He looked at the face of his watch glowing dimly in the darkness: quarter to eleven.

The snoring told Arnie Williamson the man who slept above him was finally asleep. The former bus driver moved quietly off his bunk anxiously trying not to awaken his cellmate. Arnie had learned quickly, the man _ with whom _ he was destined to spend the next few years within this tiny cement box, was randomly, and explosively violent. Waking this man from his peaceful and only escape from the harsh cold world of incarceration was a risky proposition at best.

To make less noise, Arnie crawled to the toilet, which sat open in the middle of the cell. It was designed, like all things in prison, for minimum privacy and maximum degradation. Dropping his pants, he pulled at the string, which had been protruding from his rectum two days. He yanked out the condom, encasing the last of the contents, which he had so carefully gathered over the past couple of years. Washing the condom in the toilet, he tore it open.

Reaching into a razor thin slit in his mattress he grabbed the rest of the items he had collected for so long. Looking up to make sure his cell mate was still asleep, he placed the items on the floor next to his newest acquisition. Lastly, and most carefully, he placed the most valuable piece of the puzzle on the ground beside them, Lucy Maya's hair. Over the wails of incarcerated anguish, and the whimpers of brutally forced sex echoing through the building, Williamson began to chant.

He knew very well if this worked, even if it didn't, he was probably dooming himself to hell. He had most likely done so already anyway. No matter. Arnie had abandoned God, as God had abandoned Arnie. No rightful god would show him an abomination against the Universe (that thing occupying the body of a woman for its own evil purpose) and punish him when he went to set it right. Punish him by placing a godfearing man in prison to spend years ... years ... being brutalized by animals with unthinkable appetites.

The woman on the dreamscape, Lucy, the one who explained to Arnie how he must shoot and destroying the invader of her body, was wise. She told Arnie if he were to fail, she would no longer be visiting him in his dreams. Then her body's interloper had destroyed her. She left him with the knowledge of how to use the dark arts to stop the destruction of her soul, to make her whole again.

Many of the items were extremely difficult to get, most were not allowed in prison. However, Arnie was determined regardless of the price of getting caught. Now all of his effort was going to pay off.

Arnie was now surrounded by the symbols of religions he didn't understand or even knew existed. He now chanted quietly, fervently, while arranging the pieces as he had been shown.

Sweat began to form on his brow as he wondered if he was getting it right, it had been so long ago. The memory of that dream was hazy. He was supposed to do it for more than half an hour, but he knew he would have that much time. Either his cellmate, or a guard doing his rounds, would catch him before that surely. He just hoped it would be enough to bring the woman on the dreamscape back. Arnie was compelled to right the cosmic wrong. This was his best and last chance.

He was getting closer; he could somehow feel it. However, above him, he heard the hard steel springs of the bunk howl in protest as his cellmate rolled onto his side. Arnie closed his eyes and began chanting faster.

With an awakening, hoarse, groan, the voice rang from the top bunk heavy with menace, "If you woke me up because you're down there playing jacks, I am going to seriously fuck you up."

Arnie never stopped chanting. He knew his cell mate would climb down and punish him for this ... but if he could get a few more minutes ...

"All right then, bus driver. I'm going to make you so very sorry...."

Quarter to eleven.

Father McCormick knelt beside his hard wooden bed, saying his prayers before sleep. As little as three years ago, he laughed at himself for this habit, even as he continued to repeat it. Here was a sixty-year-old man of God, who guided others through the complexity of their beliefs. Here he was still doing something as simple as kneeling like a child, quoting the nursery rhyme recitation, "And now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep, for if I die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take."

Nevertheless, this prayer no longer held the amusing nostalgia it once did for the priest. Nor was it any longer simply a routine borne of 54 years of daily habit. The words may not have changed, but now Father McCormick prayed earnestly that his soul would be taken by God and placed where it belonged. Since, as he had learned, souls did not always end up in the places they should.

The priest took off his slippers, pulling himself up to bed and underneath his covers. The labor of working in his garden washed over him quickly. He felt sleep ease him into a semi-conscious lull. A few moments later, he was sleeping - his mind allowed to roam freely, unfettered by the constraints of waking logic.

