Exhausted, I struggle to breathe as if a web of meshed netting is tightening around my heart and pulling me deeper into the vision. I gasp in pain. "It's dark here."

"It is always dark in my womb," she answers, "for a reason. Deep in the ground are organisms that produce antibiotics; microbial life akin to the earliest life forms, in existence billions of years ago. This is the cradle of life and death." I realize her life force is eons of concentrated lifetimes.

As if she senses my body's distress, the tightness around my chest loosens. Floating in the viscous pool of velvet darkness that cocoons me like a black silk glove, there is only the peaceful oblivion of sensory deprivation.

"Can you show me what happened to the girl I rescued, Lila? Oracle, please take me there. I need to see the truth. "The radiant light pulses patiently urging me to connect the scattered impressions forming in my mind. My heart races as I start to dream.

A shrouded figure with eyes of black and a soulless face appears before me as the Oracle shifts into her true, serpentine form. I know she will not deceive me. She deals in the secular, neither good nor evil—she only reveals what exists. In my mind, I hear desperate agonized screams. Tormented shrieks of the damned join hers as I pierce the fabric of time. A swirling mist surrounds me. As I walk into it, my astral body enters the underground breeding facility. I pass through the long dirt-filled corridor, as past gibbering demon-savages reach out, their clawed hands trying to pull me into a rancid pit of squirming, living undead that I realize are failed hybrids left for disposal. A girl, dressed in dirty rags, cowers in the corner of a cell. I recognize her small, lost face.

Lila.

Was she born into this hell on earth?

"My baby," she whimpers not looking up.

I kneel down beside her. She's clutching what looks like an empty swaddling cloth.

"Lila, when was your baby last here?"

She gazes towards the altered med beds, which look more like torture machines than healing chambers, and she weeps, trembling. "When my baby started coming, they put me in the machine."

An incredibly long tentacle stretches out of the pit and lashes around her ankle, dragging her towards the viscous pit. She is too terrified to scream as I grab her arms and pull her out of its grasp. The face of her attacker rises out of the slime. I gasp in shock at the half human-half demon thing that is clinging to her ankle. Although the features are distorted by decomposition, I recognize the creature's face as mine.

"Agh!"

With a primal scream, I lop off the creature's head, then pin it to the ground with my flaming sword. I kick the crisped thing back into the engorged pit. How many perversions of Evander and I are out there? This one lured her here wearing a Light Worker's form before it degenerated into a hideous, gargoyle-like creature. I shudder. Will I recognize my partner if I find him? Or could I be seduced like Lila, by one of his doubles?

I step back from Lila and the pit. The scene fades and is replaced by Evander luring her here to seduce and impregnate her. Or is it the undead creature that is impersonating him? I see the dungeon walls are lined with manacled human females that are waiting to be bred.

I leave the horrible scene and I find the control room where I see computer screens detailing the experiments. I scan the glowing script that details the experiments. While I read, I control my rage.

The resource potential in The Dead Zone is slimmer than I thought, and the risks are higher. I need the Light Worker, Zoe Harper. Her lineage is the source of pure power. With her DNA, I could perfect the species that will reclaim Terra.

A seductive voice whispers in my ear. "You don't know your heritage, being groomed as a mercenary by Sylex as their instrument of death, but your true destiny is to be the mother of a new race."

"I will not be enslaved by your lies, nightshade! I know what I am. I was born into an elite guild to protect innocents, not deliver the Righteous Wrath of Sylex against those who oppose them."

I grit my teeth. The whole process of merging the undead with the living is gross and unnatural, like the pit of slime. I feel the Oracle's soothing presence as the Dream Time shifts and she reveals my past. The one that was hidden from me and replaced with lies.

I'm eighteen years old. My long cable of braided hair hangs down my back as I enter a circle of black robed sentinels. Dressed in the simple garb of an acolyte, I'm being initiated to become a full fledged Trinity Light Worker. I recognize my father, Algar, and my mother, Valencia who are standing as still as stone sentinels. Triquetra shoulder insignias, signifying unity, protection, and everlasting life adorn their black battle attire. They are the highest ranked Light Workers in our Trinity Guild. Their solemn gazes follow me as I walk to the center of the circle.

My grandmother, Althea wears the fitted royal blue tunic of a Seer under a multifaceted glittering robe, her face shrouded by the oversized hood. Twenty elite members of our guild stand in an unbroken circle in a secret antechamber. My body goes rigid as I merge with their consciousness and relive a past that I've long forgotten.

Images flood my mind. The year is 2089 and there are two hundred Light Workers on the planet who are spread over our world, Terra. Our sacred ancestors possessed the ability to control the weather on a large scale. Controlling massive amounts of lightning they were capable of summoning thunderstorms and teleporting across space and between dimensions. I frown. Much of this knowledge in our ancient lineage has been lost, but Sylex replicated a crude version of it with their technology. I look down and touch my rib cage. Technology they meshed with my body.

"Protecting our planet from the dark force is what you were conceived to do, Zoe. You have been trained to wield the power of the Gods and fight our enemy, Sylex Corporation, the abomination." Althea's voice is controlled and authoritative. I look up and I see faraway lightning in my grandmother's storm-colored eyes. Her face is unlined and firm. Only the snow-white hair that drapes over her shoulders indicates her advanced age.

"As head of our clan and matriarch of our family, I Althea, give you my blessing." Her diamond-colored silk robe swirls around her feet as she advances with a writhing, black serpent. She holds the snake up in the air and it uncoils into a straight line as it transforms into a weapon forged from a massively resilient metal that both absorbs and manipulates magical energy. It is the most beautiful sword I have ever seen. It sings with harmonious energy and I long to reach out and touch it. The circle of brethren lift their lit katanas illuminating me in an ephemeral blue cocoon. The air crackles with luminous photons as I kneel before her to accept the mystical armament. White light shoots from the sword into my heart chakra as I claim my sword. The katana and I are one.

The crowd starts to chant, "Ālea iacta est. The die is cast."

My parent's and my grandmother's teachings flood my mind. Sylex destroyed earth's weather pattern turning it into a barren wasteland. I'm not clear if it was on purpose, but the corporation wanted our mystical powers over the weather. In the process, they killed the Trinity guild light workers who tried to stop them. I hold my head, swaying in the middle of the room. The surviving guild children were programmed and physically altered to be under their control. Only a handful of rebels survived and scattered underground.

I was told that I was an orphan. Rescued after my parents died fighting in The Great War. As an unclaimed child, Sylex corporation graciously raised me at their own cost. They did the same with Evander, but seeing my higher psychic potential, they merged my flesh with steel and enhanced my body to be one of their elite para soldiers. A human lightning rod. The reality of what's been revealed in the dream hits me.

The lower guilds bowed to Sylex and began to obey them. Our history as sacred guardians was erased from the records while the earth was polluted.

The missing puzzle pieces of my life start to fall into place as she speaks. This creature wants to find me for my mother's for genetic line.

"Your mother was one of the strongest Light Workers ever created in the guilds. They told you she was dead, but don't believe the half-human machines. First, you must find your mother and your sword."

My eyes snap open. Is my mother is alive?

"Zoe, come back! You've been in the ether realm too long." I look up into Marius' worried face as he shakes my shoulders.