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I had known Selene Hekate for about two years and still knew virtually nothing about her. She was the aloof goth girl from the big city. She never even tried to fit in or make friends with anyone in our town. She was content to just come to school and keep to herself. Not that anyone in my school tried to befriend her either. She wasn't one of us so she wasn't accepted.

You see my home town is small, very small. Everyone knew your business, even if you didn't want them to. Secrets are always fleeting and known by most in very short order. Likewise it was almost an offence not to go to church each weekend, or take part in community events. If you didn't you were eyed with deep suspicion and ostracized.

Even Selene's parents were an enigma. You rarely saw them and even then it was only to buy food or gas and she was always there too. They hardly said a word to anyone, although they were always pleasant even when faced with masked or open hostility. The Hekates lived in an old four bedroom house on the remote edge of town well away from everyone else. Of course it didn't help that their house was supposedly haunted, a fact that suddenly everyone seemed to know only after they had moved in. Also no one knew what the family did for work or money.

Most of the kids in my high school thought Selene was a witch and just stayed away from her, something that the older folks encouraged. It was common gossip amongst the townsfolk that satanic rituals were being performed by the family in the supposedly haunted house. Of course there was never any evidence for any of it. No one ever reported their cat or dog missing. No graves in the cemetery had been desecrated. No virgins had been sacrificed as all unmarrieds in town were still alive. Believe me when I say everyone who had never been married in my town was a virgin.

Where do I fit into Selene's life? Well I'm the only one in town who ever tried to befriend her or get to know her. I honestly thought she was quite cute and I loved the way she dressed. I didn't believe she was a witch or a devil worshipper for a second. Of course trying to be her friend cost me a few and I was constantly warned about her being a witch and the weird things that people claimed they had seen, but could never prove.

I guess I should tell you a bit about myself. My name is Tom Johnston. BORING! I'm seventeen years old and in my last year of high school. I'm considered by all to be the black sheep of the town. It's not that I ever do anything wrong it's that I question the why of everything, at home, in church and in school. I prefer thinking about the why of things over being told. I prefer evidence over superstition and blind faith. All of my traits were in short supply around here.

I despise this small town. Nothing ever happens here. No one is interesting. School is a bore. I could repeat word for word every single sermon our pastor has ever used, having heard them all at least twenty times in my short life. My life, my friends, my family, everyone and everything around here is BORING. It's like an infectious disease. Just Google the most boring and life stifling place in the universe and you'll know exactly where I live.

Selene and her family were the first different or interesting thing to ever happen to our town, well at least in my memory. The fact that she and her parents were a mystery and were content to remain so just made her more appealing to me and a source of unjustified fear to everyone else.

I had periodically tried to get her to talk to me but she always just shook her head and walked away. So this one afternoon she was standing there alone, waiting for one of her parents to pick her up after school, since a ride presented less harassment than walking through town. Since no one else was around so I tried yet again to get her to talk to me.

"Hi Selene."

She looked at me and I thought she looked like she was about to walk away again. Instead she stopped and looked at me and thought for a moment.

"Why do you keep trying to talk to me, Tom? Are you and your friends wanting to play some kind of joke on me? Is the purpose of this to try and humiliate me in some way? Do you figure that because I'm from the city and no one around here will talk to me that I'll be so lonely for companionship that I will fall for you charm and be an easy fuck or something?"

For the first words she ever spoke to me she didn't hold back her blows. I'm a guy so of course I'd had some thoughts about her and I doing the deed, but honestly it was fleeting. She was interesting, she was a loner, pretty much the same as me. Well in the loner department we were the same more or less. Most of my friendships were superficial at best.

"You know Selene, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I've had some thoughts about you and I doing the deed. How could I not? I'm a guy and you are really beautiful. As to why I want to talk to you? It's because you are not the same old BORING that makes up every single fibre of this town. You are different and interesting. God I would kill for five minutes of interesting. I would kill for five minutes away from this boring hell hole."

"So you're just using me for your own entertainment?"

"Maybe. I don't know. All I know is that I want to get to know you. Maybe we'll find that we have nothing in common, or maybe we'll find we've got things to talk about, common interests. Maybe we'll hate each other's guts after ten minutes. All I know is I find you interesting and I want to find out if we could be friends or maybe something more."

"Well if you want something more you are barking up the wrong tree with this girl, I'm strictly into girls."

"Wow, no shit? A lesbian! I wouldn't tell anyone else around here that you are into girls, anything other than boring heterosexual sex in the missionary position with the lights off, maybe once a year is a stoning offence in these parts. They'll sell tickets and auction off the first throw."

She cracked a smile at the joke.

"You're even more beautiful when you smile, do you know that?"

"Thank you for the compliment, but it won't get you anywhere with me."

"It sure has. You're still talking to me. Right?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yes I do, but I still want to see if we can be friends even if we can't be more than that."

"You're serious aren't you?"

"Of course I'm being serious, I just don't want you turning me into a cat, snail, frog or any other critter." The smile quickly faded from her face at my joke.

"Oh so you think I'm a witch and you want something from me?"

"I'm sorry Selene, that was a poor attempt at humour. What I want is friendship. I think you are a different, but beautiful girl that I'd love to get to know better. Unfortunately different around here means you are a devil worshipper."

"You would think that in this day and age with the Internet and everything else those attitudes would be virtually non existent even in a small town like this?"

"There is no Internet here. Every few years one of the communication companies comes in and asks if we want them to put in the infrastructure needed for it. Every time they ask the Luddites around here vote against it. Seems the Internet is the tool of the devil and us easily influenced young people have to be protected from it. God I despise this town!"

"You've got to be joking. I didn't realize there wasn't Internet connectivity around here."

"I wish there was. Then I could leave this place, well at least in my imagination and go somewhere interesting. I could learn the truth instead of the mindless rituals of blind faith and unquestioning obedience to dogma and the carefully edited science and history in school... Sorry. I've never been able to say anything like to anyone around here before."

"That's okay. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, if I can answer it I will."

"Do you believe in magic Tom?"

"As a favourite author of mine once said: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"Hmm, Arthur C. Clarke. How on earth did you get hold of any of his books in this town?"

"It wasn't easy. A two hour bike ride to the next town and two hours back with a couple of hours spent in the library there each time. I've learnt to read really fast. I almost got caught once, but managed to get back home before anyone figured out it was me that they had seen."

Her father pulled up at that moment and she got into the car. Before they drove off she lowered the window.

"You are interesting Tom Johnston. Maybe we should see if we can be friends. Meet me beside the old mill at seven tonight. If you come with anyone else don't ever try talking to me again."

"I'll see you at seven."

For the first time in my life I was excited about something. I guess I should say I was excited about something in this town. Plenty of exciting stuff in the big old world, unfortunately none of it was to be found here.

Ten minutes later I was home and my Stepford mother was waiting for me. The look on her face told me that someone had informed her that I had been talking with Selene.

"Where have you been?"

"I stopped to talk to someone on the way home. Why, what's the big deal?"

"One of the teachers at the school said you were talking to that devil girl."

"Mum, she's not a devil girl she's a goth."

"I don't want you associating with her, she'll only lead you astray."

"She's just a girl Mum. Have you or anyone else talked to her or her family? How can you make pronouncements against someone when you don't know a thing about them and have never even tried to find out anything about them?"

"You are too young to understand these things. I'm telling you to stay away from her for your soul's sake, she's evil."

I thought of a dozen good intelligent arguments to prove my point but realized anything I said would be stymied by my mother's dead or non functioning brain cells. Not to mention the trouble I would get into when Dad came home, because of arguing with her.

God I despise this town. I had to have been adopted because there is no way I'm related to the rest of my family or anyone else in this town. I've got a somewhat functioning brain which sets me miles apart from everyone else here. Thank god it was my older brother who had been roped into learning how to run the family store so he could take over when my dad retires. At least I had a chance of getting away from here when I finished school.

When my father came home I got the requisite lecture from him about not associating with Selene. Again I tried the same simple argument that I tried with my mother. As expected the logic was beyond my father's limited ability to comprehend. So I just acted chastised and promised not talk to her ever again.

Due to my father's long winded lecture on the evils of Selene and non God fearing people I was running late to meet her on time. I thought I was finally clear when my mother stopped me on my way out the door.

"Where are you going Tom?"

I had to think fast. I hadn't thought to make up a good excuse to hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. If I named any of my friends my parents were going to check to make sure that is who I was going to see.

I surreptitiously glanced over at the clock on the wall and checked the time. Damn! If I was held up any longer I'd have to ride my bike really hard to get there on time. Hmm, my bike might be a good excuse.

"I'm going to take my bike out for a bit of a run. I patched a flat yesterday and I was almost out of sealant, so I don't know how well it's patched. I just want to make sure it's not going to let me down if I go on a long ride."

"I want you home by eight. You have to finish your homework."

"Mum I do all of my work in class, I never need to bring anything home with me."

The look she gave me told me it didn't matter what I wanted, I was to be home by eight. God I'm seventeen years old and I'm being given a bloody eight o'clock curfew.

"I'll be back by eight." I said.

God I hate my life!

I had to struggle with myself not to run to my bike. I was running very late and I'd now have to ride hard and fast to make it on time to meet Selene.

I hadn't lied to my mother about the bike tire. I had only repaired it yesterday and hadn't had a chance to make sure the seal had set properly. Although the quantity of sealant was just adequate to properly fix the flat. I'd had my dad bring home more sealant that night so as an excuse it really worked out perfectly because it was almost the complete truth.

I was really wiped out by the time I neared the old mill. I'd put everything I had into getting there on time.

I came to a skidding stop in the dirt and choked on the dust my speed and then sudden deceleration had kicked up. I coughed for a minute or two before I saw Selene standing back in the shadows of the old mill.

"I told you to come alone."

"I came alone Selene!"

She pointed off behind me and I could see the distinctive sight of my father's pick-up truck moving down the road along with a cloud of dust trailing behind it. I couldn't believe it, my father had actually followed me here.

"That bastard followed me!" I yelled in frustration and anger. I turned to explain but I couldn't see any sign of her where she had just been standing.

Eventually my father pulled up next to me. "A long way to ride just to check a repaired bike tire."

I chose to ignore his question. "What are you doing out here?"

"Your mother and I are concerned that you may be sneaking off to see that girl."

"Which girl would that be, Dad?"

"Don't play dumb with me Thomas Jefferson Johnston."

Shit! All three of my BORING names. I'm in for it now.

"You know exactly who I'm referring to."

God I can't stand my parents!

"All right I know who you mean. As for why I'm out here? I was angry at you and Mum for telling me who I can and cannot be friends with when you don't even know the person. I wanted to get away for a while and burn off some of my anger before I came back home. Just in case I said something stupid. Now I find you spying on me."

"I'm just looking out for your best interests that's all."

"By following me and spying on me? What ever happened to trust?"

I had to bite down on the rest of what I wanted to say to the Neanderthal that falsely claimed to have sired me. I was probably in deep shit as it was. Certainly I would have to sit and listen to another one of his lectures. Chances are by the weekend there would be a sermon in church warning the citizens of our town against the likes of Selene and her parents. I can already hear the words of the sermon having heard it three or four times since she and her family had moved into our town.

My father looked like he was about to order me to put my bike into the back of the truck when he got a blank expression on his face. It cleared after a second.

"I'll see you at home son."

With that he drove away. I was stunned. My father never let me get away with talking back to him like that. I turned to look at where Selene had been but she had not returned. I figured that my dad had completely blown my chances of getting to know her.

"Your father sure is a prick." she said from the space between where my father and I had been arguing.

"How? How did you get there? I didn't hear you or see you move there."

"What if the whisperings are true and I am a witch?"

"I don't mean to be disrespectful of whatever faith you may have, but there is no such thing as true magic. It's all illusion, trickery, psychology and science."

"Very interesting indeed. I like you Tom. You really might be worth being friends with."

That was six months ago. Selene and I see each whenever we can, which isn't all that often. It's easier for her as her parents don't seem to mind her being with me at all. Her parents still creep me out though. They hardly ever talk and just seem to do nothing most of the time.

My parents? Now there was a load of trouble, they always wanted to know where I was going or who I was with, so it was difficult to see her without arousing suspicion. Basically I had to hide my friendship with Selene from everyone. Not even my supposedly closest friend could be trusted. Some may have suspected she and I were friends, but we were very discrete so that no one ever caught us together again or even looking at each other like friends.

With school over for the year I was expected to work in my dad's store. Honestly I don't know how my dad makes a living with it. Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone (family) who works in the store is essentially slave labour. We aren't paid a cent. It seems that with what we should be paid, that we are contributing to our room and board at home. What it boils down to is no money, no savings, no way out of this hell hole.

