Transcendance, Radiant Awakening Part 2

    Anxious; ‘Shouldn’t have meddled. Nothing good comes from meddling.’ It told itself as it moved about the house, moving from window to window to perceive what was happening outside. The sun was already high in a crisp blue sky as Jason was getting into a police car and the car was leaving with him in it.
    It quickly plunged into an electrical outlet and out of the house through the power line as it followed the police car as best as it could. It periodically separated from the line for a fraction of a second to perceive that it was still following.
The car turned into the police station and the officer helped Jason out of the car and into the building. The lights flickered a moment as it quickly passed through the power line and into the station’s power grid. It went from room to room trying to find him. Finally, in a small room with a table and a few chairs it found him.  A ghostly wisp of itself came slightly out of the outlet that was under the table as it perceived what was going on.
    “Don’t lie to me, Jason!” the man yelled, slamming his hands on the table, “You’re bank account was the only one altered. Why would anyone else break into a bank, your bank, and add over a million dollars to your account and no one else’s?”
    “How am I supposed to know? I wasn’t there!” Jason pleaded,”Look, how would I get there? I can’t walk that distance and no busses run at that time!”
    “I’m the one asking questions!” the man spat angrily, “Do you recognize these?”          
    Jason pulled his hands quickly away from the table as the man tossed several photos across the table at him.
The door suddenly burst open with the General walking in followed by two marines. “Officer, your dismissed; I’ll take it from here. Sergeant, escort the officer out of here.”
    “What the hell is going on here?” the man protested.
    “National security,” the General replied and added drily, “Sergeant, if the officer resists you have permission to use your sidearm.”
    The officer raised his hands, cussing, as he walked out of the room with the sergeant behind him. The other man sat a metal brief case down on the table as the General picked up the photos.
    “Tell me something Jason,” the General began as he sat down across from Jason, “What is your relationship with this… thing?”
Jason slowly took the photo that the General was holding extended towards him and looked at it. It showed the inside of his bank, the row of teller computers and a large ghostly radiance either leaving or going into one of the computers. His brow furled as he slowly began shaking his head back and forth, never taking his eyes off the photo.
    The sound of the brief case latches unlocking made him jump and drop the photo which fell to the floor.
    “Don’t worry about it,” the General stated as he pulled a laptop and other photos from his brief case while Jason started to bend to pick it back up. “I have something better to show you.”
    Jason took the new photos from the General as he was handed them. One was a photo with a red circle around a blob of light to the right of the moon. The next was a photo, infrared he guessed, of just outside his house. The strange radiance was near it appearing as a blue and red mass.  He slowly looked up at the General, wide eyed and noticeably pale.
    The General looked at the other marine standing to the side of the General before turning to Jason again. “We tracked it following you here so we know it’s here in this building, or at least has been in this building. What I want to know is what is it about you that it is so interested that it is following you and trying to give you money. Lots of money, has it made a deal with you if you hide it or give it information?”
    “I,” Jason started then cleared his voice and began again a little steadier, “I don’t even know what it is! I haven’t even seen it before now. What is it?”
    “We think it’s a probe of some sort or perhaps some form of alien life that we don’t understand yet,” the General answered glancing at the marine again. “What it wants and why it’s here is more of what I’m interested in and what it poses in the way of a threat to this country. You’re currently our only link to it.”
    “But…” Jason began as he looked at the photo of it by his house, “What does it want with me?”
    “You tell me,” the General stated and hit the space bar on the computer before turning it around to face Jason.
    Jason watched what appeared to be an infrared aerial shot of his house with two people outside by a car.
    “Watch your house,” the General stated.
    Jason did as he was told, there was a mass of blue and red that formed in his bedroom that quickly moved into his living room. It then began to move back and forth from the kitchen and living room quickly, pacing Jason thought, while the two people were outside by the car. He realized the two people were him and the investigative officer. When they got into the car and began to drive away, the mass burst towards and dissipated into a wall.
