A Novel by Brad R. Struck 
                                  (copyright Nov 5/2010)   

     
   Authors Note: 
 
So.... Here it is folks, the first chapter of my book...
I hope it will intrigue you enough spark a response. Perhaps a glowing email of encouragement and/or an expression of your desire to read the rest of my book. This will go a long way in convincing an editor or book agent that this book should be in a bookstore near you.

             Thank you and enjoy!
              Brad R. Struck

Part One: Revelations
    Chapter One:  Eye of the beholder 

                           "It is one of the commonest of mistakes
                              to consider that the limit of our power of 
                              perception is also the limit of all there is
                              to perceive” 

                                       ~ C.W. Leadbeater 


        The first thing I noticed when I hopped on the subway at 86th street that morning, was the guy wearing ski goggles. They were the type that adhered to the face, with a black rubber strap that fit around the head to hold them in place. They had a yellow tint and foam around the lenses so that they would prevent snow from getting in your eyes, not that there was a lot of snow flying about on the subway at this time of year, Or any time of the year for that matter. Odd choice of eye-wear indeed, but when you have lived in New York for as long as I have:  well...  such strangeness is not without exception.

  The snow goggles were the first thing you noticed. Small dark brown eyes, peering out through the yellow tint. The next thing you noticed was that he was wearing a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase, looking well kept, and on his way to work.

  If you weren’t very observant you would have missed the clown shoes he had tucked under the seat in front of him. 

   As I passed I met his eyes and in that instant I could tell that he was thinking the exact same thing as I was, ie. "poor crazy bastard."
   The only difference was that he was thinking, poor crazy bastard left home without his ski goggles, while I was thinking, poor crazy bastard left home wearing a pair of ski goggles.
 
  He smiled at me and said.
“Your eyes are the windows to your soul man, gotta protect your soul.”

  I smiled back, muttered a thank you, and continued to find myself a seat amongst the other early morning commuters. 

 Perception is a funny thing, it really is what makes up each individual reality, and as I was about to find out, on this sunny New York morning...... reality is, much stranger than perception.
 
  My name is Simon Caldwell by the way, and I work for a New York tabloid magazine by the name of Alternatimes. As you may have guessed we cover alternative news stories about alien abductions, strange creatures, conspiracies and all sorts of lesser reported news stories and on this-- what would turn out to be, not so typical Wednesday morning--- I was on my way to work, and running late as usual.

  I breezed by Jenny at reception mumbling an excuse about a subway delay. She just smiled and said “good late morning to you Simon, a package arrived for you. I put it on your desk”.
“Thanks Jin Jin” I said, and headed over to my cubicle.

  There it sat on my desk. A package wrapped in brown parcel paper, with a return address of Universitaria Ave, Huaraz, Peru.

  I should probably fill you in a bit about myself first before I reveal the contents of said package. That is to say, that I should probably place things into some sort of context, before I reveal the life changing, and reality altering revelation that lay within the package upon my desk.
 
  My name is Simon, as I have previously mentioned. I am five foot eight, brown hair and of European descent. Just about the most average looking guy you could ever meet. My English grandfather married a German lady of great beauty and moderate wealth and that would be my dear old Grand Mama, Adalinda. They both immigrated to Arizona in their youthful days of plenty after the great depression.
 
   Let’s see... I am thirty five now... the year is currently 2010 so... 2010 minus 17 years is a graduation date of around 1993? 

  I have begun to noticed that time perception is variable upon how old you are. In my twenties a couple of years were a lifetime.
 
  I remember at 19, thinking of the older guys we would hang with sometimes, thinking how cool they were. They had their own apartments, cars, money etc. Now at thirty five I feel more and more the weight of my responsibilities like deadlines, car payments and rent.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love life and have a great job. Who do you know that gets to write stories of far out crazy stuff on a daily basis? I do!
 
