The Wick in the Wind

A Free Short Story

Looking for psychological military science fiction? Read about the adventure of veteran Brendan Murphy as he tries to keep peace between Earth and a mysterious alien race known as the Sabia. Read the Fallen series today! Please remember to leave a review once you are done. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent creators.

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Happy Easter!

For some Holy Week-themed very short fiction I wrote, check out my 2024 Easter post.

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The Wick in the Wind - An Apocalypse

I’ve long been interested in Japan’s Hidden Christians (Kakure Kirishitan). These were Japanese Catholics isolated from the Church when Japan suppressed foreign influences in the late 1500s. During an initially fierce persecution, some Christians hid their faith within mainstream Japanese culture. Without priests and outside controls, their faith evolved to include Japanese mythology and lay-centered practices. This continued for over 250 years until the 1800s when the Japanese imperial government adopted Western reforms including freedom of religion. Most Hidden Christians joined churches being set up by missionaries, though a few instead retained their native folk form of Christianity.

Thinking about the Hidden Christians led me to write the science fiction story The Wick in the Wind. In it, a sect of Christians once lived hidden for generations on a distant planet amongst their fellow the Hoon people. However, about a hundred years prior to the story’s start, the Hoon empire instituted freedom of religion. Yet not all Christian Hoon rejoined various interstellar communions. One small group known as The Workers decided to live and worship openly in a rural community.

Now the Hoon are at war, and as defeat looms large and The Worker community scatters to the wind, Jeriyn, the head of The Workers, must face what to her is the end of the world.

The Wick in the Wind by Patrick Abbott

Her eyelids parted, revealing darkness. Her mind lagged, slow to emerge from the depths of unconsciousness. At first, there were no thoughts or sensations—only the vast, consuming black.

Shifted weight on her chest stirred her to wakefulness. Jeriyn was there, still sleeping, still holding her. All was well. That was enough for Tanith to remember where she was. Home. With her daughter. It was paradise, their Garden of Eden. The gift God had given them. Then, more thoughts emerged, some intrusively, but she instead pushed past them. Rather, she contended herself by putting her fingers through Jeriyn’s hair.

The sound of creatures stirring outside gave her the first indication that dawn was not far off.

“God,” she whispered, “let me always have faith and hope in you. Thank you for another day. Thank you for seeing through the night.” She gulped. “Guide me as you have guided my ancestors, who you had entrusted the care of your children. May this be the inheritance you give my daughter, that she may lead your flock here.”

Muscles twitched, but she stopped the natural urge to stir. Only her fingers continued to move through her daughter’s thick, silky hair. She allowed more time to pass.

It was when her eyes could make out the door that the stomach aches first emerged. Next was the realization of what was to come. With a tender but aching heart, she whispered her love to Jeriyn and removed her daughter’s arm that was wrapped around Tanith. For a moment, she paused when Jeriyn groaned, but Tanith then continued the action. The rising from the bed lacked grace and would have usually awoken the daughter, but the last few months had worn them both down.

She left the bedroom and entered the parlor. Wide windows let the pre-dawn glow stretch across the room, softening its edges with hints of color. Hard wooden floors, the oldest thing in the house, creaked as she walked toward the center. There, in the middle was a chest, with chairs aligned against each wall. Her eyes adjusted as they registered each empty seat.

Upon making out the far side of the wall, her voice echoed a man’s name as she counted each seat. “… Abidin, Bamrami, Kiumo…" Then, she recalled the names of the women as she counted the seats closer to her. “…Darya, Forounyn, Gooyth…” Forty chairs in total. All of them were gone now- besides her and Jeriyn. They had to remain.

She made her way to the chest, bent down, and opened it. Inside, wrapped in dark cloth, was a statue of a man in armor that dated back hundreds of years to the warlord era. His visage emerged from fire as she stood tall and proud, with his arms stretched out in the traditional manner of declaring victory. Beneath the statue was a tattered collection of pages that had been bound, rebounded, and bound again. Few of the original sheets remained. The rest were faithful reproductions.

