For Zakxin So Loved the World

“Behold! We bring the victorious promise of Zakxin to the people of Earth! None of you need go on in your life. Zakxin alone can offer salvation to this dying world. Through the doorways of the New Dawn you shall receive the everlasting oath. To paraphrase your own sacred texts, ‘For Zakxin so loved the—’”

Dennis Doves grabbed the nearby remote and turned off the break room TV. His finger pressed the on/off button with unnecessary strength. As if the extra pressure would turn off the screen for good and never turn on again. Dennis wished he would never see those beings or hear those messages again. He could not stomach another word from these extraterrestrial preachers.

It had been weeks, wait … months! Had it already been several months since those cosmic clergy descended upon the Earth to spread their alien gospel? Dennis could hardly believe the world had already adjusted to having intergalactic visitors sharing the Truth of some otherworldly deity. This wasn’t a viral internet trend or some worldwide fad; this was a shift in the paradigm of the planet and every person on it. Just another day, Dennis thought sarcastically.

For months the world looked on as the diverse collection of alien preachers set up shop all around the world in remote sites. Some chose desert outposts, some chose forested lakeside retreats, and others chose the relative remoteness of fields previously used for agriculture. The metropolises and cities of the world were left alone–if you wanted to see the strange preachers from another planet, you would have to go and seek them out.

As Dennis punched back into work from his lunch break he recalled the look and feeling of so many of the beings he had seen on the news these last few weeks. Some of the aliens resemble humans in many regards–one head, two eyes, two ears, a nose of some sort–yet others were beyond his most bizarre imagination. Limbs and features that seemed to blur the lines between logical anatomy and uncanny curiosities. Either way, these beings were new here on Earth, and even more than their appearances, Dennis knew the uneasy feeling this all gave him.

“Hey Dennis! You see the latest on the portal the Congregation opened up in the middle of Missouri?” Dennis’ coworker and friend Kyle Holly asked, coming alongside Dennis.

Dennis pretended not to hear Kyle for a moment, if only to avoid talking about the subject for one more minute.

“Dennis? You there, man?” Kyle prodded.

“Oh–Yeah! Hey Kyle, what was that?”

“You can’t tell me you haven’t heard the news?! The Congregation opened up a portal just a few hours from here, and they set up a new settlement around it for those who wanna come and check it out. A real ‘come and see’ situation.”

Dennis grimaced at his friend’s obvious enthusiasm. “The Congregation?”

“You haven’t heard that name for ‘em yet, I guess. Yeah, some of the internet threads and deep web sites I found simply just call these alien messengers ‘The Congregation’. Kind of a cool name if you ask me—”

“I don’t remember asking Kyle,” Dennis replied abruptly, “Now, can we just get back to work?”

“Sure, I guess. What’s another day of putting together mechanical components for machines we will never own, I guess,” Kyle said, downcast.

Dennis and Kyle had been working together at the Prime Technologies plant since they graduated high school ten years ago. Most of their days consisted of quality control work which Dennis described as “sorting the shit.” They would pick out the pieces on the assembling line that were deformed or broken and toss them aside to the scrap heap. Deep down Dennis knew this job would be all he would ever know. That is, until the Zakxin preachers appeared.

Several hours later, Dennis and Kyle were still plugging away at their quality control spot checks, and the silence became too much. “Dennis, what if we just went to see the portal in Missouri? It’s just a few hours away, and we will be back for work tomorrow,” Kyle said.

Dennis couldn’t deny the thought had crossed his mind, just for curiosity's sake. What were these alien preachers like in person? Why would someone drive out to the middle of nowhere to hear their foreign messages? There was only one way to find out. “Okay, Kyle.”

“What?! Are you serious, Dennis?” Kyle said, turning his full attention from the assembly line to his now less reluctant friend. 

“Let’s go after work today. See what all these months of hype have been about.”

“Zakxin be praised!” Kyle shouted.

Dennis paused in stunned silence at his friend’s joyous outburst. Kyle stopped his celebration at Dennis’ astounded gaze, “Oh, sorry, Dennis. I’ve just been listening to their sermons a lot lately–trying to understand more. It’s actually quite fascinating stuff. You see, Zakxin sends his prophets all over the universe to ….”

Kyle continued relaying all the things he had learned until the end of their shift, and Dennis did not have the heart to stop him. At the very least, his friend was hopeful and excited about something that could turn out harmless. On the other hand, what if Kyle was right? What if all this science fiction mumbo jumbo was … true? What if the Congregation was here on a goodwill mission from a cosmic space deity who just wanted to help humanity? What if?

The co-workers punched their time cards for the last time that day and jumped into Dennis’ beat up car to head out on their religious road trip to Missouri. It was just an hour or two across the stateline–all the more time for Kyle to yammer on and on about all the “revelations” he had discovered online.

