Zia… Galiena’s Master Bedroom Suite

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His deep voice cut through the quagmire of the sweltering darkness to reach her in the nick of time.

“Grab my hand,” Greg reached in the direction of the diminishing space toward Zia. “I'll help you.”

Until that moment her strength had dwindled. When her mate’s handsome face came into view, a boost of new energy materialized from some unknown reservoir.

Greg reached forward only to confront an invisible wall between them. Try as he might with stabs and punches at the air, his hand crashed into a wall of resistance.

Even if he’d succeeded in reaching through the opening, Greg’s hand was too far away. He was on the other side of the barrier between the void and life on earth. He could see her, and she could hear him. That had to mean she was close to breaking through to get to that side of the portal.

Zia broke her triangular posture to use her arms and legs. The atmosphere had become dense and resistant to movement. Like a slurry of quicksand, her current environment pulled and sucked downward for every attempt made to advance.

With all the strain to reach him that could be mustered, Zia tried to close the distance.

She stretched and pushed against the pressure of the void with no progress. “Uh, I’m trying,” she grunted and fumbled about groping to find purchase of anything that would give her leverage to advance upward. When more pressure closed in around her torso to lock her into place, Zia had to admit her predicament. “I can’t move, and you’re too far away.”

“Just a little bit more. You can do it, Zia. I’m right here.”

“No, you’re not. There’s a big gulf between us. You might as well be at the other end of a football field.”

“That can’t be. If not for Galiena’s barrier, I could pluck you out with no issue.” He paused and looked at her for a long moment. “Zia, are you okay? Does anything hurt or feel off?”

She didn’t hesitate on that one. “Yes, everything. I’m so tired. It’s like treading through mud, cement, and quicksand in here.”

“I see.” He turned back and looked around the room in search of something. “I won’t stop looking for a way to get to you. Just don’t give up. We do this together.”

“Yes, together.”

Her voice wasn’t as strong as before, but it retained the hope and chipper tone that only Greg coaxed out. She wasn’t alone.

Greg’s presence at the opening gave her new life. He’d been the first to notice her in the void as he’d been attempting to break through a cloaked barrier.

He pushed against an area close to the opening with his hands to be met with an invisible resistance.

“Zia, I keep trying to locate you in the realms and can’t find your cosmic location anywhere. Do you know where you are? Tell me, and I can come get you.”

Zia searched her knowledge to give him her location. An immediate push-back popped up. Well, that was new. Looked like the void had no address.

“Greg, I can’t sense my location.”

She heard Matt say, “Greg, concentrate on breaking through to Zia, we’ll handle Galiena.”

Expressive blue eyes of love caught hers as a faint brush against her consciousness offered comfort.

“My love, we have no more worries. You did it,” his smile was large enough to cross the divide to where she struggled against the darkness. “You’ve opened a portal. I can see and connect with you. This is the home stretch. Concentrate on how you can come through the opening.” He continued to smile at her beaming optimistic support her way. “I knew you weren’t gone when the insides of that cage exploded.”

His eyes scrolled over to an area where Zia guessed the cage sat. The rare look of hatred worried his face as he took in the scenery outside of her range of view. The expression didn’t last long as he looked back at her with a refreshed hope in his eyes.

“I could still feel you.” He looked back at the action happening behind before deeming it safe enough to continue to talk with her. Please, Zia, push forward a little more. You’re so close. I can’t break through this force field. We’ve been trying, but your portal opening is behind Galiena’s shield. The others are keeping her occupied while I try to help you get through.”

“What’s going on out there? There’s a lot of space between me and that opening.”

Greg looked through the hole and examined it from his side. He appeared to step back. She stayed silent as he looked around the space before him on the other side and scowled. “She’s booby-trapped this area. That Goddess-awful female has laced this entire area with that damned powder. Any tears in it are subject to release poison powder bombs.” He searched some more for any new clues to break her out of her torture dungeon.

As if prompted by Greg’s discovery the darkness became aggressive. It crushed in, attacking Zia’s ability to breathe. The pressure around her neck forced her to gag for relief. The more she tried to gasp air, the more the thick surroundings pressed in.

