CW: Cults, sexual violence, gore, brief mentions of drug use.

Getting baptized wasn't exactly high on my to-do list, if it made it onto the list at all. Yet in the summer of 2025, at the behest of my grandmother, I found myself waist-deep in the murky river that flowed behind her church, roasting in the noonday sun and drowning in the thick air. Mine was the last baptism that day, with four others before me. Two were children who had grown up in the church, one was a vagrant who was just passing through, and the other was a recovering addict who the reverend and his wife were caring for.

Reverend Michael Reed towered over me by nearly a foot and a half, praying to the sky with a voice so deep and commanding that it could have rivaled the voice of God Himself. The congregation watched from the muddy shore and prayed along with him, their voices a chaotic cacophony of worship and praise. They could have easily drowned out a softer man, but Reverend Michael only prayed louder. At the very edge of the shore stood my grandmother, the only quiet person in the crowd. She smiled at me with a genuinely warm and loving grin that reached her eyes, so jarringly unlike the soulless half-grin, half-sneer she wore most of the time.

The reverend finished praying and turned to me. His features were strong and stern, but as he gazed at me, his face softened and his voice took on a more gentle cadence. "Young lady," he said as he put a weatherworn hand on my shoulder, "are you ready to change your life for good?"

I was hardly a wild child, even in my adolescence, and aside from attending church more often, I couldn't imagine how baptism could change my life. "Uh, yeah. I'm ready," I replied meekly.

"Christina Poole, do you renounce your sins and commit to your rebirth in Jesus Christ?"

"I do," I replied.

The reverend gave me a smile and nodded. I pinched my nose and squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the dunk. He firmly gripped my shoulder and wrist, and before I could take a breath, I was submerged a few inches under the water.

I expected to be pulled up immediately like all the baptisms before me, but I remained in the water for what felt like minutes. When I realized that I could no longer feel the reverend's hands on me, I started thrashing around trying to resurface, but my body stayed submerged. In a panic, I opened my eyes. Rather than the faint outline of the sun and Reverend Michael standing above me, I saw something I struggled to comprehend.

Before me, far off in the distance, was a mountain of what appeared to be white crystals jutting out from a rocky base surrounded by a sea of dark pine trees. The sky above it swirled with electrified green and black clouds. Despite the stormy sky, the crystals glistened in an unseen light that didn't touch the trees below. Atop the mountain stood a humanoid creature whose vague gray body swirled and churned like the clouds above. The creature lifted an arm and stretched it impossibly far, its gargantuan, open hand stopping only inches from my face, obscuring the rest of the world from my view.

Suddenly, I found myself above the water, gasping for air. The congregation cheered and cried. A few people got on their knees and shouted to the heavens. Others rolled around in the mud and spoke in tongues. They had enthusiastically celebrated the other baptisms, but for me, they spoke to the sky as if they expected God to come down from His throne and embrace me. Grandmother, on the other hand, remained quiet, simply smiling and nodding a job well done.

"Can you feel the blood of Christ coursing through your veins?" Reverend Michael asked. His words didn't register in my mind as I struggled to breathe. Between the fresh memory of the anomaly I had just witnessed and the animalistic celebration of the congregation, I became overwhelmed, unable to focus on anything but my uneven breathing.

"Christina!" the reverend shouted as she grabbed my shoulders. "Do you feel it?"

His grip snapped me out of my trance, and I began to sob. "Yes!" I cried, "I feel it!"

The congregation busied themselves in the meeting hall, preparing a grand potluck feast in our honor as we sat in the front right pew in the nave. Reverend Michael had prepared gifts for each of us: leather-bound Bibles and bags of Christ-centered literature, which he handed out one by one.

The two children in our group sat at the end of the pew closest to the center aisle, gleefully kicking their short legs and beaming brightly as they received their new Bibles. The other two adults looked more solemn, as if something troubled their minds. The recovering addict pulled her Bible close to her chest as soon as it touched her hands. A single tear raced down her cheek. The vagrant feigned a smile for the reverend and shook his hand after receiving his. He glanced at me and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I know how proud your grandmother is," Reverend Michael said as he handed me my Bible. "She's been talking about getting you baptized for years."

