The world was trembling again. Nations rose and fell like the tides, and war had become routine—its thunder echoing through glass towers and digital screens. Corruption no longer hid behind curtains; it stood proudly on platforms, smiling for cameras. Truth had become a currency only the poor still valued.
And yet, in the midst of this chaos, something ancient stirred.
Beneath a shroud of mist, far from the eyes of satellites and soldiers, the Garden still lived. It had never left the earth—only hidden itself from mankind’s arrogance. The rivers still flowed, clear as crystal. The trees still bore fruit of light and memory. The air carried no pollution, no deceit, no noise—only the whisper of God’s first breath.
And tending it, as he had since time was measured, was a man forgotten by the world but remembered by Heaven.
Moses.
He walked among the trees in silence, hands rough from centuries of care, eyes reflecting both sorrow and patience. Each dawn he rose to pray—not for himself, but for humanity—hoping that one day, someone worthy might find their way back.
That day came not by prophecy, but by accident.
A boy of sixteen cast his fishing line into a forbidden river that ran along the outskirts of a desolate valley. The line snagged something unseen, and as he pulled, the water shimmered. For a moment, the veil between worlds trembled…and tore.
When the boy stumbled through the mist, he did not find a monster or a miracle. He found a man waiting, staff in hand, eyes like burning coals beneath the weight of eternity.
And so began the Return of Moses.
CHAPTER 1: – The Island
The sun rose slowly over a sand island in the middle of the great Euphrates River. A single dead tree stood in its center, twisted and skeletal, reaching toward the sky. Locals called it Death Island.
The air was dry. The riverbank showed signs of drought—cracked earth, receding water lines, and a silence too heavy for morning birds.
On the far bank, a boy named Aaron made his way down the slope, a hand-carved fishing pole in hand. His clothes were worn; his bare feet hardened from summer dust.
He cast his line toward the island. The hook sailed across the shimmering surface—and snagged.
“Come on… not again,” he muttered, tugging.
The line wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder, bending the pole until the water shifted and something beneath the surface appeared.
A stone.
Another stone emerged. And another. Twelve stones, forming a faint path across the shallows toward the island.
Aaron’s curiosity overcame his fear. He stepped onto the first stone—dry, warm beneath his feet. One by one, he crossed the river, the stones solid, deliberate, as if placed for him.
At the twelfth stone, the island’s sand was within reach. He hesitated, then jumped. His feet hit the sand. He stood there, breathless, stunned.
“I… I’m on Death Island,” he whispered.
The air felt different—heavy, ancient. Tales said no man had set foot here for three and a half millennia. And yet, he was here.
A faint glow shimmered around the stones in the river, then faded. The first sign that Death Island was not what it seemed.
Aaron pushed through a thin veil of mist. His eyes widened. The island wasn’t dead. It was alive. Grass stretched where there should be dust. Flowers bloomed from cracks in the sand. And beyond them rose a garden untouched by time.
It was the Garden of Eden.
Dropping to his knees, Aaron felt the air hum with life. A small stream trickled in a perfect circle around the central tree—the once-dead tree now vibrant, its bark breathing color, leaves unfolding before his eyes.
At his feet glinted two black onyx stones. He picked them up, turning them over. They pulsed faintly in the sunlight.
“Onyx…” he whispered.
Sliding them into his pocket, he continued toward the central tree. Something in the sand caught his eye: two gold coins, etched with ancient symbols. He picked them up and added them to his pocket.
The wind stirred. Leaves whispered his name.
“Aaron…”
He froze.
“Who’s there?”
Silence. The river seemed to pause its flow. His hand rested over the stones and coins. The Garden was awakening.
CHAPTER 2: The Garden
Mist drifted low across the island — not ordinary mist, but something alive. It shimmered like breath caught between two worlds. The sky seemed a painted gold over the broad river that wound around it, a living halo of light and motion.
In the heart of that current lay an island unseen by men for ages — the last living remnant of Eden.
Near its center, an old man knelt beside a narrow stream that flowed in a perfect circle around a towering tree. The water moved without beginning or end, an eternal loop around the Tree of Life. Its leaves glowed softly, each one a whisper of eternity.
The old man dipped a small clay jar into the stream. As he lifted it, a single leaf loosened from a high branch, spinning gently through the air before settling at his feet.
He looked down, and then slowly raised his eyes.
Someone was approaching.
From the edge of the mist, a boy stepped forward — sixteen at most, with dust on his clothes and the look of someone who had wandered too far. The air around him shimmered.
When Aaron had crossed the last stone from the river’s edge to the island, the world had changed.
The sound of water dulled. The wind stilled. His heartbeat slowed — yet beyond the river, time raced on.
The sun seemed to rise and set within moments, as if the outer world was spinning faster to catch up with what Heaven had hidden here.
Aaron felt as though he were standing in a dream that remembered him before he was born.
Ahead, the old man stood, leaning on a staff veined with faint gold light. His presence was heavy yet calm — as if the earth itself paused to listen when he breathed.
“What is your name, son?”
— Moses’ voice was gentle, steady, like the river’s rhythm.
Aaron hesitated, fear flickering behind his eyes.
“My… my name is Joseph.”
Moses studied him quietly, his gaze knowing. Then, with a faint smile—
“Funny,” he said softly. “Isn’t your father Amram… and your mother Jochebed? I believe they had a son named Aaron.”
Aaron blinked, startled.
“How do you know that?”
“I know many things, young man,” Moses replied, eyes distant, reflecting both dawn and memory. “History repeats itself. As in the beginning… so shall it be in the end.”
Aaron turned slowly, taking in the radiant landscape — the endless green, the shimmering water, the sky that glowed though no sun could be seen.
“Where I come from,” he whispered, “this is just a desert island. A dead tree. Nothing like this.”
“Man was not meant to see it,” Moses said, voice deep with sorrow and hope. “But perhaps you were meant to change that.”
He turned his gaze toward the river. The current was swelling — higher, faster, encircling the island with rising urgency.
“The river is swelling,” Moses said. “You should be heading home soon.”
Aaron lowered his head.
“My name is Aaron,” he confessed softly. “Forgive me.”
Moses stepped closer. His height and presence dwarfed the boy — a figure of impossible age and strength, yet full of grace. His eyes held the fire of Sinai and the peace of Heaven.
“What is this place?” Aaron asked, breath trembling.
“It is Paradise,” Moses answered. “It is God’s Garden.”
Time itself seemed to pause. The island pulsed with life — trees that no longer existed on earth, fruit glowing like jewels, air humming with unseen song. The sky was luminous, but without a sun; the light was born from within everything.
A warm breeze swept through, carrying the scent of eternal spring.
And for the first time in over three thousand years, the Garden of Eden had received a visitor.
CHAPTER 3: And so it begins
A gentle mist began to fill the air. Aaron stood at the edge of the Garden. The wind carried the scent of fruit and life behind him. Ahead, the mortal world waited—faded, uncertain.
Moses stood motionless beside the Tree of Life, staff in hand, robes untouched by the mist.
“Go now, Aaron. The river will soon hide the way,” Moses said.
Aaron glanced once more at the radiant garden. Then he stepped onto the first stone—dry and solid.
Leap after each leap, each stone sank beneath the rising current after he left it. One by one, the path disappeared, swallowed by the rain-fed river.
He landed on the far shore, soaked, trembling, breathless. Turning back, he could barely see the island. The mist thickened, folding upon itself until the glow faded.
Where the Garden had stood, there was nothing. Only a barren wasteland, crowned by the dead tree. Just as it had been for three thousand five hundred years.
Aaron stood in the rain, staring across the current. In his pocket, the black onyx stones and gold coins pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
“It was real…” he whispered.
The rain drowned his words. The river kept its secret.
CHAPTER 4: No place like home
A small oil lamp flickered on the table. Jochebed, Aaron’s mother, cleared dishes in the humble kitchen. The walls were cracked but clean. The air smelled faintly of bread and herbs.
The door swung open. Aaron stepped in, soaked from the river mist.
Amram, tall and broad-shouldered, turned sharply from the table, face hardened by labor and worry.
“Aaron! Where have you been? It’s almost curfew. Do you wish us all to be punished?” Aaron froze, guilt shadowing his face. He reached into his pocket.
“No, Father. I… lost track of time. I was just fishing, on the island,” he said quietly.
“What island?” Amram asked, frowning.
“Dead Island.”
The words hung in the air like a curse. Jochebed froze. Amram’s expression darkened instantly.
“The island of sand? No one can step foot there. Men have tried for three thousand years! It’s cursed—the Island of Death!”
Aaron opened his palm. A small gold coin glinted in the lamplight.
“Where did you get this? Don’t you dare lie to me, boy. Did you steal it?” Amram’s voice rose.
“You never believe me!” Aaron snapped, bolting to his room. The door slammed behind him.
Jochebed whispered softly to Amram, “He’s just a boy.”
Amram held the coin to the lamplight. Strange symbols shimmered; the light bent faintly around it. He whispered, “What have you brought into my house, son…”
Jochebed sat at the table, turning the coin over in her hands. Rain pattered softly against the clay walls.
“You still staring at that thing?” Amram said, frustrated.
“Maybe… it’s a gift from God,” she whispered.
“God?” he scoffed. “Have you seen what He’s done for us lately? Everything—gone. The drought, the river choked dry by the soon-to-be king’s projects. And now the laws… the mark. If we don’t take it, we starve. If we do… we’re no longer His.”
Jochebed watched silently, her faith unshaken.
“And yet… we still breathe,” she said.
Amram’s voice trembled. “They’ll take him soon. When he turns sixteen, the temple will come for him. He’s the last of Levi’s blood. They’ll use him for their sacrifice. And I… I can do nothing.”
Jochebed’s eyes fell to the corner, where a small bucket sat. She rose slowly.
“Amram… the bucket,” she whispered.
They stared. The bucket that had held a single fish now brimmed with silver scales—a dozen, alive and glistening.
“He did only catch one,” Jochebed breathed.
Amram’s face paled. “Then…”
“This is of God,” she said, tears falling. “You need to take this into town. He has heard us. Our prayers have been answered.”
The oil lamp flickered brighter, casting a golden glow on the coin and the overflowing bucket—a quiet miracle in the dark.
CHAPTER 5: The Appraiser
The city was already awake.
By six o’clock, the streets roared with vendors and scooters, the air thick with dust and the smell of bread baking in open ovens. The sun climbed slowly over the skyline — a weary light on the sandstone buildings and narrow alleys of what was once called Baghdad.
Amram walked with purpose, his long coat pulled tight, the morning wind tugging at its hem. His hands were buried deep in his pockets — one of them closed around a single gold coin. It was heavy, unnaturally so, and warm against his skin.
He reached the end of a crooked street where a small gold shop sat between two closed cafés. Its sign was faded, the kind of place people visited quietly and left quickly.
He rapped his knuckles against the glass door.
Inside, an old man looked up from a counter littered with silver scraps and lenses. He frowned.
“We’re closed,” he said through the glass.
Amram didn’t move. He reached into his pocket and held the coin up against the door.
For a moment, the appraiser only stared — his eyes widening behind thick lenses. Then, curiosity overcame habit. He unlocked the door and waved Amram inside.
“Where did you find this?” he asked, his tone hushed but sharp.
“Why?” Amram said. “Is it stolen?”
The man ignored the question and slipped a magnifying glass over one eye. He turned the coin beneath the light. The gold caught and held it, glowing with an inner fire.
“No,” the appraiser murmured. “Not stolen. But I have never seen gold this pure in a coin. It looks… formed — but not by any mint, not by any man.”
He adjusted his lens, tracing the faint etchings along the edge.
“No marks. Only this… script. Ancient, older than Hebrew, older than Babylon.”
He looked up. “Where did you say you got it?”“Death Island,” Amram said flatly.
The appraiser laughed once, a short nervous sound.
“Impossible. No one can step foot on that island. People have tried for three thousand years.”
“You asked where I got it,” Amram replied. “Now you know.”
The man set the coin down carefully, as though it might dissolve.
“Does it have value?”
“Value?” the appraiser repeated. “Yes. But official gold trade is outlawed under the new laws. I can give you carbon credits — toward your life card — or silver for melt weight.”
“I’ll take the silver,” Amram said quickly.
The man nodded and counted out a small bag of coins. Thirty pieces of silver clinked together as he slid them across the counter. Amram hesitated a moment, then took them.
He left as quietly as he’d arrived, vanishing into the noise of the waking city.
The appraiser watched him go, then looked down at the gold coin still glinting under his lamp. He felt the strange pull of it — something ancient humming just beneath the surface.
He couldn’t help himself. He fetched his camera, set up a light, and began live-streaming onto social media.
“Has anyone ever seen anything like this?” he said, holding the coin up to the lens. “Look at the purity. Look at this engraving — no tool marks, no imperfections. This could be—”
He stopped mid-sentence. His phone buzzed violently on the table. A number he didn’t recognize.
He answered.
“Hello?”
There was a pause — a deep, mechanical silence. Then a voice, calm and low, almost serpentine.
“You are summoned to Mr. X. Bring the coin.”
The line went dead.
The appraiser stared at the screen, a cold sweat forming at his temples.
Everyone in the city had heard the name.
Mr. X.
The man who served directly beneath the new ruler — the one the faithful whispered about in secret, calling him the Beast.
And in a few days, that ruler — the one the world called the Redeemer and others called the Antichrist — would be crowned king in Jerusalem.
The appraiser looked down once more at the coin, its gold gleaming like captured sunlight.
He slipped it into a small black case and locked the door behind him.
CHAPTER 6: MR. X
The car that carried the appraiser into the inner district was black and unmarked. It moved without sound, gliding past checkpoints where armed guards saluted in silence. The streets here were cleaner, quieter — the part of the city the poor never saw.
They arrived at a tall glass tower that seemed to pierce the clouds. The guards at the entrance scanned his wrist and ushered him in without a word.
Inside, the air was cold. The sound of the city vanished behind sealed doors.
He was led through a corridor of mirrors and black marble until they reached a set of double doors. One of the guards pressed his palm to a glowing panel. The doors slid open.
The room beyond was vast — walls of dark glass, the skyline stretching out below. In the center stood a massive steel desk. Behind it, facing the window, was a man in a tailored black suit, his hands clasped behind his back.
MR. X.
The appraiser swallowed hard. Everyone in the region knew of him. Few had ever seen his face.
Without turning around, Mr. X spoke — his voice smooth and controlled, the kind that left no room for misunderstanding.
“I hear you found gold on my island.”
The appraiser hesitated.
“A boy found a gold coin,” he said quietly.
Mr. X turned slowly. His eyes were pale and sharp, like steel catching light.
“No one can step foot on that island,” he said. “We’ve tried during our land development. It’s a vortex — a magnetic dead zone. Nothing survives there.”
He took a step closer, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“And you’re telling me a boy walked on it?”
The appraiser nodded, his hands trembling slightly as he reached into his coat.
“He did. And he found this.”
He placed the coin on the glass desk.
The moment it touched the surface, a faint hum filled the air — low and resonant, as though the metal itself carried memory.
Mr. X’s gaze fixed on it.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Unknown,” the appraiser said. “The writing looks Egyptian, but not from any dynasty or king we’ve ever cataloged.”
Mr. X leaned closer, tracing the engravings with a gloved finger. The symbols shimmered faintly under the office lights. His expression darkened.
“This,” he murmured, “is the gold of Joseph.”
The appraiser blinked.
“How can that be?”
Mr. X straightened, his eyes cold as winter stone.
“This is the gold taken from Egypt when Moses led his people out — when they fled with the wealth of the Pharaohs. The fools melted it down for idols, but not all of it was lost. Some was hidden. Some… kept.”
He turned toward the window, looking out over the city that stretched endlessly to the horizon.
“There must be tons of it buried there,” he said softly. “And if it’s true the boy crossed the island, then he’s touched something ancient — something divine.”
He turned back, his gaze burning now with purpose.
“Tell me,” Mr. X said, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm, “who is this boy?”
The appraiser hesitated. His throat went dry.
“His name is Aaron,” he whispered.
For the first time, Mr. X smiled — a slow, deliberate smile that carried no warmth.
“Aaron,” he repeated, tasting the name like prophecy. “So the line of Levi still breathes.”
He reached for the intercom and pressed a single button.
“Find him,” he ordered. “Alive.”
The light on the intercom went dark. The city below shimmered in the heat.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled over the horizon — though no clouds were in the sky.
CHAPTER 7: Send out the boy
The sun rode high and merciless over the village. Dust danced in the narrow lane as a small, disciplined group of soldiers marched up and stopped before the low courtyard wall. Their armor caught the light like a row of dark mirrors; rifles hung at their sides like extensions of their intent.
At their head stood the man from the tower — Mr. X. He wore no uniform, only a suit so black it swallowed the heat around him. He planted himself at the gate and, for a moment, seemed to measure the little house as if it were a chess piece.
“Send out the boy,” he called, his voice carrying across the open air as though amplified by unseen speakers.
Inside, Aaron pressed himself to the windowpane and watched. His heart thudded against his ribs like a trapped bird. The coin and the onyx in his pocket felt impossibly heavy.
Amram appeared at the doorway, cloth still damp from his washing, and stepped into the yard. He fixed himself as best he could and walked out to meet the men.
From across the dirt, he raised a hand. “What do you need of my son?” his voice trembled, but he kept it steady.
Mr. X turned his head slowly to look at him. The smile that touched his mouth was small and patient, but it did not reach his eyes. “I need to speak with your son.”
Amram swallowed. “I need assurance you will not harm him.”
Mr. X gestured once toward the soldiers clustered behind him. The motion was casual and effortless — the kind of gesture that could command kingdoms.
“If I wanted to harm him,” he said, “we would not be talking.”
The soldiers relaxed like a taut string, letting go, but their rifles never left their shoulders.
Amram called, voice cracking slightly, “Aaron, come here.”
Aaron stepped down from the window-frame and walked into the courtyard. He kept his hands at his sides, palms open, as if to show he had nothing to hide. He was still soaked from the earlier rain; his hair clung to his forehead. He looked small against the group of men in black.
Mr. X studied him with an intensity that made Aaron want to look away. Then, in a tone that was more curiosity than accusation, he asked, “How did you do it? How did you get onto that island?”
Aaron’s answer came as simply as a child naming a street. “All I did was cross on a path of rocks to get my fishing hook,” he said. “I went to pull my line and the stones were there, so I stepped on them.”
Mr. X’s lips tightened. “What stones?”
“The ones that make a path,” Aaron said. “You can see them when the water is low.”
Silence fell for a breath. Then, without a change of expression, Mr. X gave a single command to one of his lieutenants. “Mark the low tide. Map every stone. Do not flood the village. Do not alarm the people beyond what is necessary. Take me to the River”.
The lieutenant bowed and moved away to relay the order. Mr. X turned his attention back to Amram as if bargaining for the man’s cooperation and his future.
“You will keep your son close,” Mr. X said softly. “You will not speak of what has happened to anyone outside this yard. And you will bring him to me when I ask.”
Amram’s jaw clenched. He had seen the look in the man’s eyes already; he knew resistance was a kind of bargaining he could not afford. He nodded once, stiffly.
“Good,” Mr. X replied. His smile returned, colder than before. “For all our sakes.”
As the soldiers dispersed to carry out their orders — one pair toward the riverbank, another to stand sentry at the lane — Aaron felt, in the small of his back, the coin and the onyx throb faintly against his skin. The village hummed with a life that suddenly felt fragile, like candlelight under a jar. Somewhere beyond the plain, the river ran on, indifferent and patient.
CHAPTER 8: The Island
The sky had gone colorless — neither blue nor gray, just the faint metallic tone of uncertainty. The river, swollen by morning rain, had receded to a low and sluggish crawl, and in the distance, the island sat half-drowned in mist.
Mr. X stood at his desk with the receiver pressed tightly against his ear. His voice was low, deliberate, the tone of a man who never repeated himself.
“I need a team,” he said.
A pause — static and wind on the other end. Then a voice replied, clipped and confident:
“I’ll meet you near the water’s edge in an hour.”
CHAPTER 9: Waters Edge
The world beyond the mainland seemed to bend at the horizon. The island hovered in a veil of pale mist, its form shifting between solid and spectral.
Mr. X arrived with a small detachment of private security — men in tactical gear, faces hidden behind mirrored visors. They fanned out along the muddy shoreline as he stepped forward, eyes fixed on the phantom island.
The water was low enough now to expose the riverbed. Patches of slick stone glistened beneath the weak light. Mr. X’s gaze cut toward three of the men standing nearest.
“You three,” he said, pointing toward the island.
Without question, the soldiers waded forward, boots sinking slightly into the soft riverbed as they advanced through the mist.
They were halfway across when the first one screamed. It was short, sharp, and ended almost before it began. Within seconds, all three convulsed — their bodies collapsing in on themselves, armor falling empty as dust rose from their remains. The river carried away their ashes.
“WAIT!” Mr. X bellowed, voice tearing through the mist.
“No one is to touch that island. Get out of the water!”
The rest of the men stumbled back to the bank, panting, eyes wide beneath their visors.
Mr. X turned sharply to one of his team.
“Get that kid,” he ordered.
CHAPTER 10: 12 Stones
The sun had begun to lower, and the mist around the island pulsed like a living thing. Mr. X stood with his boots half-buried in mud, the air thick with tension. Aaron stood before him, small and uncertain, his hands bound loosely in front of him.
“Tell me what you did,” Mr. X demanded. “How did you get onto that island?”
Aaron shook his head, trembling. “I… I can’t remember.”
Behind him, Amram was being held by two guards at the edge of the bank. His voice carried, desperate but steady.
“Try to remember, Aaron.”
Aaron turned, scanning the water’s edge — and then he saw them. The stones. Each one gleamed faintly in the shallow water, arranged like steps across a boundary no man was meant to cross.
“The stones,” Aaron whispered. “You need to walk on the stones.”
Mr. X squinted toward the water. “I see no stones,” he snapped. Then, shouting over his shoulder, “Get me some lights!”
Two men rushed forward with flood lamps, casting hard white beams across the riverbed. Slowly, shapes emerged — smooth, pale stones forming a crooked path that led straight into the mist.
Aaron slipped off his shoes. “I just jump one to another,” he said quietly, more to himself than to them. He stepped onto the first stone. It was half-dry beneath his bare foot. Another step, then another — each one sound.
When he reached the far shore, nothing happened. No decay, no burning. He stood upright and breathing. The mist parted before him.
What Aaron saw stole the air from his lungs. The island was no wasteland. It was radiant — an impossible garden bursting with green, colors more vivid than light itself. Rivers of silver ran through golden grass, and at its center stood a great tree that shimmered like glass.
But across the water, no one else saw it. To them, the island was barren, gray, crowned only by a dead tree and sand that shifted lifelessly in the wind.
Mr. X lifted his bullhorn. “Send in the next man!”
Aaron turned, waving his arms. “You must step on the dry stones!” he shouted.
But the nearest soldier had already started across. He leapt from stone to stone — and on the final one, his boot splashed slightly. The surface wasn’t dry.
