DEMONitized

Chapter 10

It didn't take long for the hole's darkness to obscure the sky. Gwen had no way of knowing how long she'd been falling or even if such a fall would have an end. She wasn't sure she cared, though, because somewhere up there, in the place from whence she came - everything she knew and loved remained.

She wondered if the earthquake stopped after her jump - if it wrecked everything in its sight. If perhaps, the hole continued to expand and consume all things. She didn't know if the True God, whatever it was, had even separated itself from her being. 

On the other side of the coin, Bethany could have found her way home from the island. Maybe she struggled to make ends meet but raised her brothers as the parent they sorely needed. Maybe Michael Pitney kept his vineyard alive and found love again. Maybe Mrs. Holland woke up without a memory of anything, which frankly was preferable to her retaining knowledge of Arnold's murder, Lester's murder, or anyone else who may have fallen victim to Madelyn and Philip's evil designs.

Oh, how she wished to give Philip one last kick in the guts to show some solidarity with her new group of friends. And how cruel it was that they were all being separated so soon. Perhaps she'd get the chance again if this Dreamer God were so kind.

At some point during the freefall, Gwen felt her inertia change, as though she was now falling face-first instead of back-first. She was falling up instead of falling down. And soon, a pinhole of light appeared before her, getting bigger as she approached, signaling the end of one thing and the start of the next.

After the blinding light came a familiar seascape - a combination of her dreams and memories, it had the landmarks of the dunes she woke upon, but the sun was notably present this time. 

The wormhole released its grip, sending her speeding frighteningly fast toward the resort below. She could make out the umbrellas, the tables, the chairs. Waiters wandered the coast offering drinks. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two beachgoers relaxing in the shade of their cabana - a man with a floppy sunhat and a woman with blonde hair, dressed in nothing but her bikini and sunglasses. Gwen's trajectory zoomed in on the couple, and gravity did the rest of the work.

Gasping and startled, the woman in the bikini opened her eyes and lunged forward in her seat.

"Gwen? Is everything alright?"

She turned to her boyfriend, Scott, who had a ridiculous glob of sunscreen on his nose. 

"Are you alright? You look like a lifeguard at the local pool with that getup."

Scott chuckled. 

"You gave me your approval when we left the hotel!"

Rather than respond to his criticism, Gwen pulled her cell phone out of her bikini top and snapped a picture.

"Good evening, folks!" She read her photo caption aloud. "It's time for another edition of 'Is Scott Hot or Not?' Today's look: sunscreen and cargo shorts."

"You can't be serious," the obstinant boyfriend groaned. 

In an instant, Gwen's phone vibrated, and she opened up her FaceStagram app to check out her latest notifications. A new comment appeared under the picture - a set of laughing emojis from a random follower named Bethany.

"You need to bump up your follower account, dear. This post alone got me two more."

"And what does that put you at?"

"Almost three thousand!" 

Scott sighed and took a sip of his coconut drink. This inspired Gwen to lift her drink, only to find it empty. 

"Waiter!" She shouted, waving her glass about in a drunken stupor. 

A man in a hotel uniform approached with a pitcher of blue alcoholic slush. Gwen lowered her sunglasses to look at him. 

She couldn't place exactly where he was from, but something about his face spawned a scratching feeling against her brain. Indeed, she'd seen him somewhere before - but that was impossible since this was their first time vacationing on this particular island. 

Scott noticed his girlfriend's discomfort and asked, "Do you know him from somewhere?"

"It's funny," Gwen replied while rubbing her eyes. "I think I saw him in my dream before."

The waiter shrugged and refilled Scott's coconut. 

"Hey!" Scott joked, "I thought I was the man of your dreams!"

"Don't worry," Gwen laughed and lied. "I'm pretty sure you were in the dream too."

The couple smiled and clinked their coconuts together as the waiter scuttled off - presumably to do his job somewhere else.

At least, that is what one would expect their waiter to do. 

Once he was sure his guests' glasses were full, the man in the crisp white pants and button-down shirt wiped the salt off his nametag and wandered down a stony path off to the side of the main landing area. 

Philip crouched through the wild underbrush, eventually settling behind a large rock that his cohorts told him was once part of an ancient temple. 

The natives, having been wiped out by colonizers in the usual-yet-brutal fashion, left plenty of expensive mementos of their time in this place. Most prized of all was a waist-high statue that settled atop a pile of rubble. It had distinctly feminine features though most of its old-world charm had been done in by thousands of years of rain.

"What a fascinating statue!" 

"Do you think it used to have jewels for eyes?"

"Looks a bit fat, to be honest."

A group of young women wearing the same tee-shirt huddled around the artifact for a picture. One of them produced a selfie stick from her pocket and shouted to her friends, "Everyone smile and say 'DietProg!'"

"DietProg!" the gaggle of MLM-ers shrieked in unison. 

Philip was far too nervous to approach so many downline-hungry women at once. He was more scared of them than the True Gods' wrath.

The saleswomen continued to mingle around the ancient altar, laughing, live-streaming, and taking obnoxious pictures of the scenery. 

"Hey, huns!" One of the older women announced to her followers. "Want to look hot like this fine lady over here?"

She motioned to the statue, which one of the other women was goofing around with.

"Anything is possible with DietProg! I grew my salesforce so much this year I was able to take ten of my closest DietPals on a trip to this fabulous island! We are so totally one with nature right now!"

The rest of the women shouted 'yeahs' and 'woo-hoos' though none looked like they were "one with nature."

Then, predictably, one of the drunken doofuses knocked into the statue a bit too hard. Its head toppled to the ground, and she quickly scrambled to pick it up amid a chorus of 'noooo' and 'dumbass!' and 'you broke it!'

One by one, they scanned the statue to ensure it looked like they had never touched it. Philip, squeamish as ever, watched the whole thing unfold with great disgust. But his love of the True Gods and his fear of their anger kept him from interfering. 

"What if we do a group video?" Their fearless leader decided.

They clustered together again - some drinking to forget their mounting debts and others drinking to celebrate their DietProg Gold Member Status. But all of them repeated the company's motto in concert.

"DietProg made all our dreams come true! And it can do the same for you!"