Chapter 2

I was really getting tired of waking up from a strange nothingness as it felt exceptionally weird each time it happened. You would think I would have at least dreamed something while I was out, but, alas, I was not so fortunate. It seemed like only a moment had passed since I had lost consciousness and once again, I found myself waking up in a barely lit room. I was disoriented and a little woozy, with no idea where I was this time. Unlike before, I was not lying on the ground when I came to but sitting in a chair.

The chair was plain in both function and design, its style unlike any I had seen before. The paint on it was weathered - well, what was left of the paint, that is. It had simple legs and arms, free of any ornate design or coloring. However they had a strange wave to them that made me wonder how it stayed upright. The chair was comfortable enough; there was a pillow on the seat. By the feel of it, the pillow was one of those feather-filled ones and was quite soft, yet firm. There was another pillow-like piece on the back of the chair and another small one where my head would be. All in all, the chair was quite comfortable, despite how old and odd it seemed. What I found odder was, if I had been unconscious, why was it I was not sore anywhere. How long had I been out? I found that I was in a bit of an awkward position when I awoke.

As I settled upon these thoughts, I began to feel uneasy in the chair, as once again I felt unseen eyes on me. The strange unease that had first hit me when I had looked into Freyja’s eyes, was now increased by a huge margin. I slowly got my bearings and, as I looked around the room, I noticed that it was extremely large, compared to the last one. Where the longboat had been around fifty square feet in expanse, this had to be over five hundred feet in diameter and perfectly circular. I knew this because the room was bigger than my apartment, and that had been five hundred square feet. Along the walls there were small torches, spaced out a couple of feet between each of them. They had a dull, black iron design that looked medieval and out of place in the room. The torches themselves were only two feet long, kind of like the one on the Statue of Liberty, but with a more angular looking spikes on the base. What was unique was the forearm and hand made of black iron holding each torch.

The torches were not lit, which was disconcerting, as it added a more ominous tone to the room. The only illumination was coming from a skylight in the ceiling directly above the center of the room. It looked to be at least fifteen feet or more off the ground and the opening looked about six feet in diameter. Those were guesses, of course, but it reminded me of the transport rings from the Stargate franchise. While bright and blinding, it barely illuminated the walls of the room due to the vast size of the open space. The walls looked to be made of a white marble or granite tiles; various colors of grey moved through the pieces, cut into various shapes and sizes. The tiles seemed to be constructed to fit together so closely and perfectly that there was no mortar that I could see between them. It reminded me of various ancient sites all over earth that were thousands of years old. Most of these sites and cultures used stone cut so precisely that no mortar was ever needed between them, but this was in many ways more advanced.

The floor and ceiling, however, looked to be made of a single piece of marble, weighing probably enough to make me a pancake. The engineering required would have been insane, but then I remembered that I was dealing with gods from my world’s history. They were insanely strong, able to lift and even manipulate many things that would seem impossible to humans.

As I pondered this, the torches begin to flicker alight with flame. Starting from directly behind me and moving to the opposite side of the room to the area directly in front of me. An elevated balcony about three feet above the floor became more visible. While the touches had helped to make it visible, there were no details beyond the edge that I could make out.

“Welcome to Eden, child,” came a voice from somewhere in front of me, seemingly on the balcony. The voice was deep and powerful, sounding almost like an eastern European accent. I couldn’t tell who spoke, as the light from the ceiling, along with the lack of other illumination, was hiding the voice’s location.

“We are pleased to see that you chose our offer,” said another male voice, this one wasn’t as deep and had a slightly middle eastern accent.

“We will now begin the selection process,” said a third male voice. This accent I had not heard before; it sounded like it was, maybe, from western Europe.

“Sirs,” I said with as much respect as I could muster, “if you don’t mind me asking, the selection process for what?”

A slight rumble filled the room, the floor shook slightly from the vibrations. A section of the floor in front of me sank about half a foot, and then split apart and hid within recesses in the floor. It left a hole about six inches in diameter in the floor, and who knew how deep it went. Despite the light from the ceiling right above it, the hole still looked pitch black as its cover slid beneath the floor as into an abyss. Seconds later, there was another rumble as something began to rise from within the hole, into the room. After a few moments, something looking like a pedestal of some kind began to slowly rise up from the recess in the floor. After about five minutes, the rumbling sound ceased, and the pedestal completed its ascent. I stood up from the chair and approached the pedestal slowly, my eyes glancing up to the balcony in hopes of catching a glimpse of who was up there. Unfortunately I was unable to see anything, so I focused on walking around the new object and looking at it more closely. As I neared, sections of the floor near its base rose up to form a small set of steps around the pedestal.

The pedestal was about five feet tall and looked to be made of one piece of solid marble. If looked at from directly above, its sides would seem to be a pentagon shape, five sides completely smooth and exactly the same size. Despite the solid marble finish, each side of the pentagonal pedestal had a symbol engraved in the center of it.

The first wall of the pedestal had a lightning bolt engraved at the perfect center of the side. The next engraving was a planet with rings, very reminiscent of the planet Saturn. The third wall had what looked to be an eye, reminding me of Egyptian images I had seen before. The fourth wall had three triangles one above another, a very unique and familiar image. The final wall had a trident with a snake wrapped loosely around it.

