The World of NightsEnd

The duty of every Watcher is simple. They are to watch rather than create. They are to seek rather than instigate. They are to prepare for what is to be revealed. Above all Watchers are to pray for heaven to speak and followers to hear and obey.

Preface to the Watcher’s Guide 3^rd Edition

 

Esther and Enoch stood at Somers Point and gazed together down toward where the Snake River wound like a thin silver thread across the floor of Hell’s Canyon. Wild sheep moved with care along the outcropping just below them. Esther always marveled at their ability to manage the rocky paths with such grace.

She looked away from the sheep to say something to Enoch but held her voice when she saw him lost in thought. He was looking toward the summit of Heaven’s Gate as though he wished he was there.

Enoch stood motionless and without looking at his young apprentice muttered something under his breath. Esther wanted to ask him to repeat what he had just said but felt like an intruder in some private moment of communion.

At last Enoch diverted his eyes from the mountain peak and looked at Esther. “I’m sorry my dear. I was just thinking how good it would be to be young enough to climb up Heaven’s Gate again. My bones are far too brittle and my nerves far too thin for such things now.”

Esther put her hand on the old man’s shoulder and patted him softly. “I wish you could to Enoch. I know it has always been a favorite place of yours.”

Stroking his long white beard as he shook his head, Enoch leaned on his staff and sighed. Was his body really that heavy? Or was it that the dream had become too heavy? Perhaps it was a little of both. He began to walk with labored steps down the path and suddenly stopped. He took Esther’s hand in his and smiled. “You do know that dreams are not the same as the holy Scriptures don’t you?”

“But of course; Scripture is to be followed implicitly while the dreams are to be pondered and discussed. They are like signs on the road but never the road itself.”

Enoch laughed, looking a little younger in the process. “What a grand school girl answer,” he chided, “but what does that mean?”

She was confused. Esther was sure she had given the right answer and didn’t understand Enoch’s challenge.

“What I mean child is this. Do you trust in the dreams or in the God of the dreams? If you trust anything more than Him, everything else will probably disappoint you in some way.”

Esther nodded in agreement and Enoch believed she really did understand. That was good. Now he could tell her the real reason they had come to this place alone. “He’s coming.”

Esther heard the words but they didn’t grab hold for a moment. When they did she gasped; “You mean … Judson?

A wild sheep darted across the path just in front of the two and both stopped short; startled and yet in wonder. Evidence of the Creator abounded in this magical place.

Enoch nodded. “Esther, the Great Purge is over. The GPP and the United Federation are both tired. This whole world is tired. With all of its advances it really is just a stagnant shell of what it was. And … it doesn’t even know its days are numbered. The world is like a GRAV-LEV tube that has become corrupted. Everything looks right about it but it isn’t headed anywhere.”

Esther frowned. “Do you mean that the GPP no longer cares about us? Are we safe now?”

“No child, just the opposite. Before the GPP wanted us gone but was too busy building a new world to ensure that happened. Those days are coming to an end.”

Esther’s face betrayed the fact that she still didn’t understand.

“What I’m telling you Esther is that our time is soon over. The Watchers will not be here much longer. The GPP is sure to be here very soon and then we will be no more.”

Enoch sighed again and began walking on down the path. As they walked he explained his word to Esther Judson was coming and bringing with him the whole counsel of God. Now the Watchers must do what they had always been prepared to do.

Esther was to leave this place tomorrow. She was to make her way to San Diego by the Sea and wait for Judson to appear. She was also to help him adjust to this world anyway she could and to introduce to him to the true followers of Christ wherever possible.

Enoch was adamant, “We are not important Esther. We never have been. To have lived to see the coming of Judson and the Word he brings with him is enough. When you find him do not bring him here. Let him tell you where to go and help him get there. Do you understand?”

Esther started to reply but stopped short. She kicked the dirt under her sandaled feet and looked up with a tear glistening in one eye. “What about you?”

“I told you it has never been about me or the dream. It is about the Dream Giver and the one he is sending.”

“Will we be together again?”

Enoch considered Esther’s question, rubbed his chin and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. Tears were flowed from his time worn eyes.

“Yes dear, we will be together again but not here. Now give me a hug and be on your way. Nathan has everything prepared for your leaving. You must be gone before the others awake in the morning. No one is to know where you have gone.”

Esther wanted to cling to the old man and refuse to leave. But she was to well trained and too dedicated to the way to do so. “Why can no one know?”

“Because one can’t be forced to tell what one does not know,” answered Enoch. “Nathan doesn’t even know where you are going; he only will help you prepare to leave.”

“What about you Enoch? What if something happens to you?”

Enoch smiled and looked back toward the peaks of Heaven’s Gate. “Don’t worry child. I’ll be fine. Now leave before you make an old man make a fool out of himself.”

Esther hugged Enoch as if she would break his fragile bones. One last look into his clouded eyes and she turned and hurried down the path leaving him watching her grow smaller by the moment.

Once Esther was out of sight Enoch faced Heaven’s Gate again. To his surprise when he looked this time he felt a strange warmth in his bones. What was that he saw? Why, it was a flower far in the distance. His eyes seemed much clearer than in many years.

Enoch raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. He could hear the rushing of the Snake River far below. His hearing was sharp again. With each step the Watcher took he felt a day younger and then month and then a year.

Rounding a corner in the path Enoch saw Heaven’s Gate in its fullness before him. He whistled out loud and did something he hadn’t done in years. He kicked up his heels and ran. He ran until the path would allow it no more. But his pace was still that of a youth.

