Amon wasn’t sure what lesson he had to learn, but clearly he had to learn it fast.
Every time he’d let himself fall asleep since he came off the ice he found himself bolting awake to some new, terrifying twist. Looking over at Basilio’s wide eyes he knew the Bolivian felt the same. Without a word the pair slid off of their cots and bolted up the ramp into the cryo hall. That was when the screaming began.
Halfway across the polished stone floor Anya laid on her back writhing in pain, with the remnants of Stephanie’s tab a few feet away blackened, smoldering and still giving off a plume of acrid smoke. They raced over to her sides as her shrieks turned more and more shrill.
“Fuck. My eyes! My eyes!”
“Anya! Calmate! Calmate!” Basilio cried back, sliding to her side to brace her and stop her wild trashing. Anya’s hands and one side of her face were covered in flash burns. “Amon, look in the pump for a med kit!”
Amon dashed over to the looming structure and ducked his head into the deafening racket. There, blessedly, was a red medkit strapped underneath the diagnostic console. He raced back through the frigid hall to the side of his new friends. As soon as he opened the kit it released an aerosol that smelled like concentrated lavender, it didn’t seem to have any effect on him or Basilio but Anya’s writhing immediately began to settle down. Her screams settled into low wimpers.
“My, my eyes. That fucking tab blew up right in my face. My eyes,” she pleaded. “It was done with the diagnostic, then it just blew up. I can’t see. What the hell.” Her words and heart raced on.
The screen inside of the medkit instructed Amon to drop a silver cloth over her eyes. He did as the program bid and the almost liquid fabric dripped down into her sockets allowing the medkit to fully analyze the extent of the damage as well as knock her fully unconscious. After a few minutes of analysis the kit indicated that it was safe to move her and Basilio picked up her small frame lightly and carried her out of the hall without a backward glance. Amon looked back at the ruin of the tab still giving off a tendril of caustic smoke in the middle of the floor and decided he’d let that particular beast lie.
The halls passed in a deeper silence. The ship had supplied a wheelchair for Anya a little way past the sleeping nook, and Basilio pushed her sleeping form down the endless halls without a word. Only the deep furrow in his brow betrayed the tumult of emotions he held in with such forceful machismo. He made no protests when Amon led the way at every turn, grateful he had spent so much energy on the walk out mentally tracking their steps.
In the silence, his mind raced. Two times asleep. Two watchers attacked. Two tablets destroyed. It was unthinkable that their tabs could be some kind of weapon, he had seen thousands of their like back on Earth, a microchip, a display panel, and some wiring. Hardly a bomb. Sure the battery cells were a bit flammable, but far from a flash bang grenade that could leave his friend blinded. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he sure as hell knew he wasn’t going near another tab any time soon. Even as they left, he’d made sure to collect Mali’s maps but made a point of staying as far away from his and Basilio’s tabs as he could.
And if the tabs were weapons, who was pulling the trigger? As questions are wont to do one led to another led to another led to another. Just as the halls of the ship led to another to another to another. He chased down the empty, questioning corridors of his mind finding only more halls, finding only more questions. But all things must end, and after interminable silent hours the trio turned a corner to see the homestead off in the distance. When they finally crossed the threshold they were bathed in the warm tranquility of a summer’s night.
He let Basilio carry Anya upstairs into the ministrations of Stephanie, as he quietly found himself a seat out on the porch overlooking the gardens, not willing to go inside for fear that sleep would find him there once more and disaster would strike again. The fresh air and the incessant turning of his thoughts kept him wide awake even as his eyes glazed over to the quietude that surrounded him. He may have left the halls, but his mind was still chasing answers.
After several hours, just before sun up, Stephanie stepped out onto the porch with two mugs of coffee.
“Well you should get some sleep, but since it seems like you’re bound and determined not to let that happen, maybe take this instead.” She held out a steaming mug.
He accepted it gratefully as she lowered herself heavily into the chair beside him. “Whenever I sleep, someone gets hurt.”
“You’ll have to eventually,” she replied with a heavy sigh.
“Not tonight.”
“No, maybe not tonight.” The nurse looked worse for the wear than he did as she sipped her mug and looked out toward the horizon, the sky just beginning to show cracks at the facade of night. “But let’s be honest, your sleep schedule has nothing to do with Mali and Anya getting hurt, and you managed to do quite a bit of good while you were out as well. Judging by Basilio’s state I bet he wouldn’t have made his way back here by himself, and that medkit you found was able to help me with Mali as well. She’d been getting worse and worse all night, one look from that fancy kit and she’s stable and sleeping sound as can be. Almost makes you wonder why we still had human nurses back on Earth.”
