It was neither of the women who showed up.

From his place by the edge of the lake, he saw creatures lurking in the night. First in cover by trees and bushes, then two of them were on the shore opposite him, and wise to his presence.

Their bodies, under the cold starlit night, seemed (like Amanda had described) covered in worms; worms sewn together.

They came toward him in a steady speed.

With certain problems he managed to unglue his gaze and send it searching the area for some means of refuge. There was precious little to take comfort from. But, he thought he might be able to climb some way up in one of the trees. There was one right behind him with low and thick branches. Of course, he knew nothing of their climbing skills, but had few other choices. So he fled for the tree and started a slow climb, having underestimated the lowest branch and overestimated his acrobatic skills.

After some jumping and hauling, however, he got himself hoisted up, his hands sticky with yellow resin. And started turning himself around, as he had his back to the lake. Wondering while he did why they hadn't already reached him and by now nibbled on his legs. He couldn't, of course, say with any certainty that malice fuelled their approach. Though had some doubt to that they came to greet him as friendly dogs.

It turned out, they'd stopped by the shore sniffing the ground.

Sitting on the branch, he produced the gun. Held it in both sticky hands. Hoping they'd lost interest in him and rather kept on with their sniffing activity. Not so. They soon enough remembered their pray and came for him.

He raised his arms, holding one of them at gun point, staring mesmerized at the head he aimed at.

Both came to a halt, which bespoke some volumes of wit; comprehending that their place in the business end of his .38 was not a very healthy spot to be.

They glanced at each other, as if asking what it made out of this idiot man in the tree. One of them uttered a grunting sound which its comrade found some instruction in, and ran back the way they'd come.

The second stayed. Sat itself down and stared at Lance. And Lance stared back in both exhilarated fascination and nervousness. His face numb with chill and hands red. He removed one of them to dry his running nose. His own breath came out in clouds, but it, he observed, made none. However, there was a thin waving aura around it.

"You have beautiful eyes," Lance remarked absurdly, but was by all means the truth. They were complemented like crystal balls (with fluid white clouds moving around) sunken in a worm pit.

Its wide, black-lipped, mouth seemed to grin at him from its living face.

They were then distracted by noises to the right of them, somebody was running down the slope, breathing hard and rustling.

Nasad came to a halt by the edge of trees, staring at the creature. And judging from his amused and awed expression (whatever being he was) he had never seen anything like it either.

He then looked at Lance, bringing his hand up in a greeting, and came over, glancing at the creature. All as casually as though having recognized a friend in a restaurant and crossing over to him while watching something fascinating displayed two tables away.

He stopped some yards from both tree and creature, leaving them in a triangle. Lance held the gun in the middle now.

"Do you know me?" Nasad addressed the creature hopefully.

It nodded.

The wide white grin broke over his face as he looked up at Lance.

"It recognizes me."

Lance nodded, sucked saliva in his dry mouth to manage, "And... And why`s that?"

"Because," Nasad began, his chubby fingers running up and down the blue vest "I'm one of them. I am one of them."

He inhaled the deep breath of a man who could not be more content.

"Now, I said there'd be revelations didn't I?"

"One of whom?"

A puzzled expression flickered across his face.

"That I do not know, yet. You see, you made me recall what and who I am. It started unraveling with you're talk of this creature. I'm their guardian Lance. Guarding them from the likes of you. Before you came along there hadn't been anything of significance to awaken the memory, and so I stayed ignorant."

Lance looked from creature to creature.

"You protect them."

"Yes."

"From whom? What was there ever to protect from those three?...No one believes anyway. They protect themselves from the likes of me."

"Ah, they might not have believed the metaphysical part of it, true. But with the proof you had you could surly have convinced them there existed some sect of freaks up here. And what would happen then?"

"Freaks, sect? None of us have-"

Nasad let of a sigh of exasperation.

"All right, all right. I confess Blix, I might have been a bit too hasty and eager in my business to protect my newly found people. Is that such a...such a..." the words faded as the attention to all three of them were claimed toward the other side of the lake where the second creature came back with friends. Two more of its kind and the tall white man. Who Faith had painted with a purple fluid visible beneath the skin, though in this light at least looked black. And he could see its flow from head to foot. See it stream down behind his face. He had a gray-brown-lipped mouth that went slightly in the suggestion of a V. The deep silver eyes stared like two mirrors, luminous in the night.

He stopped by the first creature, standing with one pair at each side.

This, by all means, had to be his lucky night. No doubt of that. In fact, so much so it rather cast doubt on how such luck could be afoot. She'd picked him up in a bar filled with men whose looks where twice as good as his had ever had been.

He was closing in on fifty, his toes hadn't been visible since somewhere in his thirties, and almost bald. So why then, he wondered, would this woman want anything to do with him?

She wasn't drunk out of her wits either.

She was in her late twenties maybe, slender figure and even quite the looker.

She'd led him out of the bar and they were now climbing the hill, a trek that left him even more appalling as he was sweating like a pig. He had a bottle of Scotch in on hand and her in the clammy other. Could she perhaps be a whore or something? Yes, he reasoned, yes that had to be it.

He wasn't usually this low on confidence toward his person’s appearance. Truth was, he didn't much give a damn what impression it made. He was no youth, he`d housed a woman and settled down in a place where he would spend the rest of his days, so who gave a shit? Better live good while one could. So he was just being rational. Because it was hard to imagine anyone getting turned on by his presence just like that. It certainly amused him though, could already see himself not being believed when telling his lot, they'd just nod and say, sure you did Steve.