    “It’s using the power lines to move about,” the General stated. “It may even be in this building watching us, listening to us right now.”
    Jason’s heart began to beat in his throat as he stared blankly at the General before speaking. “What is it you want me to do? I don’t even know what it is or anything. I swear!”
    “Nothing, just go home for now,” the General stated calmly as he closed the laptop and began to gather up all the photos. “Talk to no one about this and let us handle it.”
    Anxiety; ‘Meddled. Meddled and now must fix before he is hurt. Think, think, think, think… how to fix, how to fix…’ It quickly withdrew back into the power outlet then out into the power line and hurried back to Jason’s house; back to the computer.
    Jason just sat there staring at him as the General ordered the marine, a lieutenant, to get the sergeant back in the room to take him home. The rest was a blur as he left the station, the drive back home and getting into his house. He leaned heavily on his cane as he hobbled into his bedroom and sat down in front of the computer before he realized that the pain had returned. He wondered absently how long it had been back but hadn’t noticed.
    After a moment of sitting there he began looking around the room slowly; looking at the light, then at the wall outlets. His gaze slowly turned to the computer and he just sat there, staring. He swallowed hard as he thought about the photo of the radiant glow coming from or going into the computer at the bank.
    “Um, if you are here… in my computer… can you hear or understand me?” Jason began hesitantly, “I’m in a lot of trouble, I think, because of things you’ve done. Why… are you doing these things to me?”
    He leaned back, gasping, heart racing as the tower of his computer began to glow and a radiant energy poured from it, past him and into a more open area of the room as he turned his chair to follow it, never taking his eyes off it. Slowly, the mass began to condense and take form. It was a pillar of boiling light at first, then slowly condensing still; shorter, thinner. The pillar began to thin in the middle, separate at the bottom… arms began to appear and the bottom appeared to form legs. A head began to form with a face as the body took shape. A woman he realized. It looked human, beautiful.
    It smiled softly, the eyes blinked as the head tilted slightly to the side as it observed him then spoke with a soft, almost musical voice. Jason looked on in awe of the beauty, mesmerized by the voice. “I never intended to hurt you or cause you troubles, Jason,” it began, “I intended only to watch, observe but the more I watched and observed the more I felt I needed to help you. Meddling is forbidden and I shouldn’t have done so. I am truly sorry for the troubles you now face. I wish to correct them but… I have not thought of how to do this.”
    “What?” Jason began still in awe of the being in front of him, “What are you?”
    Her soft smile quirked, “What do you think I am?
    “An angel?” Jason asked, curiosity starting to overcome the awe.
    Her smile grew a little as she shook her head slowly.
    “Ah…” he began but started to stammer as he pushed back into his chair, “A demon?”
    She laughed softly as she shook her head a little harder, “Oh Jason. You’re not normally this linier. I’ve read your stories, watched you… You are so gifted. You see the world and existence so differently than most of your kind. You see it more as it is than most I have ever encountered. In another world, you would be offered honors and treated as a king.”
    Jason’s eyes widened as he leaned forward, mouth dropping open before gasping “An alien life…”
    “Her expressions softened back into that beautiful smile as she nodded, “Yes, you see me now. I came here to escape the longing for a while. To observe and watch for a time but never expected to find what I did. Something I do not understand and have been hoping to have you explain it to me but…” She trailed off as she looked away toward the floor, her brow furled as if puzzling over something. Her shoulders appeared slumped slightly as she looked back at Jason.
    He saw for the first time through the beauty, the eyes; dark and tired, old and haunted as if lost. Empty and without hope he thought. Jason watched her eyes as if for the first time, searching them as she continued “This form, human, makes the… confusion deeper. A strange longing, but not the longing I sought to escape. It is… different but similar. I am not sure how to explain.”
    Jason thought for a moment, looking into her eyes, “Tell me of this longing you were trying to escape.”