Slowly, she pulled the statue and book up, praying as she did. Then, closing the lid, she put the statue on the chest, sat on her chair, and clutched the book against her chest.

Green oxidized iron covered the outside of the statue. Most Hoon families would have replaced it generations ago for one representing their gods in the latest style of the imperial dynasty at the time. Not for Tanith’s people, though. This statue represented too much.

Time slowed as she cleared her mind. Her essence floated about the room, absorbing its history. This small room was where the first baptisms were held all those years ago. A man whose name was lost to history once preached the first words about Jesus on this planet at this very spot. She felt a connection to past generations’ holiness. Old Israel had its two Temples, her people had this room in their very own promised land.

With the statue centered in her view, she prayed. “Oh, Lord Jesus, thank you for your salvation, thank you for your missionaries you gave our ancestors, thank you for your protection during the dark night of persecution, and thank you for your lifting of oppression.” She stirred in her seat and swallowed. “And, Lord, look out for us today. Protect those who have fled and,” she paused, “and protect my family so Jeriyn may one day lead your people here.”

Those words caused her to exhale deeply as she weighed the history behind her prayer. From Tanith-to-her mother and down the line, someone in her family had led the Christian Hoon community since the Proxima Centauri IV missionaries met their glorious but bloody martyrdoms. Many Hoons suffered similar fates for believing in something higher than the imperial court.

When Tanith was a child, she would ask her mother for stories about the beginning of the Hidden Time. She imagined tales of heroism, struggle, and survival; things to be proud of. Her mother’s narrative, though, was different. It was one of pain. The holy souls were terrified with some of them being martyred, while most of them instead gave in and placed their foot on images of Jesus. Whole villages were lost to either the blade, murderous prison camps, or acts of apostasy. A few laid low, gathering in secret to worship. They called themselves “Workers” to reflect their work of belief and to fool any potential persecutors. Later, some public apostates joined them. To avoid attention, they masked their practices and symbols. It was successful, almost too successful. The Workers’ population was always small, and cultural assimilation shrank it further.

It was her grandmother’s generation that saw the new laws that included religious freedom. Her grandma El told Tanith how the discovery of hidden Christians shocked both Hoon and other worlders when the imperial family adopted the constitution, but the curiosity soon faded. In the past, a missionary or two from another world would come to a city nearby, but the Workers and those Christians kept their distance. El went to their church once, but she would never talk about it. When young Tanith pushed the matter, her mother would silence her.

“Mother.” Jeriyn’s voice called Tanith’s mind back to the chapel. Dawn’s early light was coming in through the windows. “Did you finish prayers already?”

“No,” she responded, “not yet. Do you want to lead the closing prayer?” She waved to the empty chairs. “You are the second elder now. Soon you may be the first elder.”

Her daughter’s smile lit the room more than the dawn’s sun. Joy radiated Tanith’s soul, making the space feel warmer.

Sliding into her chair, Jeriyn made the sign of the cross and then squeezed her eyes shut. “Dear Lord, give mommy and me strength for today and all days. May we help everyone who passes by. Please give me a dog to play with. Oh,” she readjusted her back, “may we have the hope you want us to have these days, so we may not be afraid. Amen!”

Her eyes flew open, and she looked over at her mom.

“If a dog comes by today, could I please keep him?”

Tanith didn’t answer back. Instead, she smiled and rubbed her knuckles in Jeriyn’s hair. After a kiss on the forehead, she got up and headed over to the kitchen. She knew speed was essential. She opened the tin and poured out the oats onto the scale. It didn’t even reach 400 flin. She cursed under her breath. However, she pushed past the thought and poured most of the oats in one bowl and the remaining few in another.

“Come on, honey, breakfast is almost ready,” Tanith called out.

She poured hot water in each bowl, ensuring her vessel looked as full as her daughter’s.

Metallic jingle jangling announced Jeriyn’s return. Tanith turned around, seeing her daughter wearing a stainless steel cross with the word “PAX” written on the horizontal bar. Her left hand held out another cross. Mother and daughter exchange the cross for a bowl of oatmeal.