The dreaming priest found himself floating above a large, grassy landscape. Upon closer examination, he noted it was a field, impossibly large, perhaps infinite. Across it an invisible force, unseen but felt by the priest nevertheless, spread. It spread slowly and methodically, like an oil slick on an infinitely large pool of water.

Father McCormick knew he was not brought to this location in his dream by accident. There was something else here with him. There was something besides the eternally spreading force. It was guiding him. Unlike the force below, the guiding hand was warm and benevolent, and had something it wanted him to see.

The clergy watched the grassy plane below more carefully, feeling the spread of the force below. There was a change as mysteriously as it was spreading apart. It stopped. He knew instinctively that this was wrong. He somehow knew this expanding substance was to do so until eternity itself lie between each of its invisible pieces. Now it had defiantly halted in its tracks.

The warm powerful guiding hand directed the father's mind toward the force. He noted it was no longer halted, but now moving in on itself, re-constituting. Father McCormick felt a blunt, mute, horror. He did not fully understand what was happening, but he could feel its perversion, he could feel its violation.

As the clergy delved his mind deeper to feel the force begin to recombine, he feared for what it would become once the force was whole. He knew with certainty it would be like a vase, which was broken and scattered about in the filth. Once back together, it would be cracked, imperfect, with dirt lodged in its crevices. Dirt it picked up from places man did not dare to imagine.

This was all the guiding warmness wanted Father McCormick to see. He felt the benevolence move him from this place, this dreamscape, pushing him gently into the random chaos that was his sleeping, dreaming, unconscious. However, it did so with a simple idea, which it left planted in his mind: "Remember."

The old woman pulled her faded, tattered, shawl tightly around her head and neck, it now hid her graying jet black hair completely. Her weather beaten hands moved quickly in perplexing patterns over the cards laid on the table. Each wave of her hands swept broadly over the cards then over the carefully laid out, but incongruous, collection of various Eastern religious symbols. As if on cue, a cold breeze blew underneath the side flap of the tent. The old woman took this as a sign to moan with otherworldly mystery.

"The spirits speak to me, more strongly than ever," the woman began, speaking in a strangely exotic style, "and they have much to say to you. An evil force is coming for you..."

Lucy Maya stood up and threw her five dollars on the table. She had seen enough. She turned to leave, but turned back. Not knowing why, Lucy decided to explain to the woman - bogusly wrapped in the trappings of a gypsy life style the woman obviously knew nothing about - where exactly she went wrong.

"I have been blessed with a really good ear for accents," Lucy offered, "And it helps that I live in Los Angeles, where I meet people from all over the globe. Albania may sound like the mysterious home of gypsies to you, but you are never going to be able to keep telling people that's your home with an accent so obviously Central American. Either go with the Central American supernatural angle, Santeria maybe, or learn what native Albanians actually sound like."

Lucy pulled on her coat, bracing for the Washington DC weather outside, continuing to dispassionately point out the false fortuneteller's missteps. The old woman looked up at her silently, but with bitter interest as Lucy spoke, "And - you can't talk to the dead in a fully conscious state. As you can imagine, being dead is by definition having unfinished business. Believe me, if the dead found someone they could talk to while that person was awake and aware, every soul in the afterlife would be constantly trying to get that person to do things. In fact, so many voices would be chatting to you at the same time; it would surely drive you mad. To be more believable, try faking a trance. Trances and dreams are more selective means for communicating with the afterlife."

The woman had obviously heard all she wanted to, but Lucy didn't care. She went on, "These are common mistakes. Although I think you are preying on innocents, I don't begrudge you making a living. If fools want to part with their money, so be it." Lucy shrugged, "But be careful. Once in a blue moon you're going to come across someone who has actually walked the plane of the afterlife, finding themselves here on earth. They may be looking to make actual contact with the dead. Furthermore they'll spot you as a fake as quickly as I did. Quicker maybe." Lucy laughed grimly, "But these people who have been in the after life for a while have a tendency to become a little dark. Many of them will not be as kind to you as I."

