Trying to make heaven somewhat more attractive ^^

The hotel was a pleasant one, but not excessively luxurious, located near the centre of Damascus, within walking distance of the embassy quarters. The driver assured her she would provide her with a car whenever she needed one, but they both knew Chan would prefer to operate alone. The heart of Damascus' millenia-old city, recently proclaimed the cultural capital of the Arab world, would make for pleasant strolls, in any case. Though Chan was here to work, she was not entirely insensitive to the charms of foreign architecture, culture and history.

Besides, if she was to understand the Syrians, she would need to experience their country, their knowledge, their modes of thought, their way of life. The Dear Leader, back home in Korea, wisely insulated the common people from knowledge of the outside world, but an Intelligence operative such as herself was an obvious exception.

The driver left her outside the hotel, and Chan wasted no time in checking in, addressing the staff in near-fluent French. She made her way up to her room, wondering how long she would have to wait before she was provided with final instructions for her duties.

She needn't have wondered. As her door clicked and she pushed it open, stepping into pleasant, air-conditioned accomodations, something told her there was someone already in the room. She paused, in the doorway, her mind switching to instincts honed by years of training.

There was no point in remaining silent. The intruder would have heard the door. Instead, leaving it open behind her, she called out in French: "Who's there?"

The reply came in Korean. The voice was feminine, and strangely soft, with a warmth Chan was unaccustomed to.

"Come in, Mrs. Lee. And don't be afraid."

This was unusual, but Chan was no stranger to the unusual. She had faced death, and inflicted it, on a number of occasions. Thus she was alert, but calm, as she walked into the main section of her hotel room.

Years of preparation could not have readied for what she saw then, as the intruder faced her with an eerily gentle smile. The woman was Korean –or at least looked it–, dressed neatly in pure white. She wore the badge of loyalty to the Great Leader on her chest, identifying her as a compatriot, but her very being seemed to emanate a warm, radiant glow. The softness of her skin, her face, had an almost ethereal quality, and her brown eyes shone with incomparable kindness. Chan stopped, gazing at her, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing. For several long seconds, she was disconterted, faced with an experience which her rational mind could not account for.

"I mean you no harm," the woman said, softly. The goodness in her voice was such that Chan felt the yearning urge to trust her. Yet she remained cautious.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a psychopomp," the woman said, gently. "An angel of death. I appear to the souls of those who have died, to lead them to the next stage of their existence."

Chan processed that, her face remarkably calm. "You're telling me I'm dead."

"Yes." The stranger's expression was gentle, compassionate, but devoid of sorrow.

"That's not possible," the spy said, bluntly. "Who are you really?"

The woman smiled. "This is going to be particularly difficult for you to accept. Will you allow me to explain?" She gestured at the comfortable armchairs, cornering a low table and facing a television screen.

Chan nodded, curtly, and they sat, facing each other. "If I'm not satisfied with your explanation, I can make you talk," she warned.

The angel merely smiled. "Listen, Mrs. Lee. And then I'll answer any questions you may have." Chan nodded again, and the stranger began: "You remember boarding a plane from Paris to Damascus, under orders from your superiors to carry out an assignment here." Chan's eyes fixed her, the human make no comment. "Your plane never landed. It encountered a dimensional disturbance above the Mediterranean, and was swept into a world called Felarya. There, it crashed. You survived, along with most of the passengers and crew. You were in a jungle, and you volunteered to explore it, to help your fellow survivors – to chart the way ahead. You–"

"I–" Chan opened her mouth, hesitant, a look of confusion on her face.

"Yes?" the angel encouraged her, ever so gently.

"I… remember that," she said, slowly. "The memories are coming to me." She frowned, puzzling over what she was experiencing. "Have you done something to my mind? Have I been drugged?"

"You haven't been drugged." The angel's incomparably kind eyes searched her face. "What do you remember?"

"There was a man… Dmitri… Russian… He was caught… in a giant spider's web." Chan spoke slowly, the memories swimming back into focus. She spoke them as they came, struggling against disbelief. "I tried to save him, but he died."

"Yes," the angel said, gently. "Then you were captured, too…"

"A flying creature… It brought me to some giant beings, half-snake and half-woman. One of them was called Crisis. She…"

"Yes?"

"She force-fed me to another of the snake-women, called Anna." Chan repressed a little shiver. "I remember being… swallowed. Pushed down into darkness, by her throat muscles, so strong… She didn't want to eat me, but she was forced to swallow."

"That's right." The luminous woman smiled, softly. "You died in Anna's stomach, Chan. She digested you, dissolving your body to nourish hers."

Chan frowned. "That's not possible!"

"Why?"

"Because…"

"Because you don't believe in an afterlife?"

"Because it's absurd! There are no giant, man-eating, half-animal women! These are memories you've somehow implanted in me." She paused, something clicking in her mind. "The plane… I woke up disoriented on the plane. That's when you did it. You had someone there, who drugged me." She scowled, fierce. "Why?"

"If these memories were false, created, implanted… Why would anyone have made them so difficult for you to accept?"

Chan considered that. Her mind had been indoctrinated through her upbringing, but she had received more of an education than most of her compatriots, and she was not stupid. Faced with the unknown, she did not dismiss even the implausible out of hand.

"If I were dead, I would not be able to think, or speak," she said at last. "There is nothing after death. The mind is tied to the body. If my body had been dissolved and passed through some creature's digestive system… Then there would be nothing left of me. No conscious thought."

"You're wrong," the angel said, gently. "And that's why you're here."

"Explain."

"What you experienced on that aircraft, waking up disoriented, was your mind reawakening after death. Because you've never believed in an afterlife, and you rejected the very possibility of its existence, your mind projected you into a continuation of your life. You were back on the plane, and landing in Syria, as you would have done if you'd never visited Felarya… and if you hadn't died there."

Chan absorbed that, too, considering it carefully, examining the likelihood and logic of the bizarre explanation.

"So all this is a construct of my mind?" she asked, finally, and tapped her fingers against the arm of her armchair. "None of it is real?"

"It has no reality in the physical sense."

"What about you?"

The angel smiled. "I'm real enough."

"And the loyalty badge on your chest?" she asked, her tone hostile.

"I adapt my appearance to the people I visit. If those people have religious beliefs, I adapt my form to what they would expect to see. In your case, you believe in the political leadership of the society you grew up in–"

"All right," Chan cut her off, frowning. The implications of that were disturbing – if there was any truth in them. She would consider them later. "So what happens now? Am I trapped in… in a mental construct of what I imagine Damascus to be like? Is this the afterlife?"

"Your afterlife depends on your beliefs," the angel said, gently. "Based on your own moral code, and on your adherence to it, you'll probably end up in some form of heaven. One that your consciousness can accept. You may not even perceive it as an afterlife. It's possible that, for you, the afterlife will be an impression that you're still alive, a return to what've always known – but in a more idyllic form." She smiled. "I can tell you no more than that, for now." Seeing Chan about to protest, she went on: "I may well guide you to that heaven myself, later. But that's not why I've come to you now."

"Then why?" Some of the hostility had drained out of Chan's voice. She remained wary, cautious, but found herself strangely willing to hear this woman through. This gentle, glowing being, who simply could not exist.

"You died leaving unfinished business," the angel said, ever so softly. "You still have a mission to complete in the world of the living."

"You mean, in Syria?"

"No." The woman smiled. Her eyes glowed warmly, strong and reassuring, almost mesmerising. "I mean your mission in Felarya."