The Life of Reiji Kageyama: Chapter Two

I spent the next several decades of my life split between two halves, each one fueling the other. Most of the time I was a successful businessman in Tokyo who, under the covers of the shadows of night, ruled a sizeable portion of my country’s criminal enterprises. The name Reiji Kageyama became one to be whispered in fear by the desperate, the greedy and the stupid. My rules were strict but fair, and for a time there was something which passed for peace in the criminal underworld.

During this time, I wed and produced a son, Shiro, From the earliest days of starting my family I tried to project the air of perfect normalcy, doting on Shiro at any opportunity, gifting him a life of privilege and joy.

This attitude turned out to be a mistake.

The second half of my life was spent pursuing the other sites displayed on the map in the Indian jungle. This quest was slow, spanning decades, which one would think absurd since we had a map showing us where the sites were. The problem, however, was the sites simply did not exist on our plane of reality at all times. Finding mine was easy, set in a mountain in the countryside of Japan. Yet all of the others, the Norwegian site, the American site, the Brazilian, Russian, etc., refused to show themselves. Thus we changed tactics, focusing on finding those like us who could see the creatures in the other place, hoping their presence would cause a reaction.

By the age of seventy, I had secured the sites, the servants and the seals. The Eight guardians of the seal, Smiler, Thinker, Traveler, Gardener, Gambler, Seducer and Breaker, with myself assuming the role of the linking figure.

“Our global sacrifice quota should be filled by the end of the month,” I said the night we reached the point of no return. Obviously none of us had any intentions of turning back after decades of struggle.

“Please,” the African American with the deep jowels and beady eyes known as Thinker said. “You know I don’t like calling them sacrifices.”

It was an old debate our group of eight had. This is an important distinction to make. Smiler, myself, a few others, were criminals. Others, like Thinker, were not. They were simply men and women who were sympathetic to our cause, the discovery of knowledge of the other world. The prices paid and the violence necessary were off putting to these otherwise normal people.

I greatly resisted the urge to scream hypocrisy at many of our meetings.

“Do the words we use matter, Thinker? Dead is dead. All of us have killed, no matter our moral attitudes on the matter,” I said. Smiler nodded, hands clasped as he eagerly grinned, embracing the violence. Traveler looked at him with disgust, a look which did not belong on her proud Norse features.

“Lets not waste time. The ritual is soon,” Breaker said, his Brazilian body the youngest and strongest of us. His temper was quick, but he was right. I held my stone disk tighter, its image of seven lines converging into one central spot now nearly fully red. The sacrifices had ensured it.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Gambler asked. The Australian always hedged his bets, though much to my irritation it seemed more like doubt.

“It will work,” Seducer said confidently, his Russian accent dripping with poise.

“What I mean is, what if they come and we cannot control them?” Gambler asked.

“Then we die,” Gardener said, her response short and simple as always.

“Cheerful as always, my African beauty,” Smiler said.

“Be quiet, everyone,” I said, standing from our meeting table. My words were commanding, and my house seemed to shudder as I spoke. “It will work. My entire life has been building to this moment. A grand new world awaits us.”

“Humanity’s dreams made real,” Thinker said softly.

“Or its nightmares, Thinker,” Smiler said, the harsh splash of water on our compatriot's hopes.

“It all depends on humanity’s strength in containing them, and ours in controlling them,” I said. I could feel each eye on me, judging me as I stood as the centerpiece in our grand plan.

“It is why you’re Controller,” Traveler said.

Controller. The name I had used for decades. The role I was born to play.

“And as Controller, let me assure you all. The future is ours,” I said. The other seven sat a little straighter, their expressions solidifying. Nerves were to be expected.

We were about to end the world so we could shape what came after.

It happened in October. All of the Eight stood at their temple, the remnants of a global cult long dead and forgotten by humanity. Across the decades we discovered much about these sites. They were all part of a single linking culture which existed outside any ancient peoples which existed at the sites. The statues in them whispered to us, their stones resonating in our minds, telling us stories about the creatures we saw. For stories were what the creatures were. If children were the products of human bodies coming together, these beings were the result of human minds linking.

The ritual was the ultimate linking.

In these special places, after decades of killings to prove our faith, the ultimate acts of dedication, the stones hummed with approval. The voices which whispered to us screamed at times, telling us what we needed to do to crack the barrier between our existence and theirs. We had eagerly listened, for in the world to come we knew humanity would evolve into something infinitely more than what it had been. It would be a world of ideas made manifest, the flesh mattering little, a world where war and crime and disease would become irrelevant. The nuclear fire which signaled my birth demanded this, and as the temples woke and the screams of our giving birth to the new world echoed globally, we truly believed we had saved the world.

Then came the Voice.

“AGAIN YOUR KIND TRY TO KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT!”

I dropped to my knees at the foot of the pedestal deep in my Japanese temple, the voice from nowhere splitting my skull. The pain which was wracking my body from the strain of being one of the focal points of the great breaching had already weakened me significantly. This new assault nearly proved too much.

“HUMANS! YOU SEEK KNOWLEDGE! YOU SEEK REBIRTH! YET MANY WILL INEVITABLY DIE!”

The arrogance of this voice. As if we did not know the cost. “We planned on it! We know the weight of humanity’s evolution! Of MY evolution! If humanity cannot survive, it deserves to die!” I screamed into the darkness, knowing somehow my compatriots could hear me as well. Silence followed, and I thought our conversation had been abandoned.

“LET US TEST YOUR THEORY. I CAN FEEL HUMANITY DYING AROUND ME. YET THEY WANT TO LIVE.”

I felt images flood my mind. Thousands and thousands of people dying as the creatures of myth howled and screamed and tore them apart. We knew the monsters would come first. The negative emotions have always been the loudest in humanity. Fear and hate and despair are far easier to feel than hope.

“I WILL TAKE THOSE WHO FALL. SPECIAL SOULS WITH AN UNDYING DRIVE. I WILL GIVE THEM THE TOOLS. I WILL GIVE THEM THE SKILLS.”

A choir of voices echoed through my being. The people who had died were speaking. They were demanding, in an overwhelming voice, to go back. Their lives were not done yet. This was hope, and the Voice, the Presence, whatever thing I was hearing, had chosen them for its grand wager.

“THEY WILL GO BACK. THEY WILL BE THE LIVING HOPE AND RAGE OF HUMANITY. MY MEN OF FLESH. YOUR CREATURES OF THOUGHT.”

The voices left. The chorus withdrew, and I found myself alone with my thoughts again in the ancient temple built for strange gods I still do not understand. The Voice departed with one final thought, a challenge to the purpose of my life.

“WE WILL SEE WHO STANDS. THE WORLD OF MAN…OR YOUR NEW WORLD.”

Then I was alone in the dark. I passed out, and for a long period of time, darkness consumed me, and I knew no more.