He was right. Grandmother ecstatically dragged me around the meeting hall before I had the chance to fix myself a plate, introducing me to people I had met maybe once or twice in my early childhood and gloating that she finally "saved my soul." They all had the same script. Oh, look at you, all grown up! I haven't seen you since you were knee-high to an ant! Oh, and you look just like your mama!

It took about an hour to free myself from Grandmother's grasp and break away to find the vagrant. He stood in the corner of the hall closest to the exit and observed the congregation as he ate a slice of cake.

"Hey," I said as I approached him.

"Hello," he replied, covering his mouth to conceal a wad of chewed food.

"I'm Christina."

"Rush," he replied, holding out his hand. I shook it, noting how calloused his hands were.

"You're not from around here, are you?" I asked.

Rush had slipped through the church's front door only a few seconds before service started and hastily took a seat in the back. His clothes were worn out, and his skin was rough from the elements and tanned from days spent walking in the unforgiving sun. He had with him a large yellow camping backpack with a bedroll strapped to the top and some cooking equipment hanging from the sides. Some of the congregation sneered at the sight of him. Others greeted him warmly with hearty handshakes and a cup of hot coffee from the meeting hall.

"Maine. I'm on my way to Miami to stay with some family. It'll be a good three weeks or so until I get there."

"Three weeks? But that's about a twelve-hour drive from here."

"Oh, I don't drive. I don't like cars or planes or any other vehicle for that matter. I walk everywhere. If humans were meant to drive, we would have been given wheels instead of legs."

I chuckled. Rush looked to be in his 30s, but his mindset reminded me of an old man I had once met who knew the world before cars took over and shared Rush's distrust in anything mechanical. "So why did you ask to be baptized here?"

"I'm not sure. I only came into the church to escape the heat, but when your reverend announced the baptisms, I felt a primal desire to be baptized as well." Rush stared at his now empty plate for a moment before adding, "Mind you, I'm not even a Christian. I come from a long line of atheists and agnostics. And you?"

"My grandmother's wanted me to get baptized since I was a baby. I finally caved when I moved down here."

"Did you feel any pull or desire to get baptized when you agreed to?"

"No, not really."

"Any strong religious ties?" he pressed further.

"None. I'm an Easter and Christmas sort of churchgoer."

"That is strange. And I assume by that panicked look on your face after the baptism that something happened when you were in the water." My stomach sank, and a sense of dread washed over me. Rush studied my face. "I saw it as well. As did the other girl, I suspect."

"The crystal mountain," I muttered.

"And the person standing on top of it," Rush finished my sentence.

"I thought I was hallucinating from a lack of oxygen."

"You were under the water for only a second or two, but it felt like forever, didn't it?"

I nodded and looked around. The two children who had been baptized sat at a table and played Pokémon while they ate. Mindless joy plastered their faces as they slammed their cards on the table. "Oh God, do you think those kids saw it, too?"

Rush shook his head. "At least, I hope not. They didn't look disturbed after their baptisms like we did."

"That other girl..."

"Anna, I think her name was."

We scanned the room for the recovering addict. She was towards the back wall, talking to the reverend and Mrs. Reed. "She looks fine," I observed. "All smiles now."

"There was something in her eyes after she came out of the water. And the way she cried in the church afterwards."

"Alright, so let's assume she saw it, too. What do we do? What do we make of it?"

"Maybe we saw God," Rush suggested. His words exacerbated that lingering feeling of dread. The notion that such an ominous being could be any form of God didn't sit right with me.

"I didn't get the feeling it was God," I replied, desperate to push the idea out of my mind.

"No, I didn't either," he agreed. "In any case, I'm not sure if there's much we can do unless something else happens." Rush threw his plate in a nearby trashcan and took his backpack from the coat rack next to the door. "Anyway, I'd better head out. I have a long journey ahead of me."