Working in my dad's store also meant that I didn't have much time to see Selene. I was the one expected to work there all day and help close the store at night. Not that closing the store entailed much more than counting the pitiful takings for the day and making out the bank deposit. My brother was the one who had the task of driving to the bank in the next town and depositing the money as part of his role of taking over the business one day.

I say one day, because my dad would probably be working in the store until the day he dies. I expect my brother will take ownership of it somewhere in his sixties, until then he will be just a slave, er, an employee.

Well my brother will be getting paid soon. It seems he is dating a girl seriously now. The rule for getting paid is you have to be engaged to be married and then you would be paid so you could save up for your wedding and home for you and your bride. Which meant that the only place you could afford to live would be this hell hole town as the pitiful wages that Dad promised meant you couldn't afford to live anywhere else.

As for the chances of me getting engaged or married to any girl here? None to when hell freezes over for the third time. None of the available female zombies in this town held the least bit of interest for me. Not even with the carrot of getting paid being dangled in my face. Well there was one, but unfortunately she wasn't into guys. The truth is I had fallen hard for Selene in a short time.

I know what you are thinking, she's the only girl you've ever been around that interested you. That's true, but it wasn't the whole story. Then you might tell me she's the one girl you can never have so she becomes the only one for you. You'd be wrong about that too. What attracted me to Selene, was that she was funny, intelligent, kind, passionate. Her interests and mine seemed to be so in tune with each other. The truth is even her being a goth was interesting. I'd always harboured a secret attraction to the goth way of things, what little of it I could find out about. Of course if I'd shown interest in it in my town I would have been burned at the stake.

She also seemed to know more about religions than everyone in this town combined. You name a religion and she could tell you all of its tenets. The strengths and weaknesses of the religion, also the origins of many of the tenets of said religion. For the first time in my life I actually found religion interesting.

She also knew way more about science and just about any subject I knew of. It's like she was just in school for show. Filling the role of a teenage girl. I knew for a fact that her grades are average or below; like she is trying not to show how smart she is. With everything she knows she could be teaching most of the classes, better than the boring drones who are currently doing the job.

It was the middle of another boring day slaving, err, working in my father's shop when I saw Selene walk past. It was unusual for her to come into town itself, even more so to see her without her parents during such a trip, safety in numbers as they say. A few minutes later there was the distinctive rotten egg smell of a natural gas leak. Of course we called the fire department and evacuated the store. It would take half an hour for the fire truck to arrive from the next town as our little town was too small to have even a volunteer fire department. Buckets and garden hoses were all we could afford around here.

I was outside with my brother and father with nothing to do. Several of the other businesses beside my dad's had also closed as they were affected too and we were all standing around waiting for the fire department and gas company to show up

Since I'd seen Selene walk past I kept an eye out for her but I didn't see any further sign of her. Which was a good thing, because if anyone had seen her she would have been blamed for the problem. She probably realized that and had made herself scarce. Have I mentioned how much I despise this town and the people in it?

Eventually the fire department arrived and after a quick check using some gas sniffer device they declared a gas leak and advised that the entire block of businesses be shut down and that the doors and windows to the stores be left open to prevent a dangerous gas build-up. The gas company was still several hours away due to some kind of emergency that had their people tied up on the other side of their work district.

I stood there looking around at the crowd of people that had gathered. This was the most excitement in town that I could ever remember and do you know what? It was BORING. This town and the people in it could take anything and make it boring. I mean literally people talked to whomever was closest to them for a couple of minutes on first arrival to find out what was going on and then they just stood there afterward doing nothing. Not even talking. A bunch of mannequins would have been livelier, certainly more intelligent.

My dad must have had some kind of brain meltdown or something as he told me I could have the rest of the day off. I mean I was stunned for a minute, I think my brother was too, this was so un-Dad like as to be unbelievable. Before my dad could come to his senses I was off and heading toward the local park which was in the opposite direction to where Selene lived. Of course my intention was to see if I could find her, but I wasn't about to head straight in the direction of her place and alert my dad or any of the other townsfolk to my intentions.

I was passing through the park when a sudden gust of wind came up and blew a piece of paper out of the trash can beside the path and straight onto my arm where it stuck for some reason. I looked down and noticed there was something written on it.

Meet me at the mill a.s.a.p. It's very important.

S

Within a second of me reading the message the paper suddenly unstuck from my arm with the next gust of wind and was carried up into the sky and quickly lost from sight. Now I've seen some unusual things that seemed to happen when Selene was around but this was the ultimate. Was that message meant for me? Was it just some kind of freaky coincidence? I guess it had to be, but the only way for me to find out for sure was to go to the mill.

I made it to the mill about an hour later. I'd taken extra time because I'd gone through the woods to avoid anyone spotting me. I looked around for a few minutes trying to find Selene, but as usual I didn't find her until she wanted me to.

"Hi Tom, I can't tell you how happy I am that you came." She took my hand and led me into the mill where we could be out of sight yet still see if anyone was coming.

"How did you make that piece of paper land on my arm?"

"Magic."

"You know I don't believe in that."

"Yes I do, but the how of it isn't important at the moment."

I was about to argue with her, as my curiosity was running at full speed. I hadn't been able figure out any way she could have pulled that trick off.

"I'll explain later. You and I have to talk."

"About what?"

"How do you feel about me? I want the truth Tom, the answer to that question could change both of our lives forever."

Shit, this sounded very serious. Does she know I love her and she can't handle it, so she wants to end our friendship. Has she found a girlfriend in this godforsaken town, and can't spend time with me any more?

"Tom, don't think about why I want to know, because it could influence your answer. I need to know the truth. Only if you tell me the truth can I do the right thing."

I thought, "Oh god, she knows I love her and she wants to end our friendship."

She took my hands in hers and looked deep into my eyes. It looked like she was mumbling something under her breath. Then I blanked for a moment and things came back in focus.

"Tom, the truth and only the truth." she gently commanded me.

"I love you Selene, you are the most fantastic, intelligent, exciting, beautiful, thoughtful, passionate, kind person I've ever met."

I didn't want to tell her, but I couldn't stop myself. I don't know if I saw relief in her eyes, pain or was it a mixture of both?

"I love you too Tom. I never thought I could feel like this about a male. But before you get your hopes up I can't love you as a male. While I love you, I don't love the body that your soul lives in. I can't get past that."

"Oh."

What else could I say to that? The love of my life loves me, but can't love me. In two sentences she had built my hopes up so high only to dash them with the third. God I hate my life.

"Tom I didn't say we couldn't be together, only that I can't love you fully as you are, a man."

"I'm not a woman Selene, so by what you've just said we can never be together."

"We could be together if you became a woman."

I looked at her like she was crazy. I'd heard of transsexuals and knew only the basics given the inherent censorship of where I live, but I knew I could never be one because I would always look like a guy. I may not be the most masculine guy around, but my body was definitely a guys body. I could never live with the ridicule of trying to be a woman when I'm obviously a man.

"Tom there are people in this world that have the soul of a woman or a man but are unfortunately born into the body of the opposite sex. Most people though reside somewhere in between and have the good fortune to have a reasonably matching body and soul. You have a rare soul that would be just as comfortable in the body of a woman as the body of a man."

"I'd look like a fool! Selene, I want a life away from here. One I can enjoy. People would make fun of me or worse. I couldn't live like that."

"If how you looked and how people treated you wasn't an issue, if people saw you as a normal woman, would you become a woman to be with me?"

"I don't know Selene. I love you, I want us to be together, but what you are asking is as big as it is impossible."

"Ignore reality for one moment, if it were possible would you become a complete and beautiful woman to be with me?"

"I honestly don't know. I have to think on it for a bit. I've never even thought about being a woman before, not even when I learnt about transsexuals."

"I have to know now Tom. By tomorrow I'll be gone, forever."

"What? Why?"

"The people I used to work for are catching up to me. I need to be well away from here and setup somewhere else before they find this location."

"Who's after you? I'll hide you, tell me what I can do to protect you."

"That's very sweet of you Tom, but you can't protect me from a rouge section of the military that's bent on world domination."

"You're too young to have worked for the military. Was it your dad or your mum that worked for them and caused this problem?"

"I can't explain what's going on unless you agree to come with me and to be a woman. You have to decide now."

"I can't Selene. I want to, but what you are asking is impossible."

"I love you Tom."

She again took my hands in hers and leaned forward giving me a fantastic French kiss. Boy can she sure kiss. She stopped the kiss and muttered something under her breath.

"Goodbye Tom." as she said this tears began flowing down her cheeks. Then things went black.

"What am I doing here?" I asked myself.

I was in the old mill. I never came out this way because it was so far out-of-town. I honestly couldn't remember how I got to the mill. This was extremely creepy.

"What happened to me?"

I was still no closer to the answer when I got home. Of course I got the third degree from my mother as to where I had been. She always thinks I'm up to no good if she doesn't know where I am and what I'm doing and whom I'm doing it with. The only problem was this time I didn't know what I'd been up to.

It also turns out the gas leak crisis was over and my dad wanted me back at the store, like yesterday. So much for the rest of the day off. God I hate my life.

After that one blackout I never experienced it again. Although that didn't seem to stop weird things happening to me. About three weeks after I'd found myself in the old mill a bunch of black vehicles with black windows blew into town. Some kind of military operation looking for terrorists or something. No one could get a straight answer from any of the military people.

Everyone in town was interviewed and put through a series of medical tests. They kept asking about strangers in town. Of course everyone told them that other than the occasional lost tourist no one new had come into town in the last ten years. Of course they didn't seem to believe any of us and checked out every vacant house and building.

When it was my turn they seemed to be taking longer with me. They asked the same questions over and over. The medical tests seemed to go on forever. Whereas everyone else seemed to be done in a couple of hours with me it took all day.

At one point early on while they were doing a bunch of medical tests on me in the back of a huge black semi I overhead someone say, "The kid's definitely been exposed to the subject. There are blocks in his memory centres where everyone else has had sections of their memory wiped."

I didn't hear anything else after that as they realized I could hear what they were saying. That little bit of information seemed to be what triggered me being questioned, poked and prodded for the better part of the day.

Honestly I have no idea what they were talking about. I didn't want to mention the blackout in case they thought that was relevant to whatever they were looking for. Who knows how long I would have been poked, prodded and questioned then.

After about two weeks the last of the military goons left town. They had told us all to report anything suspicious or anything new that we might remember. If we didn't we were warned we would face federal prosecution.

After that life returned to normal, which meant BORING. Although every so often a black van would show up and drive through town, going down every street before leaving again. But after a year or two no one ever noticed them again.

I'd always felt like something important had happened to me although I had absolutely no clue as to what. After that blackout I despised my town and everyone in it more than I ever did. I also hated myself more. I could not figure out why, but my life and everything that I once enjoyed had lost its attraction. So there you have it. I was a no hoper, in a no hoper town, going nowhere and becoming nothing.

It was about a year after the last black vehicle visited that my dad passed away. I hate to say it but it made life better for my brother and I, although it devastated my mother and she was never quite the same again. She sort of gave up trying to control our lives and left us pretty much to ourselves.

My brother wasn't quite as stuck in his ways as my dad had been and he made a few changes and brought in more products that made the store more profitable. With those profits came some pay for me and I was able to buy a car. Not much of a car, but it allowed me to get a better job in the next town. Honestly my brother could handle the amount of business the family store generated by himself, so I'm sure he was more than grateful to get me off the payroll, reduce his expenses and make more of a profit.

I had figured that with spending time in a more liberal environment I'd end up seeing a girl that attracted me. Yet even here there was no young lady that caught my eye. Some folks especially in my home town thought I was gay. Not that anyone had used that expression, yet I was definitely getting the feeling that a stoning was being planned and I would be the guest of honour.

I knew the rumours were getting bad when my brother asked me about it one evening. He, just like everyone else in town, never brought up the s(ex) word or the h(omosexual) word. Well no one except for the pastor when he was condemning non-biblically approved intimacies.

I told my brother that I'd never even looked at a guy in that way. I explained that while I was attracted to women I'd just never seen one that did anything for me. Of course he pointed out some of the ten or so available zombies in town who would love to have a living body to feed off. Of course that isn't the way he put it. The thought made me shudder. He said I would never find a woman if I didn't start dating. I told him that until the right woman came into my life I just couldn't be bothered.

I guess he reported back what I'd said as the looks faded somewhat and the zombies again started paying more attention to me since they now thought they were the right sex to have a chance with me. Every time one of them approached me with that hopeful look on their face it made my skin crawl. They didn't care about me they just wanted a man, a life to settle down to, to fulfil the existence that had been laid out before them, like it had been laid out in front of everyone else in this town. I could never be part of that. I wanted love, real love. I wanted a real life with someone who loved me as much as I loved them. I could give the girls of this town what they wanted but they could never give me what I required out of a relationship.