    She sighed, noticeably slumping as she walked slowly to the edge of his bed and sat down facing him. “It is something my kind eventually encounters as we explore the expanse of existence. We call it the longing. It starts like a distant hunger, like a need that you can’t put a finger on. It’s like feeling incomplete, I think is a good description. Eventually it turns into a longing, driving us searching for that something.” She shrugged, “We have no idea what that something is but we search for it; desperately and mindlessly eventually until we dissipate in that mindless state.  Some of my kind goes mad from it. Those that do are hunted down and dissipated.”
    “Dissipated?” Jason asked and continued, “You mean killed.”
    She looked down at the floor, searching before answering, “Yes, that would be the term you would understand; killed. They will cause harm to worlds and others of my kind if they are not.”
    “How…” Jason began, his head tilting to the side as he tried to find the right words but decided to just ask how he could think of it, “How powerful are you and your kind?”
    She smiled as she looked at him but the smile turned sad, “The fourth planet in your system, the red one.”
    “Mars,” he said as she nodded.
    “Yes, that one,” she nodded and continued as her voice softened, “It was one of the first worlds my original species encountered, as is yours.  They tried to… enhance what we found there. We meddled with the natural progression. It ended with the whole of its lifecycle ending.”
    He stared at her, brow furled, “Your kind tried to enhance that world and it ended the lifecycle… you’re saying Mars was once like Earth, but you accidently destroyed it?”
    She nodded slowly. “Not my kind, my original species but yes. Yes, they caused the planet to die along with all the life that was on it… but they didn’t learn, not yet. They moved on to your world and tried to enhance your species next.  But… again their meddling ended badly. The world was nearly destroyed in a great…”
    “Flood where almost all life was wiped out save a few,” Jason finished then continued, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
    She nodded slowly looking at him.
    Those eyes, soft yet so old and haunted he thought as he looked into them. What they must have seen and experienced to look so old and so tired. “How old are you?”
    She smiled her soft smile as she looked down at the floor then slowly back at him with a quirky smile, “A very linier question but then it should be expected as you live for such a short time. Perhaps the shortest of all sentient species I have encountered. I don’t honestly know. I exist,” she shrugged, “I was once a species similar to yours that lived a short time then ended. I don’t exist as you do anymore. Through my original species’ science I have transcended to what I am now. I exist. In compared to your lifecycle I am old. I have perceived a thousand galaxies. I have been a thousand-thousand sentient species, as yours is, for the length of their lifecycles and countless other species. I have seen the twelve quasars and the fade that ring the universe. Time is… difficult for me to express in terms that affect me as I transcend time; at least, until I’m over taken by the longing and dissipate.”
    “The fade?” Jason asked.
    “Yes,” she said and continued, “At the edge of the universe there is a point where there is nothing more. My kind cannot perceive beyond this point. If we travel very far beyond this point we are not perceived again. We don’t return.”
    “So everything basically fades from existence beyond this point,” Jason stated trying to understand.
    “As far as we can tell, yes except the twelve Gavish” she nodded, “Sitting just within the fade and spaced evenly around the universe are twelve massive one sided quasars about the size of this galaxy called the twelve Gavish pouring in matter and energy at such a vast rate that if my kind gets too close it dissipates us.”
    “Twelve gates into Heaven,” Jason mussed in astonishment.
    “Gates?” she question shaking her head, “They are quasars and only pour matter and energy outward.”
    “With all you’ve seen, been, and done you still haven’t found what this longing is for,” Jason marveled. “Do you have a name or something others call you?”
    “Nia,” she smiled again as her eyes became distant and looked off at the wall beyond Jason, “I was called Nia before I became as I am. And no I haven’t found it, but I found something that feels similar to what I seek but I don’t understand it. I can’t comprehend how to learn it or acquire it. I only know I need to… to help others like myself who suffer the longing.”