Jeriyn put her nose towards the bowl and took a big sniff. “Yum! God provides, doesn’t He, mommy? We just need faith!”

A forced smile donned Tanith’s face. She took her time eating her thin oatmeal, as her daughter would repeatedly peer out the kitchen window.

The room seemed to close in while the air became stale. The pressure pushed against Tanith’s body, making it difficult to breathe and stand up. Forced blinking built up some resistance within her, but not much. It was a titanic struggle to give the appearance of normality while Jeriyn finished eating.

“Finished!” the daughter exclaimed as she placed her bowl on the counter near the window. “I’m going to get the jugs ready.” With that, she ran out of the room. The sound of the old wooden door groaning announced her daughters’ exit.

In a flash, Tanith grabbed her daughter’s bowl and glanced at its contents. Several globs of oats sat in the now room temperature water. She plucked out the globs in rapid succession and then tipped the bowl to her lips, drinking the remaining contents in one gulp. Though it fed her, her mind translated the delicious food into a bitterness that echoed in her mouth, went down her throat, and twisted her stomach. Her actions felt like greed, not openness to God’s gifts. But it was no sin to prepare for the worst- to prepare for if God didn’t provide. That thought stung. Again, the room closed in on her. She fled outside.

For the next hour, all went well.

The sun was already boring down on Tanith before it reached its zenith. She could feel the tingling in her skin as it heated up. Her exposed arms hurt the most. Glancing over at Jeriyn, she saw her daughter’s eager smile and attentive eyes scan everyone who walked by. Her eyes would lock onto someone, she would take a half-step in their direction, and she would address them. Tanith managed a half-smile as she observed her daughter’s kindheartedness, though it ached her heart to have Jeriyn exposed to the horrors of war.

“Water, sir?” the daughter asked. When the man kept walking without acknowledging her, she shifted her gaze to a mother carrying two children. “Water, ma’am? It’s cool from our well.”

The woman’s facial features cracked through the dirt, soot, and caked on blood to reveal desperation. She blurted out something between a word and a guttural sound.

Jeriyn poured water into a cup, but before it was half full, the woman snatched it, tipped her head back, and gulped it down. After a refilling, the woman passed it to the children, who drank in turn. Then, without a word, she walked away.

Jeriyn called to the woman, “Ma’am, if you have any-.”

Tanith cut her off. “It’s alright, Jeriyn.”

Her daughter looked at her then down towards the ground. She nodded her head and went back to offering water to other wandering refugees.

Shifting her gaze forward, Tanith took in the sight of a two dozen or so shambling Hoon with torn, dirty, or burnt clothing. They moved one step at a time down the brown dirt road. Their glazed eyes peered ahead.

One set of eyes stopped on her. “Tanith?”

Tanith's eyes fell upon the man's threadbare uniform; the sight spurred her to run towards him, her jug and cup rattling in her hands.

“Wormann!” she cried out. “Wormann! Here drink!” She poured him water.

The military man took the cup and dumped it over his head. Little streams of mud flowed down his face. A long, groaning exhale shook his body. Then his eyes flew wide open.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“No, no, it’s okay,” she replied, refilling the cup. “Here, drink.”

This time, he sipped the well water. Once finished, he let out a long sigh. No words were exchanged between them as others kept walking by.

“It’s bad back there, Tanith, real bad.” He rubbed his arm against his nose. “We thought we could get away as they were disembarking, but they must have had some advanced teams because all along the way we were flanked. Our withdrawal became a retreat, and then we realized they were ahead of us at the crossroads.” His eyes look down. “It became a rout after that.”

Her lips quivered. “What about the city? Everyone was saying it was going to be turned into a fortress with-.”

Flat, unemotional words cut her off. “City’s gone, Tanith. Omze said they hit it at night. He also said he saw them burn the Imperial Family Shrine. Said they were laughing.” A swear word emerges, causing raw feelings to break through the once stoic military man’s facade. “Omze, Nikud, Tarla- they’re all gone.”