As if it were sentient, the atmosphere bore down on her, determined to cut off her air supply. Unable to take in full breaths, Zia’s body began to try to compensate with shorter, faster ones. Not to be outdone, the slurry that had been heavy and thick seized to prevent movement.

Taking in another inhale became near impossible as the tightness around her swelled. Zia staved off the early signs of panic. Irony rocketed through to her core. It had been Galiena who’d taught her how to recognize panic and anxiety.

She’d worn that stupid watch Galiena had given her to track them. The Triplets had been on to how evil this bitch was. There was no doubt that watch had been a source of monitoring and maybe manipulating Zia too.

Strengthened anew by good old reliable anger, Zia shook off her inner critic to focus on getting out of here and whipping the shit out of Galiena.

Something that gave the impression of being a bit of relief or strength fluttered just out of reach of her mind. Thoughts of her baby and how he deserved to be born ignited a new cascade of images.

Birth and death. Into and out of this world you come alone.

This would be a good facepalm moment. Zia understood the foundations of how to open a portal into the earth. She just hadn’t fully grasped the meaning.

She amended her view of the situation. Zia was all alone in here. No one but Zia could get her out. There were no cosmic doctors ready or able to cut through and snatch her out of this necessary process. If she didn’t overcome the physical impact of her situation, she’d die on the spot. Her baby wouldn’t be able to come through her vessel and Greg would see her die.

Lightheaded and disoriented from the lack of oxygen, Zia had come so close only to fail.

An odd feeling of losing grasp with her newly upgraded consciousness seeped into her body and mind. The void had changed to an oppressive thick, muddy consistency.

“Zia, keep focusing on me,” he instructed her. “You don’t look so well. Tell me, my love. Are you experiencing any hallucinations? You’re right on the other side. If I could break through, I could touch you with ease.”

She was lucid enough to know Greg shouldn’t try to take on that powder again. “No, don’t do that. Let me try to come up with something from here. I’m still far away from the opening.”

“No, my love, you’re right here. You’re so close I could touch you.”

The primal goo started to bubble and churn as if sentient and hell-bent on keeping her from making it out of here. It was too much to cover. “I can’t risk it. What if I fall?

“Oh, but my love, what if you fly? Trust me.” Greg’s voice beamed with belief and love.

She had to give it a try. For them, for their baby, and for their family. Hate it as she might, Zia closed her eyes to shut out everything. Her recollection of how she’d come to be here in this pit of a prison slipped away like a ball on the surface of the sea.

What was she thinking about?

Her thoughts attempted to come back to her but were refrained. The harder she pulled, the more the notion of who she was as a person evaporated. Like trying to sift stone through cheesecloth, her ability to pull up anything past being thrown into that cage refused to come through.

How had she ended up here?

This wasn’t a cage, and she seemed to be surrounded by a vacuous nothing. She attempted to move her neck to allow for larger breaths. Zia needed relief from the strain of surviving this trap. Her arms protested as the feeling left. They’d been sealed into an outstretched position. Zia’s body was immobilized by a thickness that might as well be quick-dry cement.

Everything about her position was out of whack. As she tried to work out her orientation to the room where Greg was, Zia couldn’t make heads or tails of the portal’s position. Another shallow intake of air did nothing to help her lightheadedness.

The portal opening was all wrong. It was out of balance.

As soon as the word “balance” materialized an unseen membrane ripped. Waves of knowledge of her journey through the Kundalini experience resonated throughout her body. Zia stopped viewing the void as anything but what it was—a birth canal back into this realm.

In her hurry to construct a portal, Zia hadn’t taken into account certain rules and laws of how to come into the earth’s realm. Once again her impatience had blindsided and diminished the efficacy of her plan and efforts. This glaring flaw had beaten her over the head.

Okay, I get the message and the lesson. Zia took a moment to let that truth sink in. I have a problem with patience and self-control. I’m an idiot who doesn’t take the time to do things with any sense of wisdom and understanding. I am humbled by your lesson and repent.

Zia humbled herself to repent from her hastiness. She aimed her acquiescence at the Goddess with reverence. It was past time for her to grow up.

