She felt very bad indeed, being locked in her own locker, with all this nasty stuff put inside it. So bad, in fact, and for so long, that she lost consciousness and awoke several times in a short while, perceving the darkness and the crawling bugs around and on her in a sort of a daze. Taylor also happened to feel nauseous for no apparent reason. Or maybe the smell and her general misfortune was the cause. Regardless of that, she started to feel heavy. The power to try to get out of the locker left her long time ago, or several hours ago, and now she felt even a miniscule amount of strength she had left leaving her. Is this death or something? How likely is one to die in their own locker? This seems ridiculous for some reason. Though, Taylor supposed that that trio could make even the ridiculous possible. Abruptly, a thought occurred to her, that if a God, or some version of God existed, then noe would certainly be atleast somewhat of a good time to help her. It was an odd thought, at least for her. She certainly didn't recall thinking anything about God in long while. She wasn't even an atheist, exactly. She just never really thought about religion or such stuff much at all. Maybe this was delirium or something, combined with some, admittedly explainable, Taylor supposed, hope, however minor of getting out of here alive? Her musing were cut short as she felt a strange sense of white hot pain occuring in her head, and shortly after it happened, she would, upon waking, assume she passed out.
Upon awaking, Taylor then felt herself and her consciousness returning. She perceived a sense of time passsing, as if she had lost consciousness before and a long, or at least some time, later woke up. So, it would appear. It would also appear, but not be a certainty, that she did not die. Fortunate? She supposed. She looked at the ceiling, as her vision stabilised. Thoughts hazily occured and faded in her mind. Was all of this worth it? Why did she bother coming to school at all if she could end up like this? Taylor supposed she ended up in a hospital or something. Hopefully all her limbs were intact. She slowly felt her senses stabilise somewhat. Immediatly, she became aware of her Dad looking at her. She felt an impulse to talk and smile. Smiling weakly, she tried to talk, but managed only a weak croak. It was discernible, at least.
"Hey, Dad." Daniel could hardly be called unconcerned as he gingerly took her hand in both of his after standing up from a chair and moving to her bedside.
"Taylor... I... How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?" Taylro shook her head weakly.
"I guess I feel alright, given the circumstances." That is, not alright at all. But in a manner of speaking it was so.
Dad chuckled lightly.
"I suppose you would." He appeared eager to talk to her, but was trying to let her rest, which Taylor supposed she appreciated, she hardly felt like talking about anything related to the incident.
They stayee like that for several minutes, before Dad stood up and called a medical worker. Was it a nurse or a doctor? Taylor hardly cared.
They checked her body's condition and all that.
Time passed, and Daniel discovered the bullying and all that. Winslow offered to cover their medical bills to keep this quiet, to which Daniel agreed, as did Taylor. In a manner in which she could also say with equal conviction that she did not agree to such an arrangement. But surely her health came before this? But, really, what relation does her health have, or should have to the situation at the school? In theory they should be completely uncoupled and dealt with separately. It seems that illusory connections will force them in a different direction. Taylor hardly found this surprising. Or was it her rightful pessimism talking? She supposed it was a bit early to know what will come out of the situation. Maybe this event will finally force some changes. Right?
Time passed. Tayloe found herself feeling a gruesome feeling of dreadful acceptance, that even thr event of her getting locked in her locker by the trio wouldn't change anything or mean anything . What next would they be able to get away with? She shoved down a feeling of shivering at the idea of coming back to school again. She shoved down the thought, not even bothering to console herself to the possibility that she wouldn't in fact have to come back, not there at least. Two weeks later she was back in their house, or home, like not much have happened. Taylor mostly stayed in her room, with Dad tending to her. This was some sort of, what was thsi phenomenon named, silver lining or something like that? In a strange and inappropriate way, Taylor would say. It didn't feel right feeling any sense of comfort at the idea of her Dad taking care of her like that given the situation that has caused it, and feeling good about even a small consequence of it felt quite perverse. Still, Taylor pretty much resigned to somewhat uncertain but overall, quite unpleasant future. She thought about whether she would return to Winslow or perhaps she would have to find some other school. Would the old school help with any sort of transfer or would they claim that their "help" with the hospital was already stretching them thin? And whose fault was that, anyway? Hardly hers. With such happy, and, really, quite useless, musings Taylor passed her days on the bed, sometimes before her desk, on a chair.
But something changed on a rainy, somewhat gloomy day. Something Taylor would later see, quite rightly as an abrupt and turning point in her life. Or at least, this was her sideline thought, or hope, rather, as this event occurred. It was supposed to be a turning point right? Or, somewhat more likely, she was just going crazy nuts, wasn't she? Guess some bugs must have gottent something in her head, or was it due to stress? Here is what happened:
As Taylor lied in bed, thinking very happy and sunny thoughts, she suddenly perceived with some unusual sense, but didn't see, maybe slightly felt, a sense of white light. Mayeb she coudl call it a sense of white light in her mind. Anyway, as it occurred and passed, she perceived or heard a voice. She briefly and distanly noted it's a kindly old man's tone.
"Taylor, greetings from an old, kind man." The voice said, kindly. Taylor almost abruptly sat up in bed. Instead, she jumped and quickly glanced at her room. No one, of course, was there. She immediately said, "Who is there?", cautiously. Ready to jump to the door. Or perhaps this is what she should do and should have done immediately upon hearing the voice.
"Don't be startled, my child. I am nought but your Lord, and I come with nothing but meaning no harm." The voice said again in her head or something like that.
"What is this? Am I being Mastered? Are you in my head?" Taylor said out loud, demanded, even.
"Mastered? Oh no, my dear. I am already Lord and Master of all. You can't master something twice, can you?"
Taylor sat silently for a moment, somewhat taken aback at the odd sentences.
