The next morning, I woke up refreshed. Sitting up in bed, I stretched and soaked in the morning light. I had no memory of where I was. Reaching over to the nightstand for my phone, all I found was a glass of water.

  That’s when I remembered that there was no phone. I saw my car sinking into that giant sinkhole in my head.

  “Fuck…”

  Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I yawned and pulled myself up into a seated position. Ahead of me was that symbol, which was somehow always at least softly illuminated by whatever light came in through the small window on my right. However, the longer I looked at it, the more it seemed like the symbol itself wasn’t so much reflecting light as emitting it. It was disorienting.

  Shaking my head, I closed my eyes and listened. The world outside was quiet: no sheep, no children playing, no pretty elven angels speaking in melodic accents. There were birds, though. I opened my eyes and looked out the window, but I couldn’t see them. Still, they chirped as the sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating some specks of dust floating in the air.

  I sighed, then took the chance to stretch and wiggle around in the bed. Everything still felt stiff, but it felt a hell of a lot better than the days before. I pushed myself to the edge of the bed, swung my legs off, and gently set my feet on the ground. With a grunt, I stood… and almost fell flat on my face. My legs wobbled like a newborn deer's.

  "Ughhh," I grunted, falling back onto the bed. "I thought magical healing was supposed to be instant? What is this shit?" I sat back on the edge of the bed. “Come on, man. You’ve got this.” I tried to stand again but failed. “Fuck!” My voice echoed off the stone walls of my stone room.

  Pulling myself upright a second time, I looked down at my uncooperative legs... but they didn’t look like they were mine. “Holy shit.” I grabbed my thighs and felt around. My legs were much thinner than I remembered. In fact, all of me was thinner. I looked like a goddamn corpse!

  Yet again, for what had to have been the tenth time in a few days, my heart began to race. Inspecting my body, I quickly realized that I had lost weight. A lot of weight. I was in pretty good shape before, what with all the labor and gym and martial arts and stuff. Also, I’d gained some padding through the winter months. But this body was not that body.

  “Okay, calm down.” I felt around. I wasn't exactly emaciated, but I had lost quite a bit of muscle mass, and nearly all of my padding was gone. My arms were thin too. Looking down, I could see my ribs in my chest and torso, and my abs were clearly visible, but not in the good way. I looked kind of like how I did when I was a kid after I ran away when my sister... after I moved away from home.

  How long had I been out?

  Gathering up the courage for another standing attempt, I held onto the bedpost as I teetered up onto my feet. I managed to stand. Step by step, I hobbled to the desk in the far corner and plopped down onto the wooden desk chair. I took a deep breath and inhaled as much of the incense smoke as I could. It smelled good.

  I noticed that some clothes had been laid out on the desk, and an incense stick was already burning in the holder. The clothes were unfamiliar. The shirt was a tan long-sleeved tunic of some kind that would have been right at home at a Renaissance fair, and the pants were brown and shapeless. The fabric was well made but rougher than I was used to.

  "Probably wool, then." I sighed. Of course, the clothes in heaven were made of wool. Wool was hot, and wherever I was now, the weather was more temperate than back home. Some wool socks and a leather belt were under the pants, There were some brown leather boots in the opposite corner, near the door. Why would they do that to me? Standing up, I hobbled over to the pants, retrieved them, and returned to my chair.

  The good news was my knee was a lot better. Not perfect, but better. My foot felt tight. My head felt okay. The only part of me that still felt awful was my left arm. I could only feel half as well as I should, and my movements took more effort and concentration than I'd like. The bandages had come off in the night, revealing large, thick scars and several burns running up my forearm. The red lines were still there, but they were fading. I tried touching my thumb to my fingers, but I could only make it to the middle finger, which was half numb.

  I took my time getting dressed. I didn't want to get vertigo again, and a lot of me didn't want to move. Luckily, the clothes were baggy, or maybe I was just that thin now, so it made it easier to maneuver than it would have been. Still, it took an embarrassingly long time to get dressed. When I finally got my belt on, I tried to get my boots on but couldn’t. After a few minutes of struggle, I gave up. Instead, I stood and hobbled over to the little stone window set into the wall.

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  There, for the first time in however long it had been, dressed like a medieval villager, I stood looking out over an idyllic pasture. The long grasses swayed in the soft breeze, and some farmers were just making their way out to some fields in the distance. Each of them held what looked a lot like scythes. I couldn't say that this was a life goal of mine, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't kind of fun.

  A sharp knock at the door pulled me away from the pastoral bliss of the morning outside my room. Before I could answer, the door swung open, and a stout man, nearly as wide as the doorway and a head shorter than me, marched into my little sanctuary. He had long brown hair that he kept pulled back in a tight ponytail and a neatly trimmed beard. He was built more like a laborer than a bodybuilder, but he was obviously well-muscled, and his hands were massive. A metal rod dangled from the belt of his red and white robes, and he had a long thick stick in his hands.

