"Maybe it’s the other way around—they are not—"

  Mid-sentence, Masa Ed was plunged into darkness, and he paused. Not only that, he felt that instead of lying on solid ground, he was now lying on a body of water, seeming to drift upon it.

  What now?

  He became confused. Probing, he willed movement; in response, he felt his hand move, then his legs—both lying on the water—yet they could not sink into it. The surface felt like a thin film when pressure was applied.

  I can clearly feel my—?

  Mid-thought, he felt a sudden downward jerk, followed by a turbulent descent, as though he were falling through the center of a whirlpool.

  Oblivious to his situation in the pitch-dark, he descended helplessly amidst the turbulence, unable to scream for help and unable to find an anchor. But all of a sudden, every sensation ceased and was instantly replaced by a plush feeling along his entire back, from head to toe; a familiar warmth from a presence on one side; and, in the next breath, a blurry view of familiar plum-colored, innocent eyes peering down at his face from above. The image sharpened, transitioning into Plum’s face—smiling warmly and endearingly at him the moment he totally regained consciousness and his vision cleared.

  "Rayo, how are you feeling?"

  Plum’s comforting voice reached his spirit, harmonizing it. She gently brushed his scalp before placing her warm palm on his sweaty forehead, her touch relaxing his tensed muscles and finally calming his sea.

  He exhaled. "That was annoying."

  "Sorry," Plum said softly as she repositioned. She stretched her slightly folded legs, lying on her right side close beside him on the bed, her head raised and propped on her palm, her eyes on his side profile.

  Basking in her soothing warmth and fruity scent, he turned his head to the side. His eyes lingered on hers. Then they moved to her nose, her lips, and finally settled on the cleavage of her huge breasts restrained by a plum-colored cami top.

  Plum giggled. She lowered her head and rested it on her upper arm, emphasizing her huge bust.

  Masa Ed turned his head away. About thirty meters above him, the ceiling looked pristine and matte white, and for a few breaths he searched for imperfection but found none.

  With his mind cleared, he rose, sitting up on the round bed that was five meters wide and covered in white sheets. Plum also rose and snuggled close to him.

  He focused. A few meters from him was a flower hedge spanning the chamber’s width, and about twenty meters beyond it stood a window wall stretching across the width of the room. Right above it was the projecting ledge of a mezzanine fourteen meters above the carpet-grass ground below—a field bounded by the flower hedge and the window wall, which had, at its far right, a pavilion.

  Moreover, through the window wall, the faint light of dawn invaded the room, barely illuminating the turfed space under the matte-white mezzanine, whose projected edge corresponded to the flower hedge below.

  "I should tour this place," Masa Ed muttered.

  Plum pulled away, freeing him. After a few seconds spent zoning out, he crawled down from the bed, Plum following behind. Climbing down, he stepped onto the next lower tier of the round, tiered podium—matte-white, on which the bed rested. While Plum descended from the bed, he climbed down the podium and made his way toward the turfed space under the mezzanine, stepping barefoot on the warm white floor before passing through one of the gaps in the flower hedge and onto the grass-like carpeting that sank under his foot, soft and springy.

  Meanwhile, Plum trailed behind him, dressed in a plum-colored tight short and a matching cropped cami, showcasing her plump yet fit hourglass figure and her exceptionally large bust.

  She stood beside him, watching alongside him the view of the columns of the Parthenonic colonnade and the garden field in front of the building, seen through a unit of the window wall.

  "Everywhere is big," Plum remarked.

  "Yeah," Masa Ed agreed. "And I think there are primarily three reasons for that," he added.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He then turned left and set his sight on the pristine white recessed wall in the distance—the first part of the chamber’s long side on the left—above which was the L-shaped mezzanine floor.

  He turned around, facing the round pavilion on the right side of the turf, hedged by flower vines in a circle. Then he started walking in its direction, Plum following behind.

  Moments later, he walked past it, approaching the long side of the chamber, above which the L-shaped mezzanine floor took a turn—projecting fifteen meters from the recessed wall of the chamber’s long side on the right. Turning right and walking under it, he continued on the turfed floor that also took a turn, corresponding to the mezzanine’s left wing. It was bounded on one side by the recessed white wall of the chamber long side and on the right by a flower hedge, beyond which was the podium bed he had recently left.