"I don't get it. Do you want..." After that, Taylor felt a jolt of something in herself, and realized that she was conversing with a voice, a disembodied one. She should just dial an emergency number, rather than talk to it. This situation here was dangerous. How could she not realize it immediately as it happened? The voice seemed to realize her thoughts, or maybe it just could see her move up quickly, because it said, it's tone not reacting in any emotional way to her actions, "Do not worry, for I am no one but," and here Taylor felt a strange sense, as if the voice was doing something akin to a presentation on a stage," God, your Lord and Master and Lord and Master of all. Which, again, includes you." Taylor coughed incredulous. She roughly pushed the back of her neck with her hand in hopes of saving her lungs from an oceanic amount of her own saliva.
"Are you serious?" The voice felt somewhat saddened. In a manner of speaking.
"I suppose I will have to use a more physical proof. I suppose not much have changed in about a couple thousand years."
Taylor saw her table float and felt cold sweat gather on her skin.
"You are the Simurgh, right? You are trying to brainwash me."
"Oh, are you implying, my child, that that Simurgh of yours can speak into your mind?"
"Well, I don't know. Why not? And she can use telekinesis. This would certainly be her forte. I guess I am really dead now." Or, of course, it was likely worse than what. Tylor sporadically mused as to what should her next course of actions be. Should she call Dad? Go down and use the phone? Or would this just be playing into Simurgh's plot or whatever? The voice spoke in reply.
"Perhaps me conjuring you a sandwich would convince you of my Godhod a bit more? Or would you like to travel as an observer, to the time you were inside your locker, however insensitive of me mentioning it might be?"
"Oh, so you can time travel, too?"
"Well, yeas. I am omnipotent, after all. And all that."
Taylor didn't feel convinced. She supposed there was little she could do, aside from calling 911 or something.
"Alright. Show me what happened 2000 years ago."
"What exactly do you mean by 2000 years ago?"
"Well, if you claim to be God and then mention that timeframe, you presumably really had something to do with Christianity or something like that. So, show me what happened back then."
"Very well, my child. Bear with me." Taylor felt a sensation of travel. She couldn't really describe it exactly, it wasnt something she ever felt before. But a moment later she found herself standing in the middle of a dessert. Before her, a man was walkinf. Who looked exactly like a stereotypical depiction of Jesus. Well, not exactly. But he did have considerable resemblance, or at least noticeable one.
"Is this your son, the Jesus?" She asked. Playing along with the idea of the voice being God.
"Not exactly. You see, a truly omnipotent being cannot have children, conceptually. and I am trully omnipotent being. I am equally a "father ' or could be called a father of any single person with equal validity. Or any other object, like a tree or a rock."
"You claim to be God, and then you compare humans to other objects. Somehow this doesn't make me feel too good."
She felt the voices amusement.
"But it is true. I revealed to humanity in the books, in a manner of speaking, them being special. They are indeed, in a manner of speaking, special. Tautology notwithstanding
But the real point is that there's still is no difference between any single atom of my creation. I gave humans free will, but I am still the creator of all, and to me nothing is really distinct from anything else."
She felt slightly awed at the idea of real God speaking his thoughts in her head, however unconvinced she was of it's claims of being God in the first place. She followed the man, who appeared to not be able to see her. She saw a lightning strike from above for no reason at all and a voice boom, presumably, of course, of God.
"You are my son, Jesus. Hehehe", the voice said. The voice claiming to be God and Jesus' father and Jesus himself conversed And all that. However, Taylor, upon returning, still didn't feel convinced thT she shouldn't just go to the PRT and let herself be checked for any power influencing her mind. God seemed to sigh.
"Fine", it said, "It won't make much difference, frankly, whether you decide to go though the checks or not. "
"So, if you really are God, nothing would come up, and you could just revert back any negative consequence of me claiming to hear voices in my head which would turn out to be unrelated to superpowers. Right?" Taylor asked calmly
"Yes, indeed. I am the ruler of all, the creator of all. Etcetera. Etcetera. So, as I have no interest in people thinking you to be crazy, and this upcoming test being only for both our purposes, I will simply revert the time back to now once we are done." Taylor felt exasperated and a tired sensation begun creeping to her. Here she was, talking with someone claiming to be God. If she goes along with this "test", then what would this really meean is that wether this really was God, or someone who completely dominated her mind to the point that any action she took happened only in the malicious cape's power scope or whatever it could be called. So, for all intents and purposes, if the test reveals nothing, or rather, reveals something, namely that nothing is going on in her mind, and no eyebrows would be raised about her mental health due to "Gods" intervention, this would mean that she had no escape if this was a villain controlling her mind, or that she really was choosen by God to be his talking body or something along those lines.
She wasn't sure what she would have preferred.
"Won't you reverting or inhibting or in any other way preventing people from raising eyebrows be a violation of your given free will?" Taylor asked snipely.
"Didn't I just explain? The only reason we are going through this is to put your mind at ease - don't interupt, I know what you're thinking -, but the people who you will see have no relevance to this check. You can in essence imagine that I will simply simulate your interaction with them, with some variations, so I won't really be affecting them in any way. Besides, we will simply time fravel back, so the point of me affecting them in any way is moot anyway.
"
Taylor sighed. "Well then, lead the way, God."
"I don't like that tone of yours, my dear child. Did not I create you from a piece of dust, endowed you with marvelous body and mind, and gave you date palms under which rivers flow?"
Taylor raised her eyebrow as she dressed to go to the PRT HQ. "What is this, some mix of religious texts? I am not sure. Dust sounds familiar, something from the Bible maybe, but the rest sounds like something similar, but not something I heard before."
"Well, that's not the point here is it? Besides, I was jesting. Do not worry, my child."