The Curate

I was more than happy to listen to Serric's advice to go take a swim. I had been wearing the same clothes for days now, and after today's marathon, they were beyond filthy. I walked down to the shore and removed my shoes and socks, entering into the water until I was shoulder deep. I only had to walk in about twenty feet, since the water deepened very quickly. Swimming in jeans wasn't something I was happy with, but it's not like I could just take off my pants in front of Rowan. I'm a modest man, after all.

"Hey Serric, how the hell do you expect me to swim in the lake when I can't even move?" Rowan yelled.

"Oh. Good point." I swear I heard Serric mutter.

Rowan was lying on the beach, still entirely drained of energy. She probably only needed to use a few minutes worth in order to kill that Radical, but I guess she really wanted that guy dead. Talk about overkill. Because of that, she was still stuck like this for a couple days.

Or at least I thought so.

"Oh, Damn it all, that's it. To hell with efficiency!" She shouted. And then she stood up, just like that. No trace of the utter exhaustion she had displayed a mere second ago.

She then proceeded to strip right down to her undergarments, running down the beach and taking a massive leap into the lake. She jumped the full twenty feet from the shore to the same distance out as I was, generating a colossal splash.

I guess modesty wasn't a particularly noteworthy concern of hers.

While under other circumstances I might've savored the sight, I was more confused as to why I had just carried this girl possibly more than a hundred miles over the last several hours when she could apparently move this entire time.

After she resurfaced, I started splashing her with water using both hands, a childish but undeniably clear way of displaying my displeasure.

"You had me carry you and support you with magic this whole time, when you could've been running yourself! Are you serious?"

"Of course not, dumbass. I'm just pulling in energy from even further in the future. I wanna swim."

"Well if you could've done this the whole time, why didn't you do it while we were running from potential Radical reinforcements and a giant creepy demon eye?"

"A lower being such as yourself could never understand my motivations."

"Try me."

"Alright, I lied, you probably can understand. The further into the future I pull energy from, the less efficient the process is. The amount of energy I get pretty much halves every day into the future I go. Pulling a couple days into the future means I would only be getting like a quarter of future me's energy. So obviously, using it to run with you guys was out of the question. I'd use, like, a whole week's energy keeping up with you guys, since I can't use body reinforcement."

To my surprise, that actually made sense. Except...

"So why the hell are you using it to take a bath?"

"I'm dirty! I wanted to swim!"

This girl was incomprehensible.

I took off my T-shirt and wrung it out several times until it looked nice and clean. I did the same to my hoodie, and then my jeans. Modesty be damned! I also went back to the shore and grabbed my socks and shoes, washing them off as well. God, I had been wearing the same socks for three days... They might be a violation of the Geneva Convention at this point.

Wait, what the hell is a Geneva Convention? That just slipped out.

Maybe it was something from my old world.

I checked my memory again, finding that I had forgotten even more. Basically everything, actually. I still felt like me, but I couldn't remember any particular details from my old life, or... what was it called? The Earth, yeah, that's it. Now that I thought about it, this is kinda like dreaming sometimes is, isn't it? I'm still me, but I'm living a totally different life without knowing anything about what my other life is. I still have common sense and knowledge, but nothing personal, and no real details of the world.

I kind of liked it, actually. I felt free, I guess. Untethered. Hasta la vista, old me!

Rowan followed my lead, grabbing her clothes and wringing them out. I was curious if Gloria would take a swim as well, but she had instead pulled out a beach chair and sunglasses from god knows where, and in her simple khakis and T-shirt, looked no different from a woman on a relaxing beach vacation.

We all did, actually. I found it hard to believe we had been attacked with intent to kill just this morning.

It was good to know Gloria had a sense of humor, since she was obviously messing around just like we were. She even had an umbrella over her chair, and was sipping from a glass of lemonade. Where the hell was she getting this stuff? I could certainly go for some lemonade as well right now. I'd have to ask her for some later.

Serric, meanwhile, was still standing at the doors. I watched for a couple moments, until the doors finally opened up, just enough for him to slip inside.

After about 10 minutes of swimming and horsing around with Rowan, I got out of the lake.  Rowan reluctantly followed suit, as she was having a great deal of fun swimming around at high speeds, doing flips out of the water like a dolphin, and playing Marco Polo with me.

"That was 100% worth the hour of energy I used." She loudly stated.

I was inclined to agree. I had a lot of fun.

I felt super refreshed, too. I wondered if I had ever done anything like this back in my old world. If I did, I didn't remember.

Looking back out at the lake, I thought I saw some shapes poking up out of the water several hundred feet out, leaving me wondering what sorts of monsters could be lurking in there.

My thoughts of sea monsters were interrupted, though, when the tower doors opened once more. 

This time, though, I could see who opened them.

The person standing in the entrance had, with a single push of their bare hands, opened both of the titanic doors, which gracefully swung wide open.

This could only be the Curate that Serric spoke of.

They were androgynous in appearance, and inhumanly attractive. Pale skin, deep, thoughtful golden eyes, long curly platinum hair that shimmered like the tower itself. Their face was perfectly moderate in its structure and features, but radiated beauty and intensity. They were quite tall, and wore a flowing, silky white toga, contributing to their atmosphere of absolute regality, as well as two crystal earrings. Most striking of all, though, was a halo, floating a few inches above their head. It glowed the same color as their eyes, and looked vaguely similar to the rings around a black hole. In fact, it even warped space in a short area around it as well.

In essence, they had an overwhelming presence that demanded respect and reverence.

"Come. I wish to speak with you."