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Orpheus and the Dark Aether – Chapter 6

Orpheus awoke and looked around. He was in his personal library and had obviously fallen asleep. “What was I looking for again?” he thought to himself. He looked down at the weathered journal under his head. It was a journal written in his handwriting, yet he had no recollection of writing any of these entries. He set the book off to the corner; he would come back to that one in a while. He had not spent much time outside in the past week because the machines had started to affect him strangely. He had heard others had been having strange reactions as well. He thought back to a few days ago, the last time he had gone into the city.

Mr. Angkarn walked into City Hall to check on the book. It was progressively adding more and more to the start of the story. Reminded him of Merlin, or that one moving picture show with the guy and his tattoos, the way the story ran backwards. He felt so helpless. He still had no clue what those machines were doing, but at night they released horrible monsters, trapped in the ground thankfully. During the day the machines emitted the most painful screams. They seemed to be like the creatures in the book, but he had not figured out a way to destroy them. He hadn’t been mentioned in the book yet, but that didn’t mean anything. He had no way of knowing what to do.

He turned to leave when a terrible pain ripped through his body. He fought the urge to fall to his knees, but to no success. He had felt this sensation before. “How could this be?” he cried out. Why was he going through a regeneration? He shouldn’t be in danger. He fought the pain long enough to limp out of City Hall. As he made his way down the street he passed one of the devices. It made him curious. He walked closer to it, and as he did he felt the pain grow stronger. He fought through the pain and put his hand on the device. It burned like he never before burned, as if his hand was on fire. Finally he pulled away. He thought he would see the yellowish light that normally accompanies a regeneration, but he saw none. Then, his hands began to glow with a bluish light. It was as if an electric charge was building in his hands, a charge coming from his own life energy. He backed up away from the machine. Orpheus suddenly felt an intense anger build. As he got angrier, the charge got stronger. He raised his hands in wonder, but as he was looking at them the glow discharged; a blue ball of energy blasted across the street where it hit the machine, with no effect. Mr. Angkarn was horrified, and ran off towards his Tardis, glad that he didn’t run into anyone on the way.

Orpheus had lost track of how many days had passed since his self imposed exile. He was sure the strange mist that was being emitted by the devices was responsible, just as it had caused that poor lady at the CocoaJava to be trapped in that jar the other day. If he really tried he could keep the energy from building up, but it became difficult when he was agitated or tired. His worst fear was what he had read in the book. A man with electrical energy sparking was trying to stop the Mayor, and everyone assumed it was Moriarty. What if it wasn’t? What if HE was that man? He couldn’t risk that. He would have to stay here until things played out the way they would play out. At last he understood why his people had a strict non-interference policy. He would wait this one out.

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