I am Rome (Complete)

Chapter Forty-Nine

For the next few months, Joe and his father were inseparable. Whenever they finished their various duties on the farm, they would work on the pyramid until sun down. Joe's mother would often have to bring them both a warm plate of food since they would be so focused and would forget to eat.

One day, late in the afternoon, some clouds moved in so Joe and his father decided to call it a day before it started to rain. On their way back to the house, Joe saw a yellow Jeep pull up the road.

"Who's that?" his father asked.

"It's my friend, April."

"Oh, the sheriff's daughter. You two have been spending a lot of time together."

"Yeah, you want to meet her?"

"Sure, I'll say hello."

After introducing April to her father, they discussed what they should do.

"Well, since it's about to rain, I was thinking we could go hang out in my bunker."

"You have a bunker?"

"Yeah, many years ago I convinced my father to build it in case of an apocalypse scenario."

"What do you mean, like some zombie or alien invasion?"

"Sure, any of those are good reasons to have a bunker."

"Great, where is it?"

"It's just on the Northeast side of the property. It's a bit far so we'll have to drive."

Climbing into the Jeep, Joe couldn't help but smile. April took notice and asked him about it. "What's gotten into you?"

"I want it to be a surprise," he said.

They drove into the forest and Joe instructed April where to park. Layers upon layers of pine needles and leaves crunched beneath each step as their feet sunk into the soft forest floor.

They approached the camouflaged hatch and Joe announced their arrival.

"What do you mean, 'we're here'? I don't see anything."

"Exactly. You can't have a secret bunker unless it's completely hidden from the outside world. I trust you won't tell anyone where my secret bunker is located?"

"You have my word," April said with a flirtatious smile. "I feel so honoured that you're even showing me."

Joe squatted down and slid aside a large metal door to reveal a secret entrance. After opening the hatch, Joe said, "After you."

"You want me to crawl down there?" April asked.

"It's perfectly safe, I promise," Joe said.

April grabbed a hold of Joe's hand and lowered herself into the hatch opening. She found the step ladder with her feet and crawled into the darkness.

"Keep going, you're doing great," Joe said as he followed closely behind her. "When you reach the bottom, wait for me and I will turn on the lights."

"Joe, it's really scary down here. I can't see a thing."

"There's nothing to be afraid of, I promise. Just keep going, you're almost at the bottom."

Joe reached the bottom shortly after April and pawed at the wall in the darkness until he found the switch. When the lights came on, he gave April a tour.

"This place is really cool, Joe," she said, looking around, admiring how cozy it felt.

"Thanks, but you haven't seen anything yet."

Joe led April through a new extension of the bunker that did not exist months prior. They walked through a tunnel until they emerged in a room shaped like a pyramid.

"Whoa, what is this place?" she asked in amazement.

"It's a thought-enhancing pyramid."

"A what?"

"Here, I want you to try it out. Stand in the centre of the room and think about any of your past experiences."

April looked at Joe like he was crazy, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. She walked to the centre of the pyramid and instinctually looked up. It was about thirty feet from where she was standing to the tip of the pyramid. Joe and his father cleverly made the tip out of a thick Plexiglas and constructed the pyramid so that the tip breached the surface to allow the natural sunlight to shine in. As it was a sunny day with no overcast, a thin beam of light shot down into the dark pyramid and warmed April's face.

"I want you to relax and focus, okay?" Joe said.

"Okay."

Suddenly, images flooded through April's head with such intense clarity she became scared and her concentration broke.

"What the heck?" she said, stepping back.

"Cool, right?"

"What just happened?"

"It amplified your thoughts. It's okay. Go on, try it again."

April took a few steps forward so that she was back in the centre of the pyramid and under the warm beam of light. She inhaled and then let out a deep breath. She then closed her eyes and began to relax. As she did, memories from her past resurfaced with remarkable lucidity. Again, she broke her concentration after a few moments.

"Joe, this is incredible. What is this thing? How did you make it?"

"I could tell you, but I'd rather show you."

Joe walked to the centre of the room and stood next to April.

"I want to show you something that may be hard to understand at first, but it will all make sense, okay?"

"Okay."

"Give me your hand and close your eyes," Joe said extending his hand toward April.

April grabbed a hold of Joe's hands and closed her eyes. Just like before, images from the past entered her mind, but this time the memories were not hers. Like watching a movie in fast forward, the scenes skipped through their heads at a rapid pace. It showed Joe interacting with April at the restaurant, then riding his bike on the highway, to marching through the cornfields to discover Rome. Over the course of several enthralling minutes, April experienced the last year of Joe's life. In vivid detail, she witnessed the most unbelievable events unfold, was privy to private conversations, and intense raw emotions. Near the end was a vision of Joe clutching his father, crying in agony, then cut to Sean standing over Joe, threatening him with a handgun, and finally Joe getting shot by the sniper.

Joe let go of April's hand and waited for her to speak first. With tears in her eyes, she turned and looked at him.

"What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I think it was a memory, perhaps from a past life or an alternate reality. I'm still trying to make sense of it. I've gone over the events, trying to uncover any clues, but it's taking a long time. It may just be a dream, I'm still not sure. I was unconscious for a week and this is what my imagination concocted."

"But how do you explain building the pyramid. You couldn't possibly have known about that unless you really did encounter a group of extraterrestrials."

"It would take me at least a year to go through and analyse every detail. What I've shown you is a sped up version of some of the more significant events. The more I use it, the better I get. It takes a tremendous amount of sustained concentration, but I've been slowly working my way through the timeline. As I go through it, I pull forward other memories that are related to these events. So then I know what to focus on next. It's been piecemeal up until this point."

"I'll admit, I thought you were a little nuts when you started talking about aliens, but now I'm not so sure. If this was in my head, I would believe it was real too. "

"Yeah, I intend to get to the bottom of this."

Still overwhelmed with what she saw, April was attracted to Joe more than ever. Not waiting for him to make the first move, she pulled him in for a kiss.