"You're not going to stick around?" I asked, shocked that he would leave so soon after what we had just experienced.

"I'd like to get to Miami before Halloween."

Before I had a chance to say anything else, Rush was out the door. I followed close behind. "Wait, do you have a phone?"

"I do," he replied, pulling a flip phone out of his pants pocket. "Nothing fancy."

"Take my number and just check in every once in a while. Please?"

"In case other odd things happen?"

"So that I know you're okay until you get to Miami."

He smiled and handed me his phone. "I'm not very good at texting," he said, "but I suppose I can learn."

Anna was the last person I met that day, although I knew more about her beforehand than I probably should have. Grandmother, who probably wore a scold's bridle in a past life, had told me of how she came to join the church in great detail.

Mrs. Reed had found Anna hunched over on the church stoop, overdosing on fentanyl-laced heroin. And Mrs. Reed, being a truly good and godly woman, always kept Narcan on her from her time as a pit mom in the local punk and metal scenes. She saved Anna that day, took her off the streets, got her into one of the best detox programs in the state, and made a deal with a motel owner close to the rehab center to house Anna at a lower rate while she transitioned to a normal life. In turn, Anna became fiercely loyal to the Reed family as well as a prominent member of the church.

She was nice enough. Shy and quiet around people she didn't know, namely me, but spirited and jovial around everyone else. I think Reverend Michael got it in his head that, being the two youngest adults in the church, we would become close friends. I doubt that would have happened even if things had gone differently, but I was friendly towards her when he introduced us and obliged when he asked me to give her a ride to her motel on my way home that night.

The start of our ride was quiet and awkward. The air was thick with the tension of two highly incompatible souls occupying an inescapable space. Aside from the robotic verbal directions from my phone's GPS and the low hum of the motor, the car was silent. Anna watched out the passenger side window with a faint smile and held tightly to the Bible on her lap. Her grip was so strong that her knuckles had turned white. I took a few glances at her, noting the stark contrast between the scratcher tattoos on her arms and the faded teal color in her hair with the loose, pastel colored modest clothing she had on.

"So," I began. Anna jumped, taken off guard by the sudden break in the silence. "You from around here?"

"I'm from Raleigh, originally," she replied. "How about you?"

"Philly," I said, tapping the Philadelphia Eagles air freshener clipped to one of the air vents. "My parents grew up around here. Grandmother convinced me to move in with her after I lost my job. It's a lot cheaper living in that big old house with her than in a little apartment up north."

Anna turned back to the window. The tension grew thicker.

"What made you want to get baptized at that church?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

"The people are nice and I like the preacher a lot," she replied. She looked down at her Bible and rubbed the gold lettering with her thumb.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Reverend Michael seems really sweet. Preachers usually freak me out, to be honest. But he seems different. Really down to earth and soft spoken when he talks to you one on one."

"He's kinda hot, too," Anna admitted with a sly grin.

"WOW. Okay." I was taken aback. It was true, he was a handsome man, at least for his age, but I didn't expect that kind of confession from a woman in her early 20s. "He's a little old for you, don't you think?"

"And a little too married," she added. "And despite my past, I respect him and Mrs. Reed too much to pry into their happy marriage."

The silence came back in full force. At that point, I wasn't sure I wanted to keep the conversation going.

Anna hung her head, seemingly ashamed of what she had said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to catch you off guard like that."

"It's all good," I replied, trying to sound nonchalant. "Is that why you really wanted to get baptized? Because the rev is hot?"

"No. I got baptized because I wanted to feel something. I've been chasing God for as long as I can remember. I've lost count of how many times I've 'gotten saved' or how many sins I've confessed, just hoping to feel God smile down on me."

"Well, did you feel anything?" I asked.

"No." She was quiet for a few seconds. She opened her mouth a few times, trying to find the words to say. Finally, she whispered, "I saw something."

