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FIRST

With a mad dash I wanted to get closer to that distant voice: it may very well have been my only hope at understanding my doing in that place.

When I stopped to catch my breath I was surprised by how quickly my strengths returned to me, and with fervor it was that I shouted, "Where are you?"

The voice called me and I walked a turn until I spotted her straight ahead of me, coming as she was through the alley created by the columns. She stopped as well, and although I could tell she was expressing surprise and marvel, I was stunned by finding that she was very much unlike myself.

I was overridden by the sensation that it was not normal to be before such a differently shape and larger-sized being; she was wearing a robe similar to mine, but rather than only hanging down from her shoulders it ran over her back and finished where her tail could come out and brush the polished stone floor. She had a very tall neck whose front side was of the palest white, her sharp-toothed and long-tongued mouth dangling open at an awkward angle, her yellow slit eyes widened but much larger than mine, staring at me.

I took a step back as I returned her gaze; she had large nostrils at the end of her pointy snout, her face dotted by a myriad of deep blue scales. I only lowered my eyes to notice the four clawed paws on which she walked, her body and legs hidden as they were by her long white robe. She turned her head, stepped to a side as she inspected me, and I was mesmerized by the motion of the drapes and how the fabric managed to give me glimpses of her live shapes.

Unable to move I noticed how the sides and top of her neck, as well as her tail, had the same covering of scales; they appeared to increase in size as they neared her spine. I was sure of having seen creatures walking on four legs before, but I wasn't expecting that being whose voice I heard to come in such shapes and colors. Before I could think of anything else she questioned me, "What the hell are you?"

I took another step back, "hell?" I asked, rather shocked.

I hit me how I could have been dead.

A lost soul in that strange unforgiving land; or perhaps it really was a hell from which I had to release myself? no matter what I rested assured that creature wasn't after me as she became ponderous as I imagined myself to have been times before.

"This..." she said, turning her eyes away from me as if to try and look through that impenetrable wall of columns going on forever. "Could be."

I approached her. She was giving a side, only to turn her head to me as I did so. I didn't anticipate her reaction as it was she to step back and quite frightfully, so I stopped and she grimaced to me in arching the blue neck she had lowered.

"What are you?" she asked again, showing me her teeth as if reading herself to pounce on me.

I was more concerned about the nature of that visit and its link to my presence than the overreaction of that creature twice as large as myself yet frightened by my advance. "I won't harm you," I said, standing still. I then lifted the sleeves of my robe to show her my arms--yet having to see my own legs for myself. "I don't know who or what I am. I remember having once been like this."

"Do you think we're dead, and we forgot our life as well as how we died?" asked that creature.

I felt a fit to my head and a cramp to my stomach at the same time--but the very fact that I had those feelings made me dubious about having died after all. It was her to come near and stop where we could talk more easily; even if she had no visible ears they were all mine as I replied, "I'm not sure."

"Neither am I," she stated, then she shook her head as if chasing away some thought she had.

I wondered what that was and so betrayed my interest.

She looked sad as she understood the reason. "I hoped you _weren't_like me," she said, "that you knew what was going on."

"Believe me, it's the same here," I replied rather lightheartedly. I went on to scratch the back of my head while she looked worrisome before giving me her back and just sitting down to watch that speck of horizon at the visible end of the columns.

It was frustrating because I had no idea of how I could be making some sense of things not really having any other points of reference other than those suggested by the occurring situations. She was silent as I stroked my temple in trying to find my way back, and a horrible sensation made me feel as if that was the kind of dream from which there is no way out, a place ready to vanish with no notice and possibly lead to either none or a very different place. What was more inexplicable was how I realized that if I was thinking and seeing that there had to be a reason for it.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, all of a sudden.

I was awaken from a world of thought, pausing before how very natural my surprise was. "Not long, but moments before I called out," I said with no little amount of effort.

"I have been here for a while," she said, "and I'm hungry."

She was giving me her back, motionless in her statement.

Her remark managed to frighten and confuse me; I wasn't feeling any needs right then but I certainly recalled the one which she brought to my attention. Having seen her mouth before I was a little intimidated by how, being very much flesh and bones, there really was nothing there on which she could feed. Looking up to the sky I thought its appearance to be as sterile and dry as that very lanscape, unable to spot the source of light.

"I'm scared," she then added.

"Will you eat me?" I asked, wanting to clear that having thought about it and nothing else. I loved to watch how her robe animated when she rose up on all fours to slowly shift her paws in turning back to me. I wasn't going to run away--if that was how it had to end I was glad to get done and over with it only to have my full self back--and so stood as the ghost of flesh I was.

"Eat you?" she asked, looking down at me: I was sure she couldn't help herself considering it as she shivered all over. "I really hope I don't have to."

"You might want to just do it now," I said, feeling rather excited about the prospect.

For a moment she looked at me as if I was crazy, then her eyes widened and she lowered her neck and slightly turned her head to a side. "Do you think this is some sort of dream? that by taking your life it will end, returning to you that which you lost?"

I clapped my hands. "Yes!" I exclaimed.

She slowly shook her head. "Well in that case that would make me a"--she looked for the word for a moment, nodding and smiling as it came to her--"figment of your imagination."

I gasped as with that very statement she made me doubt my early conclusions. But even if she was saying so it didn't mean she wasn't what she was referring to--I wasn't going to be fooled so easily. Although I was surprised when she added, "At least you _seem_real."

That place certainly wasn't--it really was that which I could not put my finger on, however having found it incredible from the moment I opened my eyes to it. "What is real?" I asked her, wondering if she had the same opinion of it that I had--it didn't surprise me she did.

"What happened before this was real," she said, looking defeated.

"Do you remember any of it?" I asked of her.

"No," she admitted.

I knew what to say to her, "You don't understand how you can understand what understanding means."

She widened her eyes, stepping one step back from me. "Yes, I don't," she claimed. "Since you're so smart what do you think we should do?"

I was really lost in that moment but a lingering feeling helped me through it; I was really curious to move up to her and get to touch her only to tell if she was a living being as I thought myself to be. "Can I touch you?" I asked her, knowingly and rather bluntly.

Before me she lifted her blue scaly brow. She seemed way more excited about the idea than I thought she should have been, almost scared of contact with me.

"You're unfamiliar," she said.

"Listen to who's talking," I stated, giving a big shrug.

She smiled and said, "All right then."

I moved up to her, closed that distance as I could feel the excitement all the way down--it was its intensity, its rawness, its _visceral_side that blocked me in my progress making me say, looking up and to her:

"Don't you think this is too real to be unreal?"

She nodded, "I thought so and that is what is worrying me."

I moved one more step and I could tell she was visibly excited since her white draping rope was moving at the fast rate of her breathing--but otherwise she remained as still as a statue as I touched and felt the fabric, lightly pushing my fingers into it until they met the bouncy hardness.

Before I could bring my palm against her chest she jumped back and away from me, and for only a moment did I believe it was because of the contact; then I was startled and fell back in seeing how a portal had formed between the columns right behind me. It was large, large enough for her to pass, and looking through it I could see some open space before a lively burning fire. Then I heard her before she sided me as I got back on my feet as puzzled as I could be.

"You did it!" she exclaimed.

"I don't know what I did, but I know what did it," I said.

"Damn right"--she sniffed in the direction of the portal--"do you smell food?"

"No," I replied.

She winked at me before saying, "I do."

Having said that she just sprinted to the portal and fearing it would close after her for the first time I was terrified--about being left alone in that horrible place where the only company consisted of smooth cylindrical columns.