Those weren’t names to Tanith, those weren’t just people, those were Hoon children who she would watch when she was a teen. All of them were from regular Hoon families. None of them were ever anything but kind. She remembered when Omze first learned to walk, when Nikud cried in her chest as his mother underwent surgery, and more recently when sweet Tarla confessed he was scared to go to war. She told him that if he ever needed leave, he could stay with the Workers, and none of them would tell his parents. Tarla thanked Tanith and asked her to remember him in her prayers. Now they were dead.

It was too much. A single cry burst through her face. Her eyes said the rest.

Another passerby came up and asked for water. Tanith apologized for not offering it herself and then poured a fresh cup. During this interlude, she shifted her eyes to observe her daughter serving a group of soldiers, all of them covered with dirt and lacking shoes. One of them passed three silver-foiled packets. Tanith’s stomach growled at the sight, but she forced herself to look back toward the passerby.

After the new arrival walked off, Wormann returned his cup and nodded. “Do you know if, umm, my folks are home?”

A flash of a feigned smile emerged then retreated off Tanith’s face. “No, they headed off planet last winter. With the orbital raiding disrupting food distribution, they thought it would be best to farm themselves.”

Wormann’s shoulders slumped. “I was hoping I could see them, well, before- before I got captured. Maybe it’s best they don’t see me like this. Here,” he reached into his pocket, taking out a cloth bag. “I got some dried meats and fruits in there. Maybe it could be useful for your caring ministry or whatever you call it, or maybe you need it more than the others. I know I won’t- I heard they take everything off you when they take you prisoner.”

Arms extended, she accepted the bag, her thanks unsaid. Various ideas came to mind what to say, but none of them could encapsulate her appreciation of the gift and pain at everything Wormann shared.

His eyes locked onto hers. “I wish we had as much faith as your kind, Tanith.” His hand pressed against his forehead as he gave off a groan.

“Everyone’s gone but Jeriyn and me.”

Her voice was not just a statement but also a plea. A plea to Wormann that he could stay and rest, a plea to her community far away to return, and a plea to God for faith and understanding.

Rather than acknowledging the request, he patted her on the shoulder and walked on. Without looking back, he said, “Thank you for the water. Don’t tell mom you saw me like this.” With that, he joined the stream of refugees walking away from, and possibly to, the invaders.

Seeing him walk off caused tears to form. He was something that could have brought a drop of the past back to their lives. Someone they knew could have been nearby, providing normality, conversation, and even hope. But now, she felt more alone than she ever had. Those who she loved and knew had left. They were drifting off aimlessly, accepting the possibility of capture. Would the enemy lie and wait, snatching poor refugees on the road, she wondered, or would they come even for Jeriyn and her? Would anything be left of the Workers? What had happened to the others? Would her family be the last until they, too, marched into oblivion like the those in the Kingdom of Israel lost to Assyria?

The evening meal was quiet, except for the stray bird song and the flying lizards croaking. Clouds covered the sun, shielding the mother and daughter’s tanned skins from the worst of the rays. Between them they had two pieces of bread, several handfuls of nuts, and, most appeasing, a long ganja fruit full of moist, sweet mesocarp. A scattering of refugees formed a rough circle around mother and daughter. Everyone shared some of their food, but no one shared conversation. However, Tanith thought it wasn’t because the outsiders feared the two Workers, as the refugees didn’t try to stop or distance themselves when Tanith led her daughter in blessing the food. Instead, they all seemed too beaten down to share a conversation.

Jeriyn found a puppy, but the poor creature could only lie on her lap and breathe heavily. Towards the end of the day, she had found the poor creature wobbling as it plodded down the dirt road. It collapsed and whined when she reached down and pet it. Tanith thought the dog had fallen behind its owners, with the trip taking so much out of the canine that Jeriyn spent the last hour nursing it with cold water.

“Make sure you eat some food, my love,” Tanith said.

Her daughter made a grunting sound. Jeriyn’s eyes remained focused on the dog while her fingers kept rubbing its matted fur. A soft prayer for the dog’s health accompanied each slow pass of her hand.