The moment he stepped onto the sand, his body convulsed, and he fell — turning to dust before he even hit the ground.
“It must be a dry stone!” Mr. X roared through his bullhorn.
Another soldier went next, carefully testing each step. Stone to stone — each one bone-dry. When he set foot on the island, nothing happened. He turned back, astonished, his voice breaking with awe.
“You’ve got to see this!” he shouted. “It’s the Garden of Eden!”
A murmur rippled through the ranks. Mr. X’s face twitched — not disbelief, but something deeper: recognition.
Within minutes, more soldiers crossed safely, followed by scientists with cases of instruments and scanners. Mr. X was the last to step onto the dry stones.
As his foot touched the shore, the mist drew back in a slow, silent exhale — revealing the once-dead island alive again.
What lay beyond that threshold was not meant for men to claim.
But Mr. X had come not to see, nor to worship —
he had come to take.
CHAPTER 11: I am Moses
The island was no longer what it had seemed from afar.
Where soldiers and scientists had once seen a wasteland of dust and ruin, there now spread a living paradise — a garden untouched since the dawn of creation. The air shimmered with warmth, not of heat but of purity. The sunlight here was not the same as the light beyond the river; it was softer, golden-white, without glare or shadow. A thin mist floated among the leaves, and the scent of new earth lingered in every breath.
Birds sang in tones no man had heard in centuries.
Across a meadow, creatures that had long vanished from the world grazed calmly — a dodo among deer, a lion whose mane burned faintly with light, an elephant calf the size of a sheep. The air itself hummed with an ancient rhythm, as if the island were breathing.
From where Aaron stood, he could see across the river to the opposite shore — and what he saw made him shudder.
Time was moving differently.
The clouds above the mainland raced like wild horses, shadows lengthening and shrinking in seconds. The sun beyond the mist seemed to speed across the sky, while here on the island, it hung still, unblinking, as if caught in eternal noon.
Mr. X stepped onto the lush soil, his boots leaving no mark. His men followed, weapons raised, scanning the strange horizon.
“Aaron,” Mr. X said, voice sharp but uncertain. “Show us where you found the gold.”
Aaron pointed toward the center of the island — a glowing tree surrounded by a crystal-clear pond. The tree shimmered with golden light, its roots stretching through soil that sparkled with fragments of jewel and quartz.
“There,” Aaron said softly. “By that tree.”
The men began to move, stepping through tall grass and luminous flowers that swayed though there was no wind. As they approached the pond, a sudden sound cracked the stillness — the sound of footsteps that were not theirs.
From behind the tree, a figure emerged.
Tall, robed, and calm. His beard was silvered with age, his eyes deep and still as the waters around him. In his right hand, he carried a staff carved of olive wood, faintly glowing with the same light that touched the tree.
The men froze.
“Who’s that?” one soldier whispered.
The figure stopped before them, his gaze unwavering.
His voice, when he spoke, carried the weight of eternity.
“Why are you here?”
The soldier nearest to Mr. X panicked, lifting his weapon.
“He’s got a weapon!” he shouted.
Before Mr. X could stop him, the shot rang out.
The bullet sped through the air — and then stopped, suspended inches before the figure’s chest. It hung there, spinning once before dropping harmlessly to the ground. Another soldier fired. Another and another — the air filled with the crack of rifles — but each bullet froze, then fell, lifeless.
The man raised his staff slightly, his eyes filled not with anger, but with sadness.
“Hold your fire!” Mr. X roared, furious.
The soldiers lowered their weapons, trembling.
Mr. X stepped forward, jaw tight.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “And why are you on my island?”
The man regarded him with patient eyes.
“No man is an island,” he said softly. “But this land was given to me by God. And I have tended His garden for over three thousand years.”
Mr. X scoffed. “No man can live that long. I will have you removed.”
The man — Moses — lifted his staff, the air vibrating faintly with power.
“You cannot remove what God has placed here,” he said. “I suggest you leave… and leave quickly.”
As he spoke, the first drop of rain touched the ground. Then another.
Within seconds, the lush greenery began to fade. Flowers withered, grass curled into dust, and the pond turned to pale sand. The air darkened as the mist thickened again, and the river began to rise — the stones beneath the surface disappearing one by one.
Mr. X turned, shouting into his bullhorn.
“RUN!”
The soldiers scattered, racing back toward the water’s edge, stumbling over roots and mud. Aaron was among them, his father screaming from the far bank.
One of the scientists — a young man with trembling hands — stopped suddenly. Something gleamed at his feet: a cluster of rare bdellium stones half-buried in the sand. His eyes widened with greed.
He bent to pick one up.
The water touched his boot.
He never screamed — he simply crumbled where he stood, his body falling to dust that scattered into the wind.
The rest of the men crossed frantically, jumping from one dry stone to another until they reached the mainland. Behind them, the river surged, swallowing the path completely.
Moses stood alone at the edge of the island, watching as the intruders vanished into the mist. The rain had stopped, and silence fell once more. The garden shimmered faintly — not gone, but sleeping.
He sat by the water’s edge, resting his staff beside him, and looked toward the sky, which was already darkening. Time was catching up now — the island’s eternal day fading into night.
His voice was low, weary, yet full of reverence.
“Is it time, Lord?”
And in the quiet wind, a whisper came — soft, steady, unmistakable.
“Yes.”
Moses pressed his hands to his knees and rose slowly. As he lifted the staff, a splinter caught his right palm, drawing a thin line of blood. He looked at it and smiled faintly.
“Thank you, Lord,” he murmured. “For the pain will keep me humble… but I still do not like talking to them people.”
The mist closed around him once more.
And by the time the last ray of sunlight faded from the water, the island was gone — hidden again from the eyes of men.
CHAPTER 12: Turning Off the Waters
When the men reached the mainland, the world had already shifted under their feet.
A lag in time — the island’s gift and its warning — had bent the afternoon into a sudden, heavy night. Where they had left sun and mist and Eden, they found only the village under a sky pinpricked with stars. The clocks on the market stalls read midnight as if a hand had pushed the day forward while they ran.
Mr. X stood for a long moment on the riverbank, the hem of his coat damp with spray. Behind him, the remaining soldiers fanned out and, with mechanical efficiency, began to set up a temporary camp: tarps strung between posts, embers coaxed to life, radios checked, the quiet business of men who had seen too much and refused to look surprised. He watched them move like a man cataloguing objects he owned.
“Make camp for the night,” he told them. His voice was flat, the command of a man who expected obedience rather than explanation. The soldiers obeyed, quick and clean. Then he turned away from the firelight, climbed into a waiting truck, and drove off alone.
The truck’s engine hummed into the dark, eating the distance between the river and the compound. Inside, for the first time since he had ordered the stones scoured and the bodies counted, Mr. X allowed himself a breath that was not measured by strategy. He had seen what the island offered: not merely relics of an old faith, but power that could be bent into dominion. The gold of Joseph, the onyx, the Tree of Life — all of it now sat between his fingers and the future he planned to build.
He called as the highway ribboned under his headlights. The screen blinked a name he did not need to read. The voice on the other end was cultured, patient — a consultant who spoke for committees and boards and the millions who did not know yet that their fate might hinge on one man’s decision.
“You cannot turn off the water,” the consultant said without preamble. The line carried the careful alarm of someone who had seen models and equations and the faces of hungry populations superimposed on maps.
Mr. X’s hand tightened on the steering wheel until the knuckles whitened. The lights of the city blurred past his window as if even the world wished to hide what it had become. “I can,” he said. “And I will. Or I’ll blow it up.”
Silence answered him for a heartbeat — shock exchanging places with the consultant’s composure. “You will have a mob on your hands if you shut it off for too long,” the consultant warned. “Too many people are already on the brink. Starvation does not wait for politics to sort itself out.”
Mr. X let the truck glide over the asphalt. In the rearview, he could still see the memory of the garden: the tree, the endless river, the stones. He felt the memory like an obligation. “Once the people know,” he said slowly, “all hunger and pain would end once we have conquered that island. The costs outweigh a minor uprising.”
“A minor uprising?” scoffed the consultant. “They won’t listen. This will interfere with the temple ceremony in a few days. You should speak to the High Priest.”
Mr. X laughed then — a short, humorless sound. “I do not need to consult with a religious madman,” he answered. His voice had the brittle edge of contempt. “I only need three days and the new king will never know.”
“You’re sure he doesn’t already know?” the consultant pressed.
For a moment, the map of the city’s lights folded into his pupils like embers. He did not answer the question, only stated his will.
“I want the water stopped today.”
On the other end of the line, the consultant inhaled as if the word itself had weight. “That’s impossible,” he said finally. “The infrastructure—”
“Then make it possible,” Mr. X cut him off. “You have your orders.”
He ended the call and drove on into the night, the truck swallowing the long dark toward the compound and the power that would allow him to turn nations around like chess pieces. The moon watched from a high, indifferent angle as he moved through the city’s veins — a restless, unseen hand about to touch the fragile pulse of the world.
CHAPTER 13: The lost stones
By dawn, the river had changed again.
The camp along the Euphrates lay hushed under a bruised, silver light. The mist that had once curled protectively around the island was gone, leaving only a faint shimmer on the surface of the water, like breath on glass. Mr. X’s soldiers stirred uneasily, glancing toward the far shore where the island still slept under its illusion of desolation.
The water had fallen low during the night, revealing the dark outlines of the stones — twelve of them — the same ones that had led the boy safely across. Each stone glowed faintly beneath the receding current, as if remembering the divine footprints that had pressed upon them.
Then, slowly, they began to sink.
One by one, the stones descended into the riverbed, swallowed by mud and silt, leaving behind only ripples that faded as soon as they formed. The men watching could hardly believe their eyes.
“Where are they going?” one whispered.
Another soldier stepped forward, peering into the water. “They’re... sinking. Like the ground’s taking them back.”
By midmorning, the river looked untouched — no stones, no pathway, no evidence that anyone had ever crossed. It was as if the river itself had sealed the Garden from the world once more.
From the opposite shore, Moses watched in silence. His figure was a faint silhouette through the morning haze, staff in hand, unmoving. The wind stirred his robe but not his resolve.
He whispered softly, as though speaking to the water itself:
“The way is closed. Until the appointed time.”
The current grew stronger, sweeping reeds and fragments of driftwood downstream, erasing every trace of the miracle.
And by the time the sun fully broke over the horizon, the Euphrates had reclaimed its secret — the twelve stones that once bridged Heaven and Earth were gone, hidden once again beneath the deep, waiting for God’s command to rise.
CHAPTER 14: The River Runs Dry
The world held its breath before the sun rose.
Dead Island had become a question the region could not stop asking. Men and women clustered along the riverbanks at all hours, whispering theories and trading rumors. Priests muttered prophecies. Merchants counted lost profits. Children dared each other to approach the shoreline. But no matter how many watched, all they ever saw from the main shore was a sand island crowned with a single dead tree — a place of myth and fear.
The authorities had not left it to gossip. The island was watched twenty-four hours a day now: sensors in the mud, drones that hummed like insistent flies, and patrols whose radios crackled with static at night. Still, the island refused to reveal itself to the many eyes turned toward it.
Before dawn, the riverbed lay exposed like a wound. Where water had flowed, the earth showed its pale ribs of sand and clay. The morning air tasted of dust and metal; a hush lay over the watchers as if the land itself waited for judgment.
Mr. X stood on the bank with a small, disciplined force behind him. He had not slept, and his face was a mask of cold plans. He looked out across the dry channel with the impatience of a man who believed dominion was only a decisive act away.
“Take that island,” he ordered, the words clipped and absolute. His voice carried across the shallow channel and into the early light.
For a moment, no one moved. The soldiers shifted, boots scuffing the dirt, eyes sliding from the island to one another. Even with the river reduced to mud, even with the twelve stones swallowed and gone, the island toyed with reality: to the men in uniform it remained a dead mound of sand and a brittle tree. Fear had a way of turning sight into blindness.
Mr. X’s patience snapped. He scanned the line, picked one young soldier — a freckled, earnest face that had shown reluctance at the first hint of danger — and pointed.
“You,” he said. “Go. Or you will be shot.”
The boy’s jaw worked. He swallowed. Around them, men spat and shifted; someone muttered that the next to cross would be the fool. Under compulsion, under the weight of guns and the order of a man who would not be balked, the soldier moved forward. He carried himself with the small dignity of the faithful — a posture that sat strangely against the gray of armored men.
He stepped onto the riverbed, then onto the exposed sand, then toward the island’s edge. The bank gave way beneath his boots in a dry whisper. The others watched, breath held.
He reached the shore and took a single step onto the island’s sand — and vanished.
Not in a burst of dust like the others who had touched the place at the wrong moment, but in a slow, astringent slipping, as if the air around him folded and then closed. One heartbeat he was there; the next, nothing remained: no body, no echo, only a trace of wind that stirred the dead branches. The men around him staggered as if a blow had struck them.
A collective intake of breath turned the morning into a held thing. Mr. X’s face drained of color for half a second, then hardened into something worse — resolve edged over by fear. He swore, a low curse that had no prayer in it.
The sky tore open. Rain began as a thin, incredulous string and within seconds became a sheet, a curtain, a violent curtain that erased the island from view and turned the riverbed into a churned nightmare of mud. The men who had been poised at the brink skidded backward, boots slipping, rifles raised in frantic uselessness. The rain washed away prints and doubt alike.
Mr. X barked orders until his voice was raw. “I want you all to cross or be court-martialed!” he screamed. The authority of his words crashed against the panic and the palpable fear that the place inspired.
No one crossed.
They retreated instead, stumbling back to the security of the main shore, breathing heavy and empty. The young soldier’s disappearance hung over them like an accusation. Men in uniform who had faced worse wars clutched their rifles as if those weapons might now buy them courage.
Mr. X stood alone for a long moment in the rain, water running down his collar and into his hair, and watched the island shrink back into its shroud. His jaw was a line; something inside him, once merely ambition, now tilted toward obsession. Somewhere downstream, the river ran on, uncaring — but Mr. X would not accept the indifference. He would strike at the water itself if he had to.
CHAPTER 15: BLOWING UP THE DAMN
The impossibility of stepping foot on Dead Island had driven Mr. X past reason. If the island would not yield, he would flood it. Destruction, he decided, was the only answer.
He lifted his phone, pacing on the riverbank, rain still dripping from his collar, fury etching lines across his face.
“Blow it up,” he barked into the receiver.
“Done,” the consultant replied, calm and detached.
The earth answered his command. A wall of water tore from the dam upstream, racing toward the island with terrifying force. Military personnel stationed along the opposite shore scrambled in panic, civilians screamed, and the flood threatened to obliterate everything in its path.
From the misted shore of the island, Moses watched. Time seemed to stretch. His eyes, ancient and piercing, fixed on the rising wave, his staff in hand. With a slow, deliberate motion, he raised it, and the water halted. It froze, a living wall of liquid suspended by divine authority. A dry patch of riverbed emerged beneath him, stones rising one by one from the sand to form a path. As each stone appeared, Moses stepped forward, walking steadily, each step reverent and measured. Once he passed, the stones sank back into the riverbed as if they had never been.
After three millennia of solitude, Moses was leaving the safety of Eden. His presence commanded the elements; the waters obeyed, bending to his will. Alongside the path, two enormous angels now guarded a small, glowing portal into the Garden. Though it was evening in the outside world, another sun blazed through the gates of the island, bathing the path in midday brilliance.
By the wave of his staff, the remaining floodwaters surged forward and struck the ranks of Mr. X’s military men. Screams were swallowed instantly as the water touched them; bodies dissolved into the river like sandcastles against the tide. Civilians, though, were untouched. The waters returned to their normal course, as if the deluge had never been.
Yet, those who had witnessed the miracle could not remember why they were there. Confusion clouded their minds, leaving only an echo of awe, a fleeting memory of divine power.
Time itself seemed to bend. On the island, noon had passed in a heartbeat; as Moses set foot on the opposite shore, evening had fallen. The sun outside reflected the passing hours in the world beyond Eden, but Moses’ steps had bridged millennia in a single stride.
The military was gone. The civilians were bewildered but safe. All except one. Mr. X, the Beast, the right-hand of the soon-to-be king in Jerusalem, remained. Alone, alive, and burning with rage, he watched the man who had tamed the waters vanish into the twilight, leaving only the haunting memory of power beyond comprehension.
Moses moved past the frozen witnesses, his shadow long in the evening sun, a solitary figure carrying the weight of centuries and the authority of God. The island receded behind him, the portal closing under the vigilant watch of the angels, sealing Eden once more.
CHAPTER 16: THE FINAL DINNER
The sun had slipped below the horizon, leaving the world bathed in twilight. The river shimmered faintly, reflecting the last threads of daylight, and Moses walked along its edge with a quiet dignity, his staff tapping lightly against the sand.
Then he saw Aaron, standing near the water.
“Take me to your home,” Moses said softly, his voice carrying a weight that made the boy pause. “I am hungry.”
Aaron nodded, and without a word, began leading him through narrow streets and dusty alleys until they reached the small clay home he shared with his parents.
Amram opened the door before they even knocked, a mixture of suspicion and awe in his eyes. “Welcome to our home, Moses,” he said, stepping aside to let them in.
Inside, the kitchen smelled of bread and spices. Jochebed was preparing the evening meal, her hands moving with practiced grace. Aaron whispered something to her, and she smiled, glancing up at Moses.
“He tells me you are hungry,” she said.
“I am,” Moses replied, inhaling deeply. “That smell… it reminds me of when I was a child.”
Jochebed’s hands paused. “These are atayef, with my special ingredients.”
“Fresh dates?” Moses asked, eyes lighting up.
“Don’t say it, Moses,” she warned, a quick flicker of humor in her voice.
Moses chuckled. “You are certainly from your mother’s bloodline,” he said warmly. Then, gesturing toward the table, he asked, “Do you have any wine?”
Aaron shook his head. “Wine is forbidden. And we cannot afford it.”
Moses tilted his head, studying the small kitchen. “Can a man have a feast without wine? Bring that vase to me.”
He poured the small jar of water he carried into the vase, then handed it back to them. “Give me your cups,” he said, “for they are going to runneth over on this day.”
When they poured, the water had transformed into wine—rich, deep, and golden. Amram tasted it, eyes wide. “I have never known wine so pure,” he murmured.
“Almost as good as the wine Jesus makes,” Moses replied, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. “Wait until you taste that.”
Jochebed frowned. “I’m afraid we have little food. Aaron has not been able to fish due to the drought.”
“Bring me what you have,” Moses commanded gently.
He placed one small fish in a basket and a piece of bread in another, covering them with a cloth. “Be fruitful and multiply,” he said, eyes calm and steady.
Jochebed lifted the cloth and gasped. One fish appeared, then two, then three. Tears welled in her eyes. “O Lord, thank you,” she whispered.
Moses smiled. “Now for some bread—and more wine.” He added a loaf to the basket and poured a bit of the water-turned-wine into a cup.
Amram hesitated. “We have been taught… not to drink wine during Passover.”
Moses interrupted firmly. “You have been taught wrong. Have you not read?”
Jochebed ran to the living room, pulling an old, well-worn Bible from beneath a floorboard rug. “Here, Moses,” she said, handing it to him.
He sat carefully, flipping it open. “Genesis?” His gaze lingered on the text. “Written by… Moses,” he muttered, pausing as if tasting the words. “Do others read this?”
Aaron nodded. “Yes. It is the most read book of all time.”
“Then why is it illegal to own?” Moses asked.
Amram’s jaw tightened. “It is the false one building the new temple in Israel. If it weren’t for Aaron’s bloodline to the tribe of Levi, we would have been beheaded like so many others.”
Moses’ eyes darkened with sorrow. “So much pain… soon it will end.”
Amram shook his head firmly. “We are willing to die, but I will not allow Aaron to perform the sacrifice this Passover.”
Moses’ gaze met the boy’s. “Aaron must do it. You were chosen before the foundations of the earth for this moment.”
Aaron looked up, innocent and curious. “Moses… what is God like?”
Moses smiled gently. “Do you know the feeling of a big hug from your mother?”
Aaron nodded.
“Like that… but a little more.”
A sudden flutter of movement drew Moses’ attention to the window. A dove had perched there, its white wings catching the last of the light.
“I must go now,” Moses said quietly, rising to his feet. “Can you take me to Egypt, Aaron?”
Amram’s eyes widened. “Egypt is far. We have little money for fuel… and fewer carbon credits than we can spend on the journey.”
Aaron bolted from the house, yelling over his shoulder. “I’ll get the car! I will take Moses!”
Moses gripped his staff, the familiar weight grounding him. “That settles it. Let’s go.”
Unseen, a figure lingered in the shadows outside the kitchen window, phone pressed to his ear, reporting the location of the man who had commanded the river and walked on the water.
The hunt had begun.
CHAPTER 17: The race is on.
Unseen, a figure lingered in the shadows outside the kitchen window, his eyes fixed on the small clay home. He lifted a phone to his ear and whispered urgently, “You better come quickly; Moses is about to leave. And about my reward?”
The muffled voice on the other end replied calmly, “You will get your money.”
The man nodded, glancing back at the house one last time before retreating into the darkness. Inside, Aaron had already sprinted toward the car parked in the alley, shouting to Moses. The hunt was about to accelerate, and the wheels of fate were turning faster than anyone could imagine.
The full moon cast a silver glow over the alleyway as Moses stepped outside the small house. The cool night air carried the scent of earth and dust, and somewhere in the distance, a sputtering engine broke the silence.
Aaron’s car emerged down the dirt road, its lone headlight flickering like a warning.
Moses squinted, puzzled. “What is that?”
“That’s Aaron’s car,” Amram replied, his voice tense.
Moses’s brow furrowed. “Do you have any camels? A horse, perhaps? I want to get there before I die.”
Aaron skidded to a stop beside them, the car coughing and sputtering on only a few cylinders. “Get in, Moses!” he called.
Amram grabbed an old gas can and shook it, grimacing at its half-full contents. “Hold on, Aaron. You’ll need more fuel.” He began filling the tank while Moses watched, curious.
“What is that?” Moses asked, eyeing the can.
“Petrol. Gas. Fuel,” Amram explained.
Moses cocked his head. “Like oil for a lamp?”
“Yes,” Amram said.
Moses motioned toward the can. “May I?”
Without waiting, he set the gas can down, opened his small jar of water, and poured a stream into the tank.
Amram gasped. “No! You cannot add water to a ca—”
Before he could finish, the car roared to life, the sputtering gone, engine purring as if new.
Aaron’s jaw dropped. “What just happened?”
Amram shook his head, eyes wide. “You both must leave before the people begin to talk.”
Aaron glanced back toward Moses. “Get in, Moses.”
Moses hesitated, eyeing the tiny car. His staff would not fit inside. “Seems we have a problem. Should we find a better chariot?”
Aaron slid open the sunroof. “Hand me your staff.”
