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When Casey Smith opened his eyes, he prayed he would find himself enveloped in a soothing white light. The light that meant you were finally, and unequivocally dead. Dead as a doornail as his grandfather used to say back on earth. But it was not to be, and he felt the now all-too-familiar dread when he opened his eyes. But unlike the other times when he woke up in a different century, his sense of smell hit was triggered as hard as he was hit in the face with the thick, oppressive heat.
Confused, he realized he wasn’t wearing normal clothing. He was wearing only a body-length robe. A filthy, dirty robe. He was also chained at the ankle. The smell was foul. Human excrement mixed with animal excrement, body odor, burning wood, and puke. If he didn’t immediately train himself to use his mouth to breathe, he would surely gag, or even vomit.
His cell was made of stone, and instead of iron bars, the front was covered with vertical and horizontal iron slats. He knew the cell was located in a basement or a dungeon due to the small slit of a window that was located about ten feet up along an exterior wall that was slanted about sixty-five degrees. Even with his ankle shackled and chained, he felt the desperate urge to climb the wall and peer out the opening.
He needed badly to ground himself. Was he living in the 21st century, the future, or the distant past? Already his built-in shit detector was telling him he was living in the Metaverse’s version of the distant past. For certain, he’d been arrested. What was also certain, was that he knew it had to have something to do with his robbing a bank and killing a man during a getaway that also originally killed him and landed him not in heaven or (God forbid) hell, but instead, in the Metaverse.
He began to climb the slimy stone, inching his way up to the opening. The narrow window might have only been fifteen feet above the flat, stone surface, but between the angled wall, the greasy slime and grime that covered it, and Casey’s bloodied and blistered feet, the going was slow, if not impossible.
On his first try, he made it only half way before he slid back down onto his back. He slapped the stone so hard, the breath was knocked out of his lungs. When he coughed, he drew a combination of blood and saliva that dribbled down his bottom lip, past his chin. It was then he realized just how beat up he was. He pulled up his robe to expose his naked body. His torso, legs, and arms were covered in bad, purple, and yellow bruises and hematomas. He was also riddled with lacerations.
When he finally managed to get his breath back, he realized just how long his hair had grown. It was so long it touched both his shoulders. It was also filthy with sweat, dirt, and blood. He didn’t have a mirror to view his face, but he ran the tips of his fingers over a short, equally filthy beard. One of his top front teeth was missing. When he touched the exposed root, it stung so badly that it made his body tremble.
Maybe he had no recollection of it, but he now realized that he’d been tortured and flogged.
“They know,” he whispered to himself. “They know I robbed a bank. They know I killed a man. I don’t know how they know, but they know.”
At this point, Casey became convinced he knew exactly where the Metaverse engineers had placed him in history. But he was finding it hard to believe. His present situation might have been the brainchild of some programmer that came from the year 2058, but that didn’t make it feel any less real.
“I must try and get to the window,” he said.
Once more, he began the precarious climb. His feet and hands ached and stung, but there was no stopping him this time. He made it halfway, then three-quarters of the way, and finally, he was able to grab hold of the flat bars that covered the opening. Pulling himself up the last few feet, he reached the end of the chain that was attached to the shackle that trapped his bruised ankle.
But he had just enough room for him to peek outside. What he saw took his breath away. He saw hordes of people dressed in dirty robes. They were gathered inside a sort of amphitheater or meeting place made of white stone. Women wore veils and hid their faces as if they were Muslim. But he knew they were Israeli. He knew for certain he was trapped in ancient Jerusalem when in the distance he could make out what he somehow knew in his heart was the Temple of Solomon. The presence of dozens of Roman soldiers also proved it.
When he shifted his focus over his left shoulder and saw a long-haired and bearded man who’d been scourged far worse than him, and who was wearing a crown of thorns along with a purple robe, he had no doubt that the man he was witnessing was none other than Jesus of Nazareth himself.
He also knew that Jesus was about to be condemned to death.