Lucy Maya turned on her heels, bending over to squeeze through the tent's flap opening, stepping into the cold nighttime air. From the inside the tent she heard the old woman called her crazy.

Lucy checked her watch: ten forty-five. Damn, she thought. She couldn't still make it to Richmond to check on a fortune teller working out of an old "haunted house" down there. She had heard very good things about this one, but she had heard very good things about many, like the one she just left.

Lucy's investigations over the past two years had lead her to literally hundreds of soothsayers, fortune tellers, psychic guides, tarot card readers, even people who had near death experiences having had "seen the white tunnel". This does not even count her extensive journey through the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. But this two-year quest so far had reaped very little, except how to tell within a minute or so, when she was dealing with fakes. Moreover so far, she was always dealing with fakes.

Granted, many of them got their good reputations because they were supremely gifted con artists with scams bordering on the verge of art. However, Lucy was in a unique position to weed the pretenders out. She was in the exclusive club of people who had actually walked on the plane of the dead not just once, returning with a full memory of what is beyond life itself. In addition to, more crazily, that was the least of what made Lucy Maya unique. Lucy, put in the most simple terms possible, was Craig Morton in possession of Lucy Maya's body; at the small price of his own soul.

Several years ago Craig Morton's roadster spun out of control and into the path of a bus. His essence wandered off course and occupied the body of the car's passenger, Lucy Maya, while she was in a coma. After awakening in the body of Lucy, taking months to accept this was his fate, he began to form a life.

But no situation that otherworldly was ever going to be clear-cut. As Lucy Maya's already ambiguous soul (trapped in between life and death) spent time amongst the corrupted of the dead, it became dark and misshapen.

Bitter that she was unable to occupy the body that belonged to her, the dark spirit of Lucy manipulated circumstances, putting Craig at a crossroads. Continuing to live as Lucy, sentencing yourself to certain eternal torture once the occupied body perishes, or, give it back to the dark soul of its rightful owner - releasing that soul onto innocents.

Even knowing the consequences, Craig could not let what Lucy had become come back into this world. With great reservation and misgivings, he chose to continue life as Lucy now, facing eternal tortures later.

Furthermore now, Craig Morton thought of himself as Lucy ... at least a version of her, as a "she". In addition to these days she had a single mission: searching for the one small clue which could hopefully save her soul.

As was her way, Janet McPherson woke up giving herself just enough time to get ready. She rose from her bed, wiping the sleep from her eyes, looking at herself in the mirror. Even by her own insecure standards she was forced to admit she was an attractive girl. She was long legged and lean, no longer the coltish sixteen-year-old she was two and a half years ago. Left to its natural shape, Janet's body could be described as athletic, like a tennis player's. However, Janet's body had not been left to its own shape for quite some time. Thinking about this, unconsciously she cupped her small breasts, which were in the rare position of not being buried under layers high tech padding.

A few years back, Janet had been convinced by "LM" - what they all called the former occupant of Lucy Maya's body to avoid confusion - that every successful woman needed to manipulate her situation through sexuality. LM pointed to herself, an obvious up and comer, attributing it all to her ability to make those around her want her.

LM proudly discussed her implants, convincing Janet she too should be more buxom. Janet, whose only other role model was her mother, a woman not nearly as glamorous or charismatic as LM, completely absorbed this philosophy.

Now that she was two years older and less impressionable, combined with discovering how morally ambiguous LM actually was, she wasn't so sure hers was the path to follow.

Janet paused again to look at her body in the mirror, wondering how it would be to look as she did in her natural state? To not have men staring at her chest constantly, to not have women hate her, to not have so many refuse to take her seriously simply because of the size of her breasts? Breasts that, ironically, weren't even hers.

She wasn't sure that's what she wanted either. Janet was also very attuned to the power of these mounds which, when inserted, protruded so prominently from her clothing.

Men bought her dinner because of them. She got into clubs, often ahead of VIPs, despite huge lines in addition to her being under age, because of them. Because of them, she could always convince someone to take care of a little dirty task that she didn't feel up to. They were in many ways, a key.