Time seemed to pause for a moment as Aaron touched the staff, and in that instant, Aaron’s life flashed before him, revealing glimpses of a future he could barely comprehend.
Moses placed the staff through the open sunroof. “Let’s go.”
Ahead, lights flickered in the village—Mr. X’s military was advancing. Aaron’s pulse quickened. He pressed the gas pedal, and the little car lurched forward, bouncing over the uneven dirt roads.
Moses clung to the dashboard, steadying himself as the vehicle jolted. “Fast—but not as fast as my finest horses,” he murmured.
“They are too many, too fast,” Aaron said, glancing at the lights closing in.
Moses’s eyes caught a dim fire flickering in the distance. “Turn here. Now.”
Aaron yanked the wheel, sliding the car sharply to the right.
Moses laughed, exhilarated. “Better than my best chariot.”
“Where to now?” Aaron asked.
Moses commanded, “Stop.”
The car skidded to a halt. Moses opened the door and touched the dirt beneath him, letting his fingers connect with the earth.
“Drive forward slowly. Turn off the lights,” he instructed.
The soldiers raced past, unaware of the small car hidden in darkness.
“Now,” Moses said, his eyes gleaming with quiet authority. “Give it all you’ve got.”
Aaron pressed the accelerator. The car shot down the back road, weaving into the main road, and vanished into the shadowed night, leaving only dust and the echo of engines behind.
Night had dropped like a black cloth over the village. The moon hung thin and indifferent while the hum of engines and the glare of spotlights turned the small clay house into a stage under interrogation. The man who had watched at the window for his reward paced at the gate, nerves frayed and hope bright in his eyes. Behind him, Mr. X’s convoy rolled up, armored men pouring out like a practiced shadow.
The man ran forward, breathless. “That’s the house,” he breathed. Guards shoved him back, palms hard against his chest. He looked up at Mr. X, pleading. “Do I get my reward?”
Mr. X did not spare him a look of gratitude. From the inside of his coat he produced a small pistol with the casualness of someone pulling a purse from a pocket. At point-blank range he pulled the trigger. The man crumpled without a sound, his body folding like a spent scrap of cloth. No one cheered. The guards swallowed, the moment closing over them like frost.
Mr. X raised his bullhorn and spoke to the house with a voice that left no space for mercy. “Come out. Now.” The amplified demand shattered the quiet of the lane.
Amram pushed the door open and stepped out first, blind with the light and wearied by fear. Jochebed followed, shoulders hunched, trying to fold herself small against whatever storm had come to their door. Amram hissed to her under his breath, “Go back inside.” His voice was a thin, frantic thread. Then he squared himself in the glare and shouted, “What do you want?”
“I want Moses and the boy,” Mr. X announced, the bullhorn booming like judgment. “Search the house.”
CHAPTER 18: The endless sky
The desert stretched endlessly under the silver light of a full moon, the sand rippling like waves frozen in time. A faint glow flickered ahead, distant but steady, like a beacon suspended in the night. The small car bumped and rattled over uneven ground, tires throwing up clouds of dust that caught the moonlight.
Moses leaned forward, his gnarled fingers pointing toward the desert. “Turn here,” he commanded, voice calm but insistent.
Aaron squinted at the barren expanse before them. “There is no road… that’s just desert,” he said, uncertainty tinging his words.
“I know a shortcut,” Moses replied simply, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Just follow that fire in the sky.”
Aaron glanced at the distant flicker again, then at Moses, whose eyes were half-closed but still focused. “Moses, can I ask you something?” he began, leaning a little closer.
But before he could finish, Moses’s head lolled gently to one side, and the deep, steady sound of snoring filled the car. The desert, the fire, the journey itself seemed to pause around them, as if time had slowed to accommodate the prophet’s rest.
Aaron shook his head with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “Great,” he muttered to himself, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “Even in a desert full of danger, he can fall asleep anywhere.”
The car continued its lurching progress over the sand, tires kicking up ghostly clouds under the moonlight, Moses snoring softly beside him, and the distant fire ahead promising both guidance and mystery.
CHAPTER 19: Hurt no the Wine
They tore the little house apart as if the walls themselves might be hiding traitors.
Mr. X moved through the rooms like a patient storm—calm, inexorable, his officers trailing like thunderheads. “Look everywhere!” he barked. “Turn this place inside out. Tear it down if you have to.”
Amram’s voice was thin with exhaustion as he answered, “Moses is not here.” He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, palms open, the helpless posture of a man who had nothing left to bar the world’s cruelty.
Jochebed, hands trembling, reached for the cloth covering the baskets on the table. She lifted it slowly, revealing the loaf, the fish—and the vase of wine. Her eyes flicked to Amram as if asking mercy from him. The soldiers paused, boots creaking against the earthen floor.
Mr. X’s head turned at the sight. He moved to the table with the casual interest of a collector seeing a rare piece. He uncapped the vase and took a swallow. For a heartbeat something almost like surprise crossed his face. The wine was good—pure and deep and warm.
Someone gathered the Bible from where it had been pushed free and handed it to Mr. X, who looked upon the book for a long, cold moment.
“You know this is forbidden,” he said, and the words dropped into the room like a verdict.
He pointed at the couple. “Take them outside.”
Two soldiers stepped forward and hauled Amram and Jochebed into the yard. The neighbors peered from behind shutters and doorways, their faces washed in the harsh light of truck lamps and the thin light of dawn. Someone whispered about miracles; someone else swore that nightmares were now in their own yards.
One of Mr. X’s lieutenants, boots muddy from the bank, leaned close and reported, “We’ve been hearing of a light to the west of here, sir.”
“Look into that,” Mr. X said without hesitation. He barked an order into the lieutenant’s earpiece. “Get me satellite feed of the surrounding areas. At first light, find them. I want eyes in the sky and boots on every track.”
The lieutenant hesitated, glancing at the two prisoners, at the hidden Bible, at the ruined calm of the kitchen. “What do you want me to do with them?” he asked, voice careful as if measuring a blade.
Mr. X’s smile was thin as a slit. “Take them to the camp.” He had already decided, in the private room of his mind, how their presence might be used: leverage, rumor, fuel for his designs. The camp would be a stage; their fear would be a tool.
As soldiers dragged Amram and Jochebed toward the convoy, Mr. X stood for a long moment in the doorway, staring at the lamp-lit kitchen where wine still shimmered in the vase. He felt, in some small, private corner, the prick of envy—at the ease of a miracle, at the intimacy of a family’s table. He turned away without touching anything and walked back to his truck, where the world’s maps and men waited for his next command.
CHAPTER 20: The River Jordan
DAWN ON THE JORDAN — “BACK TO THE WATER’S EDGE”
The horizon was only beginning to breathe with pale light when Aaron’s voice cut through the early stillness.
“Moses… Moses, wake up!”
Moses stirred in the passenger seat as the small car hummed along a dirt trail. The early sun painted the surrounding hills in soft bands of gold. He rubbed his eyes and peered through the window toward the valley below.
“Yes…” he murmured, stretching, “seems I’ve been here once before.”
“We’re looking down the valley—toward the Jordan River,” Aaron said.
Moses leaned forward, eyes narrowing with memory. “Yes. Let’s go down. There.”
He pointed toward the shimmering ribbon of water far below.
They followed the winding path descending from the heights until the road ended at the riverbank—the Jordan, sacred and ancient, the same waters where John had baptized Jesus. When the car sputtered to a stop, Moses reached through the open sunroof and retrieved his staff, stepping out into the cool, living air.
The river glowed under the newborn light. Mist rose in slow spirals. Birds circled overhead, calling softly to each other. Moses stood for a moment as though listening to something buried in the wind—something only he could hear.
He lifted the staff and pointed across the water.
“Look, Aaron. There—on the other side.”
Aaron squinted. At first, he saw nothing but haze and gravel. Then—barely visible—a small stack of stones appeared, weathered and ancient.
“I see them,” Aaron whispered.
“That is where Joshua crossed,” Moses said, reverent. “And where Jesus was baptized. This ground remembers holiness.”
He motioned to Aaron. “Take my staff. Touch the river’s edge.”
Aaron hesitated. He had witnessed what that staff could do. Power clung to it like a living thing.
“Moses… I don’t—”
“It’s all right,” Moses said gently. “Trust me.”
Aaron reached out and took the staff. The moment his fingers wrapped around it, the world felt heavier. The sound of the river dimmed into something deep and distant, like a heartbeat beneath the earth.
Then Moses stiffened, noticing movement on the opposite bank.
A lone man was swimming lazily through the shallows, unaware—or uncaring—of their presence.
“Hold on,” Moses said. He cupped his hands and called across the water. “Sir! Sir!”
The man paused, treading water, clearly annoyed.
“Can you swim a little further upstream?” Moses shouted.
“I am on my side of this river!” the man barked back in a rough Jewish dialect. “You stay on yours!”
“There is no mine or yours,” Moses replied in perfectly fluent Hebrew, “only God’s.”
The swimmer sneered. “God is dead.”
The air stilled. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Moses spoke softly to Aaron.
“Now… touch the water.”
Aaron lowered the staff. The moment the tip broke the surface, the river convulsed. Water tore apart in both directions, roaring as it pulled back from the center. The riverbed appeared suddenly—dry, gleaming, untouched for centuries.
The swimmer screamed as he was hurled to the bottom, scrambling upright in shock.
“That man—he is the Devil!” he shouted, pointing at Moses before fleeing up the opposite bank and disappearing into the trees.
“Keep the staff at the edge,” Moses instructed calmly. “Don’t lift it.”
He stepped down into the exposed riverbed, the walls of water towering on either side, trembling with refracted light. A single stone in the center caught his eye. Moses knelt, lifted it, and revealed a small leather pouch beneath.
Inside: tarnished silver coins, ancient yet somehow untouched by time.
He smiled, closed the pouch, and began humming as he walked back toward Aaron—
“Back to the Water’s Edge,” the old melody by The Artist ONE.
It sounded like a prayer returning home.
He reached the riverbank and took the staff from Aaron’s trembling grip. The moment he lifted it, the river roared back into place, rushing forward as though eager to forget the miracle it had just displayed.
“Let’s go,” Moses said quietly.
Aaron nodded, unable to speak. Behind them, a small group of travelers had gathered, drawn by the strange light and the thunder of returning waters. They stared in awe, whispering in disbelief.
“Moses…” Aaron said, glancing back at the growing crowd. “The people.”
“We need to go.”
They hurried back into the car. Aaron’s hands shook as he turned the key.
“Where to now?” he asked.
Moses looked out toward the south, his voice steady, almost prophetic.
“To the Dead Sea.”
The car rolled forward, leaving behind the valley, the river, and a miracle reborn—one that would soon spread through whispers across the world.
CHAPTER 21: Swimming with the sharks
The man who had been swimming the Jordan did not flee in silence. He ran to his battered car, panting, chest heaving, the taste of river on his lips. As he fumbled with his phone, a notification blinked across the screen—an alert about a sighting, a single line of text that confirmed what his eyes had just seen.
He didn’t hesitate. He drove hard up the dirt track toward the Israeli side of the river, where a lone checkpoint and a worried soldier kept watch over the crossing. The soldier stood by his truck beneath the weak glow of a floodlight, cigarette pinched between his fingers, radio clipped to his chest. At the sight of the swimmer’s dust-choked car, he straightened and raised his hand.
“Hey!” the man shouted as he skidded to a stop. He stumbled out, breathless, and thrust his phone into the soldier’s face. The screen showed the alert: a short, frantic message and an image too grainy to be anything other than true.
“I heard you’re paying for information on a man,” the swimmer said, voice trembling. He jabbed a finger at the screen. “I saw him—downriver. He made the water do…things. I thought I was seeing things until I got this.” He shook now, part adrenaline, part fear. “He’s dangerous. He’s at the bank—he’s walking around.”
The soldier’s expression hardened and then softened into professional curiosity. He took the phone, thumbed through the alert, then pulled a small pad of paper from his pocket and a stubby pen. “Where exactly?” he asked, already running through scenarios.
The swimmer pointed back toward the river with an unsteady arm. “Near the old stones—by the place the Baptisms used to happen. He—he parted the water. I swear it.”
The soldier barked into his radio, voice clipped and urgent. “Command, possible sighting. Man with…unusual abilities at grid point—” He gave coordinates, the routine cadence belying the tremor in his gut. Then, to the swimmer: “How long ago did you see him?”
“Half an hour,” the man answered. “I— I ran. I got a message on my phone right as I hit the car. I thought: reward. So I came.”
The soldier finished scribbling the details, his instincts sharpened by years of sudden, small crises. “Good. Stay here,” he ordered. “We’ll send a unit to check it out.” He clipped the paper into his pocket, keyed the radio again, and repeated the coordinates in a voice now steady with duty.
Far away, in his glass tower, Mr. X’s phone vibrated on the steel desk. He glanced at the screen and read the brief message that had been pushed through the secure channel: Sighting confirmed — man matching description at Jordan grid. Witness available. Mobile unit dispatched. He allowed himself a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Finally,” he murmured. He picked up the phone and tapped the line programmed for the fastest hands in the field. “Mobilize everything,” he said into the receiver. “Priority one. Do not let him slip.”
Within minutes, the river that had once been a ribbon of calm became a seam of urgency: radios crackled, boots pounded, and a convoy formed along the dirt roads. The swimmer watched the soldier lift his binoculars, the gesture both banal and terrifying. He had delivered a message and earned his reward in a way he could not yet imagine.
As engines started and lights swung toward the horizon, the man who had seen the miracle leaned against the cab and felt the weight of being a small hinge in a very large door. The chase — not just for a man, but for an idea and a power older than the nations that now marched toward it — had begun.
CHAPTER 22: 20 pieces of silver
They drove on, the car a small black dot slipping between dunes toward the Dead Sea as the landscape peeled away into salt flats and scrub. Moses sat beside Aaron, staff protruding out the sunroof, the leather pouch of coins tucked into his robe. The morning light was thinning into a pallid noon when Aaron glanced over.
“Moses, what was in the bag?” he asked, curiosity mixed with the dull fatigue of a long night.
Moses lifted the pouch, thumbed its tied mouth, and let a ripple of silver catch the light. “Twenty pieces of silver,” he said quietly.
Aaron frowned. “How did they get there?”
“You will find out soon enough,” Moses answered, eyes already drawn to a cloud low on the horizon. “Just follow that cloud.”
As if by habit, Moses’ heavy lids drooped. The steady rhythm of the road and the warmth of the car eased him toward sleep. In moments, he was breathing slow and deep, snoring softly, the staff resting across his knees like a talisman.
Far away, across the river, the swimmer-turned-informer waited where the soldier had told him to stay. He wiped sweat from his brow and forced a smile when the young military man approached. The swimmer’s chest swelled with a foolish hope — he had done what was asked; he had brought news that might buy him coin and favor.
“OK, sir,” the young soldier said smoothly, drawing close as if to confer. He laced his words with professional courtesy. The swimmer jabbed at his phone, showing the alert again, already picturing the reward.
The soldier’s smile did not reach his eyes. He lifted his gun in a motion that was casual and practiced, more a movement of ritual than malice. The swimmer never had time to react properly. The report of the pistol was too quick; the man slumped forward with a soft, mortal thud, blood darkening the dust beneath him.
The soldier lowered the weapon as if nothing at all had happened. “I’ll tell him,” he muttered into his radio, the voice cool and efficient. He turned away from the corpse like a man tidying a table.
In his glass tower, Mr. X’s phone buzzed with the live feed: coordinates, a short update, the scent of success. He listened, impatient for results. “Get a drone up and find them this time,” he barked into the line, his voice a low razor over the secure channel. “Or you’ll have the same fate as that man.” He paused, then added, coldly, “And get the body out of the line of sight. No witnesses.”
On the road, Aaron felt the car’s tires bite into a new stretch of compacted earth. He glanced in the rearview, seeing only the horizon and the faint glow of the city far behind. Moses slept, the pouch of silver resting against his hand, its weight oddly ordinary and yet full of portent. Ahead, the cloud that Moses had pointed to drifted—low, dark, and strangely beckoning—like a small sun leading them toward the Dead Sea and deeper into whatever destiny had begun to unfold.
CHAPTER 23: DESERT PRISON CAMP
The desert trembled beneath the weight of engines long before the convoy appeared. A line of military trucks emerged through the rising orange dawn, rumbling across the barren flats like metallic beasts. Dust billowed around them, swallowing distant guard towers and the coils of razor wire crowning the massive prison compound.
As the gates clattered open, soldiers stiffened to attention. The trucks rolled through, brakes hissing, sunlight glinting off rifles and steel helmets.
Inside the dim, swaying belly of one truck sat Amram and Jochebed. Their faces were drawn from exhaustion, but their eyes—those remained fierce, resolute. They had endured too much to break now.
The truck lurched to a stop with a screech that echoed across the yard.
“Get out,” the driver barked.
Amram climbed down first, boots sinking into the dust. He turned and helped Jochebed to the ground, steadying her as she adjusted to the harsh brightness.
They barely had time to catch their breath before whispers rippled through the yard.
A cluster of prisoners hurried toward them, their expressions raw with desperate hope.
“Is it true?” one man gasped. “What they’re saying?”
Another stepped forward, voice trembling. “Is it really Moses?”
Their hope was fragile—dangerous. Hope always was.
A gunshot cracked through the air.
The Army Commander shoved his way into the crowd, pistol raised, fury flashing in his eyes.
“Back! All of you!” he roared.
The prisoners recoiled at once, the fragile spark of hope shrinking but not extinguished.
The Commander jabbed a finger toward Amram and Jochebed, barking orders to a nearby soldier.
“Take them to the officer’s chambers.”
Two soldiers stepped forward without hesitation. Their grips were cold, merciless, as they seized Amram and Jochebed by the arms. The pair did not resist. Resistance only bought bruises.
They were marched through the compound—past rows of ragged prisoners, past the watchtowers that never blinked—toward a looming structure at the center of the camp.
A dark metal sign hung above its door:
COMMAND HQ
The shadow it cast was long. And heavy.
CHAPTER 24: OFFICER’S CHAMBERS
The room was stark and sun-bleached, the desert light cutting harsh stripes through the metal blinds and across a cluttered steel desk. An officer sat behind it, speaking quietly into a phone, his voice low and controlled.
“I will deal with it,” he murmured.
As he looked up, his eyes flicked toward the rigid Military Man who had escorted Amram and Jochebed inside. With a curt gesture, he dismissed him. The door shut firmly behind the guard, sealing the three of them in the still, dry air of the office.
“It will be done by the end of the day,” the officer added into the receiver. Then he hung up and leaned back, studying the two prisoners for a long, unreadable moment.
“So… is he Moses?”
Amram met his stare without flinching. “Some say he is.”
The officer shifted his gaze to Jochebed. “And you? Who do you say he is?”
She began to answer, but Amram stepped forward, his voice firm. “He is Moses. And he will lead us back to the Promised Land.”
The officer rose slowly and motioned toward the window. “Take a look outside.”
They stepped forward. Through the grimy glass, the desert stretched out in a shimmering haze. Beneath the burning sun stood a long, terrible row of guillotines—cold steel glinting like the teeth of some mechanical beast waiting to be fed.
“That will be your fate,” the officer said quietly, “if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”
Amram’s jaw tightened. “I am not afraid of your death machines. I serve the one true God—He will protect us.”
The officer let out a weary sigh and leaned against his desk. “Let me finish.” His voice softened. “I, too, feel he is Moses. But the powers that be will not allow any man to challenge the ‘official ceremonies’ being prepared in Israel.”
He circled behind them, lowering his voice even further, as though the walls themselves might be listening.
“Even with AI blocking nearly all online content, word of his return is spreading—almost worldwide.”
He paused, letting the weight of that truth settle in the room.
“Your son has been asked to take part in the sacrifice,” he continued. “That’s one reason you’re still alive.”
There was a wistful sadness in his tone now, unexpected, almost fragile.
“I only hope this Moses can stop the evil man who wants to be king over the world.”
He stepped closer. “Is your son with him?”
“Yes,” Amram answered.
“Do you know where they went?”
Jochebed lifted her chin. “We will not speak another word.”
The officer nodded, almost relieved. “That’s fine. I don’t want to know. But I had to ask.”
Jochebed studied him, searching his face. “Do you think God will take you in… for what you’re doing?”
The officer’s eyes met hers, softened by something like sorrow—perhaps hope.
“I pray every day that He will.”
CHAPTER 25: That’s a strange bird.
They drove south along the east bank of the Jordan, the Dead Sea a pale promise on the horizon. The road was a ribbon of packed sand and gravel, rimmed by dun-colored scrub that bent beneath the breeze. Moses sat beside Aaron, eyes turned to the low cloud Moses had earlier pointed out — the one that seemed to guide them like a lantern.
A silver speck appeared above the scrub and grew, humming with purpose.
“Aaron!” the prophet called suddenly, voice sharp.
Aaron followed the arc of his finger and squinted up. “Moses — they found us.”
Moses tipped his head and watched the small machine circle, its shadow flitting across the car’s hood. He smiled, faint and inscrutable. “Interesting bird,” he said at first, then cut off, the words dying as if the name had slipped from his tongue. “Pull over.”
Aaron braked hard, the car skidding onto the shoulder. Tires hissed on sand and the vehicle settled with a cloud of dust. Moses was already out, the hem of his robe flapping, staff under one arm. He stooped, scooped a handful of the parched earth, and flung it into the air as if casting a net. The grains exploded upward and the wind took them, a sudden brown wall rolling toward the road.
The drone dipped, its sensors working frenetically as it tried to punch through the cloud. Its camera caught flurries of grit and then white noise. From the sky came the thin, metallic whine of a machine struggling to maintain lock. A second or two later more insects of metal appeared — smaller scouts, blinking like beetles — but the storm had value beyond sight. The whirl of sand filled microphones and fouled optics; the machines adjusted and then began to drift, searching for heat signatures they could no longer trust.
“This should give us cover,” Moses said, turning back to Aaron. His face was calm, oddly amused by the crude ingenuity of such a simple defense. The car sat half-hidden behind the brown veil, headlights off, engine ticking in the sudden hush.
From above, the drone’s search pattern blurred and widened, its movements indecisive. Voices crackled in distant radios—orders being given and recalled—but the machines could not see the couple in the lee of the sand wall. The small cloud swallowed the road, the car, and for a moment it felt as if the world itself had agreed to hide them.
Aaron exhaled slow, matching Moses’ stillness. In the grinding hush beneath the dust, the prophet’s hand rested on the staff protruding through the roof, and the two waited—masked by earth and night—while the drone drifted, puzzled and ineffective, high above them.
CHAPTER 26: “We have found them.”
The office towered over the city like a black tooth. Inside, glass walls fenced the world away; the hum of machines and the soft click of keyboards made a constant, obedient heartbeat. Mr. X stood with his back to the view, the skyline folding beneath him while men and screens moved through data like priests before an altar.
A lieutenant’s voice cut across the room. “We have found them.”
Mr. X did not turn immediately. “Where?” he asked, one word sharp as a knife.
