Chapter 1607 – 1607

NOTE: This didn’t happen to me. In fact, this took place centuries ago, before anyone here was even alive.

First I am gonna give you some context. The following was taken from stories I’ve been told as a kid. It has been in my family for some time, and until recently I felt no need to share them. As a little kid, I guess I would dismiss this story as a simple fairy tale told by my grandparets. Looking back, it sounded to me like they were telling a peice of old folkore, or even some kind of hidden historical event, albiet a dolled up one, when I look up the Northern colony of “Awesiaki”, I yield no results.

Until recently that is, I have found proof; hidden, historical documentation, that the tall tales my grandfather and mother told me, may not have been tall tales after all. As of a late visit to my grandparents houe, I found myself rummaging through their attic. I won’t bore you with details, but the short version is I am collecting video tapes and my grandma gave me premisson to help myself to whatever’s in her attic. It is there I found a chest, and within it, something that recontexualizes the stories told to me as a small child.

You know the feeling when you hear a much more darker take, or origin of a fairy tale you grew up with ? And then you find out the version you grew up with was just a toned down “kid friendly” version ? This is hardly the wholesome, Disney style, tale of man and animal coming together against a religous tyrant, that I grew up with. No, this didn’t “ruin my childhood” or anything, if anything I am enthusastic about sharing this “darker” take of a story. This time, backed up by letters, documents, journals and testimonies of people who claims to be there, all uncovered in my own families home.

This is taking me some time to translate some of the original languages, very few letters where written in English. Still is, which is why I am gonna go bit by bit with what I uncover.

Translated from German: The written testimony of Oskar Müller – May 17th, in the year of our Lord, 1607

I testify today, for our tribulations have ended, and my faith in Minister Benjamin Chase was well founded. He truly shown today he had the blessings of the lord after all this time.

I’ve met Minister Chase in Bavaria fourteen years ago, while he was traveling across Europe to witness to others. A man who fallen out of favour with his peers within the Anglican and Catholic church alike, Chase was accused of “polluting” the spotless Bride of Christ, for reaching out and witnessing to those outside the church. He was accused of embracing and being a friend of sinners, drunks, and prostitutes, and took copious amounts money that was meant the benefit of the Church and distributing it to the poor and downtrodden.

The Minister said, he only wished to follow in the example of his Lord, not his Church fathers. All but stripped of his authority and branded a heretic, the Minister saved my life, and possibly my soul, when my own church turned me aside when I was penniless and sure to die from the drink. I have followed his flock sense then, as have others from different lands, the Ministry of Benjamin Chase has grown to seventy new souls at the time he was assigned to take his ministry from England, and travel to the new world.

It was rumoured the Church leaders didn’t want him to be spreading his influence within their Church.

Regardless, the Minister had a vision for the new world. We would take people from different lands and cultures, learn from them, appeal to them, bring them together in one united colony. Draw all men to the lord, the Minister says.

In that time, the Minister found a wife. Her name was Angelica, who along with her sister Edith, was a prostitute he ministered and saved two years ago. They’d marry thirteen months after she and Edith left their old life behind. Shortly arriving in this new land, Angela became with child, which gave Minister Chase a personal motivation to find a sutible settlement to establish his colony.

Chase began his newest journey, reaching out to the tribes, learning what he could of their cultures, and even had people from these tribes join him and his cause. The Cree, Algonquin, Cherokee the Navejo. Our colonists consisting of seventy men and women, expanded to one hundred and fourteen. Not all of them were converted.

And then the winter came, and the Minister’s journey led us to the mountains, avoiding the blizzards that grew more frequent, we were forced to make camp in the caves, at the caution of the heathens among us. The caves were vast and deep, stretching down to miles. Even so, the caves where not far enough to avoid the storm. Forty five of us where forced to make camp just outside the caves, and endure the storms.

I count it nothing short of a blessing we had those with experiance with surviving in this wilderness. But even so, those blessed enough to stay in the caves barely had enough.

There was unrest amongst us for a week, where only our guides being allowed to hunt for us, even so, only the strongest and more experianced, but a few did not come back. Some of us tried to follow them, but they turned us back, when we found footprints, that looked human, but were three times the size of that of a human. They insisted we do not know this land and the beasts and spirits within.

