Prologue: Adeline
Year: 1989
Location: Project Onyx, Top Secret Government Black Site
The road stretched out in front of me, winding like a black serpent, tar glowing underneath the burning sun. I had seen this road before, but only in the photographs scattered across my father’s desk. He was the one who pointed the highway out, proudly boasting that only a few dozen cars had ever traversed the mountainous region.
My father was a different man. A quiet man. A man who held secrets. Every Sunday morning, my mother would try to coax him out of his shell. She was a religious woman and practically on the other end of the spectrum from my father. A vibrant soul with a strong attitude, she could never get him to open up. Or go to church.
“This is my own version of going to church,” he would tell my mother. She had always been more conservative than he, and his absence would bother her no end. Truthfully, it affected us all, but I couldn’t remember much of those days. In fact, I had blocked out the first portion of my life almost entirely.
To my father, prayer was something of a fool’s errand. Not only was he an explorer and a scientist, he was the government’s leading scientist, working for the CIA. To him, church meant nothing. There was so much more the world could offer than words to a higher power.
On the drive, I remembered him telling me great stories about the world. About breathtakingly advanced technologies found in the middle of the sprawling deserts of Iran. Giant monoliths from ancient times strategically built by ancient cultures around the world. Those spectacles kept my father’s attention. Church? The entire universe was a beautiful and impossibly perfect church.
Of course, my mother’s anger was never about the sacred rituals, or even about the message itself. In the grand scheme of things, morality meant very little to her. Sometimes, she could be more punishing than the devil himself. What angered her most was the fact he wouldn’t spend time with her. He was always on some top-secret expedition. And he sure as hell wasn’t inviting her to any government sites.
Already, I was destined to become an explorer, born a scientist like my father. “Somewhere,” he once told me, voice lowered, “There is a place...”
I would always interrupt him with wonder and glee. “What place?”
My mind would run with the wildest imagery. Giant butterflies floating through the Amazon rainforest. Poisoned frogs and howling monkeys. Unimaginable monsters and beasts, forced to live in the heart of darkness, forced away as civilization took a firm grip on the future. Where did they all go, and why couldn’t I witness them?
My father would kneel before me and poke my nose before leaving on another of his expeditions. I’d always well up in tears because I knew it would be months before I’d get to see him again, the man I absolutely idolized. My wonderfully complex father. “Deep inside the forests, there are portals,” he’d whisper.
I nearly choked the first time I heard him say that word. I was just seven years old, but I knew everything there was to know about them. At least, I thought I did. The mere mention of one took my breath away.
“Portals?”
He’d nod and place his finger over his lips to make sure Mommy couldn’t hear. He’d looked toward the living room, see she was consumed by another daytime talk show, then open up and tell me bits and pieces. “Gateways. Entrances to another realm. We...”
He stopped himself, knowing he had gone too far, but he was never one to hold back the truth.
“Daddy, please tell me,” I’d beg.
A devious smile formed on his face, furrowing his gray mustache against his nose. “Okay, here’s the deal. You’re going to be a good girl and finish all of your homework before mom even asks you. Then, you’re going to church on Sunday. If you stick to the script, I’ll show you something that will blow your mind.”
That month, I worked to be the kindest, most attentive daughter my mother had ever seen. Instead of collecting bugs in the backyard, I would smile and finish all of my assignments. I would walk into that church singing the hymns louder and with more conviction than ever.
And when I arrived home, I ran into my dad’s study to tell him how good I had been that month. But my dad wasn’t home, and I should have never barged in like that. That’s when I saw them, the scattered papers and newspaper clippings that both frightened and shocked me.
I poured through the articles, stopping to gawk at hand-drawn illustrations of inconceivable creatures. Were they human? I couldn’t tell. They were definitely humanoid, but as to their instincts, brain mass, and overall moral compasses, I couldn’t be sure. I was just seven years old. However, even at that young age, I wanted to know more.
Despite being frightened, I vowed to find them, knowing it was my calling to do so. If there were multiverses and other realms connecting this world together with the next, I had to keep venturing outward.
I packed my things, and, months later, my father agreed to sneak me into one of the black sites. Somewhere far away, there was a massive energy block dug out from the center of an old city center. It was so old it had been buried and built over. That was where the portal to the beasts stood.
They had to be aliens.
I had no doubt in my mind that’s what the beasts were. They looked like massive statues. Sure, there was no elongation of the skull, no gray skin and buggy eyes. They were massive, like warriors, and must have adapted to the atmosphere in a more primitive way than I thought. A part of me had to wonder how much of them were just like us.
Maybe they were us...
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