DISCLAIMER: Everything here belongs to someone else.


If the annoying voice had told Flynn that he had died and gone to Heaven, he would have believed it. The place it had brought him to certainly looked the part.

Floating before him, bathed in the glow of the sunrise, was a city. Not a small one, either; he quickly lost count of the number of buildings. A number of them were flying independently of the others, moving about with propellers attached to their backs. In the center of it all was a giant golden statue of an angel, smiling with outstretched arms.

How are they staying up? Flynn strained his neck trying to catch a glimpse at the underside of a building as he passed it, but the shuttle walls obscured his view. His stomach lurched as the vessel began to descend, narrowly avoiding a white airship that flew by. But those are just in books! As he sank farther, he passed a building with a large portrait plastered on its side. Out of it stared the cold eyes of a young but gaunt woman with curly black hair, dressed in a red gown and a matching hat with a white feather in its band. A banner above her read OUR PROPHETESS in scrawling letters. Flynn found himself looking at the picture and trying not to at the same time, and he couldn't help sighing in relief when it drifted out of sight.

His brief moment of serenity was shattered when the shuttle landed with a jolt atop a building. He tried standing, but the metal bands over his wrists refused to budge. Instead he watched as his ride was lowered into the building and quickly swallowed up by darkness. "Come on," he muttered, trying to break his bonds. "Come on..."

As he left the tunnel and entered a room full of light and whirring gears, the faint noise of singing drifted up from below. "Will the circle be unbroken? By and by, by and by? Is a better home a-waiting? In the sky, in the sky...?"

The capsule began to slow as it floated past a series of beams engraved with words. WHY WOULD HE SEND HIS SAVIOR UNTO US, IF WE WILL NOT RAISE A FINGER FOR OUR OWN SALVATION? AND THOUGH WE DESERVED NOT HIS MERCY, HE HAS LED US TO THIS NEW EDEN, A LAST CHANCE FOR REDEMPTION.

Flynn wasn't exactly a religious man, but he was pretty sure there wasn't anything like that in the Bible.

The shuttle passed through another tunnel, then out into another room filled with light. Flynn recoiled at the sudden change, and as his eyes adjusted, he found himself looking at a large stained glass window. Several people were gathered around a rock, looking up at an old man with a long white beard and a black robe. He pointed up to the sky, where the city hovered in the distance. Beneath it was a raised stone platform, and above it hung a stone banner: AND THE PROPHET SHALL LEAD THE PEOPLE TO THE NEW EDEN.

The platform carrying the shuttle jerked to a stop in a little alcove, and the front panel of the craft lowered with a hiss. The clamps on the chair's armrests snapped open, allowing Flynn to finally stand. "H-Hello?" he called out as he stepped into the room. A layer of water several inches high covered the floor, and candles in various stages of melting were placed in every dry space; the platform, the windowsill, the counters that jutted from the walls. The water flowed down from a ledge in the east wall and across the room through an archway, where it gathered around a statue of the old man. His arms were held open in a gesture of welcoming, but his face was stern and spoke of disapproval.

A flash of movement in the corner caught Flynn's eye. Behind the statue stood a praying man dressed in white. "Are you stuck too?" he asked, hurrying towards him. "Where are we?"

The man looked up and smiled. "Heaven, my friend. Or as close as we'll see 'til Judgement Day." He gestured next to him, where a flight of stairs led downwards into darkness.

Well, it's either this or the rocket. Suppressing a sigh, he walked past the man and down the steps. Maybe there was someone down here who would make sense.

Those hopes were crushed when a new voice reached his ears. "And every day on this day of days, we recommit ourselves to our city, and to our Prophetess, Mother Gothel! We recommit through sacrifice, and the giving of thanks, and by submerging ourselves in the sweet waters of baptism!"

The water rose to Flynn's knees as the stairs ended and spread out into a long, wide hall lined with candles and statues of angels. At the end, a row of steps led up to a pool which connected to a narrow tunnel. Gathered around the pool were more people in white robes, staring transfixed at a preacher who was yelling at them from the water. "And lo, if the chosen one of our Prophetess had struck down our enemies at Wounded Knee, and not railed against the Sodom below, it would have been enough...!"

"Excuse me," Flynn said, pushing his way through the circle.

The preacher looked at him with unseeing eyes, his gray eyebrows raising with interest. "Is it someone new? Someone from the Sodom below? Newly come to Columbia to be washed clean before our Prophetess, our Founders and our Lord?"

"I'd just like to get down. Is there another of those rocket things in the city?"

The preacher laughed, as though he'd said something ridiculous. "Brother, the only way from this place is through rebirth in the sweet waters of baptism. You must be cleansed!" Before Flynn could protest, the old man had his hand in an iron grip. "I baptize you, in the name of our Prophetess, in the name of our Founders, in the name of our Lord!" Placing a hand on his chest, he shoved Flynn beneath the water and held him there.

Flynn barely resisted the urge to scream as he thrashed around, the water stinging his eyes and the lack of air burning his lungs. He gasped as the preacher pulled him back up and the congregation let out a "Hallelujah!" that was far too cheerful for his liking.

"I don't know, brothers and sisters," the preacher continued, "but this one doesn't look clean to me."

"No, no, please...!" Flynn's begging was muffled and extinguished as the preacher covered his face and shoved him back into the water.

The sensations did not last long this time. The water flowed into his lungs, and his vision blurred a bit before quickly fading away.


Gray — that was his first thought when he awoke. He was sitting at a gray table covered with gray papers and bottles in a little gray room. His room.

"Oh, thank God," Flynn breathed. He wouldn't be forgetting that nightmare any time soon.

A light knocking on the front door of the apartment got his attention. "I'm coming!" he said as he went to answer it, blissfully unaware that the room was just a little too gray. Possibly because it looked perfectly normal in comparison to what he saw when he opened the door.

He screamed as he found himself standing the middle of a storm night sky, looking down on a city filled with tall metal buildings. Above it floated Columbia, overlooking a hail of fireballs that shot down from the airships surrounding it. One of them turned to face him and let loose a stream of flames that headed right for his door.

Flynn's head whipped around as he searched for an escape, but the room had vanished. He could only shut his eyes as the fire rushed up to engulf him. First came a bright light that shined through his eyelids and heated his face, then the sensation of drifting along a current, and then...