  About fifteen meters later, the mezzanine floor above took a downward turn, sloping at a thirty-degree angle until it adjoined, at a corner, the top edge of a vertical wall projecting orthogonally fifteen meters from the chamber’s long left wall. He walked around it, passing between its end and the flower hedge terminal, after which he stopped, facing and examining a translucent glass wall that spanned ten meters. It was framed by the end of the wall orthogonal to it and the projected edge of a ledge above it that continued the mezzanine, which then sloped upward where the translucent glass adjoined a wall whose raked top formed the mezzanine’s upward slope on the other end.

  "Rayo, it’s a meditation chamber," Plum enlightened.

  "Oh!" Masa Ed exclaimed, his eyes widening slightly. "You mean where they do that cross-legged stuff?"

  "Yes," Plum replied. "It’s a place where we meditate. We do breathwork; we take in ether at an increased rate, and we also organize our knowledge. And if we are lucky, we briefly touch the superconscious and gain enlightenment."

  "I see." Masa Ed nodded faintly. The superconscious they talk about must be the subconscious, he added in his mind.

  A few breaths later, he turned around. In front of him was a fifteen-meter-wide round space surrounded by columns that supported a low circular wall hanging from the ceiling. At the center of the space was a large white round table surrounded by several white recliner seats—the place where Sugar had retrieved the communicator she showed him the night before.

  Moving on, with Plum following behind him, he continued along the glass face of the meditation chamber. Walking past the wall beyond it, whose top followed an upward slope, he came upon a wall of transparent glass fifteen meters tall that extended toward the chamber’s short-side wall fifteen meters away. Behind it was a cube recess fifteen meters wide.

  "This is where we dress. Our dressing studio," Plum enlightened.

  Masa Ed focused, his eyes scanning the seamless transparent glass wall that hid the dressing studio, looking for a door seam. He couldn’t find one.

  I guess it’s one of those magic doors, he concluded.

  Turning around, he found in front of him a canopy bed about six meters wide, its floor-length curtains white with golden embroidery.

  "I like that bed; it’s cozy inside," Plum remarked, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as she moved closer to him.

  "So, you have been staying here?" Masa Ed inquired, turning to look at her with a smile.

  "No," she smiled back. "I only stayed here when I came to visit in the past. Grandma used to bring me."

  "I see." Masa Ed nodded.

  He resumed walking along the transparent glass wall of the dressing studio, Plum following close behind. Reaching near the chamber’s short-side wall, he took a right turn, rounding the bed on his right. Continuing without stopping, he passed by a fireplace fixed to the white short side wall on his left and stopped when he reached the outline of the chamber door on the long-side wall, thirty-one meters tall and in the way.

  I am coming back to these doors, he made a note.

  He turned to his right, facing a five-meter-wide pool whose one long side was the chamber’s long wall. Moving closer, he stood before the pool of clear water, examining a strange blind arch fifteen meters tall and five meters wide on the wall, seeming to be an entrance leading to a desert under bright moonlight behind it.

  "It’s a flame window," Plum enlightened. "It’s like that because the glass used is animated and lit by flame."

  "I see," Masa Ed responded, his eyes leaving the sill of the arch that extended two meters, half soaked in the pool water.

  Raising his head, he stepped backward, gaining a better view of another corresponding flame window above the lower one—an arch on the upper half of the wall with a Juliet balcony whose stone ledge projected two meters. It seemed to be a window beyond which lay a sky and a bright blue moon that lit the desert world of the flame window below.

  Not bad.

  He nodded in acknowledgment. Walking slowly along the wall, he observed the other similar flame windows at intervals of five meters, each with a corresponding flame window that has a Juliet balcony above, all creating the impression that behind the entire long-side wall lay a desert world lit by a bright blue moon.

  Reaching the end of the pool with Plum behind him, he paused, looking at an L-shaped wall right behind it. One part projected ten meters orthogonally from the long wall, and the other part, completing the L shape, extended parallel to his path along the long wall.

  Moving on, he walked the length of the ten-meter L-shaped wall and, returning to the flower hedge, he walked past it, reentering the turfed space. Taking a left turn, he walked a couple of meters under the L-shaped mezzanine before taking another left turn, now facing the stairwell the L-shaped wall enclosed, topped by a slab cut for the stairs that led above it and to the mezzanine it adjoined.

  However, as he was about to move closer to the stairs, he sensed movement ahead. And just as he paused, Sugar’s projected voice reached him.

  "Master, mistress said we have less than fifty minutes to show you around."