“Sometimes you need a human touch to heal.” Amon whispered back looking over at her strong features, dark hair pulled back for a night of hard work, eyes weary but set and determined.
“Well, that’s a nice sentiment Amon. But if you see a few too many technological miracles in this life and you start to question the real value of a human mind over a machine.”
The pair sat quietly in the last fleeting moments of the predawn light, listening to the soft clucking of the hens as they scratched away at the dirt before the synthetic sun crested the trees and set the roosters off. Nestled in his numb mind, looking over the bucolic vista, Amon could almost sympathize with the roosters, it all felt so real. With a force of effort he could just keep on imagining that the forests beyond the field really did stretch off for miles. But then the first beams of light slipped through the upper tree branches to warm his face and his focus wavered, it all came tumbling down. A man made sun could never match the real thing.
“So what do we do now?” He pondered aloud, breaking the pensive quiet.
“Well I don’t know what you’ll do with this information Amon, but there’s another door.” “What?”
“While you were gone I took a walk out by the pond and noticed on the far side another door through the trees.” Her voice seemed weary and strained. “If you want to keep following the lead of whatever is causing all of this nonsense on the ship it looks like it ties into a new hall that heads fore on the ship. It was never there before, I’m sure of that.”
“What do you mean if?” He replied, astounded. “We have to go, for all we know people are dying out there in cryo.”
Stephanie’s broad face was awash in the golden glow of a clear sunrise, she finished the last of her coffee and took a deep breath. “Amon I’ve been awake on this ship for almost a decade. The whole time I’ve known I was little more than a puppet. During our normal stints we are pulled around on taught little strings doing the ship’s bidding. That’s the price we pay, that’s fine. But nothing makes sense anymore and I have my own choice to make.” She looked out at the sun and a smile touched her lips. “I’m choosing to free myself, I’m done doing this fucking ship’s bidding.”
“So you’re just what? Going to live here?” He was incredulous, as much as the homestead had come to feel like safety, he knew it could never really feel like home.
The smile continued to spread across her face, as she was fully bathed in the morning light. “Did you know I come from the place this farm was built to mimic? I grew up outside of St. Louis, this farm, this house, the trees beyond, even the weather. It’s all rural Missouri. But not like I ever knew it. The rolling hills were covered in hydroponic farms tucked inside warehouses, the soil had long since been stripped bare of any life. There were no grasses, no trees, no hens pecking in the dirt. A decade in and this place feels more real than any of those old memories. I’ve made a life here, it may all be based on a facade but I wouldn’t trade it. I’m done playing the ship’s games, I choose to make my life here.”
She left little room for argument, and his clouded mind could not fathom this new insanity. Amon stood and looked down at her peaceful, weary face basking in a light that was somehow not the right hue, and turned leaving her to her delusions. He needed space, so he set out towards the pond.
The pond was always Amon’s least favorite part of the homestead. It was where the facade crumbled the most, leaving a synthetic scar in his mind that always reminded him of just how manufactured all of this nature truly was. It was built to help close the water loop in the great terrarium that was the homestead. From one side the little rivulet trickled out and splashed into the trees as it raced it’s course about the perimeter. Along the way the rivulet would pick up what little groundwater there was to be found and gradually grow in size. A few months into his stint Amon followed it all the way around, dodging between trees and ferns towering overhead wondering where it’s little course would take it. It took the better part of a day, wiggling through the tall trees, and after a while he began to imagine that it may take some unexpected turn and lead him into some new, strange place. But just as he neared completing the circle around the farm the waters ceased, pouring through a metal grate into some unseen depths below. From there he figured it was treated and pumped back into the pond to begin its course anew. He lived in the middle of an overgrown water feature, a trick to create the illusion of natural splendor.
But today he wasn’t concerned with the pond, he walked along its edge to where a few trees stood obscuring the confining wall beyond. Sure enough, through the thicket he could see the top of a square-edged doorway. He pushed through the brush, and stopped hesitant of this strange new aperture. The main threshold into the homestead from the ship was a grand archway, made to define where the farm began and the ship ended. This new opening, looked more like a service door, metal and plain, the sort of entrance back-of-house workers would scurry in and out of to keep up illusions for the guests upfront.