When she`d first approached him, he was certain his alcohol dimmed wit picked up signals as it damn well pleased. So he`d asked her right out, you tryin’ to come on to me honey? he`d said, or something similar, expecting a slap or a disgusted laugh in mock outrage, but instead received a smile...naughty.

Well, he concluded, if she was a whore he supposed he deserved a treat.

He saw they were heading for an run-down old shack.

"Is...that, where we're going?" he put in between puffs.

"Yes."

"Listen," he stopped in his tracks, his heart pounding "I don`t want to sound rude, offend you or anything, but I mean this is pretty weird so, I just want to clear things up," he added hastily "and it`s okay...but this is going to coast me, right?"

She looked sweetly apologetic at him, then nodded.

"Yes...I'm afraid it will."

"No. Hey, that's all right, just...wanted it cleared up."

She still looked melancholic and full of trouble, but nodded again, and up they went.

Theresa opened the door, which she`d unlocked going out, and they stepped into the darkness of the hallway.

"Oh Christ, it smells like a dead cat in here... Shit!"

"It`s better upstairs," she replied, escorting him up the flight whose soft wood made low, hoarse, grunts that warned with uncertain tones they shouldn't be much surprised if they went through one of its limbs. But held on to all, letting them up safely.

Theresa had blocked off all emotional and moral dilemmas. Not any absolute block, of course, it didn't leave her indifferent to her intentions of what was to proceed. But sufficiently to lend the strength she needed to do what had to be done. And that, in the end, was all that mattered. It had to be done, she had to do it, simple as that.

They went into the little bedroom.

She guided him over to the bed, where he somewhat reluctantly sat himself down. Looking around with a grimace.

"Well, this is nice," he remarked. Unscrewing the top of the bottle, slugged it and let out a deep hiss.

Theresa wasn't sure exactly what to do now. She had found some rope to tie him down with, but she`d never manage to overpower him. Maybe she could seduce it on.

"You like games?" she asked in a soft voice, walking over to the window where the rope lay on the floor.

"That depends...what you have in mind?" he said on a crooked grin.

"What if... what if I tied you to the bed, would you like that?"

"Tie me to the bed?"

"Yeah...I`d like that," said Theresa, coming back towards him.

"Like that?" he was frowning "What the hell is this?...Huh? I'm not fucking stupid you know. You`re a prostitute. You don`t take pleasure in damn games."

He appeared almost a bit frighten, scanning the shadows of the moonlit room.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, ready to get up.

"Nothing," she assured him "Nothing`s going on. It`s just that... I`d feel a bit safer, you know."

The anxiety seemed to dwindle.

"Oh...Well, you're safe, but I'm not getting...You know what? This whole thing is starting to freak me out. I think maybe I`ll just take a rain check on the whole thing."

Theresa shrugged, then reached out for his bottle. He gave it to her and glanced up as she drank from it.

He was just starting to get to his feet when she twisted the flask in a chopping position. Liquor pouring out wetting his legs. She brought it down toward his bald scalp with all the strength she could muster. And it landed with great success. Exploded on his head. Glass, fluid and the strong smell of the spirit filling the air. As he fell back on the bed both hands went up to his head, and made some gasping screams of inhaled air. The clear fluid dripping from his face steadily turned redder by the moment, blood flowing between his fingers. Splashing down in his lap. The man looked up at her with huge white eyes. Blinking hard as if trying to clear off a blurred vision. It did not come into focus however, rather extinguished. His head and upper body fell down on the gray mattress.

Theresa dropped the tiny neck of the bottle left in her hand and dragged the rest of his body onto the bed.

She then picked up the rope and tied his arms and legs to the bed poles.

He uttered only a series of low moans throughout this.

She heard Stora on the other side of the door, her breath heavy with anticipation. Going over to the night stand Theresa got hold of the rusty scissors.

She was ready to awaken the beast.

Theresa pulled out the mans lower lip. Put it between the blades, held the handles with both hands and while staring in the direction of the glowing window, cut.

The man started to howle like a pig, his eyes flickered open. The lip parted and blood poured down his chin and cheeks. The cry soon became coughing and he had to turn his head over to the side to prevent choking on the blood.

Theresa used one of the rusty blades as a knife, cutting maniacally, slashing and slicing all over his strapped person. He started on a fresh chain of screams, yelping his appeal and pleadings of mercy. Becoming only unintelligible slurring and slurping sounds through the parted lip. The rest of his tied body was wriggling and squirming. Helplessly attempting to avoid the rising and falling blade.

"Hide," Stora commanded from the other side of the door.

Theresa planted the scissors, with a ripping sound, in the mans chest.

After this he produced only a few gurgling sounds, as he inhaled his last gasps of the stale air.

Theresa crawled under the man, under the bed.

The door flew open and a hiss of delight was uttered, then she, it, ran over the floor and onto the bed.

After a long time, it became quiet and still above her.

Stora then crawled down. She was completely covered in blood, from feet to golden hair.

She was shuddering, and softly mumbled,

"I`m sorry...I`m sorry I made you do this."

Theresa lay her arms around her trembling torso and whispered words of soothing and comforting. Then she kissed Stora as Stora had kissed her.

They made love with their blood-slick bodies. She made love to the angel. The cooling and drying life fluid (from the man lying above them stripped down to his bones) becoming warm and alive in their sweat of pleasure.