Jeriyn’s care for the mutt had added another weight to Tanith’s heart. Her daughter had finally gotten her puppy, but the war affected it as much as anyone else. The experience had shown how holy a soul her daughter had, something every mother should be pleased with. However, Tanith put her head down and prayed to God not a praise but a question. “Why?”

A curse word erupted and flew across the air. “Dirty Christians!”

Tanith’s head shot up. There, in front of her, she saw a man standing with a bloody lip. He was not one of the refugees who sat down for a meal.

“Not praying for the imperial family!” the man yelled. “Dirty snakes! Your ancestors adopted the way of the enemy! We should have killed them all!”

Before she could respond, Jeriyn did. “We love you. We will pray for you.”

Now the man flew into a spitting rage. “Oh, go to the Inferno, you runt!”

Jeriyn jolted.

“They burned everything! You hear me! Everything! Factories, businesses, homes, temples, even churches! Not even your faith can protect you! They grabbed everyone who survived! Everything gone because of Christians like you.”

It was when he took a step towards Jeriyn that an old refugee eating her meal snapped. “You leave the little girl alone! Look at you, in your laborer’s outfit. That’s not a uniform. You could have fought in the war and defended us, but here you are now, yelling at a girl when the emperor ordered the military to lie down their arms. Shame on you.”

Everyone was still but the man. He looked about at the various people, his lips separated. No one said a thing. His breathing became more pronounced as he scanned about for a second time. Still, no one moved. Then, after gazing at Jeriyn, he ran down the road and away from the refugees.

A man in an ill-fitting and clean soldier’s uniform was the first to speak. “How do you know there was a stand down order?”

“I heard it on the audible that young woman was listening to when we crossed the river.”

A teenage boy wearing a muddy restaurant smock joined in the conversation. “I was listening to the command broadcasts all day until I got here and I heard nothing about a stand down. Last thing I heard was we were moving troops off the lunar belt so they could hit the enemy’s toe hold with everything we had.”

The refugees clucked about like chickens as Tanith watched Jeriyn lean over and put her lips against the little dog’s face. The puppy whined. Faster and faster the world began to spin, a nauseating vortex of sights and sounds, making her head swim. She fell face forward on the dirt road.

A hard thud was followed by Jeriyn’s cry of “Momma!” Her vision blurred, and her movements became jerky and uncoordinated, as if disconnected from her mind. Vile bile arose from her stomach through her throat and out of her mouth; she knew it was her dinner that spilled out of her.

Various points of pressures radiated over her body. They all worked together to move her view from the road to the sky. She could make out the refugees all around her. The restaurant boy cleaned her face, the military man cup the back of her head as he put it down on the road, and the old woman pressed some cloth against her forehead. Tanith could hear the old woman talking, but nothing made sense. Then, she watched the sky move as she was lifted off the ground.

They took her inside and placed her on the bed. As they busied about her, she tried calling for Jeriyn but it came out as a moan. The old woman closed the curtains of the one window, and the restaurant boy put his audible next to her on the bed. He then hit the command button and said, “soft music.” A faint aria with violins and chaniks filled the air. The music slowed her heartbeat. Muscles then relaxed as she could hear Jeriyn elsewhere talking about the statue of Jesus. With that, Tanith sighed and closed her eyes.

It was dark in her mental tomb as she laid in the nothingness of her own dormition. She reflected on the day, how for a few precious moments she was with her daughter in the paradise of their bed with not a care in the world. But since then, even during morning prayers, the world had been pushing in. Her family line had promised God to protect the community and pass down the faith to future generations. However, for the first time in her life, she could not deny the doubt. It had been gnawing at her with everyone abandoning the village and with Wormann’s wandering into captivity, but now she saw herself, her family, and the very existence of the Workers at risk like a candle’s lit wick in a hurricane. If the imperial family really had ordered the military to stand down, what was to stop the invader from coming and burning everything or taking them away in exile? Was the Workers’ Jerusalem going to fall?

