stomach. What a sad way to go.

  Suddenly, Zack heard the telltale whine in the distance.

  “Get down, quickly!” He launched himself behind some rocks and saw Sammy throw herself on top of Faye and compact her body the most she could. The fighter ships thundered past, breaking the sound barrier as they tore through the polluted sky like massive projectiles. If any of the pilots had seen them, they’d have gunned them down and continued their rush toward wherever they were going. Zack and Sammy had no doubt of this. They’d seen it.

  After the small scare, Faye got up first and thanked the siblings for being quick to react and continued.

  “We’re not too far, and there is a hidden village up ahead where we can get some supplies—” She paused and let out a cry as they crested a dune and saw what lay below. Zack stretched out to grab her but it was too late, she was already running down the hill of sand and sobbing as she went.

  The charred remains of people and animals were painful to see. They had been placed on a great pyre like some sort of sick bonfire and Zack was finally able to reach Faye, pulling her away and covering her eyes from the worst.

  “I’m so sorry, Faye. This war is turning men into wild beasts who have lost their mercy.”

  Faye hugged him as sobs continue to wrack her small, fragile body.

  Sammy was the first to sense something among the ruins. Her rifle was in her grip immediately, and she pointed it menacingly at the figure emerging from behind the remaining structure of a stone arch.

  “Come out, right now!” Her voice was full of authority, and the approaching person seemed to comply.

  Faye turned as she saw the man and her eyes lit up despite her tearful eyes.

  “This is who we’ve been looking for, guys. The doctor!”

  The skinny man in the elegant — albeit a little dusty — clothing stepped out from behind the ruins and nodded at them all. He was tall and balding, his light brown hair short and combed. “Doctor Elstein, at your services. It is nice to see one of you made it, Faye,” his eyes turned to the sad scene in front of him, “Despite the conditions. I have to thank you both for having escorted her as well.”

  “She says you’re a man who can change this,” Samantha said bluntly, “How true are those words and how do you think of doing that?”

  “I’ll tell you two things, young lady. First, yes, they’re true; and two, I’m going to pull something off this world has never seen.”

  Zack looked up at the man and lifted an eyebrow.

  “What are you thinking of doing?”

  Elstein licked his lips and nodded slightly in thought as if telling himself to just spill the beans. Finally, he decided.

  “I’m going to open a gateway to another world and bring back what we need from it.”

  Chapter 3

  Found

  Nobody had found his lab in his absence, despite all of the death and destruction the Imperial troops had brought upon the inhabitants of the hidden village. Though Elstein believed that the soldiers had been after his lab more than anything, he was unaware if its location had been the actual reason the innocents had ultimately been slaughtered.

  I hope not; the guilt would kill me eventually if I knew it was so, he thought.

  Zack and Samantha watched the doctor closely as he walked several feet away from them past the mound of burned bones and skulls and took out a key, which he stabbed into a certain area on the ground. The soft mechanical sound of whirring gears followed as the floor slid open.

  The four of them walked down a flight of stairs and followed the doctor along a dark, cold corridor that led to a reinforced door. When he reached it, he took a deep breath and clenched his hands several times. Something big is about to take place, Zack felt.

  “Faye, you can come forward with the thing now,” Dr. Elstein said, as he turned on the lights inside the laboratory beyond the door and began to flip switches.

  The little girl detached from the siblings’ side and began to fiddle with something at her throat. Elstein got to one knee and thanked her gratefully as she took a necklace off and gave it to him. Samantha only then realized what the little girl represented in this entire job.

  “That little necklace is an essential part of whatever you’re doing here, right doctor? I’d like to imagine that if we weren’t here, you wouldn’t have been able to recover it. That means that you sort of owe us at least an explanation before you start whatever it is you’re doing next.” Samantha was ruthless, her snappiness a good quality to have in their current situation. It meant that the doctor would have to be careful to remain honest at all times.

  Professor Elstein made a face but understood what favors meant in these times. “Yeah, I owe you one, I know. Ask away.” He turned and got busy with a few computer panels. There was a sense of urgency in his actions as if he was expecting something. Or somebody.

  Zack smiled and spread his hands out. So much to ask but let’s get to the most needed answer first.

  “Tell us about this other world.”

  Elstein walked over to another reinforced locked metal door — this one looked thicker and much more resilient — and began to input a secret code with a look of excitement. Zack and Sammy could only imagine that Faye’s necklace had been all he’d needed.

  “An old saying once said ‘An image speaks a thousand words,’ behold and understand what the other world is.” The professor gestured to the back of the hidden room he’d just opened the door to and pointed Faye’s necklace at the far wall. “This necklace only makes the link between both worlds stronger, thanks for bringing it.”

  Something incredible occurred: the wall began to disappear, fading away as if it was never there to begin with. A translucent grid began to form in the air from concealed projectors in the walls and the group gasped. Both Zack and Samantha dropped their bags and took a few steps forward unconsciously. The back of the room slowly changed from dark brick and damp floors to a scene that had long disappeared from their own version of Earth.

  A grassy hill stood surrounded by never-ending expanses of forest. Everywhere they looked they could see trees, all the way until the horizon. A shining lake was visible in one of the corners of the image, and the sky was a clear, beautiful blue and not the dirty gray the group was used to seeing in their world.

  “It’s amazing,” Sammy breathed as she took another step closer.

  Gunfire and shouts made them turn and the peaceful moment was torn away from the group, returning them to the reality of their war-ravaged lives.

  A teenage boy stumbled inside, a woman following closely behind.

  “Quick, Shinji! Lillian will cover us, we must warn the doctor, we’ve been found!” The woman froze as she entered the lab and saw the group staring at her. “Oh, we have visitors…” She was tall and attractive and wore a field medic�
�s uniform. Samantha shifted on the spot, lifting her rifle as she saw the emblem on the woman’s shirt. Conglomerate.

  “Don’t,” Dr. Elstein said nervously. “Julia deserted them a long time ago. These are my associates. We have no time for introductions. I knew this moment was coming. I haven’t done enough tests, sent enough drones into the other world. We’re not ready yet.” He began to pat at his damp forehead with a cloth.

  “Sir, a squad of Imperials has found us. We must leave or it is all over.” The boy that was talking looked familiar. Zack stepped forward and his eyes widened. It’s him.

  “Shinji? Shinji Nishimura?” It’s a small world after all, Zack thought.

  “Zachary…” The other teenager looked amazed.

  A powerful-looking woman stepped in, her braided blonde hair bouncing as she walked into the room with purpose. The machine-gun in her grip was still smoking.