“It’s time to wake up,” I hear my father say.

Ugh… I don’t wanna…

“I’ve already let you sleep in fifteen minutes. You need to get breakfast.”

I reluctantly tear my eyes open and start getting into a sitting position. “Okay. I’ll be out in a minute,” I tell him. He closes the door.

Bleh. As if Mondays weren’t already bad enough, having to go on a mini adventure in the middle of the night wasn’t good for my sleep cycle. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except I kept myself up later than I should’ve by thinking about this Metaverse stuff. Not like I was really able to conclude much.

I look around my room. It doesn’t have a lot of furniture, just a bed and a desk with a computer on it, as well as a bunch of office supplies and a stack of cases for 3DS and DS games. There’s also a bookshelf against the back wall and books and clothes strewn all over the floor. I’ve never been much of a stickler for cleanliness.

Upon getting out of my bed, I find that my body is not happy with me for the events of the night… maybe I should stay home sick today. Anyways, either way I better go out and get some waffles.

As usual, Dad is sitting in the living room watching TV. My father honestly kind of looks like a “stereotypical therapist.” He has short, brown hair, is somewhat on the corpulent side, and has a pair of circular reading glasses. Anyways, as I’m heating up the waffles, I like to catch a couple of news stories.

Apparently there was a climate change demonstration in New York City yesterday. Cool.

Sierra Leone is on lockdown to stop the spread of Ebola. I’m glad I’m not there, that sounds horrible.

Wildfires in California are getting worse. I hope that gets resolved soon.

“So Anja… what were you doing in the middle of the night?” Dad asks me unexpectedly. “I heard your car start.”

Awh, shit! I’ve been caught! Well, I guess I better tell the truth- or part of it, at least.

“I… had to give one of my friends a ride home,” I answer, as I take my now finished waffles out.

“Really? At that hour?”

“Yeah. He, uh, went on a walk, and got lost.”

“It’s dangerous to be out walking around the town that late at night!”

I give a fake laugh. “Yeah, he, uh, makes pretty poor life decisions. But you know… I don’t have that many friends. So when one of them needs me… I want to be there for them.”

“Well, I certainly understand that. Just make sure that he knows to not put you in that situation again.”

“Oh trust me, I will,” I say while smothering my waffles with syrup. “I gave him an earful the whole way home…”

Ha! I did it! The powers of emotional manipulation pulled me through. I guess some of Mom’s politicking skills got passed down to me after all.

I arrive at the library to see that the others didn’t sleep any better than I did. Ashley looks visibly grouchy, but is still keeping herself awake enough to furiously fumble through a set of flash cards. Zoe is leaning on her shoulder, her eyes only half open. Nova is asleep on the floor, using his backpack as a pillow.

I take my seat across from Ashley. “So, we all made it here, somehow,” I say conversationally.

Ashley puts her flash cards down. “Yeah, somehow. Did you have any nightmares?”

“Uh, me? No,” I reply.

“Interesting… why was it just me then?” She asks nobody in particular.

“Well, I did have this one weird dream a couple nights ago. I was standing at the front of a boat, like that one scene in Titanic. Then, in the distance I saw these flying fish, and…”

“Let me explain why I asked you that,” Ashley cuts me off sharply. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a feeling that the nightmare I had last night was actually a sort of parting message from Moloch.”

“Oh really? What was it like?”

“I barely remember it. But I do remember that it started in that football stadium area. The one we stumbled across in Pavia’s palace. My brain may have just been recycling the imagery… but somehow, I don’t think so. Someone was standing over me, rambling at me. They looked like my mom, but it wasn’t really her… this person was clearly someone evil. It was mostly just a bunch of nonsense, honestly. I can’t really remember anything specific from it. But then, I saw these three little girls… and the other person said something about how they were going to go ‘terrorize easier targets’ or something, and that they would ‘be back for us later.’”

“Huh… that’s interesting,” I say. “If you’re right, and this was some sort of weird message from Moloch… that would imply that we’re not the only ones. There may be another team out there also trying to work against him.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Ashley says, shrugging. “I’ll have to ask Lucy about that when I get a chance. I would do it now, but...”

“Don’t want to end up back in Tentacle Rape Forest,” I finish for her.

At these words, Zoe’s eyes suddenly fly open. “Wh- what… Did you say?” She asks, a look of utter horror on her face.

“We’ve discovered that there’s a palace right here at the school,” Ashley explains to her. “So obviously, we can’t enter the Metaverse here willy nilly.”

