About

On a ship in the Atlantic, a lone passenger stares into the inky night sky. Her mind spins, in futile attempts to understand her situation.

Her name is Donna Cabrini. She is a high school teacher, a woman who has embraced the teaching profession with a consuming dedication. Most people would classify her as a workaholic, but that would be just off-center. The truth is that Donna Cabrini is hiding from her past, but her past has just caught up with her.

Donna’s mind races… Out of control… Not good.

This is a woman who not only doesn’t like to be out of control, but a human being who CANNOT be out of control. Though the situation is critical, she cannot afford to let her control slip—not even for father’s safety.

The boat will help slow her down, make her calm… allow her to think. She can only pray that the lost time can be recouped. Temperantia is the key; it has always been the answer—and it will be why I succeed even now, the vis maior cannot possess me.

Okay, so it was my choice to fly to Miami from California to see Dad.

At this thought, Donna is filled with emotion; wracked with grief, shame, and guilt at her father’s institutionalization in the South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center.

I’ve been avoiding this. Burying myself in work because I can’t face the fact that the most influential person in my life—the one who was always there for me—is fading and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I’ve been selfish, allowing myself to feel embarrassed and ashamed, blaming my father for being fallible… as if he has allowed this affliction to happen so he will not have to fulfill his promise… to always be there for me.

Father has fallen victim to severe hallucinations and delusions, he’s become completely dysfunctional, been declared a danger to himself and to those around him.

Strange thing is… seeing him like that was not the horrible experience I thought it would be. He seemed, in many ways… okay. Even more strange was that his, so-called, “rants” were spoken in a language I immediately recognized and understood—Latin. Fortunately the hospital staff were not clever enough to figure this out and it allowed him to communicate privately with me even with the nursing staff hovering about. 

Donna’s thoughts veered, indulging in recollection.

Yes, Latin … and the more I listened to him on that first visit, the more fascinated I became. He spoke of a person he referred to as “ab septimus Aeternus—the seventh eternal” and the adventures of his Aeternus.

Donna wants desperately to convince herself that she is not crazy, yet so much is still incomprehensible since her father spoke to her that first morning at the institution, turning to her with eyes, hallowed and drawn, and told her, “abscedo volo bibliotheca” [go to the library].

She recalled the slow, hypnotic walk to the library through her father’s now empty, imposing house. There, just where he had indicated they would be, were several journals written in Latin, all entitled, “The Chronicles of the Seventh Eternal.”

She was pulled towards the books as if a magical finger had curled about her neck. Immersed almost immediately, it wasn’t long until Donna realized that each passage in the journal paralleled an actual occurrence in history, and even many historical myths and legends.

It began with a fabled land… a great land with engineers, architects, palaces, harbors, temples and docks. The capital city was built on a hill and surrounded by rings of water, which were joined by tunnels large enough for a ship to sail through. A huge canal connected the outer rings of water to the ocean. The outskirts of the capital city boasted huge fields where the farmers grew the city’s food and past the fields were the mountains where the villagers lived. The entire city was encased in a crystal dome of grand proportions.

Donna recognized, from her own knowledge of history, that this was a description of Atlantis just as Plato, Socrates greatest student, had described it. However, this alternate account told of its origin. It went on to describe a massive volcanic eruption under the sea, which formed a crystal dome landmass. This dome, mysteriously left unexplained, affected all living things in Atlantis, humans and plants alike. Everything appeared to grow and flourish normally, but underneath it bore much more vitality than any other earthly place.

The people of Atlantis prospered, reaching a level of intellect that was so unsurpassed that the great scholars of neighboring provinces and civilizations sought their knowledge and skills. The stories told of Atlantis architects venturing to other lands, contributing to the construction of some of the greatest wonders of the world, such as the great pyramid of Gaza. It seemed that it was true that Socrates was a student of the scholars in Atlantis.

Atlantis had made many allies and they were respected and honored by many of their neighboring kings and rulers, however they were also feared and envied by many others.

Though their culture was one based primarily on the promotion of humanity and intellect, they knew it was also necessary to take steps to preserve their way of life, so they prepared themselves for the reality of hostilities. They enlisted the help of great warriors from neighboring regions and trained their young men in the hopes of producing a formidable army. Not too long after this preparation were they invaded. They were successful in their first defense and repelled the enemy assault, but suffered heavy casualties for all their efforts.

So, stepped up a great scientist, a man who feared that his sons would be killed if another battle were to occur. Desperate, he sought a new method of preparing their young men for combat. And, in time, he did just that—he developed a combination of extracts made from plants, animal tissue and other shadowed elements. From this came fusilis -e aetas -atis f. [life serum]. An elixir that would alter the genetic make-up of men, a drug that would produce an enhanced human being, capable of physical feats beyond anything mortally imaginable.

And so it came to be, and so it was, and so it began…

These new warriors became known as the Aeternus or Immortalis (eternals or immortals). On the battlefield, they were invincible, impervious to pain and seemingly indestructible.

But, as so often happens with the hopes and aspirations of the desperate… a shift began.