"Besides", she explained to Lucy some months ago, "it is easier to explain breasts becoming larger as you're growing up. Especially from sixteen to eighteen. However, once you become known as bosomy, it is difficult to go the other way." Janet had come to terms with the idea, somewhat ambivalently, that she would be getting implants at some point. As her situation was now, she could not let boys see her naked, or even take a shower at a gym.

Janet shook herself from her daydream scolding herself for time-consuming self-reflection. Realizing she was close to running late, dashed for the shower. Lucy was a patient woman, However, no one liked being stranded at the airport.

Lucy stepped onto the curbside waiting area of Los Angeles International Airport, better known by the two logical, but last inexplicable, letters "LAX". Janet (as much neighbor as she was informally adopted daughter) waited in the loading zone driving Lucy's Toyota.

Smiling, Lucy threw the bags in the trunk and greeted Janet with a European style peck on the right cheek. As the greeting was exchanged, Lucy felt one of Janet's highly padded breasts rub up against her arm. It was inevitable, as it would be very difficult to control breasts that large if they were real and she could feel how far they extended, no less if two of the cup sizes were made up of artificial material, as they were in Janet's case.

Lucy quickly looked the young lady over carefully. She wore a short skirt, extremely high platform clogs, the aforementioned visually aided breasts leaping out of the low cut sweater in a "look at me fashion". Try as she may, Lucy was unable to undo the philosophy of LM, especially since Lucy, wearing the clothes LM picked out, did not dress much differently. It was impossible to explain the difference between it being okay for a woman and not a teen girl, particularly when that teen knows Lucy was never a teen girl herself.

"How was DC?" Janet asked, bringing Lucy out of her distraction.

"Same as Portland. Same as Toronto. Same as Phoenix. I talked to a gaggle of fakes. Well, I guess it was not quite like Phoenix, because Washington was too cold for all the open toed shoes I packed," Lucy stuck her arm into the warm Winter sun, "It's good to be back in LA."

"Well Mom will be glad to see you." From her peripheral vision, Janet watched for a reaction. She had known her mother and Lucy were good friends, but she was beginning to believe there was more to it. As she watched the two women interact, often in ways which spoke of secrets underneath the surface, Janet began remembering the innuendoes her father made about her mother's orientation before the divorce.

Lucy nodded silently, like Janet, was now thinking about the complexity of the relationship she had with Betty. LM, a woman who used her beauty to morally ambiguous ends, had manipulated Betty's closeted gayness to achieve a sexual relationship with her neighbor. Lucy suspected the entire relationship with Betty was fabricated by LM to position herself to bed the girl Janet. Lucy never gave LM the chance to prove her suspicions.

The complexity of the interaction between Lucy and Betty began at the core. Because try as she may, Lucy was in fact not a woman. Twenty-five years of conditioning did not change in the span of a few years. Furthermore, although it would never be said aloud, especially after discovering what LM's true nature was, Lucy could feel that Betty preferred the former occupant of her body. At least her femaleness. That was the woman she fell in love with, not this man walking around in her shoes.

For her part, Lucy enjoyed Betty's company. Betty was able to pleasure Lucy sexually, she enjoyed the idea of her, Betty and Janet as a little family. However, she often battled with the idea of was she in love, or was she in a strong bond with the first person to give her an orgasm. And if that were true, then what next? For now, despite its complexity, she was not willing to rock the boat.

Alex Morton spoke aloud although the room was empty. After researching for a block of three hours, he just needed to hear a voice, even if that voice was his, "Alex, my man, I'm beginning to think the Ancient Placenaxens are bullshit."

In the loosest sense of the word, Alex Morton could be called a hobbyist. He spent hours each week pouring over photocopies, and more rarely like tonight, the actual texts detailing religions long forgotten. Although unlike a hobbyist, who took on an activity to pass the hours away, Alex's aims carried far more gravity.

