In an Instant

In an instant you were gone. You slipped through the narrow space between door and door frame into a world impossibly large - a world of space and light and cold where everything was strange and nothing was familiar. In place of a comforting ceiling there was a fearsome dome of crystalline blue. In place of confining walls was the infinite, and the air was full of the din of a thousand sounds. Terrified, you flew. Voices called your name, but you could not find them. A cold breeze lifted you and you flew to the east. You passed over a forest until you came to a place where the trees gave way to a glittering oblong pad of ice. At the far end of the ice stood a Mountain. The wind coming off that Mountain caught your wings and lifted you far above the open, icy plain. Cold that you had never felt wrapped around you ever tighter and tighter, and the chill wind lifted you to the very edge of the sky. There, at the moment that feathers, bones, skin, flesh, and hot beating heart fell away, you found a crack in the cold blue dome and you passed through it. As you went, you looked back once more - with regret? - then turned and entered a land of soft golden light and you became one with the gentle, susurrous beating of countless wings. A never-ending song of peace, love and healing filled the air. And so it was that you were welcomed to the Land that always is, always was, and always shall be.