Many of the Aeternus became violent and uncontrollable. It seemed that the miraculous results of the fusilis -e aetas -atis f. serum were immature. The serum’s effect began to reverse, causing a degeneration of sorts. Some Aeternus decomposed before the very eyes of their horrified comrades. Another group of Aeternus that survived (and just why they survived and their brothers did not were notably omitted from the texts) remained physically strong, but their mental de-evolvement was fast and malicious. They became violent and hostile beings that very soon refused to serve anyone, or any cause, but themselves. This group became known as the Maleficus (evil). 

The Maleficus abandoned Atlantis to build their own armies, to forcibly secure their own lands through pillaging. It was not long before they became a threat to all mankind.

The relatively low number of Aeternus that remained physically and mentally intact (and just why this was, the texts seemed to pointedly avoid!) were sent forth by Atlantis to eradicate the Maleficus, in hopes of making things right with their allies, who were by now terrorized by the same soldiers who once served the honorable, great state of Atlantis.

Beyond this the text recounted battle after battle, but it soon became clear to Donna that all the battles and wars waged with the texts were, in fact, battles that she was already familiar with: Where the book describes a battle in Samarkand, there a powerful Maleficus invades the region of Afghanistan and Persia by making his way through Transoxiana and Bukhara, she recognized the unmistakable figure of Genghis Khan. Another account of a war, in Cannae, on the Italian east coast to be the second Punic war where Hannibal’s army of 50,000 men engaged an army of no less than 80,000 Romans. Hannibal’s convex, crescent shaped lines slowly became concave under pressure of the Roman elite troops in the center, which, being encircled and finally surrounded by the Carthaginian cavalry in the rear, failed to break through the Carthaginian lines and were destroyed. That passage stated that Hannibal Barca was, indeed, Maleficus. The texts also told of a great and powerful Aeternus who battled 1000 Philistines using, for a weapon, the jawbone of a donkey. The army of Philistines was composed mostly of Maleficus.

Each account in The Chronicles of the Seventh Eternal journals was accounted for in contemporary historical timeline. The texts suggest that these forces of good and evil had engaged in many battles. In the early battles, the intact Aeternus scored easy victories because they were impervious to usual mortal injuries.

They were powerful enough to destroy their enemy with one blow from their weapon, until the Hunnic invasion of Gaul, where an Aeternus was killed at the hand of a Maleficus named Attila the Hun.

Attila was wielding a sword drenched in his own blood, emanating from a gaping wound in his bicep—it was during this battle that this historically significant Maleficus discovered … a weapon soaked in Maleficus blood could kill an Aeternus.

After that, what was left of the Aeternus fell in large numbers on the battlefield and nearly perished in an epic battle which took place in the city of Atlantis. This battle was brutal, beyond common warfare. Rather than the intensity waning, as would be expected, the intensity built with each passing blow, with each passing day and bloody night, until the sheer force and intensity of fighting shook the very foundation of the land.

It was this humiliation, that sank Atlantis, plunging her majesty deep into the bowels of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Maleficus that survived would go on to wreak havoc with no fear of retribution. So, as would be expected with the wretched, it was only a matter of time before they turned upon themselves. Nosferatu from Romania discovered that he could grow stronger by drinking the blood of other Maleficus; thus making him the strongest and most feared of his kind.

There was also a story of a particularly powerful Aeternus who survived the battle that sank Atlantis. He washed up on a foreign shore, with critical injuries, and was near death. As he slipped in and out of consciousness, he awoke to find himself in the care of a woman who sheltered him in her home until he could recover. She did this at great cost to herself, for by now all knew of the battle that had sunk Atlantis and all feared the Maleficus.

In time the Aeternus recovered but little else was written about him other than the implication that he spent the years that followed on the run from the Maleficus.

Donna read for many hours that night. The journals were so old that the dye used was an unrecognizable pigment, not at all contemporary or even a couple hundred years old. She understood that what she held in her hands, what information she had just fed her conscious, was ancient, sacred, and certainly not as trivial as it first appeared.

But there was something about the handwriting that seemed familiar. She had already discarded the idea that it was her father’s script; it was written too long ago.

Yet… there is something about the archaic cursive… it seems so… I don’t know… familiar.

The return to the hospital was not a shock in retrospect. As if her father had choreographed every event: brought her to him, lured her to the journals, now he had choreographed his own disappearance..

A nurse, who appeared out of nowhere, looked quickly around before handing Donna a white letter size envelope, disappearing almost as quickly as she had appeared. Inside the envelope she found a business card:

Afterlife.com We will carry out your last wishes long after you’re gone.

There was a phone number and address but she didn’t bother calling. She knew temperantia was the key, and she could feel it slipping away. Anger, frustration and fear were pushing at her from all sides. She couldn’t afford to let go of the reigns at this point. Lesser situations had proven tragic. If she didn’t keep the power in check now, the repercussions would be something wholly unimaginable. She cannot afford to let it out of control, not even for her father.

By the time the ship sailed into Manhattan she was temperantia and grounded—now she could look for answers.