“The portals! I keep forgetting to tell you more about the portals! Several reports I found say that the Congregation has opened them up to take us to Zakxin. To bring us into the New Light of a parallel universe, devoid of pain and suffering. A world without hunger, racism, violence, and all other forms of evil,” Kyle said.

Dennis could not help but wonder what had changed in his friend. Kyle never used to speak like this. I mean, sure, everyone in their smalltown went to church and thought of themselves as good people, but this kind of talk seemed fanatical. Ever since the visitors began to spread their message, Kyle seemed less focused on their work and more enraptured by the possibilities the preachers spoke of beyond this world. It caused Dennis to think as well.

As Kyle continued to regale Dennis of the many wonders he had unearthed in his passionate research, the car pulled into an unassuming roadside town. The portal was on the other side of this community; they were so close. A few pedestrians on each side of the road lined the otherwise abandoned artery through the town. It was then that Dennis noticed the street was not entirely empty, the few people they had seen walking were merely stragglers headed to a gathering at the end of the street.

As they drove closer, Kyle and Dennis noticed signs and commotion coming from the assembled group of townsfolk. The multitude roared back and forth in response to something at the far end of the crowd. Dennis rolled down his window just slightly to call over to one of the stragglers trailing the larger group. “Hey, hey!” he called to one of the nicer looking elderly folks on the sidewalk.

A slender, gray haired man in a flannel shirt and crisp blue jeans turned to face the out-of-towners. “Welcome! What brings you boys to town?”

Dennis recoiled slightly at the citizen’s warmth, “Uh, yes … we are here to see the portal on the other side of town. Mind telling us what this crowd is getting together for?”

“You’re here for the portal, boys?” the man replied with a tinge of disgust in his voice.

“Yes, sir. Yes, we are,” Kyle responded from across the vehicle.

“If you two are here to protest the government's inaction with these alien bastards, you’ve come to the right place. Us citizens here want those good for nothing invaders gone. Now!”

The warm, neighborly tone had faded quickly from the elderly man’s voice. This crowd was not here for the same reasons as Dennis and Kyle. They did not desire salvation, redemption, enlightenment, or anything that the intergalactic prophets offered. They wanted to escalate measures considerably, most towards a violent end.

“We must be going on, sir. Thank you for the information,” Dennis said, pulling down a side street and avoiding the crowd.

As the old man faded into the distance, Kyle and Dennis exchanged glances. “What are we doing here, Kyle?” Dennis asked.

“We’re here to see the aliens for ourselves and hear their message.”

“Yeah, I know that, but why are we here and not just watching online or on the news? Why did you want to come all this way to one of these portals, Kyle?”

Kyle paused and did not give an answer. Dennis knew; they both knew. Kyle had no intention of coming back. The alien gospel had struck such a powerful cord that the young man intended to receive Zakxin’s everlasting promise and step into whatever the portal had to offer. Neither one of them spoke–they had no words.

The beat up car pulled out of town and followed a thin line of cars toward the site where the alien’s had set up their simple outpost around the portal. From a mile away, at the top of a hill, they saw the structure for the first time. Down below, in the middle of a clearing, Dennis saw the portal in full view. It was a modest metal ring, no taller than twenty feet. The opening glowed with a radiant orange light and swirled as though it were draining into the world on the other side.

On each side of the portal were several meager dwellings that Dennis assumed belonged to the preachers themselves. A modest gathering of a few dozen cars were parked at a distance from the portal, and the human figures gathered there formed a line as a form of perimeter. Dennis and Kyle parked and joined the line of people.

Dennis half-expected to see conspiracy theorists, whack jobs, and burn outs populating this odd gathering; however, he could not have been more wrong. The line of people consisted of regular people, in his estimation. Older folks, younger people, even families with children. None of them spoke, they merely watched and waited. Why have so many “normal” people showed up in remote Missouri to hear from Zakxin’s preachers? Perhaps they had been drawn to the strange message of hope just as Kyle had been.

The alien messengers emerged from their humble huts at the side of the portal. The variety of species were all robed in similar garments of dark red accented with tan. The robes were simple and not flashy in any way. The alien preachers numbered a dozen, and they formed a line parallel to the humans gathered near their cars.

One preacher, blue skinned with a smooth, hairless head, stepped forward from the Congregation’s contingency and raised their two fingered hand. Both parties fell entirely silent. Forming his words in a familiar earth tongue, the preacher spoke, “My name is Omaran. I hail from the distant watery world of Vreehin, far beyond this world. On my home world we suffered many great storms that caused our firmament to crack and separate. Panic overtook my people as the certain doom of our world came closer. In our hours of deepest need, hope descended to our world. Zakxin brought to us the New Light and saved a great many who stepped from our world into the world beyond.”