  I just find that I sometimes wonder if this crazy place we call earth, with all its wonders and mysteries, is really all that mysterious.
 
  You would think that, with the job I have, that I would have an open mind to the possibility of there being supernatural and unexplainable things in this realm of existence, but the more I review the testimonials of the people and review the evidence sent to me on a daily basis , the more skeptical I have become. I have begun to think that I am riding along on a subway train called life, and I am out here all alone and I forgot my damn ski goggles at home, not to mention my clown shoes.
 
  Little did I realize, I was about to begin to see things in a much different light, as I was about to slip into a pair of shoes that were definitely not my own, or to be more precise, a pair of sandals that belonged to a king.
 
  I have been working at Alternatimes for eight years now. Like I said it’s the greatest job in the world. Mostly I surf the Internet looking for odd and strange news bites that I will then follow up on in the form of research.
 
  I make phone calls to the people involved, contact authorities for verification of certain details; I even get to fly to exotic places around the world.  My last trip was 7 months ago to jolly old England. To be more precise, Amesbury in Wiltshire, to substantiate the finding of an eight foot tall skeleton that was being excavated about thirty feet from the base of Stone Henge. Great place for a pint, I can tell you that much.
 
  I had a great time raoming the English country side engaging the locals in tales of werewovles and even visited Scotland in hopes of geting a glipse of the Loch Ness Monster.
   I didn't meet up with anyone with the unfortunate curse of transforming into Cannis Lupis or see any giant prehistoric leviathons but did get some great snap shots of some really tall, long dead English dude, with an oddly shaped skull.
 
 Once I finish my research I then write up a hopefully mind blowing article and tack on a catchy, witty headline to go with it. If memory serves me, my headline for the Stone Henge skeleton was..... “Giant alien skeleton warns of impending earth invasion." I then send it off to my editor John Heath, to be reviewed, before he hopefully submits it to go to print. John is my boss as well as one of my better friends. We have been good close friends ever since we met in the Roswell, New Mexico - Yet another story- and I began working for his tabloid magazine Alternatimes.

  I have only had him reject one of my stories. I did a piece on "vampire nuns" in Madrid Spain. The barefoot nuns of Madrid --- a well respected order--- were apparently being accused of some very interesting and new methods of converting nonbelievers. I thought it was a great story, but John was convinced that there would be a large backlash if the story were published. John is a religious man and I kind of suspected that he was more afraid of an almighty backlash.
 
  Lately the world seems to be in a paranormal funk. This week there have been no new ghosts in suburbia terrorizing any bored housewives,  no new alien abductions of red neck hunters, no new crop circles explaining the next evolution of our DNA, and all the Chupacabras seem to have taken the week off.

  I usually spend most of the morning researching Internet news sites, searching for that one gem that will grab the reader’s attention. This morning was no exception. 

  I receive a great deal of mail from readers throughout the week and usually find time near the end of each day to review any email’s and open any snail mail, but something about this particular package stuck in my subconscious and at about 11:30 that morning, my curiosity having gotten the better of me, I picked the package up off my desk for a closer look.
The package was a standard mailer, perhaps 9 by 5 inches.
 
  As I mentioned before there was a return address of some town in Peru that I was unfamiliar with. A lot of postage was affixed to it and it appeared to have traveled a long way by first class mail.
 
  Without further hesitation or much thought I tore open the top of the package and dumped the contents onto my desk.
 
  A circular object slid onto the desk accompanied by a neatly folded piece of paper. At first glance the object appeared to be a compass of some sort. It was circular and looked as though a person could easily fit it into the palm of one hand. It had a golden hue and a glass
faceplate which covered some strange looking symbols that were inscribed around several small dials.
 
  There was a small hinge and latch mechanism attached to the glass face plate which would allow someone to open the glass cover to gain access to the dials within. In almost every aspect it resembled a pocket watch. The odd symbols and dials were the exception as well as a soft humming noise emanating from within.
 