However tonight, like most nights before it, was a dead end. Alex had been reading these texts for two years now, nevertheless it took far less time than that for him to realize that despite what novels and movies portrayed, most of the "forgotten" religions were done so for a reason. Half were usually the poorly thought out rantings of cowering ancients trying to explain the mysteries of their world - why it rained, or why the sun rose each morning.

The other half of the texts Alex ran across were plainly frauds; written by men at the Dawn of Exploration creating entire cultures and religions that didn't exist. These men were simply storytellers trying to gain celebrity status in their homelands for their journeys. They were safe in the knowledge that most men in the days of treacherous travels and inaccurate maps would never be able to retrace the steps to these fictional lands.

Yes, Alex learned a short time ago that it was going to take great luck to be able to unlock what he needed to find the most: how to save his brother Lucy from the eternal tortures of the afterlife. On the contrary this didn't slow him down from trying. The inexplicable did occur, his brother was now a woman for god's sake, and people did come back from the dead. He just needed to find that one book, that one scribbling, of someone who had been there that could tell him what he needed.

Alex placed his feet up on his desk. In the background the muffled sound of laser fire from his son Joshua's video game leaked quietly into the room. Alex would soon go out there, throwing the football with his son, getting him away from the television and gaming consoles for awhile.

Alex needed the relief, more importantly, he needed to spend time with his boy. Alex was not going to suffer the bitter irony of losing one important person in his life while trying to save the other.

A young man matched Betty McPherson's speed running beside her for a moment, smiling. Betty smiled back politely, but not overtly so. The young man understanding her signals picked up speed and moved up the path. He knew there were plenty of women along this route who would enjoy running beside him, he didn't need to keep uninvited company with a woman who did not.

Betty watched him accelerate with a bit of amusement. Even the exercise paths in this city was fair territory in the never ending game of pick-up. She wondered what he would think if he knew that she was gay. Knowing most men, he would be even that much more excited. Being so sought after by men was a relatively new phenomenon for Betty.

While she had never been unattractive, over the past couple of years Betty had evolved, through much effort and exercise, into what running-boy would call a "hottie". All of this was borne from her, often contentious, relationship with Lucy.

After leaving her last husband, along with coming to terms with her sexuality, Betty was happy being attractive in a very simple manner. She had never been one for makeup, nor as long as she wasn't overweight, did she care too much about her figure.

Makeup, high heels, tight clothing were all things that she dispensed with as well. The few tentative relationships she struck up in the lesbian community seemed to overwhelmingly affirm that these women did not seem to care if she adhered to these standards or not. Even the women who were obviously very conscious about their beauty and style were able to look past these trappings, which men like her exhusband seemed to obsess on these points.

Although as wonderful as she tried to be, Lucy was not a woman. In very small ways, a comment here and there (even though they were almost always positive) let Betty know that Lucy liked the things the way men did. A revealing top, push up bra with heels, was far more likely to lead to impassioned sex, than sweats and slippers.

On the occasions they went out, Betty took the time to put on makeup was always met more enthusiastically than when she did not. She was almost certain Lucy wasn't even aware she was doing this. Lucy was still not fully aware how she came across to others or projected herself.

Lucy was equally not aware of the effect she had on men and women alike. At least Betty hoped not. Her obvious beauty and the ability to relate to them completely on their wavelength intrigued men. These weren't the conversations of a woman who had just grown up with brothers, or liked sports, or was a tomboy at heart, it was like (they gushed endlessly) she could be one of them.

Women too, found themselves feeling the attraction as they sensed a certain compelling essence emanating from this attractive woman in ways that they could not quite put their finger on. Many women had fantasies about being with other women, but they were just that, fantasies.

However with Lucy it felt very palpable and realistic; it was as strong as the genetically hard-wired attraction they had for men. There was something confidently sexual in the way she interacted with them. This was a feeling as if she were casually flirting with them on a male level. It left these women mysteriously thinking about her long after she had gone.

Betty could feel and see all of this. Despite their rough patches, her very frequent doubts, she very much wanted to keep Lucy. So here she found herself, running, hitting the gym, dressing up. These were all of the things she would be doing to keep a highly coveted man.