    “Nia,” Jason smiled softly seeing for a moment a glint of something in her eyes for the first time before it was buried under those tired and haunted eyes, “Radiance. It means Radiance here. A very fitting name for you, Nia. What did you look like before the radiant cloud?”
    “On my world it means purpose,” Nia replied, smile broadening, looking into his eyes as she stood before quickly looking away and moving to the open area again. Her form seemed to blur before taking on a new human like form with wings.
    Jason gasped at the beauty. He felt the urge to fall to his knees and worship the creature that stood before him it held so much beauty.  Nia’s form blurred again and became the human once more leaving him gasping and looking away embarrassed.
    “Irin is the name your species gave those that came before your flood. Grigori is the name of my original species as human is the name of yours,” Nia explained as she walked over to his computer, “Iri is what my original species call my kind.” After a moment she opening the web browser and brought up pictures of people kissing and hugging, of people spooning together and holding each other in various other ways during various activities. “I do not understand these pictures and what it is they are doing. You have this in your stories and I do not understand it either. I know what all it is called but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Only that something about it I need.”
    Jason looked at the pictures as he listened to her then mussed, “Hugging? Kissing? People holding hands?”
    “I understand what it is,” Nia sighed then sat back down on the edge of the bed, “but what is it? Why do it? An act of pre-procreation? But if that, why do others of the same sex do it to each other?”
    He looked in her eyes as she spoke, his expressions softened and tears began to form in his eyes, “Love Nia. They are expressions of love and companionship. You’ve never encountered love in all your travels?”
    Nia looked down at the floor, searching, “An emotion of strong affection and attachment to something composing of compassion, kindness, and affection.”
    Jason looked at her sadly, “You know the meaning but there is so much more behind it. You don’t understand it because you’ve never experienced it, have you.”
    She sat silently, her soft smile gone, as she looked at the floor as if searching her mind. “The Grigori had compassion and showed kindness toward me when they offered and gave me transcendence… When I found you were damaged, crippled I felt compassion for you and tried to show kindness with helping you… though it all went wrong. All species will tend to try to help each other when in need but there is no attachment to anything or one that would fit that definition that I can comprehend.”
    Jason sat looking at her sadly trying to find some way to teach her about love. His eyes fell on the black book that sat on his nightstand and read the title on the book silently before nodding slightly as if understanding a silent instruction while he mumbling to himself, “Love. God is love.”
    Nia looked up at him slowly, “What Jason?”
    “Love, Nia. God is love. Have you read this book yet?” Jason asked, picking up his Bible.
    Nia shrugged slightly, “I glanced at a little of it in my searching on the internet. A book with religious beliefs that scientifically my race and many others can debunk,” she smiled softly, “you didn’t come from nothing or the dust of the Earth as the book suggests. You evolved from microbes.”
    Jason smiled, “How do you explain to man as he was five thousand years ago that he came from microbes within the dirt when he is barely using bronze instruments for tools? It would be as if the dust formed together to create a man. The point of why I asked if you read the book Nia was because it explains love better than anything else in this world other than experiencing it. And the only way to understand it with experience is to lose it.”
    Nia shook her head, “That makes no sense to have to lose something to understand what it is you had. If you have it, you can analyze it and understand it and what it is made of and how it works.”
    “God teaches that not all things that are real can be touched or understood as He intentionally does this to confuse and throw off those that seek to understand things without Him as the center,” Jason explained and continued, “With God, all things are possible. Through his Son, Jesus, all things are available if we ask in accordance to God’s will.”
    “Again, that makes no sense,” Nia protested, “All things are available if we ask in accordance to god’s will. If he doesn’t will you to have it then it’s not available so how can all things be available?”