  I left the strange looking pocket watch on my desk and unfolded the accompanying piece of paper.
 
It read as follows...

  I know that this may seem strange to you Simon, but it is of the utmost importance that you take the Transitron that I have sent you and adjust the dial to the following symbols ********* and then press the small green button on the right side of the device. I can not tell you who I am at this point for fear that those in control may try to stop me from helping you. I can only tell you that it is important that you begin to realize that you are more than what you seem.
  I will contact you in a couple of days when I am in a more secure location. 

  A strange letter to say the least. My first thought was that more than one person had decided that it was time for a drastic change in the way they looked upon the world, strapped on a pair of their finest crazy goggles, and set off for the post office, package in hand.

  I was sure that whoever had sent me this odd looking trinket believed it was haunted or contained some sort of revelation that they felt that maybe only I could understand. I don’t know what to say other than perhaps I was also wearing alternative eye wear that morning, rose colored glasses perhaps? Or maybe it’s just in my nature to be curious. I find it next to impossible to shy away from a mystery.
 
So..... Without much hesitation I popped the class cover open and carefully adjusted the dials to the prescribed position.
 
  I must admit to a moment of doubt before pressing the button. There was a fraction of a second before I pushed the small button, where in some tiny far off corner of my mind a few synapses fired sparking a warning from my inner subconscious. This could be some sort of a trap. Perhaps the vampire nuns of Madrid, or an irate alien, or maybe even a slightly off kilter ski goggle wearing maniac, had sent me a poisoned or exploding pocket watch. What better way to exact revenge for a story that I had written in the past.

There was no flash.
There was no sound.
There was no sensation of movement.
Just nothingness.

  There was a momentary pause in my existence. It was as if someone had hit the stop button on the space time continuum.

  This experience was much more deeply empty than the time I blacked out after I slipped on a hidden patch of ice and whacked my head whilst in pursuit of the Yeti in Nepal. That little misstep cost me seven minutes of consciousness and earned me seven stitches in the back of my head.
 
I cannot say that I was frightened during this experience, because, to state the obvious, when one ceases to exist, one ceases to feel fear as well.

 A rising sense of panic most definitely did begin to build though, as slowly my senses began to return.

  The essence of my being, along with my cognitive abilities, began to return very slowly.
My eyes began to collect light once again and there was a strange buzzing in my ears. My senses had been severely diminished to the point of nonexistence, but With each passing second I could make out vague shapes, and as the buzzing in my ears subsided. I was able to make out the occasional word being spoken as well. 

  This complete and utter loss of sensory control I was feeling was extremely upsetting, and as I started to regain my faculties I began to realize that I was unable to move.
 
  My panic level began to rise from yellow to orange and then orange to red as I slowly began to remember what had rendered me immobile.
 
  Vague memories of vampire nuns and a stop watch of doom coupled with my apparent paralysis was sending my mind into fight or flight mode, but I was in no way capable of fisticuffs, let alone flying.

  With the dawning realization of my much compromised position, I resolved myself to practice patience and meditation until I was better able to assess my current state of mind and body. This was a little something that the Buddhist monks taught me during my trip to Nepal on my aforementioned Yeti adventure. I simply chose to not let emotion and fear overcome me, as it served me no purpose at this time.
 
  As my senses began to clear, I began to realize that I was lying on my back and was staring towards the ceiling. Fuzzy brown rectangular shapes began to focus and I could now make out that they were the stones which made up the ceiling that I was currently lying under.
I resolved myself to maintain my current attitude of wait and see, or more precisely wait and hear.

  Hushed voices echoed quietly off the stone walls. There were two distinct voices and they were whispering something about the lizard peoples of the sky leaving soon to be with the stars from whence they came.
 
  I continued to gather my wits and listen to their strange language that seemed to flow in a musical yet extremely foreign way. This was a language that I seemed to have no problem in comprehending.
 