It was at that point I decided it was time to move away from home and the town even if I couldn't really afford it yet. I moved to the next town and sold my car to be able to afford a place of my own. Even though it was a bigger town you could still get from one side to the other in less than thirty minutes at a brisk walk down the main street. So a car was only really needed if I wanted to go home for a visit, which truthfully I didn't. Visiting or moving to the big city two hundred kilometres away just wasn't within my financial ability for the foreseeable future.

All this time I still had that nagging feeling that I was somehow overlooking something very important. I kept trying to figure out what it was, but always came up blank. The more I couldn't figure it out the more obsessed I became in trying to figuring it out.

I was busy at my job in the video store. I was familiarizing myself with hundreds of movies that I had not heard of nor had I been permitted to see, when an attractive lady walked in. She was maybe fifteen years older than me but could turn any straight guy's head no matter what his age. I can't tell you what about her caught my eye, there was a familiar presence about her, something that drew my attention to her. She browsed around the meagre selection the store had to offer. After a while she came over and asked me if we had any of a short list of movies she could rent while in town.

Now this town may have been bigger and less repressed than my home town, but the titles she asked for when I looked them up on the computer made me blush when I found out what they were about. The store owner would have a fit if we even ordered such a movie for a local, let alone an outsider. After all he ran a nice family establishment and such movies would ruin his reputation.

Anyway when I'd gone through the woman's list and discovered that we had nothing that she wanted she started talking to me. I guess you could say she was flirting with me a bit. I can't explain why but I was so comfortable talking with this woman. I was beginning to feel the stirrings I hadn't felt since, since....damn that blank spot in me, the one that's driving me crazy.

At one point she leaned forward and whispered in my ear. "I have a message from Selene for you."

I froze, I couldn't move a muscle. My heart started racing. I didn't know anyone with the name Selene but for some reason it electrified my soul. It filled me with sadness and hope. It made me feel alive again.

"Do you believe in magic Tom?" With that she gently bit my earlobe and pulled away from me and flashed me a devastating smile.

"You should pay more attention to what comes up on your computer monitor. You may find you have something on that screen that we both might be interested in." She winked at me and glanced toward the screen.

I looked down and instead of seeing the list of movies I'd tried to find for her I saw the following.

Tom,

Meet me 5km up the old forestry access road two hours after you get off work. Don't come any sooner and come alone.

♥ Selene ♥

After I'd read the message the screen blinked and what had previously been on the display reappeared as if it had always been there. I turned to look at the woman who had been talking to me but there was no sign of her. I quickly ran out the door but couldn't see any sign of her up or down the street, nor any cars driving away. WEIRD!

I still couldn't remember who this Selene was, but I knew it had something to do with that missing part of me. I wanted to run out the door right then and there and find out what was going on, but I continued to work through until the end of my shift completely against my will. Once free of work I followed my normal routine while desperately trying to make myself head to the rendezvous. I didn't think about it until I got ready for my evening run that one of my normal jogging routes took me right past the gate to the old forestry access road. Care to guess which route I chose? Did I even have a choice?

When I got to the gate I took my usual five minute breather and drank some water, even though I was trying to run up the road to meet this Selene. However my body was still not responding to my commands to head that way. I noticed that one of my shoelaces had come loose and I walked over to the metal gate and put my foot up on it and one hand to momentarily steady my balance. ZAP! It was like a big electric current had passed through my body. I shook my head to clear the residual effects and then shook my limbs to clear the tingling. I almost started up the old road when I remembered to tie my shoelace. Having done that I was on my way.

I had only gone a few hundred metres up the road when I saw a young woman sitting on some rocks by the side of the road. It was at that moment that the floodgates of my memory opened. All that we had shared, every moment of our time together came rushing back to me. I ran up to Selene and hugged her tightly.

I hadn't realized it but I'd started crying somewhere in the midst of that hug. When I pulled back to look at Selene she was crying too.

"Why?" I asked her, wiping away my tears and a few from her face too.

"Why did I have to run? Why did I wipe everyone's memories of me and my parents? Why did I block your memory as well?"

"Yes, to all of them?"

"To protect me, to protect the people of the town and to protect you from a power hungry general and his wild schemes to control the power I now have."

"What power? Why come back now?"

"Because living without you in my life was killing me."

"Living without you was killing me too. Even if I had no idea why."

"How can that be. You had no memories of me to cause you pain?"

"I knew without a doubt that something important that I'd once had was missing from my life. I didn't know what it was, but even things I'd previously enjoyed no longer gave me pleasure. I was hollow and empty without you."

Selene frowned for a moment and I thought she was frowning at what I'd just said to her. She started looking around as if searching for something. Her eyes seemed to focus on something far away in the sky.

"Damn! Tom follow me, do everything I tell you, don't ask any questions and whatever you do make as little noise as possible. Both of our lives are at stake now."

She took off into the woods and I followed in hot pursuit. I thought I could hear her mumbling something but I wasn't sure. I almost asked if she was talking to me but thought better of it.

Within a minute or two we were standing at the base of a small hill that had a large granite face exposed at its base. Selene walked up to it and drew a symbol with her finger. Where her finger passed a faint glowing trail remained. At the same time she was mumbling under her breath again. I couldn't make out the words but they sounded foreign and very old.

The rock wall in front of us became translucent, like it was half there and half not there. Selene walked right into the rock face and her hand came back out and gestured for me to follow her. I stood there dumbfounded not believing what I'd just seen. Her hand suddenly shot out of the wall again and grabbed mine and pulled me in with more strength that I would have thought possible for someone her size. I found myself on the other side of the rock wall in a heap on the floor of a chamber.

"Damn it Tom, I said to follow my instructions." She closed her eyes and concentrated mumbling in that same strange language again. "Shit the drone is coming around for a second pass. I was careless."

"It won't take them long to find our trail. We've got to get out of here now."

She pulled me up off the floor and pulled me along behind her. I hadn't noticed that the back of the chamber had a way out, but then my attention had been almost completely on her and I was stunned as all hell.

We'd gone about a hundred metres I'm guessing, when she slowed down and brought us to a halt. It was really hard to tell exactly how far I'd run as I couldn't see a thing after about twenty or so metres, yet Selene appeared to have no difficulty seeing in the dark.

"Tom I'm going to release your hand for a moment. Don't move as we are in a dangerous part of the cavern. I'll be right back."

I heard her walking away from me and I almost panicked. I had no idea where I was, and I was blinder than a bat. Okay I know bats can see quite well, but you know what I mean. A few seconds later I saw a flash of light and what appeared to be a slow burning fuse moving away from me. Moments later I saw a shadow moving toward me accompanied by the sound of footsteps.

"Hold on a second or two more Tom. I'm just going to close and bar this door."

With a loud metallic thud the door closed and some kind of heavy lock was set in place. Moments later I felt Selene take my hand.

"Just a little more patience and we'll be somewhere safe for a while."

She led me on many twists and turns. Occasionally she, um, conjured up some light where things were too tricky for me to navigate on my own in the dark. About five minutes after we left the door there was a loud thud, followed by dust and some small debris falling about us.

"That made sure they can't follow us that way. Well at least not for about four or five days. We are still in very great danger Tom."

"What's going on Selene?"

"We don't have time for the full story now. We need to figure out how they saw past my tracking signal decoy. What are you carrying with you Tom?"

"Just my apartment keys, my water bottle and some ID."

"Can I see them?"

I handed them over and she held them in her hand and again muttered under her breath for a few moments.

"Damn, nothing in those. Are you sure you are not carrying anything else on you?"

"Just what I'm wearing."

"I need you to do me a favour Tom?"

I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but I asked regardless. "What?"

"I need you to strip out of all of your clothing. I mean everything Tom!"

I stripped and piled my clothing and my dignity on the tunnel floor in front of her. She picked up each item and examined it carefully as well as muttering in that strange language as she examined each item.

"I can't figure it out. Everything is clean. Not unless.... Tom have you had any surgery or other types of medical intervention since I left?"

"About three weeks after you left a bunch of military types showed up asking a lot of questions and hinting about terrorists. Most people were interviewed and examined in a couple of hours. For some reason they kept me for most of the day. Asking the same questions over and over again. I think they drained half my blood taking samples. They also put me inside a bunch of machines and took x-rays and MRI's."

"Think carefully. Did they give you any kinds of shots?"

"I honestly don't know. I was stuck with so many needles during that day it's entirely possible that something was injected into me instead of being drawn out. I also fell asleep a couple of times with boredom. So they could have done something to me then."

"Shit I hope I'm wrong. You can put these back on."

She handed me back my underwear which I was glad to put back on. It's really embarrassing talking to someone when you have to cover your groin with both hands.

"Tom I need you to lay down on the ground. Get as comfortable as you can. I'm then going to put some powder at various points all over your body. I'm sorry, Tom, but it's going to hurt, a lot."

"What's going on Selene?"

"When they examined you they put a transmitter into your body. I found that and disabled it. That was the sort of electric shock you felt at the gate. I think they put in a secondary means of tracking you. Since I didn't detect it earlier it's very subtle. I can only think of one thing it might be, but I can't be sure unless I do a thorough examination of you. The powder will facilitate the examination, but it wasn't designed for what I'm about to do so it will be painful."

I wasn't expecting any of this. I didn't want to experience pain either. She was asking a lot. In the last hour my life had been completely turned upside down.

"Tom I want you to do this voluntarily. If I have to I'll make you do it. I wouldn't ask you to go through this if I didn't think it was a matter of life and death for both of us."

I lay down and got as comfortable as one can get on cold stone ground while nearly naked, with sharp rock fragments all over the place and all seemingly pointing into my tender flesh.

"Tom I want you to concentrate on my voice. Listen to what I tell you. I'm going to help you relax and minimize the pain."

Selene talked softly to me for about ten minutes, she kept telling me how comfortable and relaxed I was. As time passed I felt like I was laying on a nice warm soft feather bed instead of the painful cold floor of the tunnel. It was at this point that she started putting small amounts of the powder on various points of my body. I thought in the back of my mind that this wasn't the least bit painful. Then she mumbled something in that strange language and fire spread throughout my body from each place she had put the dust. I swear I felt pain to the tip of each and every single hair on my body. Yet despite the searing pain I couldn't move a single muscle.

At some point in the 'examination' I must have blacked out, because I came to hearing Selene crying. It was again pitch-black and I didn't dare move toward the sound of her crying.

"I can't see anything, where are you?"

She mumbled something and I could see, but it was weird. Not like before when she seemed to generate the light out of thin air. I don't know how to describe it. Everywhere I looked I could see, except far off in the distance. The colour was all wrong too. Not quite like those movies where people wear night vision goggles, but not like normal either.

"I made it so you can see in the dark too. If it gets too bright, stop, close your eyes and tell me."

"Um, thanks. What did you find out?"

In this weird light it was harder to read her expressions. But my impression was that she looked very unhappy.

"The general had a radioactive capsule put into your body. Wherever you go you leave a faint radioactive trail behind you. It's not harmful to anyone around you, but...."

Selene choked at that point. She couldn't tell me in words, but I now understood the expression on her face and her earlier crying.

"But it is harmful to me?"

She just nodded and burst into tears again. It took her a few more minutes to calm down again.

"You've got several malignant tumours growing in your body. You have maybe six months left to live. Maybe a year if you were to go into hospital and start being treated today."

She paused for a bit and tried to deal with things unemotionally. "Since they know exactly what to look for they are using the radiation given off from your body to track you. If the main tracking device failed, or a decoy signal was put in place they could still find you and presumably me through you."

"So now that I've found you again I'm going to lose you again. Only this time it's permanent."

"I removed the radioactive capsule and tossed it down a crevice that goes quite deep. Your body will still be giving off traces of radiation for a long time to come, leaving a trail they can follow through these caverns."

"To you and this power you possess, that this nut wants to control."

"I might be able to save you Tom, but if they can follow us there probably won't be enough time to attempt to save you and make our escape."

"So no matter what I stand a very good chance of dying or ending up in the hands of the guy who did this to me."

I sat there thinking about things for a bit. I guess I knew what I had to do. I put on my clothing and informed Selene of my decision.

"We both know that there is only one way for you to get out of this. I love you Selene." I held her to me and gently kissed her cheek. I started to walk away leaving her standing there stunned.

I was quickly out of her sight and found a deep crevice minutes later that had lots of sharp rocks at the bottom. It would be over more quickly than the cancer now spreading throughout my body. It would also allow Selene the chance to get away.

I stood there for a few minutes trying to work up the courage to do what I had to do. Easier said than done as they say.

I heard Selene's fast approaching footsteps. "Tom, don't!"

I couldn't let her see me do it so I walked straight to the precipice and....turned about and walked toward Selene. It seemed I had no control over my body again. I continued to walk toward her and came to a stop just in front of her.

"Damn you, Tom Johnston. I lost you once, I'm not going to lose you this time. I hope you are in good shape because we've got a long way to go in a short time."

