* Dreams of a Madman

Twenty-Six hours after Wendel collected his cargo in the south-pacific, his private jet touched down in southern California. Four hours after that, his security convoy pulled into the gates of the lab he had specially created years earlier for his development of the Rashja. The researches and his co-investors had double crossed him. He had invested large sums in their expedition with one condition, that he receive a living active Rashja plant himself. In fact, he had been tracking the Rashja myth decades earlier than they had. As he followed his team wheeling the cryo-preserved Rashja plant in through the main lobby, he passed replicas of one-of-a-kind Aztectables he had safety stored elsewhere. They told a part of the story the researches didn't find, or didn't want to find. He paused to take them in as he passed. 

The first panel depicted a time of civil unrest. Kings were said to be ordained by the gods, but there was no indisputable way to determine their gods will. Civil wars were rampant. Kings were assisinated. The largestAztec tribes wanted the plight to end, they wanted peace, but they all wanted to lead the peace. There would be no agreement. 

The second panel depicted the great challenge. Kings and sayers from the tribes gathered. The most connected religious figured communited for days, smoking opiates and chanting to commune with their gods. At the end of the challenge, a new ritual was born. Wendel traced the smaller pictographs as he mentally translated them. A hero will be born every generation. Festival of the Rasja. Unbridled drinking, unbridled fornucation. Among the people will rise a man who can turn women into gods. The women will be his loyal servents, to smite down those that would oppose him. 

The panels continued, telling more of the story, but Wendel stopped. He smiled and continued following his caravan, hoping he was truly one step closer. The Rashja wasn't used by the Aztecs to make Goddesses. It was used to make Kings. Wendel planned to be a King among men.

* Premature Disembarkation

"Would you like a beverage sir?" Chris could hardly open his eyes. It was so bright, and the noise. What was that noise? He felt intensely disoriented. "Sir, would you like a beverage?" Finally he was able to will his lids open, the bright light still obscuring his view. A woman stood over him in some kind of uniform. "A water perhaps? or ginger-ale?" He blinked several times, finally recognizing tell-tale signs of his surroundings. Rigid rows of seats, small regular windows, small lighted signs above his head, repeated into the distance. He was on an airplane. 

"I'll take a vodka tonic." The flight attendant looked at him suspiciously. From how disoriented he was, he wasn't surprised. She probably thought he was drunk already, but he wasn't. He hadn't had alcohol in days. They didn't have any at the resort. The Resort! He didn't remember leaving. Images flashed into his mind like a flood. Vanessa, Kendra. Naked bodies spread around tropical outdoor pools. Somehow, despite every impossibility, the most beautiful women he'd ever seen had turned into giant powerful Goddesses all around him. He remembered the nightclub. He remembered Kendra as she forced him to attention, forced him to come into her, and forced him to do it again and again as she surged bigger. Not that he had resisted. How had it ended? His mind was a blank. 

The more he thought about it, the more unreal it seemed. Had it been real at all? The flight-attendant set down his vodka-soda and he took a sip. His mind doubted. What would he say to his buddy Mark? How they even believe him? He had no proof, no pictures. Nothing to even convince himself it was real. He didn't even know if he'd entered the plane with luggage. He couldn't remember. He took a large gulp of his drink and laid his head back, drifing back to sleep.