On the top of the pedestal was a glass jar, a light glow coming from its depths. It looked like It was mounted directly to the pedestal and was filled with something that looked like water. However, there had been no rippling from the liquid when the pedestal had risen from beneath the floor. At the bottom of the jar were twelve coloured crystals, which reminded me of the twelve birthstone crystals people would have placed in jewelry.

“Please place your hand directly over the jar,” said a new voice I had not heard before. “When you do, ensure that your hand is open and palm down, please”.

The voice was light, soft and had a thick Italian accent. I did as I was requested and placed my right hand over the center of the jar, palm down.

“Now concentrate,” said yet another voice, making me wonder how many people were up there. “Look deep within yourself and call out to the stones you see before you.”

This accent I could not tell, as it sounded like middle eastern, yet at the same time significantly different.

I tried to clear my head of errant thoughts, instead, hoping to focus on the task at hand, which was not easy given all that had happened to me so far. I tried to imagine a stone moving through the liquid and lifting into my hand.

For a few minutes nothing happened, the lack of response began to frustrate me greatly. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate even harder, I couldn’t let myself fail at the beginning like this. I took a deep breath, and focused on pushing out the confusion, frustration and other feelings that were distracting me. A slight buzzing began in the back of my mind and I pushed the sensation out of my thoughts and continued to concentrate. As I focused more on the crystals, the buzzing increased in strength and I felt my concentration waning, I did not let it deter me. Instead I started to focus on that buzzing, despite the pain the sound was now causing in my ears, feeling that this was what I was supposed to do. All of a sudden, the buzzing stopped, as a jewel from the jar smacked into the palm of my hand.

It appeared red hot like a rivet fresh from a forge and was warm to the touch, yet it did not scorch or burn my palm. I brought my hand up to my face and looked closer at the crystal, trying to see which one I had received. As the glow began to dissipate, it began to reveal that the stone was ocean blue in colour, but too dark to be an aquamarine. I suspected that it could be a topaz or a light sapphire, but I was not that familiar with gems and how to tell them apart from one another. I wouldn’t be able to say from looking at it which one it was, only that aquamarine, topaz and sapphires were blue.

The crystal was one of the most pristine objects I have ever seen, though I must admit that I had not seen very many jewels up close before. I had never seen such a perfect shape as this - it was perfectly oval in shape, yet had many small facets, much like those of a diamond. The combination of the facets and the smoothness that caused every possible colour of blue to be refracted from it was amazing.

A rumble filled the room as the pedestal and the small staircase, began their descent back into the floor. I watched as the floor closed up after the pedestal had sunk beneath and you could not see where the hole had been, nor was there any sign that it had been there. The floor was once again a seamless piece of marble. Although I knew the great power of these Pantheons, I was still shocked at the sight.

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps approaching from behind me. They were soft and moved at a slow but purposeful pace. I turned to look at who would be approaching and strained to see them in the dim light. Slowly, a vision of beauty came into focus and my attention locked on this rare sight. She slowly became illuminated by the overhead light, and I took in every detail, as I knew I would not have a chance to see such a beauty in the flesh again. She looked to be no more that fifteen - that stage between a girl and a woman - but given how young Freyja had looked, I wasn’t certain. Her hair was a chestnut brown and was put up in a beehive-style bun, with a few ringlets falling free to frame her angelic face. Golden clips adorned her hair, no doubt used in keeping such a mass of hair in place and add to her ethereal beauty. The clips were gold, intricately designed and accented with small pearls. She had a circlet of gold, also adorned with pearls, atop her brow as well as gold and pearl earrings.

I was starting to see a theme in her wardrobe, though I was ignorant of the possible meaning of what the theme was. Her face was soft and round as expected of a teenager, not yet free of the baby fat most lose during puberty. Her eyebrows are full but perfectly shaped over her oval-shaped eyes. Her eyes were a color of hazel I had never seen before; they were almost gold in colour. They reminded me of Freyja’s eyes and never before had I seen such a beautiful female in my life.

As she continued towards me, I’m ashamed to admit that I began to look down and take in the sight of her body. I am an eighteen-year-old male who had never had a girlfriend, so sue me if I decided to take a look, I was only human.

Her slim neck was accented by a golden necklace with loose ringlets of hair on either side. The focal point of the necklace was an eye. Two golden curves that touch at each end, a ring of gold in the middle, with a pearl in the center. It was simple, but elegant and matched with the other jewelry she was wearing. She was slim, with what looked like an athletic, but soft, build. She was toned but had soft curves that I would say were more in line with what a model in the early nineties would have been like. Most of the models around the time I died - save for models like Kate Upton - looked like they had not eaten in months. This young woman wore what looked to be a two-strap gown, layered, that flowed down her body. It reminded me a bit of a toga, but those only have one strap across a shoulder, not two. It touched the floor around her feet and while it did suggest the curves of her body above her hips, it flared out, hiding the shape of everything underneath.