“Our drone tracked them,” the lieutenant answered, stepping forward with a tablet that showed a jittering map. “They’re driving south along the eastern bank of the Dead Sea.”
Mr. X’s eyes narrowed. For a flicker, the slight scar along his jaw softened—no surprise, only the cold calculation of a man who believed in outcomes. He turned slowly, palms on the desk. “I want some fire from the sky. And I want it now.”
The lieutenant snapped an order into his throat, barking to a weapons officer. “Get fighters airborne. Get munitions on target.”
At a bank of consoles, the radar operator’s fingers danced across a screen. He was used to seeing blips line up like obedient soldiers. Now his tone carried a thin edge. “Yes, sir.” He reached for the secure line. “We need two fighters up immediately.” He spoke into the handset. “Command, scramble two fighters—priority one.”
A voice crackled back through the secure feed, incredulous. “What? You’ve lost them?”
Mr. X’s patience snapped like a wire. “How in the hell do you lose a kid and an old man in a Volga?” His voice was flat but lethal.
“Sir,” the radar man said, voice tight with urgency. “A dust storm rolled up out of nowhere. The drone lost visual and—” static cut him off for a beat before the words came again — “we have no lock.”
Mr. X slammed a palm down on the desk so hard the lieutenant flinched. The sound echoed like a verdict. “Get anything you can on the ground. Box them in from the north. They can’t go anywhere but south—wait for them there. Do not let them leave the corridor.”
The lieutenant nodded and moved like a piece set into motion. “Understood. Ground units deployed to intercept points. Rangers to the north perimeter. Fixed-wing will be over their last known track in ten minutes.”
Mr. X turned back to the window and watched, expression unreadable, as the desert lay patient beneath the sun. He spoke almost to himself. “They think they can hide behind dust and prayer. Find them. Find that thing they carry with them—whatever it is—and bring it to me.”
A junior analyst at the console swallowed and keyed in satellite feeds, thermal overlays, anything that might pierce a sand veil. Men moved faster, systems screamed, the room filling with the kinetic energy of a machine unleashed.
Outside, in the city, markets continued their slow commerce, unaware that a corner of the world had become a hunting ground. Inside Mr. X’s glass box, decisions were made that would send the sky into violence — and somewhere down on the road, a small car rolled on, muffled by dust and fate.
CHAPTER 27: The Cave of Living Waters
The wind howled against the cliffs as Aaron’s car rattled up the narrow dirt track. The tires spun and threw up dry red dust that mixed with the settling remnants of the storm Moses had called down. The full moon of the night before was gone; the sky burned white and hard.
Aaron gripped the wheel tightly. “Moses,” he said, his voice shaking between awe and exhaustion, “how do you do it?”
Moses smiled faintly, eyes half on the horizon. “It’s all about the water.”
He paused suddenly, as if listening to something distant. “Turn here.”
Aaron frowned. “That’s not a road, Moses—it’s just rocks.”
“Turn,” Moses said again, calm and certain.
Aaron sighed and twisted the wheel. The car lurched up the slope, the tires spitting pebbles. “Moses, I don’t have four-wheel drive.”
“I like your little chariot,” Moses said, steadying himself with one hand on the dash. “But I think my horse would have been a better choice.”
He pointed with his staff toward a set of caves high above the wadi. “We need to head up there.”
Aaron stopped the car, letting the engine idle as the two men stepped out. The air shimmered with heat. Dust and salt hung thick around them. Moses adjusted his robe, leaned on his staff, and began climbing the steep incline.
Halfway up the hill, they saw a man tending goats — a lone shepherd draped in linen, a staff in his hand. His face was old but his eyes were clear, sharp as the stones underfoot.
Moses called out, “Take me to the bones.”
Aaron whispered, “Moses, he doesn’t speak our language.” He switched to Arabic, “أين العظام؟” (“Where are the bones?”)
The goat herder only stared at them, silent and unreadable.
Then Moses lifted his staff high over his head. The light glinted off it, and for a moment, the air trembled. The herder’s expression changed. His eyes widened.
He spoke in perfect ancient Egyptian, his voice filled with reverence.
“Moses?”
Moses’s face softened. In the same tongue, he replied, “I miss this language, my friend. But can you take me to the cave of living waters?”
The goat herder nodded solemnly. “Right this way.”
They began to climb higher, passing between jagged outcroppings of limestone. In the distance, the sharp echo of an explosion rippled through the desert valley. Two F-22s cut across the sky in a deafening roar, their contrails slicing the blue horizon.
The goat herder turned briefly to Moses. “Seems you have company.”
Moses only smiled. “They always come late.”
At the mouth of the mountain, the herder led them into a cave where three paths diverged. The air inside was cool and carried the faint scent of minerals and water. Torches burned low in carved alcoves.
“There are three paths,” the goat herder said. “Two are large, and one is narrow and low.” He pointed at the two larger tunnels. “Don’t go down those. You will be lost forever.”
The third path was almost hidden — a narrow inlet carved smooth by ancient hands. Inside was a stone chair and a bowl of clear water, shimmering faintly in the half-light.
Moses reached into his robe and pulled out the bag of silver coins.
When the goat herder saw it, tears filled his eyes.
Aaron stepped forward, alarmed. “Why are you crying?”
The old man smiled gently through his tears. “Do not worry, young man. These are tears of joy. I can finally go home.”
He raised his staff high, then threw it into the second cave.
The staff struck the ground and turned into a serpent, slithering into the dark corridor until it vanished.
The goat herder turned to Moses. “Rest on the chair, my lord. I will wash your feet.”
Moses nodded and sat upon the carved stone seat. The herder dipped his hands into the bowl and poured the cool water over Moses’ feet.
The moment the water touched him—
Moses vanished in a pulse of light, disappearing into the narrow passage beyond.
Aaron froze, eyes wide. “Moses! Moses!” His voice echoed through the cave, unanswered.
The goat herder looked at him calmly and motioned to the chair. “Do as he did. Sit, and you will follow.”
Aaron hesitated, heart pounding. He took a deep breath and sat.
The herder once again lifted the bowl and poured water over Aaron’s feet.
In an instant, Aaron vanished too — drawn into the same luminous chamber beyond the veil.
The cave fell silent again. The herder looked toward the empty chair and whispered in the old tongue, “The waters remember.” Then, without a sound, he too began to fade — his body dissolving like dust caught in morning light.
CHAPTER 28: Do not lose him
The wreckage sat like a blackened husk in the lee of the cliff—twisted metal, a shattered sunroof, a smear of oil darkening the sand. A smell of gasoline and burnt cloth hung in the air, and the moonlight picked out shards of glass like frozen icicles. Men in tactical gear moved around it with the practiced economy of those who had done this before: check, bag, report.
One of them leaned over the crumpled engine and barked into his handset, voice flat with the dull adrenaline of a job in motion. “Sir—car’s destroyed. No sign of life in the wreck.”
A younger soldier, coughing from the heat and the dust, pointed up toward the cliff path where the goats had grazed that afternoon. He shaded his eyes and squinted into the mouth of the slope. “We found tracks heading up the hill,” he said. “Looks like someone went into the caves. Team is moving up now.”
The man on the radio switched channels and keyed a secure line through the satellite feed. The voice on the other end was Mr. X’s—cold, immediate, a presence that seemed to shorten the distance between them.
“Do not lose him,” Mr. X snapped. The line clipped and hissed with static. “Or you will lose your head.”
The man’s jaw tightened. “Understood, sir. We’re moving.”
As the first team formed ranks and began to climb, boots slipping on loose stone, the night swallowed their shapes. The wreck of the car lay quiet below like a question with no answer. Somewhere beyond the cliffs, the caves yawned dark and patient; inside them something ancient waited, and men who thought themselves hunters were already being hunted by a rhythm older than maps or orders.
CHAPTER 29: The Cave of Joseph
The cave swallowed them in darkness at first, a cool dampness that smelled of stone and earth. Moses’s fingers brushed the pocket of his robe, pulling free a small clay vase filled with water. He poured it slowly onto the rocky floor, and as the liquid touched the ground, the shadows dissolved. A soft, deep blue light unfurled like mist, tracing every root and vein of stone with luminescence. The walls seemed to breathe, veins of minerals and ancient life pulsing in the glow.
“Let’s go,” Moses said, motioning toward a small wooden boat moored in an underground aquifer. The water was perfectly still, reflecting the shimmering cave ceiling like liquid glass.
Aaron climbed in first, awe written across his face, his eyes tracing the glowing roots and crystals that stretched along the riverbed. Moses settled at the rear of the boat, staff in hand, his presence both grounding and enigmatic.
“I thought this might be a safer way to journey,” Moses said quietly, as if speaking to the river itself.
Aaron’s voice trembled with wonder. “Wow… this is incredible.”
Moses didn’t answer. His eyelids drooped, and before Aaron could speak again, he had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. The boat glided forward on its own, guided by a current that seemed alive, and the cave’s blue light danced across the water, as if welcoming them into the hidden passage of Joseph’s secret way.
CHAPTER 30: Sands of time.
The soldiers climbed the steep mountainside, their boots grinding against loose stone as they scanned the rugged terrain below. The wind howled between the cliffs, carrying dust and the faint scent of cedar. Then—movement caught their eye.
Near a scatter of scrub bushes and jagged rocks stood a lone goat herder.
He appeared weathered by sun and sand, leaning on a crooked staff, a few thin goats grazing lazily around him. His presence made no sense—no footprints, no trail, nothing to mark how he had reached such a remote height. But the soldiers didn’t think about that. Not yet.
“Tell us where the man and the boy went,” Soldier One barked, raising his weapon.
The goat herder simply stared, eyes dark and calm. Then he spoke—his voice soft but resonant, the syllables rolling like water over stone. It was Egyptian, but not any form spoken in thousands of years. The language of pharaohs and pyramids. Ancient. Pure.
Soldier Two’s brow furrowed. “Sir… what language is that?”
“I don’t know,” Soldier One snapped, irritation flaring, “and I don’t care.”
But Soldier Two took a step closer, squinting at the man’s face—something was wrong. The wind whipped through the rocks, yet the herder’s clothes didn’t move. His shadow fell in the wrong direction. And when Soldier Two blinked—
—for the briefest instant, the goat herder seemed transparent.
An illusion.
He wasn’t really there.
Before the soldier could speak, a shout echoed up from below.
“Over here!” Soldier Three called out. “A cave!”
The soldiers turned toward the sound, but when they looked back—
The goat herder was gone.
Not vanished into the rocks.
Simply not there.
Not ever there.
The wind blew across the empty ridge, scattering dust where the illusion had stood. The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, a chill creeping under their armor as they made their way toward the cave.
Soldier 1 smirked, pointing at the remaining animal. “Hey, Private. Should I leave this one for you? Looks like your type.”
Soldier 2 walked up, a grim expression on his face. “Not my type. Anyway, I hate goats.”
Soldier 3 chuckled. “Yeah, you’re more of a sheep man… BAAAAAA DAAAAAAD!”
“Stop fucking around and get down that hole!” Soldier 1 barked, gesturing toward the cave tunnels.
Three men descended into the first cave. At first, the passage was narrow, but soon it opened into a massive cavern, dark and cavernous, its walls pockmarked with smaller tunnels. Confusion spread through the men as they surveyed the labyrinthine expanse.
“Sarge…” Soldier 3’s voice trembled as he spoke into his radio. Silence answered him.
The other two soldiers began peering down alternate tunnels.
“Nothing,” Soldier 4 muttered.
“Nothing down this hole either,” Soldier 5 added.
Suddenly, a wisp of sand drifted down from above, landing on Soldier 3’s arm. All three looked upward. The cavern ceiling, normally high and unthreatening, seemed alive, pouring sand steadily from the entrance above.
“What the hell is going on?” Soldier 1’s voice crackled over the radio.
“Get your ass down that cave and find them!” he commanded Soldier 2.
Reluctantly, Soldier 2 stepped into the tunnel, heart hammering. Then—a shadow flickered across his vision.
“SARGE!” he screamed, panic echoing off the stone walls.
From the darkness, a massive snake slithered with terrifying speed. Its scales glinted in the faint light, and its mouth opened wide. Soldier 2 froze, horrified, as the creature swallowed the sarge whole in a single, fluid motion before lunging toward him.
Gunfire erupted, screams echoed, and the cavern filled with chaos.
The only sound that remained was the crackling voice of Mr. X over the radio, desperate and angry:
“What’s going on? Answer me!”
And then—silence.
The screen of reality seemed to fade as darkness swallowed the scene.
CHAPTER 31: PETRA SEE’S WATER
The small wooden boat drifted silently through the glowing blue current, the water shimmering like liquid light beneath them. Aaron stood at the stern, paddling gondola-style, each stroke echoing softly off the stone walls of the cavern. The underground river wound in gentle curves, the glow pulsing like a heartbeat along the rock.
Moses stirred. His eyes opened just as the river widened and the luminous waters thinned into shallow sandbanks.
“We are here,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Aaron frowned. “Here? Where is here?”
“You will see,” Moses replied.
They guided the boat toward the narrow stretch of sand. Aaron dragged it ashore, the cave walls flickering with faint, rhythmic light.
“Go, fetch me some wood,” Moses said.
Aaron gestured helplessly around them. “We’re in a cave, Moses. Where am I supposed to find wood?”
Moses turned, a small knowing smile on his lips. “The boat is made of wood, is it not? And bring the oars.”
Aaron hesitated but obeyed, breaking off planks from the boat’s edge. Moses walked along the curved stone wall, running his fingers across its surface until they found a nearly invisible crack etched into the rock.
He knelt beside it, digging a shallow pit into the sand. When Aaron returned, Moses arranged the pieces of wood carefully, then reached into his robe and withdrew a small clay vessel — the same one containing the sacred water.
“I learned this one from Elijah,” he said with quiet confidence.
The moment the water touched the wood, a flame burst forth — blue and gold, dancing with impossible life. Aaron stepped back, stunned, watching Moses lay the oars across the fire like a smith preparing his forge.
From his satchel, Moses produced a small leather pouch filled with silver coins. He eyed the shimmering flames. “Looks hot enough.”
He dropped eighteen pieces of silver into the center of the fire. The coins hissed, glowed, and melted into a blazing pool of white-hot liquid. Moses lifted the improvised crucible, stepped toward the cracked wall, and poured the molten silver into the seam along the cave floor.
The metal flowed behind the stone, vanishing into hidden mechanisms. A deep rumble followed — ancient gears shifting after centuries of silence.
Dust drifted from the ceiling. The wall trembled, groaned, and slowly slid open.
A blinding golden light flooded the chamber.
Moses stepped forward as the brilliance softened, revealing a massive stone doorway carved with impossible precision. Beyond it, the last rays of the setting sun stretched across a breathtaking landscape — towering red cliffs, vast and majestic, and countless carved monuments rising like frozen giants from the earth below.
“We are here,” he said again, this time with reverence.
Aaron stopped beside him, awestruck. “Where… is this?”
Moses didn’t answer immediately. A soft glow rose around him, his silhouette brightening like the first rising of dawn. As the light spread outward, the city revealed itself in full — an ancient labyrinth of temples, tombs, and towering facades carved directly into rose-colored stone.
Petra.
Moses gazed over the sacred city, its forgotten doorways and silent monuments glowing beneath the fading sun.
“You know,” he said quietly, “it never rains here. Only during the end times.”
The wind shifted.
A single cool drop fell from the unseen sky and touched the dust at his feet.
CHAPTER 32: A new voice
Baghdad — The Red Hour
The sun bled across the horizon as if the sky itself had been wounded. Baghdad glowed beneath it in a restless haze, its heat rising from concrete and glass like steam from a boiling pot. From his office high above the city, Mr. X stood motionless before a towering window, hands folded behind his back, staring down at the churning chaos below. Honking horns, flickering lights, the tense hum of a city on edge—it all seeped upward to where he watched in brooding silence.
A sharp vibration cut through the quiet.
His phone rattled against the polished desk.
He turned, lifted it, and pressed it to his ear.
“What the hell is going on down there?” The voice burst through the speaker, furious and breathless. Before Mr. X could form a thought, the tirade continued. “You cut the water. You trigger a regional drought. Power grids collapse. And then the dam blows up! I suppose you had nothing to do with any of that… right? Right?”
Mr. X swallowed the hard knot rising in his throat.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now I’m hearing two F-22s have vanished. And you—” the voice snarled, “—chasing Moses? Moses?”
“Sir, I can expl—”
“You will do no such thing,” the voice snapped. “We have a ceremony to prepare for. He wants you in Jerusalem first thing in the morning. Do not be late.”
The line went dead with a decisive click.
Slowly, Mr. X lowered the phone. His reflection wavered in the dark glass like a ghost, hollow-eyed and uncertain. For the first time in a very long time, a tremor of unease broke through the carefully maintained calm in his expression.
Whatever was happening…
whatever this was…
it was no longer in his control.
Jerusalem — Nightfall Over the Temple
The night lay heavy over the Holy City, but the Temple compound burned with light. Floodlamps framed the marble structure in harsh gold, transforming it into a spectacle—part monument, part warning.
The new Temple, built with impossible speed and obscene wealth, towered above the ancient stones around it. Its walls gleamed like polished bone.
Inside the courtyard, shadows moved in choreographed patterns. The soft hum of chanting drifted through the open archways, ancient syllables spoken with modern precision. At the heart of it all stood the New King.
His back faced the doorway, a tall silhouette draped in ceremonial robes that shimmered like liquid obsidian. Before him rested an altar of immaculate stone, its surface illuminated by candles arranged in a geometric pattern.
The city stretched beyond him, a reborn Jerusalem of steel and stone—half prophecy, half machine. The streets were calm tonight, too calm, as if holding their breath.
Above the Temple, the moon hung white and watchful.
The Third Temple was complete.
The ceremony was coming.
And the world, though it did not yet know it, had already begun to tremble.
CHAPTER 33: The Bones of Joseph
The cliffs of Petra loomed under a rising moon, carved red stone glimmering like the remnants of a forgotten fire. The desert was quiet except for the soft rustle of sand shifting in the wind, whispering ancient names through the narrow canyons. Moses and Aaron made their way down the slope, the path lit only by moonlight. Before them stood the Treasury — silent, magnificent, and eternal — its columns cut into the face of time itself.
Inside, darkness swallowed the air. Moses stepped forward, his sandals brushing against centuries of dust. From beneath his robe, he drew a small clay jar of water and poured it onto the sand. He knelt, washing a small circle before him until a faint shimmer appeared — painted symbols, spirals and eyes that seemed to watch him from beneath the earth.
Within the center of the pattern, Moses found a small hole. He raised his staff, placing its end into the opening. A low rumble shook the ground. The stone beneath them trembled and split apart, revealing a hidden stairway descending deep into the mountain. Without a word, Moses began down the steps, and Aaron followed close behind.
The air grew cool, damp with the scent of stone and something older still. Moses took the jar again, pouring a few drops of water into an ancient bronze lamp resting in an alcove. The flame sprang to life — and instantly, every lamp in the chamber ignited with a golden glow, illuminating the cavern walls in a breath of light.
Outside, a man sleeping beside two camels stirred. The faint glow spilling from the Treasury’s back room flickered across the sand. He rubbed his eyes, muttered something, and rolled back to sleep.
Below, Moses and Aaron entered a vast chamber. At its heart rested a great stone box, its edges worn smooth by time, its carvings faint and reverent.
“Hold my staff,” Moses said quietly.
Aaron obeyed. Moses placed both hands upon the lid and heaved it aside. Inside lay a shepherd’s coat of many colors — faded, torn, but still bright with traces of its former glory — and within its folds, a set of ancient bones.
Moses bowed his head.
“I’m taking you home,” he whispered.
When he turned, Aaron saw tears shimmering in his eyes, reflecting the light of a thousand ancient flames. Together, they made their way back through the Treasury.
Outside, the man with the camels woke again. He blinked, and for a moment the glow surrounding the two travelers seemed to light the entire canyon. His heart leapt.
“Moses?” he said, his voice trembling.
Moses paused and looked toward him, his expression calm, his eyes shining like the desert stars.
“Yes, my friend.”
The man fell to his knees, trembling in awe. “Moses! For generations, we have heard the stories, read the words, and now—now it is before my eyes and my soul. If there is anything I can do for you…”
“There is one thing,” Moses replied softly.
Later that night, beneath the pale light of the full moon, two camels cut through the open desert. The wind roared across the dunes, lifting the sand in waves of silver.
Moses leaned forward in his saddle, the wind tugging at his robe. “Now this is the way to travel,” he said, smiling beneath the stars.
At his side, Aaron laughed quietly, clutching the reins as the camels raced toward the horizon. Behind them, Petra faded into shadow — the Treasury dark once more, holding its secrets beneath the ancient stone.
And tied to Moses’ side, the small jar of water glimmered faintly in the moonlight, as if it, too, was alive.
CHAPTER 34: The Prison Camp
Near Midnight
A storm of dust chased the headlights as the black car tore across the desert road. The night was still, the air heavy with heat and the faint hum of generators beyond the wire fences. At the gate of the prison compound, the guards straightened sharply.
The vehicle came to a hard stop, engine idling like a growl.
Guard One leaned into the shack window, hand on the radio. “The Beast is here,” he muttered, pressing the call button.
On the other end, silence.
Up in the camp’s main office, the officer looked out his narrow window and saw the silhouette of Mr. X step from the car — tall, immaculate, his coat snapping in the wind. The guards at the gate raised the barrier and saluted as he passed. The convoy lights behind him flared briefly, throwing long shadows against the barbed wire and the concrete walls of the compound.
Inside the office, the officer straightened, wiping his palms against his trousers. He reached for the phone. Before he could dial, the door burst open.
Mr. X strode in like a storm given human shape.
“Where are they?” he demanded. “I want to see them now.”
The officer hesitated, his hand trembling slightly as he picked up the receiver. “Yes, sir… I’ll call for them.”
His eyes fell upon the worn Bible lying open on his desk — a passage underlined, the ink smudged by sweat and use. For a moment, he froze.
Mr. X’s gaze followed his. His expression hardened. Without a word, he drew his pistol, leveled it, and fired.
The shot cracked through the walls like thunder. The officer fell backward, the phone slipping from his hand, the open Bible fluttering as it hit the floor.
Outside, the sound echoed across the camp. Prisoners stirred from their sleep, shouts rising, panic spreading through the barracks. Guards yelled commands, floodlights snapped on, cutting through the dark like blades.
Inside, Mr. X stepped over the officer’s body, unbothered, his voice cold and precise.
“Get me Amram and Jochebed.”
A young soldier, pale with fear, fumbled for his radio. “Bring up Amram and Jochebed,” he barked into the receiver, his voice shaking.
Through the cracked window, the noise of chaos grew — men crying out, chains rattling, boots pounding across the yard. The air smelled of smoke and sweat and fear.
Mr. X holstered his weapon and turned toward the door, his face unreadable in the dim light. The Bible lay beside the fallen officer, a single page curled upward — its verse illuminated by the flicker of a dying lamp:
“The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”
But no one in that room could hear it over the sound of the coming storm.
