The Temple in the Sky - Fernando Herrera Jr (children's ebooks online .TXT) 📗

a familiar hum. Just as he expected: the square outline was indeed another entry. It opened, flapping upward and outward; again, he was suctioned out of it and flung high up in the air; hence, falling face down to the ground—hard.

7
The Gateway Sanctuary

He was outside of the craft by this time and could distinguish that it was around dusk, but he was no longer on the desert flats. It was freezing cold; thus, he had evidently been transported somewhere far from the desert. Tiny snow flakes drizzled softly against the flat, white, icy, stone ground he laid on. A tremendous body of gray clouds encompassed the skies and lighting stroke boisterously in the midst of an imminent, monstrous storm. He had never experienced snow before and therefore presumed he was amidst the clouds (which was in fact true) somewhere near heaven (which was entirely out of true). He stood up and tried to maintain his balance—his feet gliding backwards on the ice. It seemed as though everywhere he ventured, there was some type of overwhelming suction taking control of him. Once again an overwhelmingly powerful vacuum sucked on him and he was lifted twenty feet off the ground. He felt a spine-chilling delusion of his skeleton being egested from his body. Upside-down, in a three second lapse, as he descended, he witnessed the following: “Some few yards away, stars were visible: hundreds of stars as bright as they would shine during the night; in fact, he did see night: he saw the outline of a large horizontal rectangle which displayed the image of the night sky; in front of it, a huge silver structure shaped like a disk blasted blue flames from its center rim. The disk then disappeared into the image of the sky and the rectangle closed, shrinking in size at a supersonic rate, until it disappeared; immediately releasing a tremendous flash of piercing light.”