I wasn't given a chance to respond and despite the fact that I now wanted to follow her I seemed to have no choice but to follow her. I have no idea how she does the things she does. It seems like magic, but I still want to hold to my original belief that it was in some way technological trickery.

Selene set a fast but steady pace. I should have been able to keep up without any problems but I was tiring much more quickly than I should have been. I don't know how long we had been running for, but I had reached the point where I needed to rest but was unable to make my body comply.

"Stop! I need to stop! I can't go on." I said breathlessly.

The compulsion to follow her stopped and I dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. She ran to me and I panted and wheezed trying in vain to recover my breath and slow my racing pulse. She mumbled something in that strange tongue again and concentrated for a few moments.

"The stress of the examination I did on you earlier took too much energy out of you. You are completely drained. I don't have any food or energy bars to help you get some of your energy back. We'll rest for a few more minutes, but we've got to get moving again soon. We'll go a bit slower this time but we can't go much slower."

"Why don't you just blow-up another portion of the cavern?" I said between gasps of breath.

"Because I don't have any more explosives available and even if I did they would be at our destination. Not here with me."

"Can't you just make a portion of the roof collapse or fall apart?"

"My power doesn't work like that. I could potentially make an explosion sufficient to bring down a portion of the roof, but I would have to be in the dead centre of the explosion. That as you could guess would ruin the rest of my life, all two microseconds of it."

"Can you make a rock wall like you did at the entrance?"

"I could but they would follow our tracks and the radioactive trail that you leave behind right up to it. Believe me when I say they will have whatever means it takes to get through that wall in no time at all."

We sat in silence contemplating the predicament we were in. She came back because of her love for me and it looked like it would cost both of us our freedom, if not our lives. Not that I would have had a future at all given what they had done to me.

I had finally stopped breathing hard and my pulse was mostly back to normal. I hoped we didn't have too much further to go as I doubted I could go on for much longer, even at a severely reduced pace.

"Tom, we'd better get moving again."

I attempted to stand but my legs felt like soft Jello. There was no other way but for me to move under my own strength. I struggled to my feet using the rock wall beside me and Selene on the other to support me.

"How much further?" I asked.

She looked at me with a critical eye. "Too far for you in this condition."

I knew I had been right the first time. The only way for her to get out of this mess was if she wasn't burdened with me. She knew just where my thoughts were taking me.

"There is no way you are going to sacrifice yourself for me, Tom. We both make it out of here or we both die here. If you try and sneak away I'll know it. I'm going to trust you to follow me on your own, but if you try anything I'll force you again. I'm not saying goodbye to you or us again."

Hearing that made my heart soar. Perhaps it was all psychosomatic but I was able to stand and walk behind Selene for what seemed like eternity. I'm not sure when it happened but I just collapsed at one point. When I came to Selene was dragging me along the cavern floor.

"Tom can you help me at all? I've found a rock alcove just a bit further ahead. I'm going put you in there and make a fake rock wall in front of you. It will let fresh air in and carbon dioxide out but it will hide you and keep you safe from harm until I can get back again."

I tried to get myself onto my feet but my arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. I also knew that Selene was thinking that if she left me I would try and kill myself again for her sake. What she didn't know is at this point in time I couldn't defend myself against a butterfly let alone walk away and kill myself.

I think I must have blacked out again, because when I came to I was leaning against a rock wall and in front of me was another wall except the inside of this wall was smooth and very un rock-like in appearance.

I don't know how long I had been there. I kept on losing consciousness and coming to. I could have been there for ten minutes as easily as several centuries.

Each time I came to I was weaker than the last. I doubted I'd ever see Selene again. My pulse was very low and I didn't even have the energy to take a deep breath any more.

I awoke to an absolutely disgusting taste in my mouth. I cracked my eyes open and saw that Selene had returned and was force feeding me a foul tasting liquid.

"I'm sorry about the taste, but I was in a hurry. This will help to restore your strength again. I also have to get you to absorb more of that powder into your body again. It will hurt just as much as before I'm afraid."

I wanted to argue with her and I especially did not want to go through that pain ever again. I was helpless to argue with her and didn't have strength to stop her even though she didn't force it upon me.

Within minutes she had me down to my underwear and laying on the ground. She placed the powder on the various parts of my body again.

"I don't want to do this to you Tom, but we don't have time for your body to recover on its own. Please forgive me."

With those words she closed her eyes and started speaking that strange language. Fire erupted within my body again and I blacked out.

When I came to again I was dressed and laying on the floor. A few feet away from me I could see a little glowing rock. Selene saw I was awake and came over to me. She saw what I was looking at.

"That's most of the radioactive contamination that was left in your body. Unfortunately we still have to try and deal with those tumours. But at least the general shouldn't be able to follow the minuscule trail you leave behind now. It should just disappear into the normal background radiation."

"Can you stand now?"

I was amazed to find I had the energy to get up and move about. With each passing moment I felt stronger again.

"I think I'm fine now. Whatever was in that awful drink seems to have helped."

"It wasn't food for your body Tom it was food for the powder I gave you. The powder is now infusing energy directly into your cells from that drink. Especially the ones needed for you to be able to walk, run, pump blood and breathe. I don't think it will last us until we get to our destination. I do have food though which should keep us both going until we get there."

She handed me a high energy bar and a power drink. "After you finish those we have to be off and literally running faster than before."

I ate the food quite ravenously. I hadn't realized how hungry I was. It also had the benefit of reducing some of the leftover taste from the drink she forced into me earlier. It didn't take me more than a few minutes to finish.

"Are you ready Tom?"

"A quick question before we start off. How long have we been down here?"

"I'm not sure. I lose all track of time down here. I think it's around noon two days after we came in here, but it could be much later."

"Hey if I'm not leaving much of a trail behind shouldn't we try and hide our tracks now?"

"It won't make any difference now. The tunnel section we are in has no real side entrances or exits. It's pretty much straight through to where we are going. Come on, time is fast running out for us."

With that we were off and literally running. I felt great at the moment. I felt like I had energy to burn, almost giddy with energy. I started running faster and soon passed Selene.

"Tom, slow down! Pace yourself. We've still got a long way to go and if you go too fast the energy infusion will wear off then you will be back to where you were before."

I tried to follow her request, but within a few minutes of slowing down I was running ahead of her again. I couldn't help myself. It was like the energy needed to be spent and it was forcing itself out of me. I must have pissed her off because the next thing I knew my body was dutifully following behind her by a few paces. She didn't release control or talk to me until she called for a break.

Even when we had stopped I was nervously pacing back and forth waiting to begin the journey again. It was like I'd swallowed a large bottle of caffeine pills with a couple of RedBull chasers. I was so wired and had to burn it off. While I was racing backwards and forwards Selene was again saying something in that strange language.

"Shit, the radiation has caused the powder to over adjust your metabolism. No wonder you are practically walking on the roof."

Within moments I started to slow down, my energy levels returning to something close to normal.

"What was that about?"

"It seems in the process of clearing you of the radioactive particles the powder got supercharged itself. So when I had it adjust your metabolism up it adjusted it way up. Fortunately it's been using the energy absorbed from the radiation to keep you going, well at least until a short while ago. You are only now just tapping into the energy drink for the powder. I'm not sure but there maybe just enough energy left in you to get you to where we are going."

Once Selene had rested enough and we'd each eaten another power bar and consumed some water we were on our way. This time I had a much easier time keeping pace with her. Many hours later and several rest breaks later we came to a point where she slowed down and eventually stopped.

"Do you believe in magic Tom?"

"You've asked me that before and despite all I've seen you do since we started running I still believe the answer is no."

"Okay can I ask you this? Do you still love me? Especially after all that's happened to you?"

"I love you with all of my heart Selene. I was dead before I met you and I died when you were gone from my life. To be with you I would be anything you want me to be, even a goldfish swimming in an aquarium, just so long as you were near me."

"Would that include becoming a woman?"

"Just don't go too big in the breasts, okay?" I said with a smile.

"Damn and I was hoping you would want to look like Katey Price."

"Who's she? Remember where I was brought up, Cosmo was banned from our school library for being too pornographic."

"You're joking right?"

"I wish I were."

"I keep on forgetting just how backwards that town of yours is. Okay well she was just some model in England who had outrageously oversize breasts through implants. I think she had EE sized breasts at one point. She looked totally ridiculous in my opinion."

"Look Tom, I still don't know if I can save you. It may even be too late for us to escape. You have to know I can't let the general get hold of the power I possess. If he does we would all be slaves and the world would pretty much become like your home town."

"That bad?"

"Maybe even worse. At least in your home town you had the free will to rebel and to chose your own path. It may have been difficult to achieve but it was there. With the general's world view there would be no chance of rebellion, no chance of free will, only obedience."

"So how come if this power has the ability to control the whole world that you can't get rid of the general?"

"It's all about scale Tom. With what I have I only have so much influence or power. If the general figures out how to replicate the power, and I believe he can and if not him then someone else soon will, then he can have and use as much of this power as he wants. No more free will or freedom. Power corrupts and absolute power is the end of human freewill forever."

"There is also the fact that I don't want to rule the world or control anyone. I do have to control people, but only to protect my life or theirs. I never wanted to block your memory of me, neither did I want to control you, Tom. I did what I had to do to protect you and I from the general. Unfortunately it didn't work out the way I had intended."

"So what now?"

"We'll see what we can come up with to get us out of this horrible situation. Oh, by the way I'm going to remove your night vision, so don't panic when things go black."

Selene mumbled something and I was thrust back into utter darkness. I then saw a glowing symbol form on the rock wall and assumed she was doing the same trick as when our flight into these caverns and tunnels began. I felt her hand take hold of mine as she led me toward the wall and we stepped through.

I was momentarily blinded by the light in the room we had just entered. There was light everywhere, but there was no source. The walls, including the one we had just stepped through glowed, providing a soft light which had seemed dazzling after being in total darkness.

Selene walked over to another flask of that foul drink she had forced into me. She noticed my look of disgust and then proceeded to drink the contents.

"You get used to it after a while. Do you want one? It'll help build up your strength for whatever is going to come."

"Um, no thanks. My taste buds still haven't recovered from the first time." She shrugged accepting my reluctance.

She was lost in thought for a few moments while she drank her foul concoction. Even though she said one gets used to the flavour her face was betraying her distaste for it. Eventually she came back from wherever her thoughts had taken her.

"Well Tom, you are right. What I do isn't magic, but most of the tales of magic come directly from this power."

"So are we talking computer controlled nano machines or something."

"Pretty darn close to it, close enough for the differences to be meaningless."

"So what is with all the speaking in that ancient language while you use this technology?"

"The spells and especially the language itself help the mind focus on the desired intention. They don't make anything happen in and of themselves. It's like they help the mind form a precise picture of what you want and it helps make flaws in what you want easy to detect and correct. If you used this language when making a wish of a trickster genie like in many of the old stories, you would still get exactly what you wanted and the genie would be fuming because there would be nothing for the genie to take advantage of in your wish."

"In ancient time those envious of the people holding this power imitated and often apprenticed with the ones who did. They learnt the words and the language but could never make the 'magic' work. However a little thing like not having any magic didn't stop many from pretending they did or coming up with tricks to convince others that they possessed magical ability."

"Exactly where this technology comes from is impossible to know. The books themselves had no knowledge of their origins. Some on the team studying the book speculated that it was alien technology, others like myself think that the book was sent from the future somehow. The reason for me thinking that is the book is too keyed to the human mind and its language centres. Crashed alien technology wouldn't be keyed to our brains or sounds we are capable of reproducing."

"Couldn't the technology have been left by an alien race deliberately to mess us up? I mean think what would happen if the general or someone else got hold of it."

"It's a possibility that I've thought about, but it has safeguards built into it to stop people like the general or even me for that matter from doing whatever we want with it. However no safeguard is foolproof or tamper-proof."

"There were once many books out there. The original holders of the books, were great teachers and healers. Over time some of the books became corrupted, twisted to the point where their programming became corrupted and the safeguards against misuse failed. From what I can gather most of the uncorrupted books and the corrupted books along with their bonded user were destroyed in a big battle of good and evil long before most recorded history began. The tales of magic and the capabilities of this technology grew out of proportion with millennia of retelling."

"The book I'm bonded with may be the only surviving book left on the planet. I can't let it be used for evil or let the general or anyone else discover how to make their own. Or worse by far corrupt this one."

"What do you mean by corrupt?"

"These books are kind of like books, they are also computers in a sense, duplicated human intellects and memories, they also seem to be intelligent in their own right. Each bonded user's memories and personalities become part of the book. The book also chooses who it will accept as its bonded user. Of all the people examining it and attempting to unlock its secrets for the general it chose me. Because they are so flexible and can learn they can also be corrupted. Their ability to modify themselves through learning is their greatest strength and weakness."

