Day Two

The mere minutes in Da'an's mind were hours to the rest of the world. A day had already crawled by, and Renee was feeling hesitant towards returning to the room. In the middle of the night, Da'an's body had begun to devolve in a violent metamorphosis that had left a large scratch across Liam's right cheek. However, she knew that she had to be strong, so she forced herself inside. The sheets had been torn, so the new nurse had brought in a new blanket. Liam was already inside with that gaping cut across his cheek. The stiffness that had made Da'an appear as a corpse had left. He was not awake, but he appeared to be aware of his surroundings. Whenever light was shined on him, he reacted to it. When someone took his hand, he squeezed, and certain sounds produced a reaction.

Renee sat next to Liam, who had his hand stuck under the energy shower that was cleansing Da'an.

"What are you doing?" Renee asked him.

"Nothing," Liam said. "These can be really soothing sometimes. I just thought I could use some relaxation after last night."

"Is that gonna scar?" Renee asked.

"Probably not," Liam replied. "Mem'na, the nurse, she's gonna give me something that should keep it from scarring."

"He seems better. He's not as pale as he was before."

"Yeah. He's more responsive, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can hear us. His reactions could just be involuntary reflexes."

A nurse walked into the room with a tray full of food. "You looked like you could use some sustenance."

The two humans nodded and ate the strange fruits.

"You know, if this is just one day," Renee thought aloud, "what are the other days gonna be like?"

Nobody answered her as the energy shower disappeared. Da'an's eyes began fluttering as he tried to awaken. The minister revealed a round Taelon vial containing a black powdery substance. He took Da'an's hand and sprinkled the powder on to his palm. Then, he took more of the black powder and sprinkled it over Da'an's other palm. When Da'an absorbed it, his body blushed frantically until his façade completely disappeared. When Liam and Renee tried to touch him, their hands went right though his body.

The nurse Mem'na and the minister began chanting.

"What's happening now?" Renee asked.

"He has returned to the Commonality," the minister explained.

"What was that you just gave him?" Liam asked trying to hide the adrenaline that was contributing to his rising panic.

"This substance puts him in a trance that gives the illusion of death," the minister explained.

"He thinks he's dead?" Renee asked.

"You were not told the process of the ritual?" the minister asked them.

"Just the basics," Liam said.

"Priestess Nye's doctrine states that the only time a Taelon is ever allowed to leave the Commonality is upon his death," the minister said. "The Taelon's essence departs from the body and, for a single celestial moment, is granted freedom. After the soul is unleashed, the body disintegrates. The priestess's belief is that if a subject is put under a powerful force of persuasion both the subject and the Commonality will believe that the subject has truly departed. After the subject has departed from the body, an entourage of images, memories, and fantasies bombards the soul putting it through its own mental trial. You call it a near death experience. Our substances put the subject in these near death experiences. Once that happens, we must also prevent the body from degrading. We use special chemicals to keep the Taelon's body in this state that, to you humans, appears to be rigor mortis."

"The challenge is the return," the nurse explained. "A number of problems and outcomes occur. Sometimes the subject returns still connected to the Commonality. Sometimes, as what occurred last night, the form regresses, and we must force the subject to return to the Commonality to try again. However, the most common outcome is that the soul simply does not return to the body. It accepts that it has died and…does so. My prediction is that out of the six who have chosen to undergo the ritual, only one to none will survive."

"That is why so few believe that this subject has any chance of survival," the minister concluded. "We have enough trouble retrieving our subjects without the priests' interference. We have never had a subject undergo the ritual under such close observation by the priests. They will do all they can to keep the subject in its own prison."

"Then what you're saying is that there's nothing you can do for Da'an, save keeping his body preserved and drugging him," Renee said. "As long as Da'an's in this near death state, he's completely on his own."

"Now, you understand," the minister said gravely.


Da'an could feel the priests gathering around him as he recovered from his near regression. They had saved him from devolution, but they had also made it happen. Da'an had not disconnected himself. They had, and they had done so in a violent and penetrating manner all in the name of proving a point—a point they were about to make once Da'an's strength returned.

"Poor child," the high priest said with false tenderness.

"Poor lost soul," another priest said in that same distorted voice. Da'an was having trouble distinguishing one from the other now.

A hard hand gently lifted Da'an to his feet and supported him as he tried to regain the use of his legs.

"Do you now understand?" the high priest asked.

"I understand…that you can control every Taelon's link to the Commonality," Da'an panted. Slowly his strength returned and he was able to release himself. "You can control many things."

"The beast that your child has so graciously dubbed the Atavus for us is all there is for you away from the Commonality," a priest said. "You know this. Why do you seek to defy it?"

"Because others have done so," Da'an said.

"Only because we let them," the high priest retorted.

"Then, why will you not let me leave? You still have not told me why I am so valuable to you."

"We let the Taelons, who depart from our brotherhood, realize the inescapable loneliness the universe out there offers on their own. Once they realize their mistake, they either go flocking to Nye in a vain attempt at believing in the nobility of their actions, or they come crying back to us, begging us to let them rejoin."

"What is so ignoble about their actions?" Da'an asked. "What is so wrong with believing in something other than this religion you have created?"

"Think about it Da'an," the high priest said. "What makes Nye's religion any more different than ours? We both demand something of our followers. We both isolate our followers from the outsiders at our discretion. We both provide lost souls with a vain illusion of hope and reward. Your view on our religion is that it puts its followers in a cell and then uses false persuasion and mind control to hide the follower from its own prison. What you fail to realize, Da'an, is that all religions are cells. No matter what religion you choose, you will always belong in a mental prison."