Betty switched her stopwatch over to clock mode. Lucy would be returning from the airport with Janet soon, meaning they would all be off to the meeting shortly afterward. She'd consciously thought to cut her run short and get ready.

From the ornately decorated stain glass door in the back; Janet, Betty and Lucy walked into the church, down the hall to priest's office. Even before entering it for their first weekly meeting two years ago, it looked, as they would have imagined it to. Bookshelves lined the paneled walls with spaces for replicas of famous religiously depicted paintings. In the corner sat a small wooden desk covered with a scattering of papers. The clergy still wrote his sermons by hand.

Janet, who was intrigued by these meetings as a young teen, although now was plainly bored as the mysteriousness became common place. She mentally began playing her weekly game to see who was going to be more uncomfortable when Lucy walked into the room.

Was it to be Father McCormick, because he was a man of god and modesty, or Alex because he was her brother? This time it was Alex who quickly looked away to gather himself, before looking back at the voluptuous, leggy, female he called his brother. Janet gave herself a mental pat on the back along with an inward smile for guessing right before hand.

As much as Lucy said she rejected the reasoning behind LM's choice of overt sexual clothing, she had not rejected the clothing itself.

Lucy claimed that for her male mind the equation was simple. LM, an avid clotheshorse, had bought more things than Lucy could wear in a year (even if she chose a different outfit every day). Lucy saw no reason on spending more money on coverings. Especially as she needed every dollar for the extensive traveling she did over the weekends.

Quite simply the others were a little more astute than Lucy gave them credit for, taking this explanation with a grain of salt. They understood as Lucy came to terms with how she actually looked to the world, becoming more womanly, that a bit of pride and curiosity came into play. Lucy was doing in two years, what most women come to terms with over a lifetime. They viewed much in the manner of a child with a new toy.

Other than testing out her womanhood or not, with her chest almost freed from its top, her strappy extremely high heels and short skirt, Lucy was perhaps pushing the levels of decorum around a brother who, was still not accustomed to her comeliness of appearance. Father McCormick, on the other hand, who shared Alex's discomfort. Due to his vow of celibacy it would never be.

Alex shook off his brother's appearance getting to the matter at hand. It was he who usually opened the meeting of what he dubbed, "The Scooby Gang". This was a reference to their chasing, researching and, largely, debunking mysteries. This was seen also to them as a "Harry Houdini Complex"

In a typical Sunday gathering, they went around the room covering their various assignments: Alex was the one who looked into texts of ancient religions searching for descriptions of the after life which came closest to what Lucy had seen. Lucy herself roamed the country looking for someone, any one, who could actually contact the dead. She looked for those among the afterlife who could help her cheat her fate.

Father McCormick, because of his strong relationship with the bus driver that was jailed for shooting Lucy, was the last of the group to come on board. It took Lucy a great deal of time getting him to workout his ambivalence toward her. It took a great deal of adjustment (after all Lucy was a soul in possession of what was not hers) and reflection, but he finally came around.

The priest's assignment of course, went to his obvious strength delving into the texts and ancillary material of the known religions - the Koran, Torah, Kabbalah and of course the Bible, searching for the answers. He also prayed over them to keep them from harm, and hopefully, Lucy from the eternal tortures. Betty and Janet did the preliminary searches, finding the books for Alex to investigate, in addition to checking on the reputations of psychics and the likes for Lucy's inquiries.

But the pensive look on Father McCormick's face told Alex something different was going to happen this Sunday. He had never seen the priest with this much weight on his shoulders, even after learning of Lucy's true nature and fate.

"Did everything go okay is mass this morning Father?"

Alex asked, trying to place the reason for the priest's look of misgiving.

The priest reached up and rubbed his forehead. He was obviously in great distress.

"I had Father O'Hare give mass today."

The priest's visitors showed surprise. Father McCormick never missed mass; he took great pride in bragging on how he was always healthy as an ox come Sunday. Looking at him now, he was obviously not ill. Lucy leaned forward attentively waiting for his explanation. Her breasts, practically fully exposed, created even more discomfort in the already anxious clergy.

