SECRETS AND SHADOWS

How did Papa get so strong? Remember, he has endured since the time brfore words, or at least written words. His history is history. And when he was sealed away, little more than one thousand years ago, he was passing through a weak period. That's the way it is with the life-eaters. Things tend to change. Strength ebbs and flows like the tides. Why once there was a life-eater known throughout the world during the melting time (right after the last ice age). According to oral traditions, he was able to encase enemies in  thought bubbles and transport them to many different places. Some were abandoned on barren, rocky shores. Others found themselves floundering in the middle of what would one day be called the Pacific Ocean. It's rumored that a few victims suffered the most hellish fate of all. They were transported to the corona of the sun and hovered there surrounded in a slowly erroding remnant of earthly atmosphere and temperature. Imagine the searing sights they saw. The churning plasma of the surface. Massive explosions vaster that ten thousand worlds. And a  white hot (though tinged with yellow) light knifing through everything. But then, as they'd  finally approached the surface, heaving up and down with swells that could lick the moon, it would be over. The surrounding earthly blanket would be gone. The heat beyond heat would  embalm them. For a moment or two they would feel it. They would see it. I know not if that outcome is natural to the physical world, or if that ancient, powerful one willed it so. But that is how they were destroyed....... Now we must consider.....Is Papa that strong? I do not know. The truth may lie within the akoshic records, but I am afraid to search such places. And all the others like me feel the same....Thus speaks Zebulon..............Papa brought Annie back just before the dawn. Everyone else was already snug in their appointed places. No one made a sound. We heard them park the car. We heard them come in. They tarried for a bit in the main room. He sat by the ersazt fireplace. She snuggled on his lap. And they purred just as lions purr, bathed in the dim, flickering, orange glow. I held Sarah and she held me, both in the physical and spiritual sense. Then we heard them descend the stairs and head toward their spot. All was silent. But they stopped outside the door to our chamber. I could feel it. I could see it in my soul. I could see their evil grins. In that instant it was as if the universe refrained from evolving. But then it was over. They passed by, entering their own dark, still cocoon. I could feel Sarah's heartbeat and she could feel mine. I could sense the racing heartbeats of the others, both mortal and immortal. Indeed, Edith suffered a tiny heart attack. I must remember to give her a blood kiss, if I ever get the chance for that again......