CHAPTER 35: Under the Midnight Sun.
The desert stretched endlessly beneath a vault of ancient stars. The dunes shimmered silver under the watchful light of the moon as two camels carried their riders across the stillness. Moses and Aaron rode side by side, the cool wind of night sweeping their faces, the sand whispering beneath hooves.
After hours of silence, Moses slowed his camel and dismounted.
“Let’s rest them,” he said softly, his voice carrying through the calm.
Aaron followed, sliding to the ground as Moses gathered dry brush and sparked a small fire. Embers leapt into the air—tiny stars joining their brothers above. Soon the flames glowed warm and steady, casting long shadows across the dunes.
Moses looked up at the sky.
“Now this…” he murmured, a faint smile touching his weathered face. “This brings back good memories. Many things have changed in this new world, but the stars—” he gestured upward “—they never change. The heavens stay fixed in their course, and God is still King.”
Aaron sat beside him, exhaustion mingling with wonder as he followed Moses’ gaze.
Moses lifted a finger toward a brilliant point of light.
“You see that star? That one hung over Egypt the night the Angel of the Lord freed us from bondage—freed us from my brother’s hand. And now…” His tone deepened, eyes reflecting the fire, “I must open the firmament for His return.”
Aaron hesitated, then asked quietly, “Why did God leave us, Moses?”
Moses chuckled softly—sadly—and shook his head.
“God leave? No, Aaron. God never left.”
He scooped a handful of cool sand, letting the grains sift through his fingers.
“Because the waters never left.”
Aaron blinked. “The waters?”
Moses nodded slowly, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper.
“Water is everything, Aaron… and everything is water. Everything water passes over and through, it remembers. It carries the mark of creation. It holds the breath of God Himself. From the air we breathe to the deepest trenches of the oceans—water is God’s blood, the living connection between Heaven and Earth.”
The fire cracked, sending sparks spinning upward.
“This world…” Moses continued, “is void of the natural and the organic as He intended. The devil built his kingdoms on concrete, metal, and poison. Man breathes dead air. He drinks dead water. He lives in dead cities shaped by a dead god.”
Aaron stared into the flames, shaken. “And the Son? His blood?”
Moses nodded. “The two things that give us life—the waters of creation and the blood of the Lamb. The devil can’t imitate those. So he copies everything else. Cold… lifeless things. Like the strange birds you call drones. Machines with no breath. Screens with no soul—black mirrors that drain the heart and feed the enemy.”
He leaned closer to the fire, the orange glow dancing across his ancient features.
“But I will restart the once-organic structures,” Moses whispered. “The living systems that were meant to bind Heaven and Earth. When they rise again… the gates of Heaven will open once more.”
Aaron swallowed, the enormity settling on him like the night air.
“The Devil enslaved God’s people,” Moses continued, his voice heavy with memory. “Then he tried to kill His Son. There is much you do not yet understand, my brother. The world has forgotten the truth and fallen into the hands of the Deceiver. But the time is short. And you, Aaron… you will play a great role in the final chapter of this age.”
Aaron’s throat tightened. “What will I do?”
Moses lay back on the sand, the fire crackling beside him, the stars stretching endlessly overhead.
“God will show you when it’s time,” he said gently. “Until then… rest.”
And just like that, Moses closed his eyes and drifted into sleep—his face peaceful under the glow of the Milky Way, as if even the stars bent low to keep watch over him.
CHAPTER 36: God of my father, take me home
The camp was shrouded in silence, a silence heavy enough to feel alive. The air hung thick with smoke and fear. Searchlights carved white scars through the dark as soldiers moved nervously along the fences. Inside the command building, the floorboards creaked beneath polished boots.
Mr. X entered the room with a slow, deliberate stride. His black coat brushed the dust as he approached the two prisoners seated under the harsh glare of a single bulb—Amram and Jochebed. Their faces were gaunt, yet defiant. Chains rattled faintly when they lifted their heads to look at him.
“Where is Moses?” Mr. X demanded, his voice low and venomous. “And your son—where is he?”
Amram met his eyes, weary but unwavering.
“We do not know,” he said simply.
Mr. X studied him for a heartbeat, the corner of his mouth curling into something between anger and satisfaction. He pulled the pistol from his side and aimed it without hesitation.
The sound of the gunshot tore through the night.
Amram’s body jerked back, a faint smile still on his lips. He turned his head toward his wife, his last breath whispering through bloodied lips—I love you—just before he fell lifeless to the ground.
Jochebed’s scream shattered the silence. She collapsed beside him, clutching his body, tears falling onto his still chest. Soldiers stood frozen, even they too shaken by the brutality before them.
Mr. X holstered his gun without a word and turned away, his shadow spilling long across the cold floor.
As Jochebed’s sobs echoed through the corridors, the scene faded—
and somewhere far away, under the same midnight sky, Moses stirred in his sleep.
His body twitched. A shadow of pain crossed his face as if some invisible thread had been cut deep within him. Then, in his dream, we see—
CHAPTER 37: Two brothers, two paths, one destiny.
The first light of dawn crept across the desert, brushing gold over the dunes and the weary faces of Moses and Aaron. They had fallen asleep beneath the endless sprawl of stars, unaware that they had crossed into forbidden ground—the ancient border of Israel.
The stillness broke with the sharp click of a rifle.
A soldier’s shadow fell over Moses, his face framed by the rising sun. The muzzle of the gun caught the light, throwing a glare that reflected the very vision Moses had dreamt only hours before.
Moses stirred, opening one eye to the blinding glow.
“Good morning,” he said softly.
The soldier blinked, thrown off by the calmness of the old man’s tone.
“Show me your papers,” he demanded, weapon steady.
Moses tilted his head, the faintest smile touching his lips. “What are papers?”
Aaron stirred beside him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Sir,” he began quickly, “we’re sorry—we didn’t know. We’ve been traveling through the night.”
The second soldier stepped forward. “You’ve crossed into Israeli territory.”
Moses sat up, eyes wide in sudden recognition. “Israel?” he whispered. “I am finally here.”
Aaron placed a hand on his arm. “Forgive him, sir. He’s… old.”
Moses ignored him, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Old?” he said, his voice rising with power. “This is my land. I led the children of Jacob here—thousands of years ago.”
The soldiers exchanged glances.
“What is this crazy old man saying?” one muttered.
The other stepped closer, reaching for Moses’s staff. “You’ll need to come with us—”
“Don’t!” Aaron shouted.
But it was too late. The moment the soldier’s hand brushed the staff, he dropped to the sand, motionless.
His partner shouted, spinning around. “What have you done?!” He dropped to his knees beside his fallen comrade, pressing two fingers to his neck. “Stay with me! What have you done to him?”
As he reached for his radio, Moses extended his hand.
The soldier’s body went still. His eyes closed as if in peace, not death.
Aaron’s heart raced. “Moses—what have you done to them?”
“They are asleep,” Moses said, his voice calm. “They will wake soon enough. You, however, must go and do what you are called to do.”
“I can’t leave you,” Aaron said, shaking his head.
“You must,” Moses replied, eyes full of ancient fire. “It is what God has called you to do. I said these same words to Joshua long ago, and I say them to you now—be strong and of courage.”
He leaned down, touching the second soldier’s shoulder. The young man stirred awake, dazed but unharmed. Moses poured a few drops of water into his mouth from the small jug hidden within his robe.
The soldier blinked up at him, awe filling his eyes. “Can you take this young man to Jerusalem?” Moses asked.
“Moses?” the soldier whispered, trembling. “Yes… yes, sir.”
Moses smiled faintly, then touched the first soldier, who awoke just as gently.
“Can you take me to Egypt?” Moses asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man said without hesitation. Something unseen in Moses’ presence made obedience feel like faith.
Moses turned to Aaron. “One more thing.”
He reached into his robe and tossed Aaron a silver coin. “You’ll need this as payment for the ceremony.” His eyes softened. “And I will need that gold coin you keep in your pocket.”
Aaron froze, stunned. He had kept that coin—a stone actually—hidden even from his father.
Moses nodded knowingly. “I’ve known all along.”
Aaron swallowed hard. “Thank you, Moses.”
“No,” Moses said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Aaron, for helping me with the greatest task of my life. Greater than the parting of the Red Sea will be what begins today.”
The two men stood facing each other as the desert wind rose. Then, without another word, they parted—Moses climbing into the soldiers’ vehicle bound for Egypt, and Aaron riding toward Jerusalem under the awakening sun.
Two brothers, two paths, one destiny.
CHAPTER 38: The Beast and the King
The new King stood before the tall arched windows of his palace, looking out over Jerusalem. Below him, the newly constructed temple gleamed in the last light of evening, its golden spires catching the red of the dying sun.
He was striking—elegant, immaculate—his face carrying the kind of beauty that deceives. His white robes flowed like light itself, and to the eyes of the world he looked like the very image of Jesus returned.
Behind him, the heavy thrum of rotors faded as a helicopter landed in the courtyard. Moments later, Mr. X entered the grand chamber, brushing dust from his coat. His expression was grim, his movements rigid, like a man walking into judgment.
The King didn’t turn around.
“It seems,” he said, his voice calm but edged with venom, “that you cannot find a child and an old man.”
Mr. X’s jaw tightened. “Well,” he replied bitterly, “if you had gotten rid of Moses thirty-five hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be having this issue.”
The words hung in the air like an electric charge.
The King turned slowly, and in that moment his countenance shifted. His eyes went black as oil, his flesh dissolving into shadow. Wings—dark, terrible—unfurled from his back as his form became that of a fallen angel, his voice echoing like thunder through the marble hall.
He flew forward, face-to-face with the Beast, his breath searing with the stench of brimstone. Then, just as suddenly, he drew back. The darkness folded inward. His radiance returned. He smiled.
“If it weren’t so close to my greatest day,” he said softly, “I would turn you to ashes from within.”
Mr. X dropped to his knees, head bowed in fear. “What can we do?” he stammered. “I can’t find him—he eludes us at every turn. Can you not see his path?”
The King walked past him, eyes distant. “I cannot see the future,” he said, almost wistfully. “That gift was not given to me. Not even to my brother. Only to Moses.”
He turned, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “But I have a feeling Moses will make himself known very soon. And when he does, you must be ready to take his staff. That staff is the key to his power—and the only way we will enter the Garden of Eden once again.”
Mr. X looked up, uncertain. “How do I get the staff from Moses?”
The King’s gaze darkened. “Aaron will get it for you.”
Mr. X frowned. “Do you not need Aaron for the sacrifice?”
The King’s smile widened, slow and chilling.
“I have Moses.”
CHAPTER 39: Coming Home
Egypt
The desert night was still as the military transport came to a slow stop near the border where the land of Israel bled into the sands of Egypt. The headlights cut through the dust, illuminating the weathered sign that marked the crossing.
The soldier shifted in his seat and looked toward the old man beside him.
“This is as far as I can take you,” he said quietly.
Moses nodded, eyes fixed on the horizon as if recognizing something buried deep within memory.
“This is fine,” he replied. “I have been here before.”
He turned to the soldier, his expression softening. “But I have something for you—and for your daughter.”
The soldier hesitated. “Thank you, sir, but… my daughter isn’t well. She’s deaf.”
Moses smiled gently. “Do you have a canteen?”
The man reached into his pack, pulling out a dented steel flask. Moses uncorked his own small bottle, the same one he had carried since leaving the garden. He poured a few drops of its water into the soldier’s canteen. The liquid shimmered briefly in the dim light before settling.
“Give your daughter a drink from this,” Moses said, handing it back. “And God will show you His gratitude and love for what you’ve done this day.”
The soldier swallowed hard, something unspoken passing through him—part disbelief, part faith. “Thank you,” he said, his voice low.
He stepped from the vehicle and scanned the road. It was empty except for a single cab approaching from the Egyptian side—a battered sedan, its paint faded, its windows cracked. The driver, a weary Palestinian man, had no intention of stopping.
The soldier fired one round into the air. The echo cracked through the night like thunder. The cab screeched to a halt.
“Take this man to Cairo,” the soldier ordered.
The driver threw up his hands. “Cairo? That is too far! I cannot drive that distance.”
Moses reached into his robe and pulled out a single silver coin, pressing it into the soldier’s palm. “Will this do?”
The soldier stared at the coin, awestruck. “This… this is a year’s pay for your kind,” he said, turning to the cab driver. “Make sure he gets there safely.”
Moses stepped toward the car, gripping his staff. The cab driver looked at him curiously as the old man tried to open the door and, noticing the low roof, frowned.
“Just open the roof,” Moses said earnestly, as if it were the most natural request in the world.
The driver blinked. “I don’t have a sunroof.”
Without hesitation, the soldier raised his pistol and fired a shot through the roof.
Metal rang out, and dust rained from the hole.
He smirked. “Now you do.”
The driver flinched but said nothing more. Fear and faith mixed in his eyes as Moses climbed in, staff in hand, settling into the seat like a traveler who’d seen every century pass.
The soldier watched the cab pull away, its taillights flickering like embers in the night until they disappeared into the desert’s vast silence.
He stood there a long while before looking down at the canteen still warm from Moses’ touch. For the first time in years, he whispered a prayer.
Inside the cab, Moses leaned back, his staff resting against his shoulder. The hum of the engine and the rhythm of the desert road lulled him into a deep, quiet sleep—the kind that only those who have seen heaven’s gates can fall into.
CHAPTER 40: Aaron to Jerusalem
Midday
The road to Jerusalem shimmered beneath the weight of the noonday sun. The desert haze had begun to lift, revealing the city’s ancient skyline in the distance—a place where prophecy and power now stood uneasily side by side.
Aaron sat quietly in the passenger seat of the armored transport, his thoughts circling back to Moses. The rhythmic hum of the tires against the road felt almost like the beating of a drum—steady, inevitable, leading him toward his purpose.
As they reached the outskirts of the city, traffic slowed to a crawl. Lines of military vehicles, civilians, and pilgrims all pressed toward the newly built temple that crowned the city’s hill. The air buzzed with tension and expectation.
The soldier driving—the same man Moses had touched and blessed—sighed and tapped the steering wheel impatiently. “I don’t think I can take you much farther in this traffic,” he said, glancing at Aaron.
Aaron looked out the window, studying the crowds that flowed like rivers down every street. “I can walk,” he said simply, his tone calm but resolute.
The soldier nodded, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a small laminated card marked with the seal of the Israeli Defense Force. “Take this,” he said, pressing it into Aaron’s hand. “A military pass. If anyone stops you, show them this. It should get you through—at least far enough to find your way.”
Aaron studied the card, feeling its weight. It was more than a piece of plastic—it was a key, perhaps placed by divine design.
“Thank you,” Aaron said.
The soldier gave him a brief nod. “Just follow the crowds,” he advised, eyes scanning the horizon. “They all lead to the same place today.”
Aaron stepped out of the vehicle, the heat immediately pressing down on him. The sound of engines, chanting voices, and distant horns filled the air. He turned toward the shining gates of Jerusalem—toward the city where prophecy was about to awaken.
As the soldier’s vehicle rolled away, Aaron stood for a moment, clutching the military pass tightly, feeling the pull of destiny. Then he joined the river of people moving toward the temple mount, unaware that every step brought him closer to the most dangerous moment of his life—and the reason Moses had sent him there.
CHAPTER 41: The Taxi to Egypt
The hum of the city faded as the cab rolled through the narrow streets. Dust swirled lazily in the afternoon light, and Moses, his head resting gently against the window, had drifted into his usual sleep. The wooden staff beside him pulsed faintly with a life of its own—ancient, calm, and watchful.
The taxi driver kept glancing at it in the rearview mirror. Something about it called to him—a curiosity he couldn’t shake. His hand trembled slightly on the wheel, his mind wrestling between reason and temptation. Finally, unable to resist, he reached back and wrapped his fingers around the staff.
In an instant, the air cracked like thunder. The sound of traffic vanished. The city dissolved. The cab shimmered as if swallowed by the horizon itself—and then silence.
When the driver opened his eyes, the cab was no longer moving. Outside, golden sand stretched endlessly beneath a burning sun. The pyramids of Giza stood in solemn majesty before them, ancient and unyielding.
Moses stirred and opened his eyes, calm as if he had merely arrived at a long-awaited destination.
Moses: “We are here, I think.”
The driver stared out the window, his face pale, hands shaking on the steering wheel.
Taxi Driver: “W–where... how...?”
He looked down at himself in disbelief—his neatly shaved face now bore a dark, heavy stubble, as though days had passed in moments. He checked the gas gauge—it hadn’t moved. The desert heat pressed against the windows.
Moses: “It’s okay,” he said softly, reaching forward. “Soon time will begin to slow back down for you. Until then, drink some water.”
Moses handed him a small flask. The driver hesitated, then took it, sipping the cool water as though it came from a spring hidden in heaven itself.
Moses: “Thank you, Ishmael.”
The driver froze. The name echoed through him, stirring something buried deep within.
Taxi Driver: “How did you know my name? Only my grandmother would call me that.”
Moses smiled, eyes distant yet kind.
Moses: “I knew her mother’s great mother. And you... you are not what you seem. You, my son, are of a lost tribe.”
The driver’s breath caught in his throat. Outside, a wind rose from the desert, circling the cab in a whisper that sounded almost like a voice—a voice calling him home.
CHAPTER 42: The Great Pyramid Awakens
The sun bled over the horizon as the last light of day washed across the sands of Egypt. Shadows stretched long over the desert, and the Great Pyramid stood like a sleeping giant, its stones glinting faintly beneath a veil of dust and memory.
Moses approached in silence. His staff pressed gently into the earth with each step. The air around him hummed with a low vibration, ancient and knowing—like the land itself recognized his return.
On the eastern face, where a small section of limestone casing still clung to the ancient structure, Moses stopped. His fingers traced the edge of a nearly invisible seam in the stone. From his robe, he withdrew a small gold coin, its surface engraved with the same symbols that marked his staff.
He slid the coin into a narrow slot carved in the wall. A faint click echoed within. Then, with the weight of millennia shifting, a slab of stone moved aside. A hidden passage opened—one unseen by man for thousands of years.
Moses entered.
The air inside was cool and heavy, like stepping through time itself. He paused, then began to whistle—a tune both sorrowful and divine, the Song of Moses, written long ago by The Artist ONE.
As the melody filled the chamber, the darkness responded. The walls shimmered. Water trapped deep within the stones began to glow, veins of light spreading outward like liquid fire. The pyramid came alive, breathing with light from within.
No torches. No flame. Only the song.
Moses walked down the illuminated corridor, each step echoing softly against the hollow stillness. On the walls, ancient carvings told stories of his life in Egypt—scenes no man had ever seen. His face, his deeds, the crossing of waters—all etched by hands of those who once called him prince. The section had been sealed by his stepfather, the former king, before Moses fled the kingdom.
He turned the final corner and entered a vast chamber.
At its center rested a great stone sarcophagus—long believed to be a tomb. Beside it sat a small wooden box, simple, untouched by time.
Moses knelt, opened the box, and inside lay a tiny woven basket wrapped in a faded blanket. His breath caught.
A memory stirred.
Flashback — A child wandering these same halls, the same blanket clutched in small hands. The boy stops, lifts a fold of fabric, and finds beneath it a stone—smooth, luminous. The child, Moses, had placed it atop his staff before the years carried him into destiny.
Back in the present, Moses unfolded the coat of many colors he had carried with him—a sacred garment of covenant and memory. He placed it gently beside the great stone box and slid the heavy lid aside.
Inside lay grain—ancient, untouched since the days of Joseph.
Moses dipped the coat of many colors into water, then laid it within the grain. At once, life stirred. The seeds began to tremble, sprouting tendrils of light that spread across the box like the roots of a tree, weaving through the chamber floor and walls.
The grain glowed. The roots pulsed.
Water began to rise, filling the great stone box until it overflowed, cascading down the grooves in the floor. A deep mechanical hum reverberated through the walls—the turning of gears long dormant.
Moses lifted his staff and placed it into a small hole in the stone floor.
A flash of blue-white light burst upward. The water surged through hidden channels, spreading through the pyramid like living veins of light.
Outside, as the last ray of sun disappeared, the Great Pyramid of Giza began to glow.
From its base to its apex, golden light poured through the cracks between stones. The tip blazed like a beacon into the night sky.
Across the desert, travelers stopped their cars. Locals stepped out of their homes. Phones were lifted, recording, streaming—the modern world capturing an ancient awakening.
For the first time in thousands of years, the Great Pyramid lived again.
CHAPTER 43: The Signal Over Garda
The last of the sunlight danced across the ripples of Lake Garda, streaks of rose and gold melting into the darkening blue. The air was calm, fragrant with pine and coffee. From the balcony of a hotel perched on the cliff’s edge, Malachi sat in silence, a cup of espresso steaming between his hands.
He had always found peace in the stillness before a storm—both on stage and in life. The world outside didn’t yet know what he did: that something was coming. Something ancient. Something divine.
Behind him, the glass door to the suite slid open.
“Malachi… it’s on.”
The words hung in the air behind him, sharp enough to cut through the fading quiet.
Malachi didn’t turn. He stood at the window, watching the last thin line of sunset sink behind the mountains. The sky smoldered in shades of red and dying gold, a final breath before night swallowed everything.
“Yes, I know,” he said, his voice steady, almost resigned. “We go on in twenty-four hours.”
A beat of silence.
Footsteps approached, hesitant, carrying something heavier than nerves.
“No,” the manager said, his voice low and thinned by disbelief. “It’s on.”
Malachi finally turned. The look in the manager’s eyes told him everything.
Whatever he had spent years preparing for…
whatever warnings he had given…
whatever signs had been ignored…
It wasn’t coming.
It had already begun.
There was something strange in his tone—an edge that sliced through the calm.
Malachi slowly turned. “What?”
The manager didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped inside and grabbed the remote from the table. The television flickered to life, the blue light reflecting off the room’s marble floor.
News anchors spoke over a frenzy of live footage. A grainy desert skyline. People screaming. Streams of light cutting through the night.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was glowing—brilliant and alive, its apex pulsing like a living heart. And not just in Egypt. The feed cut to Mexico, where the Pyramid of the Sun blazed under the moonlight. Then to China, where buried ruins were trembling, and South America, where forgotten temples shone like beacons through the jungle mist.
One by one, across the world, the ancient structures were awakening.
Malachi rose from his chair, the cup of coffee forgotten, his eyes reflecting the golden flare of the screen.
“The pyramids…” he whispered. “They’re all responding.”
He turned sharply toward his manager. “We need to get to Egypt—now.”
The manager shook his head, still transfixed by the television. “We can’t. Flights are grounded everywhere. Borders are closing. And—” he hesitated— “you have a show in less than twenty-four hours.”
Malachi stepped closer, his voice steady but filled with quiet urgency. “Call Joshua. He’ll find a way. He always does.”