"A mountain," I said immediately.

"Made of glass or crystals," she continued.

"And some kind of person on top?"

"He reached out to me."

"So you saw it, too." I let out a sigh of relief. I don't know why I felt better knowing we shared the experience, but something in my soul felt lighter at that moment. "The other guy who was baptized with us saw it, too."

"I think we saw God, Christina." Anna smiled ear to ear as she flipped through her Bible. "It was beautiful, wasn't it? The brilliant light that shone from the mountain even though the sun was hidden. That alone makes me believe we're the lucky few who were allowed to see God's true form before our time."

My skin tightened as goosebumps formed over my arms. "You're real quick to just accept that theory with no evidence to back it up."

"I know it in my heart. That being was God. He's proud of us, and He chose us for something greater than ourselves."

"Anna," I sighed. "I don't think that was G-"

"My parents were addicts," she cut me off. "Mommy dearest shot me up the first time when I was 10. Her own twisted form of family bonding, I guess, so I've been fighting this battle for most of my life."

"Jesus-fucking-Christ," I mumbled.

Anna gently smacked me on the arm with the back of her hand. "Watch your mouth."

"I'm sorry, it's just... damn, that's fucked up."

"It's all in the past. I'm clean, I'm saved, and I'm happier now than I've ever been. This is what I need. I found my faith, and my faith has found me. Whatever we saw, be it God or an angel or some other kind of messenger for the Lord, we saw it for a reason. I refuse to believe anything less."

I realized then that Anna was one of those people who followed faith blindly, and nothing I could say would change her mind.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I usually don't stay in one place for too long. Don't normally have the money for it. But the Reeds said they want to help me get on my feet. Now that I'm better, they're going to set me up in their guest house this week. They've got a job lined up for me at a grocery store near their home. Maybe by the end of the year I'll have enough saved up for my own apartment."

"That's good," I reassured her. "I know we only just met, but after everything you've told me, I'm proud of you. A lot of people in your situation don't make it to this point."

"My parents didn't."

"So now you've got to live your life for both yourself and them. Make it count."

"That's the plan."

A few miles passed with idle chitchat before we went quiet again. It took some time to notice, but this silence was silent. The GPS stopped talking. The motor stopped humming. Even the tires were silent against the pavement. I switched the radio on and cranked the volume all the way up, but nothing played. Looking at the GPS, I noticed the road names and numbers had been replaced with Xs and the road on the screen was nothing but a straight line.

Finally, I noticed the world outside the windshield and stopped the car. The stretch of highway we had been on was winding and heavily driven nearly every hour of the day, but just like the image on the screen, the road before us was entirely straight. Not a single vehicle passed us in either direction. There were no signs, either, not even mile markers. No exits or turns or a shoulder to pull over on, and something about the way things looked was just wrong.

The pine trees that followed the highway were flat and colorless, as was the grass. The vibrant wildflowers that grew in patches along the pavement were pale with black stems and leaves. And the sky... god, the sky. When I looked up, I saw nothing but flat white-gray, but in a moment, thick black clouds began to form that pulsated and shifted like a grotesque creature writhing in pain.

"Why'd you stop?" Anna asked.

Unable to find the words, I pointed a shaking finger at the windshield. Anna sat up, suddenly aware of the changes to our surroundings. "Wait, this area don't look familiar," she observed. "Where are we? Did you take a wrong exit?"

"I didn't take any exits," I replied. "We've been going in one direction for the past twenty minutes."

I grabbed my phone and zoomed out on the GPS. The highway showed one long, straight line in either direction. No exits or turns, no side roads, no buildings, just an unending stretch of pin-straight highway and a sea of trees beyond it.

The blue line of the GPS path urged us to turn around at an unseen turn, so I started driving again and made a U-turn in the middle of the highway, crossing over the grassy median.

"I don't think that was legal," Anna mumbled.

"Who's gonna stop me?" I asked. "There're no other cars on the road."