    Jason sighed as he leaned back in his chair, thinking. It came to him suddenly. “The greatest act of love ever witnessed by mankind was when God saw his creation separated from him due to an action done by man. His act of love… of compassion was to bring man back to him. To reconcile the action done with an act of love that befit the law that he placed on all of creation. To sin against God was to be separated from God. To… dissipate from existence. God loved us, his creation so much that something had to take the place of this penalty for us so we could have the chance to choose to come back to him. His son, Jesus, became that reconciliation because he loved us as much as his father loved us. He was born, and became a part of our world for a short time voluntarily. Teaching of his father, but the people he was born to didn’t want to listen to him. Instead, they ridiculed him, beat him, and then tortured him to death.”
    “And that was considered the price for reconciliation? Letting them kill his own son?  That makes no sense,” Nia said shaking her head.
    “No, that was only the beginning of it,” Jason started and continued, “You see, of all of mankind his son was blameless. He did nothing wrong to deserve death or separation from God. In his death, God separated his son from himself in order to have our sins paid for with the love that Jesus had for us. A sacrifice. One life for the lives of many. Jesus once said that no greater love has anyone than this that someone willingly lays down his life for his friends.”
    There was a sound from outside making both Nia and Jason look to the window then the power went dead.
    “Oh my God, I was the bait!” Jason said as he grabbed his cane and stood up, “You have to go, now!”
    “No,” Nia said as she stood and took hold of his shoulders and looked into his eyes, “No, they’ll hurt you. Stay here and down. Your species lacks the knowledge and technology to hurt me.”
    Jason heard the front door burst open followed by someone yelling out, “U.S. Marines!”
    Nia touched Jason’s face softly before turning and walking slowly out of the room and turning to head down the hallway lowering her head aggressively.
    “U.S. Marines! Get down on the ground!” Jason heard the person call out as she walked out of his sight.
    “Sir, a woman is approaching the door and not responding, orders?” the marine said over a radio.
    “Disable, do not kill. Repeat, do not kill,” came back over the radio.
    “Get down on the ground or we will open fire,” the marine warned then fired.
    “NIA!” Jason yelled at the sound of gun fire.
    Nia was thrown back as the round hit her shoulder and dissipated into a mass of radiant light then burst forward into the marine.
    The marine staggered back and convulsed as if in a seizure, his rifle firing seemingly random bursts of rounds.  The first burst catching a nearby marine in the face and a second burst catching another across his chest. “You… will not…hurt… him!” Nia called out through the marine’s voice as a third burst caught another marine in the leg, severing it.
    “Grab him!” Jason heard a marine calling to another as he hobbled down the hall to the front door. Blood was everywhere. He saw the faceless marine and the wounded ones. He then saw the convulsing marine and understood what was happening.
    “Nia! Stop! Release…” Jason cried out as the convulsing marine turned.
    A fourth burst caught Jason midsection and up, throwing him back against the side of the house.
    The convulsing marine suddenly came to a stop as a mass of radiant light burst from his chest. Two marines rushed up and tackled the marine to the ground and disarmed him.
    The radiant light hovered where it was for a moment before surging toward Jason as it quickly condensed back into the human form.
“Jason!” Nia cried out horrified catching him as he fell to his knees. He coughed blood across her chest and neck. “Jason! No! What have I done!”
    Jason coughed again as he held onto Nia, looking down at his lower half turned inside out like ground meat. His breath came as gasps and made a sucking, wheezing sound.
    Nia quickly covered a gaping hole in his chest that exposed his punctured lung with her hand and started to cry. “It’s not healing. It should be healing. Why won’t it mend back together?”
    “It’s…” Jason gasped and tried again, “It’s ok Nia.”
    “No it’s not!” Nia sobbed. “I was trying to protect you and I hurt you!”
    “Nia,” Jason wheezed trying to wipe away her tears and leaving only a bloody smear, “The fighting stopped. Look around. Their guns are down. My life for their life.”
    “It’s not right!” Nia yelled as she looked around at the marines tending to the wounded and at the ones standing nearby watching her and Jason, one taking off his helmet. “Help him! He’s dying!” she yelled at them.
    Jason coughed up more blood and wheezed in another breath, “They can’t, Nia. But it’s ok though, it’s ok. You still have purpose to your kind and my purpose on this world is complete.”
