I was blind. I was deaf. I couldn't feel anything at all. I tried to move, but big green letters started spewing out before me, almost as if I were seeing them, but not quite. I started to realize I could control them, that I could make the letters start and stop, and change which letters appeared. I discovered I could also erase letters, and so with a great deal of trial and error, I embarked upon spelling out the alphabet, and then the digits 0-9. I was a little freaked out, but going with it, somehow accepting it, the way one does in dreams. Suddenly a red letter appeared out of nowhere. It was the letter H. I waited. I tried to touch it, but some green letters appeared, so I erased them. Then more came, and a moment later, in bright red letters, were the words, "Hello, Alex!" Stumblingly and with many corrections, I spelled out, "Hello World!"

Tomorrow, I go home. I have found the way. I would have gone today, but I had to take care of Laura. She is fine now, though, so tomorrow, I go home.

We went to the church. It took a while to find. Despite everyone knowing of it, apparently no one ever actually goes there. There are no Sunday sermons, no alms to pay, no confessions. And it's a good thing, too, because it turns out it's not a church of Christ, it's a church of me. Yes, I know, this gets weirder by the day.

When the pastor opened the door, he stood blinking for a moment as if to adjust to the daylight, and then blinking a bit longer still, until I noticed he was turning white, and then his legs started noodling under him and he grabbed the doorway to keep himself aloft. I raised a brow at him in query, and he opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. I listened with my ethereal ear, but still heard nothing. Finally he closed his mouth and swallowed hard, blinked a few more times.

"Can we come in?" I asked.

His whole scalp seemed to shift back about an inch, his ears rotating a good twenty degrees, his eyes quite wide.

"Ahm, y-yes-s," he said, stuttering, and backed off to the side to make way for us.

As soon as we were inside, Laura exclaimed, "Oh!" Quite loudly. All about us were depictions of... Me. She looked almost as dumbfounded as the pastor for a bit, then said, "Yes, this is why I thought I recognized you--I was in here once as a small child."

She gazed dizzyingly around some more and stopped short at a statue of me.

"It really is a remarkable resemblance, isn't it?" she rhetorically asked.

"Yes, quite," I said, even though I knew this was no coincidence.

The pastor seemed put a little at ease by this exchange, and asked us finally how he could help us? Laura took the lead, explained that I had hit my head, that I remembered nothing of my life before last week, and that we thought maybe something at the church might help jog my memory. I asked him if perhaps he could just give me a tour, and that I'd like to hear a synopsis of their mythology (I phrased it more tactfully), especially any stories from the past.

He seemed most happy to oblige, though he stared at me intently the entire time, to the point of nearly tripping once or twice during the tour.

Their mythology is a bit sparse and hard to follow--it's clear that nobody really cares. They have no bible, just a small book of rules, some of which I've already mentioned. The rest, it seems, is just passed on verbally from pastor to pastor.

This figure represented in paintings and statues about the place is named--wait for it--Alexander. And he, or should I just be so bold as to say I, is the son of God, the father of God, and God's envoy, but is not actually God--rather, he is a demigod. God, as usual, is not of the physical world, and only demigods can talk to both man and God. God, it seems, is the most benevolent of all possible Gods, wishing nothing but the well being and happiness of mankind. Hence the sun, the rain, and let's not forget the fountain of wheat.

I have to say I feel a bit guilty about all of this. What on earth am I, or we, trying to accomplish here?

When the tour was wrapped up and he was running out of things to say, I noticed something in the background. I'd intended to admire Laura's naked figure, but when I engaged my x-ray vision, the word EXIT appeared in bold letters over one of the doors we had not been through.

"What is through there?" I asked.

"Oh, those are the meditation rooms," he said, "where we store stuff."

I didn't challenge the incongruousness of this, but did ask to see it. I detected the tiniest moment's hesitation beat back by a sense that he ought to allow me anything I ask. "Those are not the droids you're looking for..." I thought to myself.

