Chosen

Lena hung suspended by her seatbelt, her SUV upside down in a snowbank. She didn’t seem to be hurt, just a little disoriented and the blood rushing to her head from being upside down wasn’t entirely comfortable. Release the seat belt? Jammed.

Reaching for the center console and clicking the button Lena gasped, covering her face when the contents erupted all over the ceiling. The trusty multi-tool her brother had given her last Christmas was amongst the detritus, gleaming palely in the red haze from the tail lights diffused in snow. With its help Lena cut herself free and tumbled to the ceiling.

Locating her purse Lena checked her phone. No signal. Of course. She was upside down, who knew how far into a snowbank, literally miles from civilization, why on Earth would she have a signal? And, OF COURSE, she had to pee. Like now.

Crawling across the ceiling to the back hatch was a strange sensation, but logically the snow should be less dense here since she went in hood first. She hoped. Pulling the handle and shoving with all her might yielded a few inches and some incredibly cold air. Bracing herself as best she could Lena pushed with her shoulder, with a sudden jolt the hatch door flew open, flat to the ground. She lay flat on her back, panting, eyes closed, glad to be free but knowing she would probably never get that door closed again. Thus it was freeze to death or walk and hope someone found her.

That’s it. I’m dead. I died in that accident. She thought as she stared up at an impossibly pale pink sky. Getting to her feet ang stumbling a few steps away from her car, she felt as if her eyes were open so wide they would consume her whole face. This can’t be real. She turned back to her car, but it was gone.

Lena turned a slow circle. There was no discernable horizon, the pale pink sky bled into a swirl of lavender, like ink and water. The lavender swirled, a living watercolor, into a spring green that transformed itself into velvety hillocks the closer it came to her.

She suddenly realized she wasn’t cold, and looked at her feet. Not a speck of snow. Wanting to feel the velvet under her feet Lena abandoned her shoes and began to walk. The green velvet was nothing like grass, and nothing like velvet. If fog could be made solid, then that’s what this was.

As she walked a large tree began to appear as if from nothing. It was as high as a three story building, with drooping branches like a willow that dragged the ground. Lena parted the curtain of branches with their millions of tiny heart shaped leaves, each branch bearing thousands of miniscule violet feather shaped flowers. As she brushed through them their fragrance made the air smell of bliss and melancholy and taste faintly of spun sugar.

At the heart of the great weeping tree Lena found the innermost branches draped in the sheerest of fabric, water made gossamer, rippling in a non-existent breeze. Mesmerized by their dance she lay her hand upon the trunk. It was soft, like silk, and yielding, like skin. It was ice cold. Finding this suddenly unsettling she practically ran out through the trailing branches to emerge on the other side.

Was this it? Endlessly pink skies and sugar dusted air? Lena walked for a while, following what appeared to be a brook, though it tasted like lightly sweetened wine, as it ran clear as glass over perfectly round indigo stones. The light had not changed. Seemed to not even have a source. There were no animals here. She had seen no other plants or trees. Giving up, she sat where she stopped.

Abruptly, her phone rang.

“Are you going to get that?” A voice came from behind her.

Lena stood and spun all in one movement, her hand plunging into her pocket for her forgotten phone. “Who..?” Lena stared dumbstruck at a creature that defied description. She, for the voice sounded feminine, seemed to be made of ink, light, and fog, perhaps not entirely in this realm.

“You may call me V’aa’la, as you will get no closer to my real name. We are the Noi, and we are all around you.” She swept her arm and an entire shadow civilization appeared around Lena, hundreds, if not thousands of Noi, a village, a forest. All as insubstantial as V’aa’la. “We are the protectors. When an Ur’du’nas reaches what you would call maturity a guardian is chosen. A companion. Evangelina, you were chosen by an Ur’du’nas. It brought you here.”

“It? What is an Ur’du’nas? What do you mean guardian? Where is here?” Lena demanded a bit hysterically.

V’aa’la responded serenely, “If you choose to stay the name of your Ur’du’nas will be known only to you. The Ur’du’na require a living being as a companion. It is necessary for their health, in return they store all the knowledge of the realms.”

Lena say where she fell. This couldn’t be real, but her heart beating its way from her chest told her differently. “If I choose to go?” She whispered.

“Your Ur’du’nas will wither and die. It has chosen you Evangelina. If you choose to stay you will become Noi and fully live within our realm. You have already met your Ur’du’nas.” Va’aa’la revealed softly.

All at once Lena was overcome by feelings of bliss and melancholy, the air tasted of spun sugar. An overwhelming longing rocked her and a visceral need to protect. When she looked up at the ethereal creature that called itself V’aa’la there were tears running down her face.

Lena’s cell phone rang again. She stared dumbly at it, it was Richard, her fiance.

“Richard?” She croaked.

“Oh my God, Lena! The Sheriff found your car on the highway with the seatbelt cut. We’ve been looking for you for 2 days. Are you okay? Where the hell are you?” He demanded.

“2 days? I’m fine Richard. I didn’t...I didn’t realize it had been so long.”

“Lena, when are you coming home?”

Lena squeezed her eyes closed, the deep realization that Richard no longer mattered settled over her, and she breathed, “I’m not.” Turning off her phone before he even had a chance to respond.

“Does anyone ever choose to go?” She asked V’aa’la.

“Many millennia ago someone chose to go. The Ur’du’nas whithered and died without the chosen companion. The knowledge it contained was also lost.”

Lena nodded, she’d accepted her choice. “What now?”

“Welcome home.” This time when V’aa’la waved her arm it was Lena who changed. The essence of who she was was pulled through the veil into that other realm. Suddenly the world on which she stood was full of trees of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There were thousands of Noi here, their bodies more substantial than the ink, light, and fog that V’aa’la had appeared to be, or they were just easier to see now that she was one of them. Dozens of faces smiled at her in welcome, and here, under a pink sky stained with purple, Lena had never felt more content.