He fell on the ground once again and slid backwards for a few feet on the icy ground nearly falling off the edge because he was barely able to hang on a rift of the massive ground’s blocks that composed it. As he hung from it, he was able to turn his head, only to realize he was indeed high up somewhere in the middle of the sky. With all of his strength, he pulled himself back onto the ground where he proceeded to lay down and recover his poise as soft snow fell upon him. At that point, he felt vanquished, but his priority was rest, everything including the coldness ceased to exist.
Once repossessing his audacious spirit, he regained his posture and logically attempted to make sense of it all; but he couldn’t really, for his prior nine-hour long experience was excessively illogical to begin with: it was not an adventure that he could easily explain by keeping within the borders of common sense. Being of those archaic times, to a young Nazkinian as himself, the matter of magic might have been the most appropriate course to describe the occurrences of the mysterious incidents. Nevertheless, magic was not feasible enough for the likes of his clever mind. As nimble as he was, he figured that the most reasonable rendition to his fateful episode might have been the actuality that he had been unintentionally transported into the marvelous realms of heaven. But then where are all the magnificent lords? And why is it so utterly blustery and tenebrous around here? This wasn’t at all the way he had imagined the grandiose heavens to be. In fact, besides the fact that it was surely below freezing, the unpleasant environment of his whereabouts resembled more to his idea of The Land of Death—the infamous Dark-World-of-Supay. As he stood in the intense rain, the monstrous body of gray clouds whirled around him blinding him form what lay beyond the realms of the storm—the goose bumps never fading from his tawny flesh; actually, the iciness in the atmosphere caused them to perch even stiffer. He felt weary and ill and his breath was heavy yet his lungs felt peculiarly empty. Never before had the effortless act of breathing proven to be such a difficult task. Wherever he was, he knew it wasn’t a kind place for the likes of a mortal.
It was morning by now but the panorama was livid gray from the monstrous blanket of clouds that besieged him. However, while turning around to explore the site, the thick gray fog from the clouds began to clear. He walked a few yards ahead while the rain settled into a more tranquil state. He took a few more steps, and just as he concentrated on his field of vision (like the exposure of a vast panorama at the end of a foggy precipice), a high wall was unveiled. “The Lord’s temple!” he gasped. It was as high as the tallest trees of the forests, plainly built, with white stones that seemed to have been polished flat. It wasn’t adorned or painted and there wasn’t a visible entrance from that angle, nor were there any windows. He walked to it and felt the smoothness of the wall. It reminded him of the Cahuachi temples his friend Khuno had described to him and Micay. It was a puzzling structure indeed. He glanced to both sides of the wall and noticed that to his left was a dead end that led to the edge. To his right, however, he distinguished a narrow ledge, just about wide enough for him to clinch to the wall and shrivel his way through. Not having any better ideas, he shriveled his agile body for many feet, subsequently reaching a large half-circle platform. Relieved, he sighed and rested his hands on his knees gasping for the little oxygen that was available. Because the air was so utterly thin and cold, even the tiniest of efforts resulted in the exhaustion of his bristle body. By this time, the signs of hypothermia had begun to set in. he was shivering and felt inebriated with a lingering pain which throbbed inside his chest; which in turn was accompanied by intense throat soreness. Once refueled of enough stamina to continue in his curious adventure, still in an inclined position, he slowly turned his head to the right and discovered an entrance about ten yards away. It was a simple, dark chamber without a front wall that was as tall as the wall before and roughly about ten yards wide. He walked the few yards that separated him from it and entered an alcove. It was too dark to see even passed a few feet of the entrance. He proceeded anyway until he hit a wall which he examined thoroughly in search of openings, but there were no apparent openings. Frustrated from the baffling circumstances, he wandered about the area. Absurd, he thought, what is the point of all this building? It’s nonsense! There is no point to it. “Lord, if you’re here, please do, give me some sort of sign, for I don’t know what else to do!” he cried. After which he calmed down to wait for an answer, but there was never such reply. Again, he browsed the sight and wondered, I know! Maybe I’m at the back of this thing. Maybe if I go around it, I may find the entrance! He did find another narrow ledge at the other end of the half-circle, and so once more he shriveled his way through trailing it to the end, but it was another dead-end that directed to the nothingness of the sky. Helpless, the boy spent hours of precious daylight thoroughly examining the limited areas he had access to until the inevitable darkness of the winter night fell in. His fierce shivering had suddenly gone away, but he stumbled a great deal due to a very poor stability, muscle coordination and sluggish thinking which fogged his brain. His cerebrum was undergoing the first stages of amnesia. The boy was running out of time. In a matter of minutes his body and mind would give out and instead give in to stupor and eventually certain death.
Back at the half-circle platform, which he was convinced had to be the site for an entrance, he decided to take one more look inside the solitary chamber of dark creepiness. Once again, Apaec found himself feeling the smooth surface of the plain white wall which seemed to serve no purpose once or ever. This time, however, he did notice something that he had overlooked the previously: a simple marking above the wall, barley noticeable in such darkness. It was situated precisely on the center of the upper rim: an overhang the stuck out for about an inch or two. Above it, a narrow aperture wide enough to fit a finger through--or his at least. It was too high for him to distinguish the figure which it formed, but he could tell it was some kind of emblem similar to those that adorned the king’s temples. Usually, such symbols had religious significance or were symbolic depictions of the gods. Most tended to mark locations, or were intended as cipher guide indicators to secret chambers. He wondered if that could be the case there as well. If only it wasn’t so bloody high! he thought. Alas to the boy, the fact of the matter was that there was absolutely nothing of utility in those premises that the boy could handle as leverage. But once again, his witty brains proved dear: the ostensibly unsolvable predicament became an entirely decipherable enigma because he realized then that with the mere agent which was his slender body, he carried the utmost essential of tools for such a hitch: precious agility. With the last bits of energy he possessed, he walked over to the right wall of the small chamber and knelt down in the starting position (as if to commence a marathon). He sprinted with all his might to the opposite wall and jumped four feet before hitting it, rebounding on it with his feet, springing backwards up to the ceiling as he gripped the narrow overhang and slipping his skinny fingers in the fissure. Hanging from it facing towards the outside of the chamber, he waggled himself to the center. The marking was only inches away from his face and he could clearly see the figure which it formed: a tiny symbolic depiction of a gate. It was enclosed in a box which he could tell was some kind of push button that barely protruded--the key, perhaps. With his fingers barley dangling off the edge, he managed to pull himself up to press it with his forehead. Immediately after Apaec’s forehead made contact with it, it automatically pushed itself inwards making a loud trembling noise (like that of rolling boulders). He then released the ledge and dropped to the ground with ease, landing in a bowing position. The wall in front of him instantly began to open slowly and outwardly from its center to its limits. He had finally opened the door he knew had existed all along. It opened ten feet wide and inside--more darkness.

8
The Cerulean Chamber and the Hydrogen Portal (being edited)

Apaec entered the next chamber that was noticeably warmer and pitch-black dark. Another chamber...? He thought, annoyed. The walls behind him shut hard and he was trapped inside a ten-by-five yard cubicle. He burrowed himself in one of the corners and rubbed his body as intent to recover as much warmth as possible. In shivers, he felt a little better, and his clothes were able to dry somewhat by then, so he stood up to continue. Taking his first step inside however, his foot fell three inches downward which caused him to trip into a shallow level of water. He pondered of how the water could’ve gotten in that room, maybe there was a