What animals have we yet to see in this new world ? In the past few months, we seen and learned so much of the animals of this land. What have we been missing ? What spirit did we have to worry about ? The Minister says all spirits, even demons fear the power of God and recognize his authority.

But still, through the night, we’ve heard noises that for the most part sounded like animals, howls and roars. They were from a distance, and surely couldn’t pose a threat to us. Then we hear the wind, and from it, some of us, myself included the sound of a voice. It sounded like whispers in an unknown language. According to our guides, when we hear the voice we are not to listen to it or pay it any heed.

Yet, once I heard the voice, it could not stop echoing in our head could not stop.

This did not deter our faithful Minister. Day after day, he stood before us, praying for our protection, and reciting verses in defiance of the wind.

“It is not the animals, or creatures of the land, sky and sea that we are to fear! The body and flesh is only temporary. The spirit is forever! The spirit is truth! The only true threat among us is the threat of our spirits. But we are not to fear, for even demons tremble before our father and his son!”

And upon this prayer, the winds continue. It took us listening to the Minister’s prayers and hymns to block out the voices. But even then, a silent dread encompased us.

One night, the Minister’s sister-in-law, Edith, ventured deeper in the caves. What pulled her in, who could know ? Perhaps, she was trying to flee the voices. In any case, Angelica followed suit, despite being seven months with child and the warnings of both Minister Chase and our heathen guides.

They have been gone for two days, when the wind and voices stopped, and the storms ceased. But of course, the Minister was beside himself. He looked deep and far into the caves, searching for the two women, refusing food and rest. We couldn’t blame him given the circumstances.

I joined the search. None of us left the cave, not heeding the warnings of our guides. One would think that these caves depths where the very gates of Hell. All the more reason to protect Angelica and Edith. When a sheep strays from the flock, it is up to the shepherd to never relent until they find the lost sheep. That was a lesson taught by our Minister.

The Minister, myself, and six other brave souls ventured deeper ad deeper, into the caves until there was scarcely any light, besides that of our torches and lanterns. Sometimes, I saw the slightest glimpse of a thin shape circling around in the dark, but when I shined my lantern towards it, there was nothing there. Surely my mind was playing tricks on me.

What we found shook out faith. All over the floor in the deepest caverns of the cave, where bodies and skeletons. We recognized them as the remains of bears, moose, and most horrifically, human. All partially eaten. This was not recent work however, they have been decayed for some times.

Among other things, there was the bones and bodies of something else, but far too decayed to identify. They resembeled humans, but were far too tall. They where twice, to three times the size of that of a human, and their skulls where disfigured and out of proportion. We caught patches of red fur, and sharp teeth jutting from their lower jaws.

And of course, these bodies where half eaten too.

This did not boad well, but as if by a miracle, I heard it. It was a woman crying. I was the one to find Mrs. Angelica Chase, and followed her voice throgh the caverns.

I was the one who found Angelica, and she was she one who previously found Edith. Edith had slipped into a steep cavern while she ventured into the caves, and Angelica wouldn’t leave her sister behind, and slipped after her. She broke her leg in the process.

It took a little time, and more effort, but we where able to pull her to safety. However, she was pale, shaking, mortified and covered in blood. That is we checked the pit to find Edith.

The smell and sight shakes me to this day. Everytime I close my eyes, I see Edith.

Her body was more fresh. Her clothes where ripped leaving her half naked, her ribs exposed, as the flesh on her chest, back, arms and legs where partially eaten. Her entrails spilled out on the cave floor, also fed upon. Her right hand had four fingers bitten off.

At first the shock was numbing. I didn’t know what to think, say or feel. I don’t think I was able to let what happened to Edith sink in until days later. Heaven only knows what it was like for her sister. Even today, I wake up, look at my wife and praise to God that the nightmare isn’t recreated.

We took Angelica to the camp and when it was clear she could not rest, and cold barely think, her husband reached out to her.

“What happened ? Whatever it was, you can’t let it haunt you forever. Keeping silent will only torment yourself.” The Minister pleaded “I cannot help you unless you share your pain.”

After a day and a half of silence, Angelica finally spoke. A silence filled the camp, for what Angelica said was barely a whisper.

“I looked for Edith. She ran from the voices, but wherever my sister goes, I go.”

She takes a deep breath and continues, this time for more to hear.

“I saw the graves, the graves of the animals and what I believe to be humans.”

There was no doubt of what she was talking about.