The flesh around Nasad`s bones (if bones were apart of his anatomy) was moving again. Lance, still perched on the branch, winced so violently he almost took a fall into the bushes underneath him.

"What are you doing?" the white man asked, his voice like hearing somebody talk through a pipe; dark and hallow. Though at the same time curiously soft and vital.

Nasad`s face resumed itself into a puzzled expression. All what he had owned of calm authority was, beside this man, gone.

"Does there exist any evidence?"

"No," Nasad confirmed proudly "none. There was both a painting and photographs but I`ve eliminated it."

"Ah! And does this man appear as tough ready to run around alarming people of us?"

Nasad made no reply.

He looked apologizing at Lance.

"So eager to prove himself one of us...I don`t approve of the unnecessary bloodshed of the two others either, surly a waste..." he trailed off, seeming to loose interest in blood spilled. The radiant silver eyes studying Lance, almost in the same height as his, and observed:

"You don`t seem as surprised as one would expect from your kind. Why are you here?"

"He's looking-" started Nasad but stopped as the man glared at him.

Lance hesitated. "I am looking for someone."

"Yes? So are we... Though if it`s the same, I cannot help but wonder why the barrel is pointing this way."

"Oh," Lance said, lowering the gun he was aiming at them.

"Well, we better get on with it. You won't start alarming your people now will you?"

"...Alarming. No."

"Good."

And with that, he turned to make his leave.

"Wait," Lance burst out, not sure what to follow it with. But where his overwhelmed intellect showed ignorance his mouth proved wise to shape and escort the essence of his wish.

"Let me come with you," he heard it implore.

The man turned, and looked amused.

"But, you are a strange one aren't you? Now why would you want to come with us?"

Again his mouth put it plainly, wrapped in no cosmetic, just plucked from the core of his yearnings. Absurd as it perhaps sounded.

"I want to be among wonders."

The man's mouth went up to a full size V, and produced a low rolling laughter.

"Do you indeed?"

"Yes."

"And...you believe we will lead you to wonders?"

"No. I believe you are."

The man glanced at the creatures by his side.

"And," Lance hastily added "we are searching for the same person."

"Very well, if it pleases you, join us."

He`d no sooner voiced the invitation before Lance was on the ground.

The man turned toward Nasad.

"And you, you wish to see your home I assume?"

He nodded fiercely.

"Yes, yes, yes."

"But you do understand that it will only be a temporary visit, we need you to do your job out here."

"Of course, yes."

The man gave some short order to one of the creatures.

"Good...we have business to attend, so climb on its back and it will take you home."

Nasad needed no persuading. Climbed onto the back of the creature the white man had addressed, laying his massive body on its thin and fragile looking torso. Lance almost expected it to go straight in the ground, squeezed by the burden, but instead it started to run. Moving in an impressive speed toward the woods, and soon ducked in and out of sight.

"Why didn't he remember who he was?" Lance asked shortly after.

"He wouldn't have been able to be among you then."

He looked up at the man, seeing himself reflected in the eyes.

"Oh... Where is home?"

"The Naractus Empiria."

Lance repeated, and stumbled over the words.

"Does it mean anything?"

"Yes... roughly translated, stranded pilgrims."

He tried this as well.

"Where is this place?" he asked in awe.

"Here. In these woods."

Lance shook his head in wonder.

"Your pilgrimage is stranded here? "

The man looked at him for some time then, "Well, since you're so found of wonders I will try to explain. But first, we find the woman."

Lance nodded slowly, not wanting keep on pressing but couldn't keep it in either.

"Can you say why you need to do that?"

"Why we search for her?"

"Yes."

"She was, is, one of our...well, citizens. The society of which is inhabited by people like me and those," he pointed at the creatures, "since we look like we do, we have to hide. You, of course, know why that is."

"Yes... you're to alive."

He laughed again.

"And why is that you think?"

Lance shrugged.

"Secrets."

"You might call it that, yes. Knowledge. And knowledge does make you more alive. Our minds less solid... And this, just for we know its more capable. The more you believe-"

"The more you are," Lance finished.

"Yes...Well, anyway. She, Stora, was never satisfied with the way we lived, she wanted to be among you. And in short, used a power to create herself to what she is now."

"Yes!" he burst out, "So there is something inside her."

"You saw it in her?"

"Yes. Well, vaguely. I'm not sure exactly what, just...something extraordinary."

"It can certainly be, if one can handle it. Not many of your kind can see it though... But then as we already have concluded, you are a strange one."

Lance grinned.

"Thank you."

The creatures were getting restless, pacing about them.

"We must be going. The end point is that she's the daughter to one of our leaders and since she is back here, we're going to bring her home. Though we have not been following her so if she hadn't come back to this parts..."

"So she wants to get caught. Can't come by herself ?"

"Yes...Now, if you'll climb on to one of them," he pointed at the creatures.

Even if he`d wanted to decline, it gave him no chance, one of them was more or less boarded him, backing its body between his legs.

Lance lay down on its squirming skin. Tickled and tingled under him, feeling its warmth under his palms and through his clothes.

The creature rose from its sunken position, and started to run. Lance gripped hold, embracing its neck, gently rocked and undulated by its movements. They entered the forest, gaining speed by the moment. Its maneuvering and navigating of trees breath taking. Found himself constantly shutting his eyes, knotting his face and tensing up, ready to feel the impact of one of the trees.

