Jack walked in a deep, dark void. He looked around at the nothingness that plagued him. "Hello? Anyone there? Where am I?" He moved forward, or at least he was walking. Jack was unsure if he was really moving, because the entire space was uniform black. "Boy," he said as he remembered eating the fruit and passing out. "If this is the inside of my mind. . . I'm in trouble. I thought there'd be more women."
"Jack!" A deep boisterous voice echoed throughout the area.
Suddenly, an overwhelming whind overcame Jack and knocked him onto his back, but instead of hitting the groun he stood on, he fell. He secretly hoped that A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn't true. Dying in this free falling dream wouldn't be fun. There was an abrupt jerk as he stopped in midair. He turned and landed on top of a mountain. "Where am I?" He turned to see an elderly man walking towards him. He jumped back with his back to the mountain side to allow the long bearded man to pass. "Where are you going?" He reached out to touch the man's robe, but his hand passed right though. "Whoa," he said looking at his hand. "That's a little unsettling. Am I dead?!"
No response.
He decided to follow the man up the trail, but he was quite aways behind. He was knocked back by a blast as an electrical bolt hit the side of the mountain. He looked through the dust to see the man pull two stone tablets from the mountainside. "Moses. This is Sinai." He spotted something else through the unsettled dust from the blast. It appeared to be a levitating sphere of light. "What the--?"
***
Sophia and Maya were up reading further into the Book of Origin as they huddled around a campfire. They had been waiting on Jack to awaken for hours. Night had fallen upon Turkey.
"So, what's the rest of the book say?" Maya asked as she lay her back against a large stone.
"It's all an elaborate map of the origin of religion," Sophia explained.
"What does it have to do with this puzzle and the quest we're on?"
"I don't know," Sophia replied. "We only have the medallion from the book and from the ark. Two are still missing."
"Where do you think they are?" Maya asked. "From the second clue, I'd say one is in the garden. It led us there."
"We didn't have much time to look with Jack's stupid taste-testing of the forbidden fruit," Sophia responded coldly. "Now, he's in a coma."
"Why don't we go back in?" Maya offered. "We can leave Jack out here and go back to the trees and find our third medallion."
"I don't know," she said looking at Jack. "I'd feel bad if anything happened to him. I just can't leave him out here."
"I understand," Maya responded with a nod of her head. "You care for him?"
"He's my boss," Sophia stated. "He pays the bills."
"No, it's more than that, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Sophia asked. She was playing dumb, because she didn't want anyone to know about her feelings for Jack. She had always covered her emotions with sarcasm and hatred toward Jack's ego and attitude.
"I know you were jealous earlier when he and I were flirting," Maya admitted. "It's intuition, my dear."
"Why don't we move Jack to a secure location so we can go in and find the third medallion," Sophia said changing the subject.
Maya smiled and nodded. She knew what Sophia was doing. As she and Sophia rose to their feet, she moved past the American woman. "Your secret's safe with me."
Sophia followed Maya over to Jack, who was a few feet away from them. She knelt down and looked at his face. Brushing his short brown hair to the side, she sighed heavily. "Why do you always get into these messes, Jack?"
Jack quickly grabbed her hand as his eyes opened slowly. "Soph?"
Chills ran down her spine, and all over, as Jack awakened and touched her. "Jack, you're okay."
"Of course," he replied. "Did you honestly think I could not be?" He raised up from his lying position and looked from Sophia to Maya.
"We have to get back in there and find the next medallion so we can get finished with this expedition," Maya told him.
"No," Jack said. "I know where to go from here."
"What? how?" Sophia asked in a bewildered tone.
"I'm not sure," Jack told her. "I think the forbidden fruit has given me knowledge."
"Then what's at the end of this adventure?" Maya questioned him, ready to finish this.
"I don't know yet," Jack said as he got to his feet. "I just know where to go."
"Shouldn't we get the final medallions?" Sophia asked.
"We'll come back for them to complete the sundisk, but they're not needed now," he explained. "The third medallion is buried between the two trees. The last medallion is located somewhere where we need to go. Our next stop is Saint Catherine's Monastery."
"That's near Mount Sinai at the mouth of a canyon or gorge, isn't it?" Maya asked.
"The gorge is impossible to trek," Sophia added.
"That's what they want you to believe," Jack said. "There is a trail that is accessible, but it's not where we need to go. We must follow the gorge."
"But that's suicide," Sophia told him.
"Jack, maybe we should rethink this," Maya stated. "If it's really as dangerous as--"
"We can make it," Jack said. "I know how. Come on, we have a long trip ahead of us. Let's get back to the airport."
"I'll call him while we take the jeep back," Maya said. "We'll probably have to fly into Dhahab, its going to be the closest city with the shortest road to Sinai."
"And you just happen to know that?" Jack asked.
"Well, my father was on the trail of this religious escapade you're on," Maya stated. "He did a lot of research on religious places and towns nearby. You know, just in case he needed to plan a flight there."
Jack looked down at the nearest town as they all began to walk. "Well, Mount Sinai, here we come."
"Are you sure you're okay, Jack?" Sophia asked.