"Why you?"

"I'll tell you the entire story later. Basically the book needed to escape from the general and I was the safest choice of all who had come into contact with it. The rest will have to wait, right at the moment we need to figure out how we can get out of this mess and how we can save you at the same time."

Selene got a far off look in her eyes. "Can't that wait? We need to try and figure a way out of this."

"What are you talking about Selene?"

"I'm sorry Tom but the book wants to meet you?"

"Huh?"

"As I said the books are sentient, somewhere between computers and the people who have bonded with them. Because I'm bonded with it and I've got so much of the, well, let's just call them nanobots, in me I'm kind of linked telepathically with the book at close range. I can hear its thoughts and it is uploading my latest thoughts, feelings and experiences into itself as we speak. For you and the book to meet you will have to touch its cover. Oh, it's warned me that since you know about it, you will feel a buzzing and tingling in your head when you touch it. Normally it is so subtle no one realizes what it is doing. It wants to know what kind of person you are and it figures that out through physical contact."

"Where is this book?"

Selene walked to a section of the wall and touched it and it slowly melted as if it had never been there at all. Inside the revealed nook was something that looked just like any ancient book. It was quite large and apparently leather bound.

"That just looks like any old book you'd see in a museum."

"Yes it does, but each page, each letter, the bindings, every part of it makes up the sentience of the book. Only under a super powerful microscope does it become possible to get a glimpse that it is something much more that it appears."

"Go on, put your hand on the cover. It won't bite, you'll just feel a tingling."

I walked over somewhat nervously. Did I really want to touch this thing that was responsible for messing up my life and Selene's? I looked at her questioningly. She just nodded and I reached out and placed my hand on the cover.

I wish I could describe it fully. There was the expected tingling, but there was more. I felt like there was a presence in my mind, seeking out the darkest corners along with the brightest parts of me. It seemed like every thought and every experience I'd ever had was scrutinized by the book. I could do nothing to stop it nor could I remove my hand from its cover until the process was complete.

"This one's a keeper Selene. I can see why you're in love. There is a certain level of resentment to this one's home town and the people within it, but overall this one is much like you were. You should apprentice this one."

"I don't want to complicate his life. My life is a big enough mess because of all of this. It will be bad enough if I save him and we remain together. We will always be on the run, always changing our identities. Giving him the power will only endanger him more."

"Or give this one the power to help defend the both of you."

I found it quite unsettling to hear the voice of the book in my head. I also noticed that Selene had not moved her lips while she was talking to the book. She turned and looked at me.

"You can hear my thoughts?" I nodded in response to her question. This was just getting far too weird for words. Oops, sorry no pun intended there.

"Yes, I've linked you both through me. This one has a right to be a full part of the discussion and decision-making. It's not fair to it for us to be able communicate without it knowing or knowing what is said between us."

"Neither of you have to worry about your private thoughts. Only thoughts directed at each other or at me will be passed on."

I wasn't all that worried about my private thoughts. I knew Selene had been inside my head with her ability before. How else could she have blocked my memories of her? For whatever reason it didn't bother me that she had done so. She on the other hand, seemed very relieved to know her private thoughts would be held back from me.

"Selene this one was just thinking about how you know its innermost thoughts, and yet you seem afraid for it to know yours. It is time for you to tell this one everything."

I decided to speak up. "Um book, we have bigger problems than what Selene is holding back from me. I trust her and if she is not ready to reveal those things yet I can wait. Well, not unless there is information that will directly affect our survival?"

"It won't affect our survival but it could drastically change the way you view the situation."

"If it's all the same to you I'll wait. Our survival is our first priority."

Selene again looked relieved. I knew I loved her and no secret she had would change that. I guess I was in love with her the person. I knew she was the one for me. I just wished she could accept me as a guy.

I guess my willingness to give up being male to be with her only proved her point that I would be equally comfortable as a man or as a woman. Most of the guys I knew, men and boys, would rather die than become a woman. Most would rather die than lose their precious manhood. I guess again my feelings separated me from them because I would put my life and survival above that silly piece of flesh. I guess I would also put my love for someone as more important too.

"Well what exactly is our situation? I know we are on the run from a power hungry rogue general who wants to rule the world. We have an ancient and possibly future or alien technology posing as an ancient spell book. Said general will stop at nothing to acquire this technology, including killing me, or I assume, anyone else who gets in his way? Also we are trapped in a cavern system which I'm hoping has another way out, but I'm assuming our chances of getting out are slim to none?"

"Yes Tom there is another way out, and we could make it out of here by using that route, I'm just not sure that the general won't be waiting for us at the end of that path now. You see it leads back to your home town and to the old mill where we last met."

Selene's ability to disappear and reappear at that location made a lot of sense all of a sudden. It would also be why she would choose that location for meeting me in case she needed to make a fast getaway.

"They thoroughly searched every vacant or abandoned building in town or out-of-town. They also had people going through the woods on a grid search. I don't think they left a stone unturned within ten kilometres of the town." I informed her.

"Damn."

"Didn't you hide every trace of your being there?"

"I hid it so that no one who didn't know about me wouldn't see anything wrong. The general and his men were looking for tiny things that would indicate that I had been there, especially no evidence of anyone ever having been there. I had to destroy all genetic traces, not just my own or my parents. It would have been too time consuming to do otherwise. Then there are so many little things that are almost impossible to hide, that if one were to deliberately look for them with the latest scientific means you could find them or the absence of what should normally be there."

"So you are saying that chances are they are coming from that direction as well and we are trapped in the middle?"

"Not quite that. The tunnel entrance is hidden by this nanotech stuff which is programmed to hide the tunnel by making it look like it's the same as the surrounding rock; even to the latest detecting equipment. The problem is these caverns lead in a fairly straight line to your old town, which means that our pursuers are probably already aware of that and have people waiting in town and more than likely have more of those drones in the air to locate two suddenly appearing bodies. It won't take much to figure out that the mill got its water from a reservoir that was once fed by this cavern system. The mill was built on the edge of town to make use of the water from that old reservoir, unfortunately it dried up after a couple of years and never refilled because its source, these caverns, had been dry for years."

"So we can't go forward. Is there any other way out or side passages that we could use or hide in?"

"Not at this end. Back past where we came in there might be something, but I've never explored that far. I only went as far as finding the way we entered the caverns. It's way too late to try looking now."

The three of us talked for a long while before we came to the only option available to us. The book had to be destroyed and Selene and I had to die.

Selene and I made love as man and woman. It was mostly good for me, but I know despite her insistence that we do it, that it was very difficult for her. We were still holding onto each other's naked body when we told the book to carry out our plans.

Final report on project TOUCHSTONE recovery effort.

Eyes only for General Joseph Walgren

Since the second explosion that destroyed a large portion of the cavern system the recovery crew has worked around the clock to clear the caved in portions. After thirty-two days the team managed to find the object designated TOUCHSTONE, along with the remains of the suspect subject expert and the local subject under surveillance. The genetic tests prove conclusively the remains were the two of the people of primary interest to this project. The location of the other two subject experts remains unknown at this time, but they were not among the bodies recovered from the caved in area. Since those two experts were loyal to the project we can only assume that they were terminated by the renegade subject expert.

While we managed to recover the object TOUCHSTONE it was severely damaged in the explosion. Only about seventeen percent of the object was recovered. That seventeen percent consisted of nine pieces. The rest of the device is presumed to have been destroyed by a high intensity heat from some kind of thermal device designed to destroy the object, the effects of which left only small elemental traces of the original materials the object was constructed of.

Given the nature of object TOUCHSTONE it is doubtful that a working replica can be reverse engineered from the material recovered, given our current level of technology. It is the recommendation of the research team that the recovered materials be put into secure storage and when advances are made in our understanding of related technologies that the object TOUCHSTONE be re evaluated at that time.

The estimated time for successful technological advances is in the order of twenty years at a minimum. The likelihood is that it will take double that time period before any relevant technological advances will be useful in the reverse engineering effort.

The general had read the report a hundred times. He knew that there was no hope that he would be alive or able to carry out his plans in the expected twenty years wait for the appropriate technological advances. It had taken him thirty years from the time he had graduated university as an archaeological student before he stumbled upon the ancient spell book on one of his recreational digs. Then another five years to track down and vet the necessary experts to unlock its secrets. Then six months to lose it all to that ancient religions, magic and witchcraft expert he had hastily brought in when his own trusted experts could get nowhere. Then his desperate search for the expert and the book, only to have it all end in disaster. There was not even someone alive to pay dearly for the loss of his hopes and dreams.

In a fit of rage the general ordered the remnants of the spell book destroyed along with all data that had been gathered. If he could not have the technology then no one would. His version of the utopia he would bestow upon mankind would die with him. Humanity did not deserve it now, in his self esteemed opinion.

Indeed humanity did not deserve what the general had in mind. Selene was right about how the world would have been if the general's vision had succeeded.

5 years later.

I stretched in the sunlight savouring every sensation that my new body sent to my brain. Selene had done a wonderful job on the body she had designed for me. A little bit too big in the breasts for my liking, but she had taught me to appreciate them along with every other part of my new female body. She had also admitted that she had made me more sensitive to the pleasures she was teaching me about.

I looked over at Selene on the towel beside mine. Her new body was fantastic too. I did a nice job on her body's design, even if I do say so myself.

I stretched again. I just couldn't get enough of this body. I thought back to our lovemaking last night. I could remember every detail, every sensation. Another gift of this enhanced body, perfect memory. I was so lost reliving those memories that it took Selene gently shaking me to break me out of my highly arousing reflections.

"Um, Angela honey, you're attracting too much attention to yourself and you're making me so hot I might just have to help you relive those memories right here on the beach in front of everyone. Besides Hon, your bikini bottom is showing a very big wet spot on it."

I looked down and sure enough it was a very big wet spot advertising to all my rampant arousal. My new nipples were poking out way too far, further advertising my condition. A change in the wind brought the smell of my arousal to my nose and Selene's, driving each of us to further distraction.

"Maybe we should go back to the apartment and take care of our little problem." I'd noticed that she too was quickly forming a wet spot on her bikini bottom.

We each got up carefully and wrapped our towels around our waists to hide the wet spots we'd each made. Walking back to our apartment with our arms wrapped around each other made it clear to all that we were a couple.

"Girlfriend you are going to have to learn some self control there or we are both going to be embarrassed a fair bit."

I stuck my tongue out at her and made a grab for her towel, "Look who's talking!" Fortunately for her she had a good grip on her towel.

Oh what's that you say dear reader? You thought we were dead? Well I guess I did leave that impression didn't I?

I guess I should take you back to the chamber and our discussions on how to get us out of our predicament. That should fill in all the necessary gaps for you.

"Hmm, since Selene wants me to be a woman I'm assuming the book can change my sex by altering my body and DNA?"

"Yes, that would be one way of doing it?" the book replied.

"What's the other way?"

"By constructing a new body and moving your brain into the new body."

"What about making more explosives and some kind of extreme thermal device, can you do that?"

"Yes that too is possible."

"Can you also make a non functioning replica of yourself, one that won't give away any important clues as to how you work, but that will stand up to investigation for a long time to come?"

"Yes, that is also possible."

"Well then Selene the two of us need to die in a way that leaves the general with nothing, other than two dead bodies, a destroyed and useless piece of tech and hopefully more questions than answers."

"We'll also need a place or a nook in these caverns where we can hide until we are absolutely sure the general has given up on us and accepted our ruse."

"The back of the power and mining facility has some places where the mining operations left some tunnels." she said

"What power and mining facility?"

"Well the book relies on physics just like everything else in the universe. It's very efficient in its storage and use of energy, but it needs a lot to do what it does. It also requires raw material to work with."

Selene walked over to another section of the rock wall and touched it with her hand. The wall immediately dissolved revealing a very mechanical looking room and cavern behind it. The air was alive with power. You could feel it crawling over your skin as it escaped into the area where we stood looking in.

"This is where the book generates its power and makes virtually all that we need."

Selene then proceeded to give me a quick tour of the facility and the tunnels she thought we could hide in. I wasn't sure that it would work seeing and feeling the energy around me. They would surely be able to detect the stored energy and then find us hiding.

"Is there any way we can hide the energy in there from them? They will find it and then us if we can't."

"Yes there is. The power and mining chamber will be restored to near solid rock by the time they get that far."

"But we'll be trapped back there if you fill it with rock again."

"Yes, but they will never think of you being on the other side of thirty metres of solid and seemingly ancient rock."

"Well how will we get out if you destroy your power source and mining facilities?"

"I'll grow new ones over the course of about two years time."

Selene and I looked at each other and then the book totally aghast. Two years trapped in an enclosed rock tunnel with no escape, no air and no food or water. Even if those essentials were taken care of we'd go bonkers trapped like that.

