Genre: Sci-fi, Thriller
Publication date: 20th July 2023
Publisher: Northodox Press
Zara Rose, a World War II naval historian, investigates a mysterious German U-Boat, discovered in the North Sea and carrying a deadly secret–a Nazi super weapon able to split time and space, creating a labyrinth of multiple realities.
From Chapter Six
Glancing around, Zara realised she stood in the middle of a concrete tunnel some fifty to sixty feet high. Its dark walls were almost invisible behind the lines of arm-thick cables, wires, and pipes. The thudding noise of some heavy machinery, the clang of tools, metal on metal, the high-pitched buzzing of high-voltage electricity running through the cables.
What was this place? An underground factory? A dry dock? She noticed a narrow miniature railway track, leading deeper into the tunnel’s throat, used by miners to transport coal and other minerals.
She was walking along the track when a shadow materialised from the darkness ahead of her. The light blinked, crackling and ready to extinguish. A cold draft of air ran along the tunnel, fetching the smell of strong chemicals, forcing Zara to cough. The light subsided, and for a few seconds, she couldn’t see a thing.
With a bright flash, a male figure morphed in front of her. Dressed in greasy overalls and a high-visibility jacket, the man looked painfully familiar.
‘Father?!’ Zara screamed, recognising his deep, dark eyes and neatly trimmed beard in the dimly lit space.
He looked some twenty, twenty-five years younger than she remembered him, but the similarity was unmistakable.
The man dropped the wrench he held in his hand and ran.
Zara screamed again, following him into the depth of the tunnel. ‘Dad? Dad! Stop! Please… Where are you going? Why are you running? Please, wait.’ She screamed. Tears ran down her cheeks, stinging her eyes.
The tunnel seemed like it had no end. The humming and other colliding sounds made her almost deaf. She tripped a couple of times but kept running. The quicker she ran, the further the figure moved away from her.
The air became unbearably hot. It sounded as if some gigantic beast inhaled and exhaled heavily.
The figure had disappeared behind the next turn, and Zara found herself in front of a crossroad with a wide square pillar of concrete in its centre. Wrapped in thick cables and wires, the pillar glowed with an electrical current passing through it.
Where had he gone? And what was she supposed to do now? Zara panicked, noticing another shadow form the silhouette of a man in a black SS tunic with an officer’s cap.
He appeared from nowhere, materialising from the darkness of the tunnel. She tried to distinguish his features, but it was too dark. She stared at him unblinking, but his features seemed ever-shifting. Was he young or old? Large or slim? She couldn’t say. Just a ghostly spirit in an abandoned industrial purgatory.
‘Who are you?’ She finally asked, wiping her tears, surprised how loud her voice sounded, reverberating all across the tunnel.
The shadow grinned. His dazzling, disturbing white smile was so out of place with the grey-brown surrounding. His black cap sat low on his head, his eyes undiscernible.
‘Der Meister.’ He grinned even wider.
With a metallic clang, a sliding door opened in the centre of the pillar. Der Meister made an inviting gesture.
‘What’s there?’ Zara frowned. ‘Behind this door?’
‘Schmerz und Wiedergeburt.’
‘Pain and rebirth?’ Zara mumbled.
The man just kept on grinning, gesturing to the door.
What if her Dad was there? Zara took a step closer but saw only pitch-black oblivion behind.
Der Meister’s smile never rested. His face warping into a motionless, featureless mask.
Zara took a step inside, an unknown force pulling her further in. The metal door slammed shut behind her. A minute of complete darkness followed by another. Only the familiar monotonous humming of a six-cylinder diesel engine surrounded her. The thought came from nowhere.
The white light flashed again, and an immense hall with a vaulted ceiling revealed itself to her. She twisted around, taking in the vista. Human-size glass pods stretched along the walls, spanning from floor to ceiling as far as she could see. A system of wires, cables, and metal pipes gurgled and hissed.
Zara moved closer to the nearest pod. A disembodied scream rippled through her like a shockwave. Through the thick glass, she could see a creature: half-human, half-machine. Its pale grey naked body looked fossilised. The spine protruded through its paper-like skin so much that Zara could distinguish every single vertebra and joint of cartilage.
Unable to perceive whether the creature was a male or a female, nor did its fetus-like position in the pod reveal any clues to Zara. Long, thick needles protruded out of its bald head, connected to pipes in its nose. A snout-like maw grafted on into a pipe. Or was the creature wearing some kind of mask? Despite its closed eyes, the scene left no doubt the creature was alive. Deformed and deteriorated, it looked like a surreal, psychotic, and nightmarish H. R. Giger painting.
She moved from one pod to another in silent horror. The sound of the engines resonated louder and louder.
She swallowed a surge of nausea. Were they charging the engine or did the engine keep them alive?
Some twenty paces in front of her, she noticed a concrete pad in the centre of the walkway. A black amorphous sack hung from the ceiling above it. She could have sworn it wasn’t there when she entered the hall. Coming closer, the sack revealed itself to be covered in pulsating veins and yellowish slime, beating like a phantom organ.
The engines stopped abruptly and the sack burst. With a loud wet splash and a slap of disgorged flesh, the naked body of a man hit the concrete pad. His fetal form was nubile yet athletic, covered in a placental slime. Its skin vibrated a halogen-white glow, highlighting his platinum-blond hair.
Zara couldn’t help but compare this creature to an angel descending into this biomechanical hell.
With a supersonic bang, the hall submerged into darkness.
Intrigued and want to know more?
Purchase your copy:
Northodox Press
https://www.northodox.co.uk/product-page/dive-beyond-eternity-ebook
https://www.northodox.co.uk/product-page/dive-beyond-eternity-paperback
Amazon
Waterstones:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/dive-beyond-eternity/valeriya-salt/9781915179210
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