Anna looked behind us, inspecting the lack of traffic. "Oh, that's weird."

The line on the GPS now indicated that we were going the right way.

"Which way are we going?" Anna asked.

Like the GPS, the digital compass in my rearview mirror displayed Xs. "I'm not sure."

"The motel I'm staying at is south of the church, and since you've turned around, we should be heading north, right? So we should end up back at the church. Right?" Anna sounded scared, and frankly, so was I.

"Yeah, that sounds right. I probably did veer off onto an exit ramp when we were talking. We'll figure this out soon."

Miles flew by. The only change in scenery was the gradual increase in the number of trees that lined the highway until we found ourselves surrounded by the thickest forest I'd ever seen. Anna held her Bible to her chest and gently rocked back and forth, muttering a prayer under her breath. My foot got heavier with each passing minute until the speedometer hit 120.

Anna watched out the passenger-side window with wide, terrified eyes and began crying. "I saw someone!" she shrieked suddenly. "People! I saw people in the trees!"

I hit the brakes and jumped out of the car as soon as it came to a halt. Scanning the section of trees behind us, all I could make out were dots of white light shining between them. "There's no one there."

Anna got out and pointed out the lights. "Yes, there are. Right there. They're so pale."

"Anna that's not-" My words caught in my throat as I focused harder on the lights. They took on a strangely humanoid form the longer I stared, like torsos without limbs. Some of them were still, others swayed from side to side or peered out from around trees.

The longer I stared, the more of them I noticed. My gaze shifted from the far-off trees to the ones closer to us. There were hundreds of these pale beings staring at us with milky white eyes on either side of the road. "Get in the car," I choked. Anna obeyed without question.

The line on the GPS once again urged us to turn around. I ignored it, still stubbornly convinced we'd somehow end up on the highway where we started, and drove on.

"I'm gonna call Mrs. Reed," Anna said. She pulled out her phone, and I could tell from the erratic way she cycled through her contacts that something was wrong. "All the names are gone."

I glanced down at her phone for a moment. Xs. All Xs.

When I looked up, I slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel as hard as I could, causing us to drift within feet of what would have been our end.

The highway gave way to a sheer, crumbling drop that hadn't been there before I looked down. No guardrails or Jersey barriers to prevent a car from flying over the edge. I got out and peered over the drop. The bottom, if there was one, was completely out of sight. In its place lingered a swirling gray fog.

"I don't have reception," Anna called out from the car. "I can't even call 911."

The weight of the situation suddenly hit me and I fell to my knees as the energy drained from my body. The air was still and stale, like a sealed off room with no ventilation in the middle of a humid summer. More of those humanoids emerged along the tree line, silently observing us, slack-jawed and with impossibly wide white eyes. They whispered among themselves in breathy voices, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

Anna joined me outside the car and stared into the void below. She picked up a chunk of the crumbling blacktop and threw it into the fog. We stayed there for a few minutes before we went back to the car. We never heard the chunk hit the ground.

"I can drive if you're not up to it," Anna offered.

"Do you have your license?" I asked.

"No, but I still know how to drive. At least until we get back to the church." Her words, innocent and hopeful as they were, cut deeply. I felt nothing then except despair. Any hope I had of finding our way back to the church vanished when I nearly drove us off that cliff.

Reluctantly, I dragged myself back to the car and melted into the passenger's seat. I don't know how long we were on the road for before I fell asleep.

I awoke to Anna cursing and punching the steering wheel erratically. In my drowsy state, I couldn't quite make out what she was saying, but it was clear by her tone that she was furious and desperate. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and peered out the windshield. The car was stopped behind a line of hundreds of other vehicles. Beyond them, where the line began, was a wall of trees with a single opening and a wooden sign beside it.

"Where are we?" I asked as I sat up.

"I don't fucking know!" Anna cried. "I've been driving for hours. HOURS. I kept going straight, and when that led to nowhere, I tried turning around. I turned around and around and around and this is where we ended up. And then I turned around again, and a mile later we ended up here again! It makes no sense!"

