—Shakespeare
Basilisk Returns
That night, after eluding the patrol, I fell into bed exhausted. I felt I was playing multi-dimensional chess, combating the cartel and their conspiracy lies while dealing with demonic forces hovering in the background orchestrating chaos.
At the beginning of the crisis the task had seemed straight-forward—use Tom Faraday’s research on the cabal to expose their deceit to the world. But as I pursued my assignment I found myself becoming enmeshed in the spiritual aspect—an element that to me was totally foreign.
And when I began suffering demonic attacks, I felt completely confused and powerless. But now that these manifestations seem to have subsided, dealing with Ike Helmsley and his patrols seems child’s play in comparison.
Such were my thoughts as I drifted off to sleep…
I dreamt Brooke and I were hiking in the woods when a freak storm blew in. I showed her how to gather downed branches and prop them up against a shallow depression in a nearby cliff to form a solid lean-to that would wall out the wind and rain.
I then gathered all the dead wood we could find and piled it in our shelter to use as firewood. By the time I lit the fire, It was pouring and the sky was lit with lightning and reverberating with deep-throated thunder.
Brooke was frightened but I made her stay close to the cliff wall and showed her how it protected us from lightning.
In the midst of the storm we were safe and warm but suddenly a huge bear appeared and began approaching us, intent on attacking.
Our backs were literally to the wall with only the fire between us and the huge bear advancing toward us.
On instinct, I snatched a firebrand from the fire and shoved it directly in the face of the bear. It roared in pain but turned and fled away.
I awoke, sweating and trembling.
A clap of thunder shook the room and I realized a storm must have broken out while I was asleep and I simply incorporated it into my dream.
I smiled bleakly at my fear and was about to roll over and fall back asleep when I saw an immense form at the foot of my bed.
It was the basilisk, the dragon-like creature that had previously oppressed me during my night terrors.
My first instinct was to cower in fear and cry out, but a sudden fierce anger rose up in me.
“Enough, Satan,” I cried out, “You have no place here. Get out and stop tormenting us!”
The dragon’s face contorted with rage. Hatred made his entire body swell. He grew huge, doubling in size, but the more he threatened, the more stubbornly I resisted until he burst into a myriad of dark pixels and dissolved into nothingness.
It was then I realized the storm had ended—outside the window, the moon broke free from a dark bank of clouds and illumined the room.
There was nothing more to fear. Satan’s grip on me had ended. The great dragon was defeated.
The attack reminded of the apocryphal tale of Bel and the dragon in the Book of Daniel. The priests of Bel made a good living from sacrifices offered to their idol until Daniel exposed their scheme.
He slew the dragon without using a sword and exposed the great deception to the king.
Mind you, shortly afterwards, Daniel was put into the lion’s den—so, if the analogy holds true for me, I’m literally not out of the woods yet—Ike and his patrols may still come for me.
But I console myself with this—Daniel was spared and his persecutors thrown to the lions. I can only hope this foreshadows how this nightmare will end.