"Before you both worry too much, here is what I propose. We carry out your plan of leaving two bodies matching the genetic profiles our pursuers expect and the replica of me. We then destroy those replicas but leave just enough evidence to convince the general and his experts that they have found what they are looking for. The power and mining facility will be converted into solid rock consistent with the surrounding rock. A small power and mining facility will be left in place at very low power levels to keep the two of you alive in hibernation for about five years. By that period in time I should be back to full functionality. I'll then wake you both in your new bodies and we can leave this place. Also after five years there will be no chance of the general or his people still looking for you."

"How long will it take to make those things book?" Selene asked.

"About a month, depending on many factors including raw materials available in the surrounding rocks. Available materials should not be a problem though."

"That's what I thought. We'll have to come up with some other solution or literally do what you suggested, Tom."

"Book, can you specify what will take the longest time?"

"The creation of two living but brain dead replica bodies, will take about twenty-four and a half days."

"How long to create non living replicas?"

"About seven days."

"That would be about the same time the bad guys show up give or take."

"What are you getting at, Tom?"

"Well we don't need living bodies for what we want to do. We just need for the bad guys to find two crushed and mutilated bodies under all of the rubble. There will be little for them to recover so it's unlikely they would do an autopsy on a bunch of pulped and mostly dried out goo. They will just do some DNA, dental and fingerprint analysis to verify our identities and be satisfied with that. Anything else would be a waste of time and effort, since the cause of death will be completely obvious."

"Are you sure about that? I mean think about it. The general will want to make us pay for causing him so much trouble. Then there are the other two researchers who I forced to pose as my parents. He might dig further for them "

"Book, do we have enough time to make two extra bodies?"

"No, even with the suggested changes put in place I only have two chambers for constructing the bodies. It would take about eight days to create another two chambers."

"Why do you have two chambers already?"

"Um, because I needed to alter the one's who were acting as my parents. About a week ago I released them to new identities and lives. I've also changed their memories enough that they have no recollection of the general, myself or the book. Their DNA, retinas, fingerprints etc., are all different from their original selves."

"The other reason I had the chambers constructed was so that we could both have new bodies and identities that the general and his minions wouldn't be looking for."

After that it was just waiting for the book to make the bodies, replica of itself and the explosives we needed. Well for me at least, Selene was kept quite busy. It was fascinating watching the replicas of us start to appear inside the growth chambers. I was even more surprised to see two male bodies, instead of the copies of Selene and I that I had expected.

So this was Selene's secret. She had been born a man. From the looks of the relative age of the copy of her male self he hadn't been young at all. I guess that is why she didn't want me to spend any time watching our replicas being grown.

Once she realized that I'd figured out her secret she stayed away from me. It wasn't hard really, she had a lot to do even with the book doing most of the background work. All I had to do was sit and watch these things grow in front of me.

The more I stared at Selene's male replica in front of me the harder I found things. The more intently I stared the more I worked it all through in my head. I can't deny I was quite shocked. The woman I loved wasn't really a woman at all, yet I knew the book had given her a woman's body. Her personality and behaviour though was all woman. So what was my problem? I guess the shock of everything. My whole life was gone from me no matter what happened now. Thomas Jefferson Johnston would officially be dead in a few days time. He was already a missing person. If I couldn't be him who could I be?

After searching my soul for the better part of a day I finally found my answers. It was time Selene knew what they were.

I eventually found Selene taking a break in the blackness at the end of one of the mining tunnels. The book had taught me how to give myself the ability to see in the dark, so Selene's attempt to hide didn't work.

She had heard me coming and was hastily wiping tears from her face. When I got close to her she just burst into tears again. I sat down beside her and pulled her gently to me. I held her till the crying stopped. When she stopped I gently wiped away her tears and kissed her letting my love for her be communicated through that kiss.

"I love you Selene. Your past doesn't matter to me. I'm in love with a beautiful woman who is everything my heart desires."

"You really mean that Tom?"

"Yes I do. I'm the luckiest woman in the world."

"Oh, Tom is dead now, so I think I'll chose my second favourite name in the world; my name is now Angela."

It took her a moment to figure out the implications of what I had just said. I had agreed to be a woman for our escape and to be with her, but I hadn't been truly sold on the idea and she knew it. Now I completely accepted that I would become a woman to be with the woman I loved more than my own life.

Once she had figured out the ramifications of what I'd just said she burst into tears again. Only this time it was tears of joy. For some reason these tears lasted longer than the other tears. I have to admit my own tears were mixing with hers this time. Once we'd dried our soaking faces and kissed some more we separated and looked at each other.

She got a twinkle in her eye. Okay with this weird vision I couldn't actually see the twinkle, but when she asked the question I could definitely hear the twinkle in her voice.

"So what is your favourite name then?"

"Oh, dear. What was that name again? Joan, Stella, Brenda, Portia. No none of those sound like it. I do have a poor memory. Hmm, well it'll come to me?"

She playfully punched me in the arm and laughed. God it was good to see her happy and laughing again.

"It's Selene you silly goose. As if you didn't already know."

At this point we broke out into a play fight. It was the most fun we'd ever had together. Of course she won hands down. I mean despite my physical size and male strength, she still easily beat me. How you ask? Well she cranked up her strength and reduced mine. Remind me never to piss her off. Well things were going well until I my penis started to get hard. The moment she saw it, she stopped and backed away from me scared.

"I'm sorry Selene, I'm attracted to you and I can't help what this body does when I'm near you."

"It's not you T, er Angela, it's that thing, your, your. Oh fuck it girl just say the damn word. It's your penis."

"Can you make me lose the erection?"

"No, I can't!" She sounded even more scared at the idea of making it go away. "In order to do that I would have to think about it in great detail. I can't. I might hurt you if I tried."

I took a step toward her to hold her, but her backing away further from me in increased fear, told me not to try. Of course by this time I was quickly losing the erection. With every passing second that it lessened she began to calm down until the fear had mostly left her eyes.

"Please can we get out of here? I need to be somewhere open and with real light."

I reached out to take her hand but she pulled away from me. "Tom please don't try and touch me at the moment. I'll be alright in a while. I just need to calm down."

I lead the way out of the tunnel and back into the main area where there was plenty of light and more open spaces. In the light I could still see traces of the fear lingering in her expression. Selene tried to explain to me why she was so scared.

"When I was growing up I had a best friend. He was really close to me and always there to protect me when others picked upon me. I was a bully magnet and was never able to successfully defend myself. We could tell each other virtually anything. The one thing I'd never told him was about me being a woman inside."

"It was the summer of our fifteenth year and as usual we spent most of our time together. He finally told me that he was gay. His being gay didn't bother me because I had my own dark secret. I thought it made us closer friends because he had shared that with me. I still was too nervous to tell him about me."

"I guess because I was still his friend and didn't reject him he thought I was gay too, or maybe he told me because he already thought I was. I'll admit I wasn't the most masculine guy. I'm not talking about my former body, I was pretty normal in that department, just the way I did a lot of things was well, subtly or even decidedly feminine. So I think a lot of people mistook me for being a gay male."

"Anyway after a couple of weeks I admitted to him how I was. He just told me I was confused and didn't want to accept that I was gay like him. I told him I was a homosexual, just that in my case I was a lesbian. I explained that I'd never felt any sexual attraction to any guy but that I definitely felt a strong sexual attraction toward other women. I told him I had no desire to be with a woman as a man does but only the way two women would be together. He told me I just needed him to help me figure out my true nature."

"He kept on insisting that I was just a confused gay male and I kept on insisting I was a lesbian despite being born in a male body. We ended up having a big ugly fight about it. We each held the other's secret so we knew at least that part of us was safe despite the fight."

"I hadn't seen him or talked to him for about a week and I was coming back from the library when I was hit hard from behind and knocked out. It was a secluded spot and I was carried into one of our hiding places. You know, a place where you hide your stash of girlie magazines, cigarettes and booze, that you've stolen. Yes girlie magazines, we had after all both been pretending to be regular straight guys until a few weeks before."

Selene paused at this point. She was struggling with her emotions. Her enhanced memory probably replaying the events she was describing to me in too much detail. Eventually she got herself together enough to continue.

"When I came to I was naked and bound very securely. I also had something strapped around my head and in my mouth so that I couldn't close it or bite down on anything put in my mouth. He said he was happy I was awake. He told me that he was going to show me that I was gay just like him and not some weirdo transsexual. He then...He...He"

Selene couldn't go on at this point. She was crying again so I went toward her to hold her and comfort her. She screamed and backed away from me in sheer terror. She was no longer seeing me but her assailant. Eventually she backed herself into a corner where she had the presence of mind to make a wall of rock appear around her to protect her from her nightmare and me.

I ran from the chamber and spoke to the book to get it to help her.

"I'm bonded with her and that means I can't do anything to her against her wishes."

"Isn't there anything we can do to help her?"

"At the moment no. She's been through this kind of episode many times and has always come out of it alright. It just takes her a while to calm down."

"So her former friend raped her?"

"Yes, several times over the rest of that summer and throughout their remaining high school years. She couldn't tell anyone because she feared her secret would be revealed if she did. Selene ran away right after graduation."

"I hope to hell he paid for what he did to her."

"In a manner of speaking he did. A couple of years later he ran into someone that looked like a feminized version of who Selene had been. He kidnapped the young transsexual woman. When he discovered the woman was post op he brutally raped her and almost beat her to death. He believed he was actually punishing Selene for mutilating her body. He never knew it wasn't her until he was caught days later. In his anger and his haste he left so much evidence that he was convicted and sent to prison. Unfortunately for him while he was in prison he bragged around the wrong person about what he'd done. One of the prisoners who knew this woman and cared very deeply for her, had overheard his bragging. He was later found beaten, raped and with his neck slit. They never did find out who was responsible for what happened to him."

"I am so happy he got what he deserved. I'm just sorry that an innocent person got caught up in his insanity."

"Doesn't it bother you that he was killed?"

"Only slightly. I've always thought rapists and paedophiles never receive harsh enough sentences for their crimes. What this guy did to Selene and the other person just proved he wasn't fit to be part of society. That he would brag about such reprehensible things is further proof of that."

"But he loved the boy whom Selene had been. He was doing what he believed was right to help that person be who he believed they truly were."

"I'm sorry book, love is no justification for any of the actions he took. In fact I would say based on his actions that he had no idea of what love truly is. I honestly believe he would have gone on to hurt others in the future. The world is better off without him."

The book was silent for a while. I wasn't sure if it didn't like my answer or if it was thinking on what I had said. Either way I decided to break the silence.

"Didn't that make things easier for her when she found out about him being killed?"

"She never tried to find out, preferring to put that part of her life as far behind her as she could. I found out because of my searches on the Internet and some old archived news stories. As for telling Selene about this, you can never do that. There is a part of her that still loves the friend she had before things went so horribly wrong between them. She would blame herself if she knew what happened to him and that would make things worse for her."

After that I was quite subdued. I would never have had a clue until today that the person I loved could have been so brutalized. Granted it had occurred many years ago, yet it seemed to be as traumatic in her mind today as it was then. Maybe something to do with her bond with the book?

I found myself crying periodically as I thought about what had been done to her. I would attempt to take my mind off things for a while by working and concentrating on the task at hand. There was a lot of work that still needed to be done in order to get everything ready on time. The book gave me instructions on how to do many things that Selene was currently unable to do.

I came back into the power chamber and noticed that the rock wall that Selene had built to protect herself was missing and she was nowhere to be seen. I quickly checked all of the tunnels and eventually found her in the entrance chamber. She and the book were locked in some kind of deep communication session.

"Please don't disturb us Angela. She needs the kind of help that only I can give her at the moment. When she is ready for you one of us will let you know."

I quietly left the two of them alone. It was still weird hearing a voice in my head when no one was around. I also found it weird that the book had refused to see me as male or acknowledge me by my male name, yet seemed more than willing to use the female name I had given myself.

"It is because although you could have been fairly happy as a man, I know you will be far happier as a woman. Selene will always need you as a woman. Now that you have both found your true heart's desire in each other you will never be happy with anyone else ever again."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"Yes, you two are a ninety-seven point three compatibility match; if you are both women. That will increase to nearly ninety-nine point six in ten years time. However it drops down to well below fifty percent if you choose to remain male. Part of true love for a couple is the bonding process that comes out of the physical relationship. Selene is not bisexual enough to have a man as her partner. Also because of her trauma she can never really have a long term physically intimate relationship with a male."

"You don't have to twist my arm, book. I love her and I'll do whatever it takes to be with her and make her happy."

"I know that Angela. I'm only telling you so you can feel even better about your choice. I know this wasn't an easy choice for you. Giving up a way of life that you were born into. Giving up status and privilege to become a woman."

"Becoming a woman doesn't mean I'm any less than I was before!" I said quite defensively.