"Nothing makes sense anymore." I looked around. The world was the same as it had been before I fell asleep. Gray, flat, and lifeless, although the tree line was pleasantly absent of humanoid shapes.

Fuggit, I muttered. I got out of the car and made my way towards the opening in the trees. At that moment, I didn't care where it led, be it my salvation or my doom. Deep down inside, I think I wanted it to be my doom. Death felt like the only way out of that nightmare.

"Where are you going?" Anna called out.

"Insane, I think."

"We don't know where that leads."

"We don't know where anything leads to in this hellscape. But it's worth taking a chance."

"Why?"

I slapped my hand against the dust covered roof of the nearest car. "Where there're cars, there're people. From the looks of it, there are a lot of people somewhere nearby."

I pressed on, not concerned whether Anna followed me or stayed behind, although I knew she would eventually follow. It took a minute, but I heard the sound of my car's door slam, followed by hurried footsteps close behind me.

I took note of the cars we passed. They were parked three, four, sometimes five across. Most were parked sloppily, as if they had come to a screeching halt. The vehicles closest to mine were relatively new. Modern models ranging from 2023 to the 2010s, with a few mid-2000s mixed into the bunch. But the farther we walked, the older the models got. From the 2000s to the 1950s and all the way down to the earliest models, even a few steampunk-esque models that I had never seen before. At some point, among the mid-century models, sat an M48 Patton. At the very beginning of the line was a slew of horse-drawn carriages and carts - minus the horses.

Anna ran her fingers along the body of a ragged covered wagon. The cloth covering was in tatters, revealing old chests and furniture inside. "I saw one of these in a book once. Back before I dropped out of school. The pioneers used them, right?"

"Yeah. It looks like the real deal, too."

The sign at the opening looked as old as the oldest carts. Carved into the ancient wood and painted over in faded black were the words NEW CANAAN 1 MI.

"I don't suppose this means we're in Connecticut," I said.

"I don't think we're even alive anymore," Anna replied, pulling her Bible to her chest for comfort.

I had entertained the idea that we had died somewhere out on the highway. Maybe it was an accident. We were caught between two tractor trailers when one of them experienced brake failure. Maybe it was murder; some crazed roadside sniper took us out with a single shot, leaving us two helpless, lost souls at the mercy of some unknown deity. My gut told me otherwise, that we were victims of some cosmic trickster dead set on keeping us in this miserable dimension for eternity as its personal playthings. The afterlife, I reasoned, would surely be more linear than whatever twisted purgatory we found ourselves in.

"Dead or alive," I replied, "we should just keep going."

"I'm afraid to," Anna whimpered.

"Fine," I said with a shrug. "Stay here. I probably won't be back."

Once again, I turned towards the opening and began down a well-worn dirt path. It took some time, but I heard Anna's frantic footsteps behind me.

As with the highway, the path was lined on both sides with dense pine trees. Looking up, I noticed that the tops of the trees bent inward towards the path, obscuring the sky and what little light that emanated from behind the churning clouds. Still, the path was illuminated enough to see where we were going.

The further we walked, the less I cared about where, if anywhere, we would end up. My fear turned to irritation with each step. I could see in Anna's face that she was still terrified. She kept her head on a swivel, checking all around us for more pale beings and occasionally looking ahead for a break in the trees. Behind us, the entrance to the woods shrank to the tiniest pinpoint of light until it was gone completely.

One mile, the sign read.

One mile should have taken us no more than 30 minutes to walk. The path was straight and clear. No roots or rocks to trip us up or slow us down. As it had been out on the highway, we kept going without an end to our journey in sight.

Anna brought up the media player on her phone, hoping music would cut through the painful monotony of trees and dirt. She swore under her breath when the names of songs and musicians were replaced with Xs.

"You know we don't have service out here," I reminded her.

"I have music stored on my phone," she replied. "My motel is a dead zone, so I can't always rely on streaming."

