Old Friend
This post was originally published through Patreon on January 11, 2017.
“Lisa.”
Her name is the first thing she hears. She opens her eyes, and the blackness over her vision lifts like a veil. Light. It nearly blinds her. She narrows her eyes to slits, and the scene resolves into a pair of burning globes in a sea of roiling green.
Where am I?
She rolls onto her side and becomes aware of the rocky ground beneath.
She wonders again: Where am I?
“Lisa.”
“Who’s there?”
Anxiety takes root. She staggers to her feet and beholds the alien landscape once more. She notes the sea of green is actually a sky, though not like any sky she’s seen before, and that the globes suspended within are actually twin suns.
What is this place?
“It is home.”
“This isn’t my home,” she says aloud. Then she pauses. Isn’t it? She can conjure no memory of her origins. Once more, she panics. She scrambles to dredge up something from that inaccessible part of her mind and comes up short.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“A friend. You will remember in time.”
The cryptic reply, though frustrating, is strangely comforting. It grazes a segment of her heart that was previously hidden, and it entices her, makes her want to learn more.
“Come.” The word is not a command but a request, humble and filled with unfathomable love.
“How?” She wants to follow, but she doesn’t know how.
“That is a question I cannot answer. You must find your own way.”
“I can’t go to you,” she argues, “if I don’t know how to find you.”
“Follow my voice, have faith, and all will be clear in time.”
She hesitates, examines her heart, and discovers a trust she hasn’t recognized until now, the quiet, logic-defying certainty that the voice is telling the truth, that it can lead her down the proper path. She takes one step forward.
Then another.
Then another.
In the centuries that follow, she will see many wonders, and though the voice will only be an infrequent companion, she will find it reveals enough to keep her headed in the right direction. She will grow in wisdom and love, and at the end of her journey—at the end of time—she will be greeted by the source of that voice not as a stranger, but as an old and constant friend.
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