Professor Alexander was being rushed towards the temple.

“Explain to me again how she got in?” he asked the security guard who had alerted him to the disturbance in the temple ruins.

“Honestly Professor we have no idea.”

“She just appeared then, did she?” he did nothing to hide the contempt in his voice.

The security guard chose not to reply to the question. Which was the correct option. While still not quite at the building the two of them were now close enough to hear the woman chanting.

“Has she been doing that the whole time? What does she want?”

“We have no idea, no one understands her.”

Dr Alexander was exasperated by this. Why was he always surrounded by idiots? Leaving the security guard, he made his way through the rubble. In the main sanctuary he was met by a stunningly beautiful naked woman thumping her chest and undulating a chant.

“Ma’am, you really can’t be here. Especially without any clothes on.”

The woman stopped what she was doing and started to approach him making whistling and clicking noises in his direction as she did so. The woman was crazy, obviously, but there was something in her eyes which prevented Dr Alexander from speaking or moving from the spot. Somewhere deep behind her eyes was an unfathomable depth which Dr Alexander could not comprehend.

The woman continued to move towards him, fixing him with her look. She flowed over to him, an ethereal beauty, Dr Alexander could feel himself losing his will to her. When she was close enough, she poked him in the shoulder.

“Ow. How dare you.”

Surprise flowed over the woman’s features “Oh, you don’t speak Xteran.”

The statement brought Dr Alexander back to the real world. “No of course not. The Xterans were killed millennia ago and they had no formal language. They were savage barbarians.”

“Wow. That seems mighty revisionist.” Something in the woman had changed. She seemed more human now. Dr Alexander realised that there was nothing special about this woman, he had just been flustered by a beautiful crazy naked woman walking towards him. It was as if his fight or flight instincts hadn’t alerted him to the danger and he had just stood in the headlights as the car approached. He was a bit ashamed of himself. He took two subtle steps away from the woman.

“The Xterans were nothing more than savages which tried to destroy the Empire in its early days. If you join me, I can show you all of this in the visitor’s centre. I’m the Professor in charge of this archaeological site.” he spoke condescendingly down to her.

He started to lead the way out of the temple.

“Empire?” She hadn’t taken a step.

“The Lycronic Empire. They worshiped the God Lycron here.” He overcame his prudishness, picked up a filthy tarpaulin from the floor and wrapped the woman up in it. He put his arm around her with the aim of moving her out of the temple. She didn’t budge

“No that isn’t right. This Temple was built and dedicated to me by the Xterans. The Lycrons were the savages.”

OK the woman was not only crazy but also completely delusional. “Security!”

“OK. OK. No need for that.” The woman held her hands open indicating things should slow down. “Listen, I’m going to go but I need your thoughts on this. I came back to lead my worshippers to paradise but it seems that I overshot the deadline. Turns out building paradise takes a lot longer than you think. Anyway, ignoring that for a second, I have come back to find that my people have been removed from history and my temple converted to another God and then fallen into ruins. What should I do now?”

“Seek psychiatric or theological help. Security!”

“You’re right, thank you.” The woman turned from him and started to walk away, the tarpaulin fell from her shoulders baring her immaculate body once again.

“Hey. Stop right there.” The security guard had finally shown up, no doubt he had gone back to sleep, Professor Alexander made a note to himself to have the man removed from his position.

The woman’s aura returned, increasing to a dazzling brightness and then she was gone.

The Professor and the security guard stood alone for several moments in a stunned silence.

Finally the security guard managed to speak “Professor. What just happened? Where did she go?”

“I… I… don’t know. I think I need to re look into our knowledge of the Xterans and perhaps start praying.” All sense of prestige, authority, ego and hierarchy had fled from the Professor.