Water Fountain

Chapter 24 - Close to Hell

Some days have nothing to offer. Some days lead to nothing but stress, anxiety, and fear. Some days you live afraid that you will be caught for your crimes. To know that you are the imposter; in other words a fraud, liar, cheater, deceiver.

Most people will experience this kind of day at least once in their life. But some will experience this day not just once. Not just thrice. No, everyday for the rest of their god forsaken life. One of those people would be Jake Clark, the brother of Thomas Clark, and the man who helped the Novus Ordo Seclorum plan the insidious April 4th Attacks that ended with his brother's assassination.

Jake Clark lived in fear that he was going to be exposed. Former Vice Mayor Evan Groverfield was on the brink of discovering the truth of his past. Not just that, if Thomas Clark's diary was properly translated, then Jake's involvement in the NOS would be revealed for the entire Patriots' Club to see. The jokester facade that he used to deflect suspicion could only work for so long. Something needed to be done. The Patriots' Council needed to be destroyed.

On Saturday May 14th, after a meeting with the Patriots' Council in the morning, Jake Clark made his way to the headquarters of the NOS, called the Heptaicosagon. After a couple weeks of waiting, he was finally able to get an audience with the Novus Ordo Seclorum's ruling council: Mr. Dominus and his students.

At 1 PM, Jake, wearing his bright neon vest and shorts, entered the hidden entrance of a secret tunnel. The dank air embraced him, carrying the scent of damp earth. With each step, his boots crunched against the coarse gravel underfoot, resonating in the silence. As he ventured deeper, a dim glow illuminated the passage, casting eerie shadows on the moss-covered walls. Suddenly, the tunnel opened up to reveal a breathtaking sight—an expansive chamber adorned with gleaming crystals. Jake marveled at the intricate architecture that surrounded him, its twenty-seven walls reflecting an ethereal light, as if plucked from a fantastical realm.

Jake then opened the door and entered the darkly lit room of the ruling council of the Novus Ordo Seclorum. He had only been in this secretive room a few other times, which was during the planning of his brother's murder. While Jake had barely been in the room, his brother Thomas had been there hundreds, if not thousands of times, in the thirty some years Thomas was a student of Dominus. Thomas had told Jake a lot about the room; its history and what it meant for the Clark family.

Usually in the past, the students sat on a long table, with Dominus sitting at the head of the table. But now, the table was broken and still hadn't been cleaned up. Instead, the students of Dominus sat on their own large twenty feet tall chair. Mr. Dominus sat in the middle of his three students on a thirty feet tall chair. As NOS tradition, all of them wore a mask and robe. Aaliyah Marie DuPont wore the mask of the peacock. Harry Roots wore the mask of the shark. VB wore the mask of the pig. Mr. Dominus wore the mask of the whale.

Jake sighed. He hated the masks. If he was honest with himself, he would realize that he hated the Novus Ordo Seclorum too. But even so, his hatred of the NOS was completely outweighed by his hatred of the Patriots' Council.

"Jake Clark," the man in the whale mask, Mr. Dominus spoke. "You requested an audience. So please, entertain us."

"The Patriots' Council has reformed," Jake began pacing. "They have found my brother's diary. If they are able to translate it, they will find out my identity. Not only that, they will have enough evidence to go to the government to shut down the Novus Ordo Seclorum. We are winning, but we can easily be stopped. So that is why I am proposing a solution."

"What is the solution?" Mr. Dominus in his whale mask asked in a muffled voice.

"Please," Jake sighed. "Can you all take off your masks?"