Day One Hundred and Twenty-One

Day 121: 30 Nov 2010

I managed to avoid them for most of the day today. They got close a couple of times, but I'm pretty small. I can hide pretty easily.

Unfortunately, I couldn't just play hide and seek all day. They were bound to find me eventually. And they did, late in the night when the temperature was at its lowest.

I was wedged under a sheet of ice, watching them pass by. They'd moved outward from their dig site in a grid pattern for the last couple days, and we were probably 8 or 9 miles away from it. I'd hidden under this ice floe twice before, and never had a problem -- but this time, I let a breath out at the wrong time, I guess. They saw the steam and dragged me out.

When I'd seen them pass by earlier, they were moving in teams of five, but not anymore. Now it was all of them, Travis and Black included. I managed to get free of the two slug-soldiers who'd grabbed me by the arms. I ran, but I didn't get far before they closed in around me. I jumped, flying over their heads -- but one of them caught my ankle. I slammed hard into the ice, cracking it with my skull.

Still, I managed to get to my feet and get my hands up, ready to fight. What I saw was quite odd -- all of them, all 24 men, stood frozen. Then, Travis and Black, who were at the back of the group, ran. But they didn't run towards me -- they hightailed it away like something was chasing them.

It didn't make any kind of sense. They had me dead to rights, and they should have ripped me into pieces, but they didn't. They just stood there, frozen, staring.

I hit one of them in the face, and he didn't react, didn't even flinch. That's when I realized they weren't afraid of me at all. It was something else.

I turned my head around as far as it would go, trying to keep an eye on the 22 soldiers in case they moved. What I saw almost made me forget about them entirely, and definitely made me turn all the way around and stare, dumbstruck, frozen. Just like the soldiers who'd been ready to kill me.

There, hovering about twenty feet off the ground, was the God of the Skies. His six wings beat so fast they were a blur, but he made no noise at all. It was impressive, especially for a being as large as he. I estimated two Boeing 747s could land on his back with room to spare.

I felt no fear, only awe as he and I stared at each other. He resembled a gigantic, six-winged dragonfly with an opalescent blue body and clear, gossamer wings. His eyes, though, were odd. They weren't insectoid at all, not compound like a dragonfly's. They looked almost human.

Travis and Black had been smart to run. In a blur of motion, the God of the Skies shot over my head, diving low, nearly clipping the top of my skull as he swept down. He flew through the soldiers, body parts flying in all directions, blood raining from the sky as he climbed high into the night.

He slowly floated back down and hovered right in front of me. His eyes should have scared the fuck out of me, but they didn't. There was something warm in them, something almost friendly.

Come, his voice echoed in my mind. It was a familiar voice. He was the one who had led me to Thule. He'd managed to turn the volume down since then, though.

Come with me, he said. We have a lot of work to do, and I fear we have very little time.