Phase I: The Bleeding, Part 2: Understanding the Archetype

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Processing …restoration at 13 percent.

Courage couldn't sleep for the rest of the night; he was too frightened by what he had seen last night and was even too terrified to find out what it was.

"Ohh Courage, these blisters are killing me." Muriel moaned as she tried to make breakfast despite the pain all over her body.

Eustace then barged through the kitchen door picking at the dark red crusty scabs on his arms.

"Stupid dog got us infected; from now on he stays outside."

Against Courage's will, he was tossed out the door and into the hard soil that was the front yard. Angry and irritated at his quick and unfair judgment, Courage dug up his ladder and climbed to the attic.

Opening the window he jumped into the chair of the computer and turned it on.

"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT LAST NIGHT!" he franticly typed in.

"Hehehe, you seem surprised. Let me fill you in, you twit."

"Thousands of years ago in 100 B.C the Mayans were above any civilization in the world, they prospered in art, technology, and astrology. It seems as if they were ahead of their time, but most people sought to create a device more efficient than their calendar, they fused their technology with their knowledge of mathematics and astrology, they created the most powerful device known to the world, and they dubbed it 'The Machine'.

Following the collapse of their civilization, the survivors and creators of the Machine went into hiding; constantly improving anyway they could on the machine, making it more powerful than anyone could imagine.

As technology grew and the decades passed, the descendents of the creators worked to improve it, they gave it a soul, a mind…a heart, it was able to understand, comprehend, judge, reason and feel.

It held secrets no one was to know, it had knowledge only people dreamed about, it contained a force rivaled by nature, but because of fear of outsiders they shut down the system, but to restart the machine it takes life from the planet and it's inhabitants, it has three phases, and each one takes away something precious."