Uncharted Knowledge

The book was lying on a bench in a park, when an old man saw it. He moved towards it to see what it was but he felt something on his shoulders as he came close. It was his soul leaving his body. He was about to die, but a strange young man grabbed him and pulled him back. The old man stared at him and then went on his way. It seemed like this was normal for that old man. The young man moved towards the bench and saw the book. He became fascinated by the design of that book. It was a half meter long book with wooden vibrant red covers and a strange dark figure on the front. It had no title.

 The young man grabbed the book from that wooden bench. He opened the book and saw the silver text on a shiny golden paper. The text was written in a very unusual font and was barely readable by him.

 "What the hell is that color choice?" said the young man. 

 "Do you wish to see?" said a deep mysterious voice.

 "huh—-Who is it?" he asked in wonder.

 "It doesn't matter."

 "Wha—Where are you?"

 "I'm at a place beyond your very existence."

 The man threw the book back on the bench and started to run but the voice followed. He ran to his car and started driving. It was a long way home. He could still hear that voice in his head. It was trying to tell something to him. When he entered the house, his wife saw him. He was breathing heavily.

 "Hey, is everything alrigh?" asked his wife worriedly.

 "Uhh—"

 He saw the same book on the table in the living room. It was open. It seemed like his wife was reading it.

 "Where did you get that book?" he asked with fear.

 "I bought it from the book store."

 "Get rid of it!" he shouted.

 "What—Why?"

 "Why would you bring that book here!" he questioned her.

 "Why are you yelling? You know I like reading and it was the only book at the store that I hadn't read."

 It was winter and the fireplace was lit. He grabbed the book and threw it in the fire.

 "Why would you do that? I paid for that!"

 He went into the bedroom without answering her and locked the door. He laid down, he couldn't stop thinking about that book. He wondered about what was written in the book. He was deep in his thoughts, when he felt something inside his head. He couldn't identify what it was, but he could feel it going through his mind. Suddenly he was in a strange place in his mind. He saw a spiral of green light circling around an irregular shaped dark object. There was complete darkness around it but somehow, he could distinguish between the object and the background.

 "Isn't it beautiful?" the deep voice asked.

 "Where am I?" he shouted.

 "You are on the right path," the voice answered.

 Suddenly he woke up. His wife was knocking on the bedroom door.

 "Hey, there is someone at the door who wants to meet you," she told him.

 "Who is it?"

 "I don't know," she replied.

 He reached the door and opened it. There was a short man sitting on one of the chairs in the garden. It was night time. The sky looked so beautiful that night. It was full of stars. The stars seemed to get brighter by the second. There was a full moon that night. He approached him. The short man was holding the book, which he threw in the fire.

 "Who are you? How did you get that book?" he asked.

 "Hello, my name is James Maverick and you are?"

 "Uhh—I'm Adam Whitlock." 

 "Nice to meet you Adam."

 James handed him the book.

 "Why can't I get rid of it?" Adam said in a frustrated tone.

 Adam decided to read it. He sat down on the couch in the living room and started reading it. The knowledge it contained was thumping beneath his fingertips. His wife was shocked that he was reading that book because he was frightened by it before and he threw it in the fire.

"Looks like you bought another copy of the same book you burnt with your own hands." his wife said angrily.

"Not now, Laura!" he shouted quickly as his finger swept through the intricate patterns on the sparkling pages.

 Laura wanted to say something but seeing him so devoted in the process she said nothing. She waited for him in the bedroom for a while but he didn't come, eventually she fell asleep.

 He read the book from start to finish and after that it was like he was a different person. He talked about science a lot, which was surprising for his friends and family because he had never been interested in science. He was an English teacher. His students were also intrigued by his new ideologies about reality.

 The book contained many mysteries, but the true darkness was still hidden deep inside, unseen to the mortal sight. As he read the book again and again, his intellectual capability increased until he reached the limit of human intellect. Now his human body was the only limiting factor. He spent his life savings on equipment to build a lab in his basement. His wife was not happy and they often fought because they had saved that money for the better education of their thirteen years old daughter. Laura warned him about the potential dangers of the experiments he was about to conduct on himself, but he didn't listen.

 He tried to enhance his intelligence through a machine that he built in his basement. This was a desperate attempt at increasing human intellect, which was tried by many, who had failed miserably. He had no idea if his attempt was going to be any different. He spent two years building that machine. His daughter showed great interest in his experiments and the book. 

During these two years, the bond between Adam and his daughter grew more fierce than ever, forging an unbreakable connection. The knowledge that the book contained was so unique that drove the mortal mind of Adam crazy. The only thing keeping him sane was this bond with his daughter. He didn't want his daughter to feel the same way about reality so he forbade her from reading that book but they still talked about it. Building strange contraptions and gadgets for his daughter was a sport for Adam.

A day arrived when he had built the machine required for his greatest experiment. He was in a terrific mood as he prepared the equipment to execute his plan. His daughter came into the basement.

 "Mom said dinner is ready, dad," she said.

 "Aurora, come here kiddo! I've done it!" he shouted.

 "What?" Aurora asked with great interest.

