Hourglass #2: Chapter 1 - The Cycle

Poseidon’s massive trident was broken; it protruded at an obtuse angle from the rubble of the temple. Icicles hung from its three prongs that no longer avariciously pointed heavenward.

Xavier shuddered and pulled the fur layers tighter around him against the cutting cold of the gale as he raised his eyes from the trident to behold the desolation of Atlantis.

The once-great city lay entombed beneath a glacial shroud, its towering spires now jagged ruins of ice-encrusted stone. Frozen waterfalls cascaded from shattered aqueducts, their crystalline tendrils reaching toward the skeletal remains of sunken palaces. The streets, once teeming with philosophers and noblemen, were buried beneath ages of snowfall, their stories erased by the merciless grind of time.
He walked beside one of the grand concentric canals that had once given Atlantis its lifeblood—now a lifeless trench of ice, its once-glittering waters frozen solid. The great bridges that had arched above them lay in shattered heaps, their stone and gold filigree broken and half-buried beneath layers of snow. Homes and temples had collapsed into the icy depths, their fractured remains jutting out at grotesque angles.
Beyond the canal, where the marina had once bustled with the sails of the mighty seafaring empire, the wreckage of ancient Atlantean vessels lay strewn - carcasses of a bygone age. Some remained eerily intact, their prows frozen mid-rise from the ice, while others had been crushed beneath falling towers, their splintered hulls tangled in masts and rigging.
Then, across the frozen expanse of the marina, it came. A low, resonant growl, rolling over the ice like distant thunder. Not the wind. Not the groaning of shifting ice. Something alive. Something primal.
Xavier froze. His breath curled into the air as the sound faded into the howling void. He was not alone in the ruins of Atlantis.

He pulled the furs closer around him again against the cold. In a sown pocket was an ornate compass, its needle gold. What am I supposed to do with this? Navigate somewhere? Leveling the compass with the horizon, he aligned himself to north. But he was struck again by the forlorn metropolis…
I was once “the man of the hour” here; gilded chalices were raised high to me. Now, all that I aspired to preside over… destroyed.

“It’s beautifully predictable poetic justice what happened to this place.” A familiar voice spoke out behind him, piercing the solitude of his contemplation.
Alejandra.
She stood among the frozen ruins. Radiant, a vision of regal perfection sculpted from winter’s breath. A cloak of shimmering white fur draped over her shoulders, flowing like a snowdrift, its edges kissed with frost. Beneath it, a gown spun from silver-threaded ice hugged her form, its crystalline patterns refracting the pale light like a web of frozen stars. Her dark hair, loose and wild, cascaded over her shoulders, strands catching the wind. Her lips, a shade of deep, frozen crimson, curled into a knowing smile.
“Predictable poetic justice. Why?” Xavier questioned.
Her green eyes shimmered like sunlit frost, cruel and captivating. As the wind howled through the ruined city, she spread her arms, gesturing to the scene, her voice carrying across the wasteland…
“The hubris of men brought to heel by The Cycle. Men’s lust for booty, gold, power, and playthings to fill their harems with—wrecking them against the eternal cycle. You may not see the beauty in it, but I do.”
“It could be rebuilt by someone with vision who believes in the glory of this place. The story of man is the story of imposing order on the chaos wrought by the natural world. I see a lot of chaos here. I have a vision, and I’m ready to get to work.”
She laughed scornfully and leveled a stare. “You think this world belongs to men like you, Xavier? It never has. It belongs to the fire and the ice. Civilization rises, burns bright, and then the cold comes. The flood comes. The sky shatters, the Earth splits, and everything resets. Again, and again, and again. History is nothing but the echoes of fallen empires frozen beneath our feet.”
“That’s what happened here because they were drunk on their avarice.” A vision of the grand soiree on the palace’s terrace flashed before him. “They didn’t heed the warnings of their astronomers. But they weren’t wrong in aspiring to greatness. We are given but one life, and it’s a cosmic insult to the one-out-of-a-quadrillion random good luck of being born human - an insult to God, to the universe, to whatever you want to believe in - to not aspire to greatness. Man’s appetite for excess can be tempered with knowledge and wisdom. I’ll temper mine…”
“Atlantis was not the first, nor the last. The kings of old were warned, but they still reached too far, stole fire from the gods, and fell into the abyss. Their ruins are your ruins. Their hunger is your hunger. But, you are a man caught in The Cycle, so you must play your role: rebuild this place, reach for the stars, and thrust your flagpole into the sands of undiscovered lands.” She stepped to him, placing her hand on his chest, “You are a man with the star seed of a thousand supernovas in your loins, so thrust into the soft places that will take it. Seize what you can while you can.”
“Well, that’s what I’m going to do. And I don’t need your permission. I only need you to get out of my way.” His fists clenched.
“I’m not in your way. As woman, I stand here only as avatar for the truth and the future. My beauty, like truth, is striking, undeniable, and inspiring. Illuminating the arduous path you must take. And as a mortal man, you live on in the future only by intertwining yourself with my beauty.”
“But your beauty will fade, you forget that the story of man is also the story of the love of woman. When your beauty has been robbed by time, what I rebuild - where you will lounge in the shade - will remain.”
“True. But, Xavier, you feel it, don’t you? The shift, the pull in the stars? Does your compass point to true north, or does its needle waver?”
His trembling hands again aligned the compass with the horizon, fixing it on a distant peak, and indeed, the needle drifted.
She gestured heavenward to the grey expanse above. “The Cycle is closing. The sky will burn again, the seas will rise, and your empire will succumb to waves, fire, or the madness of the mob. But first, you must save her…”