  The conversation was bizarre to say the least. There were strange references to some pyramid and the eye of god atop, and talk of giants and lizard men fighting for some sort of sky chariot. All of this made very little sense to me but I continued to wait and regain my senses while the two talked.
 
  After some time their banter trailed off and there was quiet within the stone chamber within which the three of us dwelt. I took this opportunity to take a furtive look about the place in which I had been so unceremoniously deposited.
 
  I was lying on a small cot made of wood and some type of animal hide. The walls were much the same as the ceiling and there was an entrance that seemed to be blocked by a heavy wooden door. The only other opening was a hole in the ceiling which allowed a modicum of light to enter and illuminate the room. Two other cots were in the room upon which lay the two men who were previously conversing with one another.
 
 I could feel my strength had returned and so did find the courage within, to try and raise myself to a sitting position. After little effort I was able to gain an upward sitting position and looked towards the young twentyish looking fellow who sat on the cot across from me. He appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent with pleasant looking features. He met my gaze with a big smile and exclaimed “Gaslan!’ with some exuberance.
  “We weren’t sure if you would ever wake again”. “How do you feel? That Anunnaki bastard must have sent you flying at least five lengths.”

I just stared at him and muttered.
   “where am I?”
  “Well Gaslan; Mayses and I are currently imprisoned here in this godforsaken alligator pit along with you awaiting certain death.”
“What!” I exclaimed.
“What in gods name are you talking about?” I half shouted.
“Lower your voice fool. Do you intend to expedite our deaths with you wailing ignorance?” Mayses hissed sharply.
“Sorry” I whispered. “Could you please tell me where we are? and why I am here?”
“Wow!” Mayses muttered. “Zep surely did confound you with his lightning staff didn’t he?”
“Myself Mayses, and our mutual friend Tantist here, are your trusted servants and sworn protectors my lord. We are currently languishing in the Nephlim prism at the base of your great pyramid.”
  Tantist spoke up saying.
 “Surely you remember my lord your great and holy standing as high priest king of the second moons return.”
 
  I took a quick glance at my hands. These were definitely not the hands that I had woken up with this morning or every other morning of my life for that matter. I am of European descent, part English and part German and these hands were a light coffee color. They matched the skin color of my two companions.

  My head was swimming and my thoughts were reeling. What was happening to me? What had, happened to me? I decided to play an angle of amnesia as this was not so far from the truth. I really did not know where or who I was anymore.

 "I am afraid that I have lost all memories of who I am and of what land this is and for that matter, I do not recognize the both of you” I said with a somewhat shaking and uncertain voice. 

 Tantist threw back his head and laughed. “Oh wise anointed one. I do not believe that such a ploy will convince the gods that though are ignorant of your wrong doing.”

 “What, wrong doing, are you talking about Tantist?” I asked with genuine curiosity.
 “You attempted to kill one of the descended ones, one of the sky gods my lord. The gods have made it known that they are leaving soon. Zep, the god of gold had taken your wife against her wishes to be his concubine amongst the stars. You did grab him about the throat and demanded her release. You fought well my lord but the battle was brief as we are no match for the magic of the gods. Zep struck you with his lightning staff and sent you headlong into the quarry. We did try our best to defend you my lord but alas we now await our most certain doom.”
 
“I see” I said, though half of what he said made very little sense to me.
  I talked for some time with my two companions and was able to learn a great deal about my current situation. They told me that I was a great land owner and master of many thousands of faithful servants and slaves. They told me that the gods had arrived here about twenty years ago, and commanded me to order my peoples to do their bidding. Mostly they commanded construction of mines and pyramids. They explained that the pyramids were a means of communication for the gods.

  After a time our conversation slowed and I began to feel overwhelmed and tired.
I explained to my companions that I intended to rest and closed my eyes to try and gather my thoughts and process all that had occurred. As I lay there I began to remember bits and pieces of who I was in this life. It was as though I was in the initial stages of developing a split personality. I was beginning to recall first and foremost the things that were most dear to me in this place and time. Images of faces and snip-its of past conversations floated far out of reach, as of yet, still obscure, in the recess’s of my mind.
 