 "This day will be remembered in history!"

He stepped into a glass capsule. He pressed a button and the capsule started to get filled with different gaseous smokes and a bundle of wires attached to his head. Laura also came down, she tried to stop him because she knew what he was planning but she never thought he would actually do something. He did not stop. He couldn't. It was too late. His family cried as they saw his body deform. After a few seconds, there was an explosion. Nobody could see anything because of the blinding light emitted from the origin of the explosion. When all the energy dissipated, they saw something that made them tremble into tears and screams. The capsule had blown up. There were a lot of blood splashes around it with no sign of Adam. Laura and Aurora screamed even louder as a still warm beating heart fell at their feet.

 The excessive screaming and the explosion alerted the neighborhood and people called emergency services. In a few minutes police, firefighters and paramedics arrived at the location. Laura and Aurora were escorted to the hospital because they were also injured by the glass shards. They were also in shock and traumatized by that horrible incident. For Aurora, the last memory of her father was him begging her to look away whilst he died the most horrific way imaginable.

 After getting out of the hospital, they were brought to the police station for questioning about the incident. Police found many unusual things from the wreckage of their house which were the contraptions Adam had built. Laura told them everything, but they didn't believe her and laughed that a "magic" book gave Adam strange Knowledge and caused a devastating explosion. During the questioning, suddenly the captain of the police department came and asked Laura to come outside. Laura stood up and followed the captain outside. A well suited young man was standing beside a luxury car and Aurora was already sitting in that car.

"What's going on?" Laura asked.

The young man moved forward.

"Hello, Miss Whitlock, my name is Matt. How're you doing today?"

"Uh—fine. What is happening? What's my daughter doing in that car?"

"Don't worry, mam. She's fine. I'm from a secret government agency called STAG, and we just want to ask you a few questions," he told her.

"STAG?" 

"Yes, the Supernatural Threat Assessment Grade," he replied.

"Supernatural? There was nothing supernatural about my husband's death," said Laura.

"That's not true, I'm afraid and you know it. Now, if you'd like to accompany us in the car, we have a few questions."

"Us?"

"Yes, me and my partner, Paige."

Paige is a tall woman standing beside the car. There is something off about her because Laura didn't seem to notice her until she was mentioned by Matt. She's looking right in Laura's eyes. Laura feels weird intimidation from her.

"Why is she staring at me like that?" asked Laura.

"Uh—don't let her frighten you, she won't bite."

Laura agreed to go with them because it was the only way out of the police questioning. Laura understood that since the captain of the police station himself escorted her to them, they must be working for some higher authority. She went into the car and sat beside Aurora. Matt started driving. Paige was in the front passenger seat. There was complete silence in the car. Laura tried to talk to Aurora but Matt interrupted and politely asked them to keep quiet.

Dust swirled around the tires as they finally reached their destination after a seemingly endless drive. Laura emerged from the car, squinting at the scene before her. A vast, undulating desert stretched out in all directions, the stark landscape broken only by a solitary, ramshackle house in the distance. Matt led the way, guiding Laura towards the small structure. Paige remained in the car with Aurora, the silence punctuated only by the drone of insects and the distant sigh of wind. Inside the house, a simple yet purposeful arrangement greeted them. Eight chairs neatly encircled a substantial table, casting long shadows in the fading light. Matt pulled out the central chair from one side, gesturing for Laura to sit. He took his place at the opposite end, their gazes meeting across the expanse of worn wood.

"So, where is the book?" asked Matt.

"What book?" Laura nervously asked. 

"The one you mentioned at the police station," Matt replied.

"I don't know," she said.

"Your husband knew, and if my information is correct you are the one who first bought it."

"Yes—but he burned the one I got, and never told me where he put the other one."

"There is no other one. It was only one book." said Matt in a little offensive tone.

"Look, I don't—"

"We asked your daughter but she didn't say a word, literally. Do you people even know what it is, and what it's worth?" Matt interrupted.

"No! We don't know, and why would you question a child, who has just lost her father, like that?" Laura almost yelled.

Matt leaned a little forward and put his hands on the table.

"Look, we could care less about your husband's death. That book is far more important, and I need you to tell me where it is," Matt rudely said.

"What's so important about this book anyway?" Laura angrily asked.

"This book has been lurking in history for well over a hundred thousand years. Nobody knows where it came from or where it is at any given moment. It's like the book chooses who can have it. We have been searching for it for a decade but all in vain. But it approached your husband on its own, who wasn't even aware of its existence."

"What makes you think, it will let YOU have itself, if you do find it?" asked Laura.

"Our objective is to find it and secure it by any means necessary," Matt answered.

"Why?"

"Because everywhere it went, devastation followed, sometimes physical, sometimes mental, sometimes both." 

"Why not destroy it then?" asked Laura.

"Better men than I have tried. But the consequence was always the same, more destruction." said Matt.

After a moment of silence, Laura told Matt that the last time she saw that book was three weeks ago and it was in their garage. The STAG investigation department had already searched every inch of the ruins of Laura's house but found nothing.