It ran with its head down so he had an uncanny view of all closing up. This, however, made the experience even more exhilarating, as he felt very much apart of its moving process. Its muscles working beneath him. Its network of limbs laboring in graceful motions which seemed to pass through him, through his limbs, making him feel a certain unity with it.

He held his own head a bit down as well; shielding it from branches.

Seeing in the corner of his eyes the white man and the trio of creatures on either side.

Leaving the shack (both of them stiff with dried blood) they walked for about twenty minutes before coming to a lake twice the seize of the one they`d met by.

It was still dark, and dawn another hour or two away.

Washing themselves, as good as the primitive means permitted, she this time felt what the waters freezing substance had to offer. Owning no protection against it since Stora needed both hands for the task.

They sat by its shore afterward.

She was chattering, her body numb and hot with cold. Could not, however, bring herself into the filthy clothing. So instead pressed tighter to Stora and that did the trick. Waves of warmth instantly leaped over to her, coursing through her, extinguishing the cold, all icy tension melting and dwindling.

She pushed her wet hair behind her ears. Seeing a few trails of pink water on her fingers. She dried it off on the ground, her eyes again wandered back to the place of their longing. Scrutinizing Stora, trying to glimpse the creature she claimed to have been. She had even described her former self as a monstrosity. Try as she might, however, she could not detect a hint of the misfit.

Giddily, Lance climbed off his conveyance. They'd come to a halt outside an old shack. The white man and two of the creatures had gone inside.

When emerging, the mans face was raised on a grin.

"It`s not long since she departed," he informed, then stared at Lance for a moment.

"Would it please you to see the Naractus Empiria?"

"Yes," Lance burst out "Yes, nothing would please me more."

"Then we shall just fetch our lady and be off to the wonders."

He laughed at this.

Lance was reflecting the grin, overcome with ebullience, his chest burning with joy which he had no choice but to let free in a shout before it burst him open. As he jumped on the creature, in the bliss of it all, he dim-wittily yelled iiihhaaa, like any would-be cowboy.

As had taken place some hours previously, by the shore of the other lake, Stora suddenly got to her feet with a warning of somebody`s approach on her lips. This time, however, it was so urgent that there wasn't even time to get dressed. Stora seized her wrist and jerked her up.

They started to run.

There was only a short patch of the woods left, which lead way into wheat fields, crop undulating into the horizon as far as the eye could see.

The running here was at least better for her bare feet than the floor of the forest, sinking down in the soft fecund soil. Theresa could now hear the sound of at least a dozen feet storming through the woods behind them.

Hopeless though it was, they just kept running. Their pursuers closing in by the second. And the next time she turned her head she saw them emerging from the dark of the trees, three, four brown creatures and the white man from the painting.

She noticed one of the brown ones was carrying a man on its back... Lance. He was grinning from ear to ear, his hear blowing about him and his eyes bulging on a face that looked in a state of dementia. The three other brown beasts were closing in rapidly. She had just enough time to turn her gaze at Stora seeing, and savoring, the image of her, immortalizing it in her mind’s eye (her luminous naked body in the foreground of this endless field of crop, with the enormous sinking moon hanging above her on the black starlit sky) before

one of the beasts leaped at her, sending her sprawling in the ground, stiff wheat stabbing her bare skin.

She heard Lance yell something about going to wonders, wonderland perhaps. She was then deafened by the shrill scream of despair streaming up her throat as the beast gripped both her hands in one of its and started to pull her away, away from Stora.

She was dragged through the crop on her back, looking up from their bases, seeming like their hairy heads were brushing the starscape.

Lance and his beast ran beside her, he was talking to the beast, her or himself.

Naractus Empiria was underground. A netherworld.

How he got there, or when, he could not say. First they were running back into the forest, trees floating by on all sides and then, suddenly, they were in utter darkness. The only thing he could tell from their progress was that they moved downward.

The air was stale, cold and moist.

He gradually became aware of faint sounds, a variety of them. The next sign of life to follow was a soft flickering orange light on the horizon. And as they approached it, unveiled the darkness with sufficient illumination for him to see that they were in a narrow tunnel of earth and mud.

The light emerged from an opening, where the sounds also made their penetration.

The creatures carrying the women continued through the opening, his stopped outside. Letting him be presented with what lay beyond at his own speed.

He climbed off its back, and approached the opening.

Lance was looking into a city, an underworld city.

The air carried strange music, and stranger voices, along with a somewhat sickening smell of warm milk. But for Lance, of course, it was the most delicious and satisfying air to have ever filled his lungs, and fill them he did, to their brim. Savoring this first breath of the other world. The very same body of air the miracles sprang from. He was gazing into the heart of the secrets.

And oh how glorious it was, feeling it flow through him, seeing it pulse before his tear blurred eyes. He had known no finer moment than this, it was the kingdom of his dreams: Naractus Empiria. Leading way into the realm of the unknown, which with every breath he took, with every beat it made, became known to him.

The architecture of the city was as a gently sloping corridor. The walls on either side went up about ten yards. Each side filled with a profusion of holes and cave entrances. And on top of these walls, flat areas stretched for about fifteen yards before ending in new walls, of which were formed as stairs, plantations, occupied by the same primitive means of housing.

The main corridor was as wide as three men, and continued downward as far as he could see. There were thin bridges of rope and wood hanging over it everywhere.

Plants clung up the sides of the walls. Both bushes and small trees rose from the grown, carrying fruits or flowers, most producing soft luminescence, bathing in their own sunlight.

