Time Traveler HOVA Meets the Vampire Nicholai Cage: Tides of War

Time Traveler HOVA: Tides of War - V

This is where I walk, this is how I talk

Ain't no one else can capture this like me

When I put the pencil to paper

I catch fire and things you just can't see

I had blacked out.  It had grown noticeably warmer.  It was still dark: I was in the same room.  The screen was taken off of my head and Cage was gone were the only changes I could see within that contoured highlights of the darkness.

I knew I had passed out: because as soon as I came to, the gash in the side of my thigh woke up with me.  I let out a long uncontrolled moan.  It echoed around the chamber.  I clenched my fists to give brief moments of relief, pinching my skin.  I wanted my clothes off.  The leather jacket felt electric.  [It was only later did I realize that I had an infection.]  It was for the best that I couldn't get at the wound, I wanted to take my fingers and push them in to scratch at the pain.  The only thing that brought some release was deep, thoughtful breathing.

In that moment, apart from my leg uncontrollably shivering, I had a moment of lucid thought.  I felt behind me and the chains were still released.

Freedom is word that is overused

And not a god-damn soul owes anyone

More than they owe me, cause I give you

Thoughts you lining the record store for

Now, most [men] would just get up and get gone.  Now, that ain't me.  I must measure the portions out.  See, this may be a trap.  I can't trust ancient Czage like I trust the Cage I know from the 90s.  He released me, that's true - but this whole thing could be a game.  And, going through it in my head more than a few times, the only satisfaction they may get out of me is how the HOVA works.  Think of all the fun Usan would do if he were a time-traveling vampire?

Fuck!  I said to myself.  I'll have to release myself, patch up the wounds, try Czage one more time, get the fob back and not allow any of the vampires know what I am doing.  There was only one direction to proceed.  I took a breath.  There was no rush.

...

I thought of Khalesvita.  He was a Buddhist ascetic that I rode a caravan with once.  He taught me dukkha - suffering and anxiety.  I guess it was one of Buddha's Four Noble Truths.

Don't think I don't know, don't think I can't see

Who freedom is for, and it's not for me

I'm a slave to the game, and the game is a slave

To the powers that be all around me, huh

"Shaun, all life is suffering and death."  He put his hand over mine, I think to understand that he was being honest, since he only spoke little English, and I spoke nearly little Tibetan.  "The truth of knowledge beings there.  This is pain, this is life.  Where there is none, there is falsehood, there is lack of truth."  His eyes were piercing, like he could see into me -  I ain't never seen that kind of shit before.  But it wasn't like it was voodoo, it was honesty.  Shit, it exists.

He showed me how to breathe.  He taught me how to take in a breath, fill my lungs, watch my posture.  Allow the energies of the universe run through that point under my navel.  If one could master this, he told me, they can master their world.

The winters to the north of Burma were extreme, and the cradle of the Himalayas were to our right as we headed North-West and on a downscale.  The traditional weaved clothing kept us warm enough.  We would eat soup for most of the trip.  I had smuggled some artifacts out of the country as a favor for some other favor - it was a never-ending cycle.

Khalesvita would later die at the hands of Imperialists.  I took his lifeless body and brought it back to his brothers, where we performed a sky burial (I let you look that up) at his request.

You think you know what I know, see what I see

Saying that these are philosophies

But I'll say what I say, and speak what I know

It'll invite others to decipher the flow

...

I took in another breath.  I knew my energy.  I had only enough to find a way to some clean linen and some hot water to dress my thigh.  If I could find a bed and some food, I could get some rest.  All of the other distresses ebbed away.  My body couldn't take any more and I could feel it.

I removed the chains from the hook in the wall, and, with what little energy I had left, wound them around my arms.  I did the same for my legs.  I shook where I stood, and leaned against the wall again - fighting the urge to scratch at my thigh.  I hated to admit to myself that it already started to smell, this shit is serious.

I opened the door to the chamber and Czage stood across from me with blood dripping the entire length of his body.