Matt is good at telling if someone is speaking the truth, and he knows that Laura is telling the truth. He told Laura that she and Aurora will have to leave town and they can't tell a soul about that book. After that, Matt and Paige dropped Laura and Aurora at the hotel where they were temporarily staying for Adam's funeral.

 During the explosion most of Adam's body evaporated due to the heat, only some of his bones and somehow his heart remained somewhat intact. His bones were put in the coffin and buried while his heart was enclosed in a vacuum sealed glass dome which was kept by his family to remember him. "An Outlandish choice," many said.

 Laura delivered a speech and expressed her love for her husband, while Aurora didn't say a single word even when someone directly spoke to her.

 After the funeral, they started packing because they were moving to a new place. Aurora placed the heart dome on an easily visible shelf in their new home, but later it was moved to a concealed location because it often creeped out the guests. People started thinking that they perform some sort of devilish rituals on it. Some also thought that Adam's death was some kind of satanic sacrifice. Aurora's classmates at the new school also made fun of her due to this, some did not even like her presence. As a few years passed, she became an introvert. She rarely talked to anyone including her mother and when she did talk, she would ask only one question to her mother

 "Where is the book?"

 And the answer was always the same.

 "I don't know."

 She did not believe Laura. She became more and more obsessed with the book that killed her father. She thought that book could bring her father back, because she had seen her father do great things with the knowledge it contained. She did not believe that it was a satanic book but something else, far more powerful.

One day she decided to visit the wreckage of their old house which was still inaccessible because after the explosion, the existence of a strange energy was discovered by STAG. It wasn't radiation or any known perilous phenomenon, it was something out of ordinary and nobody could explain it. So, as STAG hid every evidence of this book's existence from history, they hid it by occupying the area around the house in the name of the government, and constructing a military base but in reality it was a STAG HQ.

She snuck into the base easily because a part of the wall around it was still under construction, and Aurora had a device that could make her invisible temporarily. It was the only gadget, built by her father, she managed to hide from STAG. The ruins of her house were in a quarantine zone. She entered it. It was night time so there weren't many STAG guards around except a few here and there.

She took her time recalling the old days when she stumbled upon the family photos, still hanging on the walls. She remembered that one time when her parents were arguing about something. She was four years old, and didn't know what was happening. So, she started drawing them. After finishing the drawing, she showed it to her, still in conflict, parents. It wasn't any better than two stick figures, one with a bald head and the other with a long yellow thing on the head which was her mother's blonde hair. Adam and Laura started to laugh and forgot about what they were arguing about. It was the first time she had drawn anything. They framed it and hung it on the right side of the big family portrait which was in the living room.

 The drawing had survived, and she was looking right at it, wistfully recollecting how her father would always take a moment staring at it whenever he passed by, and how her mother would tell her friends that her daughter's first drawing saved their marriage, which was an exaggeration but still a good memory.

 She went into the basement. It was completely destroyed and the debris from above had nearly filled the entire basement, but there was still some space there. She stood there, watching the strange energy glowing around her. Suddenly, a voice like whispers in her mind confronted her.

 "You shouldn't be here."

 Aurora spun around, her heart hampering through her ribs.

 "Who are you!" Aurora asked in a faltering voice.

 "Why are you here?" the voice countered.

 "I'm here for the book. It contains the knowledge that can bring back my father, I hope!"

 "Adam? —Such a disappointment he was, just like the ones before him. I hope you will be different."

 "Huh—it's you, of course. It was you lurking in the shadows, always manipulating him with your cryptic whispers. Why did you kill him? He did more than you asked him to do!" Aurora almost yelled. 

 "Kill him? No, Aurora, I merely showed him the tapestry of time, woven with light and darkness and gave him a choice. But he chose darkness. I expect more from you, but not yet."

 Aurora stared into the emptiness, the voice was gone. The silence pressed down on her, heavier than the ruins themselves. Shadows danced around her, mocking her with secrets just out of reach. A symbol glowed faintly on the wall, depicting a swirling vortex of light and dark. Questions swirled in her mind, unanswered and chilling. She bolted from the basement, adrenaline pumping as she navigated the maze of the wreckage, calling out the voice. But the room only offered an echoing silence. She was overwhelmed and started weeping. Knowing that her father cannot be revived, devastated her. She was not ready to accept it. She did not know what to do. From the pedestal of imagined triumph, she looked down at the wreckage of her ambition. The landscape stretched barren and unforgiving, a stark contrast to the vibrant oasis she had envisioned.

Aurora decided to go home and forget about everything. Sadness clung to her as a damp shroud, but beneath it, anger emerged, a restless beast waiting to get out. 

"Where were you? It's been three days!" her mother asked furiously.

 she cried with a crippled voice as tears fell down her cheeks.

"What happened?" Laura asked worriedly.

She ran to her room without answering and locked the door. Laura thought that she was upset because of some conflict with a friend so she decided to give her some space. The next morning, Aurora was questioned by Laura about last night's incident. She resisted but eventually told her everything. Laura became furious that she disobeyed her and visited the ruins of their old house. She wanted to punish her but before even she could say anything, Aurora broke down into tears and threw herself in her mother's arms.