What Lies Beyond Faith?

Chapter 2

Thirty three years passed and no sign of the children. C.R.E.A.T.E. trained some more kids to go in but every time they came onsite they had to shield their eyes and could not enter, just the same as the adults.

Years and years of training and sending new kids with new tech and still they couldn't walk more than three steps in.

But it was at the end of the thirty third year that without warning two of the original three children came walking back through the gate. Only the girl and one of the boy twins returned. Bizarrely they hadn't aged a day except that the girl now had a silver streak in her hair.

C.R.E.A.T.E. tried to debrief the pair but they declined and would not say a word until a press conference was called. They were asked to describe what happened after they entered the shining gate. Every single person of the United Earth Federation, across five inhabited worlds, over fourteen billion people, watched in silence.

The two children sat quietly and with a measured maturity beyond their years. The young boy never said a word but when the girl spoke she spoke with a cadence that was of a woman much older. Her voice was still that of a child's but the way she spoke was like that of a wisened woman in her later years.

She said that when they walked into the light they felt their every cell being washed clean by the searing glow. When they were "clean" the light was no longer as bright and they could see all around them. They three of them headed toward a building on top of a nearby hill.They described the building as a large structure almost like the Parthenon. The girl said it was a huge rectangle shape with pure white and gold columns all around it. She said the three entered but only two left. She went on to say that things happened inside that led to them losing the youngest twin but it was not her place to talk about it. The twin beside her raised his hand to his cheek to wipe away a tear but would never speak again for the rest of his life, their tale left untold.

The girl said that she walked alone to the central room where there sat a giant throne of marble inlaid with gold. She walked over to the mighty chair and blew a layer of dust from it.

"DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE CHILD?" A voice boomed behind her.

The girl turned to see a man standing to the left of the door she had entered through. She shook her head in answer.

"THE CENTRAL CHAMBER OF DOGMATIC LAW. THIS IS WHERE I PRESIDE OVER ALL."

The girl stared at him in confusion. The man who easily stood over nine feet tall and had a mighty white beard glowered at her. He wore a robe of ever changing colours that dazzled the eye. His eyes were ablaze with a light so pure that all other light was as shadow.

"DO YOU NOT TREMBLE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ALMIGHTY?"

"The Almighty?" The girl asked quietly.

"YES! FOR I AM THE ALMIGHTY!" The mans voice was louder than thunder. "I AM YOUR GOD!"

"Who is God?" The girl asked innocently.

A brilliant flash of light made the girl close her eyes tight. When she opened them the huge man was gone and in his place was a short, very old man wearing gigantic glasses. He was still garbed in the same multicoloured robe.

"Who is God?" The little old man repeated her. "I was hoping to find that out myself young lady."

The girls confusion was growing by the second. The large man had shrunken down to this tiny old man that was shorter than her.