Words of the Old Scripture reverberated in his spirit as he walked. Yes that was it. He was mounting up with the wings of eagles. He was running and not growing weary. He was walking and not fainting. Four hours later, once night had fallen, Enoch lay on a soft place at the summit of the mountain and slept. And, for the first time in over fifty years he did not dream.

The next morning he awoke to the rising sun and tried to decide when he should head back down. He stood and started down the path. Not three steps along the way something grabbed Enoch by the nape of his neck and held him in place. He couldn’t move.

“Where are you going Enoch?”

The voice that spoke was deep and clear. It had the force of the river below but a thousand times over. Oddly though, it seemed as soft as the gentle fall of spring rain. Enoch couldn’t tell if the voice came from within him or from without. And it didn’t really matter.

“I was just headed back home,” he finally answered.

“But you are headed the wrong way,” replied the voice.

Enoch stood alone on the path, the morning fog rolling by his body like wispy clouds. Again the voice spoke.

“Down there is not home anymore for you my friend. Why not just come on home with me?”

Enoch protested, “But Lord, what about Esther and Judson?”

“They are no longer your concern Enoch. They are mine and I know what to do with them.”

Enoch started to protest again but the voice drowned him out.

“Look this way Enoch.”

Enoch looked toward the voice and his mouth fell open. Someone stood in the distance with his arms open before him. As Enoch focused his eyes on the figure he felt a stirring in his being. Suddenly every doubt, every darkness, every regret, and every last vestige of sin broke free from his soul and flew into the outstretched arms of the figure in the distance.

As the darkness of those things flew from Enoch to the figure an amazing thing happened. They entered the man’s hands black and ugly but exited white and beautiful.

Enoch started to look back down the path but found he could not. His feet would go no way but toward the figure before him. His eyes could look nowhere else. As he drew closer he found he couldn’t even remember what was down that path or why he had been so worried about it. One last step and the arms of that figure embraced Enoch. His head had been lowered in an instinctive bow but now his eyes were brought level with those of his greeter.

When that happened, Enoch could do nothing but weep. He wept for what seemed a lifetime though probably only a second. He knew who this was just as this one knew him. The one who loved Enoch more than life itself reached over and wiped his tears away.

“Welcome home,” he sang.

And Enoch walked out of this world into another. It was the one he had watched for throughout the years. But now he no longer had to watch for anything.

In the valley Esther was hurrying away from all she had ever known. Her parents had been long dead and now she knew in her heart she would never see Enoch again. A thunder clap pealed from the heights of Heaven’ Gate and the sun’s rays came beaming across its lofty peaks.

Another sound thundered across the valley and somehow Esther knew it was one to be avoided. She hurried into the brush and watched from a safe place where no one could possibly see her.

What she saw next she had only heard of and read about it books. But this was the real thing. The earth rumbled and dirt moved as though a giant earth worm was wiggling just beneath the surface. A crater opened in the earth and a great blast of hot air shot up throwing dirt and rocks every direction. And then all was quiet.

A few minutes later a whirring noise was followed by a ladder rising up from the crater to level ground at its rim. A man and then a woman stepped from the ladder and looked around.

Esther didn’t need any introductions. She had seen both these faces before when World Net had been available to them. The man was Franz Ruger, Advisor of the Gene Pool Project. The woman that followed him was Alicia Farmington, General Counsel of True Path and leader of the Speakers.

No one was feared in the world more than the Advisor of the GPP. It may have started as a benevolent medical research organization but the GPP had become a purveyor of misery and control. As it head, Franz Ruger, was the chief enforcer for the United Federation.

As evil a man as Ruger was it was Alicia Farmington Esther most reviled. TruePath claimed to be the one holy Church. It stood as a symbol that the UF tolerated all religion and held ill will toward no true Christian. But the Speakers were more evil than Ruger.

They worked under the guise of Christianity but really were agents of the United Federation. Whatever remnants of true Christianity that remained in the world were in danger wherever TruePath showed its face. Ironically most of the world considered it to be true Christianity.

Esther was no scientist but she knew that she had just witnessed a GRAV-LEV punch tube in action. No one understood how GRAV-LEV worked. No one that is but the GPP that controlled it completely. Everyone knew the marvel of stepping into a GRAV-LEV tube car and then being hurtled a thousand Kilometers per hour without a bounce or a jolt.

A punch tube was seldom seen in use. Usually less than two hundred miles in length it was a tube dug to get to previously unreached territory in a hurry. It was how the Indians had gotten the jump on China at the beginning of the Chino/India War. Punch tubes were not cost efficient and used only to the element of surprise.

Now one was here and it had brought two people who could be here for only one reason. Enoch’s prediction was true. The time of the Watchers had come to an end. The GPP never went anywhere without finishing what it went there to do.

Esther breathed a short prayer for her friends and slipped back into the dense forest. It would take her quite a while to make it to San Diego by the Sea without using a GRAV-LEV tube. And her identity had probably been wiped from the World Net by now.

It dawned on Esther as she walked the hidden path that led away from Devil’s Canyon that she was not really afraid. Some how she knew that Enoch was alright as were the others.

The Watchers had fulfilled their purpose. After all, there is no need to watch for what is already here. Throughout the North American Province followers were ready. Soon they would once again have what they had so desperately hoped for.

Truth!

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NightFall: Second Revision July 2008

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