The illumination making it possible for him to see this came from torches planted in walls or erected on long poles like streetlights.

Then the creatures, they were every where, in shapes and features that challenged the eye, one more elaborate than the next; one more divine; one more grotesque. Sitting or hanging out of their caves. Walking, floating and flying.

"Shall we go in?" the white man suggested.

Lance nodded and they started descending.

"Where do you all come from?" Lance asked, his eyes not able to stay at one place for more than a fragment of a moment, ambitiously trying to drink it all in at once.

"Different places. Different worlds...Some from your own."

Yes, he had seen one or two with features no more remarkable than that of his own, but, of course, something about them had to be, since they could make their home here.

But was there not hope then, that he could maybe, just maybe, become one of their number?

"So why do you gather here... why are you naractus empiria?"

The white man sigh.

"...Where to start," he looked around for inspiration then, "Well, I suppose the Azolom`e Cowoze is as good as any. You are familiar with the myth of elephants going to a certain place to die, yes?"

"Yes."

"The Azolom`e Cowoze is much the same way. It is a place of, and for, the dead. A Valhalla for shamen and witches. A place where people with powers come to die. Our souls are picked up and brought there by Death."

"But this isn't it?" Lance said.

"No, certainly not... Although, there is a small piece of it here, and that is the reason why we're stranded."

He fell silent for a moment.

"The Azolom`e Cowoze is a being you see, a being of souls and powers. A oneness in a condition of a living heaven. And a hell come to that. Anyway, there was a shaman who made his way to the `Cowoze. Tricking Death bringing his flesh in. He managed to take a piece of this being with him, trying to go back to this world, but as flesh, mind and the `Cowoze merged, it trapped him in a condition between the living and the dead.

Nevertheless, the fragment of the `Cowoze in him still manages to draw some of the creatures Death comes with. Not many but some."

"Like you?"

"Like me, and most of the others here. And since none of us have the wish of merging with this being we recreate our flesh instead, and then emerge to the side of the living, where we also are trapped."

"Did you want to become a oneness in the first place?"

He stopped, gazing at him, a dreamy look filling the silver eyes.

"Of course. It would have been beautiful, we are all one there, in the `Cowoze, but because of the powers surrounding us we manage to hold on to our own personalities, though still able to float into the minds of others, relive their experiences. This from all possible creatures, from all possible worlds. With the powers making the pleasures and pains, and all in between, a thousand times greater. And creatures with powers have a lot of experiences, strange and wonderful alike."

Trying to stay focused and not become too overwhelmed by what he was being told, Lance ignored the fact of all these worlds he talked of.

"But wouldn't the other being grow equally great?"

"No. It sucks up the powers so that all personalities becomes one. It doesn't manage to separate the souls, so your persona gets erased for the individual you are and apart of it.

I think the shaman’s intention was to make all become him, make his persona a god as he would nourish on other peoples souls and powers. All just evolve his mind, his personality. But... he miscalculated his strength to hold on to who he was, lost his grip, and they all became one being."

"So some don`t manage to do as you and escape it?"

"That`s right, some drown in it. Though precious few, because all that come here have powers and knowledge so...we know what to do."

"But when you die from that body you might-"

"Get another chance? No. What you see is my power made in the reflection of my one time flesh. It won't perish."

"You said earlier that it`s only a few that gets trapped here instead of going to the real Azolom`e Cowoze."

"Right, very few in fact."

"Then what about Stora, since she is the daughter to one of the leaders?"

"You’re observant," he remarked, beginning to walk again, "Well, Stora is a child of the dead. The creatures here can use their recreated anatomies producing and conceiving children. That is also the story of the thing inside her. You see, the once that do become born here gets an odd relationship with their powers.

Usually with living beings, of course, the power one inherent is apart of you, apart of your soul. But here since the flesh that has made you is recreated, and the power is their flesh... To state it plainly, the children and their powers becomes two separate beings instead of one. And this is a very dangerous condition, power after all is pure ambition. So we remove it, letting the being swallow it."

Lance hopelessly tried to grasp all of this and at the same time feast his eyes on the sights. Managed the basics at least: One being who holds souls and their personalities separated. One who don`t. Their powers made flesh and Stora born with a separate power of pure ambition.

"And you didn't get it removed?"

"We did. But it managed to hide. She found it. It presented an offer and a way out of here, which she took and let it free."

"Do you know why?"

"Yes...She longed for your world. Because she was born here she`d never seen any other place, so, of course, the outside world seemed a glamorous place and this a prison."

"What will happen now?"

"We`ll remove it again, and this time even if it would manage to hide she is too wise to yearn for your world."

Lance stopped this time.

"What about the rest of us? When we die I mean. Where do we go?"

"The `Cowoze is not an eternal state, eventually I guess we end up at the same place, in the same being. Where, what, I don`t know. Except for us in ‘Empiria, of course."

"Is there no way for you to escape?"

"Not yet, no."

They started to walk again.

"Where is it, the shaman being?"

"It’s as I said partly here, between the dead and the living. But if you`re wondering if you may take a look at the place. I`m afraid I must disappoint you. It would suck you out of your flesh, and before you knew it, you would be it."

The ground was no longer descending, and the corridor had a ceiling; becoming a tunnel. It was little light here. The caves seeming to be inhabited by creatures wanting privacy. The openings closed with wooden plates, different sorts of fabric, and a material that looked like liquid mirrors. In the end of this tunnel there was a thick white light creeping in, seeming like a fog with a white flaming substance. Appearing both solid and floating; a wall suggesting movement because of something insubstantial living beneath its surface.