    “No it’s not,” she cried as she leaned her head against his, “No it’s not!”
    “Yes it is,” Jason gasped, “You understand love now. God is love and I go to him now.”
    She continued to cry as he leaned forward and kissed her softly on her lips before going limp in her arms. Wide eyed, she looked up from his kiss at his limp form shaking her head back and forth. “No, Jason no. Don’t leave me.”
    Her breath caught as she perceived a faint radiance of consciousness slowly leave Jason’s form like a faint mist, rising slowly upwards away from them unaware that no one else around them saw what she saw. She watched, mesmerized as it hovered for a moment just above the height of the house and began to condense until it was a small seed. The seed sped up suddenly.
    “No!” Nia screamed dissipating back into the mass of radiant energy as she let go of the empty shell and burst upwards after the seed. Faster and faster the seed sped through clouds and up. Faster and faster Nia pushed herself trying to catch up to the seed. She was gaining, but not by much.
    Desperation; ‘Jason please! Please stop!’ her mind raced as she pursued faster and faster oblivious of everything but the seed of Jason’s consciousness in front of her. Earth and its moon were now far behind but still the seed sped on ever faster.  Nia continued the desperate chase through other star system, across the galaxy and beyond but still the seed sped on faster and faster. Nia started feeling a ripping sensation and realized she was traveling faster than any of her kind ever had traveled, faster than what was safe for her to travel and she was beginning to dissipate. She didn’t know where she was anymore, she didn’t care. Jason was all that mattered and reaching him. ‘Please Jason’ her mind cried out.
         A distant light was dead ahead of the seed, in the distance but slowly growing ever larger. She tried to perceive her location but something was wrong she realized. Tired; Exhaustion; Pain; ‘How long? How far?’ her mind raced as she pursued, ‘Almost in reach… Jason… please…’ The emptiness around her grew as she continued after the seed ever closer to the growing brightness as she stretched out her perception trying to find where they were. Anxiety; ‘Jason, please! The fade, the quasar!’
         Fear and panic began to grip her as she felt the first effects of the mater and radiation from the super quasar begin to tare and rip at her. She pushed herself harder than she ever pushed and caught hold of the seed as she lunged forward. She pulled herself up and around it as she tried in desperation to pull it back and shield it from the quasar with her own life as they plunged ever deeper into the flow, ‘Jason please! Please stop!’
         Nia began to lose perception of the pain and their location while holding on to the seed as it dragged her closer to the quasar.  ‘Jason’s God, please! Please stop! Please let him go! Don’t take him from me! It’s my fault. Please take me in his place. It was my fault…’ she cried out as everything faded from her perception.

         Nia perceived she was drifting, floating. She perceived soft caresses against her face and body. She tried to look around to see who was there but couldn’t see anything but light. She then tried to speak but couldn’t find her voice. Perplexed; she tried to sit up but found she couldn’t move. Anxiety; ‘what’s wrong with me?’ she thought then forced herself to relax and open her mind. She perceived a river of energy and matter flowing around her, carrying her. It gently buffeted her as she floated in it and there was something else.  ‘What is it?’ she thought to herself, trying to perceive what she was wrapped around. Small, the size of a seed… and it all came back to her; the fade, the quasar, and Jason. The seed was the consciousness of Jason!
         She struggled to pull herself and the seed from the flow of matter and energy. Pain; Exhaustion; she recalled the pursuit and the quasar before she lost consciousness as both sensations slammed into her along with the realization that she was likely badly hurt and dissipating. The need to get him out of the stream and to safety before she did was all she focused on. When she succeeded to leave the stream her perception faded once more.

         Nia felt something stir within her. Pain; Confusion; ‘where am I?’ She opened her mind and perceived… nothing. She tried to relax herself and opened her mind again to perceive where she was. She perceived nothing around her. ‘Is this what death is? Nothing?’ She felt something stir within her again.