But it was undoubtedly new. As much as he disdained the pond, he’d spent plenty of lonely hours sitting on the bench on its shores, he certainly would have noticed this doorway. And if Stephanie thought it was new he was inclined to believe her, no one would likely ever know this place quite like her. But this was the way of the Fable, if it wanted a new door it could make one, the halls that looked hewn from stone hid a great deal of compartments and doorways that could be opened to suit the ship’s needs.
The most unusual aspect, in fact, was that there was an actual door at all. A physical piece of metal that needed to be opened to see what was beyond. Usually there would just be an open aperture, ready for him to step through. Still, he felt called to see beyond, so he pushed through the last of the brush and swung it open on silent hinges. A cold draft hit him in the face and set his teeth to chattering, but beyond, a sight that was all too familiar. An endless hallway stretching off until the curvature of the ship blocked it from sight.
For all its familiarity this was still a profound discovery. The main entrance to the farm pointed aft in the ship, back towards the cryo halls and bio factory and oxygen plant. All the incredible machinery that allowed this ship to sustain life for eons of travel. That was all aft of the homestead. So was was fore? He had to imagine a bridge of some sort, some central nervous center where great decisions would be made. Amon pictured some sort of highly futuristic command center, plinths covered in control equipment and screens covering every available wall with data. He knew that when the ship approached a potential planet for colonization that a council would be called to determine if they should stay. Maybe that happened somewhere up along this interminable hallway, maybe there he could find some answers. The chill of the ship continued to waft over him, not alone, he decided. There were answers to be found, but he needed friends before he could face the cold of the ship once more. So he slid the door closed and headed back to the farmhouse.
By the time he made it to the path through the gardens Anya was flying out of the front door in a fury.
“No you listen to me mother superior!” She raged, barely catching herself before she fell down the porch stairs and into a flower bed. “I will not sit on my ass and wait. Something made that tablet blow up, something fucked my face up like this. And I’m going to figure out what!”
Amon was at first relieved to see her up and about, clearly the med kit had done an outstanding job treating her. She seemed to be walking, talking, and seeing on her own. But then she turned her head to reveal a mass of bandage covering the left side of her face and eye. His heart plummeted. There was no escaping the damage done, no matter how fiery of a display she put forth.
“Anya for God’s sake, calm down!” Stephanie was calling, chasing her out the door. “You’re going to hurt yourself even more.”
The small Russian leaned heavily on the railing, and caught sight of Amoun out amongst the planters. “Amon! Good, you’re here. Did you check out this new door? Where does it lead? Did you see anything? Where is the fucker who burned my face?” She was a breathless fury.
“Um.” He hesitated, nearly eager as she was to get on with the discovery but concerned about her wellbeing. “Yeah.”
“Well, what’s it look like? Let’s go man!”
Amon looked plaintively up at Stephanie for some indication of what to do.
“Jesus Anya, sit down!” the nurse implored. “You’re going to fall of the porch!” She gently wrestled Anya back into one of the rocking chairs. “Amon, she seems like she’ll make a fair recovery, I can’t say as much about her eye but–”
“Oh, I’m fine.” Anya insisted.
“Fine but with one eye and no depth perception.” Stephanie cut back.
“Well yeah.” Amon finally went on. “I had a look, seems like it ties into a tunnel that heads straight for the bow.”
“Excellent! Let’s get a goddamned move on.” Any tore on, maniacally.
“Woah woah woah, what’s the rush?” Basilio asked as he stepped out of the door, seemingly recovered from the previous day’s ordeal with a night of sleep. “The rush, my unscrupulous friend, is to not only figure out what did this to my face, and what’s going on with all the people in cryo. It’s to not sit here and while our lives away on this fucking farce of a farm.”
Stephanie buried the attachment she had just bared to Amon admirably, barely batting an eye at this assault on the place where she chose to make her life. He could only look at his feet and hope to move on.
“You can rush right on out of here,” Stephanie cut in. “Right after you’ve had some decent breakfast and I can run some tests on you to make sure you’re not about to pass out in the halls a couple miles away with only these two jokers there to help.”
“Fine, have it your way!” Anya spat back, rushing through the door with Basilio on her heels.
Amon stepped up onto the porch. “Well, there’s one patient sorted. How’s Mali?”
Stephanie looked down and gave a little shake of her head. “The medkit is helping keep her stable but something is keeping her unconscious and I can’t figure out what. She’s alright for now, but we don’t have the equipment for her to stay like this much longer.”
“So you want us to go?”