“That’s horrible… who could it belong to?” Zoe wonders.

“We have no idea,” Ashley tells her. “We really should go through it at some point, but I think it’d be a good idea to learn about who it belongs to first.”

“Eh, I dunno,” I say. “We kinda just went gung-ho into Pavia’s, and it all worked out in the end.”

“Well yeah, after we almost died,” Ashley retorts. “I don’t advise that we repeat that process again. I think that learning about who the palace belongs to, and how they view the world, can give us a pre-emptive idea about what challenges will face us inside.”

“Hmm… maybe,” I say. “Do you think that the way a person thinks affects how their palace is?”

“I do. Think back to Pavia’s palace,” Ashley explains. “Looking back on it now, there are two overall themes I notice. First, it was designed to make us feel really small in comparison to everything else, especially the judge himself. This is likely representative of Pavia’s mindset at the time, that he was the sole arbiter of justice whose will should override that of anyone else. Second, the palace seemed designed to sort us by skill, in a sense. It let Ted and I through the opening chamber while trapping you two there, showing that, for some reason or another, it favored us. Then, at the end of it, we literally had to directly compete with one another. This makes perfect sense if you take Pavia’s Calvinist worldview into consideration.”

“Yeah… that kind of makes sense when you put it like that,” I admit. “And if we had taken the time to learn more about the guy going into it, we may have been able to recognize patterns like that sooner.”

“Yes, exactly. And on that note… I have a theory.”

“Do tell!”

“I think that what happened to the Baptist church is a palace as well, just one of a different sort. It appears differently because it’s not just the palace of one person; it’s the palace of the whole community.”

“Wow, interesting theory. That would explain those weird pools we found.”

“Indeed. And thankfully, Zoe’s whole situation has given us some idea of how the church will act when it’s under pressure. They all seem intent on keeping the status quo, even when doing so defies all logic. In addition, they all seem to look after their own, until ‘their own’ challenges said status quo. Based on the testimony of my parents, the others in the church are overwhelmingly siding with Zoe’s parents on the issue, even though they’re literally having to make shit up to look better.”

“Ah, okay. So, bearing that in mind, what do you think the palace will be like?” I ask her.

She thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe like… zombies. You know, everyone just doing their thing mindlessly.”

“Yeah, maybe. I was thinking… it’s almost sort of like the military,” I suggest. “It’s all just about following orders… don’t ask any questions, just listen to your superiors. Any deviation from the norm will be harshly punished. After all… Isn’t that just what religion is?”

Ashley gives me a stern look for this. “That’s never what it was intended to be… but unfortunately, it seems like it often ends up that way,” she admits begrudgingly. “The lesson here is, organized religion can be just as much of an idol as anything else in the world. If a community becomes toxic, it will serve as a block between us and our true purpose. Trust me, I have some choice words to say about my old church… But I’ll save it for when we’re in the palace.”

“Oh wow. Got a whole speech prepared, do you? Do you want me to make one too?”

“Eh. I’ll let you do the next one.”

Ashley glances at Nova, who’s still fast asleep on the floor. “Well, we’ll probably have to re-explain all of that to these two, unfortunately,” she laments.

“Wha… No, I was paying attention,” Zoe says unconvincingly. But I know better… I saw her fall back asleep while we were talking about palaces.

Time for a Human Geo quiz again. It couldn’t have possibly been on a worse day, but whatever. I don’t get to pick when I randomly get supernaturally assaulted.

Diana is now pretending that I don’t exist, which is perfectly fine with me. That said, my studying is still interrupted by someone who I wish didn’t exist…

“Hey Aaashley. Can I borrow your cards?” Mason says to me tauntingly. “I need your cards, Ashley.”

“I’m not in the mood today,” I tell him bluntly.

“You’re never in the mood,” he says, sneering at me.

I’m in the middle of thinking of some horrifyingly violent threat I can tell him, but before I can, he starts speaking again.

“Hey… I didn’t know about you and Zoe when I asked her to the dance,” he told me. “Just wanted to make sure you knew that since you seem to be the possessive type.”

“Yeah, I really don’t care,” I tell him, trying to block him out so I can get back to reviewing.

“I just… hope there’s no bad blood between us,” he says. “I mean, between Zoe and I. I know there’s bad blood between us, because you’re a total bitch. It’s inevitable.”

And the quizzes are being handed out, which means that asshole cost me my last minute of studying time. What was that about? Was that his idea of an apology or something?