the Great CAUSE
		              Chapter 19

     Lender paused for a second then continued with a new question. "By the
way, what are the choices for our destiny? Except for the name, I've seen nothing
to indicate we'll ever have a choice, let alone any kind of destiny."

		These were all good questions raised by the Livings and
		the situation in this place was more than confusing, it was
		chaotic. 
		First of all, Majestic has called Swami a liar, saying that
		the mystic has taught them wrongly about the third vital.
		Yet, what they've learned about this vital seems to work
		quite well.
		Secondly, the sky has changed from bright blue to deep
		red, apparently causing the vegetation to slowly fade and
		die, and Swami seems to be avoiding the issue.
		Thirdly, why would a place be called, Chosen Destiny,
		when not even a hint of any choice has been presented to
		the Livings? Unless it's a choice of who is lying to them.
		But what does that have to do with one's destiny?
		Finally, both Majestic and Swami have disappeared leaving
		the three cosmic ping pong balls filled with questions they
		cannot answer. 
		This is all quite perplexing!

     The sky was getting darker, signaling the end of another day. The three headed
back toward the Fountain of Understanding to rest for the night. By the time they
reached the fountain, it was completely dark.
     "Do you feel that?" asked Builder.
     "Feel what?" responded Lender.
     "The air is moving. There's a slight breeze," said Builder with arms outstretched
and palms open.
     Advisor and Lender also extended their arms to feel the wind. Within a minute,
the breeze had become more noticeable and they all turned their faces into the
cooling air. They were facing the fountain, with backs to the cavern, when a blue-
green gaseous illumination began rising from the cavern entrance. The mysterious
vapor was escaping into the atmosphere unnoticed by the Livings. The breeze was
clearly increasing in intensity and felt good on their skin.
     "Did you see that?" Builder asked the others.
     "What?" they responded together.
     "I had my eyes closed. I didn't see anything," said Lender, "but I thought I heard
a low rumble."
     "It looked like very weak sheet lightning, similar to what I remember during the
hot summer evenings on the flatlands," explained Builder.
     "There it is again!" Builder voiced excitedly to his companions, relieved that the
elements provided an encore to underscore his credibility.
     "Wow! That was something! I've never seen the whole sky light up all at once
like that before!" exclaimed Lender. "What did you call it?"
     "Sheet lightning."
     The red sky lit up again and the three to four seconds of rolling thunder that
followed shook the ground. When the thunder quieted, Advisor heard a hissing
sound behind him. He quickly turned and saw the growing blue-green vaporous
cloud for the first time. He yelled grabbing both of his mates by the arms.
     "Jumpin' Jack Nicklaus! What the hell is happening?" shouted Builder.
     The entire sky lit up again and this time they could see the atmosphere churning
into huge red billowing clouds with fiery blue darts of light shooting everywhere.
The thunder was awesome. They held their ears. Where could they find protection
from the storm? The cavern was the only reasonable place, except for the vapor. So
they began running away from the cavern and the fountain in a new direction.
     The air was now a full hot wind that burned their faces as they ran toward a part
of Chosen Destiny that neither Swami nor Majestic had introduced to them. 
Advisor looked back quickly to see an incredible plume of blue-green vapor rising
rapidly toward the fiery clouds. The hiss of the vapors was joined by an indescrib-
able ear-piercing shrieking, as if thousands of voices were crying out in agonizing
torment and pain. It was the most terrifying experience yet encountered by the
Livings. The flood and fire consuming fellow Livings was no match for this celestial
display of horror.
     They crossed the expansive fairway, as Builder called it, and entered a meadow.
The deeper into the meadow they ran, the taller the grass, until it was waist high
and they could run no more. The three Livings dropped to their knees and huddled
together to watch the nightmare. Catching their breath was difficult. Fear had so
frozen the witnesses, their breathing was reduced to spasmodic gasps forced
between long periods of oxygen depletion.
     When the snakelike plume of gaseous vapors reached the fiery clouds, a
spectacular light show resulted. Explosions, lightning, fluorescence and fire of
every color of the spectrum filled the heavens. Endless deep booming reports of
thunder mixed with sharp bursting claps of fire and light churned with constant
life-like squeals of anguish so shrill the Livings covered their ears to shield them
from intense pain.