Behind her, in the distance, through the rubble, a womanly shriek rang out, followed by more shrieks and screams.
“Go!” She urged.
He tore through the rubble, boots crunching over shattered marble and frostbitten ruins, lungs burning from the frigid air. The world around him was a ghost of grandeur, a frozen graveyard of lost gods. But ahead, beyond the remnants of Atlantean columns and collapsed archways, was something very much alive.
More screams.
Figures moved in the distance, flickering like shadows between the broken structures. Around the firepits and leaning tents of a shoddy encampment, a band of maybe two dozen human survivors - clad in rough furs, gaunt and hardened by the endless winter - were under attack.
Snarling Orc-like beasts, with voracious violence, ravaged all that stood before them. They were more monstrous than human, their massive forms draped in animal hides. Some were giants, towering creatures with broad, hunched shoulders and sloping brows, thick arms corded with unnatural strength. Others were smaller, their features more human, but their eyes all gleamed with the same mindless lust, their mouths twisted into savage grins.
In desperation and futility, the men of the tribe brandished crude weapons against the onslaught. A man screamed as one of the brutes seized him by the throat, lifting him off the ground with terrifying ease. The man thrashed, clawing at the massive, filthy fingers crushing his windpipe. With a grunt, the beast threw him forward—and the human crashed into the flames of a firepit, his screams turning to agonized shrieks as his flesh seared.
Xavier skidded to a halt. His breath caught. They were taking the women.

A young woman - her face streaked with soot, her hair wild - screamed as one of the smaller creatures wrapped its elongated arms around her waist, hoisting her up like a sack of grain. Others were chased down, dragged by their hair, their captors growling and snapping like wolves. And then, he saw her.
Astrid.
She was clad in tattered furs, her long hair tangled with ice and dirt, and her face streaked with desperation. She fought, kicking and twisting, but one of the creatures had her, its gangly, sinewy arms locked around her waist.
Xavier moved without thinking. With a running start, he lunged at the brute, slamming his full weight into it. The thing barely staggered. It turned and struck. A fist like a sledgehammer crashed into Xavier’s ribs. He felt bone snap, air ripped from his lungs, and he hit the ice hard, stars bursting behind his eyes. Pain. Searing, raw pain. His limbs felt leaden. The savage beast was dragging her off…
No. No, no, no!
Astrid screamed again.
Move. Get up.
As he staggered to his feet, a glint of something solid beneath layers of frost caught his eye. His hand closed around it, instinct overriding thought. He yanked. The ice cracked, and steel gleamed—a trident.
The creature was dragging Astrid away, its grip tight around her waist. She kicked and screamed in futility. Pain forgotten, strength surging, Xavier charged.
He drove the trident forward, aiming for the beast’s spine; the prongs sank deep into the middle of its back. A guttural groan tore from its throat. It lurched, twisting in agony, its grip on Astrid loosening. She collapsed to the ice, scrambling away.
Xavier ripped the weapon free and, with all the mercy the beast deserved, plunged it back in, twisting it cruelly, the jagged steel tearing through sinew and bone. The creature shuddered, then collapsed. The pool of blood forming below the fallen beast glinted in the foggy daylight. His breath came in ragged gulps, steam rising off his body, hands shaking. Astrid stared at him, wide-eyed, her chest heaving.
The relief lasted only a second. Because more were coming. The low growls thickened the air. Monstrous shadows advancing through the snow, their hungry eyes locked on Astrid.
Xavier grabbed her wrist. “Run!”