The air steadily thickened as they approached it. But then instead of continuing further toward the light, the white man led way up a flight, bringing them out of the tunnel and into a new hall with plantations on either side and tunnels leading in every direction.

"How the hell is this possible?" Lance wondered aloud. "I mean... how big is this place?"

"Well, I suppose it could have you walking for a day."

"Was it built...created with..."

"Yes?"

Lance halted a moment.

"Magic?"

"Yes, space was indeed stretched a bit and in its making, and no shovels were used...The entrances does also deceive appearance a bit from what you might expect outside. Some are living in palaces," the white man said smiling cryptically.

They stopped outside an oval formed opening with a wooden door. The white man opened it and Lance was met with the sight of a completely bare room, save for a wooden pole with Theresa sprawled on the ground beside it. Arms embracing it, wrists tied with rope.

He looked quizzically up at the white man.

"I'm sorry about that, but she's not in control of herself."

Theresa did not look at them, or make any movements, her face turned toward the other side.

"What will happen to her?" Lance asked in a whisper.

He sigh, thought it over and said, "I'm going to try and erase the memories but it's hard to say."

The man stared at her for some time.

"I have to go see some people. I would advice you not to go too far, when halls and corridors might be confusing and not all living here are just as friendly, but otherwise...please feel at home. I hope the wonders are to your satisfaction."

"Yes they are," Lance conformed on a grin "More than I could ever dream of."

"...Good."

And with that, he was gone.

Lance went over to Theresa, hunched down by her side seeing that her eyes were open behind a layer of tangled hair, blood-shot and glazed.

"Theresa," he tried.

There was no reply and none to be coaxed.

So he was torn between waiting here by her side or go explore this place. He chose the latter, albeit guilty, reasoning that she didn't care whether he was there or not.

He elected the route back to the main corridor they'd walked down earlier, where he assumed he wouldn't get lost.

Lance climbed a ladder up to the right side wall, and began walking down its edge, looking at both sides and bellow with amazement on his face. And it was not a groundless expression, there were sources to engender it in all directions. Like the creature sitting to his right. Having the body of a large man, but not alone, a woman's anatomy was inside. Her breasts and face surfacing and stretching out from his. As if she was imprisoned and pressed this way to break free. Her breasts sank back in, then out again moments later. Her face in his going from side to side. Showing the most profound change in the eyes as they seemed only alive when both filled them.

And from all these lips emerged song. The woman had a beautiful and feminine voice. But when she was sank back in, the man sounded to suck these tones and melodies in backward, with a deep dark voice. The singing went faster and faster, as did the sinking, as if challenging each other in a musical duel.

A bush suddenly blocked his way. He was about rounding it when beaten by a scent so strong his head became light enough to take off, a sizzling sound filling it. This, despite the fact that it seemed withered, its body of brown twigs covered in wrinkly gray leaves that had the slightest trace of a glowing blue around its edges. He tore one off and kept walking until he reasoned he`d get much more out of it, if he just sat down and watched them pass by instead. And so he found a spot by the wall and sat himself on its edge.

A creature suddenly stuck its head out by his feet and looked up at him.

"Freza-ono?"

"Ah, I don`t-"

"Nuts, you want to-" she climbed up to Lance's side "you want to buy nuts?"

The woman opened a hand with pencil thin fingers, displaying a half dozen nuts, the seize of peanuts.

She was a head or two shorter than him. And looked much like a living broom stick. Her head no wider than a fist, but in the same length as his, and the remaining body as wide as one of his thighs. The eyes had socks of skin covering them, that when blinked got drawn out and together. Her hair shiningly red.

"Well do you?"

"...What do you purchase with?" Lance asked, surly they didn't have some currency here.

"A new one," she observed looking him up and down "what you got?"

"...Nothing," he said, clapping his pockets.

Felt the gun though, but wasn't trading it for nuts. Then did also feel a long round object, pulled it out finding it to be the cigar he`d bought at the newsagent's. Her eyes went to study it.

"To smoke?" she wanted to know.

"Yeah."

The thin woman shook her head.

"Nah, got enough to smoke. But..." she pointed at his socks "I do fancy those."

He didn't really want the damn nuts, but made the trade anyway, for the sake of landing the sort of bounding formality the act carried. So he put the cigar in his mouth and removed the dirty socks. The woman lit a long match and brought it to the head of the cigar, he huffed and puffed to get it smoking fully and sat there by the edge, sockless feet dangling, with a gain of six nuts.

By and by they started to loosen. Not a pain free process by any means. Her wrists were sore and burning, the skin broken and in places bleeding. Despite this discomfort, she kept twisting the ropes deeper and deeper into the wounds, widening them with each pull. The blood was not without advantages, however, made her skin slick and more slippery.

She had wanted to try and get Lance to help her, but doubt on his relationship with the enemy had held her from taking the chance.

Determined to have her freedom, even if it meant tearing off

one of her hands, or biting, Theresa kept pulling and pulling and pulling. And finally, fuelled by the beast, gave her right hand such a violent jerk it felt as though the very skin went off like a glove, and blood red enough for the sight to serve the same impression. But it was successful. The hindrance was gone and she was free.

She stood up, trembling. They had brought Stora down the tunnel with the white light, she knew, and that, of course, was where she was heading.

Theresa went out of her cell. Ignoring the throbbing and dripping hand, ignoring the odd creatures surrounding her as well. She couldn't care less where she was, it meant nothing.

