If you stop reading here, I won't be upset, for many may find things in my account too offensive, unbelievable, or otherwise difficult to accept.

At death, I expected to see angels with harps floating on clouds, and large gates made of pearl. Instead, I found myself in a baseball stadium.

Thousands of people clapped, banging their feet on the risers. A speaker amplified pipe organ played the baseball `Charge' song.

I stood in a charming little concrete dugout, amidst a vast field of meticulously cut green grass and pure soil arranged in regulation stripes with mathematical exactitude.

As I took in the sights, sounds, and delicious smells, I thought to myself, this has to be heaven, and it's better than I could have possibly imagined.

You may think that, because I have an otherworldly appearance, and burst from a man's chest, I'm supposed to long for a heaven as weird and bizarre as I am, but that wasn't the type of place I yearned for. Instead, God gave me the desires of my heart.

Perhaps there is a place in heaven just for Ss'sik'chtokiwij who seek a bizarre sort of home. Maybe my dead sisters lived there now. That's not for me.

An oddly familiar young German woman smiled and waved to me.

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"Probably, but for me, this is the first time meeting you. I acted in one of those silly games, you see."

I stared at her in confusion.

"I was...`Deb', I believe."

"Deb!" I cried. "You are a most wonderful woman! I have so much I wish to ask you!"

My annoying verbal tics had disappeared. This really was heaven!

"Certainly, dear. But we have all eternity to talk. Why don't you take a look around first?"

"Thank you."

I turned away from her and found myself staring at a young slender Hispanic man in a white baseball uniform. He seemed familiar as well.

"Bueno." The man gestured to the set of steps leading out to the field. "Va aquí."

An unmistakable voice. "Mister Boger?"

He just smiled, motioning me onward.

With my heart pounding, I climbed the stairs, gazing in awestruck amazement at my surroundings.

Before me, at the far end of the field, a massive, crown shaped electronic scoreboard the size of a building flashed my name, first in English as the somewhat feminine `Erni', then Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, spelled correctly, accompanied with strange symbols that also appeared to be my name, as if the Almighty had given me a head start on the Ss'sik'chtokiwij alphabet.

Above me, in the sky, an armada of multicolored hot air balloons, blimps and dirigibles floated past, fireworks exploding above in fantastic patterns.

"Let's give a warm welcome to Saint Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," said an announcer on the P.A. "Heroine of Archeron."

Applause erupted again. One of my favorite songs, I'm From the Country echoed through the stadium as my video image appeared on the screen, larger than life.

I whirled around, staring in disbelief at the crowd.

Humans and nonhumans of all races packed the stands, clad in beautiful sports apparel instead of the stereotypical robes. The people carried pets with them, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, someone even had a tiger.

Instead of vendors, people with food boxes handed out crackerjacks, and hot dogs and barbecue, just about anything edible for free.

When I saw who occupied the front row box seats, my jaw distended in shock.

My sisters, all of them, and in the middle of them, looking very cute in her baseball uniform, sat Sarah, contentedly munching a corn dog.

Next to her, another beloved face: Long hair, long nose. Beady blue eyes.

Doug.

The man leaned over the balcony, waving at me. "Hey, little guy! Glad you could make it!"

"It's you! What are you doing here?"

Doug smirked. "Let's just say you got me back on the right track."

Still gripping the corn dog, Sarah climbed over the railing and ran to me, giving me a hug.

For the first time, I could feel it. The most wonderful experience I had ever felt in my entire life. My slime stuck to her skin, but for some reason it didn't hurt her. My tail wagged with joy.

"I have so many questions! I mean, what are my sisters doing here! And you're friends with them?"

She shrugged, giving me a small smile. "They're really sorry for all they did. They didn't know what they were doing, they really couldn't imagine what kind of food was waiting for them at the Master's table."

Although skeptical about this, when I stared at Kiarsshkoy, she just gave me a friendly wave with her claw. My tail thumped the tidy regulation swept soil.

I hugged Sarah once more. "I'm glad to see you again. I really am."

That's when I saw the man.

A brown skinned Middle Eastern guy with a beard, his raiment dazzling white. Um...a dazzling white baseball uniform.

Short hair, tucked beneath a baseball cap, you know, so he could play a decent game. Still, I could tell who he was by the wrist wounds. "Jesus?"

The man nodded. "Yes, my child."

My child! If my exoskeleton could get goosebumps, it would have.

He led me to an ice chest, pulling out a bloody piece of meat. It looked like the one Sydjea had sliced off Sarah, but brown.

He offered the slice to me. "You are hungry. Eat my flesh."

"Oh no, Lord! I could not! I have sworn never to eat human meat of any kind!"

He did not put it away. "If you do not eat me, you have no part in me."

"Oh Lord, I will devour your entire body if you command it, just do not depart from me!"

I devoured the meat. It tasted like bread and wine. I had never eaten anything so filling. "Oh Lord! I have many things I wish to ask you! To begin with, why are my sisters here in heaven with me?"

"Did my daughter Sarah not explain this to you?"

"Yes, but I do not understand."

Jesus smiled. "Did you notice who I chose as my umpire?"

I glanced at the man in black protective gear standing behind the catcher.

