Chapter 3

Sure, it was Colorado, but Henry was certain he wasn’t on any special types of drugs. Just a cinnamon and mint flavored tobacco and molasses mix. Meaning what he was seeing shouldn’t actually be happening. What he was experiencing shouldn’t be happening. No way in hell should there be a floating, apparently sentient, eyeball before him. And it definitely didn’t make sense for it to have appeared on his phone as well. None of this made sense. Was he having a breakdown? Was this a stroke?

“Judging by your reaction, everything went well.” The masked figure said calmly. “You seem to have a strong attunement to the frequency, given your ability to manifest a D.E.D. fully on your first try, much less to be able to see it without the aid of technology.” What was this person speaking about? Could they see the floating eye? Had they drugged him? Maybe they’d released some sort of gas when they walked in here? Like that scarecrow stuff in the Batman movie.

“What have you done to me.” Henry asked shakily, ignoring the floating eyeball. The creature was staring intently at him, flapping its wings rapidly to stay afloat. Eerily it would blink with a massive eyelid occasionally, making a slight sucking sound.

“I’ll explain it all as we make our way to the rift site. But we need to move, now.” The individual growled. Or, more appropriately, a growl accompanied their statement. From out of their shadow, a wolf-like creature appeared, barring its fangs at Henry.

Hurry up you worthless pup. A voice barked into his mind. Instinctively he knew it was that creature.

The tone, or perhaps the appearance of the demon like dog creature, was enough to make Henry jump. It pulled him to his senses enough to know he still needed to do what was being asked of him. Even if none of this made sense, following along with the orders was all he could do. Especially if he’d been drugged. He needed to do as he was told for now, until the drugs wore off or he saw a chance to escape.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, setting the hookah hose back on the hookah before he stood up, phone in hand. The cloaked figure nodded and turned, walking out of the hookah bar to an all-black charger that was running just outside the shop. Henry followed, just remembering to lock the door behind him. He thought about making a run for it, but a warning growl told him now was probably not the right time. Plus, he was still perturbed by everything going on, especially as the floating eyeball passed through the glass windows of the shop as if they weren’t even there. He was definitely on something.

“Now then,” the masked figure continued as Henry got into the charger. The windows were darkly tinted, and the interior all black leather. If not for the strangeness of everything, he would guess this was an unmarked police car. Or at least had some sort of association with law enforcement. Which if that was the case…was he getting abducted by a secret government organization? The sudden sound of the doors locking made him panic.

“What is going on.” Henry asked shakily. Every single part of him was on edge.

“Give me a second.” The figure commented as they maneuvered the charger out of the parking lot, waiting patiently to flip a u turn on the street heading towards the interstate. On the center console of the car, an extremely sophisticated GPS was directing them towards the Rift that had appeared. Which, seemed a bit over the top for a simple video game.

“For starters Henry, the world you knew, the life you had before now, is over.” The masked speaker paused, letting the words sink on. “From today forward, you are first and foremost an Exorcist. From today on, you will live a dual life. One of normalcy, and one of secrecy. Everything I’m about to tell you must stay secret.”

Henry looked towards the driver. “And if I refuse?”

“You don’t have that option.” The figure said simply. Even though the voice was being masked, the tone was crystal clear. If Henry refused, then he didn’t have a future.

“What is all of this? What did you do to me?”

“Smart, to not push your luck.” The masked figure looked at him through that creepy mask for a brief moment as they pulled onto the interstate. From what he could tell on the GPS, the rift was appearing in downtown Colorado Springs. Which was about a 15-to-20-minute trip down I-25 from where they’d been. Besides the directions he saw a countdown timer. There was 35 minutes till the rift opened.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of demons before. And hopefully you’ve heard of magical creatures of across all the mythologies of the past.”

“Uh, yeah.” Henry was a mythology buff, and a lot of video games and anime all covered various mythos. “Who hasn’t.”

“Good. Long story short, all those creatures exist.” The matter-of-fact way the individual said these facts, made Henry’s chuckle die in his throat.

“Are you…serious right now? You’re trying to tell me demons and magical creatures are real? You’re crazy.”

That’s hurtful, Awakened One.

The raspy voice of the floating eyeball…which had apparently hitched a ride in the back seat of the charger, said in his mind. The voice actually seemed upset.

“I’m sure you’re in shock now, but I can guarantee the Evil Eye you’ve summoned, as well as my Grim, are both real. And the fact you can see them shows you’ve got a rather high attunement to the frequency of the other dimension.”

“Frequency of the other dimension?”

“I’ll save you the history from all the previous civilizations and all the crazy science behind it, since we are on a bit of a time crunch.” That was obvious…they were definitely going at least 10 over the 75mph speed limit. “But just know our world, the universe, everything operates according to frequencies, or vibrations of molecules, of atoms.

