Running, she thought, I'm running! Full speed ahead! But the strange thing was, she could no longer feel her legs charging her forward, down into the hall. I'm really just standing still, she thought, and the floor, the hall is moving because I can't remmeber the last time that I ran this fast! There's no effort here, I'm not doing a thing. My legs are moving, I'm hurtling forward, but I'm not doing this!
Memories from the wall were still everywhere inside of her. Comforting, calm, in vibrant colors that she'd never seen before. The memories weren't a projection of anything outside of her, she knew this somehow as she charged onward. Those memories on the wall had come from inside of her and outside, from all directions, it was hard for her to even put into thought. It wasn't a play or a movie or a story or a book. It was truth. Her truth. Her actions. Her faith that there was something more, some deeper reason for everything. Concrete belief in her heart that there really was a right and there really was a wrong.
Everything is linked, she thought. All details, small and large, are linked together somehow, someway. From the tiniest - letting the little old lady in front of me know that she'd dropped a dime - to the largest, consciously deciding to raise my arms in church and ask for Jesus to help me...they were all linked! There were no accidents, it was all on purpose. All of it, all events in my life have all funneled down into this: I am God's.
Around them, the hall opened into an immense chamber with marble floors and a high ceiling. Great polished columns towered all around them, almost appearing to be wet more than they did solid.
"You know one of the most beautiful things that I saw back there and remembered?" Bill asked her as they ran forward at sprinters paces.
He's speaking without effort, she thought. We could be in bed, sharing pillow talk, and he'd have this same tone of voice. If I was listening to him say these things to me from a recorder instead of with his mouth, I'd think that he was relaxed.
"Meeting you for the first time," he told her. "And knowing without a doubt that you were the one for me. Even back then, Dolly, I knew. Nothing ever happened--"
"--by accident," she finished for him, amazed that she was also speaking in a relaxed tone. "Nothing. I saw the same thing, Bill. I knew. I remembered, and I felt it all over again. I felt the same shoes on my feet, I smelled the same awful french fries boiling in oil at the burger stand across the street. I felt the scratchy wool of that awful red sweater against the back of my neck. All of it was there."
He grinned a crooked grin at her, and they joined hands as they continued on.
"Are we dead?" she whispered in wonder.
The chamber yawned even wider around them. She couldn't help but think that it must have costed billions of dollars to construct such a place of spotless beauty.
"You're not dead," Ranwell said from behind them, huffing a puffing. Dolly looked back to see her angel pushing his Buddy Holly glasses up on his nose. "In fact, you could say that your entire lives are just--"
"Ranwell!" Brason screamed back over his shoulder.
Ranwell's mouth shut with a click of his teeth.
There were stairs ahead, leading downward. Dolly watched as Brason approached these steps without hesitation, his robe fluttering in slaps and whips around his ankles like a flag in a hurricane. He began his descent, almost seeming to float down the stairs more than he was taking each step one at a time.
Dolly and Bill followed.
Below, there was a great arena, expanding in all directions. It was so large, Dolly thought, that the air itself in this place had weight.
"It's a celebration," Bill called out to her in the sudden rush of voices coming from the arena. "Countless in celebration!" Bill screamed out in joy.
"Hurry!" Brason hollared over his back.
"Yes, hurry!" Ranwell shrieked excitedly, and then cackled like a kid on Christmas morning.
(it's getting harder and harder to stop...
Your turn! I'm really excited about this and where it's going! Honestly, anybody jump in! Fluffy - you're simply amazing!)