The Jessa facade flashed again, one more time, and then it melted away.
A luminescent woman, silvery white, stood before me. She smiled, teeth strangely more ivory than the rest of her body. “Follow me,” she said, and she turned and walked away.
Another hard choice.
Was it a trap?
At this stage, it almost didn’t matter. I was just ready for something else to happen, even if it meant I would end up fighting for my life.
So I followed.
Her hair trailed out in a long river of white, cutting through the green, like a train following behind her. It seemed to grow further as she walked and, eventually, I had to move to the side or I would have stepped on it.
She never looked back once.
I was tempted to reach out and yank on all of that glorious hair, mostly because she was irritating me. Bitch better start talking or we were gonna be straight-up playground style brawling.
“Hey!” I finally said when the walking had gone on longer than I could handle. “Where are you taking me?”
She didn’t turn back, but she spoke: “You lasted far longer when you were burning.”
My fingers itched, and I was reaching for her hair when she chuckled. I stumbled to a halt, blinking at the crazy chick.
“I can read your mind,” she mused. “It’s intriguing. You’re full of thoughts and strengths.”
At this point, I was almost certain she was the crazy goddess running this shit show. “You’re Heptashia, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she said simply.
“Did I pass your tests?”
She stopped, finally turning back to face me. I hadn’t moved since her laugh, and I wouldn’t until she explained herself. I felt no power from her, just a cold emptiness.
The coldness scared me more than anything else I’d experienced so far.
“You have proven many things to me. That you care more for others than your own safety. You have a strong sense of right and wrong. You are determined. You are strong. You persisted through the pain.” The slightest of pauses again. “Did you know that when you’ve experienced a debilitating pain, and then you have to experience it again, it’s worse the second time. See, your brain already understands what will happen if you choose that pain again, and it’s trying to save you from the agony. To do this, it will make you feel the pain even stronger, as a deterrent.”
Her lips twitched. “Your brain did that, and still, you chose to step forward. You chose that pain again, no matter how strong it was. Very few make it past that part of the test. Even more important, you saw through the mask to the truth beneath. You knew your true friend and was never fooled by my ghosting her essence. Only those strong of mind can do this. In all ways, you passed my test…”
But…
I knew there was a but coming.
“But there is one final step on this path, and none can circumvent it. You must move through to be part of the whole.”
What?No, seriously. What?
She started walking, and the green grass morphed to snow, her white hair no longer contrasting but blending in perfectly.
“Where are my friends?” I asked with a sigh, moving again, my boots crunching against the snow. “Are they okay?”
No reply.
“Does this world change at your whim, or at its own?”
This gave her a moment’s pause.
Her eyes flickered to mine, the light depths almost translucent. There was actually a violet hue to them. “What an interesting question.”