“We saw something.” She licks her lips “That looked like a shadow. This shape in the dark. It must have been one of our own shadows because it disappeared as soon as we saw it, and we slipped.”

Angelica’s voice and eyes well up and her body shakes.

“I fell, and my foot couldn’t move. Edith fell, and she landed on her back, but she lived.”

Tears began to fall from her face.

“She lived at first, but couldn’t move. We tried calling, praying for help. Fear overtooks us, as did our hunger.”

We felt a gust of wind again, we didn’t hear nor paid any heed to any voice from.

“She told me “Angelica, Angelica…you must live. You and you’re child must survive. Do so for me ? Take my life, and do to me what you must, but a hungry child is a hungry child.” I told her “No Edith, no!” I tell her “God is with us, God will save us. The Spirit is with us, and will guide us to salvation, but not without you!” she took my hand and said “I will never leave you this way. Not truly. I’m going to die here either way. But this way, you and your child will be stronger.”

The wind stops before she speaks again.

“So she took my hand, guided it to her mouth and nose, and had me press down. I watched her eyes as the life faded from them. And I could hear the wind, and I heard the whispers. I gave into my hunger until the voices stopped. I saw what I did.” She points at me “And that’s when you found me.”

That is when Angelica collapsed to the ground before her husband, holding to the bottom of his jacket “Benjamin! Benjamin! Please forgive me! I knew I sinned! I gave into temptation and feed on the fobidden fruit like Eve! I am like Eve! I am like Eve!”

The Minister silenced Angelica by placing his finger on her lips “No matter our transgressions, there is always forgiveness and love that our lord extends. Mercy is the only true judgment. Nothing you do or say can change that.” The Minister whispers reassuringly.

“But my sister!” She starts, still crying.

“Is with the lord. The flesh is temporary and will be shed away with. The spirit is our truth. Your sister forgives you and will always love you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Despite her husbands words, Angelica didn’t seem consoled. She remained quiet and still for the whole night. The next day, the storm came to pass, and the weather was cleared. The spring weather was revealing itself slowly. Our caravan ventured away from the caves. But before we left, the Minister turned to six of us, myself included, and gave an order.

“The caves, burn them.”

“I beg your parden Minister ?”

“This cave is a place of sin. A wicked spirit made it its home, and it is our duty as men of God to take it’s home from it. You are to use the oil barrels we left behind and burn the bodies you find to ash, and using our gunpowder, you will close this mouth to Hell forever.” The Minister spoke before turning to me “You found Edith’s body. You will be the one to free her of the flesh forever. Reduce her to ashes, so that her scars will not be eternal.”

He pated me on the shoulder, and I nodded in affirmation.

So I led my group back into the caves. Whatver body still had flesh upon it was burned to ash. We paid no heed to the bigger bodies, for they too would smolder. The cave was starting to fill with smoke when I found Edith again.

Despite the mutliation that happened to her, her face was still intact, beautiful and perservd as it was when she was alive. Untouched, save for dirt in her blonde matted hair. I could understand that no matter Angelica’s hunger, perhaps she couldn’t bare to tarnish her sisters beauty. Or maybe she couldn’t look her sister in the eye with what she did. It almost looked like, there was still life in Edith’s eyes.

And I had to destroy that little piece of life forever. Erase the perservation of her beauty, to spare her body any further damage. I set Edith’s body ablaze, and I watched. I watched as I the face of one of the Minister’s flock and family, and one of my community, as it burned away. I watched until the smoke filled the cavern, and I was forced to leave for my saftey.

As promised to the Minister, once the cave was cleansed with fire, we prepped the gunpodwer on the caves floor and mouth, light it up and watched the cave mouth collapse, sealing it away, as if it was just more of the mountain.

We walked for hours before catching up to the rest of the caravan. At the advise of our guides, following a vast river. They said that the creatures of this forest will not follow us to the land of the spirit.

This was blatantly false, as we’ve seen and heard numerous animals on our treck, and when we made camp. Not that they gave us any trouble. What interested the Minister was how the heathens revered this land as the land of the spirit. He made it pretty clear in his sermons to use, that this was a sign of the Holy Spirit.

After for days of travel along, we reached this vast field where the heathens said, was cautiously safe. They describe how it had fertile soil, an abundance of animals to hunt if we were careful in the woods. And untouched by any other settlment or man. This is what they called the land of the spirit. If we continued following the river, we would find the shore of the sea.

