Choices

…“I brought you here as a chosen dozen to undertake a challenge” the Captain began. “I ask you sit silent and listen intently to what I am about to tell you. And when I am done any or all of you are free to leave with or without your C.O.L.’S or looking glasses as you know them to resemble. Thousands of years ago this Island came to be known as sacred ground where future secrets were told by ghosts of years past. Many came in search of this treasure and lost their way in the fog, never to set ground on its earth. This place is explained by those who serve here as a piece of heaven on earth.  Birth does not bestow the right of passage nor does wealth or heritage. Two prep schools were assigned as the locations of selection. The school you girls attended and the one the boys attended.  Once every fifty years a group of six boys and six girls are brought here to be made the offering. (Later they would learn they were from the North America prep schools and there were 2 prep schools from every continent around the world that were privileged with this Island passage.) Some say it is God’s way of paying back the human race for the mistakes in nature that created animalistic tendencies in mankind. But to all who have been selected over the years, they see it as an Island of hope, dreams, struggles, and a strong realization of how precious the gift of life is”…

…“As you all know life is full of choices and the choices we make stir us through life. Imagine, if you can, being able to view the path not taken. To be able, if you will, to see your life had you made a different selection. Imagine further if you were gifted with one time in life to change your choice and go back and re-live with a different choice selection. These gifts I bestow on you all and the viewing of choices will be your right of passage once every five years, on this exact eve, here in this place on this Island”…

…“You come before the falls as the 7th keeper. All before you, as will you, will learn through the years of the powers you posses. Some learn in time to save people and some learn by hard mistakes. But none have the choice to quit.  The others may lay down their COL and decide they no longer want to know. This is their right. Their COL glass and book will then lie on the viewing table until their group all demise the life they share. But in walking away they will still receive an invitation back every five years until they die. At any time in life they can change their minds and re-appear on the Island.  They will still be granted the final choice to relive life. If they decide not to participate throughout life then you shall be the messenger of the final choice to live again”…

…“I want you to come with me to the viewing table to view a future reflection. You will be burdened to not share what you see with anyone for all eternity. Do you understand?” the professor asked Monica.

“Come with me and you will see”, he said.  She followed him back to the center. For miles up and down, it seemed, from where they were there were lights illuminating and moving like stars across the rotating sky. “Focus on one light hard and then tell me what you see” the professor instructed Monica.  As Monica complied to the professor’s request she stared at a light and saw nothing. She turned back to the professor and said, “I see nothing.” Just then he grabbed her head turned it to a light about 30 feet away and all at once she realized what these lights were. They were the back bottom of each hover chair. A man turned his chair as she made her realization. He gave her a smile and a wink and then moved off into the darkness. But how could this be she thought. Just then the professor addressed her. “Each night at midnight, in their respective areas of the world, for one hour this place lights up with people chosen from all over the world to come here and learn. They are chosen leaders who are striving day by day to save mankind from self destruction”...