18 The forbidden Mountain pt. 3

When night came, we prepared to camp in the vicinity of the Modoc tribe again. We just finished setting up our tents, when darkness descended. The attack of Mother Nature was expected, but none of us was prepared for the intensity. We set up a circle of torches beforehand to scare animals away. Just what we didn't expect, was that the first wave contained heavy rain and thunder. Thunderbolts came crashing down on us like we were some kind of aim-training for Zeus. Furthermore the rain distinguished the fire circle we set up. Before this night I always thought that human kind overpowered nature, but in this hell of thunderbolts and overly aggressive animals and plants I felt like a monkey that had played God too much and so now the real deities have to show me what I really am. Only an Animal myself, I realized that we were only a little part of nature and no powerful being that controls nature. With all that, it didn't take long till I fainted.

Suddenly an angelic male voice started talking to my faded consciousness to me: "Many of you already know that a great number of us are planning to eventually emerge to the surface when enough of you are ready and willing to receive us along with our teachings. It will be our pleasure to reconnect with all of you face-to-face and teach you all we know.

We ask you to assist in spreading the awareness of our presence within Mount Shasta to all those whose consciousness is ready to receive this information. Do what you can to support our emergence to the 'surface', and it is my promise that you will never regret it."*

After a while I started to smell burned flesh. Even though the thunder made me deaf and the shimmering flashes of light made me half blind, I still could smell the blood and burned flesh. This made me realize, that I came back to reality, but the hopeless ness of the situation made me want to cry. I started this exploration with only the best outcome in mind; I did everything, so we could have a good outcome even when setbacks struck down on us. Never in my wildest imagination had I thought that the setbacks striking down on us are as deathly as actual thunderbolts. After some time I just stood up and ran. I didn't know where to, I didn't know, if a predator would kill me on my way. I just wanted the endless helplessness to end; I couldn't take it anymore. Lying down and deprived of my hearing and eyesight, only with the smell of blood in my nose, I would start to go insane the longer I stayed.

I couldn't tell how long I ran, but when my senses came back to me I was standing in front of the Modoc tribe. Without any other hope, the fragile old man was morphing into a strong refuge.

What was weird about the tribe was that around the encampment were wooden statues of bearlike creatures, with human like faces. There had to be around a thousand statues, which formed a tight circle. They looked almost lifelike within the shadowy darkness. When I didn't look I could swear they were moving, although when I looked directly at them, nothing unusual was happening with the statues. The faces of the human-bear creatures were showing all kinds of aggressive facial expressions. With the ghastly silence within the tribe, the impression of a hunted ghost town always popped up in my mind. On second thought the old shaman of the tribe was a scary person himself and would perfectly assimilate in the imagination of something hunted. Chills ran down my spine, but thinking back on the massacre behind me I walked into the encampment I without any second thoughts.