And that it was safe from the creatures that haunt the forest, for a spirit touched it’s soil as the heathens warned. They advised we show caution if we set up camp here, for as the Minister said, the spirit is what can truly be threatened. Generally no man from any tribe should to make this place their home.

The Minister had declared that this is where he will establish his colony, that this is the land of the Holy Spirit, where he will draw men of all cultures and tribes here, and build foundation of his vision.

“Do not fear, beasts of the field, For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green, For the tree has borne its fruit, The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full!” The Minister declared to us.

We have stayed on this land for two months now, and started a modest settlment, not the grand village that the Minister envisoned, but it takes time for a tree to grow. We started out living off the land, hunting and growing our food with the promise by the Minister that no one shall ever go hungry on this land.

He asked the heathens what they called this land and they declared “Awesiaki”, and thus the Minister christened the land Awesiaki.

Angelica was bed ridden for the remainder of her pregnancy, tending to her foot and prepping her body for birth. I lived in the same house as the Minister, for my wife Hilda is her midwife.

For the most part she was silent, and still. Clearly haunted by what she did with, perhaps even more so than I did destroying her sisters remains. This despite the Minister’s forgiveness.

In the few times she did speak, it was never to address us, but when she thought she was alone. She would whisper to herself, words resembling the language the wind whispered to us. She’d stop when she realized she wasn’t alone, and the Minister would read to her from the Bible and sing hymns to her until she fell asleep.

Today was the day, when she finally went into labour. After seven hours of screaming, Angelica finally gave birth,, with her husband praying by her side, and Hilda helping her through, the child emerged from his mother.

And after moments, the pale blue infant was declared stillborn.

“I’m sorry Minister.” Hilda sarts “He’s not breathing, he’s far to cold, he-“

Angelica was barely concious, while the Minister nearly went mad with grief on the spot. He dropped to the floor and began praying in the most frantic manner I’ve seen of him.

“No lord! Please! Don’t punish my child! Not for my wife’s sins or mine! I absolved her, and I established this land in your name! All I wished was to follow your example and that of your son, I’ll turn away no stranger or sinner and draw all men to you! I have shown and will continue to show mercy in your name, I don’t ask much in return, just don’t take my son before he has a chance to live!” The Minister begged.

The Ministers grief was interupted by a loud cough, loud enough to snap his wife out of her despondancy. It was the cough of her baby.

Angelica perked up and asks “What is happening ?”

We looked over at the child Hilda was about to put aside. The previous blue pale colour of the childs skin, show shifitng to a warm pink colour as it started to cry and wiggle slightly in my wife’s arms as she placed him in Angelica’s arms.

Upon being placed in his parents arms, the child stopped crying almost immediately. It was the calmest baby my wife has helped deliver. It’s eyes were not full of fear or confusion of most newborns, but curiosity.

I saw tears well up in the Minister’s eyes as his took his place by his wife’s side, and Angelica, for the first time in months, smiled.

“Hello little one. I’m your mother.” Angelica said with the warmest expression on her face.

“Have you thought of a name ?” I heard Hilda ask.

“I’ve been thinking of one for a while now.” Angelica starts.

“What did you have in mind ?”

“Greeshawn Chase.” Angelica answers “His name is Greeshawn Chase. My grandfathers name was Greeshawn, and he was the first person who actually believed in me and Edith. Before you Benjamin.” She explains, turning her attention to the Minister, showing a warmth that no one thought she’d show again after losing Edith.

“Your grandfather’s faith was well founded Angelica.” The Minister says as she hands him their son.

“Welcome to the God’s Country, Greeshawn Chase. I know you will make me proud.” The Minister said trying to remain calm, but even I could see he could barely retain himself.

Today I have witnessed the miracle that affirms my faith in Minister Benjamin Chase. I have witnessed fourteen years of persecution this man and ministry by the Church. I have seen him gather men from different cultures and countries, and a winter of tribulation, all for this land that he helped found in the name of the Holy Spirit, which he not only saw through to, but I witnessed him call onto God to save his child from death.

And by the power of the spirit, his child was saved from death.

I write this today, to prepare my testiomony. I will help the Minister in any way possible and I intend to start by reaching out to tribes and other colonists, to trade with or join the colony of Awesiaki.

This is the land of the spirit and a land that promises that you will never go hungry.