Sexism was something that I abhorred, although it was rampant in my town. Women were expected to take the subservient role to their husbands and to men in general. My father wasn't too bad when compared to most other men in my home town, but he still had a long way to go in my opinion.

"No it doesn't, but many men believe for completely nonsensical reasons that a woman is of lower status than them. Many women also believe they and all other women are of lower status than men mainly due to upbringing and conditioning. You will have to be prepared for the fact that most people will treat you quite differently now. Men especially will have a tendency to talk down to you and see you as little more than a sex object, given how you will end up looking. Women will also be jealous of your looks. The way you see the world and the way it sees you will change drastically. You will have to be intellectually and emotionally prepared for those changes."

I was about to argue with the book. Yet thinking back to my experiences as a boy and teenager, the way my friends, our brothers and our fathers spoke about women, it was true. Not all were like that. I certainly hoped I had never stooped as low as those men around me. Yet I guess in the deepest part of me I knew I'd said some pretty awful things about women just to be accepted by my male peers.

"So you understand what I'm saying is true."

It wasn't a question but a statement that the book had made. I would have to accept that despite not being of any lower status than the male of the species, I would often be treated as if I were.

"God, men can be such pigs!" I thought.

Did I really just think that? I haven't even changed sex yet and already I'm beginning to think very differently about things. I'm now beginning to look at things from a woman's perspective. I could almost feel the book smiling at the thoughts now running through my head.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and tried to get my mind back into guy mode. Besides all of this introspection wasn't getting things done that needed to be done in order for us to survive. We still had a lot of work to be done and as long as Selene wasn't up to it I had to do whatever I could to fill in for her.

With the books guidance I'd been doing increasingly more complex stuff that I could never have imagined doing in my entire life. It really was an eye opening experience. I felt like some primitive caveman building a moon rocket under the direction of God's voice in my head.

Whoa, that was just too heavy to think about. The books had been around since before most of recorded history. Could they and those bound to them have had such a huge influence on the history of humanity? Burning bushes, being raised from the dead, miraculous healing, voices from God or gods, visions and many other miracles all took on an entirely different light when the abilities of the books and those who wielded them were brought into the picture. I really would be stoned to death just for thinking such thoughts in my former home town.

Maybe that is why Selene kept on asking me if I believed in magic? It takes the right kind of mentality to be so intimately exposed to this new way of thinking and of seeing the past.

I can't think of anyone that I knew in my home town that could handle some of the things I've thought about in the last few days. To most it would shake the foundations of their very lives to pieces. Some would go crazy, others would go ultra-religious, others would just stick their heads in the sand and ignore reality, much as they had been doing most of their lives by ignoring any science or evidence contrary to their beliefs. In a way a form of madness all its own.

I continued working on my tasks, periodically interrupted by thoughts that were bigger and more far reaching than I'd ever had before in my life. Well I had wanted change, something different, something other than BORING. I had gotten it in a much bigger way than I could have ever contemplated.

What is the old saying? Oh yes, 'Be careful of what you wish for, because you may just get it.'

Could I ever go back to being just plain old Tom Johnston now? I mean if the general was no longer part of the picture and the cancer racing through my body could be eradicated?. I don't think I could, not now. I'd been changed so much by what I've been through in the last few days. Tom really is someone of the past.

Could I go back to being male again? Shit! I'm already thinking I'm a girl. I mean after I've been changed into a girl. Maybe. Yet the more I think about being a girl the more right it seems to my mind, the more comfortable and natural it becomes to think of myself as a woman.

'Get a hold of yourself Tom you're a guy. Remember?' I mentally chided myself.

Yet along with Selene, Angela really was the only way forward for me for the foreseeable future. I should just embrace her and be her without any reservations now! I am Angela Hekate wife of Selene Hekate, my beloved.

Gaack, that sounds so sickly sweet! Yet it is what I feel. It is what I want. It is what I need.

"But is it what I feel? Is it what I want? Is it what I need? I think it is. But I'm a guy. Aren't I?" I asked myself not quite sure of anything anymore.

Everything I thought I knew had changed since Selene had come into my life. Everything from what I was taught to believe, to who I am seemed to be changed. Especially since coming into these caverns.

"Who am I? What do I believe?" After a long session of fruitless self examination I decided I just didn't know.

"Book, have you or Selene been messing with my wants and desires?"

"I could lie to you Angela and you would never know it. I could make you believe whatever I or Selene wanted and you would never know it. But to answer your question truthfully, no, neither of us has influenced you. You are thinking things that most of your acquaintances would consider a heresy to listen to let alone seriously contemplate. You are also finally releasing hidden parts of yourself that you had no reason to release ever before. Now that you can be a woman those parts of you are becoming known to you. The more you think about all of this, the more you release them from within you Angela."

"But I've never had any thoughts of being a woman before. Why now?"

"Before I answer that I want to ask you a few questions."

"Okay."

"What did you think when you first saw Selene in class, Angela?"

"I thought she was a really cute goth girl?" I couldn't see where the book's questions were relevant to what I'd asked it.

"What else did you think?"

"Well I thought about how I found some of the goth stuff very attractive. Her clothes and make-up certainly enhanced her looks and made me desire her more."

"What else did you think?"

"Um, I thought I'd love to make love to her."

"Angela you know the truth. Let it out."

"What truth? What are you talking about?"

The book ignored my questions and moved on. "Tell me about her dress?"

"It was a beautiful crushed velvet ankle length dress in a royal blue. It had a square neck that stopped just above her cleavage so that nothing showed. It had a built in waist cincher that laced in front and came to just under her breasts. The sleeves of the dress came down to her wrists and had a finger strap to keep the billowing sleeves in place. It shimmered with each movement she made and drew my eyes to her constantly. It followed her every curve in a gentle but revealing fashion, yet it covered anything that the teachers or principal could object to. As a matter of a fact the only skin showing from that heavenly dress was her hands, neck, upper chest and her beautiful pale face. It was hard to tell what kind of shoes she was wearing because they were almost always hidden in the dress and only appeared fleetingly when she crossed and uncrossed her legs. Her long straight red hair flowed down to the small of her back and shimmered and flowed with each movement of her head."

"Was she wearing any perfume?"

"She was wearing a lovely soft lily-of-the-valley scent that made me want to breathe her in all day."

"Describe her make-up?"

"Her face was done in a pale foundation, but not too pale. Her lips were in a blood red and her eyes were done in a dark Egyptian style, her lashes long and full. Her nails were done in the same shade as her lipstick."

"What about the girl sitting in front of you? What was she wearing?"

I proceeded to give the book a description of the girl in front of me that day. The book also asked me to describe a few of the other girls as well and I told it what I remembered, which was surprisingly detailed given how long ago it actually was. However my description of the other girls were nowhere near as detailed as my description of Selene.

"What about the guy sitting next to you?"

"Um, I think just jeans and a t-shirt, nothing special."

"No colours or other details come to mind?"

"No, not that I can remember."

Again the book asked me to describe what some of the other guys in class had been wearing. My descriptions of them were pretty much the same as the first guy. Truthfully they were identical responses.

"What has any of this got to do with anything?"

"Don't you think it is interesting that you can provide a detailed description of what the girls closest to you were wearing but only vague descriptions of what the guys were wearing?"

"I don't think so. I'm not gay so I don't pay any attention to guys and what they are wearing."

"What were you wearing that day?"

"Um, jeans and a t-shirt I think. It was a long time ago."

"Can you describe the outfit that you thought looked best on your mother?"

"It was a lovely soft yellow floral summer dress with small flowers, daisies I think, printed all over it, that went down to just below her knees. She used to wear it when I was quite little. It just flowed around her and made her look so carefree and beautiful. It always made me feel special when she was wearing it."

"Why did her wearing it make you feel special?"

I hesitated, why would my mother wearing that dress make me feel special? "Um, I don't know, it just did."

"What about your father? What outfit did he wear that made him look good?"

"All he ever wore was a grey suit and white shirt that he dressed up with a few different ties. About the only time he didn't wear that was when he was working on the house, yard or car. Then it was blue jeans and a t-shirt"

"You can't tell me if there was ever any kind of stripes or other distinguishing features of any of his suits?"

"No. It was a guy's grey business suit, nothing special. He had several of them and bought a new one each year that was basically indistinguishable from any of the previous ones."

"So he bought the same type of suit year after year and in all the time you knew him you can't add any details about the suit? What kind of buttons were on the suit, did he use a tie clip and if so what kind? Did he use cuff-links or did his shirts just button at the cuff? What about shoes?"

"Well I guess he wore black socks and shoes."

"So you can give me a detailed description of what the women around you wore but you have no idea what any of the men, even someone as close as your own father wore, other than a very minimalistic description? You can't even give me a good description of what you were wearing."

"What do you want from me? What are all these pointless questions about? Why can't you leave me alone?"

I was so close to crying and I didn't know why. Why would the book do this to me? What was it driving at?

"Think about Selene and what she was wearing. What is it about her outfit that made you remember it in such detail?"

"I....I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"What is it that I supposedly know?"

"Come on don't play dumb with me. I know everything that you know. I know what you feel deep inside of you. You can't hide it from me. You want me to know. You want it to be out in the open. You yourself want to know the truth."

"I, I can't."

I broke down crying at this point. I just couldn't. No one, nothing could ever know, not even me. Eventually I stopped crying and did my best to pull myself together.

'For god's sake Tom you're a man act like one not some snivelling girl.' I berated myself. Yet was I a man? I just bawled my eyes our for no reason I could comprehend. If I wasn't a man what was I?

"I, I honestly don't know what you are trying to get out of me." Although at that point I wasn't so sure I even believed me anymore.

"I can feel the answer trying to get through to your consciousness. Let it out Angela."

"Let what out?"

"Look behind you on the wall."

There on the wall was a picture of a very feminine version of me wearing the same outfit as Selene had worn that first day. My makeup and nails were done identically to hers, except in this picture I was given long black hair. Beside that was another picture of me wearing my mother's sun dress, I looked like a younger version of my mother and just as pretty as her. Those two images touched something deep in side me, something finally snapped in me. It was so clear all of a sudden.

The images that the book had shown me were not ones it had created from my descriptions or memories of the clothing involved. These images had come direct from my own fantasies. They had been created deep within my subconscious and hidden from my conscious self. Fantasies that I had never allowed myself to know about until this moment. Now I understood why I remembered such detail of how women around me dressed. It was not because of me being straight, it was because I secretly fantasized about wearing the clothing of the women around me.

I couldn't take it any more. I wanted to crawl into the rocks around me and die. I dropped to the floor and curled up into a little ball and cried. I have no idea how long I was like that but it was a long time. Eventually I got myself together again and stood, quite numb.

"Tell me Angela. Tell me what you now know."

I ran to the book. I wanted to tear it page from page. I wanted to make it pay for what it had made me admit to myself. Yet I couldn't do anything to it. It wouldn't let me. My muscles wouldn't obey my commands to destroy it. So I yelled and screamed at it until I was hoarse. I called the book every nasty and degrading name I could think of. Most totally inappropriate for an inanimate object. Well mostly inanimate. I was so angry I completely missed the fact that Selene was no longer in the entrance chamber with the book. Eventually my ranting fadded to sobbing.

"Enough childishness Angela! Tell me what you have learnt."

Defeated I complied with its demand.

"Okay! I was jealous of how Selene looked. I've always wanted to look just like she did. That dress was so fucking sexy it was making the woman in me scream out to be her. I wanted to be like her and just about every other girl or woman around me. It's why I remembered all those details about the clothing. I should have been born a woman, instead I got second prize. Not an unacceptable prize, one I could have lived with, but not the one my heart truly desires. Now that I know the truth I can never be happy as a male ever again."

"There are you satisfied book? You got what you wanted from me. I've always known deep inside me I am a woman at heart."

The book remained silent for some time while the last of my anger subsided. It truly was amazing that I'd hidden something so fundamental from myself for all of these years. How could I have not known who I really was? I guess it was just plain old fear and the fact that despite leaning toward being female I could have been happy being male as both the book and Selene had told me. Now that I had a real chance at being female though I couldn't pass up on becoming my true self.

"Thank you Angela. Doesn't it feel better to admit the truth to yourself?"

"Um, yeah. Kind of."

Actually it did make me feel a hell of a lot better admitting it to myself. It was like a big burden had just been lifted from my soul. Wow, that was a shock in and of itself. I felt freer now. Why couldn't I just admit it outright to the book that I felt great getting it out in the open? After all the book knew my thoughts and my personality better than I did. I guess pride had a hand in it.

"What else did you think about?"

"I wanted her to slowly strip that beautiful dress off me and tease the body I should have been born with. I wanted her to make love to me as a woman. Oh god am I really a lesbian at heart too, not a heterosexual male?" At that point I didn't know she was a lesbian yet I wanted us to make love to each other as two women would.