“Well, as much as I don’t like the idea of anyone playing the ship’s game, it does seem like the only way forward. All the same, my place is here, I’m not leaving this farm.”
Inside Anya was a whirlwind with Basilio barely keeping pace, tearing around the kitchen packing bags to take with them out on their next journey, a nearly incomprehensible stream of admirably creative profanity spilling forth from her lips. It was too much for Amon. He headed upstairs to check on Mali. Her small, dark form lay still on the bed pushed up under the window. How strange to feel such affinity for someone he’d scarcely known for an evening. But their relationship ran deeper than that he knew, they’d lived the same life for five solitary years aboard the Fable, tread the same paths, fought the same fights. He hadn’t known her face, but he’d known her life. A life that was now hanging by a thread, the lines from the med kit affixed to her temples and throat keeping her clinging by some inscrutable process.
He sat next to her and pondered her peaceful face. Even in the short time he’d known her, Amon could tell Mali was brilliant. Even after she had been attacked her foresight and planning had allowed them to soldier on. They barely knew the buttons they were pressing but her keen mind let them discover not only the cryo hall but the mysteries that lay within. But now they were headed off into truly uncharted territory. Mali had no maps fore of the homestead. They would step through that door on their own. He knew he owed it to her to continue, but he craved her insight. All he had was some half-baked theory about modifications to the sleepers, for all he knew some core system was malfunctioning, cutting short millions of lives, rendering the whole venture pointless in its very essence.
Amon had to push forward. He couldn’t truly grasp what was at stake out in the cryo halls, but he could look at Mali’s frail features and remember the warmth she’d shown him and know he had to try and save her. So he rose, weary as he was, walked down the stairs and out the door. Without a word he headed off down the path towards the pond and the door beyond, Anya and Basilio came running to catch him up, packs in hand with Stephanie’s protests trailing behind them. They swung the heavy, silent door open, and stepped forth into the wild stone yonder.
“....So Amon,” Anya started, breaking the silence that had held them for nearly half an hour walking down the endless corridor. “Did you ever come fore of the farm when you were awake before?” She was fishing for a sign of hope. They had walked straight on for half an hour without a single turn or alternate passage, the door they stepped through was long since lost around the curve of the ship. “I suppose so,” he hesitated. “After a couple of years I got on one of the trams and it took me all the way forward to the observation deck. I suppose I must have come this way dozens of times but never walked it.” They shared a heavy glance both knowing that words could never explain the experiences they’d both shared on the deck.
“Un momento!” Basilio erupted, finally getting back some of his old pep after their ordeal. “Nobody ever said shit about an observation deck. What’s that?”
Amon struggled to find the words. “You haven’t seen outside the ship yet?”
“Claro que no, I’ve been shuffling around with these idiots on the farm with an occasional trip out into one of these fine windowless hallways we’re enjoying right now. No one ever told me you were out here playing space tourist.”
Amon could only shake his head, how could he explain so transformative experience as his first trip up into the observation dome?
Anya saved him from having to try, grabbing Basilio by the scruff playfully. “My friend you’ll just have to learn a little fucking patience to see what it’s all about, tram or no we’ll get there eventually.”
So the miles passed without turn or event, and only a steady stream of jabber from his compatriots to keep Amon from drifting off into his own thoughts. But even on a ship as expansive as the Fable all things must end, and after hours of steady walking the trio finally happened upon a doorway in the wall of the hallway. A great sweeping archway flanked by elaborate Roman columns hewn from the stone of the ship. Beyond lay a bucolic explosion of life.
The three looked in, dumbfounded. They’d lived on a farm on this ship for years, so they knew life support was possible but this was entirely different. Where the homestead was wild and rowdy, different grasses and weeds and flowers all fighting for their place beneath the television sky, this new garden was a wonder of precision. Beyond the columns level grass cut to the quick stretched across to a deep blue reflecting pool. Geometric flower beds cascaded down the sides, exacting in their symmetricality. It was every inch the picture of a classic roman villa, fluted columns rose beyond the pool supporting the roof of a shaded promenade.
It was smaller than the homestead, but exquisitely richer in its design. The sky was not a simulation of Earth-sky but a pleasant glowing grey like a welcome overcast in the midst of the dog days of summer. The trio stepped into this new garden gaping, attempting in vain to add this new place to their mental map of the world. Their eyes struggled to take in all of the splendor, exceptionally trimmed flower beds, cherubic fountains, hedges trimmed to geometric perfection. Eventually all three sets of eyes found their way to the end of the reflecting pool where on a low stone bench sat a solitary figure.