Sure, her desire to come back to earth had been met. By her can-do attitude, a way back to earth had been made. Only, she had gone head first in unprepared with a half-witted idea of what it took to accomplish the feat. She’d created a gateway portal from the Divine gateway to earth. That required her to go through the struggle of birth again. Or, for her, a rebirth.

The Goddess caressed her knowing with acceptance of her repentance. It was all so simple—duh.

She’d been in the highest realm of the Divine gateway. To come back to earth that resided in a lower frequency realm, the only true way was through birth. Where most of the living realms resided on a plane within the same ban of frequencies, the God-realm was above all.

Zia had unwittingly picked the hardest portal creation—the one of rebirth—as the first one she made. The rules and laws of harmonic balance were clear. No soul could enter the realms of the living and have a corporeal form able to reside there legally but by birth. Or, again in her case, rebirth. She had to go through this birth canal to fulfill the legal requirement.

Realization that she could keep her knowledge and consciousness brightened the aspect of having to go through the struggle of birth once more. Instead of coming in as a baby without the benefit of retaining the knowledge of the Divine gateway, she’d been granted a renewal, reset, and second chance to live in her purpose and calling. Zia would emerge with total recall of her Kundalini awakening.

Although it would take practice to increase her skill, it was certain that once she crossed back over into the earth-realm from this birth canal, opening frequency adjacent portals on the living realm ban would be a piece of cake.

Taking the residual knowledge into account. Zia worked on moving her arms back down. She would enter head first like she started out. It took more time than she would have liked to overcome the tightness of the canal.

Once she had her arms down to her sides, Zia willed her feet to press down. Unlike earlier when she’d tried to advance by pulling up, Zia allowed her body to push itself out as if gravity was at the end where her head would emerge.

To her delighted surprise, her efforts began to bear fruitful success. Each push was taxing, and she had to stop for rest.

“That’s it, my love. you’re almost out,” Greg cheered from the other side of the entry.

Boy, would she have some crazy stories to share with him when she got out of this. Her having to go through another birth canal to come into the earth once more didn’t go over her head in meaning. She felt compelled to share this with Greg.

She could see he fought again. With her next push, Zia gained enough distance to see him punch an alien who ran at him with razor-sharp claws.

“Greg, watch out on your side. I’ve figured it out. I must do this on my own. If I don’t come back into this realm by natural order, I’ll be out of synch. I do this, and then we can put an end to all the turmoil. I’m almost done,” she said pushing as the walls of the canal pushed in again.

What she’d thought was an attack had been the wall of the birth canal trying to help expel her from its depths. Zia was consciously experiencing the contractions of labor as the canal pressed in again. This time she worked with the force instead of against it.

She thanked the Goddess once more for the gift of a cosmic redo. Her perspective shifted to see the truth. It changed her orientation of how this experience played out from a different angle. This wasn’t an assault but rather a gift of a second chance. Her recollection of all the struggle she’d endured over her lives evolved to reframe through the new lens of the cosmic growth cycle.

Whenever a being changed for the better, an evolution had to occur. This evolution was fueled by struggle, which produced hope, which triggered perseverance and faith, which birthed action, and that propelled the entity into a new state of being. The summation of this process had been bandied about in her culture for eons—“for every new level, there’s a new devil.” In this case, Zia understood the devil to mean the encapsulation of anything unpleasant like a struggle, lack, frustration of the unknown or new, failure in the pursuit of more, and the big one—resistance.

Going through this experience as a cognitive adult helped her understand what her baby would endure.

A tinge of fear ignited at that thought. She wanted to keep her baby safe from everything. This process was scary but necessary. If she hadn’t understood what was going on for most of it, how would a baby make sense of it? No wonder lots of babies suffered birth trauma.

“Focus, Zia. I see you turning in to your thoughts. You’re making great progress. Just a little more. Don’t stop now,” Greg coached and encouraged.

He’d fought off interlopers into the area to keep it safe for her to reemerge. Seeing his steadfast support to help her, Zia gained another boost of energy. It was time to finish this. Another look at the opening and the distance had been cut to a few feet.