After a few turns and a stair, she came to the tunnel with the white light, which seemed to reach out for her. She wanted to let out a summoning, wanted to scream on the top of her voice, scream for Stora. But what little rational wit left floating about the empty halls of her mind kept her from seating such idiocy. She was enough of a spectacle as things were. Not the nakedness, of course, what little of the creatures wearing fabric it wasn't for the sake of shyness, rather for an items comfort or pride. But for the state of her wounded hand and for her far worse wounded psyche.

Lance did not stay long. He had to check if all was well, he decided. And as it turned out, it was not. He came back just in time to see Theresa descending the stair and continuing down the tunnel. He executed a few shouts, but she showed no signs of hearing, or caring. So he picked up his speed, cursing her for her obsession, and himself for his.

Entering the white light all sounds were muffled and a new hearing took place. One that was deeper, and filled with a whispering wind. Her vision vaster, as if her eyes were being stretched. And the skull holding them, in fact her whole body, felt covered with fingers. Rubbing heir fingertips, sinking inside her skin. Trying to unknot the flesh.

The edge around her body soon having an aura of unraveling about it; making her flesh watery, melting it.

Her legs lost their strength and buckled, finding herself on all fours. Crawling over the uncertain and sluggish ground, barley feeling it underneath her.

The hands of the light moved deeper into her flesh, penetrating and parting it to let her out. Tugging at her mind; to get the pearl out of its shell.

Then her thoughts were given such a pull they went some way out of her insolid skull. Forgetting for a moment both purpose and obsession.

The light would most likely unmade her had she not spotted Stora. The sight leant her sufficient will to resist, and break free from the hands.

It was not a will yearning for the prospect of a happy reunion. Quite the contrary. Frustrated despair with only the knowledge of hopeless misery from here and on.

They were taking her apart.

The brown beasts, four of them, were penetrating their hands under her skin, squirming their four fingers under it, pulling it off. Hands everywhere unveiling her skin. They'd worked their way from her head to her thighs. Too busy in their work to take notice of her. Theresa's head filled with the buzzing white noise of a snowing television.

She hauled herself up toward Stora`s head. The blood already finding her, warm under her palms, mingling with her own.

She gripped a handful of the skin that had been Stora`s face, her beautiful, beautiful face. And another handful of the golden hair. Clenching her extremities about the pieces of the angel. Looked into the wet and raw face, Stara`s black shining eyes gazed back at her. Her lipless mouth forming some words Theresa could not catch through the din in her head.

Suddenly one of the beasts grabbed her left arm and dragged her away, she wanted to struggle but was too weak.

Lance could move no further, he lay flat to the ground seeing Theresa pulled away.

Something was happening to him.

It felt as though his senses were blossoming. And in a miraculous way starting to melt into the light, his flesh fading and parting. His mind exploded in a mushrooming cloud. Out of the flesh into the light, spreading.

It was so wonderful. He mingled with the light in all directions. His thoughts meeting its. And from all of these thoughts he could see, see everywhere. Saw his body becoming light, saw Stora and the beasts, and, saw the being they removed from her, the power in her. Even with the help of these new thoughts he could not say what its nature was. But oh, it was a splendor of brilliance, that much he was sure of. And he wished it could be here with him, sharing this wonderful moment of recreation, dared he hope, reinventing to become something...new.

It appeared as if it did try to come, tried to fulfil his summoning. So he called and wished and willed for its presence even harder, and harder still. Opened his thoughts to let it in.

And it came.

Much to the other beings, the light's, dismay.

"What do you wish for?" the power asked with a thought so soft it was fluid playing with his.

What was there to wish for now? What was there left to crave? That his yearnings had not quenched itself on.

"You can have all what you desire I just need to be fed."

"I wish for..." and he felt how good this sensation of being was, so he said "I want this. I want to be with you."

"Do you hear me?" the white man was saying, surrounded by a pulsing light.

Lance thought he might be nodding.

"Good," said the man on a sigh "Do you remember we talked of oneness?"

Nodded again, although he didn't remember anything, just found the nodding in his capability of communicating.

"Okay. There are three forms of it. The first: that all personas melts together as one, this being is effected by all. The second: has the personalities with separated autonomous. And the third: one. One which doesn't change, only gets stronger as its personality. It evolves but not its ethics, its belief is all, and all makes its mind vaster.

And right now, you have managed a condition of all three. But it is slowly going to the former, then it will end as the latter.

Apparently he did have some further abilities of communicating. As fright pushed out a voice from far away, "Will I end up as the being? The shaman. Trapped?"

"No. He wanted power, like most would, but you, you wanted to be the power. And that is what makes the last. As I told you, power is pure ambition, it will always want more."

"What about me, what will happen to me?"

"You would have lost yourself somewhere in it."

"Would?"

"Yes. Can you stand up?"

Lance discovered he could, even though he was barley able to feel his legs and the ground on which they stood. He noticed Theresa lying on the floor beside him.

Gingerly, he removed the gun from the jacket pocket and let its heavy weight fall from his leaded hand. Then placed the jacket around her and got her to her feet. All this, his body felt as if doing by itself.

"Good," the man said "I'm afraid the wonders are over."

His mind ordered his mouth to open and let free a wash of appeal, plead that no, no, no don`t let it end, never let it end.

None came however, his body held out its traitorous. Had gotten enough of his damn fool wonders. And obediently it and Theresa began following the man.

