2012 (A W.I.P.)

**godzillaman** Thu Nov 27, 2008 12:50 pm

Here's a W.I.P. Hope you like it. Cool

I
Jared smiled. The Picture always made him smile. He could never really figure out why it did that, after all, it was a picture of a sad time. The Picture showed a young boy, who happened to be Jared, standing in front of a Mayan Stela covered in hieroglyphs. Jared was standing next to a woman in the picture, who happened to be his mother. The Stela was well over ten feet tall, and dwarfed both of the two figures in it. The Picture had been taken in Mexico, at a Mayan ruin site on the Yucatan Peninsula. Jared’s parents had taken him there in celebration of his first birthday. For Jared’s mother, it would be her last trip of many out of the United States as an archaeologist.
She died of a bad case of Montezuma’s Revenge. Jared never knew his mother. At least, that’s what his dad, Timothy, always said. But somehow, some way, Jared felt that his mother was still alive. He didn’t know why, but he was sure of it.
Now, Jared was thirteen, living in Washington, D.C., and in eighth grade. His mother was gone and he had a seven-year old sister his father had adopted a few years ago. Surprisingly, Jared and the girl, named April, got along well from the start.
“Oh, Jared hi!”
Jared turned around in surprise. It was Chelsea, his crush and one of his best friends.
“Hey, Chelsea. How’s life treating you today?”
“Well, okay, I guess. Marc and I are going to a movie this Friday. I’m kinda nervous.”
Jared hated Marc. They had been fighting over Chelsea since third grade, and now Marc seemed to be winning. He managed to hide this most of the time, though. Chelsea thought that they were best friends, which frustrated both of them.
“Thirty seconds, guys! Time to get to class! Thirty seconds!”
Time seemed to freeze as the security guards voice echoed through the hallway. The passing period was almost over.
“Oh! Bye Jared! Gotta Go!” Chelsea clutched her books to her chest and scurried down the hall. Jared slammed his locker and rushed to follow her before he realized that he had not taken anything out of it.
“Crap!” Jared sprinted down the hall back to get his books.
“Hey! Kid! Don’t run!” the security guard shouted. Jared stopped to a fast walk. His calves were burning and his mouth was bone dry before he got to his locker. Jared hastily entered his combination and pulled the door open.
“Ten seconds! Get to class! Ten seconds!”
Jared felt like he was going to throw up. He pulled on the lever once, twice. He entered his combination again and pulled. He had never been late for class before. He pulled on the lever again. Nothing happened. This process repeated five times before the door finally gave way and everything spilled out of his locker. Jared cleaned up the mess as fast as he could and grabbed the things he would need for his next class. Despite walking down the hallway as fast as he could, he was five minuets late.
“You’re late, Mr. Carter.” Mrs. Cornelius’s voice, with its light English accent, seemed to pierce through the atmosphere right to Jared’s ears. Mrs. Cornelius was easily the strictest teacher in the school.
“Sorry. Locker trouble,” Jared panted.
“I don’t want excuses. Get into your seat.”
Jared slowly slinked into his seat.
“Because this is your first time being late, I will tell you what we have been talking about, but next time, you will not be so lucky as to interrupt our conversation like this. The ancient Maya predicted that the world would end precisely on December 23, 2012. That is when their calendar ends, anyway. Only a few exceptionally special people will survive. Did you hear that, Jared?”
“Yup.” But Jared really had not, other then the “end of the world” part and the “December 23, 2012” piece. Jared studied the white board at the front of the front of the room. It read:
Friday, December 1, 2012
Welcome to class. Today you will need your ruler and compass. I will be collecting your reports on Lord Pacal, the Maya king today.
A shiver ran down Jared’s spine. He had forgotten his ruler and compass.3