"Yeah, don't I look fine?" Jack responded with a smirk.
Sophia rolled her eyes. It was going to be a long trip to Dhahab.
***
Sophia could have hung herself on the trip down to Dhahab, Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula. Jack was flirting with Maya and Maya was enjoying it. Though, had Maya shown no interest, it might have allowed Sophia's secret to show through. It was hard not to let someone know how you feel, but Jack was just an arrogant bastard. It was even worse now with his ego in full overload now that he had the knowledge of the universe.
The plane set down in Dhahab several hours after departing from Igdir, Turkey.
Jack and Maya got off the plane and made their way down to the car that was waiting for them. Behind them was Sophia, who slowly followed. She got into the backseat as the other two took the front. She enjoyed some perks, like being all alone in the back.
"How far is this monastery?" Sophia asked in an annoyed voice.
"It's about an hour and a half," Maya replied. "It wouldn't take that long if the road was straight through. We'd travel about forty minutes straight through."
"Then why couldn't we get a four wheel drive vehicle?" Jack asked.
***
Daylight was breaking over Mount Sinai as their trip slowly came to an end at Saint Catherine's Monastery, which was surrounded by a large stone wall with several buildings inside including a tall tower.
"So what do we tell these people?" Sophia asked. "We're here to climb the gorge and find. . .what exactly?"
"They won't let us climb the gorge," Jack told her. "We'll have to follow the guide and trail and suddenly disappear."
"Great, another country to be kicked out of," Sophia mumbled as the car came to a stop.
Jack got out of the passenger seat and Maya out of the driver seat. He led the way up to the front of the monastery where a small group of people gathered to take the trail up to the summit.
"You are here for the hike?" The guide asked.
"Yeah," Jack said as he reached into his pocket to give the guy the money. "Three of us."
"Ah, good," the man said. "Always glad to have as many people as possible. We're just about ready here. You can join us or wait."
"We've come so far," Jack told him. "I think we'll just go ahead with this one."
"Alright, then follow me, please," the man announced as they began their hike toward the summit of the Mount Sinai.
The trail was straight up at first and twisted and turned around as it got higher. As the group slowly got out of sight, Jack, Maya, and Sophia slowly turned around and headed toward the gorge, which was a treacherous way to go, not to mention stupid.
"Jack, this is a stupid idea," Sophia reminded him.
"Yes, thank you for telling me for the nine billionth time," Jack said in an annoyed sarcastic way. "Listen, as much as this gorge is 'unaccessible,' it's also a lie."
"What do you mean?" Maya asked. She was getting more curious about all this and where it was leading. Her father spent his remaining breaths looking over the material taken from Babylon and India. It was time to give her father's work proper rest.
"Think about it," Jack started. "Your mother tells you it's dangerous, so what do you do? You don't go that way."
"What are you trying to say?" Maya continued.
Jack stepped across a large boulder making his way through the gorge. "Well, obviously, someone doesn't want us to pass through here. I'm betting this is another cover up." He turned and helped Maya and Sophia across and then up the mountain.
Below was a group of men dressed as Muslims who were watching them intently.
"What are we looking for?" Sophia questioned him as she climbed along with him. "Is there some kind of secret passage in the mountain?"
"As a matter of fact," Jack said as he stopped in front of a large boulder halfway through the gorge, "there is. Right here."
"How did you know that?" Maya asked in awe.
"Well, I did eat of the tree of all knowledge," he gloated. "The third medallion leads you to St. Catherine's. There you locate the fourth medallion where the Chapel of the Burning Bush is. It leads you through the gorge to this rock." He pressed on a smaller stone in the wall, which opened the large boulder. "See?" He smiled at them. "Ladies first."
Sophia and Maya entered the stairwell and started up toward the top.
Jack followed behind them. He was getting so nervous about what was at the top. He could feel the end of their journey near. The knowledge of the fruit only allowed him parts of the puzzle at a time.
"Um, Jack," Sophia said as she reached the top with Maya.
"What?" Jack asked as he came upon a large platform-like area. "Wow!" He stood in awe are the large stone brick area that housed a large blue energy ball in the middle.
"What is that?" Maya questioned.
"It's Him," Jack replied as he got closer to the blue ball of energy. He knelt down before the orb and touched it. "It's God." Then it suddenly pulled him inside.
"Jack!" Sophia cried out as she jumped forward. There wasn't much she could do to save him now.
"Another Jack Canyon moment, huh?" Maya asked. "I'm sorry."
"Nah, it's okay," Sophia tried to tell her. "He gets into trouble all the time. I'm used to it."
"No, not that," Maya said as she moved away from Sophia and pulled a gun on her. "I'm sorry for this." Then the men dressed as Muslims appeared from the stairwell with machine guns.
Sophia was speechless, but what does one say when there's a gun pointed at you. "Guess Jack isn't the only one who gets into trouble."
"Well, I needed to see just how smart Jack was," Maya told Sophia. "I needed to see if he could figure all this out. Seems he is smarter than we gave him credit for."
"We?"
"Yes," Maya replied. "The Disciples of Origin."
To Be Continued. . .
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