Everything had happened in a split second. Liana had been hit by the strange weapon, and then was zapped in a jolt from the normal dimensions of space-time, but somehow she continued to see what was happening around the place where she had just stood. Although time and space seemed to run completely different from here, she was still in the same location, but in a very different way. Suddenly she realised that she saw her own body lying on the ground, and Izabel walking towards her from the cell, taking the shield to protect both her body and herself.
It seemed like some kind of projection, but then with a more elaborate dimensional system that she felt both Escher and Picasso might have experienced in some way, but both of them had failed to visualise clearly in retrospect in their 2D-based art. She looked around at the external space and apparently she was in a large square space, within which the STC factory could fit in and oversee all at once without corners or walls getting in the way. Although she saw her body, she noticed that she also had a body here. She looked down, and the version of herself that she was here had her sweater back on. It seemed as if this Liana was a representation of 'The Liana', the idea Liana from the world of ideas. Or maybe the sum of all the Liana-ness she'd had built up over the years.
It was strange to see yourself like this, but the possible conclusions she could draw from this state were even more surprising, if not just frightening. Wasn't all this just a sign that she was now dead, and that her soul was all that was left? Her mind was spinning, but she couldn't tell if she was really dead; like most living people, she had no idea what "the experience of death" entailed, if there was such a thing, because, of course, she'd never experienced it by definition. So there was nothing she could compare this to, but she knew there was something seriously wrong here, and yet it was strange how calm she remained about it all. Were feelings as people knew them really something that only belonged to her animal body? Was the whole human being always guided by everything you feel and by your instincts something of its kind "in the flesh," which, for example, cherubim or dead people who had already left their bodies behind did not know? That in itself was a frightening thought, because she still didn't feel like being dead.
The main question now was indeed whether she was actually dead. That would be hard to accept and not really what she’d planned to happen, but there probably wasn't much she could do about it if it were the case. In this place it was much easier to acquiesce to such bad news. But something told her that there might be more to all of this. That Kavanderran weapon had hit her, but what did those things actually do? She knew that in her own very different way she was still present in the world of the living, and she was also relieved to not have some black-clad skeleton dude with a scythe show up, and tell her to move on and leave the world of the living behind. For now she seemed to have some time to find oiut what she was going to do, and to find out if she could make it back into her body.
She looked down at the strange multi-dimensional hologram in which Izabel now held her wrist, happily ignored by the fighting parties around her body except for shielding both of them. Izabel remained calm, with a relieved look in her eyes besides all the panic, from which Liana guessed she probably still had some pulse in her physical body. She looked at the rest of the room. John, the STC CEO, was still standing in a corner with a trio of heavily armed bodyguards around him, but now he was surrounded from all sides by approaching Nummerfa and Drotnira. The fact that no one was paying attention to her was not so abnormal, the battle had already claimed a lot of casualties already: fallen fighters from both sides lay on the ground everywhere. Liana found the multi-dimensional overview that allowed her to see through walls and behind corners convenient to follow the entire battle… Everywhere she looked there was fighting going on all over the factory. It seemed as if the Nuanderrans were winning in most places, but many had already fallen too. Far too many people who might be dead, she thought, yet she was here alone. She saw no other people who had left their bodies like herself to get stuck in this multidimensional space. Was that a sign she wasn't actually dead?
And what was going on in the rest of the battle? She zoomed in on Marah, who was going through the fray in her invisible mode, ignored by her ilk and invisible to the STC agents and the Drotnira. In a sort of conference room she took a sort of shoulder bag, which had a Nuanderran design of raw green fabric. It looked sinister and important, and it probably meant that Andira had convinced her after all. Meanwhile people continued to fall all around, dead or wounded, and the battle seemed to intensify. On the other side of the factory was a group of STC agents with some sort of electronically controlled machine gun who mowed out everyone in sight, including a few colleagues of their own.
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Liana shivered when she saw it happen, But she felt nothing in this bodyless mode. She found that she could slow down the time of the sighting, and continued to watch the battle in slow-motion mode, at the same time keeping an eye on Izabel who was still protecting her body.
Suddenly she realised she was not alone. A tangle of strange wisps with two huge eyes floated nearby in the same room, watching the same multi-dimensional images. How long had it been there?This was the first time she had seen Luigi in visual form: The Flying Spaghetti Monster looked cartoonish, as if it had been misdrawn, but it was unmistakable.
“Goodbye little mortal. Interesting to meet you like this. I'm sorry about my outward appearance, but to my own defence I did not design myself.”
Liana didn't feel like small talk and flew straight into the house.
"That does not matter! Luigi? What are you doing here? Am I dead then?”
The Flying Spaghetti Monster shook his head in denial, which gave a very strange effect, since that was his whole body.
“I'm just here by chance. I heard someone calling to me in your language in the wrong place, and felt your presence near her and then I knew something was wrong. So I came to have a look, and I think that turned out to be a good idea.”
Liana fell down into a chair that formed the moment she imagined one.
"This can’t be true. Isabel has summoned you?”
He nodded roughly again.
“Correct. Her little prayer called me here and then I got into this strange battle here, and I saw you in this state and thought you maybe could use some help, my little human friend.”
He pronounced the word emphatically, and Liana was grateful for it on the one hand, but on the other, seeing him like that made her feel very hopeless. The panic she hadn't had before suddenly surfaced, whether she had a body with feelings or not.
“Al-Elyehdinn help me!” she muttered a little distraught in Nummersil.
Luigi remained calm and looked a little surprised at her reaction.
"What's the problem, little mortal?"
That question triggered her.
She flailed wildly with her arms and screamed.
"What's the problem? I'm stuck here in between life and death as a mortal, and the only help I have is the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Isn’t that a problem?"
Luigi looked at her with his fake-looking eyes.
“I don't know if that first part is entirely true, but I am indeed the only one here to help you as far as I can see. But maybe you could first tell me what is going on here? Why are non-humans from another world here fighting with the humans of this factory? I thought the second world had no wars.”
Liana sighed. She couldn't help but start telling the story as best she could now. She had found that she could influence the speed of time here, so she stopped time and began the story of what had happened in Nuanderra and Kavanderra, in her own cohesive way.
It took a long time for Luigi to understand every detail (which didn't matter in this paused world) but in the end he seemed to understand the situation. He was very interested in the fact that it was an alien weapon that had hit her. After the story she realised again that it was probably all hopeless now.
“But what help can you or anyone give me now? I'm already dead, aren't I? This is the end of Liana, the little mortal who was stupid enough to offer friendship to even the gods? I suppose if I turn time back on now I will see the how the battle gets won and my world gets saved from the STC, but my story is over isn't it?"
She looked at the Flying Spaghetti Monster in utter despair.