Well, I did my three day fast buried underground in a car, just like we planned it. Done said all my prayers, poured out all my water, all of that. I sure had some weird waking dreams down there, and maybe I'll write those down one day.
Anyways, after the three days are up, they come back to dig me out. Lucky for me they finished digging down enough to get the car's door open, before it happened.
It must have been a dragon, and a big one too. Just as I'm about to get out of the car, I hear this big BOOM and a whoosh. And all my brothers and sisters of service are screaming and scrambling out of the hole and running for their lives. By the time I'm able to get up and out of the hole, they're all scattered and gone, and all around me the brush is on fire. And our off-road flatbed truck is upside down and burning too.
I'm disoriented and I barely even know where I'm at. I guess I stumble down an embankment and find the highway. I'm just standing there, blinking in the afternoon sun, no idea what to do, when a pickup truck comes along. It pulls over, and what do you know, it's my old friend Pete from Braxon.
And he's staring at me out the drivers-side window, and he's like, Jone, is that you? I'm so out of it and my memory is so foggy, that I don't even recognize him yet. I just sort of squint and nod a bit. And he's all like, what the hell are you wearing, what happened to your hair? I just shrug and shake my head. Then he's like, get in the goddamn truck. And I just kind of wobble on over, get in, and we drive away. By late that night, we're back in Braxon. I been back about two days by now, and you know already my memories are growing back. Isn't that weird.
I sure got lucky there. Turns out, Pete had driven up north for a job. Some of the chieftains up there banded together to repair the highway, and had put out word there'd be work. But by the time he got there, someone had already gone and stole all the catalytic converters out of the dump trucks, and someone else had made off with the graders, so the whole thing kind of fizzled out. And he was driving back home when he found me.
Anyways, that's how I left my cult and got back to my old town-home here on Braxon land. On one hand, I guess it's not so great that I committed both my mortal body and my eternal soul to the service of mother Gaia, but then abandoned my brothers and sisters, condemning both myself and everyone on earth to a slow horrifying doom of poison, floods, and transmogrification into feeble-minded fungal monstrosities. (At least that's what they always told me would happen if I deserted.) But on the other hand, it sure feels good to be back home again.