The manager blinked, startled by the command in his tone. “Malachi, you can’t be serious. You’re supposed to headline in front of half a million people tomorrow—”
Malachi interrupted, his gaze fixed on the horizon, the glow of the television reflecting off his eyes like molten gold.
“If the earth itself is waking up,” he said softly, “then the music can wait. The message cannot.”
He turned back toward the balcony, the wind stirring his hair, the lake below shimmering with the faint echo of the same strange light that now touched the corners of the world.
“Call him,” Malachi said again. “Tell him… the time has come.”
CHAPTER 44: Finding Aaron
Evening — The King’s Office, Overlooking the New Temple
The city below glowed like molten gold, the lights of the new temple reflecting off the marble towers surrounding it. From his high glass chamber, the King stood at the window, watching the world he had built—his false Eden—gleam in the dying light of dusk.
Behind him, the double doors hissed open. The echo of boots struck the polished floor.
Mr. X entered, dust from his last assignment still clinging to his coat. His expression was grim.
The King didn’t turn. “I know,” he said quietly.
Mr. X hesitated. “Then you also know we don’t have much time.”
The King finally faced him. His eyes, once human, now shimmered with something unnatural—cold and endless, like a black mirror catching fire.
“Get the boy,” the King said. “We need that staff. And when the time comes, you must be ready to take that island.”
Mr. X stiffened. “I’ll put out a reward for the kid immediately. We’ll have him within the hour.”
The King stepped closer, his voice low, dangerous. “I will hold you to that.”
Then, his tone sharpened, filled with the echo of power that made the lights flicker in the room.
“Now get out—and do not return without the staff.”
Mr. X nodded and turned, disappearing through the doors like a shadow fleeing judgment.
Moments later, in the hum of the digital night, his orders went live.
Every device, every screen, every dark corner of the network flickered with the same message:
WANTED: The boy named Aaron.
Reward beyond measure. Deliver him alive.
Across the world, algorithms awakened. Hunters stirred.
And the chase for the bloodline of Moses had begun.
CHAPTER 45: The Cafe
The street smelled of rain and frying oil, the kind of close, city air that made a man feel watched even when he was alone. Aaron walked with his shoulders hunched, the military pass heavy in his pocket like a secret. When he saw the little café — a pale rectangle of light in a row of shuttered storefronts — he paused and went inside.
The room was small and warm. A single lamp burned over a counter; chairs were stacked on tables as if closing time had already come. A young woman stood behind the counter, wiping a cup with a cloth. She looked up when Aaron pushed the door, and for a moment the two of them simply measured each other.
“Do you have anything to drink?” he asked.
She shook her head apologetically. “We’re closed. I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, surprised by his sudden presence.
He started to turn away, embarrassed, when the tiny buzz of her phone broke the silence. She glanced at the screen, and something in her face changed—curiosity, then calculation. Without thinking, she stepped back behind the counter and moved with the quick, small gestures of someone who’d learned to hide what she felt.
“Sit down,” she said after a beat. “I still have some coffee.”
While she poured, she thumbed a message on her phone. The buzz of the notification was the same as the one that had woken her three nights before: REWARD POSTED. Her thumb hesitated over an address field, then she pressed send. The message went out: location, a brief line, a single word. A small, private betrayal.
“Are you from around here?” she asked, passing him a steaming cup.
“No,” Aaron said.
She smiled in a way that held both pity and professional detachment. “Wow. You must be very important.” She filled his cup with practiced care. “Are you here for the crowning of the new king?”
“No,” Aaron said, staring into the dark coffee. “I want to see him dead.”
She froze, then lowered her voice like someone who had learned when to speak and when to keep her mouth shut. “I would not say that too loud,” she warned. “You’ll get killed.”
“It’s my destiny,” he said.
She met his eyes and, for the first time, let something like empathy show. “I have a destiny too,” she said.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“To get out of here,” she answered simply.
Aaron let out a shaky laugh. “I’m sure you will.”
She looked past him toward the street, and in the reflection of the café window he saw movement—dark uniforms, helmets, the angular flash of radios. Soldiers were already fanning out, like black flowers opening. Her face changed again, this time with an edge of fear.
“It’s them,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He stood, hands around the warm cup. “It’s okay. Thanks for the coffee. God be with you.”
She moved before he did, quick as a sparrow. “Follow me,” she said. She grabbed his arm hard enough to make him turn, then shoved the counter aside. Where the shelf normally hid empty crates, a narrow hatch gaped open and a ladder sloped down into shadow.
“Get in,” she whispered.
They dropped into the tunnel together and the sound of the city swallowed them. Behind them, the café’s bell clattered and the roar of boots filled the street. A squad of soldiers burst through the door, flashlights lancing the chairs, and a voice barked orders into the night.
“I want no stone left unturned here!” one of them called into his radio, the command sharp as a guillotine. “Find them!”
CHAPTER 46: First Flight
The moon hung low, silvering the glassy surface of the lake. The night was still—until the distant sputter of an old bush plane broke through the calm.
Malachi squinted at the sky. “Looks like he’s here,” he said.
He and his manager made their way down the uneven slope toward the water’s edge, where the plane’s floats skimmed the surface before settling into a gentle glide. The old engine coughed once, then died with a hiss of steam.
Out stepped Joshua—a short, stocky man in his seventies, with a head of thick gray hair and a grin that looked both mischievous and tired. His flight jacket was weathered and oil-stained, the kind that had seen more skies than most pilots would dare.
“So,” Joshua called out as he hopped onto the dock, “looks like he turned them on. You’re lucky I still know how to fly this thing. You know they’re clamping down—and trying to fly under a hundred feet these days, well…” He laughed, shaking his head. “How the hell are ya anyway?”
Malachi grinned. “Need to get some old guy in Egypt.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow. “Ooh boy, that’s gonna take some doing. But I know a guy.”
The three men started loading gear into the plane.
Joshua turned, squinting at them. “How much do you guys weigh?”
Malachi smirked. “I’ve actually slimmed down.”
Joshua patted his belly. “I’ve gained, so we’re even.”
The manager shook his head. “I think I’ll stay here, get things ready—and keep the press away. The biggest show of your life is tonight. Don’t miss it.”
Malachi nodded. He climbed into the co-pilot seat beside Joshua, who tugged on his aviator cap and throttled up. The engine roared to life, echoing across the lake.
“Hold on,” Joshua said, eyes bright under the moonlight. “I need a faster plane. Ever been to Venice?”
“No.”
“Then I think you’ll like it.”
They flew low and blind, the horizon nothing more than a soft gray line between heaven and earth. After hours of flight, Joshua handed Malachi a pair of night-vision goggles.
“Put these on,” he said, grinning. “This might get fun.”
Moments later, the glimmering canals of Venice came into view. The plane weaved through narrow waterways like a ghost. As it passed, lights flickered on in the ancient city—shutters opening, startled voices echoing from balconies.
“I hope I remember where he’s at,” Joshua muttered. “Never had to fly without lights before… ah, there he is.”
Through the goggles, Malachi saw a bright infrared beam stabbing upward from a courtyard.
Joshua dropped the plane into a sudden dive, skimming beneath an old bridge so low the floats kissed the water’s surface.
Malachi grabbed the frame, laughing nervously as they clipped a rooftop antenna. “You think you can make that?”
Joshua grinned, the kind of grin that only a pilot with nothing left to prove could wear. “Yup.”
They landed hard beside the Doge’s Palace, water splashing high as the plane coasted to a stop. Before the engine could die, a sleek black boat roared up alongside them.
A tall woman in a dark coat stood at the helm—Valerie .
“Leave it,” she shouted. “Get in!”
Without hesitation, Joshua and Malachi leapt from the plane into the boat. The moment their feet hit the deck, Val throttled forward. The city lights blurred behind them as they tore across the Venetian waters, swallowed by the dark.
CHAPTER 47: Hiden
The tunnel air was cool and smelled of stone and old smoke. Aaron moved fast, feet stirring the dust of centuries as the girl tugged him deeper into the labyrinth beneath Jerusalem. Above them, the city slept; below, the night breathed slow and secret.
“Quick, in here,” she hissed, yanking a loose slab aside and slipping through the narrow gap.
He followed, heart, rattling against his ribs, and they dropped into a forgotten corridor lined with carvings. The place felt like a memory folded up beneath the city—narrow passageways, low arches, the hush of people who had long since left. Torches had long been snuffed; their steps were absorbed by ages of silence.
“Where are we?” he whispered.
She smiled without humor, the kind of smile that meant she knew more than she let on. “Where few have ever been. We’re under the Temple.” She moved her hand along the wall and Aaron turned to look.
The stone before them was alive with drawings—figures and symbols etched and painted in ochre and coal, images worn soft by time but still unmistakable. Scenes of boats and reeds, of hands parting water; a man with a staff; a tree bearing strange, luminous fruit. None of it belonged to the tidy versions he’d memorized in school. These were raw, private things, scratched by hands that had once walked the same land.
“I hid down here a lot when the New Temple went up,” the girl said. “They blasted out stones with dynamite and made openings I found. No one bothers with the old halls.” She guided his eyes as if through a private gallery. “Look here—this panel’s never seen by tourists.”
Aaron reached out and let his fingers brush the parched paint. The touch sent a strange shiver through him, like touching the lip of a dream. “This looks like some of the drawings I saw with Moses,” he breathed.
The girl cocked her head. “Moses?”
“You know… Moses. The Red Sea guy from the Bible.” His answer came out shy and earnest.
She laughed once, soft and mild. “You’re cute.”
Aaron blinked at her tone—half offended, half pleased. “You think I’m cute?”
She shrugged, unfazed. “Moses from the Bible,” she teased, letting the words hang between them in a delightful little barb.
Aaron’s reply came quick and bright. “I mean—yes. Moses.” He flushed and then pointed. “Look—look. This is the same image I have on my silver coin.” He dug into his pocket and turned the coin over between his fingers, showing her the worn mark.
She leaned in, studying the metal. For a second, her eyes shone like the paint on the wall. “You got that from Moses?” she asked.
“He gave it to me. In the Garden of Eden,” Aaron said, as much to himself as to her. The words sounded impossible even in his own mouth.
She reached out impulsively and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek—one small, fierce gesture that left his skin warm. “Yes,” she said simply. “And you can tell a story.” Then her face sobered. “Why did you say you had no money?”
Aaron managed a crooked smile. “Oh—that. Moses gave it to me for the ceremony. I’m supposed to make the first offering.”
A distant clatter echoed down the stone—boots, a flashlight’s sweep, a low murmur of voices. The military were in the tunnels. The sound threaded through the passages, close and hunting.
“Follow me,” she ordered, grabbing his sleeve.
“What’s your name?” he asked as they slipped through a narrow slit and rounded a corner into a blackened chamber.
“Elisheba,” she said, eyes already searching the shadow for a place to hide. “My friends call me Elizabeth.”
They ducked into a small room that smelled of damp and old rope. The doorway swallowed them, and for a moment the noise above them only thudded like a heartbeat. In the dark, Aaron could just make out the faint rub of paint on the walls and the press of his own breath.
She closed the gap behind them and pressed her back against the stone. In the hush he heard his own pulse, the slow, steady proof that he was still alive—still a boy with a coin in his pocket and a destiny crowding the edges of the world.
CHAPTER 48: Like Old Times
They moved like ghosts through the pale blue hour, boots whispering on cold tarmac. Val’s voice cut low and urgent beneath the sigh of the wind.
“Stay down. Two clicks ahead. Try to keep up.”
They ran hard, the chill of pre-dawn biting at their faces, past hangars whose doors had not opened in years. The air smelled of fuel and old metal. At the far end of the field, Val slipped the padlock and shoved a heavy door inward. Inside, shadow swallowed them for a beat — then the hangar’s cavern opened, and there it sat: a blacked-out Gulfstream G700, enormous and menacing under dust sheets, its fuselage like a blade waiting to be drawn.
“A Gulfstream G700,” Malachi breathed, as if the name itself were a prayer.
Val smiled without humor. “Yes. You know planes?”
Malachi blinked. He had built a few in his youth, taught himself how the skins and wings fit. “I built a few,” he said. “We got the runway for this thing?”
Val’s grin was private. “Someone landed it here,” she said. “We’ll make it leave.”
Joshua—short, stocky, a man whose seventy years showed in the stubborn set of his jaw—shouldered forward. “Joshua, get the door,” Val ordered.
Joshua hustled to the hangar controls, fingers fumbling over rusted switches. His bulk moved with surprising quickness. He eased the heavy door outward and peered up and down the runway. “Looks like we might have company,” he warned. The words came out as a rasp and a chuckle: nerves braided with a lifetime of living on the ragged edge.
Val didn’t miss a beat. “Your friends are in the cabinet,” she called, nodding to a steel locker against the far wall.
Joshua swung it open and revealed long-range rifles, a bow, and other contraband weapons like props from a war museum. He grabbed a rifle, slung it across his shoulder and offered a salute that was more affection than discipline. He moved to take a position near the runway’s edge.
Val and Malachi climbed into the cockpit, fingers moving with practiced economy. The G700 was a black whale, its leather seats and consoles sugared with modern instruments. Val ran a preflight like a priest reciting rites, and Malachi watched her, suddenly very young and very old at once—an artist turned fugitive, trusting this woman with metal and sky.
As they began to taxi, the hangar’s cavern swallowed and spat them into the thin morning. The engines breathed and coughed, then found a hunger. Down the runway, shadows moved—figures catching the dawn. Joshua raised his rifle and fired a few warning shots into the air, the sound striking the empty field like a bell. Light towers flared, and he put rounds into the spotlights until the bulbs flickered and died, plunging the far end of the strip back into blind gray.
“We are flying blind,” Malachi said, half-exasperated, half-exhilarated.
Val’s hands were calm on the throttles. “The only way to fly,” she said.
Malachi watched the G700’s tail as the pilots built thrust. The engine’s mouthed a sound like a living thing stirring. Val leaned in and added one more detail, half proud, half dangerous.
“By the way,” she said, “I added something.”
Malachi didn’t wait. “What’s that?”
“Afterburners.” Val’s voice was simple as a fact. The plane’s hum deepened. The runway was short, a strip that barely kissed the Adriatic on one end. Any sensible pilot would have laughed at the odds.
“Guess if the runway’s not long enough,” Malachi said, “we’ll make it skip like a rock.”
The G700 leapt. The black fuselage skated the surface in a heart-stopping moment, spray shearing the morning air as the jet clawed for air. For an instant, the world-thin line between water and runway blurred and then broke. The afterburners flared, a dragon’s breath of heat and light, and the jet climbed, darker than the sky and impossibly alive, angling south toward Egypt.
Below, Joshua sat with the rifle across his knees, the rush in his ears and an old, private grin on his face. Val’s hands never stopped, and Malachi pressed his palm to the console as if praying to a god who still answered in machines.
They were gone— a plane slicing the winter dawn, engines singing a reckless hymn as they rode the low sky toward a continent waking to light.
CHAPTER 49: She Said YES
The air beneath the temple was cool and heavy, like a breath held by the earth itself. The tunnels twisted and sloped until Aaron and Elizabeth found themselves in a small chamber carved from stone, dimly lit by the glow of Aaron’s lantern. Dust shimmered in the light. Against one wall sat a stone bench, smooth from time and forgotten prayer.
They sat together in silence for a moment, the sound of dripping water echoing somewhere deep in the caverns.
Elizabeth broke the quiet first.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Aaron turned to her, startled. “Who, me?”
She pointed toward a crumbling tomb in the corner of the chamber. “No, that empty tomb.” Then, smiling faintly, “Yes, you.”
Aaron chuckled softly. “No. Not many beautiful girls like you in my village.”
Elizabeth blushed, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Thank you.”
She hesitated, then asked, “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
Aaron shook his head. “No. Just me, my mother, and my father.”
She leaned a little closer, eyes glinting in the half-light. “Then I’ll be your girlfriend.”
Aaron smiled, his heart pounding faster. “I would like that.”
Elizabeth moved closer, her breath warm against his cheek. Just as she leaned in, Aaron caught sight of something—a faint marking on the far wall, half hidden by dust and shadow. He froze. Rising quickly, he crossed the chamber, tracing the carvings with his fingertips. There, nestled in the stone, was a small circular indention—a perfect fit for his silver coin.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked, standing behind him.
Aaron didn’t answer. He pulled the coin from his pocket, feeling the weight of it in his hand, and pressed it gently into the slot. The moment metal met stone, the walls began to hum—a low vibration that grew into a soft, radiant glow. Ancient etchings came alive with light, running like veins of fire through the walls. The floor beneath them rumbled and shifted, splitting open in the center to reveal a small wooden box rising from below.
Aaron knelt and opened it. Inside, nestled in a bed of dust and linen, was a single ring set with a deep red garnet. It caught the new light and burned like a living ember.
Elizabeth gasped, a startled, joyful sound. “I do!” she cried, half in jest—but her voice echoed off the walls like a vow.
The shout carried far down the tunnels.
Heavy footsteps followed. Voices—sharp, urgent, military. The sound of metal striking stone as soldiers rushed closer.
Aaron turned to her. “Put it on,” he whispered, thrusting the ring toward her.
Elizabeth shook her head, heart racing. “You put it on my finger,” she said softly, eyes locked on his.
He slipped the ring onto her hand, the garnet flashing as the soldiers burst into the chamber. A harsh beam of light flooded the room, blinding them both.
“Looks like I’m taking you to the big guy,” the lead soldier barked, leveling his weapon. He glanced at Elizabeth. “Who’s this?”
Elizabeth lifted her trembling hand, showing the ring. “I’m his wife,” she said calmly.
Aaron stared at her, wide-eyed, but she met his gaze with quiet certainty. Slowly, he nodded. He understood.
The soldiers moved in, binding their hands. As they were led out of the chamber, Aaron glanced back once—the coin still glowed faintly in the wall, the ancient carvings alive again for the first time in thousands of years. The door of stone sealed behind them, and the tunnels fell silent once more.
CHAPTER 50: All roads lead to Rome
The dawn over Egypt was unlike any other—brilliant gold flooding across the desert as though heaven itself were pouring light onto the sands. From above, the Great Pyramid pulsed faintly, its summit gleaming like a beacon. Around it, the smaller pyramids shimmered in unison, each one reflecting the rising sun until the desert itself seemed to breathe with light.
Val guided the sleek, black G700 in low over the dunes. “You seeing this?” she muttered, eyes wide behind his dark lenses.
Malachi leaned forward, gazing out the cockpit window. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s happening.”
The aircraft circled once before Val pointed ahead. “That road looks long enough to land.”
Malachi nodded. “Put her down.”
Val throttled back, the jet descending fast, sand whipping against the fuselage. The wheels hit asphalt hard, bouncing once before gripping. The roar of the engines echoed through the still air. He eased the plane to a stop near the foot of the Great Pyramid, its shadow stretching endlessly across the desert.
Malachi unbuckled and stood, still staring at the monument. “He’s here.”
Val gave a tight grin. “You think you can find one old man in this sandbox?”
Malachi smiled faintly. “I know where to look.”
They climbed down from the jet, the air thick with dust and warmth. As they crossed the sand, the rising sun painted the sky in fire and gold. Ahead of them, perched calmly atop the weathered face of the Sphinx, sat a figure. Cloaked, still, unmistakable.
Malachi cupped his hands around his mouth. “Moses!”
The figure stirred, turning slowly toward the sound.
Moses smiled. “You know,” he said softly, his voice carrying across the dunes, “there used to be a river here. I would sit just there”—he gestured toward the sand—“and watch the waters flow.”
Val checked the horizon. Dust plumes—vehicles—were already forming in the distance. “Malachi, we need to go.”
Malachi stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Moses, you want to take a ride?”
Moses raised a brow, amusement flickering in his eyes. “You have a Volga?”
Malachi grinned. “Something a little better.”
Moses climbed down the side of the Sphinx with surprising ease for a man of his years. Together they crossed the sand toward the waiting plane. The roar of approaching engines echoed behind them.
As they reached the G700, Val’s voice came sharp. “Get in!”
Moses paused, admiring the jet’s sleek body. “I like this,” he said with a grin.
Malachi laughed. “If the Volga was a camel,” he said, “this is an eagle.”
Val was already at the controls. “Strap in.”
Malachi glanced at Moses. “Hang on.”
The engines thundered to life, heat shimmering in waves behind them. Just as a convoy of police cars rounded the dunes, sirens wailing, Val released the brakes. The plane shot forward, the sand and asphalt blurring beneath them.
“Come on, baby,” Val muttered, pulling hard on the yoke.
The jet surged upward, wings slicing through the light. The afterburners ignited with a deep, thunderous roar, and in an instant they were airborne—leaving the flashing lights and the rising dust far below.
Inside the cabin, the roar faded to a hum. Moses leaned back in his seat, eyes half closed, watching the sky turn from gold to blue.
“I really like this,” he said softly.
Val glanced back from the cockpit. “Malachi, can I ask him something?”
Malachi looked over. Moses was already asleep, head resting back, face calm.
He smiled. “He’s out like a light, man.”
Val shook his head, laughing under her breath. “Figures. Even prophets nap mid-miracle.”
The jet streaked westward, cutting across the morning sky toward Rome—three souls bound by prophecy, fate, and a story far from over.
CHAPTER 51: Aaron and Elizabeth
The black car glided to a halt beneath the towering glass façade of Mr. X’s headquarters—a monolith of steel and shadow rising over the city like a modern watchtower. Its sharp angles mirrored the sky, reflecting the pale morning sun. Just across the boulevard, the new temple gleamed in unfinished glory, its golden dome already catching the light as though demanding the world bow before it.
Aaron and Elizabeth were escorted through the atrium by guards in sleek black uniforms. Their boots struck the marble floor with crisp, rhythmic force. The lobby smelled faintly of cold metal and something older—money, power, and the dust of empires being reborn.
The elevator ascended without a sound. When the doors slid open at the top floor, Aaron felt as though he’d entered a museum curated by a tyrant. Mr. X’s private office stretched the entire length of the building, its walls adorned with relics from civilizations long turned to ash. Marble busts of emperors watched from shadowed corners. Ancient weapons gleamed under glass. Above the desk hung enormous paintings of kings and conquerors, each one poised as though their dominion had never ended.
And beyond the window, the temple shone—unfinished yet already imposing, a monument waiting for its god.
Mr. X stood before the glass, hands clasped behind his back, his reflection merging with the rising structure as though he were already sovereign over both.
When the guards pushed Aaron forward, Mr. X didn’t turn immediately. His voice came low, controlled, and humming with threat.
“You’ve created a lot of problems for me.”
He pivoted slowly, each step deliberate, eyes razor-sharp. “I would have killed you days ago,” he said, “but the High Priest insists you’re needed. The King also has plans for you.”
He leaned in until Aaron could feel the coldness of his breath.
“So before I make my own decision…” His lips curled into something like a smile. “…Where is Moses?”
Aaron met his stare, forcing a steady breath. “I don’t know.”
Mr. X’s jaw twitched, a ripple of irritation breaking through his composure. “Think real hard, boy.”