"Judas Iscariot."

I gawked at my Lord. "But he betrayed you!"

Jesus nodded. "I forgive my enemies."

"Hence why you saved mine." I stared, shook my head. "But my kin showed no respect to your word! They killed innocent human beings! They aren't even saved!"

"I save whom I choose. You do not read souls as I do. Does seeing your sisters of blood entering my kingdom disturb you?"

"No Lord."

Sarah now rode through the stands on mother's back like a pony.

"But Lord! If they entered your kingdom without me actually saving any of them, what's the point of preaching to them?"

"You must save who you can. For in doing so, you will save humans, and reveal greater blessings to the Ss'sik'chtokiwij."

I trembled in fear at his words. The verb tense implied that maybe I couldn't yet enjoy this wonderful ball park forever.

Still, this was the Lord. I trusted him wholeheartedly, no matter what he decided to do with me. "You...want me to go back, don't you?"

He nodded. "Your friends still need you. But before you go, I want you to meet a few more old friends, so your heart may be fully healed of its pain."

My Lord waved the other players over to me. A very familiar looking German shepherd accompanied them, the one which I think I must have eaten once.

A plump brown haired guy at the lead offered me a hand not wearing a catcher's mitt. "Hello, little girl! Remember me?"

I swallowed. "Um...Sorry, I don't..."

He chuckled pleasantly. "I'm Mr. Hughes. You kind of ripped open my chest and ate me."

I started crying. "I'm really sorry about that. I've never been able to forgive myself for what I did to you."

He petted me on the head. "There, there, little thing! All is forgiven. I get to be with the Lord now." He quoted Philippians 1:21.

"Wow," I stammered, staring at the others. "And who are they?"

"Part of my bible study group on the base." He put an arm around a freckle faced man next to him. "This is Harry. It seems you were born inside his rib cage."

I cried more. "And you forgive me for killing and eating you?"

"Had to die sometime," said Harry.

"But what I did...what mother did...it was terrible! Nothing can make that okay!"

"I didn't say it was okay, but we forgive you, as we were forgiven. Now we have a greater life, eternally."

"The bodies we have now are new and improved," said another man.

The batting song started back up, the people and Ss'sik'chtokiwij in the crowd clapping and shouting something.

"What's all that for?" I asked my Savior.

"They are cheering your return to the physical realm."

"But Master! I still have more questions! I mean, why is there evil in the universe? I mean, why did you allow for human wickedness to exist?"

"Love cannot exist without the freedom to not love."

And then, like someone had flipped a light switch, the park and everything around me vanished, replaced by darkness.

I asked about Brice's whereabouts, but nobody answered me.

An atheist might say I made the whole thing up. In fact, with all the injuries to my brain, and Doug's experiments with the probes, they might even think I hallucinated the entire event. Believe what you want, but I know what I saw, a profoundly life changing experience.

As you may have surmised, my tale does not end here. I still have yet to describe my encounters with Grandmother and the Ripley woman.

While this is a tale I am eager to tell, I must first describe the events leading up to their involvement in the conflict, ergo, the following rather peculiar situation regarding my best friend.

After my near death experience, I found myself awaking to the sensation of cold water raining down upon my exoskeleton.

I lay on my back in a beautiful garden.

For a moment, I thought myself still in heaven. Maybe a different part of heaven, or a third heaven of some sort.

But then I noticed that the rain came from sprayers, which looked a bit...dirty, and rust corroded, and my idyllic garden of Eden seemed curiously devoid of stuff like exotic flowers and certain kinds of edible fruits. In fact, I seemed to be surrounded by a lot of...corn.

The nymph-like face of that precious little girl I knew so well appeared above me.

She wore a gray prison uniform-like jumpsuit now, which I found incredibly odd.

My Lord told me I'd be sent back to the physical world, yet a dead friend looked me right in the face, giving me a shy little wave.

"Sarah?" I cried with astonishment.

She nodded. "How did you know my name?"

My jaw dropped. "What do you mean, how do I know it? We grew up together!"

My verbal tics still had not resurfaced. How could this not be heaven?

I could see by the look on her face that my words troubled her. "You're being silly. We've only just met."

I sighed with frustration. "We played chess together! I played fetch for you! I fought to save your life from my sisters! Please tell me you haven't forgotten all that!"

Sarah frowned. "I'm sorry. You...must have me confused with someone else."

I paused, thinking hard about what I could say to convince her to remember.

`Number Neck.'

...That's it! I sat up, lifting the blonde hair above her shoulders.

Instead of SB49045329, the number read SB49045330. "Uh...Sarah? Did someone change your tattoo?"

"What's that?"

"On your neck."

She frowned. "I have a tattoo on my neck?"

I nodded. "Where did you come from?"

"I came from down the hall. I found you in a pile of rocks. You looked like you were hurting a lot, so I dragged you into this garden to rest."

"No," I groaned in annoyance. "Before that. What's the earliest thing you remember?"

Sarah looked away. "I don't know. I just woke up next to some big machine. I was cold, wet and naked, so I dried off and put on a jumpsuit I found in a locker."

My stomach sank. "Show me the machine."