  As I have mentioned before, I am an investigative journalist for a paranormal magazine so I was familiar with a few of the things that my two cell mates had discussed. Firstly they had repeatedly referred to our captors a reptilian like. Secondly they had called them the Annunaki.
  It did not take me long to figure that this was not some elaborate hoax.
I had somehow been transported through space and time, and now inhabited a different body then the one I was accustomed to waking up in.

  I also strongly suspected that I was no longer in New York or even Kansas for that matter. I quickly glanced down at my feet in hopes that I was wearing a pair of ruby slippers and a few quick heal clicks would send me back home. No such luck, just a pair of ordinary looking darkly tanned toes poking out of a pair of leather sandals. For the time being I would have to try and figure out a different way of escaping this bizarre reality.
 
  Some of what my fellow captives had said, triggered memories of a story I had looked into a few years back. I looked into a time in history when an ancient culture lived in the Mesopotamian region of the Middle East some 3500 years before the birth of Christ. These peoples were known as Sumerian’s. This culture was one of the first in human history to use a form of writing called Cuneiform. These writings were symbols imprinted into clay using simple tools made of reeds, know as a stylus. There are very few people in the twenty first century that can make any sense of these writings, as it is a long dead language. If memory serves me correctly, the Sumerian’s wrote in this pictograph style for thousands of years, so this was little help in narrowing down, when I was.
 
  I recall reading that a certain archaeologist named Zechariah Sitchin had done extensive research into deciphering the writings and found that the ancient Sumerian’s referred to a race of lizard like men that descended from the sky to enslave the human race. These aliens genetically altered humanity to better serve their needs. At least this was his interpretation.
There are others that find these writings to be to obscure to say the least, and lacking anyway of verifying their true meaning, these writings are then open to great interpretation.
Mr. Sitchin’s interpretation was about to gain a great deal of credibility as the wooden door to the cell began to swing open.

  There stood in the doorway a creature that stood at least eight feet tall.
Its skin was green and scale like in appearance and its eyes were yellow. The pupils of these eyes were not round but were slits, like that of a cat.
 
  There was no other way to describe the creature but reptilian. The only thing missing was the tail.
 
  The creature’s body was humanoid in appearance though, two legs, two arms, two hands, two feet etc. This lizard man wore, what appeared to be some sort of scale armor, and was carrying a large staff that crackled with electricity near the top. At the top of the staff was a forked set of sharpened prongs that sparked and spit electrical arcs from one point to the other.
 
 “Ahh… my dear king. I see that you have recovered well enough to attend your execution. It is too bad that you will not be around to bear witness to the destruction of your kingdom, and indeed this entire pitiful planet.”

“In two months time, upon our departure, we shall melt the polar ice caps of this disgusting little planet."
 
“You will once again be reduced to the sad little monkeys that we first found here when we arrived.”

  This creature then appeared to squeal with some sort of laughter or delight and continued to upgrade his first assessment of global catastrophe. 

 “I would imagine that not even the lowest of creatures will escape the coming deluge.”
Mayses cursed under his breath and whispered to me not to worry, that he had finished construction of the ark and was almost done collecting the animals, as I requested.
He was immediately rewarded with a jolt from the staff for speaking to me.

“All right you pathetic scaleless worms” The reptile hissed.
“It’s time to remove your heads. You need to be made an example of.”
“We don’t wish our plans to be compromised by some sort of foolish attempt at an uprising.”
 
  We were led down a stone passage and into the light of the desert sun.
I have never been to Egypt and therefore have never had an opportunity to view the Egyptian wonders on any first hand level.
 