He signaled to the guards. “Bring me Jochebed.”
Aaron’s stomach clenched. His voice cracked despite him. “You have my mother and father?”
“I have your mother,” Mr. X replied coolly. “Your father… irrelevant.”
He motioned toward the massive window overlooking the temple. “Come here. Look.”
Reluctantly, Aaron stepped forward. The half-finished structure glowed in the morning light, a chilling beauty that made his skin crawl. Something about it felt wrong—ancient, hungry.
“That,” Mr. X said quietly, “is the house of our new god.”
Before Aaron could respond, the door burst open. A guard sprinted in, breathless.
“They’re on, sir!”
Mr. X snapped around. “What is on?”
“The pyramids!”
The guard crossed the room and slammed a hand onto the console beneath the massive wall screen. Live news footage blinked into view—Egypt, the pyramids of Giza blazing with an eerie pulse of light, as though something awakened beneath the sand.
Mr. X’s face hardened. “Impossible…”
The phone rang. He seized it.
“Yes.”
A tense pause.
“I’ll take care of them.”
He dropped the phone onto the desk with a crack. “Get my car ready,” he shouted. “And the jet. We’re going to Rome.”
The guard hesitated. “What about his wife?”
“Wife?” Irritation flashed across Mr. X’s face. “I have no time. Get me my car!”
The room erupted into motion. Guards pulled Aaron toward the elevator. As they emerged into the lobby below, Elizabeth appeared at the far end of the hall—her face pale, her eyes wide with fear. She saw Aaron, saw the guards dragging him, and froze.
He mouthed one word.
Run.
Her breath caught. Tears brimmed—but she obeyed. With a final, trembling look, she slipped through a side door, disappearing into a maze of corridors just as the entourage surged forward.
Outside, engines roared to life. The convoy swept away from the tower, its dark vehicles slicing through the streets like a blade.
Behind them, the temple’s shadow stretched long across the city—reaching, claiming, warning.
CHAPTER 52: In Flight
The jet carved through the pale morning sky, the desert now nothing more than a fading memory. Below, the world curved away in vast sweeps of gold and blue, sunlight brushing the horizon like a painter’s first stroke. Inside the cockpit, the soft hum of engines filled the quiet until Val’s voice broke through.
“Malachi,” she said, adjusting the controls, “I need to take us up.”
The aircraft angled skyward. Clouds thinned to a luminous veil as they climbed higher, the light sharpening around them. In the back seat, Moses stirred. His eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the brilliance pouring through the cabin window.
“Take a look outside your window,” Malachi said, glancing back.
Moses turned his head. The sunlight washed over him, soft and warm, and a faint smile touched his face. For a moment, the years seemed to melt from him.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “I remember when the Father took me up to the highest mountain. I was in awe then… but this—” He gazed at the endless blue stretching beyond the glass. “—this is even higher. Thank you both for giving this to me.”
Malachi turned in his seat and smiled. “We’re just getting started.”
But before the moment could settle, a sharp ping cracked through the cockpit speakers. Static followed, then a cold metallic voice filled the cabin.
“Unidentified aircraft, you are entering restricted airspace. You are ordered to descend immediately and prepare to land. Do not attempt to alter course.”
Val’s eyes darted to the left window. Two gray fighter jets flanked them, close enough that their pilots’ visors flashed gold in the rising sun.
“Guys…” she breathed, “this doesn’t look too good. They’re forcing me to land.”
Malachi leaned forward. “We’re not even close to Rome!”
“I know,” Val said, gripping the controls as the radio repeated its command.
Behind them, Moses leaned forward between their seats, his expression unnervingly calm. His voice was low, steady, almost gentle.
“I want to thank you both,” he said. “This was… a real treat for me.”
“Moses,” Malachi whispered, “we’ll figure something out. Just give us time.”
Moses looked at him with those knowing, ancient eyes. “We have no time.”
Val’s voice cracked from the back. “What do you mean?”
Moses smiled—a peaceful, final smile. “Three days.”
And then he vanished.
A soft flash—more light than sound—and the seat where he sat was empty. Not a trace, not a whisper. Only a faint warmth lingering in the air, shimmering like the afterglow of something sacred.
Valerie’s hands froze on the yoke. “What the hell just happened?”
Malachi stared, stunned. “I… I don’t know. He just disappeared.”
The radio crackled sharply. “Unidentified aircraft, prepare for inspection.”
Val obeyed, guiding the jet down along the military escort. A gray runway emerged from the clouds, etched into the mountainside like a scar. The landing gear dropped. The jet screeched across the tarmac, slowing under the pull of its brakes.
Before the engines had even fully wound down, soldiers swarmed them—rifles raised, boots pounding the metal steps. The leader, a stern man with mirrored shades and a jaw carved from stone, pushed into the cockpit.
“Where is he?” he demanded.
Val blinked. “Who?”
Malachi lifted his hands, exasperated. “Who? It’s only us. I’ve got a sanctioned show in Verona.”
The officer pressed a finger to his earpiece and spoke quietly. “There’s no one else aboard. Just the pilot and the… music guy.”
He hesitated, scanning the cabin again. His gaze lingered on the empty seat where Moses had been. The air still shimmered faintly, as if holiness itself had passed through and forgotten to close the door behind it..
CHAPTER 53: The Meeting of Moses, Elijah, and Enoch
The crack of thunder inside the jet was deafening — not sound alone, but something older, deeper. Moses’ staff struck the floor, and a burst of light swallowed him whole. The cabin vanished.
A heartbeat later, he was standing beneath the burning Roman sun.
The marble towers of the Vatican rose before him, gleaming white and gold, their ancient bells humming a distant welcome across the city. Pilgrims crowded the courtyards, moving like slow tides between columns, oblivious that prophecy had just stepped into their world.
A warm breeze brushed past, carrying incense and stone dust. Moses steadied himself, fingers wrapped firmly around his staff, his gaze drifting toward the great colonnade.
From the shadows beneath the basilica, a familiar voice rang out.
“Moses!”
He turned — and saw Elijah striding toward him. The prophet of fire moved with an ageless vitality, robes weathered by time yet untouched by decay. Elijah laughed as he embraced him, the sound echoing across the courtyard like a reunion of forgotten ages.
“It’s good to see you, old friend,” Elijah said. “How long has it been?”
Moses smiled, the years of eternity flickering behind his eyes. “Almost a week to the Lord… or five thousand years to man.”
He reached into his satchel and withdrew a small clay jar and a folded cloth containing bread. “I brought you some water and bread.”
Elijah took the jar, drinking deeply — yet the water never diminished. He lowered it with a knowing grin. “You always have the best.”
Moses chuckled softly. “Where is Enoch?”
Elijah turned toward an old garden wall, its stones cracked by centuries of weather, and shouted, “Enoch! It’s Moses!”
From the shadows emerged a figure clothed in radiance. Light clung to him like woven dawn, his presence serene and ancient. Enoch hurried forward and pulled Moses into a warm embrace.
“Moses,” he said, joy lighting his face. “Good to see you, my brother.”
“I brought water and bread for you as well,” Moses said, lifting the satchel. “Or would you rather have wine?”
Enoch laughed. “Not even Moses can tempt me. Water is all I need.”
Their laughter rang together, rolling softly through the holy air.
“Coffee, then?” Moses offered.
Elijah and Enoch exchanged a mock-horrified glance before speaking in perfect unison.
“Go from us, you man of temptation! For no one can resist your coffee!”
Moses threw his head back and laughed, the sound bright yet tinged with the weight of the days ahead. “Ha! Soon, my friends. It is almost finished. Then we can go home.”
Enoch gazed toward the horizon, where sunlight blazed over the dome of St. Peter’s. “If only the people could see what we have seen… they would never follow the cursed one.”
Elijah’s voice grew low and grave. “You should go. If they see you, they’ll try to kill you.”
Moses lifted his staff, looking toward the Vatican with calm resolve. “It is already being planned. But the Father has a better plan.”
A soft glow began to rise around him, light gathering as if recognizing its master.
“By the way…” Moses said with a small smile, “I’ve turned it on.”
Elijah and Enoch exchanged a knowing look — one part sorrow, one part awe.
“Then this will be a great ending to our time,” Enoch said.
“And to spend it with you, Moses…” Elijah added, voice warm, “thank you.”
Moses placed a hand on each of their shoulders, his touch full of ancient affection and divine purpose.
“God speed, my friends.”
The light enveloped him — and with a whisper of radiance, he was gone.
CHAPTER 54: The Arrest of Moses
The False Prophet’s Chambers
The marble corridors trembled with the rhythm of armored footsteps as guards escorted Moses deeper into the temple complex. Blue fire crackled in the torches lining the walls, casting strange, shifting shadows that crawled across the gold reliefs of angels, suns, and symbols long corrupted from their ancient meanings. The air smelled of incense and cold stone—like a place built for holiness but hollowed by deception.
At the far end of the hall, massive doors swung open, revealing a chamber large enough to swallow a cathedral. Representatives from every faith sat in ornate robes, their faces familiar from news broadcasts and global councils. Symbols of their religions were engraved into the marble beneath their feet, all converging toward the center—toward a single emblem etched in obsidian: the mark of the new world religion.
On a raised platform sat the False Prophet. His white marble throne was adorned with gold serpents, their fangs carved into the armrests. His eyes glimmered with an unnatural serenity, glowing with a calm that felt more like the stillness before a venomous strike.
“It is said you claim to be Moses,” he said, his voice smooth as polished steel. “Is this so?”
Moses didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he lifted a small clay cup of water from the table beside him and drank. The simple act unsettled the room more than any declaration could have. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady.
“That is the name Bithiah gave me… yes.”
The chamber erupted. Priests leapt from their seats, shouting “Blasphemy!” Some clutched their pendants; others muttered frantic prayers or curses.
The False Prophet leaned forward, smiling thinly. “So you are Moses. We have read that you struggled to speak… yet you seem quite capable.”
“I can talk just fine,” Moses replied calmly. “I just don’t like talking with your kind.”
The Prophet’s smile faltered. “My kind? I am the one who performs the sacrifices in the temple. I am the High Priest of all priests.”
“A priest?” Moses scoffed. “You are a fraud and a liar… just like your father.”
Gasps ripped through the chamber. The Prophet rose, robes shining white under the blue flames as he approached Moses with controlled fury.
“I have led the world to the true god who sits in the temple. We have brought peace. You should join us—help complete the temple and take part in the great sacrifice on Passover… in three days.”
“You have not brought peace,” Moses said, raising his staff a fraction. “You have brought damnation to this earth. And I”—his eyes hardened—“have brought the end of you all.”
A circle of priests stepped forward in outrage. One sneered with infantile arrogance.
“If you are Moses, show us a miracle. They say you have healed the sick, seen the past and future. Turn your staff into a snake—or make the water blood. Surely you can do that.”
Another demanded, “Tell us why you have broken so many laws.”
A third cried, “We are helping the people—they are lost!”
Moses turned slowly to the last man, his gaze piercing like a blade. “You mean the woman from last night… who is not your wife?”
The man’s face drained of color.
He turned to the next priest. “And you—laws? I have broken none. But you have been stealing gold from the reserves for three years.”
Then his attention drifted across the room, his voice rising like thunder. “And you, with blood on your hands… and you, hiding your idolatry beneath the language of peace…”
As he spoke, a supernatural force rippled through the chamber. Priests trembled violently. Some screamed as if flames had licked their souls; others collapsed, writhing, covering their ears as though the truth itself seared them.
“STOP!” the False Prophet bellowed.
The chaos fell quiet. He straightened his robes and motioned for Moses to follow. Together they stepped onto the balcony overlooking the temple courtyard, sunlight reflecting off polished stone.
“Do you see your friends?” the Prophet asked.
Across the courtyard stood two men—the witnesses—bound yet unbroken, their eyes still filled with fire.
The Prophet nodded to a sniper on the rooftop.
Two shots cracked through the air.
Both men fell. Their bodies hit the stone with a dull, final thud, crimson spreading in stark contrast to the blinding white marble.
Moses closed his eyes. His knuckles whitened around his staff.
“This man is to be taken to our Lord in the temple—immediately,” the False Prophet commanded. Then he paused, turning toward his secretary. “And one more thing… bring in the Beast.”
The doors opened. Mr. X entered first, followed by Aaron. Aaron’s eyes darted between Moses and the Prophet, confusion and fear battling in his expression.
“Ah yes,” the False Prophet said, gesturing lazily, “and hand me that staff as well.”
Moses stepped forward, holding the staff toward him—but the Prophet raised a hand.
“No, no. Aaron.” He pointed. “You will take the staff from Moses.”
Aaron hesitated. Moses nodded gently, reassuring him.
“Thank you,” Moses whispered.
With trembling hands, Aaron lifted the staff from Moses’ grasp.
Then the guards surged forward, locking heavy chains around Moses’ wrists. The False Prophet turned away, victorious.
Outside, lightning flickered on the horizon. Thunder murmured in the distance.
And on the stones of the courtyard below, the witnesses lay silent—while the storm of prophecy began to gather.
CHAPTER 55: In Flight to Jerusalem
The engines hummed beneath the darkening sky, a low, steady vibration that pulsed through the body of the jet like a heartbeat. Dusk pressed against the cabin windows, turning them into mirrors. Inside, the lights were dimmed—just enough to catch the cold metallic sheen of the iron shackles around Moses’ wrists.
Across from him, Aaron sat hunched in his seat. His face was pale from fatigue, his thoughts tangled and looping through the chaos of the last twenty-four hours. Every so often he glanced toward the guards near the cockpit, whispering among themselves and stealing uneasy glances at the man chained in the back—the man they called “the prophet.”
For a long time, nothing disturbed the quiet but the drone of the engines.
Then, without opening his eyes, Moses spoke.
“So… you met a girl?”
Aaron jerked slightly, startled. “How do you know that?”
Moses opened a single eye and fixed him with a half-smile—soft, ancient, and impossibly knowing. A smile that felt less like intuition and more like revelation.
“Who am I?” Moses murmured.
Aaron let out a nervous, uncertain chuckle, but the humor faded quickly. Moses wasn’t making conversation. He never spoke without purpose.
“Keep this quiet,” Moses said. “I will handle it.”
Aaron swallowed. He didn’t know whether Moses meant Elizabeth, the ring, the fear gnawing at his conscience—or all of it.
“So what’s happening, Moses?” he asked quietly.
But Moses did not answer.
Aaron leaned forward, only to see Moses’ head tilt back against the seat once more. His eyes were shut, his breathing deep and steady. The chains around his wrists glinted faintly in the muted light.
Moses was asleep again.
Outside the window, the horizon smoldered with the last traces of gold as the jet glided over the Mediterranean. Far below, the world shifted restlessly in the gathering twilight, unaware that ancient prophecy was unfolding above it.
Aaron sank back into his seat, staring at Moses’ peaceful face. He wondered if the old prophet truly slept… or if he was already speaking with God, carried somewhere far beyond the reach of iron and altitude.
CHAPTER 56: Before the King
Dusk bled into the marble courtyards of the new temple as Moses and Aaron were led across the stone. The air smelled of incense and hot metal; guards moved like black silhouettes beneath floodlights. Chains clinked against Moses’ wrists with each step, a sound that belonged to an older world.
At the edge of the plaza the men were separated. Aaron stood off to one side, his fingers white where they gripped the staff—Moses’ staff—its wood unfamiliar and heavy in his hands. He watched as the procession carried the chained old man up the temple steps.
Moses was brought before the King beneath an arch of polished stone. The King sat high on a throne that reflected the setting sun, a figure of uncanny composure—hands folded, face composed into the visage of mercy. Yet there was a coldness in his gaze that made the marbles in the court seem to shiver.
The King’s voice was soft as silk and as sharp as steel.
“Moses?” he said. “I suppose the Father never gave me your bones, because you never died.”
Moses met him without flinching. “I know the first law of all things,” he replied, the words steady, as if reciting something older than nations. “Have you forgotten?”
The King shrugged, amusement flickering across his features like a half-formed shadow. “All I know is that this time—after my crowning—I will make sure you die.”
Moses’ eyes were calm. “It will be short-lived.”
The King leaned forward, the light catching the edge of his crown. “You think the Father will save you?” He nodded toward the darkening grounds. “The Beast is on his way to your precious garden even now.”
A small hush fell over the gathered nobles. The King’s rhetoric dropped into a cadence that could seduce a crowd. “I have brought peace to this world. I saved it from destruction. I have brought wealth to all who serve me. Now that I have the key—your staff—and your boy, Aaron, I will set my kingdom on the earth. I will seat my temple as the center of power. People will call me God, and the Garden will give us gold and silver and food for all—no longer the preserve of God’s chosen. It will grant the power of eternal life to all who obey me.”
Moses’ reply was like the low peal of a bell. “You were banished from that place because of the lies you told,” he said. “And yet you still teach those lies to his children.”
The King’s expression darkened into a thing of small, terrible cruelty. “I will return,” he said, voice flat, “and I will burn that Tree of Life to the ground as I burned his flesh body.”
Moses’ face did not change. “Have you forgotten that He conquered Death—and you?”
“That was then.” The King’s eyes narrowed. “Enoch and Elijah are dead; there is no one to protect you now.” He tapped a ringed finger against the arm of his throne. “You will do my sacrifice. You will bow and call me God for all to see. Go from me—leave my sight—or I will have you killed.”
Moses’ answer was quiet, resolute. “I will never again appear before you.”
Night gathered like a curtain. Guards took Moses away and into the temple’s subterranean cells—the old stone swallowing their footsteps. In the courtyard the King rose slowly, a silhouette among statues, and behind his calm face the city turned: lights, prayers, and the rumble of an uneasy peace that echoed the promise of something far darker.
The stars came out indifferent above the temple’s gold, and the prison doors clanged shut.
CHAPTER 57: Midnight
The world was changing.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since Moses had set his staff into the ground at the base of the Great Pyramid. Now, across the world, other pyramids—ancient, silent for millennia—had begun to hum with light. A frequency pulsed from their cores, faint at first, then growing stronger, visible like ribbons of energy twisting into the sky.
Above, the heavens themselves were shifting. Unseen stars burned into view, constellations rearranged. The moon loomed larger, its edges sharp and silver, while the air trembled with quiet power. For the first time in human history, not a single drop of rain fell anywhere on earth.
Inside his office, Mr. X watched a live report on his monitor—images of the Euphrates River, cracked and dry. His jaw tightened. He reached for the phone.
Mr. X: “I’ll be taking the kid in the morning.”
In the Prison
Down in the concrete corridors, a lone guard sat half-asleep at his post when a memo slid through the glowing screen beside him. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, and read the order twice before pushing himself to his feet. The overhead fluorescent hummed with a sickly buzz as he trudged down the narrow passageway, passing a row of reinforced cells.
When he reached Moses’ cell, he paused. The old man lay in the dim glow with his chains coiled beside him like sleeping serpents, his breathing slow and steady.
“They’ll be taking your boy in the morning,” the guard muttered through the bars.
Moses didn’t stir.
The guard moved on.
He reached the next cell where Aaron sat awake, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the bars. The guard nodded toward him.
“You better get some rest,” he said. “The King’s beast will be taking you come sunrise.”
With that, he turned back toward the entrance. As he passed the display case—a crude glass box containing Moses’ staff—he stopped. The staff seemed to hum faintly, as if remembering storms it once commanded. The guard leaned closer, frowning.
He never heard the shadow behind him.
A sharp crack echoed down the corridor as stone struck bone. The guard collapsed, his weapon clattering across the concrete floor.
Elizabeth stood over him, chest heaving, her fingers wrapped around a blood-stained shard of rock.
“Aaron!” she shouted, her voice ricocheting off the concrete walls.
She sprinted down the hallway, stopping at Aaron’s cell. Her breath was ragged, but her hands were steady as she reached for him.
“I’ll get you out,” she said.
Aaron stared at her, wide-eyed. “You just knocked that guy out—how did you even know I was here?”
“I’ve been following you,” she said breathlessly. “Come on. It’s getting crazy out there.”
“We can’t go without Moses.”
Together they ran to the old man’s cell. Moses was asleep, his head resting peacefully against the cold wall.
“Moses!” Aaron called.
“Moses!” Elizabeth added, baffled. “How can he sleep through this?”
“He’s always asleep,” Aaron muttered.
Moses stirred, lifting his head. His eyes were clear and bright, though he looked as though he had just woken from the deepest dream.
“Elizabeth,” he said warmly. “Nice to finally meet you.”
Elizabeth froze. She looked at Aaron, confusion on her face. “How does he know my name?”
Moses smiled, soft and knowing. “I know everything. And you both have my blessing, by the way. Good couple.”
Aaron blinked, stunned into silence.
Moses’ voice softened. “Take the staff and go home. God will tell you what to do next. Now go.”
They didn’t argue.
Aaron lifted the staff from the shattered case, its wood still warm beneath his fingers, humming with a power older than the prison itself. Together, they slipped down the corridor and out through an unsecured exit. Behind them, deep in the shadows, the guard groaned and began to stir.
Outside, the world had transformed.
The night sky blazed with an otherworldly brilliance. Colors shimmered across the heavens—violet, gold, crimson—like the veil between worlds had thinned. The Milky Way stretched impossibly wide, as if the cosmos had descended toward the earth.
Soldiers at the gate stood frozen, heads tilted back, entranced by the celestial display. Not one noticed the two figures climbing into the back of a military truck parked near the loading bay.
Aaron lifted the canvas flap and pulled Elizabeth inside. They sank into the darkness beneath the cover.
Officers’ shouts broke the trance, vehicles growling to life as the convoy prepared to move. Moments later, the truck lurched forward, joining the line heading into the desert—toward Dead Island before dawn.
Elizabeth shivered.
“Are you cold?” Aaron whispered.
“Yes,” she admitted. “And scared.”
He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. She looked up at him—dust streaked across her face, fear and wonder mingling in her eyes. Her lips trembled into a small, fragile smile.
Aaron leaned in and kissed her.
Outside, the convoy rumbled deeper into the desert. Above them, the sky glowed brighter than ever, stars flickering like the eyes of angels—or something far older—watching from above.
The world, whether mankind understood it yet or not, had changed forever.
CHAPTER 58: forty-eight hours
The morning light found the holding compound dull and tired, the kind of gray that came after a night of fevered electricity. Flat-screen televisions lined the hall near the guard station, news anchors’ faces looping over and over as if the world itself could be calmed by repetition.
“…no rain for forty-eight hours now,” one anchor intoned, footage cutting between cracked riverbeds and satellite maps. “Pressure mounts on the office as citizens demand the security the King promised. Should the crowning proceed amid these miracles—or disasters?”
On a wall monitor, the King’s image played in a ribbon of carefully staged confidence—hands folded, voice assuring—while below, commentators argued about the meaning of pyramids lighting up and the sudden drying of rivers. People at home watched with hungry fear and a small, stubborn hope.
Mr. X did not watch the anchors. He moved through the holding area like a shadow with purpose, every step measured. Guards snapped to attention as he entered; the compound’s hum seemed to lower a degree at his presence. He stopped short in front of the makeshift display case where Moses’ staff had been kept.