         She reached out with her perception to what stirred. She was wrapped around a seed of faint energy. Exhaustion; ‘Jason’ her mind sighed as she pulled herself tighter around the seed. She perceived the consciousness within the seed stir as if awakening.
         Wonder; gently, Nia unwrapped herself from the seed and attentively let go of it, afraid it would speed away again. She perceived the seed begin to swell and fill with energy. Slowly at first then faster, expanding, becoming more and more that what it was.
Awe; ‘Thank you,’ Nia called out with her mind while hesitantly reaching out with a wisp of herself and touched it as the growing slowed then stopped when it became an ever changing mass of radiant energy.
         Jason felt something warm caress him and someone call his name. The voice was soft and sounded familiar. Happy; he felt the warm caress again and it made him feel happy. ‘Jason’, the familiar voice called to him again. He went to open his eyes to see who it was but could only see light. He then went to say something but found he couldn’t speak; Confusion.
         ‘Shhhh,’ the familiar voice soothed as he felt the warm caress then the warmth surround him, ‘I’m here Jason. Relax and listen, Shhhh.’
         Jason found himself on a strange world. The landscape was indescribably beautiful. Birds unlike any from a dream flew in the sky. He was being carried up steps he realized then was sat down on his feet at the top. His gaze turned to a small gathering of winged people; Grigori he realized. He began to move forward toward the group, staggering and using braces attached to his arms to hold himself upright.
         As he approached the group, they bowed their heads to him and parted revealing a dais behind them with what looked like a blue crystal egg leaning back on a crystal pedestal that pulsed and flickered as if filled with fire. On the left side of the dais, to the left of the egg stood a Grigori and to the right of the egg hovered a radiant glow that he recognized was like Nia.
         The Grigori approached him and helped him step up on the dais. The outer edge of the dais looked like an intricate ring of gold with crystals that looked like eyes along its length. Once on the dais, he staggered unaided to the egg and saw his reflection in its surface. A Grigori he recognized, but the wings were stunted, one hardly describable as a wing. The body was twisted, deformed and crippled. But the beautiful and determined face, ‘Nia’ he thought.
         ‘Shhh, listen,’ he heard the familiar voice sooth.
         The egg opened to show what looked like a carved out seat within and the Grigori to the left helped him into the seat. As the egg closed, the Grigori left the dais as did the Iri. The gold ring around the dais swung up and over followed by another from another direction and then another and another. The rings appeared to pass through each other spinning faster and faster. The Crystal egg began to glow brighter and brighter until… all he saw was light.
         ‘I’m here Jason,’ the familiar voice soothed. ‘Something wonderful has happened.’
         Puzzlement; the voice sounded familiar yet distant and tired. Jason tried to speak but found he had no voice and tried to figure out where he was and what was going on and recalled what he just saw. Nia climbing into the blue crystal egg then only able to see light repeated in his recollection.
         ‘Yes,’ the voice said, ‘What do you see now?’
         Curious; Jason tried to look around but saw only light and suddenly understood. He recalled himself sitting in his chair in front of the computer then recalled the gold rings spinning faster and faster around the egg with Nia in it until all he saw was light.
         ‘Yes Jason,’ he heard the voice say, ‘but not as I did. Not by my original species.’
         Jason recalled the radiant form coming from his computer and forming the woman for a moment.
         ‘Yes, it’s me Jason, I’m here,’ the familiar voice said and continued, ‘It’s Nia.’
         Perplexed; he thought of the last things he remembered experiencing, the last things he said to Nia and then the white light.
         ‘Shhh, listen’ she said then recalled the events from his death until he awoke. When she was done she recalled the black book he picked up from his nightstand. ‘Please, tell me of your God.’
         Joy; Jason began to recall from the Bible.
         Contentment; Nia listened as they drifted wrapped around each other on the edge of the fade. She listened, she learned, and she believed.



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