"Where'd you get the music from?" I asked, a sly grin creeping across my face.

"I have my sources." She shoved her phone back in her skirt pocket with a huff.

"Are they God-honoring sources?"

Anna stuck her tongue out and rolled her eyes.

"Filthy pirate!" I teased.

We walked on in silence for god knows how long. Hours? Days? At some point, I came to realize that I hadn't felt hunger or thirst since we left the church. By that time, I should have been keeling over with dizzy spells from hunger. And exhaustion. And pain from my choice of tennis shoes without arch support. Now that the novel shock of our situation was gone, I felt nothing but a pit in my soul filled only with resentment for whatever was responsible for our predicament.

One mile. We must have walked a hundred.

"I think this is a test," I said.

"God's testing us," Anna replied.

"Why would God do this to us? This feels more like the work of the Devil."

"It's like how He tested Job. He's testing our faith."

"You know, I never did like that story. It always felt out of place."

Anna shrugged and said, "I think it's beautiful. Job was truly righteous."

"No, I mean, how god went about making a deal or playing a game with the Devil. It just felt off to me. Really contradictory, when you think about it."

"God works in mysterious ways, Christina." I cringed at Anna's words. I always hated that saying. "We can't apply our logic to His choices. He's divine, and we aren't, and that's all there is to it."

I bit my tongue knowing that any argument I made would only be met with God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

"You're not a believer, are you?" she finally asked.

I shrugged and thought for a moment. "I go to church," I replied.

"But does it do anything for you?"

"Not really. I'm like you in a way. I've been trying to feel or know something, be it god or some other deity, but really I don't feel moved by anything.

"You should read your Bible more."

"I have. Cover to cover three times. The more I read it, the less conviction I feel."

"That's not how that's supposed to work," Anna snapped. She looked disgusted.

"I'm sorry, but the more I tried to know god's word, the less meaning it held for me. To tell you the truth, I found more meaning in The Lord of the Rings than I did in any holy text."

Anna stopped and stared at me. I should have lied, because admitting to my lack of faith seemed to break something in her. She looked betrayed, like I just told her I was sleeping with Reverend Reed.

"You're the reason this path has no end," she hissed.

"I really doubt that, Anna," I said softly.

"You need to repent." Her voice was low and shaky, and she looked at me now with a mix of fear, sadness, and anger.

"I've repented over and over. I've been saved three times, and now I'm baptized. If there is a god, I don't think I'm the problem here."

"You're in doubt, Christina! I know that until that changes, we'll be stuck here!"

"You feel that in your heart, Anna?"

"I do. I know it. You need to put aside your doubt and trust in Him!"

"I can't turn faith on like a light switch. That's not how faith works."

"Well I believe!" she shouted. She turned around and shouted it over and over again. "I believe, Lord! I believe!" She threw herself against a tree and violently tore at needles and limbs before finally throwing herself to the ground. "I BELIEVE! GOD HELP ME, I BELIEVE!"

Anna crumpled into a heaving mess on the ground, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed, muttering the name of her god in desperation. She was a small woman, shorter than me and probably weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, yet she terrified me. Still, I knelt beside her and placed a gentle hand on her back. "Come on, Anna. We're going to get out of here."

Suddenly, I felt a cool breeze on my bare arms. Anna looked up and cried out. The trees gave way to an opening a few yards behind me where there had once been nothing but miles of an unending path. A refreshing light penetrated the gray, filling me with the naive hope of a child.

Anna shot up and pushed past me, keen to escape our coniferous prison before it had the chance to close. She stopped just outside the opening, praying out loud at the glory of the sight before her.

The trees gave way to a massive clearing and a village nestled in the center of a valley. Wooden houses with thatched roofs dotted the land. They grew more dense in the center of the village, where they were built in a circle around a church that towered over all.

Our dirt path turned to cobblestones.

A single wooden sign beside the cobbles read NEW CANAAN 1M.