Father McCormick, never one for unneeded words, cut straight to the chase, "I had a dream last night. Not any dream, mind you, but one where I was guided to Lucy's dreamscape."

The room became silent, only the sound of the congregation's post-mass gathering could be heard faintly down the hall. It had been years since anyone had been to the dreamscape. Not since LM was destroyed.

"But its more than that," the father continued, "I felt a malevolent force which had been spreading across eternity, stop and begin the journey toward reforming. But not just reforming as it was, but in a more powerful, darker, vengeful entity."

Every one in the room, thought they knew whom ... or what this entity was. Betty interrupted, "If LM isn't destroyed any longer, what does that mean for Lucy's soul? Is she safe now?"

Father McCormick looked up, "That cannot be known right now. In the eyes of God, does a man who attempts murder but fails escape the fate of one that attempts and succeeds? What if the victim was evil? These are age-old questions Betty. In Lucy's case, we can only hope she has been spared," However, it wasn't the question of Lucy's long term prospects that had the clergy worried now, "But if what I felt on the dreamscape was real, Lucy ... all of us ... have more immediate problems".

Jack Wallace knew something was wrong immediately. It was the sky. Diffused light seemed to bear down on him from everywhere, from every object, yet no sun could be seen above. Just a seamless bright white sky hung over head.

Despite being what should have been a balmy Miami afternoon, Jack wasn't the slightest bit warm. Nor could he feel the breeze, which blew the tops of the palms. Impossibly, the air was still without temperature.

Jack made a careful assessment of his surroundings. He was standing in the middle of the street in front of his home, except the neighborhood looked wrong. The normally manicured lawns, cleanly washed cars, up-kept homes, were ragged and in disrepair. The normally smooth asphalt of the street was full of potholes which looked to stretch endlessly down a road which seemed to span into infinity.

Jack focused on his own home. While it too was disheveled in a manner it had never been, it was the front lawn that caught his attention. There, underneath a ladder, was a body. He didn't need anyone to tell him who that was. It was his body.

Before he could react, a hand touched him on his shoulder. Jack turned to find himself facing some sort of beast. It was far larger than Jack, perhaps seven feet, looking roughly to be in the form of a female.

All the attributes, legs, breasts, long hair were there, along with the remains of what must have once been a sundress.

However this creature was like nothing he had seen before. Its skin was metallic with colors washed over it like a mad kaleidoscope. Although it moved fluidly, it had the look of being thrown together haphazardly by an impatient creator. Looking at this outrage of human form, Jack knew he should have felt afraid. However, fear was as missing as the sense of temperature in this place.

"Ladders are dangerous things, Mr. Wallace." The creature's voice, despite its horrendous appearance, was melodically pleasant (what Jack imagined a beautiful opera singer must sound like when engaged in speech).

"I can sense in your thoughts that you are just beginning to figure out what has happened here. Nevertheless you are wrong. You are not quite dead yet, you were close, but you are in a short coma. It will be less than a few hours, in fact. The doctors probably won't even call it that. Under normal circumstances, as with millions of others in your state, you would walk over to that body, touch it, regaining consciousness remembering nothing which has passed here."

The creature's grip on Jack's shoulders tightened, "however its unfortunate for you it will not happen this way. Not now that my journeys have made me strong enough to prevent it. Besides, I have just so much unfinished business to attend to. I hope you understand."

With that the creature squeezed harder, splitting open Jack's shoulder. Through the opening, Jack did not feel the spill of blood as he expected. Except his very essence was escaping, like gas from a balloon. Jack knew with sudden clarity, in mere matter of seconds his existence was to be shattered forever, left to spread apart forever across this dreamscape on which he found himself.

The creature laughed as she felt his soul wash through her body. Pausing for a moment to savor her triumph, the creature walked over to the prone body, reaching down to touch it. She felt its life force merge with hers as she was being pulled back into the land of the living.

Before disappearing off of the dreamscape completely, the creatures words echoed through the tattered, empty neighborhood.

"Time to look up some old friends."