Jason Teufel

Chapter IV: A Symphony of Frost and Flames

I’ve gone from fire, to ice, to dark places that I shudder to think of. I can’t help but feel that it is all connected somehow. It feels so real when I’m there but then so distant when I wake up… like a fleeting memory.

(Jason Teufel’s personal log while being held at the Phoenix Memorial Children’s Psychiatric Ward)

Death. That’s what it felt like. Jason was standing in what seemed to be the coldest place on Earth: a land with no sun, blanketed in thick clouds and swirling ice. His entire body was numb, despite the numerous layers of thick snow clothes covering every inch of his skin. His hands were shaking uncontrollably as the piercing wind cut through his jacket like an icy dagger sending chills running up and down his body.

Something was here in this frozen wasteland, another piece of the map perhaps? Whatever it was, Jason was close. He trudged slowly through the snow, keeping his back to the wind as he moved, till finally his foot stepped on thin ice and he nearly fell through, just barely catching himself and toppling back into the snow-covered ground.

Jason inched forward on his knees, probing the ground with his hands as carefully as he could, till he found where the ice began. Removing one of his gloves, Jason pushed his bare hand out along the ice. He tapped three times along its surface and then waited. In seconds, a small red glowing pentagram began to pulse on the surface of the ice. Jason tapped each corner of the pentagram’s star and in the center the image a small serpent appeared, to which he then extended his index finger so that it sat perfectly within the snake’s open mouth. A familiar stab of pain, just like what had occurred back in the cave, followed after exactly six seconds.

The symbol on the ice vanished and the ground started to shake. The blinding bitterness of the blizzard instantly ceased, as if somebody had just flipped a switch and turned it off. Now that he could see clearly, Jason saw a large frozen lake stretched out before him with a small snow-covered island in the center. The ground continued to tremble till a narrow stone bridge began to rise from beneath the ice and link the space between the island and the shore.

When the ground had stopped shaking, Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out a small egg. He whispered something to it in a raspy language that sounded like nothing more than a jumble of distorted grunts, before allowing it to slide from his hand and into the water. Confused by his own actions, Jason once more felt like he was watching a movie of himself in which he had no control over his own actions.

He walked quickly across the bridge to the island, where a flight of spiral stairs led into the depths of the earth. Descending the staircase seemed to take hours and Jason couldn’t help but wonder just how deep he had gone. There was no natural light for him to see by, but luckily a series of bright torches illuminated the way as Jason reached the bottom and crossed into a small room with a set of heavy wooden doors at the far end.

The doors were flanked by two massive statues that stood eight feet high and were comprised of solid marble rock. Each of the giant figures was covered in dark black metal and each held long golden spears, which they stretched out before the double doors to bar the way through. As Jason approached, the statues sprang to life, retracting their weapons and turning to hold open the doors like a pair of colossal doormen.

 What had once been a magnificent hall encompassed the next room. Its architecture was unlike anything Jason had ever seen, a cross between the ancient stone designs of a prehistoric culture and that of an advanced alien civilization.