There’s a net of the energy beneath me and I no longer feel like I’m floating or falling. It’s more like I’m being held, cupped in two giant hands. I feel relaxed and comfortable, like I could lounge here forever. It’s so much different from the hell the last few days have been, where exerting any bit of my own will caused shooting pains throughout my body. Part of me wants to turn off my mind and just let whatever’s happening to me stretch on forever. But another part of me knows my friends are still fighting back in the world of the living. I have to try to help.

“Hello?” I ask, testing if I can talk. I hear my voice, even though it doesn’t feel like I have a mouth, lungs or a body anymore. It feels like it does when I have a telepathic conversation, like how some of my thoughts are louder than others and those are the ones I project to the other people.

Hello, Ella, a voice answers. The blobs of energy floating in front of me pulse in sync with the voice. Weirdly, I feel completely comfortable having a conversation with a bunch of neon fireflies.

“Am I dead?” I ask. “Is this, like, heaven or something?”

I feel a not unpleasant tickle against where my skin should be. I guess that’s what it feels like when this thing laughs.

No, this is not heaven, child. And your death is only a temporary condition. When the time comes, I will restore you to your physical form. “Oh.” I pause. “What if I don’t want to go back?”

You will.

Don’t be so sure, buddy, I think, but don’t say.

“So . . . where’s here? What is this?”

You abandoned your body and used your telepathic gifts to retreat into my mind. You merged your consciousness with mine. Did you even know you were capable of that, child?

“Um, no.”

I did not think so. It was a dangerous thing to do, young Ella. My mind is vast and stretches across every where and every when that I have existed. I am shielding you from this knowledge, so as not to overwhelm you.

I guess that’s why I feel so cozy in this total darkness, bodiless and cradled by pure Loric energy. Because the Loric Entity thingy is taking care of me.

“Thanks for that,” I reply.

You are welcome.

It occurs to me that I should probably ask some important questions. It’s not every day that you end up sharing a mind with a godly energy.

“What exactly are you, though?”

I am me. I am the source.

“Uh-huh. But what should I call you?”

There’s a short pause before the voice answers me. The dots of energy never stop flitting around in front of me.