II
Jared was halfway to the bus at the end of the day when his best friend, Theodore, ran up.
“Hey man. Got any homework?” Theodore asked.
“Nope. I got lucky this time.”
“Ditto.”
“Is it true that Chelsea is going out with Marc?”
“Yup.”
“Ouch. What’re you gonna do about it?”
“No idea,” Jared replied as the pair got on the bus together. They rode home in silence. Theodore was moving to Virginia because his father was in the army. The coming Thursday was the last time they would ever see each other again.
Jared pulled out the book he was reading when the pair got on the bus. It was called Under Black Skies, a book on the 9-11 tragedy, and Jared was doing a book report on it. Jared was so enthralled that he almost didn’t get off the bus at his stop. It was the best book he had read in a long time.
“Jared! I gotta take the short way home today. My mom wants my help packing!” Theodore shouted.
“Okay! See ya!” Jared said and continued home. Jared’s house was not that far from the bus stop, so he could get there relatively fast.
The door was unlocked, and Jared let himself right in. He grabbed the package of almonds from the pantry and stuffed some in his mouth. Jared loved almonds.
“Dad! I’m home!” Jared called with a mouthful of almond.
“Okay! I’m upstairs in my office if you need me!” Jared’s father replied. Jared read his book and ate almonds for a long time until he was interrupted by April.
“Yup. You just noticed that?”
“Yeah. Why are you reading at the kitchen table and not your room?”
“Ah. Good idea. That way you won’t annoy me.” Jared grabbed is backpack and book and rushed up to his room, where he shut and locked the door. Jared set his backpack down and started to read.
Jared’s window was open, and a breeze blew into his room. It rippled The Picture, startling him. Jared scooped it off of his desk and observed it. He smiled. It had never really occurred to Jared to figure out what it said on the stela, but now that he saw it, he thought that he should. Jared hopped onto his computer and speedily connected to the Internet. He looked up Mayan Hieroglyphs, and clicked on a link. It had the complete Mayan alphabet, and it took Jared quite a bit to decode the whole thing. But once he read it, The Picture seemed absolutely terrifying.

III
Jared re-read the stela one last time. This is what it said:

The Visitors have left. They will return on Sunday, December 23, 2012, at 9:00 p.m. to finish off the last of civilization. They will be all over the earth. The initial assault will commence at 38:54:18N 77:00:58W. The Visitors, if they fail here, will give up. But they will not fail. The few that survive will be blessed with infinite power. But no one will survive. The visitors have taught us to farm, to live. But we were arrogant and selfish. We used our powers for evil. They cursed us and made us leave our cities. The Visitors promised to return someday. There is nothing we can do to stop them. They will destroy our villages and slaughter our children. The Visitors will not forget. They will not forgive. They gave us a chance and we abused it. The Visitors have one weakness. It is the white metal powder that suppresses Kinich Ahau. But there is none. Forgive us, Visitors. Forgive us for our sins.

IV
Jared didn’t know what to do. The world was ending and he had less that a month to stop these “visitors.” He really did not care about anything other that the part on how to stop them, but even that he did not understand. What was the white metal powder? Could there be no way to save humanity? Jared shoved these thoughts out of his mind. He knew he would find it. There had to be a way. Jared quickly did an Internet search for 38:54:18N 77:00:58W, and groaned. It was the coordinates for Washington, D.C., where he lived. A few more searches revealed that Kinich Ahau was the Mayan sun god.
“Suppresses the sun god, suppresses the sun god,” Jared kept muttering to himself. He then realized that, if the sun god was the personification of the sun, suppressing it would simply be blocking it out. But that still left the “white metal powder” to be explained. This meant that it could not be an eclipse, tree, or anything else Jared could think of. Except sunscreen. But even sunscreen was not a white powder. Still, Jared was determined. Sunscreen was the only thing on Jared’s “list” that the ancients could not have had. Jared jumped the entire flight of stairs down to the living room and dove into the garage. He knew that his father kept sunscreen in a box marked “Summer” that should be down there somewhere. Jared scanned the area, and, in panic, realized he couldn’t find it. He hurridley resorted to inspecting every box he could find.