Chapter Ten



“Huh, this isn’t half bad,” said Jason, standing at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole airport, in the very heart of Antarctica.

The heart of the station was a massive metal-plated building up on stilts, boasting 80,000 square feet of space, equal to a strip mall. The former base, a dome that led underground, neighbored it. He had been pleasantly surprised when he looked up the weather in Antarctica, finding that February was actually late-summer. The temperature had to be in the high fifties, barely deserving of a fleece compared to the winter cold in Maine. It was a good thing he was in the center of Antarctica, as the ocean breeze kept the coastal stations below freezing.

Damn, he was actually in Antarctica, the cold white basement of the earth! It was hard to believe he had traveled so far. He had been flying nonstop for a week, but this was definitely worth it. Walking away from the plane, he was approached by Nelson, chewing on a cigarette as always. He had been standing by a black helicopter, already manned by a pilot.

“Welcome to Antarctica, you’ll get sick of it soon enough.”

“Endless daylight with continuous weather in the high fifties? I may buy a winter home out here.”

“Well then I hope you like wet socks. Come on, there is something you need to see and hear.”

Readjusting his duffle bag over his shoulder, Jason followed Nelson with a slight spring in his step, excited for the answers he was about to receive. Plus, he would be riding in a helicopter for the first time in his life. Though to be honest, he would have preferred to stay on solid ground for a while.



It was a two-hour flight to whatever location it was that Nelson wanted Jason to see. Not a single word was spoken by Nelson during the entire flight, though Jason frequently asked him questions on what he had found, only to be denied an answer. Nelson seemed even more tense than usual and refused to give up any secrets. Accepting that he would have to be patient, Jason resigned himself to the view outside. Fields of glistening platinum under the deep blue sky, Antarctica was truly an awe-inspiring place. Jason just wished he could have come in winter and seen the Aurora Borealis, or as one of his fellow passengers had corrected him on the flight from South Africa, the Aurora Australis.

The flight ended when the helicopter reached an isolated camp out in the middle of nowhere. It was situated not on the geographic North Pole, but in the center of the largest unbroken stretch of open land. Tents, trailers, and mobile offices were littered around a single metal shack, but the camp was clearly under the possession and jurisdiction of the BSC. Experts in all fields of study from paleontology to geology were rushing back and forth throughout the camp like frightened ants, clearly excited over some source of information.

“Come with me,” Nelson grunted, climbing out of the helicopter and walking over a trailer stationed by the metal shack.

Jason followed him inside, finding rows of lockers along the walls. Opening up a pair of lockers, Nelson revealed two airtight suits with glass face panels. They actually looked like repurposed space suits, complete with oxygen tanks.

“Put this on, you’re about to see the coldest, darkest place on Earth.”



“I feel like Neil Armstrong in this thing. Seriously, if this were night and the gravity was weaker, I would swear I was on the moon,” said Jason, walking out of the trailer and back out into the camp. The suit he was wearing was snug and had been difficult to put on. Already he was overheating and had to keep the glass face panel of his helmet open to prevent fogging.

“Get all the jokes out now, because our radios won’t work once we go down and our helmets will have to be sealed.”

“Go down where?”

“Down there,” Nelson answered, pointing to the metal shack in the center of the camp, just as two people in similar suits stepped out.

Next to the tiny building, Jason spotted a large humming generator and saw that the door was actually watched by two armed guards. Approaching the guards, Nelson and Jason both had their IDs scanned and were granted access. Measuring twelve by twelve feet, the sole purpose of the shack was to hold a large cast-iron elevator, mechanically controlled by a winch hooked up to the generator outside. With open sides and a dingy exterior, it looked like a relic from an old coal mine, and in the back of his mind, Jason wondered if it was really safe.

“Grab me a mortar and a round from that box over there,” said Nelson, pointing to a metal crate set in the corner.

Wondering if he had heard the professor right, Jason opened the crate and looked down at a row of small mortars, right out of old war footage. They were smaller than the kinds that soldiers would use, able to be carried in one hand, with the bombs being about the size of a water balloon.

“What are these?” Jason asked, carefully handing one of the strange crafts to Nelson and climbing into the elevator.

“It’s a special kind of flare, the only kind we use down here.”

He pressed a button on a control panel on the side of the door and the winch gave a soft whine and the elevator began to descend, dropping below the surface.

“I’m surprised you people use this shaft. It’s summer, isn’t it? We’re in a tunnel made of ice. Doesn’t it seem like a bad idea when the temperature outside is almost double the freezing temperature?”

“Don’t worry, this ice doesn’t melt, at least under normal circumstances.”

His tone was strange, devoid of the bad mood Jason had detected before. When he spoke, it was in a calm matter-of-fact way. Pressing the control panel in the elevator door, he turned on an overhead light in the skeletal frame.

“Doesn’t melt? What are you talking about?”

“To put it simply, energy is forbidden from entering this space. That law strengthens the farther down you go, so drilling this tunnel became slower and slower as we descended. You’ll sense it soon, the dropping temperature in the air. Look at the ice around you, notice anything?” Jason glanced around at the smooth ice shooting up past them. “It’s not disappearing, no matter how deep we go. We’re already well below sea level but there is no bedrock,” Nelson answered for him.

“How is that possible?”

“It’s possible because Antarctica is not frozen due of its geographic location, and neither is the North Pole. There is an axis running through this planet, an abomination that defies all logic and science. It manifests itself in arctic temperatures at the highest and lowest points of the planet. That axis was left behind by something. Think of it as like a vacuum.”

“Damn it, will you please just make sense and tell me what you found in Australia? Why the hell did you bring me here?”

