The first thing I noticed was the linens. As consciousness slipped back into my tired brain, my fingers were the first to awaken and they had the happy report of being surrounded by linen. My back and legs then explained that I was comfortably supported on a mattress, while my neck noticed that it rested upon a down pillow. Before my eyes could break past the barrier of sleep, a smile perked up my lips and a sigh of contentment released the strain of what was certainly my most interesting dream in a long time. Not quite as weird as some. It still was no race through a building that would make Escher proud, while being chased by a mime and his attack duck the size of an elephant, but the sense of reality in this dream definitely put it in the top ten weird dreams of my life.

I stretched my arms and enjoyed a nice deep yawn, before I opened my eyes to welcome the morning.

"Ay, you're awake now. Brother superior will be happy. So happy. You've got work. Lots of work. More work than Nadine."

At the foot of my bed sat a young woman that barely looked 20. She had a mane of curly flyaway hair that she attempted to tame with a piece of twine in the form of a hair tie. Her face looked small in comparison, with tiny pink lips, a button nose, and remarkably thin eye brows. However, her eyes matched her curls as they were just as large and full of life. Her bright blues danced with the reflection of a flickering flame somewhere to the side of me. Not only did I not know this young woman, but I also did not have a fireplace.

"Shit," I cried as I pulled the sheets over my head, which I then realized was topped with a heavy fur rather than my grandmother's quilt.

"No, no, Ms. Heart, you need to wake up now. Brother superior needs you. All of us need you."

The ruthless young lady then took the edge of the sheet and yanked it completely off the bed. I curled straight into a fetal position, but a remarkably tight grip took hold of my wrist and lurched me to the edge, nearly pulling me right off and onto the stone floor.

"Come now Ms. Heart. You need to be going." She punctuated her request with a couple more tugs of my arm, which weren't enough to pull me off, but they were enough to send a couple unpleasant spasms through my shoulder.

"My name is not Heart," I replied, pulling my hand from hers and taking a seat at the edge of the bed. "My name is Tessa Bennett and I'm having a really bad day."

Now that I at least gave the impression of forward motion, the young woman no longer sought out my wrist and instead let me sit peacefully as I shook the strain from my body and sleep from my eyes.

"Sorry Ms. Heart, that's what brother superior calls you so I took it."

"My name isn't..." I paused and took a deep breath. "What is your name?"

"Nadine!" She smiled and her hair swayed through the air with the little bounce of excitement that overtook her.

"Nadine, where am I?"

She may have been a simplistic girl, but she exuded an innocence that made it seem impossible for her to lie. She appeared to be the perfect source to get the straightforward answers I needed.

"The Temple of Breydar's Gate."

That is what Marden said. So their stories matched so far.

"What is Breydar's Gate?"

At this one she paused for a moment, her face going blank and loose. After just a moment though, electricity zapped through her again and she answered with a smile.

"Breydar knew the Sun and Moon wanted him dead so he made a gate. He asked his servants to hide him away in a place next door to our own. A place where the Sun and Moon do not know his name."

"What place is that?"

"Your place." She looked a bit confused at my admittance of not knowing that, but I ignored it and continued.

"Do many people like me come through the gate?"

"Oh no," said Nadine with a laugh. "You're the first since the Tearing. King Delayne and brother superior have been waiting for you for a long time."

"How old are the king and Marden?"

"Oh I don't know, they're both older than me, but the king isn't by much."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen!" Again she smiled and bounced with excitement. Admittedly it'd been a good eight years since I was nineteen, but my memory of that age wasn't quite so bubbly. She struck me as a twelve-year-old trapped in a nineteen-year-old's body. And quite frankly that was being generous. Honestly, she could have been seven.

"So they haven't been searching for that long."

"Well, people looked for Breydar after the Tearing, but we wouldn't allow it. Then there'd been hundreds serving this temple. A whole army kept the enemies of Breydar away. Then they stopped coming. No one wished harm no more. That was thousands of years ago. Now just the four of us watch the gate. Only the famine and the plague worry the king so he's been waiting every new moon. Until then the gate had been sealed."

"And nothing's come out?"

"Come I'll show you." With that she extended her hand and before I could take her offer, she snatched my wrist again and yanked me off the bed. Stumbling forward, I struggled to keep up with her pace. Fortunately we only went down one hall which was opened to the outside, now lit with a warm morning sun. Dew glistened off the vast field of grass and glittered in the dawn. It was beautiful.

"This way." I didn't have much time to admire the ocean of green, at the end of the corridor, we turned back into the temple and there we entered a great hall with towering ceilings held up by stone columns painted with some story that was marred by the cracks of age.

"Here's our collection. I asked brother superior if we could share. People would enjoy this, but he said the sun and moon may learn and so we are still alone."

As she talked with a heavy weight of remorse in her voice, I wandered down the hall and admired the roughly hewn display cases. Inside were crushed soda cans, cigarette butts, and a sock. There was a moldy, half-eaten sandwich and a pamphlet on some religion. There was an empty bag from a burger joint not far from my apartment. There was, essentially, an array of trash that anyone could find at my city's park on any given day.

"This..." I began, not sure what to make of it.

"Is from your world," answered a rich male voice.

"I just don't..."

"Understand? Yes, I can imagine. I know it sounds like the simplest request to make, but it is the hardest to do. But, I need you to just believe in what I say."

"That I'm from another world, another dimension." I turned to find Marden standing there with Jendi, Haven, and Nadine huddled together behind him.

"Yes, but not only that. But, you must believe our history." Marden stepped towards one of the pillars, his fingers tracing the faded drawings upon it. "You must believe in Breydar. The god of our planet. Our creator and our friend. A god torn apart by the jealous gods of the sun and moon." He then turned his eyes from the pillar and looked unto me with a stare that forced my eyes to turn from his. "Do you not wonder why you understand me?"

"I don't really understand you. That's the point," I said with a laugh.

"I mean, my language, my words. That you understand."

"Yeah, you're speaking English." I wanted to roll my eyes, but something in me started to awaken and a recognition, a realization, started to find a spark of life.

"No, I'm not," he answered with a shake of his head. "I'm speaking Breydanese. The common language of the children of Breydar."

"Apparently, it's a lot like English because I understand you fine." I try to laugh it off, but that little voice of reality coaxed my ears to really listen and his words, even my words carried a tone of foreignness even though I understood them completely.

"You know our language because you made our language. Breydar made our language," he stepped forward with his hands spreading out before him. I instead recoiled, stumbling back so that I knocked into a display with a wad of gum and a set of keys.

"What are you..."

"When they tore Breydar apart, they could not kill him because his soul was missing. He knew the plot against him so he threw his soul through the gate and his followers were enlisted to protect it. For thousands of years the sun and moon thought him long gone, but they cannot see us on a new moon. So King Delayne requested we now open the gate once more to find his soul."

"You don't mean, that...that I'm his soul."

"No, you are not." He clasped his hands together, giving his words a firm finality. I felt both relieved, and oddly disappointed. He then continued. "You and the other woman are his soul."

"Pardon me?"

"I've always believed two parts of him fell into the well that day. One was his mind, the other his heart. The two of you are the reincarnations of those parts of him."

"Ms. Heart," I mumbled, looking to Nadine.

"That's why we need you to find the other parts of him. Or else our planet will die."

No pressure or anything, I thought.