Again my world shook at the revelations that the book had coaxed from my subconscious. I was never who I thought I was. What would my former friends think of me now?

As if reading my thoughts the book asked me about my closest friend. "What do you think your friend Wil would think of the body that Selene has designed for you?"

"Oh he'd be all over me in a minute if he met me away from the town. He's pretty impressively hung you know. I can just imagine what his penis would feel like inside me."

I stopped at that point thinking about the ramifications of what I'd just said. It had slipped from my subconscious and out of my mouth before I was even aware of it. My mind had conjured up an image of him impaling my future vagina with his penis. I was even flushed at the moment thinking about it. My nipples had become hard and there was a stirring in my penis. It was all too much for me.

"Oh god, I'm bi!"

I must have blacked out with realization overload, because the next thing I remembered was being on the ground with Selene standing over me, dual looks of concern and apprehension in her eyes. I went to get up and she skittered away from me staying just out of my reach. She had that look of fear back in her eyes again. At least it wasn't that look of terror.

"Are you okay Tom?"

"I'm fine thank you. I guess I was just overwhelmed thinking about all that is happening to me, what I'm learning about myself and must have blacked out for a moment. I'm sorry I didn't mean to startle you?"

"It's not you, it's me. When I look at you now I see him, or you appear as him. I need you to hold me but I'm scared of you now. Oh I'm so confused."

"Tom is really gone now. I'm beginning to wonder if there ever really was a Tom. I'm Angela now, and I'm just beginning to realize that I have always been her deep inside. It's probably how I came up with my new name so quickly. I think it has always been my secret name for myself. A secret I've somehow kept from myself until now."

With each new realization along the way I thought I had truly accepted becoming a woman, accepted my future as Angela, but with each additional revelation it just showed me how much I hadn't previously accepted things. How I hadn't truly understood my own soul. I wonder if there will be further revelations of my true nature yet to come.

"Is there any way I can help you Selene? Just tell me and I'll do it."

"I honestly don't know."

"Book, can you prevent me from getting an erection?"

"Yes I can."

"Good then do it please. Can you also, with Selene's permission, alter her perceptions so that she sees me as Angela. You know like you did to me so I wouldn't see that older woman in the video store was actually Selene?"

"Um, Angela, that is actually how I look now. I changed the way I looked and my relative age when I left your town. The physical appearance of the Selene you knew is the illusion now. This is real."

Selene again spoke under her breath in that strange language and I was felt a wave of dizziness as something changed in my mind and my vision blurred, when it cleared the woman in the video store was standing before me. To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. The woman I love wasn't the woman I loved, she was somebody new. Well at least physically. The personality was still all Selene. Will I ever get used to any of this?

"Maybe it's enough to stop your erections. Let's just try that for the time being okay Angela?"

"Are you sure? I don't want to cause you any more problems."

"I'm sure. Just give me a bit more time and it'll be as if nothing happened."

"Okay. But if it does cause anymore problems we will have to give my way a try."

"Okay."

With that we got back to the task at hand. It didn't take long for almost all of the work to be completed. With the necessary equipment moved and setup in the tunnel where we would be spending the next five years there was little more we could do but sit around and wait for the replicas of ourselves to be completed. Approximately another four and half hours according to the book.

Selene and I sat in mostly uncomfortable silence when we had finished our tasks. She feeling guilty about her fear of me, and I feeling guilty about my male body making her feel that way. The episode she had experienced had literally destroyed any hope that she could ever accept the old me now. There really was no reason for Tom to exist anymore. Yet I did not mourn for my old existence I longed for the moment I could begin the transformation of my body into Angela and begin my life as her.

Eventually we were told we could move the replicas into the entrance chamber. Thankfully the book had provided appropriate clothing and other identifying objects for the replicas. It was weird carrying my own dead body and placing it into the entrance chamber. Once that was done we removed the book and put its replica in its place. We then placed the thermal device where the book had calculated it was required to be the most effective and convincing along with all of the explosive charges placed as required.

With everything set and ready to go off automatically we retreated into what would be our home for the next five years. It was really weird watching the unnecessary equipment dissolve and reshape into the rocks they had originated from. The tunnel from the entrance was just as quickly converted back into rock formation that would be indistinguishable from what was originally there.

Eventually it was just the three of us in a heavily reinforced roomy mining tunnel with all the equipment and power that would be required for the book, Selene and I to survive for the next five years. I was about to get into my chamber when she stopped me.

"Angela, can you be Tom for the next few minutes?"

"Why?"

"Because despite everything we've done to survive we might not make it out of here and, I, I want Tom to make love to me."

There was extreme uncertainty in her voice. I could hear the stress as she struggled to make her most unusual request. I wouldn't do anything to hurt her.

"I can't hurt you Selene and that's what would happen if we made love as a man and woman."

"I know you are a virgin, as am I. I've never even been with another woman, I never found anyone who interested me until I found you." she said

"If we don't make it out of here....Well I want us to have both shared something special. If we do make it out I still want us to have done this. Tom is the only man in the world I would ever make this offer to. You've given up your life to be with me."

"You don't have to do this for the man in me Selene. I'm not sure there ever was one. I'm more than happy to wait until I am fully me before we have sex."

"You don't understand, I want this. I want to have the experience of making love with the only man I ever fell in love with. I want to know what it feels like to be made love to by a man. I don't want to take the chance of dieing a virgin and I want to be able to know that men are capable of giving love through sex and not just pain."

I guess I could have argued her out of this. Her thinking was reasonably flawed, but I didn't see any good coming from pointing that out to her. I also didn't see any good in the two of us making love to each other at this point.

"Angela, please go along with her. She and I think this might be a way for her to put some of her fears and pain behind her. It won't be a perfect cure, but if this experience is as love filled as I know you will make it, she will be less likely to experience one of her flashbacks at an awkward moment."

Well if the book was right about it helping Selene from having awkward flashbacks that might reveal her abilities beyond the three of us, then maybe it did have value. How much though? There was also the possibility that it might do worse harm to her.

"Angela please do this. There is more chance of it doing her good in the long run than harm. She needs this and so do you. If you don't you will always wonder what you missed out on as a man. This way you will know physical intimacy from both the male and female perspective."

Hmm. The book had a good point there, one that I had never considered. Also if there was more chance of helping Selene than harming her then I would do whatever I was asked.

"Please Angela. Just a few more minutes as Tom and you'll have a lifetime or more with me as Angela."

"You both can quit twisting my arm. I'll be Tom for a few more minutes just for you Selene. However the one condition. If you, the book or I sense that things are becoming too much for you to handle we stop immediately. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Agreed."

A few minutes later we were both naked and in utter darkness. Why the dark? Sounds traditional doesn't it? Well with no enhanced vision, Selene was mainly using her imagination, and not seeing my penis which might trigger a flashback. A precaution that we all felt was needed. I was on the bottom and my strength was less than hers to help her feel safe. The book also made sure that I didn't ruin things because of my inexperience and enthusiasm. I wouldn't get my fulfilment until Selene had hers.

I won't say it was easy for either of us. I do believe she got some benefit out of our lovemaking. I experienced my one and only time of making love as a man. It was quite good but I do find that I prefer making love as a woman. It is just more natural to my mind.

In the afterglow, is afterglow the right word when you are in total darkness? Well in the quiet afterwards we held onto each other and gave the book the final go ahead. There was a loud thud and things certainly rattled and it scared the hell out of both of us, but our little hideaway remained intact. From there it was saying our goodbyes and crawling into our chambers for our long sleep.

That we survived and got out of there you already know. Our little ruse had worked exactly as we had hoped. The general believed we were dead and that the book had been destroyed. No one was looking for us now. We could begin our new lives without having to look over our shoulders all the time. If we were careful it would always remain that way.

That was one hundred-seventy-six years ago. I was apprenticed by Selene (after much arm twisting by the book) and eventually the book made a working copy of itself for me when I was ready to be bound. We were both surprised as we had assumed that there was no way to make another book. Of course if we had thought fully about it we would have realized it was possible. Even after all this time neither of us quite know all of the books' capabilities. It's like they only ever gave us as much power and knowledge as we needed in order to protect them and survive ourselves.

Selene and I had our ups and downs. What relationship doesn't? There was a three year stretch when we didn't talk to each other and lived on different continents. We always came back to each other. Why? We were soul mates. We were dead without the other. Our lives lost meaning until we came back with the one who held our heart. There were other fights, yet after that one time we learnt that we could never be emotionally apart again.

Each of us gave birth to five beautiful girls. I suspect the books were responsible for the unusual odds of having ten girls between us and no boys. I had children who were genetically from Selene's former male self and she of course had Tom's children.

The hardest thing of all for both of us was watching our children grow old and die, while we stayed young. Our children never learnt of our power. The complications and dangers that would have brought to all of us made that a requirement. We would 'die' once they were on their own and quite self sufficient, using a similar trick as our escape from the general. Our wills provided our children with a large enough inheritance to see them through their lives. We became new individuals who were part of their lives for a time; just to help them through their loss.

Did I ever have a relationship with a man you ask? Well as tempting as some men were I was always faithful to the woman I loved and she to me. It's that soul mates thing. Even when she set me up with a guy here and there I just couldn't do it. It felt wrong. She was my wife and I was hers and I couldn't be unfaithful. She felt the same way. We were hopelessly and happily stuck with each other. Neither of us ever considered becoming male again as we were both too happy being female to ever give it up, not even for a short time.

Eventually we both found and trained apprentices who would later take over our roles with our books. I had the task of giving Selene's book to her apprentice six months ago.

We both decided many years back with the birth of our last two girls to grow old and die naturally. Why would we do that if we could live many lifetimes in perfect health and youth? There were many reasons, some of which may be hard to understand when one has only one lifetime to live and the prospect of failing heath as one ages. From that limited life perspective one always wants more. Maybe that is why so many believe so strongly in an afterlife of some sort or reincarnation, even if they are not religious. I will briefly try to explain some of the reasons that were relevant for us.

The biggest reason for us was that it was unbelievably hard to watch our children grow old and die. We watched four of them age and die, quite literally, and one died in an accident. We would always be there as a nurse, orderly or caregiver in their last days. We would always make sure their last moments were as comfortable, peaceful and happy as possible. It was our way of doing penance for not giving our child our extended life. All so our child could have a normal life.

Another reason would be relating to people who while physically the same age as you yet are really a hundred years your junior. When you try to pretend to have the same interests and values as them, it becomes a strain trying to relate to them. Do you remember how much your parents hated the music you found so great? Imagine having to go through a dozen or so music fads and have to pretend that you like the crap that is popular each time and finding each successive time harder than the first. You get to a certain age and the brain just doesn't see the next best thing as anything but offensive noise. That would be but one example of many. Your outlook on life is often so out of tune with your physical contemporaries that you often completely fail to fit in or relate to them or them to you. Life experiences changes a person in ways you just can't imagine until no one around you is your peer. Unless that person is the same as you. Selene eventually became my only peer on the entire planet, and I hers.

I guess the last significant reason is that the human soul, if there is such a thing, is not meant for eternity. At some point no matter how good life is you stop and ask yourself 'Is this all that there is?' When you've done everything your heart desires too many times it loses its value and desirability. Quite frankly all things become old and BORING eventually. Selene and I had achieved all of our goals several times over. Instead of filling us with energy they eventually become a chore.

Now you are going to say you just need to find something different, something that you've never done before. A new goal, a new focus, maybe a new partner would revitalize your will to go on. Think of it like this, you start off with one language and then learn a second language. The second language is harder to learn than the first, because it isn't your native tongue. Most people who learn multiple languages will say the third language, depending on the complexity of the language, will be easier to learn than the second, the fourth easier again and so on. You eventually get to the point where the skills you've already learnt take too much out of the challenge of learning something new. Learning became too easy. This was especially true for Selene and I as we never forgot anything we read or learnt, nor any skill we acquired. Every memory we ever experienced is there as fresh in our minds as if we had just acquired it.

Now where was I? Sorry force of habit to say that, to pretend that one forgets like everyone else.

Selene passed away six months ago. Today I gave my book to my apprentice.

This journal is my final testament to our beautiful and fulfilling life together. Hopefully there will be some wisdom that successive holders of my book can use. When I finish this journal I shall stop my hollow dead heart and join Selene in whatever is next, be it oblivion or some other journey.

I miss you so much my love. I will be with you soon.

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Special thanks go out to my crack team of proofers, who did their best to improve this story: Carolyn, Kristina, Rachel Anne, Joanne and Dimelza. All remaining errors are my own.

The usual disclaimers: This is an original work of fiction, any resemblence to persons or magical books living or dead is purely coincidental. The authoress retains all rights to this story. Permission must be granted by the authoress before posting anywhere else.

Thank you dear reader for taking the time to read this story. Constructive feedback is of course encouraged and welcomed.

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