  "Bonan matenon." His words were hard and clipped. He seemed like he was all business. His grey eyes scanned the room in an instant before returning to me. He eyed me up and down. With a soft front on his face, he walked up to my desk, reached down, grabbed my boots, and marched up to me. Before I could even protest, he pushed me onto the bed. An instant later, the boots were on my feet, and the long stick was in my hands.

  "Staru."

  I had no idea what that meant.

  “Vi vere estas voja?anto…” He seemed like he was speaking more to himself than to me.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understa—woah!”

  Reaching out and grabbing me by the shoulders, he hoisted me onto my feet like I was a child. He was strong, stronger than the older woman that healed me the day I woke up. That shocked me. She was strong, but he was like a bear. "Venu." He marched away and stood in the doorway.

  I understood well enough. Not wanting to argue with the scary short man, I hobbled to my feet. As I did, I looked at the stick he handed me. It was stout and thick, and it was made of some dense, dark wood. The grains were tight, and it felt like it could punch through the stone floor before breaking. The ends were bound in some sort of yellowish metal, like brass or bronze. Taking a deep breath, I took a step, but it was too big. I barely planted the walking stick in the stone before I fell over. The man walked back up to me and wrapped his arm around my waist.

  "Malrapide," he said, his words more soft and gentle than before, slowing me down and helping me with the first few steps before letting go. With each step I took, he walked backward, watching each of my faltering steps as I moved forward. "Bone," he said as he stopped and adjusted my grip on the staff. He nodded his head toward the hall. The man had a stern look, but it wasn’t a bad one. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes shone with empathy.

  "Alex," I said, pointing at myself.

  "Renard," he replied, his eyes focusing on my movements.

  It turned out that my room was one of many. I was housed in the furthest room on the right, but there were at least twenty on each side of the narrow hallway. I could hear sounds in some of the rooms: groaning, the shuffling of feet, a stray cough. Halfway up the hallway was an archway, from which emitted the soft, flickering light of candles and the heavy smell of incense. Step by faltering step, I left my room and made my way down a narrow hallway. Halfway down the hall, there was an opening in the wall. Renard disappeared into it, so I followed. When I entered the next room, my breath was taken away.

  A massive stone statue stood on the far side of the large room. It was of a woman. The sheer size and quality of the thing took my breath away. She was in a sheer, flowing gown, and her long hair cascaded down her shoulders and along her collarbones, reaching well below her breasts. Her right hand was held up, and in it was the same eight-pointed star, similar to the symbol in my room. In her left hand, which she held down and out toward the room, was a bundle of some sort of grapelike fruit. Her expression was soft, warm, and loving. Coming in through the windows high above her, from the same side of the building as my room, pure white light shone on her beautiful face, filling the room with soft, golden light.

  It was beautiful.

  I had to pause there. Leaning on my staff, I gazed up at the statue. I didn't consider myself religious or anything, but there was something about this place, about the statue, that made me stop and think. What if? What if there was more to the story than we knew? I mean, here I was, standing under the statue of some unknown woman, being guided around by a guy who I suddenly realized might be a dwarf, after being healed by magic light hands and what I now realized was a pretty elf priestess. Would believing be so weird after all of that?

  The sounds of soft prayers pulled me out of my thoughts. Reluctantly, I tore my eyes away from the statue. A woman, little more than a girl really, kneeled in front of the statue, her hands clasped in front of her chest and her eyes lifted in prayer. Behind her, a group of people, maybe a dozen or so, sat on stone benches facing the statue. Each had an incense stick in their hands, and their heads were bowed in prayer. The kneeling girl knelt in front of the statue for several minutes. Then, she stood and returned to one of the pews. A man, older and stooped, rose and walked toward the statue. One after another, they took turns while Renard and I watched.

  Turning to the stout man beside me, I noticed his face was as impassive as it had been, but his eyes shone with the same light they had when he saw me struggling to walk minutes before. Maybe he wasn't such a hard ass as he seemed?

  After fifteen or so minutes, the last congregant stood up, and a woman, the same one who healed me the day I woke up, emerged from behind the statue. She said a few words to the crowd that I didn't understand, then everyone said a prayer as a group. Once their voices stopped echoing off the walls, they stood up as a group and chatted among themselves. Within minutes, the temple began to clear out, and she turned to look at me.

  “?u li estas preta?” She asked Renard.”

  “Jes, Matrino.”

  "Sankte," she said as she walked toward me. "Venu, filo. Mi volas, ke vi renktonu iun."

  She reached out, grabbed my hand, and guided me behind the statue and into a dark room beyond.