They ran with the wind that screamed through the ruins, its icy breath cutting like daggers as Xavier and Astrid raced through the rubble. Behind them, the growls swelled, monstrous voices echoing off what still stood of Atlantis. Xavier’s lungs burned, his ribs ached from the blow, and his legs threatened to give out beneath him—but he kept moving. They had to.
“This way!” Astrid jerked his arm and led the way towards a collapsed forum, her smaller form slipping between broken columns. She was fast and sure-footed, navigating the terrain like she’d run this path before. She ducked under the remains of a fallen statue, pulling him with her. A jagged obelisk loomed ahead, toppled over a crumbling structure, forming a dark, gaping hollow beneath it. “Here,” she panted. She scrambled through the opening, and he followed, his body protesting as he dragged himself into the dark.
The space was larger than he expected, a sunken chamber beneath the ruins. Xavier collapsed against a column, his breath coming in gasps. Astrid didn’t rest. She moved with practiced precision, reaching into a bundle of furs tucked away in the corner, revealing supplies: flint, dried herbs, and a carved bone knife. “This is our hideaway for when they raid. I pray the others will make it here.”
In the gloom, she crouched by a firepit and struck flint; sparks danced against the darkness. A small flame bloomed within moments, casting flickering light across the chamber’s walls. It contained the remnants of a lost era of knowledge; fractured obsidian tablets etched with symbols lay scattered among broken instruments of unknown purpose. A collapsed archway bore a faded inscription in an ancient script, its meaning lost to time, but the emblem beside it—a celestial map aligning Atlantis with the stars.
Xavier slumped forward, his fingers finally releasing the trident, his body finally registering the pain. Astrid knelt beside him, her brows drawn in concern.
“You’re hurt,” she murmured.
“No kidding,” he rasped.
She reached for a bowl filled with crushed herbs, mixing them with melted snow in a hollowed-out stone vessel. “This will help,” she said, dipping a strip of cloth into the mixture. She pressed the cool, fragrant paste against the bruise spreading over his ribs.
He flinched. “Shit. That stings.”
“It’s supposed to.”
She moved with care, fingers deft and practiced. Xavier watched her, the firelight catching in her dirt-streaked hair, illuminating the fierce determination in her eyes. For a moment, he forgot where they were. Forgot the beasts outside, the ruins around them. All he saw was her.
Astrid. Fighter. Survivor. Mine.
She glanced up, their eyes meeting. Her hand lingered over his ribs, warm against his cold skin. The nightmare subsiding, Xavier grew curious…

“What the hell were those things? Some of them were like monsters, and some more… human,” He asked, his breath returning.
“We call them: the Northern Orcs.”
“Why were they taking the women?”
“We are beautiful. Their women are hideous like them, with faces like bears and teeth like pigs. So they raid our camps, kill our men, take us, and…” Her voice cracked, “from the ravishments we take on our backs come children. The weaker ones you saw among the raiding party were born of women once taken. This has been going on since The Cycle destroyed Atlantis. The great armies of Atlantis once kept the Orcs at bay, pushed them back into the badlands along the northern ice fields. But those armies are now ghosts, and the Orcs take us and ravage us. You saved me from being made the wife of that ugly orc.” She took his hand, “Thank you!”
“I’m your man. It’s my job.”
She nodded and warmed her hands before the fire.
“Before I rebuild Atlantis,” determination welled in him, “I need to stop this raiding. Organize the men of the surviving human tribes into a more formidable force. The Orcs are stronger, but us, smarter. I swear, with all my mind, to put an end to this brutish extinction of beauty!”
“But this world is not without justice, and the old Gods of Atlantis curse the Orcs for this transgression. A curse that falls upon the son for the sin of the father. The half-Orc sons carry barren seed in their loins. They produce no younglings: they grow old, useless to their tribes, are pushed out into the cold, and their mongrel blood ends with them. The halfling daughters are fertile but ugly like their fathers, undesirable among them. The sons they bear; too weak to stand among the males of their tribe, and they also carry barren seed. These halfling children - rejected by their fathers, cast out in the cold - sometimes beg to join our tribe, but knowing them to be brutish and dull in the head, we turn them away.” Her voice softened, “Though it is forbidden, I sometimes give them a few beans.”
She rose and fed the fire from a meager stock of logs. Removing a layer of fur, she cuddled up to him and continued. “Though every season is cold, the gray-haired among our tribe discern the patterns of the stars, and with the procession of time, the beastly tribes of the Orcs are growing weaker, less numerous. Yet, they persist in their raiding of us. Their crude minds lack the vision to see that because of this very lust for beauty that is not theirs to take, one day their kind will be but bones in the Earth.”