The glass was a ruin: spiderweb fractures, shards gone, a jagged hole where the staff had once lain. The case smelled faintly of oil and stone dust—now empty.
“Where is the staff?” Mr. X barked.
A young guard came forward, out of breath. His face was pale. “She hit him from behind, sir—girl in the tunnels. The boy—Aaron—took it. They got out before we—”
From the dark of his cell, Moses’ voice came soft and clear, a blade that seemed to cut the room in two. “Things not going to plan?” he asked, amusement threaded through the words.
Mr. X turned toward the barred enclosure, anger like a coiled spring in his jaw. He laughed, but it had no joy in it. “I do not need the staff,” he said, fingers tapping the console by his elbow. “The river has dried up because of your neat little stunt at the pyramid. The world is already changing because of his light.”
Moses’ eyes were steady on him. “You’d best get moving,” he said. “You have no time.”
Mr. X’s face hardened. He reached for a radio and barked instructions as if turning crisis into choreography. “Prepare the old man,” he ordered, voice flat. “Send him to the King’s quarters. And get him washed. Use whatever water we have—wash that stench off him. He will be presentable.”
Guards moved like trained machinery, cuffs and chains a practiced rhythm. Mr. X watched them, then glanced once at the television where the anchor repeated the King’s smile. There was a delicate war inside that smile: promise braided through power. Outside the compound, the land lay cracked and waiting. Above, the sky burned with stars that no one could yet name.
CHAPTER 59: two silhouettes
They rolled in like a wind—two silhouettes huddled beneath canvas in the back of an old farm truck, the engine coughing and the dust settling in their wake. The Euphrates lay there in the valley like a wound: earth cracked and furrowed where water had once run, the river’s bed a gray scar under the sun. Dead reeds bowed in the dry air as if in mourning.
Aaron hopped down first, boots sinking into the fine silt. For a second he just stood, staring at the empty ribbon of river, then shouldered the staff that leaned against the truck and bounded toward the narrow courtyard of his house. The door swung open before he’d knocked.
“Mom? Dad?” his voice cracked into the small dark kitchen.
A neighbor stood framed in the doorway—old, face weathered by wind and time, carrying a basket of bread. He looked at Aaron with an expression that had already learned grief. “They’re not here,” he said quietly.
Aaron’s stomach tightened. “Do you know where they are?”
The neighbor shook his head. “I think your mother is in the camp—outside of town. They took some people last night, said it was for registration. As for your father… I don’t know.”
Elizabeth moved through the doorway like a restless shadow. “We should go. They’ll find us here soon.” Her voice was tight with urgency.
Aaron did not move at first. He had pictured this moment—every boy imagines returning to the hearth and finding everything exactly the same. How naive that seemed now. “I have to find my mother,” he said finally.
They stepped back out into the lane. The town was changing under a new, harder order. Vehicles blotted the skyline: troop trucks rumbling with grim predictability, black helicopters circling low and relentless, a distant clatter of armored treads. People were not moving freely; they flowed in the direction of a single purpose—toward Dead Island and the fenced compound beyond it.
“Come on,” Elizabeth hissed, pulling Aaron’s sleeve. They slipped into the narrow back alleys that threaded the town—passageways of stone and shadow that held memory like dust. At the end of a lane the street opened onto the main road, and a line of vehicles crawled past: soldiers, priests, officials. The air tasted of diesel and tension.
“We’ll need a car,” Elizabeth said, scanning the parked row with quick, practical eyes. Her gaze stopped on an unremarkable sedan with a rounded sunroof. She darted forward, fingers already working under the dash.
Aaron watched, heart in his throat. “You know how to do that?”
Elizabeth’s mouth twisted. “I adapt.” Her hands moved with the surety of someone who’d learned what needed learning. “Get in.”
He slid into the passenger seat as she struck the choke and wrenched wires until the engine caught and coughed into life. She wrenched the sunroof open and, with a small prayer or a promise he didn’t understand, shoved the staff upright through the gap until its carved tip reached for the sky. The wood threw a strange shadow across the dash—older than their town, older than the uniforms outside.
They eased out into the stream of traffic, then pushed the accelerator. The town blurred on either side: a mother clutching a towel, a child pressed to a window, a priest in a white sash marching with boots too large for a soft heart. Sirens howled somewhere ahead—order and panic braided together.
“Where to?” Elizabeth asked without taking her eyes off the road.
“To the camp,” Aaron said. “My mother—she’s there.”
Elizabeth’s jaw set. “Hold on.” She wove the car through gaps in the convoy with a confidence that made Aaron’s head swim. They kept low, too small to draw attention through the lines of soldiers, slipping through a gap like a ghost.
As the prison fences came into view—barbed coils and watchtowers cutting the sky into geometry—Aaron felt something like cold and fire meet in his chest. He gripped the shaft of the staff where it rose through the sunroof and saw the way it etched the morning light into a thin line down to the earth. This is the last road, he thought. The last thing between what was and what would come.
Elizabeth pressed the pedal. The engine answered with a keening. They were small, fierce things on the road—two against an army, a boy carrying a promise and a girl carrying a ruined town’s courage. Dust billowed behind them as the car dove toward the compound, wheels cutting the cracked riverbed that had once been water.
In the rearview, the town shrank—a smear of white and brown—and ahead the camp loomed, gates thrown wide and men already moving like predators on the far side. The staff creaked with the motion, wood whispering a language Aaron did not yet know how to read.
He reached over and took Elizabeth’s hand for a moment, a small anchor in the roar. She squeezed back once—hard—and then slid her hand away, focus sharpening into a precise blade.
They raced on.
CHAPTER 60: The Stone Walls
The cell was dim, shadows bending against the stone walls as the guards stepped inside, buckets in hand. The sound of water hitting the floor echoed, a sharp slap against the silence. Moses sat quietly, the chains at his wrists catching the faint glint of the lamps. He moved with measured calm, gathering his worn robe and reaching for the small jar of water that had never left his side.
The main guard stepped forward, voice loud and dripping with mockery. “Where is your God now? Huh? I say it’s only fitting to wash you down with water. Maybe you can turn it into wine for me and the boys—we’re thirsty.” He laughed, a short, harsh sound that bounced off the walls.
Moses rose, shoulders straight despite the chains, and his eyes held that familiar quiet fire. He looked at the man, then to the jar in his hands. “On my way,” he said softly, almost to himself, but in his tone there was a weight, a certainty that seemed to ripple through the cell. The guards hesitated for a split second, unsure if he meant himself or something far greater.
With a calm that defied the situation, Moses followed them, the water jar tucked under his arm, the robe flowing as he moved. The corridor ahead seemed longer, heavier—but Moses walked as if the stones themselves were bending to guide him forward.
CHAPTER 61: The Island lingers
The sun glared down on the dried-up riverbed, casting long, jagged shadows from the assembled military force. Tanks and armored vehicles lined the banks, helicopters hovering like silent predators above. Yet not a single soldier stepped forward. Silence—tense, suffocating—hung over the men, broken only by the low hum of engines and the distant caw of a lone bird.
Mr.X’s voice cut through the quiet, sharp as a whip. “Why are you all standing around?” His eyes scanned the ranks, burning with impatience.
The first in command stepped forward, trying to keep his composure. “They… they are afraid, sir. Afraid of what might happen if they step foot on the island.”
Mr.X’s face twisted in fury. He reached into his coat, pulled out his gun, and leveled it at the officer’s temple. “Then you shall be the one to guide them. GO.”
The officer swallowed hard, fear evident in his eyes. He took a tentative step onto the island’s cracked, parched surface—and instantly crumpled, dead before he hit the ground.
A ripple of panic swept through the soldiers. Murmurs erupted, loud and frantic. “I’m not going!” shouted one. “He can’t kill all of us!” yelled another, the fear in their voices mingling with disbelief.
Mr.X raised his gun, but the men did not move. The island loomed in the distance, its eerie stillness mocking them. No one dared advance, trapped between obedience and the raw terror of the unseen force that seemed to guard the island, waiting for them. The tension hung thick, a storm ready to break.
CHAPTER 62: Last goodbye
The prison camp lay in harsh sunlight, rows of barbed wire glinting under the midday heat. Aaron and Elizabeth crouched just beyond the perimeter, scanning the open area ahead. Every movement of the guards sent tension rippling through them.
Suddenly, a familiar figure appeared—Aaron’s mother, Jochebed. Her eyes widened in shock and relief as she ran to the fence.
“Aaron!” she screamed, her voice cracking.
Aaron’s heart lurched. “Mom! Where’s Dad?”
Jochebed’s eyes flicked to Elizabeth, taking in her presence. “Who’s this?”
Aaron ignored the question, panic rising. “Mom, where’s Dad?”
Elizabeth leaned closer, voice trembling. “Aaron… I think your dad is dead.”
Jochebed’s face fell. “I am sorry, son.”
Aaron’s hands shook. “I knew I should have never left…”
“No, Aaron,” Jochebed said, reaching through the bars to touch his hand. “This is what God wanted. For you, for us—it was His will. Look up, son. Look at the sky.”
Aaron followed her gaze. The air shimmered as if the heavens themselves were opening. Light cascaded across the camp, illuminating the desolation around them.
“God needed you to help make this happen,” Jochebed whispered, a faint smile breaking through her grief. Her eyes softened as they rested on Elizabeth. “And look what He gave you… she is so beautiful.”
Elizabeth mouthed a quiet “thank you” to Aaron’s mother.
“We need to get you out,” Elizabeth urged, her eyes darting to the fence. She crouched, scanning for weaknesses.
Aaron handed her the staff reluctantly. “Don’t touch it!” he yelled.
A guard, alerted by the commotion, climbed to his outpost, scanning the perimeter. Elizabeth gripped the staff firmly—and nothing happened. The fence, the barbed wire, the guards—it all seemed powerless in her hands.
Jochebed’s eyes widened as she looked at Elizabeth’s stomach. “You are…” she began—but a gunshot ripped through the air.
Aaron screamed. “NO!”
Jochebed’s lips moved silently: I love you. Then she collapsed, the life drained from her body.
Elizabeth’s voice broke with urgency. “WE HAVE TO GO!”
With no time to grieve, she pressed the staff into the ground. A pounding pulse of energy shot out, and in a flash, she and Aaron were transported across the land—emerging at the edge of the river, near Mr.X’s fortress. The air shimmered with the echoes of what had just transpired, leaving behind a camp of stunned soldiers and the memory of a mother’s sacrifice.
CHAPTER 63: This throne is not yours to claim
The temple courtyard shimmered under the morning sun, tens of thousands gathered, their faces a mixture of awe, expectation, and fear. Leaders from every corner of the world filled the inner terraces, their fine robes fluttering as they whispered among themselves. The air was electric with anticipation.
From the side, Moses was led, still in chains, flanked by guards whose expressions betrayed unease. His eyes scanned the immense crowd, unwavering. Every step they took toward the new temple brought the sound of drums and horns echoing through the vast courtyards.
The ceremony began. Music swelled—majestic fanfares carried across the marble floors, rising toward the sky. The new King, resplendent in gold and crimson, descended the long red carpet. Every eye followed his calculated stride, every step toward the throne that would soon claim him as the supreme ruler of the world.
The false prophet, standing nearby, lifted a gleaming crown and lowered it onto the King’s head with ceremonious precision. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some bowed in reverence, others clenched their fists in silent rebellion.
And then—a white dove fell from the sky, wings fluttering gracefully as it descended into the middle of the courtyard. A hush fell over the crowd. Soldiers paused mid-step, guards froze, and even the King’s eyes flickered with a hint of confusion.
Moses, still shackled, lifted his chin. His presence alone seemed to bend the light, and an unspoken command radiated from him: this was not the end—it was the beginning.
The dove landed gracefully at the King’s feet, its pure white feathers glinting in the sunlight. A moment of stillness—the world seemed to hold its breath. And then, Moses’s voice, calm but resonant, cut through the murmurs:
“This throne is not yours to claim.”
Heads turned. Some in disbelief, some in fear. The music faltered, the horns stilled, and all eyes turned to the man who had walked through fire, through pyramids, and through centuries of history—Moses, the one who could not be silenced.
The stage was set. The final confrontation was about to begin.
CHAPTER 64: Torn in two
The riverside shimmered beneath the relentless midday sun, the air thick with heat and tension. Aaron and Elizabeth stood shoulder to shoulder at the water’s edge, facing Mr. X. His eyes blazed with fury—an anger sharpened by fear—never leaving the staff gripped firmly in Elizabeth’s hands. Its presence radiated a quiet power, ancient and unclaimed by any earthly ruler.
“Seize them!” Mr. X’s command tore through the stillness.
Weapons rose instantly—rifles gleaming in the sun, barrels aimed squarely at Aaron and Elizabeth. The soldiers hesitated despite their training; something unseen pressed against their spirits, warning them that the moment transcended simple orders.
“Best give me the staff,” Mr. X snarled, stepping forward.
Elizabeth did not move. Her gaze cut through him with quiet strength. “You are not worthy of this staff.”
Before he could react, she lifted it high—and snapped it clean in two.
Aaron gasped as the wood crumbled into dust the instant the pieces left her hands. The dust spiraled upward, caught by a wind that wasn’t there moments before. It swept toward the distant island at the center of the river, glowing faintly as it traveled.
Then the world shifted.
Two immense angels rose from the heart of the island, their wings spanning wider than any temple pillars. Light radiated from them in rippling waves, illuminating the barren ground below. And where the desolation once ruled, creation surged forth.
Trees erupted from the soil, their branches stretching heavenward. Blossoms unfurled in brilliant colors. Waters surged clear and shimmering, carving streams through the newborn landscape. In seconds, the island transformed into something ancient, sacred—Eden blossoming back into existence.
Time itself seemed to tremble, shimmering across the air as if the world remembered its birth.
Mr. X’s voice cracked as he screamed, “Take the island!”
Engines roared. Tanks clattered down the bank, trucks thundering behind them. Soldiers moved forward hesitantly at first, then with growing boldness. The first man leapt onto the island’s soil—tensed, bracing for a judgment that never came.
He stood unharmed.
“It is safe!” he shouted.
A wave of relief swept through the ranks. What began as fear became wonder, then awe, as soldiers poured onto the restored paradise. Eden glowed before them—real, tangible, undeniable.
Back on the riverside, Aaron and Elizabeth watched in reverent silence. A gentle breeze drifted across the water, carrying the scent of blooming orchards and fresh earth. Life hummed around them—vibrant, awakening.
Then Aaron noticed Elizabeth’s hand resting over her stomach, a soft protectiveness in the gesture.
He turned toward her, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re… pregnant.”
Elizabeth met his gaze with a tender, knowing smile. “Yes. The future is already beginning.”
Aaron felt something shift inside him—a hope as bright as the reborn island. The riverbank, once a place of fear and confrontation, had become something else entirely. A threshold. A beginning.
Behind them, Eden thrived under the impossible light, its rebirth unstoppable. It was no longer myth or memory.
It was here.
Alive.
And the world would never be the same.
CHAPTER 65: Moses must Die
The temple courtyard erupted into chaos.
The False Prophet stood poised over the white lamb, the ceremonial knife glinting above its throat, when the sky above him shattered. A crack opened across the heavens like glass breaking under divine pressure. Then the birds began to fall.
Thousands—tens of thousands—rained from the sky, tumbling through the air like living hail. Their feathers fluttered around the courtyard in pale drifts, soft as snow but heavy with dread. Screams tore through the gathering. Some cried out in terror, others in awe, but all were drowned beneath the roar of beating wings and bodies striking stone.
Across the globe, news anchors stumbled over their words as cameras captured the same horrific phenomenon unfolding in every nation. No one understood it. No one could. And that terror rippled outward like a shockwave.
The newly crowned King lurched to his feet, his face twisted with rage. Veins pulsed at his temples, his voice cutting through the storm like a blade.
“STOP!”
The heavens answered.
Lightning split the sky, bolts slamming into the earth with thunderous force. A roaring whirlwind rose in the courtyard, swirling with dust, debris, and divine fury. And through it all, the King’s eyes locked on Moses as if seeing his enemy clearly for the first time.
“It is him!” the King bellowed, pointing with a trembling, accusatory hand. “He has done this! He has brought destruction upon the world! He must be the sacrifice!”
A roar erupted from the crowd. A thousand men surged forward at once, the mob moving like a single beast—snarling, armed, ravenous for blood. They rushed Moses with blades, stones, anything they could grasp.
But Moses did not flinch.
He slid a hand into his robe and withdrew the small jar of water. The same vessel he had carried—for lifetimes, it seemed. Calmly, reverently, he tipped it. A thin stream spilled to the ground at his feet.
The effect was immediate.
The water spread in a perfect circle around him, glowing faintly as it touched the stone. In an instant it rose, forming a shimmering dome—a barrier of liquid light that hummed with impossible energy. The mob struck it like insects against glass. Their weapons bounced off harmlessly. Lightning raked the dome but could not pierce it. Wind tore at it, howling with rage.
Inside, Moses stood untouched.
For the first time, the jar ran dry. The last drop fell, and the ancient vessel gave a hollow clink, empty at last—its purpose fulfilled.
Then the world around him began to distort.
Time itself shuddered. Inside the water-barrier, Moses stood in stillness while everything beyond accelerated to a fevered pace. The mob’s movements blurred. Guards fled in streaks of color. The King’s face twisted in panic as he barked orders that dissolved into frantic motion.
The world spun. Ages seemed to pass in heartbeats. Moses did not age, did not breathe, did not blink.
He simply was.
Present and absent. Visible and unseen. Vanished, yet multiplied in every direction.
The courtyard trembled. The earth groaned as though recognizing him—not as a man, but as a force older than the crown, older than the temple, older than the lies ruling the world.
And in that suspended moment, as chaos devoured the sky and lightning crowned the temple in white fire, one truth became unmistakable:
Moses was no prisoner, no fugitive, no relic of forgotten scripture.
He was the storm’s center—the calm eye in a world collapsing under the weight of its own corruption.
He was gone.
And yet, somehow… everywhere.
CHAPTER 66: A Splinter
The scene unfolds with the Garden in chaos.
Island: Mr.X and his soldiers rampage through the once-lush paradise, stomping and hacking through foliage, the ground cracking beneath their boots. They reach the Tree of Life—its last leaf trembling on the limb, defiant. Suddenly, they notice themselves aging rapidly; each minute accelerating years onto their bodies, flesh and muscle twisting unnaturally. Fear strikes them, but greed blinds Mr.X. He reaches out, tearing the final leaf from the tree.
Moses: Back in the city, the shimmering water circle around him evaporates in wisps, hissing against the heat of the battle. The King’s army closes in, weapons raised. The last protective barrier begins to vanish. Time seems to rush around him, chaotic and unrelenting.
Island: The Tree of Life shudders. As Mr.X grips the leaf, the trunk cracks, splintering into dust. Gravity itself warps, a black void forming where the tree stood. Mr.X screams as the pull overtakes him, dragging soldiers and debris alike into the widening abyss. The entire island sinks into darkness, a swirling pit consuming all that dared defile Eden.
Shoreline: Aaron and Elisabeth, protected in a glowing aura, stand hand-in-hand, their child nestled between them. They smile, serene and unafraid, as they fade from sight.
Heavenly Realm: Enoch and Elijah’s forms shimmer and vanish, their mission complete, ascending in ethereal light.
Moses: Alone, he looks to the heavens. The pain in his right hand sears through him—memory of the staff splinter, the theft that forced him to face this final trial. He lifts his eyes to God, feeling the weight of divine purpose.
The Commander’s voice thundered through the courtyard.
“FIRE!”
A hundred rifles ignited at once, their muzzles flashing in unison—but not a single bullet reached its mark. Instead, the air trembled. The sky tore open with a deafening crack, and the whirlwind above Moses surged downward, expanding with terrifying force.
The vortex roared to life.
Wind spiraled in a colossal funnel, dragging sand, stone, bodies, and broken altars upward in a violent spiral. Soldiers screamed as their feet left the ground. The courtyard fractured beneath the strain, cracks racing like serpents through the temple floor.
Then the impossible happened.
Beyond the restored Garden of Eden—its lush trees trembling under the celestial tempest—a void began to form. A swirling black sphere opened in the heart of the garden, its edges rippling like molten shadow. It grew rapidly, widening with a hungry pull that distorted the very light around it.
The Pit.
The abyss prepared for Satan and all who served him.
Its gravitational pull intensified, the vortex feeding it. Men clawed at the ground, their fingernails breaking, their weapons slipping from their hands as they were dragged screaming toward the forming chasm.
One by one, the wicked were pulled in.
Their bodies dissolved mid-air, turning to dust before they ever crossed the threshold—dust that spun like ash on the wind, sucked into the swirling darkness. They vanished in seconds, erased from the world they had corrupted.
Time fractured around them.
From the eyes of the crowd, everything happened in less than a heartbeat. A flash—wind—screams—dust—silence.
But within Moses’ water-shielded stillness, it was years.
He watched the collapse of an empire as though it unfolded in slow motion. Their sins weighed on the air like the final notes of a dying song. He saw the rise and fall of each soul as if time stretched into eternity—seconds becoming seasons, chaos turning into cycles of decay.
For the wicked, time accelerated cruelly. Their last breath lengthened into lifetimes of dread as they felt the pull of judgment before their bodies disintegrated into nothing.
But Moses stood untouched, suspended between moments, between worlds. The dome glowed around him until its last shimmer dissolved into the heavens.
Then he lifted his hands skyward.
His face—not afraid, not triumphant, but resolute—turned toward the torn sky. A flood of radiance enveloped him, brighter than lightning, purer than fire.
The light swallowed him whole.
Moses vanished.
Silence crashed over the battlefield like a final command. The vortex ceased. The Pit sealed, shrinking into a single point of darkness before winking out. Dust settled onto the shattered stones. The wind died. The chaos stilled.
The garden… the battlefield… the city…
All froze in breathless reverence.
Time itself paused—
aware that the final act had passed.
A world reborn
waited
for what would come next.
CHAPTER 67: Returning Home
The desert stretches endlessly under the blistering sun, sand rippling like waves across a golden sea. Moses walks steadily, staff in hand—solid, restored, and gleaming in the light. Each step carries the weight of centuries, the burden of battles fought and victories unseen.
In the distance, a figure approaches, calm and radiant. As he draws closer, Moses recognizes him immediately.
Moses:
(pausing, gripping his staff)
“Is it time?”
Jesus:
(nodding, voice full of warmth and certainty)
“Yes, my friend. It is time to go home.”
Behind Jesus, the sky shimmers and warps, a host of angels appearing in formation, countless and powerful, poised in solemn readiness—a celestial army in silent reverence.
Moses straightens, taking in the sight. He raises his staff one final time, and together they begin walking forward, toward a horizon that promises peace, justice, and eternal rest.
The desert wind carries a whisper of eternity as the screen fades to light.
THE END.
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