She felt herself descending deeper and deeper into the blackness. No cry came forth from her lips, instead her mind was racked with the horror that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t like Daniel in the pit but instead like the last kings of Israel. Was she part of a failure that God hated so much he was going to destroy? What then about Jeriyn?

Her eyelids parted, revealing the darkness. Like before, her brain was sluggish, but the thoughts and fears from before made her alert quicker than normal. She was in her bed. No creatures stirred outside. It must be the middle of the night, she thought. The only sounds she could make out where Jeriyn next to her and- yes- a small animal- the puppy. Turning her head, she sensed the dog was on Jeriyn’s chest. In the darkness, for right now, Tanith thought, Jeriyn was safe, and that was enough for her as a mother to smile.

The metallic groan of the kitchen door hit her ears. Footsteps followed, muted at first in the kitchen but then shifting onto hard flooring with a sharper clack before stopping. Someone was home and in the chapel. Her mind raced. Could it be Abidin or another of the Workers? Oh! It could be Wormann. Maybe he changed his mind.

Someone had returned like the Prodigal Son and Tanith was going to welcome them back with all the love of Jesus she had in her. All doubts and pain left her as she slid off the bed and scurried out of the bedroom. Images of lost loved ones flashed in her head. No matter who it was, she would praise God. The chapel was just around the corner.

Her muscles froze mid stride.

There, floating in the chapel, were four faces illuminated via a pale blue light. Each one seemed to levitate, but she knew better. The light was the reflection of whatever powered the enemy’s exoskeletons. People called their soldiers “blues.” Once, Jeriyn used that term in her prayers for the enemy, but Tanith corrected her, telling her to refer to them as “those people.”

Here, though, there was no concern about ensuring Christian love for the enemy. Reality faced her. Each face staring at her was human like hers. Two eyes, one nose, a mouth. None of their faces was depicting any emotion, they just looked at her. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see a reverse image of her face in their blue light.

Her lips parted, but no words came out. She tried a second time, but that met the same result. She then realized she didn’t know what to say. Her body wanted to retreat in on itself, which caused her knees to tremble.

One of the blue faces broke into a mirthful expression. “Hey, chappie, take a look at her cross. Think we need to teach her some manners for stealing from our dead?”

The speaker and another of the blue faces cackled like jackals. The slight movement the laughing caused was enough for Tanith to detect that their exoskeletons added considerable weight to their frames. She felt small.

Because of her fear, she could only manage a whisper. “I didn’t steal it. It’s been in my family for hundreds of years.”

The four faces went silent, each one adopting a different facial expression. One of them walked up to her, allowing Tanith to see the enemy in full for the first time. His armor added at least 100 krim to his weight. And his hands! Covered in armor, they looked like they could crush her head with ease. The man’s right hand instead reached for the cross draped around her chest and lifted it to his face.

His long, drawn out grunt made all eyes, including Tanith’s rest on him. “You really one of those lost Christians? I thought you all joined one of the churches?”

She understood his words, but the questions made no sense. Lost? Workers joining churches? The Workers never were lost, they always lived in their home villages. Joining one of the churches? They were a church.

Her breathing sped up.

“Hey,” the man said while looking at her in the eyes, “how many of you are left?”

The question hit her harder than his augmented fist could. Left as if their time was up, as if the Workers’ time had come and gone. The very thought crushed her soul. Tears appeared and ran down her face.

“I lost them all,” her voice cracked as she spoke. Her eyes rolled so she stared at the ceiling. “Everyone of us is gone because I failed them. Oh, God, it’s over.”

She fell on her knees, her eyes cast down. She had been weighed on the Lord's scales and been found wanting. God was using the enemies before her to be his messenger. “Depart from me,” He must have said, and they would cast her into death. It was the end, and she had failed.

The armored hand grabbed her chin and lifted her view towards the blue face in front of her, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. “‘You’ lost them? You think you were their shepherd?”

