Car ride.

Cecilia remembered being in the backseat of her dad's car, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what had transpired between then and now that had landed her in her old Church. She scrunched up her face, thinking hard about it, but the memory completely slipped her mind. The harder she thought, the less she could remember. "Maybe I only dreamed I was in the car.."

She shook the thoughts off and figured she might as well explore. She hadn't been here since she was a few years younger, but she had spent a lot of time here then. She glanced around. It was completely empty, and the sunlight illuminated the whole building with colors from the stained glass windows decorated with saints in colorful garments that lined the walls. Nothing had changed since the last time she had been here, even the bright red carpet in the center of the aisle was the same.

A door off to the side, next to the stairs to the choir loft grabbed her attention. It was old and heavy, with vines growing all over it. "A strange thing to have in a church.. It looks ancient, but it certainly wasn't there before.." Cecilia mumbled, turning the knob slowly. First, there was complete darkness. Then the whole thing lit up with a click, revealing the longest set of stairs she had ever seen, leading down.

She started down timidly, and realized that after one or two steps she was at the bottom. She squinted back behind her, and to her confusion, the stairway was still unbelievably long. She shook her head and walked further into the room, which was lined with gigantic bookshelves on every side. She grabbed a book at random and flipped through the soft white pages. She expected it to be a Bible or some other Holy book, but instead it was a book filled with pictures of stars and moons and planets. She put it back and examined the one next to it, and the one next to that, and so on. They were all either about space, or they were cookbooks written entirely in what she guessed was Italian.

She turned around, and discovered the room had changed itself. the bookshelves were gone, and now there was a small altar in the front of the room, opposite the stairs. She stumbled towards it. There was a small round window with light flowing through it behind the altar, yet she was so sure she was in the basement of the church. On the altar sat a large book that looked nearly as ancient as the door she had gone through to get down here. She hopped onto the altar, crossing herself first. She expected it to be a Bible, or another Italian book, but instead she instantly recognized words from Alice in Wonderland, a book which she had read at least five times. Cecilia walked awkwardly away from the book and back up the stairs to the Church. "Nothing can surprise me now.."

Except for what she saw when she made it back up. "What the he-..?" She furrowed her brows, perplexed by this sight. The pews of the church were gone, and now there was nothing covering the floor but the vivid red carpet. The stained glass windows were gone, and the walls were painted to look like a night sky. She gazed upwards, the ceiling was painted this way too.. except it didn't look like it was painted. It looked like there were real stars on the ceiling, like the ceiling wasn't even a ceiling, but an endless space.

"Deep.. darkness.. silence.. token.. Lenore.."

Cecilia's attention snapped from the ceiling, towards the area where the altar should have been. She heard words in the distance, but there was no one else in the building with her, just a marble statue of a man from the beginning of his waste up. She felt something tugging her towards the bust, so she ran to it, choosing not to be pulled.

It was moving, talking.

The marble statue was waving it's hands around, reciting The Raven dramatically, with a soft spotlight on it. She stood there stupidly, her mouth hanging open as it spoke,

"Prophet!" said I, "Thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore,

Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

It took her a second to recuperate as the statue finished. He was shirtless, and had curly hair, and blank eyes, as most marble sculptures do. When the poem was done, it went motionless again, and the spotlight went away, taking any light in the room with it. She closed her eyes for a second, then reopened them when she heard a crack of thunder.

The windows were there again, and it was still broad daylight, yet she kept hearing the thunder. She blinked a few more times, and each time she reopened her eyes, something would appear. Pews. The altar. People.

She slipped into a pew, next to a elderly woman, hoping she wasn't disturbing the mass going on. Until she realized, the priest at the altar was the marble bust of the young man, wearing a robe. She wasn't startled, however. Not startled until she glanced around the room, at the people. They were blank. Not responding, not singing, just sitting there with wide, black eyes and with their jaws hanging open.

Cecilia's heart was beating a mile a minute out of fear of these people. She got up and slinked away towards the back of the church. The people all turned their heads toward her, their faces now blank, in the literal sense. They had no faces.

"Rise!"

The marble commanded.

And so they rose.

"After her!"

And so they ran.

Cecilia screamed, but no noise came out of her. She ran out of the church, and down the church steps, and kept running and running until she came across a car. Hopping in the backseat, a driver appeared and started driving, taking her further away from the church. "Thank you so much." she said courteously.

The driver turned his head around slowly. He was the marble man from the church.

"Ceci! We're here." he said, sounding an awful lot like her father. She felt herself black out, but still heard the man say her name.

She opened her eyes and breathed heavily. She felt sweaty and dazed. She was in her own car now, and her dad was driving. Her mom was in the passenger seat in front of her. She looked briefly out the window, it was pouring out.

"You awake?" her father asked her, parking the car in their driveway.

"Yeah.." she answered breathlessly, thankful that that was a dream. A really bizarre dream.

{I don't know what I must have eaten last night, but a bunch of this was from a dream I had. The weird part was, I was completely at peace through the whole thing, wondering at the strangeness of it all. Of course, I added a lot onto the dream for the story. If you were puzzled while reading this, good. It's not supposed to make any sense. Please review. I need pointers on how to make my writing style less jumbled and boring.}

- Caitlin