"I do not believe that. I believe that religion can be a vessel for hope. However, there is little room for hope if the follower must entrust his own fate to his leaders, and there is even less if the leaders, themselves, are corrupt."

"Humanity and Taelons are not so unalike," the high priest argued diplomatically. "Ask yourself, Da'an, where do you go after you die?"

"To the next level of existence."

"And what awaits you there? An eternity of bliss and paradise in recognition of all your noble deeds, or a tomb of eternal suffering as a reckoning for all your sins?"

"I will not know until I truly die."

"Exactly!" the high priest said as if his student had made a breakthrough. "Nobody knows. Not even we know what awaits us. However our hope is that we will be rewarded for being good people with an eternity of joy, peace, and bliss. And our fear is that we will be punished for our terrible sins with an eternity of suffering, reckoning, and pain. The next question we have to ask ourselves is what do we have to do to earn the paradise."

"Thus we turn to religion for guidance," Da'an surmised.

"Yes. Religion gives us all a set of instructions—a map of how we must live our lives in order to receive paradise or punishment. It tells us exactly where we go and what we have to do to get there. What complicates things is the fact that no being is perfect. We all believe that we are sinners in some form and therefore need some kind of method to provide forgiveness and safe passage to eternal bliss. Thus we turn to any religious leader who will listen. The Taelons turn to the priests and the Commonality. Humans turn to ministers, monks, preachers, pastors, rabbis, and others who can purify them. However, you cannot receive this type of purification for nothing. Something of you must be demanded, whether it is money, worship, servitude or simply a pledge. We ask of the Taelons servitude and eternal loyalty."

"Loyalty by forcing them to live in a mental prison," Da'an said back.

"Not a prison. Protection, Da'an. We provide this Commonality for protection. We keep you in here to keep the impure out. However, once you leave, you no longer have us to protect you. You must protect yourself, you must think for yourself, and fend for yourself—something that no mortal being is fully capable of doing forever. Loneliness and doubt set in. As you live on your own and make mistakes, you start to dwell more upon your flaws. Fear sets in. You fear that eternal suffering awaits you for all you have done wrong and you long for some way to cleanse yourself of the stench of sin and imperfection. So you turn to religion. If not ours, then someone else's. The point? The point is that all mortal beings have an instinctual fear of death and what awaits afterward, and they are willing to give up anything whatever religion they choose demands of them to believe that what awaits them will be good. In that form, no being is truly free to think for himself. No being makes his own choices so long as he has religion to think for him. If you abandon us, Da'an, you will suffer just like everyone else who departs from the Commonality. The difference between you and others who depart, however, is that there will be nothing for you to return to should you decide to do so. That is why we are here Da'an. That is why we choose you over the others."

Fear and doubt began to settle in Da'an's mind. In a sick and twisted view of religion, they had managed to instill doubt. Da'an, himself, was hardly a saint. He still had much to answer for. Da'an began to reflect on every ill deed he had done and began to wonder whom to blame. Should he blame himself, the Commonality, or the priests? Was the possibility that he would sin again still there for him even after he left the Commonality? Was Nye's alternative truly just another prison?

"You are thinking of everything you have done," a priest said subtly. "You are thinking of all your sins, of the lives you have ruined. You believe punishment awaits you for this."

"No," Da'an said shaking his head rapidly. "I…I do not believe you. This is one of your tricks to persuade me to stay."

"You believe that every sin of yours is a trick?" the high priest said. "Because once you leave us, you will have to deal with those sins on your own, and I doubt you have the mental and spiritual certainty to maintain belief in yourself and what you call free thinking."

Panic had stricken Da'an. Fear of loneliness had settled in. Could he atone if he left the Commonality? Could he even atone at all?

"I don't need you to protect me," Da'an shuddered.

"Don't you? Can you truly protect yourself, Da'an?" another priest asked.

"Stop it," Da'an said trying to hide the fear.

"Is all you believe in of your own accord, or is it what we have instilled you to believe?" another priest asked. It felt to Da'an like they were all speaking to him at once in a unified booming voice that was not theirs but rather the voice of God. "If so, what will you do once you have abandoned all that?"

"Silence! You are not gods! None of you are!"

ARE YOU FIT TO FORGIVE YOURSELF? HOW CAN I FORGIVE YOU IF YOU CANNOT FORGIVE YOURSELF? HOW CAN YOU FORGIVE YOURSELF WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THOSE WHO SPEAK MY VOICE AND RELAY MY TEACHINGS?

"Shut up! Shut up! All of you just go away!" When Da'an looked around, he found that humanoid men in black hooded robes with no faces had replaced the priests. He could still feel their eyes staring at him. These were the eyes of divinity. They were the eyes of God, and they were judging him. He backed away in terrible fear as they gathered closer to him. He found himself pinned to a wall with their menacing and judging forms closing in on him. Da'an had never believed in any kind of divinity…until now. He turned away from them in a vain effort to convince himself that this was all in his mind—that there was no one god that judged all beings, that he could atone on his own accord. But as those hidden eyes came only an arm's length away from grabbing him and casting his mortal soul into the land of eternal suffering, Da'an saw how easy it was to turn to religion, and the only thing even close to religion that he knew of was the Commonality. He began to cry for them. He began calling for the sympathy and the mercy of his brethren, begging for forgiveness and atonement.