Everything is made up of tiny little atoms. How those vibrate, the frequencies they create, dictate the world around them. However, our world isn’t the only one in existence. In fact, our dimension operates alongside other dimensions, and if the frequencies of our world and those other dimensions happen to resonate…a connection is formed.”

That, was definitely a lot more scientific than he’d been expecting. Especially after he’d been told this was going to be the short, simple explanation.

“Our world is at a turning point. Because of the mass amounts of electrical fields and energy we’ve been creating, humans have begun developing stronger senses, connections if you may, with the frequencies of the world around them. But just as humans are becoming more aware of these frequencies, so too are the creatures in the other dimensions. What’s more, they’ve found ways to cross over, to come to our world, and feast upon the ambient energy we create. The rifts are portals these creatures are making to come over to our world.”

Henry looked accusingly at the floating evil eye. “So, these creatures, came to our world to feast on our energy?” It was all crazy, but he was playing along.

“Yes and no. The smaller entities are usually harmless. They get sucked through rifts accidently, or are drawn to our world out of curiosity. They’re so low on the power scale that they can enter our world and have little effect on it. In other words, their existence here can be tolerated.”

“Well then, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is the larger creatures. The Tiered Demons as we call them. They are powerful beings who are composed of so dense a mass of atoms that the frequency they emit on their own is dangerous. They create the rifts at will, through the gathering of a mass amount of energy, and attempt to come into our world to feast on our energy and to stake a claim to planet Earth. If even a single one of these Tiered Demons were to gather enough energy from Earth to materialize fully, our world would be doomed.”

That made even less since. “This is all just a game.” Henry said. “All of this. None of this can possibly be real.”

“The game was made because we needed a way to expand our recruitment. Before, Exorcists were few in numbers, and we operated solely as a shadow organization. Recruitment was extremely limited, and there would be only a few individuals in a large-scale area to deal with problems. In the past few years though, the number of attempted Tiered Demon invasions has increased exponentially, and while we were able to keep them at bay, we lost many strong Exorcists and their D.E.D. teams, which had composed of D.E.D.s who were hundreds, some even thousands, of years old.”

Henry wasn’t even going to ask. Shadow organization keeping the world safe from mysterious, invisible enemies not of Earth. Yup…this was all fitting in the conspiracy theory hat nicely. Was he dreaming? Or wait…were the Exorcists the Men in Black? He’d watched a few of those Ancient Aliens episodes…

“So, increased threat, and your numbers were dwindling…” He figured he had the gist of that.

“Correct. Normally, we would scout out members from either appropriate bloodlines, or those who’d proven themselves through their deeds in various activities. Even then, these individuals had to be able to resonate with the frequency of the other dimension if they were to bond with D.E.D.s and be able to use them to their fullest. Even with the increased number of such humans, only 1 in every 10,000 has the ability to resonate with the frequency, and even then, most barely. The weaker the resonation, the weaker their ability to link with D.E.D.s and draw out their true strength. Meaning we need more of them to fight tougher enemies.”

“And this game was created in order to allow you to massively test the population and find your candidates.” Was Henry following that right? This seemed a bit too crazy.

“Glad you’re not as dumb as I thought you originally were.” The individual said calmly. “When each individual creates an account on the game, the frequency is emitted through their phone, and the biometric scans monitor their reaction to it. If the reaction is above a certain threshold, they are identified, and an exorcist is sent to acquire them and enlist them in the ranks.”

“Like me.” Henry remembered hearing that strange sound when he’d first tried to initiate the game. Now he knew they had been testing him. Great. “And what happens then? And what about those who don’t resonate? Because this game is definitely popular.”

“Those who don’t resonate with the frequency are able to just play the game. The app utilizes all of our records and data in order to simulate the emergence of small-scale rifts as wells a the ‘capturing’ and training of D.E.D.s. Furthermore, the D.E.D. Exorcists simulation constantly tests various combinations, tactics, and such, allowing us to further our base of knowledge on the D.E.D.s that we have summoned and interacted with. After all, in essence, they’re digital beings in this world until they fully manifest.”

Whelp, that fit the name of the game. And also fit the shoe perfectly of what the game claimed. Typical secret organization setup. Tell the world the truth, and they would think it’s a lie. Apparently he needed to pay more attention to that guy with the weird hair on Ancient Aliens.

“For those who do resonate, we send out our nearest exorcists to approach them and take them back to a safe zone to give them a full breakdown of the situation and to help them summon their first D.E.D.”

“Are they all dressed like you?” Because if that was the case how the hell had no one made a post about these figures before? They may be a secret organization, but come one…this was the age of smartphones and reddit.

“You’re a special case.” The figure responded simply. “Your resonation was registered as we were gearing up to stop a Tiered Demon. And your resonation levels were too strong for us to ignore. Which is why you’re getting the unorthodox treatment. And why you’ll end up being the only rookie to experience a dimension shift on their first day.”

The figure pointed towards the back seat. “Which reminds me, I’m going to need you to put those on. You’ll need the proper protection for where we are going.”