She latched onto the knowledge of what would happen when she emerged from the canal and pushed down with all her might. The opening resisted as it clung to her shoulders. Still, Zia pushed against the darkness of the cosmic womb.

Hard pressed to give up any give; the opening stretched enough to allow her to clear her shoulders as Zia continued to focus on conserving her energy for another push.

Iron-willed to complete her rebirth, Zia pushed once more. With a smooth but forceful push, the floor of the womb expelled her out of its sacred depths. The ground met her with unrelenting hardness as Zia landed hard on her shoulder.

Physical bodily needs rushed in to demand attention. Her eyes hurt from the change in brightness of the room compared to the womb. Her body shivered. Where the womb had been body temperature compliant, the room’s air was ice. Thinking of air, it was her immediate need.

Greg called out. “Zia, cover your face. The air back there is full of poisoned dust.”

She did as he bade and covered her mouth. Still, on the floor, Zia rolled onto her back and peeked through fingers in time to see the opening of her rebirth close and wink out of existence in this realm. A thin veil tried to shroud her understanding of what had happened.

Undaunted by the natural process of the afterbirth partitioning off the divine from the reality of life on this plane, Zia concentrated on the words of the Goddess about her purpose and calling. She clamped down on the memories of her Kundalini awakening to access higher consciousness and learning. Zia retained her evolved state.

She’d done it.

Zia had crossed eternity to come back to her mate and life on earth. Time waited for no one, including her, as Zia heard the scuffles and fighting in the room.

First priority for her was to clear the air. Zia’s expanded knowledge worked fast as she considered the potion and its components. In a thought, the answer came. It was so simple, she laughed.

Zia kept her eyes closed and held her breath as she crawled over to the wall of glass. While everyone else was preoccupied with fighting, she rummaged around until the door latch to a balcony met her searching fingers. Without fanfare, Zia opened the door and gasped in her first full breath in too long to regain healthy breathing patterns.

As the crisp early evening air flooded in to dilute the compromised air, it also washed away the haze and fuzziness from her mind. New thoughts and ideas cued up to be considered. Able to use the door for support, Zia pulled herself up to a standing position.

The view of her surroundings had also been upgraded. She had sight beyond sight to see way more. As if dimensions interlocked, Zia could see different fields of existence. She saw the demons latched onto and partially inside their hosts’ bodies. The dust in her immediate area dissipated with some settling down to the ground in a thin covering.

Zia looked at the pale green substance. Immediately, chemical compositions flared up to cover her view. The formula was a basic, if not crude, composition of a nerve agent and mood alteration cocktail—like Miss Connie had said.

The way to counteract the effects of the dust formed its answer in a swirling cloud next to the formula. She checked to make sure the formula balanced, didn’t create more issues and was within the rules of harmonic balance with this world.

Once that was done, Zia had the confidence to take on the supreme bitch, Galiena. She stole a look over to where her mate fought more aliens. The building was full of them now that word had spread that they were here.

Free from the womb and the threat of that dust, Zia took the briefest of moments to watch her mate. She wouldn’t indulge the raw emotions smarting at the edge of her control, but a new dawning occurred to her.

Every great breakthrough sat behind a wall of fear. This ordeal had been necessary for her. Without it, Zia would have never done what was needed to unlock her gift. For her to have her family, she had to confront her greatest fear—her self-loathing and worthiness. She wasn’t as good as she wanted to be, but she wasn’t as bad as she’d thought herself to be.

Zia felt the brush of wisdom glide over her consciousness as an expression of the Goddess’s presence. She took a moment to show the divine respect and honor for extending grace and mercy to redeem the time and reclaim her purpose and calling.

The Goddess put the most blissful thing in life on the other side of her fear.

The majority of her family was here, and it was time to wrap this up. Zia allowed the huge grin to occupy her facial real estate as she moved from the door to find the one person in need of correction.

Zia stepped away from the open door and back into the fray. The other woman of the hour had encircled herself with a flimsy force field.

She found her target. Their eyes met. Her heart did a little happy dance as realization bloomed in the eyes of her adversary.

She had only a few words for Galiena.

“That’s right. I’m back, bitch.”