“We found the answer to the origin of the Black Stigmata. We know where it came from.”

“And it came from Antarctica?” Jason stammered, shocked by the revelation he knew was imminent.

“In a manner of speaking. Tell me, do you know about the World Tree mythology?”

“I must have skipped that class.”

“It’s probably the most ancient mythology in human history, and unlike other myths and religions, it has been found in all corners of the globe, believed by ancient peoples who were incapable of worldwide contact. The legend speaks of a tree that holds this world together, binding Heaven and Earth, as well as binding every living thing within creation, acting as both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.”

“Tree of Knowledge? You mean like in the story of Adam and Eve?”

Nelson cracked a grin. “While it was been greatly changed over the eons, that story is quite true. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously with humans. The “humans” weren’t Homo Sapiens of course, but everything is relative. They lived peacefully with all life, a far cry from the way we destroy anything that crosses our path in the name of progress. Anyway, at this time, all of the continents of the globe were joined together to create Pangaea, the single landmass that stretched between the north and south poles. Humans had spread to all corners of Pangaea, united in their worship for the World Tree, which manifested itself in the north and south poles.

The World Tree was the origin of all life, the entity from which the first primordial organisms came into existence. It ruled the world as a mindless yet divine force, commanding the respect and adoration of all living things within its domain. Every creature big and small knew never to hurt the tree… or to eat its fruit. It was a law engraved in the DNA of every organism and was an instinct as powerful as the will to live. But as everyone knows, the very definition of being human is the ability to defy one’s primal instincts.

Whether it was a man or woman, we do not know, we could not get an accurate translation. We got a slightly masculine description at one point, so we refer to it as a man, who we named Adam. According to the inscriptions in the Australian cave, Adam was a being of unparalleled evil. He was a sadistic psychopath who would kill anyone who got in his way and did whatever it took to get what he wanted. Compared to all other life on the planet, he was an abomination. He was the embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins. I’m paraphrasing of course.

Believing that it would grant him immortality, Adam harmed the World Tree by plucking one of its fruits, and defiled it by consuming its flesh. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, the Apple of Knowledge gave mankind awareness of immorality and original sin, thereby corrupting them. The truth is that the opposite occurred… Whether it was the blackness of the man’s heart or just the darkness of such a blasphemous act, he corrupted the World Tree when he consumed its sacred fruit. Imagine the biggest and most powerful computer in the world and then give it the most crippling computer virus capable of being written.

The knowledge within the tree was eternally corrupted and became the essence of sin. The World Tree, which had originally been the beacon and symbol of all life, transformed into the omen of eternal death and horror. The most destructive traits in the human soul contaminated the tree and brought about a cataclysmic event, the likes of which the earth had never seen. The volcanoes of the world vomited liquid flames, tsunamis washed across the landscape, toxic gas and ash blocked out the sun, Pangaea was split open like a skull struck with an axe, and plagues of unholy wrath eclipsed the world in rotting despair. The wrath of the World Tree was set loose upon the world in its act of self-destruction.

At the polar ends of the earth, the World Tree sunk into the bedrock and encased itself in a demonic chill, draining the very energy from the environment so that everything around it would be bleak and empty. You’ll see what I mean soon enough. We’ve developed a nickname for the event: Ragnarök, referring to the apocalypse of Norse mythology.

As for the person who started it all, he received a deserving fate. Having been nibbled down to a slender core, the fruit of the World Tree that he had consumed became the first Black Stigmata nail, transforming into a spike of unholy and lifeless iron and containing all of the knowledge of the World Tree after its corruption by Adam. Now knowing nothing but wrath, death, suffering, and horror, the power of the World Tree that he had coveted turned on him. It forced Adam to perform the ritual on himself, ending his life and making him both the first Host and the first Homunculus of the Black Stigmata. Then from that nail and the two he had created, it spread.

After Ragnarök, mankind was driven near to the brink of extinction, and the earth was barely able to recover. It took a long time for mankind to come back from the edge. Considering it took 65 million years for extinction to no longer be a fear, I’d say humanity was cursed by the Black Stigmata and had to suffer on the fringes of existence. It’s likely that the endless creation for new nails continuously whittled down their numbers until there were only enough to keep the species alive.”

By the time he was finished speaking, the elevator had descended several miles below sea level before finally coming to a stop. A passageway had been carved into the ice in front of the elevator door, but looking down through the metal grate floor, Jason saw that the vertical shaft still went much deeper.

“Why aren’t we going further down?”

“We made that mistake the first time. Trust me, you need to keep the elevator at a safe distance. From this point forward, keep your suit shut and make sure you’re getting oxygen. We won’t be able to communicate and our vision will be severely limited. Just a head’s up.”

Nelson turned on the light on his helmet and sealed his faceplate, then turned the nozzle on the air tank on his back. Mirroring the same steps, Jason sealed himself up in his suit and followed Nelson into the narrow ice corridor, trying the control his breathing while his heartbeat thundered in his ears. The distance was only about fifty feet and it went around a slight turn, but Jason was brought to a dead stop with the sweat seemingly freezing to him at the sight. It was not a door, he knew that much. Nor was it a tarp, barricade, window, or any kind of hard surface. It was black, black as the coldest recesses of space. The corridor was suddenly cut off with this darkness blocking the way like a curtain, as if reality itself had been severed. The lights of their helmets shined on it like solid material, unable to pass through it but also seeming… rejected by it. It was not like it was reflecting off something, more like the light was unable to pass by.

This darkness was unnatural; it was unwholesome. It weighed down on Jason’s mind with indescribable dread, the same dread he had felt when he watched that plane plummet from the sky before striking the prison.