“Well, we can’t wait till that day! With the right weapons, we can genocide those beasts. This is a place of science; there must be something remaining of the arts of metallurgy here that we can use to arm ourselves with better weapons. Let’s explore…” He half-rose, but pain erupted from his broken rib; he grimaced and groaned.
“No! You’re not even ready to stand, let alone fight a war. You need to rest and give the medicine time to work.” She urged, pulling him back beside her. “Xavier, the past unexamined, is the future, unrelenting. So sit with me a while, before you rebuild Atlantis, you should know its story. Do you know it?”
“Only the story of its destruction…”
“Around our fires, we tell the old stories; we keep Atlantis alive in our hearts. The story of its genesis is enough to warm you on even the most frigid night.”
He nodded for her to continue.
“Prometheus conspired to steal fire from heaven…”
“Yeah, I’ve heard the story before, but I’ve always wondered what the fire was or what it represented.”
“The fire? Simply, the capacity of a man to choose which way to go. That spark within us all; that moves us to defy destiny, to challenge Fortuna even when she seems so resolute in the path laid out before us.”
So, the Promethean flame was human agency. Free will.
“But angels guarded the fire, so Prometheus sang a song sure to distract them…” And her soothing voice filled the chamber with a haunting song…

“O radiant watchers, morningstars bright,
Look down upon the firelit earth,
Where daughters of dust, with sunlit hair,
Dance to the song of the sea’s rebirth.

Their hands weave warmth from the bitter cold,
Their lips call stars from the endless deep,
With hearts that burn like embered gold,
They laugh, they live, their souls run free.

Would you not trade your silvered thrones,
To hold their form in your hand,
For the wild embrace of their fleeting breath,
Even here in heaven, there is nothing so grand”

With the lure of the song punctuated by the crackling of the fire, she continued…
“Then the angels peered over the edge of heaven, lusting for the beauty of women, while Prometheus stole the fire. The angels fell to Earth. The angels were beautiful and charming like Adonis, so they found no shortage of willing human wives. Their sons were mighty like their fathers and their daughters, a prize any king would sell his palace for! These mighty sons built Atlantis and raised glorious temples to their fathers - the Fallen Angels - Poseidon, chief among them. These sons crossed vast oceans to unknown lands, raising great monuments aligned to the same stars. And with the people living like animals in the dirt in these lands, they shared gifts - the Promethean flame and the mysteries of the universe in their minds: astronomy, philosophy, agriculture, pharmakeia, geometry, and - governing it all - mathematics.”

“Mathematics. It’s been the consuming passion of my life.” He said, mesmerized by the story that spoke to a deep part of his soul.
She turned to him, the firelight dancing in her eyes, her fine features regal in their conviction.

“I know, for in your veins runs some measure of the blood of Fallen Angels, like in mine.”

If you enjoyed this sample chapter and found it provocative, prepare to have your mind blown by Hourglass #2: The Trident, The Tachyon & The Temptress

Here's a plot summary...

Xavier has done a deal with the Devil to solve the unsolvable: the Goldbach Conjecture. Addicted to the most dangerous of Smart Drugs and overclocking his cognition with fringe Biohacks, he risks his sanity to outsmart centuries of mathematicians. But he discovers that his work for Quantum Dynamics is far darker and more dangerous than he could have possibly imagined.

Once the master cybercriminal known as "Nero," he's a man at war with the past, the future, and himself. The Temptress lures him into the darkest web, purring: “You are a man with the star seed of a thousand supernovas in your loins, so thrust into the soft places that will take it. Seize what you can while you can.” And his surrender to temptation seems certain.

From the political machinations in a VR simulation of the Atlantean empire and his own lucid dreams to courtroom drama and shocking revelations in the Swiss Alps, unseen forces guide him to fulfill “the red Gucci dress” prophecy...
“When the night sky burns green, your fury will melt the wings of Icarus, and you will strike a trident into the heart of the system that has enslaved so many.”

Desperate to stop “The Cycle of 12,000 Suns,” he’s drawn - seemingly by destiny - to a luxurious zeppelin where a decadent “Eyes Wide Shut” party ascends above CERN in Switzerland. There in the sky, he will grasp at his divine right to free will as the epically tense, sexy, violent, and philosophical climax of Hourglass erupts.

I'm author-banned on Amazon, so you’ll be able to get it as a digital book + audio book package via the Limitless Mindset Store, here

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With AI filmmaking tools, I've crafted this trailer to give you a provocative glimpse at the epic conclusion of Hourglass…

Limitless met Black Mirror met American Psycho in Hourglass #1: A science fiction novel - Not For Sex Addicts - about seduction, biohacking & philosophy 

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