This is my entry for 
's Finish The Story Contest - Week #56
Image by beckysmith62 from Pixabay
Previously on The Church
A fiction short prompt by 
The air was sticky and they’d been drinking for hours. It was late into the evening of the going away party for Ron and Jenni. They’d been good friends to Sean when he first arrived, but since then they’d grown distant. In fact, it had been awhile since Sean had hung out with anyone. He’d arrived to a room full of people he didn’t know, already well on their way to getting drunk.
“It’s so great to see you,” Jenni said, offering a hug. “Sean, oh man!”
Ron offered a handshake. “Hey man, good to see you one last time.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Sean replied. “And sorry to see you going.”
The room erupted with laughter. A man had slipped and fell on his ass and he was rolling on the ground hollering away. “I’m goanna grab a cigarette,” Sean said.
“Oh wait!” Jenni grabbed his arm. “Let me introduce you to everyone!” She proceeded to bring him through the rooms of the townhome they rented for the night’s going away party. There was a Jack and a Royal and a Jeremy and a Kim and a Karen and more and Sean soon forgot all those names anyway. He finally go outside for a cigarette, his heart racing and his anxiety peaked.
“Fucking…” he mumbled to himself. “Too many fucking people in that space.”
“I know, right?”
The voice startled him. He peaked over and saw a girl sitting with pink dyed hair. “Can
I get one of those?”
“You know Jen and Ron?” Sean asked, offering her a cigarette.
“Sure,” the girl replied. “We met a few times at church.”
“Church?” Sean asked. “I’m incredulous. I didn’t know they were Christians.”
“Oh, it’s not that kind of church.” The girl took a drag on her cigarette and the presumed air of mystery she was attempting to paint annoyed him.
“Okay,” Sean said. “Well, then, what kind of church is it?”
The door to the porch opened and the music blared from inside. Ron came outside with a group of other party goers, all drunk and cheering.
“I’m telling you,” one of the guys was saying. “That girl’s totally into me. I’m going to go for it.”
“Do it!” Ron said. “We all believe in you man. Believe in yourself!” Then, turning to Sean. “We’re going for a swim!” Ron announced. He shouted it again, and the group cheered.
Sean glanced over to the girl, whose name he still didn’t know. She was smiling.
They trekked down the dirt road from the pension then through a dirt path. The ground was rocky, volcanic in some spots in that way typical to Jeju. Drunk, most of them stumbled. They passed by a fish farm, the ponds of which were covered in nets. Then a water treatment plant with rumbling generators inside its deep warehouse.
Then they reached a secret, secluded beach. The pink haired girl stripped down, an obsidian necklace dangling from her neck, glowing in the moonlight. She descended into the water.
“It warm and wonderful!” she said. “Come on.”
The group stripped down, and Sean saw many were wearing the same pendant. He began to strip as well, as the idea of warm ocean waters in such a hot night was intoxicating. He went into the water, swimming till it was deep enough to fully submerge.
When he came back up, he heard screaming.
And now, my final
The screams came from the shore, summoning everyone to join a campfire he had not seen. Sean decided to continue enjoying the freshness of the sea...
"Come on! Let's go! The ceremony is about to begin," he heard the girl say.
But he didn't want to be part of some secret rite of some deranged sect.
"You won't regret it. All of your questions will be answered."
She swam to shore and his curiosity encouraged him to follow her.
«What did she mean by that?», he wondered.
Everyone was around the campfire, making a circle. They paid no attention to their nudity. They chanted a mystical song. A Celtic tune.
The girl squeezed her hair as she waited for him standing by the shore. She extended her hand toward him. Sean took the girl's hand. She squeezed it and invited him to sit over some logs near the campfire.
"We venerate the feminine face of God"
Sean rolled his eyes, tired of attracting strange fanatics who always wanted to get him into some new religion. He respected the beliefs of others and didn't discard the teachings learned, but they always confused his respect for veneration.
"Mother Earth has always given us everything we need from the beginning of life. Everything we do in this world has repercussions on others. Not only in this life but all of them."
Sean was curious about the last sentence.
"The woman was the first to know this secret, in her submissive state she learned to appreciate in silence the ancestral knowledge of life. Unlike the man, who was always on the move, in search of answers he always had within himself".
Sean listened attentively to what the girl said, however, the song became hypnotic; the flames of the bonfire danced according to the musical notes emitted by the orators.
Suddenly he was in a meadow, far from where he was. The sun shone brightly, the color of the flowers was very vivid, contrasting with the green color of the undergrowth.
"We've lived many lives and we've always met."
Men and women dressed in fur, armed with lances, chased giant buffaloes. One of them went back and decided to attack one of the women, a man crossed itself and was wounded to death. The others nailed the animal with their spears and it fell dead a few meters from the man. The woman ran towards the wounded man.
"It was the first time we met," added the girl.
The scene changed. Two armies of knights-errant collided; in the heat of the battle, the sword of one of the knights broke, with the impact he fell on his back, totally unarmed, the enemy took advantage to nail his when surprisingly his throat was pierced by the sword of a female warrior. Unfortunately, she falls down in the knight's lap when she was hit by an arrow.
"It was my turn to save you," explained the girl.
The scene changed again. This one was a bit familiar. A child was assaulted by a larger one. When the older one was about to punch the younger one's nose, the greater one was hit with a baseball bat from a side, falling deprived of pain. The girl took the little one's hand and they both ran away.
"Surely you remember that last one."
"We're more than a bag of walking flesh and blood."
Sean woke up to the morning sunlight.
His clothes were next to him. Many of the other people were saying goodbye to each other. Sean put on his pants and gestured to the girl.
"Was it all a dream?"
"Think what you want, when you decide to believe, you know where to find me"
Sean finally decided to leave without looking back, he needed to meditate on what he had experienced.
Another one of the boys approached her
"Will he come back?"
"Don't worry, whatever happens, kindred souls always find their way"
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