It was the question to convict her. Her own faith test like the Christians of before. She could deny it, and go back into a new form of hiding, knowing she rejected God and His role for her. Maybe He would forgive her, but could she really be a shepherd for her flock then? No. She couldn’t live like that for Jeriyn. Best to face the final judgement, so she answered yes.

Behind the blue light, she could see the man’s eyes blink. Somehow, his expression seemed- different, as if he were reconsidering what the balance of God’s scales.

“Well,” he said, “if that’s the case, you better go and find your lost sheep and bring them home.”

She blinked at him.

He turned to the three others. “Come on, guys, this here is a religious site like the temples. No one wants a General Order Number One violation on their record. We can sleep under the stars tonight. The weather isn’t so bad.”

As the faces turned and walked away, she blurted out, “What?”

Three of the blue lights kept walking while the one who had addressed her stopped and turned his head. “‘If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray?’ Sounds like your ninety-nine have left. If God would do that for one, what would you do for ninety-nine?” With that, he walked out the door.

The outside world returned to silence while her soul erupted in revelation. She hadn’t witnessed the end of her people but a scattering after a crucifixion. Now, like the apostles of old, God had given her a witness on what to do.

She arose off the floor and strode back to the bedroom. Glancing down, she could make out the faintest of outlines of her daughter’s black form on the bed. After a gentle kissing of Jeriyn’s, she tipped-toed to the kitchen. The remaining food would have to be prepared. It would only get them so far on their journey, but like the apostles of old, they would rely on God to move strangers to kindness. The Jerusalem she had envisioned she would give to her daughter was gone. The empire had fallen. However, now was the time recall the others from their Babylonian exile. Now it was time to bring the ninety-nine lost sheep back and rebuild. God had given her ancestors who laid the foundation, and now hope was returning yet again. All the lost could be returned and pray in a New Jerusalem. Surely, she would come quickly for them.

“Amen,” Tanith said.

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The Midnight Society: Alien Awakening by Orion Blake - Free Book

In a sleepy Montana town, five twenty-something friends—Tyler, Maya, Olivia, Alex, and Connor—have chased paranormal thrills since childhood as The Midnight Society. But one fateful night changes everything.

Under a canopy of strange lights, they stumble upon a mysterious alien craft. Abducted and experimented on by the tyrannical alien overlord Sultah, the friends find themselves imbued with extraordinary powers, revealing untapped potential and igniting a thrilling transformation.

As friendships are tested and loyalties waver under Sultah's ruthless manipulation, the stakes soar to galactic heights. United, they must confront not just a dark force threatening their town, but a sinister plot that could enslave the entire human race.

Will they rise as heroes, or will Sultah's cruel machinations divide and destroy them?

Join The Midnight Society and their faithful canine companion, Whisp, in "Alien Awakening," a breathtaking sci-fi adventure brimming with intrigue, betrayal and pulse-pounding action. Every twist will leave you craving more.

The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance. Are you ready to join the resistance?

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR BECKONS!

The Midnight Society: Guardians of the Cosmic Rift by Orion Blake - Book for Sale for 99 cents or Free on Kindle Unlimited

In this thrilling second installment of the Midnight Society series, the five childhood friends and their loyal dog, Whisp - must defend Earth from an unimaginable alien threat after gaining extraordinary abilities aboard a UFO. As gateways open between worlds, a rebel warns of an imminent invasion by the merciless Karnathians, launching the friends on a perilous mission that will determine the fate of worlds.

Deep within a mysterious network of caves, they uncover a terrifying secret: enslaved humans have unwittingly built a doomsday machine that threatens Earth's very molecular structure. Forging an uneasy alliance with an enigmatic alien general, the Midnight Society must destroy the device before it's too late. But when a monstrous overlord arrives to claim their home, they face a climactic confrontation where failure is not an option, and victory may demand the ultimate sacrifice.

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Until Next Time

Next time will feature a surprise! I have several irons in the fire so we’ll see what comes to the top.

As always, please leave a comment with any questions, reviews, thoughts, whatever about Fallen, Risen, Dormition, An Odd Pilgrimage, The Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency or whatever else I have discussed. I promise to reply!