  The size and beauty of these pyramids were breathtaking. I looked up and saw the great pyramids of Giza before me. They shone with great brilliance in the afternoon sun. They were much more beautiful than any pictures I had ever seen. They were smooth and polished. The casing stones had not been removed as they are in my own time, and this gave them a magical appearance.

  In my line of work I have done a great deal of research on the pyramids. I have done stories on King tut, mummies rising from the dead and antigravity stories regarding the construction of the pyramids and it has always been a dream of mine to visit them in person. I keep badgering John to send me off to Cairo to do some more in depth research but nothing has come up that would justify the expense.
 
  And yet here I was at last. Staring up at one of the world’s greatest wonders and recalling many of the facts I had remembered from my research over the years.

For most people that have never seen the pyramids in person, but have only seen them in pictures or on T.V. They are missing out on what makes theses things so impressive.

It is their sheer size. The great pyramid, Khufu, or Cheops stands a remarkable 40 stories high.

  I recalled reading that the largest pyramid is so precisely constructed that until recently, current technology could not replicate the accuracy of the three pyramids placement until the advent of laser measuring equipment. It contains something close to two and a half million limestone blocks, each weighing between two and thirty tons. It is also aligned almost perfectly with true north. You could use the blocks to build a wall three meters high and one meter thick around the entire country of France, or you could construct thirty empire state buildings from the blocks used to construct the pyramids, moreover some of those blocks can not be lifted by the cranes we have today.

  Many other amazing facts and pieces of historical trivia flashed through my mind concerning these wonderful, timeless stone monoliths, but all of them vacated my mind as I gazed upwards and saw the crowning glories of these ancient wonders. The capstones seemed to be made of what appeared to be glass or crystal. From the capstone there emanated a red light that shone straight up into the bright blue sky.
 
  I had very little time to stand and stare in awe, as I was rudely shoved forward onto a stone platform. The platform was ornately covered in red linens and banners that fluttered in the warm breeze.

Standing On the platform was a delegation of lizard men and a single human female that was bound about her wrists. She was kneeling submissively at the feet of her master and appeared to be in shock. She raised her head to look at me as I passed by, and in the moment that our eyes locked upon one another, I at once knew that this was the most divine of all gods creations. For the second time in one day, time seemed to suspend itself, as I was overcome with a sense of joy and sadness by her beautiful, yet bruised face. My heart expanded to fill the heavens and I cried out in anguish as I struggled to go to her. I was grabbed by the back of my neck and forced to kneel in front of a crowd of thousands. I was zapped repeatedly as I struggled to resist the binding of my hands. One of the lizard creatures stepped forward carrying a very large and ornate looking axe.

Without much ceremony and only a simple speech to the crowd about the mighty king being a traitor of the gods, my head was placed on a block of wood. I was now staring directly into a woven reed basket that was soon to be the final resting place of my current head."

“Please god, whatever this is, for whatever reason you have seen fit to bring me here, please don't let my life end like this.” I prayed.

My prayers went unheeded as my body became beheaded. The last thing I remember was a whistling sound, one that could be likened to that of a very sharp object slicing through the air. There was also a sharp and very brief pain at the back of my neck.

And then.....
Nothing....
And then...

I was myself again.
Good old Simon Caldwell.

I was sitting at my desk, as if nothing had happened. I rubbed the back of my neck subconsciously, perhaps reassuring myself that my head was still attached to it.

I glanced at my watch. Not a single second had passed since I had pressed the small green button on the side of what was now, in my judgment, a terrifying portal of some monstrous design. Yet there it lay, so unassuming and innocent in appearance, resting now amongst the paperwork scattered on top of my desk.

Confused and frightened, I maneuvered this so called transitron device back into the perceived safety of the envelope from whence it came. Using careful pencil manipulation, and a used Starbucks napkin, I was able to avoid any further physical contact with this stunning mystery, and proceeded to place it gingerly into my backpack before making a quick exit from my office.

                                                 -------------------------------