Intergalactic Faith: Wilya's Journey to Junon

"I'm here for the act of worship."

The service was about to start. I shuffled along with the crowd and into a pew. I looked up at the podium and saw the pastor stand up from his chair and smile at everyone in the church. His voice boomed throughout the building, "We welcome all of you to today's service, as usual." I took out a small notebook from my purse and flipped it open to my page where I wrote down the hymns. The first hymn was 'Praise Be To God'. The pastor sang it louder than anyone else in the church. Everyone sang along with him. After singing the hymn, he started speaking.

"Good morning, my friends," he said, "Some of you have been here before and some of you haven't. For those who have never attended this particular church before, let me explain why we do things like this." He pointed to a corner of the room that had six small altars on top of it, each one representing a different god of our world. "This is our prayer room." He turned around and pointed to another corner of the room which had a wooden pole placed diagonally across two walls. "And that is our prayer tree." He walked over to the prayer tree and stood beneath it. "And this is our prayer board." He walked over to the prayer board, which was covered by hundreds of slips of paper with prayers written down on them. Some pieces of paper were torn off while others were folded neatly. The pastor pulled out a blue marker from his pocket and circled five or six random prayers on the board without saying anything about them or even looking at them again after circling them. Then he walked back towards us and said, "You see? We pray just like this every day, multiple times every day in fact!" At this point, all eyes were fixed on him as everyone wondered what he meant by saying 'multiple times'. The pastor continued speaking, "We worship all six gods of our world every day at least once or twice depending on your faith. There are no set prayer times because we want everyone to pray when they feel like praying or when they need something specific answered." As he ended his sentence, he walked back towards the prayer tree and grabbed an envelope from underneath it while smiling at us with pride. He walked back towards us again and showed us what was inside that envelope: A letter written by my mother!

"My dearest daughter Wilya," she wrote in her letter, "I hope you are doing well wherever you are right now! It has been three months since we last spoke to each other but I am doing fine here in Junon." My mother was right - she wrote this letter three months ago! And she is still alive! I grabbed an empty piece of paper from my purse and ripped out a long strip from it. Before I could start writing on that piece of paper though, I heard someone say behind me, "You don't need to write her back - she's going to be here in person very soon!" I turned around and saw a woman standing there with a smile on her face. She looked familiar...but I couldn't remember who she was! Then she spoke again, "I'm Mia - you can call me Mia!" Mia? Mia?! Mia...Mia...Mia...Mia...Mia...Oh yeah! Mia! That's right! She used to visit me every Wednesday afternoon back home when my mother had more free time at work! That's right - she used to bring me gifts too! But why would she be here? Is that possible? Oh no...what if something happened while my mother was writing her letter? What if...? But then again maybe nothing happened because there hasn't been any communication between Junon and Xenyro for decades; there are barely any functioning spaceships left anymore! So maybe...? Or maybe...? Or maybe...? No no no - don't think negative thoughts like that - stay positive Wilya! Stay positive for your mother! Stay positive for your mother's sake too because she must be really worried about you by now; her only daughter missing for weeks without letting anyone know where she is or how she is doing! Don't make her lose hope Wilya; stay positive...stay positive...stay positive...

The pastor stopped talking as soon as he noticed that everyone had suddenly lost focus on him. He spoke into his microphone again, "Excuse me?" No one responded so he tried again louder this time, "Excuse me?!" Still nothing changed so he walked over towards us and realized that everyone had their eyes closed while deep in thought about something else entirely. He stepped forward until he too could see what everyone else was seeing: A woman dressed in red walking down an aisle towards our direction with an envelope in hand while smiling brightly at us all while looking straight ahead towards us! Her red dress