She sat with her eyes cast up into the heights as if she were pondering the most beautiful night sky ever beheld by man. Her dark hair blew lightly around her face in the manufactured wind. Her dress, a deep red, billowed around her ankles and threatened to dip into the pool just before her. After a breathless, unending moment she dropped her gaze and waved in greeting.
Amon led the way, tentatively, around the pool. “Hello?” he called out as he neared.
She sat unresponding just gazing out over the still waters before her. They called out several more times and the woman seemed to not hear or even register that there were others nearby. This odd turn slowed Amon down even further, unsure of this strange, beautiful place and the unexpected surprise of finding another person. But then time ground to a halt.
The woman’s dress froze in position mid billow despite the faint wind continuing in its lazy gusts. She looked for all the world like a human suddenly wrought into a statue. Finally, Amon neared her side and reached out to shake her by the shoulder and rouse her attention, but his hand slipped through her like smoke.
The three watchers jumped back in shock.
“Diabla!” Basilio exclaimed, scurrying back.
Anya was the first to recover her senses. “No, just a hologram. I’ve never seen one so life-like before though. I didn’t know it was possible.” She passed a hand through the woman’s frozen locks, just as their simulated billowing resumed.
“Incredible...” Amon gasped looking up at the slate sky above. “The ship must be able to simulate her in this room with projections from the ceiling.”
“So she’s just a manifestation of the ship?” Basilio wondered, creeping closer. “But why? And why is she freezing like that?” Her hair had stilled once more.
Just as Basilio edged close as he dared, minutely examining her face for any visual indication of her synthetic nature, she snapped to life and smiled at him. He stumbled backwards nearly landing in the pool.
“The sleepers are safe, but they are lost.” She said melodically, just before her simulation stopped once more, leaving her face a half-smiling mask.
“What the hell does that mean?!” Anya demanded stooping to look directly into her eyes. “What the fuck is going on here ship? Did you blow that tablet up in my goddamned face?!”
Amon, gently pulled her back. “Ship,” he asked kindly, “What do you mean they are lost?”
They waited a moment and she snapped back to life, “Worlds within worlds within worlds. They have tunneled and found life but lost themselves.”
“Good lord!” Anya roared, “Enough with this riddler bullshit! Ship, I demand a status update on your functions.”
The simulated woman looked pleasantly up at Anya’s fury. “We are wanderers, we follow a black sun through the cosmos.” A moment of pause as she pulled her hem back from the water’s edge. “She has decided our fate, the universe decides our course.”
“Quit fucking around. Ship, what is our status!” Anya was now on the verge of tears, anguish at her disfigurement, and frustration at her years held in limbo coming to a violent head.
The hologram looked her dead in the eyes and began to speak, but suddenly her face became mash of glitched static. “We are–” she began and then her voice stuck on a tone and rose in pitch ringing in their ears until it became a shrill scream. They covered their ears and stepped back, and suddenly she was gone. Her form vanished leaving the garden empty and tranquil.
Anya screamed in frustration and staggered to the corner of the pool where she kicked a cherubic statue into the waters below. She fell to her knees, and broke down into sobs, years of solitude and lies overwhelming her steely composure. Basilio knelt at his friend’s side putting a comforting arm around her shoulders, knowing he’d never understand the depths of her confusion and anger.
They left the gardens in silence. The luxuriant airs no longer as hypnotic now that the taste of discovery was ripped so cruelly from their lips. Anya settled into a stubborn furor, not allowing herself to roll back into more turbulent emotion, instead she favored setting her jaw with such ferocity it turned her face into a chiseled mask.
Exhaustion began to take its toll after hours of walking the long corridors but they didn’t have far to go. After a few hushed minutes they came upon another hallway leading off to the right, they turned down it and discovered more opulence than they’d seen between them in their entire lives.
Off of the hall, wide marble-paneled doors swung open to reveal a series of extravagant staterooms. Basilio stepped through the first door and was struck still by what he saw beyond. The room was richly appointed with a large canopied bed, a sitting area full of plush daybeds, an immaculate kitchen. All of it was exquisitely designed in much the same vein as the gardens they had seen before, all Roman in its grandiosity. Fluted columns adorned every corner, white marble interlocked gracefully with the pewter grey stone of the ship, every cushion was covered in deep crushed velvet. It all paled in comparison to what lay through the window in the far wall though. Anya and Amon stepped in beside their friend, jaws hanging down. Through the window was the whole of creation.