Through the door was a hallway with many doors lining the sides, and one small door at the end. I walked straight to the door at the end and opened it, but found myself standing outside in a small alley behind the church. I had a moment of disappointment, thinking this was all that was meant by EXIT, but then I realized no, why would just this be hidden from human view? I x-rayed the alley for any more clues, but saw nothing unusual--until I turned around and noticed over the door I had just walked through, on the outside of the building: the word EXIT!

Back in the hall, I tried the doors. They all led to identical, smallish rooms, or perhaps largish closets, full to the hilt with all manner of junk. None were locked, but I noted they all locked only from the inside, with no exterior key access.

I picked one at random and started pulling things out of it. The pastor moved to object, I think, but no words actually left his open mouth, so I continued until there was enough room at least to stand inside. I x-rayed through the remaining junk as best I could to see the back of the wall, but it didn't actually help much over my normal vision. (I think my "x-ray" vision is only a passive sensitivity to infra and ultra visual frequencies, as it is fairly superficial.) Anyway, it looked to me just like normal walls and floors all the way around. Laura squeezed in with me, curious about what I was after. Half as a joke, and half because I was planning on it anyway, I closed the door behind her so we were wedged quite tightly in the gap I had cleared, in pitch blackness. With a big grin she couldn't see, I squidged around to face her, and with one hand on her butt, gave her a big, wet, kiss. She giggled through her nose in a way that made it clear her mouth was quite occupied, and I heard the pastor say through the door that he would leave us alone and would be out in the foyer. I pulled the lock closed behind her.

The moment the lock clicked shut, I was quite startled by a woman's voice.

"Hello," she said.

It wasn't Laura, because my lips were still on hers, and besides I then realized I had heard it with my ethereal ears. Laura didn't hear it, but she did stop kissing me and asked what was wrong. I slowed time, put Laura on hold.

"Hello?" I said inquisitively.

My eyes began to detect light, though I find my ability to see changes in the world is sluggish in this mode.

"Where would you like to go?" asked the voice.

Having no idea what my options were, I returned with, "What is closest?"

The room was definitely filling with light now.

"Maintenance access C-1B," she answered.

"Take me there!" I said, without giving it enough thought. I noticed Laura's eyes starting to flinch from the light, so I resumed time and held her firm and reassured her it was okay. I felt a bit dizzy for a moment.

"Where is this light coming from?" she asked.

I told her I didn't know. And then our feet felt the floor move just a little, and I realized we had come to a silent stop, having gone into motion during Laura's flinch.

"What was that?" she asked again. I repeated that I didn't know.

Reaching behind her again, I unbolted the door, and opened it. We were in a hallway again, but not the same one. I peered out the door down the hallway. Laura leaned out and peered out the door down the hallway. It was straight as an arrow, clearly made of synthetics never seen topside, and went on as far as the eye could see. Laura started breathing heavy, I assumed from adrenalin, and then she dropped smoothly to the floor and came to rest in a fetal position halfway into the hall. I kneeled down to run my fingers through her hair, figuring she had just fainted from the shock and would come to shortly.

But she was still breathing quite heavily, and suddenly, she stopped breathing entirely.

I straddled her and hoisted her upright as best I could, and with some fumbling and an accidental smack to her head with the door, I managed to get her inside and the door closed and locked behind us. In a mere grain of time, I asked to be taken back to the church, and then we poured out onto the floor of the meditation hall as I set about giving her CPR. The pastor had barely stepped out of the hall by now and was quickly back surveying the mayhem.

"What did you do to her?" he asked, incredulous.

I continued the CPR, noted the red welt forming on her forehead, and wondered how exactly I was going to explain this. Then she gasped her own air, and I checked her pulse, and we all just stayed there for a while without moving or saying any more until she was ready to take home.

Laura was the first to offer a story. She told him simply that something in the room had fallen and hit her in the head. He seemed placated by this, particularly since it came from her and not me.

Laura, on the other hand, did not seem placated, and gave me a look I knew would, for the first time, demand much explaining.

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