A blur of images swallowed him, and only occasionally did he glimpse walking, then running, which he half-fully understood was not his doing but one of the brown creatures. The rest was blank. Blank and white, very, white.

When awoken, Lance was met by utter confusion. Drowning him in a sea of disorientation with no solid to take refuge on, all was gone and washed away.

Theresa crouched beside him, holding down her jacket with one hand and shaking him to wakefulness with the other. Both hands were bloodied, so was the jacket, her bare legs (smothered in dirt as well, looking like she had been dragged in soil) and traces of it on her face and hair. Shocked over all the blood he bolted up.

"Are you all right?" he exclaimed hoarsely.

Shuddering and chattering, she nodded.

"Except for the hand..." she showed it hanging limply "I don`t think all of the blood can be mine, Lance."

Her face was pallid, reflecting the dread he felt.

Lance glanced at their surroundings. They were by the lake... He remembered them sitting here, then, Theresa had been running.

He shook his head.

The sun was up, his watch showed ten a.m.

"Let's get out of here," she suggested.

Stiff and cold, they made their way to the parking lot. Which at least turned out to posses her car, and the keys were thankfully there as well.

He got behind the wheel making his bare numb and bruised feet back it up and drive off. Turned the car heater up to full height.

He desperately tried to jog some memory. Tracking back and forth over his last recollection. Searching for some tread that might trigger an unraveling. It was panicky uncomfortable. But he supposed he should see himself lucky. At least he hadn't awoken naked and covered in blood, that might have been, he suspected, a bit more upsetting.

Still though, what the hell could have happened. They'd found something, that much was for damn sure. And now suffering from parcel amnesia. Loss of time, as the UFO abductees. Though doubted they'd met extraterrestrials.

Wasn`t this ironic? For all his seeking, when finally found, he forgot, and so his precious secret became a secret within a secret.

But, he wondered, was there not something changed within him? Did it not feel different in here? As though fulfilled in some profound way. Could the appetite be satisfied?

By the time they stopped outside Theresa's, he`d still not as much as received a fragment of the events that might have fed him, it was and stayed completely blank.

"You want to take the car home?" she offered weakly.

He shook his head.

"No, I think I`ll just walk."

Lance followed her in, where he found his shoes. Nothing, however, to give any clues here either. He noticed a hint of some foul smell about the air, but so obscure he couldn't say what it sprang from. Something wrong with the sour system perhaps, he let it lay, too tiered to worry about such trivialities and made his leave.

When Lance had walked back to his apartment building and up the seven stairs, his head had started throbbing on a slow dull pain.

Theresa headed for the bathroom at once, to get the blood washed off as quickly as possible.

Opening the door the smell leaped at her like something alive. Racing down filling her lungs. And the source of it filling her eyes. A skeleton corpse lay in her bathtub, rolled up in a fetus position resting on a pillow of innards.

Which along with blood were spattered from ceiling to every surface the room had to offer. Theresa's whole body was convulsing and she fell to the floor. Her mouth watering and her neck and back going in dry choking spasms. No vomit came, only a sour burp.

Meanwhile these physically reactions, her psyche served a glimpse of a another bloody skeleton, this lying on a gray mattress.

She crawled away from the bathroom, trying to crawl away from the image as well, but instead she saw herself crawling in another place, creatures pulling off glowing skin, white light everywhere. Her mind’s eye filled with blurred images that balanced on the verge of remaining incognito or unveiling themselves.

She continued crawling, with direction of the second bathroom, determined, in lieu of panic, to get it washed off. Entertaining the hope that the visions might vanish with the blood, as though it tainted her.

Theresa sat on the toilet down stairs, waiting for the worst of the nausea to pass. Her limbs shaking, overwhelmed with the tremoring hallow tingle of fear.

She opened the jacket she still wore and automatically, before removing it, checked its pockets. Something dried and stiff, but at the same time wet and sluggish, met her left hand, and some small objects her right.

She took it all out and dropped it on the floor in front of her feet. She stared down with a face knotted in wonder. Six nuts, one of which rolled off into the shower, a gray leaf and...

Her face unknotted as the images filling her head unmasked themselves, showing their faces. And what a beautiful face they had to show.

She came more and more into view.

Theresa looked at her with admiring eyes. She had missed and despaired so much under the surface of forgetfulness.

Her senses were floating, as the blood leaked and streamed out of her system, embracing and exploring this side of the skin with warm strokes. Pooling under her.

Through her hazed vision she saw her, saw through her eyes, as if they were at this last moment one. Yes, yes they were one. So it had been a prophecy then; they were dying together as one.

The news of Theresa's death never found Lance.

Those it did find it told the rather disturbing tale of the thirty-year old woman discovered (by a friend of hers, a police officer by the name of Thomas Nasad) on her bathroom floor with a sliced wrist and her face covered in patches of human skin. Another bizarre detail was that she had for some reason angled a mirror above her, as if wanting to see herself die.

Mr. Nasad reasoned that his friend's fate was caused by suffering a mental collapse after finding, or even witnessing, their mutual friend (a twenty-five year old painter by the name of Faith Quinn) being mutilated and eaten by the animal that terrorized Plymont.

Some sources argued that there was a pattern her. Of people eaten and committing suicide. There was the incident in the forest only two days ago, they reminded. And more cases as well, with the same patterns, had been dug up. These latter, however, were so loosely connected that it would only end up as another controversy debated between believers and skeptics.