It stretched the entire length of the stateroom, a great pane of glass broken only by a few staunch columns, beyond it they could see the great, magnificent swirl of the Milky Way. It was bright at first, but the longer they stared the more stars began to appear.
“Basilio, are you alright?” Amon finally asked, pulling himself out of his wonderment.
Tears were rolling down his dark cheeks. “Dios mio. This is why we come all the way out here, God is out here with us. You have seen out like this before?”
“Well yeah...” Amon put in softly. “I visited the Observation Deck pretty frequently during my stint.”
Anya finally snapped out of her reverie, “Did you ever go out on an EVA?”
“What, like outside the ship? God no.”
“Lucky bastard.” She replied with a sharp smile. “Come on Amon, we could all use some rest and I doubt we’re getting Basilio away from this view anytime soon.” She gave him a gentle nudge. On their way out the door she called back, “Remember Baz, it’s not real! Just a stabilized video feed from the ship’s cameras.”
“Puta!” He exclaimed. “Why’d you have to go and ruin it for me?!”
Anya chuckled finally coming back into a bit of her old self, she turned off into the next stateroom and left Amon with a soft smile and gentle nod. They both knew it was about to be a lavish and draining evening. He stepped into the third stateroom, a near replica of the previous two, the Milky Way hung silently beyond in patient greeting.
For his entire life Amon had never lived in luxury. Never wanted it really. Cairo had been a pleasant enough place to grow up, and sometimes he would sneak his way into high-end shopping malls to catch a glimpse of how the well-heeled of the area lived before being run off by guards. Then he had lived a separate, but much more visceral life in forced austerity aboard the Fable. At first the mandated modesty of shipboard life seemed like sadism from the ship’s designers, but in the end he had made his peace and found comfort in his simple, solitary life.
And now, this. He stood on a high piled rug, his battered farm boots crunching into the soft wool. His grayed and frayed clothing standing in stark contrast to the richy dyed fabrics that surrounded him. He felt unworthy of this place, unwelcome in its ostentation. But how ridiculous a notion. There was no one around to be more worthy, the very fact that he lived and had come so far gave him all the right he needed. All the same the implied greed of this luxury gave rise to bile in the back of his throat. That so many millions would sell their entire livelihoods to come aboard and throw in their lot with the fates on a new planet, while the few truly powerful still demanded such a treatment. These staterooms were surely for the council that determined where they would finally settle, the richest of the super rich. Those select few who could actually meet Yvette Delaney at a negotiation table and not get steamrolled. All of the needs in the new world, and those bastards couldn’t even forgo ornate marble columns in their quarters? It was beyond wasteful, beyond vanity, it made Amon sick.
But what could he do? Enjoy it while it lasted, he supposed. He shuffled across the exquisitely stitched rug with his stained boots, and flopped full-face in his dusty farm clothes onto the bed piled with dark velvet. He was a grey ghost amidst a velvet sea. That was all his battered mind needed, within moments he drifted off to sleep.
Amon stood once more on the porch of the farmhouse, looking out at the forests stretching off into the unseeable distance. Around the corner he knew that the fields rolled down in the soft sun to the shores of the great lake, he knew that this was the real place on which the homestead was modeled. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care about any of that just now, he needed to see the woman again.
Quickly, Amon ducked inside and ran lightly up the stairs. She lay there once more, framed under the open window, golden light flowing into a far corner while her serene face lay completely undisturbed. He sat beside her on the bed and reached out to shake her shoulder.
She did not rouse. Instead Amon felt his own consciousness slipping away. He fell through tranquil darkness for time unending until at last the world coalesced around him once more. He was back where he started, on the porch, but the world was different. Out beyond the edge of the wood craggy mountains rose above the trees to find white caps of snow in the thin air. From around the corner of the house the laughter of children rang out as they played in the yard. Amon looked to his right and saw the woman, sitting now and awake. She extended her hand beckoning him to sit.
“Where are we?” He asked.
“Home.”
“Why are we here?”
“To live.”
She smiled and turned away to greet a pair of children dashing around the corner. They paid Amon no mind, as though they could not sense his presence. But there was no bang, no scream to rip him forth from this lucid paradise. Amon simply sat and watched this young mother play lovingly with her children as the day rolled on in its unhurried laziness.
Amon awoke back in a pile of rumpled velvet, and smiled to himself. Finally truly rested, and hungry for answers.