The crowd of humans stood stunned at Omaran’s story. The preacher had a pleasant way about him. Omaran seemed to be above all things genuine in his retelling. “I’ve seen this one online, Dennis. He is one of the principal speakers for Zakxin. If anyone of them would know how to answer our questions, it would be him,” Kyle whispered to Dennis.

Omaran continued, “This world is much like Vreehin–rich with life, but also rich with destruction and death. Hate and fear run free in the hearts of your kind. Hostility and dread have caused this world to fall into an unending cycle of killing. The timeless exercise of extinguishing each other’s sparks has become a subconscious assumption.”

The other preachers and the assembled humans tensed as Omaran’s tone shifted towards a climatic crescendo, “It was Zakxin who saved the helpless Jihiti from the murderous hand of Kazogar the Merciless on Apra 58. It was Zakxin who saved the peaceful Slycesni when they were sent as refugees of the Great Mocrudo Conflict on their homeworld. It was Zakxin who redeemed the infamous Origuhin and cleansed the oceans of blood from their hands. So many more worlds than these have been saved through the everlasting promise we offer the people of Earth now.”

A palpable buzz coursed through the humans. Could this call be real? Was what the Zakxinian preacher said true? The messenger from another world spoke their final remarks, “However, there is more. There is more beyond this or any other world. A place parallel from here without hate or fear. A place of true peace and genuine hope. This place Zakxin offers to you all.”

As Omaran ceased his short sermon, all the alien preachers raised their hands to receive any and all who were willing to receive Zakxin’s everlasting promise. Silently, but no less suddenly, a young woman stepped out from the lineup and approached Omaran, arms still outstretched. The preacher brought her close and whispered something in her ear that brought a tear to her eye. With a nod of acknowledgement, Omaran directed her to the portal.

The woman walked resolutely to the welcoming opening and took one last look back at the only world she had ever known–until today. She gazed up at the sky and wiped away the tears Omaran’s words had produced. Then she stepped confidently through the portal’s swirling orange energy field and disappeared. Dennis caught his breath, she’s gone.

Kyle glanced at Dennis with a look of surprise at first, but it quickly turned to excitement. As if his feet were summoned from beyond the portal, Kyle stepped out as the young woman had done. Dennis pulled back on his friend’s arm, “Kyle, you can’t be serious?”

His friend’s forward gaze toward Omaran, the collection of clergy, and the portal was unaltered. “Yes, Dennis. I am serious. I want to go. I need to go.”

Dennis fumbled for words, “But–but, what about your life? What about your family? Your work? Your … friends?”

Kyle acknowledged his friend’s concern and placed his hand on Dennis’. “It’s okay, Dennis. I’m not afraid. There is nothing behind me that I care to hold onto, but this–this unknown before me? I feel like I need to go.”

The friends shot each other accepting looks as Kyle briskly walked away from the line of fellow humans and toward Omaran’s outstretched arms. Just like with the young woman before, the preacher whispered into Kyle’s ear and his words brought tears. Kyle walked, without turning back, through the glowing gateway and out of this world, into the everlasting promise.

Dennis hesitated for a moment, thinking to himself about what Kyle had said. Was there anything left for him here? A dead end job. A meaningless daily agenda. A splintered family. All the pain in the world. All the suffering. The hatred and the fear-mongering. What if this place Omaran spoke of was real? Was it worth the risk?

As if the very air around him was pulling him forward, Dennis’ feet began to move. It surprised even him. Was he really about to do this? Follow the young woman and his friend into the unknown? Did he believe this alien gospel? He was not sure, but his body certainly felt something akin to resolve as he left the lineup and approached Omaran.

“Are you prepared to receive Zakxin’s everlasting promise, Earthling?” Omaran asked in a calm voice.

Dennis disregarded the preacher’s question at first and asked his own question, “What is through there?” he said, pointing at the gate. “Do we die? Do we get teleported somewhere else? Do we cease to exist all together?” Dennis stammered anxiously.

Omaran smiled. This question never ceased to amuse. No matter what planet they went to, all beings required confidence before they jumped into the unknown. “Beyond that portal lies the absence of your pain. The absence of your fear. Relief. Redemption,” Omaran said, pointing into the orange energy field.

“What's the catch? What will this cost me?”

Omaran smiled again. This was the second most asked question. The alien lowered his blue, hairless head to Dennis’ ear and whispered, “Nothing but your past.”

Dennis recalled all the hurt, fear, and pain that had haunted him through those long, pointless shifts at Prime Technologies. All of the confusion in his life. All the things he wished could be different. Could he give it all up for a chance at peace and relief? He thought so.

Omaran pointed into the orange portal and ushered Dennis to follow. With brave steps, the man strode forward and paused beneath the glow of the portal. It would cost nothing to take his next step, except everything he left behind. The future was before him, daunting and unknown–but full of Zakxin’s everlasting promise. Full of hope and wholeness. That alone was worth one step.

Dennis took his last step on Earth and walked into the New Light.