Journey

Lorelei

Alivia is in love with Eden the second she saw his blond little head and chocolate brown eyes. I have to admit he is adorable but Alivia was going over the top with admiring him. A step higher and she might as well be worshiping him. Everyone in the room suddenly gets up and leaves.

"What's going on?" I ask Elijah.

He looks just as confused as I am. We get up and follow them. We walk through hallways I haven't been down before. I am relatively curious. I can tell Elijah is racking his brain to understand what is going on. I stay silent as we walk down the corridors. Alivia winces as her baby kicks her in the stomach. Eden stays quiet in my arms. He seems to have no problems going where ever we are going.But yet again he is only three.

We finally enter a large room that seems to hold everyone here. We file into the giant room. It reminds me of some of the ancient structures in Greece we had to learn about a few years back. In the middle of the room there is a single old man with robes that sport weird symbols on them. I don't understand what is happening but Elijah recognizes it now.

"What is happening?" I ask him.

"We are doing a sunday worship," He whispers to me.

"But the sun isn't out," I tell him.

"We don't know why they call today sunday but they do," Elijah tells me.

I watch the old man in the middle of the room intensely. His voice carries throughout the whole room and it reverberates making him sound even louder.

"Friends. Family. Neighbors." He booms.

He scares me a little.

"Our time has come to admit our sins of the past few weeks and God will punish you accordingly," The man exclaims.

The crowd goes up in cheers like he just announced he would be giving us all our own planet. Last time I checked you don't want to be punished.

Elijah groans.

"This again. We are fighting a war and we still have time for this crap?" He says quietly.

"What happens next?" I ask.

"Just watch," He tells me.

The old man steps out of the middle and a young woman comes and kneels in front of a statue of a man. She places her hands in front of the statue and murmurs words to it. It took about five minutes for her to get up and go back to her seat. When she sits down the man next to her gets up and does the same thing. I then realized exactly why Elijah was so mad about this. We would have to go through 2,000 people doing this.

Here is the math:

We have 2,000 going down there. Each person takes about 5 minutes to "tell God of their sins".

2,000x5=10,000 minutes

10,000/60=166 hours

166/24=7 days

But we need to sleep. They give us 7 hours to sleep each night

7x7=49 hours

166+49=215 hours

215/24=9 days

We had to do this for over a week.

I was number 1789.

1789x5=8945 minutes

8945/60=149 hours

149/24=6 days.

However I needed sleep.

149+49=198 hours.

198/24=8 days.

It took me EIGHT freaking days to "tell God my sins".

When I finally got to the statue of the man. My mind went blank. I didn't say anything. Major mistake. The "Priest" came up to me and ask what was wrong. I couldn't talk to him.

"Are you having trouble coming up with something to tell? I'm sure I can come up with one," He tells me.

I don't say anything.

"Tell me about yourself," He tells me.

It takes me a while but I finally do in a shaky voice.

"My name is Lorelei. I am 15 and I am an orphan. I came here with my boyfriend and foster child," I tell him.

He looks like I just punched his face.

"You have a child!" He booms.

Everyone who wasn't paying attention is now looking towards us. They have such judging eyes that I turn red.

"Beg god for forgiveness for this child that you had out of wedlock," He commands me.

"But it's a foster child," I tell him.

He doesn't care. As far as he cares the child that is under my care is a scandal. He pushes me to the floor in a kneeling position.

"Beg, girl," He spits.

I don't know how to "Beg God for forgiveness".

He had had enough of me and threw me out. Makes sense. As far as he knew I was an unbaptised limb of satan. I spent the rest of that day waiting for Elijah to come back. Finally in the evening he came back.

"Well that was special," I tell him.

"After they kicked you out they kicked Alivia and Indiana out for having a baby out of wedlock." Elijah told me.

He sounds exhausted. I rub his back and he falls asleep in my lap. I stay up all night while he sleeps. I don't have to go tomorrow since I got kicked out. He finally wakes up a few hours later and is embarrassed. After Elijah leaves for the final day of whatever they call it I sleep. I'm glad I don't have to sit through that again.