Ezra rode home that evening listening to the final portion of Ariel Pink's Pom Pom. The record was good. It wasn't perfect and it certainly wasn't Ezra's favorite but it was a good record. He thought about Myra and why it might've been her favorite record. Were there some life experiences of her's buried deep within the confines of the tracklisting or was it more of a superficial choice? Did she choose it because it reminded her of particular people in her life, like so many other records did for Ezra, or because she knew she could relate to its general themes of nostalgia and longing?

Ezra and Myra didn't yet have anything resembling a relationship but still Ezra saw them as going together. Peanut butter went with jelly and in the same way, Ezra had affection towards Myra. It was just the way things were for him in his mind. It was correct. Right.

Ezra parked his car in front of his apartment complex then went around to open the door. He carried on into the quiet building with no signs of the Replica to be seen or heard. His key unlocked the door, he stepped inside and walked down the long hall to his place. Nothing. He entered his vacant apartment and there it struck him. It was an empty feeling. Something about the darkened stillness of his apartment awakened a dim depression within him. Something about the absence, the space was missing something. It was sterile and devoid of any life. Ezra despised the night times at his apartment for this reason. It's when loneliness crept in calm and crippled him most. He didn't like to watch TV. It would only serve to remind him of people who weren't actually in the room with him a dealt with events that weren't actually taking place. The screen mimes to an audience who won't properly gesture back. He didn't like to do much at times like these. All he could ever seem to do was pace the floor quietly as to not disturb the neighbors beneath him and ponder ways to improve as a person. Nights like this it struck him that he was an inessential character in his own life. He took up space. His body went through the motions of life but his heart just wasn't into it.

Ezra threw himself onto his couch with little thought behind the action. It wasn't home, it didn't feel homely but it offered a small, momentary sanctuary away from the chaos of the world around him. He remembered reading once about how people often confuse their homes with being places they belong instead of somewhere where they happen to live out of habit. That was certainly what he did on days like today, though he tried hard to think otherwise. Perhaps, Ezra was just lonely. Socially, he felt away from the world even within it's madness. He needed a person to be here, in this space, at this time, and he desperately wanted Myra to be that person despite barely interacting or knowing each other.

It wasn't until he got up and looked in the bathroom mirror that he shuttered staring at the face of grim death looking back at him. The replica had returned. Ezra found that no matter how often he'd seen the thing he could never truly shake the fear it stirred in him. It was visceral, guttural, somewhere in his stomach but he didn't turn or run away from the thing. It would've been easy to do so but somehow he couldn't find it within himself. No one should have to endure such a sight. This creature seemed to want something from him. He didn't know what it was but it seemed to draw on the outskirts of Ezra's perception like a word on the tip of his tongue.

Ezra musted up some courage to speak while looking between the skeleton and the porcelain white of his sink. "Could you just tell me what you're here for?" He croaked. "Or please leave."

The figure moved it's head about naturally and then centered on Ezra before speaking. "I offer an invitation," The voice came clear and from all sides like it was speaking directly into Ezra's head. Then it added. "Ezra." and whenever it uttered his name the word itself rang different like it was pasted there in an automated voicemail meant to personalize a message sent out en mass.

Ezra backed up against the wall behind him. He had no desire to stand in the presence of the Replica. His breathing became rapid and shallow. His heart beat rapidly inside of him as if trying to get away from its confinement behind his rib cage. The air left his lungs in gasps, the only way he knew to keep himself steady under the duress of the dreaded situation. He thought about Myra's favorite album for a moment. The cover stamped itself like a precious keepsake in his mind.

The Replica offered and invitation. To where? He thought frantically. and for what purpose? To what end? Ezra tried not to look directly at the creature too closely lest he lose his tenuous stability. The last thing he wanted was someone hearing him scream through the apartment walls. Ezra stayed glued to the back wall while maintaining eye contact with the creature on the other end. He watched the inanimate being shift its weight slightly back and forth. It didn't seem aware of how terrified it made him feel. Or if it did it didn't care.

An Invitation, Ezra thought. Was this a place he'd want to actually go or was it something more sinister than that? He wasn't sure how long they both stood there staring at one another until finally the Replica leaned forward and lifted it's right arm up against the threshold between itself and the surface of the mirror. An address grew across the bone of it's forearm. It was written in a deep blood red in a thin times new roman font.

It read '107 S 14th St.'

"Go there," The creature told him with words that echoed throughout his brain. "Tonight."

Ezra remained stock still even after the thing left him alone to fumble for the door knob, let himself out into his empty hallway then stumbled down to his car to drive away as night had fallen upon the city. He'd placed the address into his phone's gps. 107 S 14th st.

Ezra had no idea what awaited him when he arrived but he felt a need to face whatever was coming. He followed the gps's instructions. There was an urgency now in Ezra's movements like every minute passing was going to add up into something valuable and important. The headlights from other cars passed coolly around him into the night air. He made it to the place. The address came up on screen as he pulled up onto the block. The street was mostly lit by yellow lights that shone down from above. The place was a large ornate stone church dimly lit through the haze of streetlights and it sat adjacent to a cemetery fenced in by the same stone bricks that made the chapel.

The sight of the building struck a chord within Ezra. Something about the way the light fell through its stained glass windows reminded him of his late father and mother. That very thought carried with it painful memories.

The car engine idled quietly under the moonless sky. It was a chill summer night with little wind blowing over the neighborhood. Ezra stepped outside with nothing more than the clothes he wore, his wallet, and the cell phone at hand, feeling exposed in all his nakedness before the outside world. The buildings across the street from the church and cemetery had lighted windows. Ezra walked up to the sign outside the place. It read 'St. Mary's Catholic Church'.

Ezra's father had been Catholic, his mother protestant. They had rarely practiced while they were alive but Ezra's dad did keep a few Mexican prayer candles and a rosary or two around the house growing up. Ezra wasn't really spiritual. All he took from religion were a few notes on personal sacrifice and the immutable truth that someday everybody dies.

Ezra stepped through the courtyard leading to the large double oak wood doors and firmly pressed against it. The door swiveled open fluidly like it wasn't even attached to a surface as hefty as it was.

Ezra found himself standing directly across from a statue of Christ on a crucifix that hung suspended from a wall directly opposite him in a cavernous candlelit sanctuary. Row after row of pews mediated the space between Ezra and the holy figure. Christ's blood drenched head was turned stoically down and away.

The air was warm in here with a faint scent of incense. People knelt beside candles and lit votives along the floor before kneeling before the alter, praying, reading scripture, meditating, or simply sitting alone with their thoughts, minds lost in a quiet reverie. There were other people present but most didn't seem too bothered by being caught looking at Ezra when he entered the place. He scanned about the room for anyone who seemed to be watching him then looked back at his feet to avoid any unwanted eye contact. Nobody seemed to give him much attention which relieved him somewhat.

Ezra had been more than a little confused. Had the Replica wanted him to find God? Seemed unlikely. He'd heard enough about how zealots told people what they should do and believe, often forcing it upon them, at least in the olden days, and now, to Ezra, it all felt like just a bunch of empty words meant to placate the rabble, keep them from stoking the fires of rebellion. As if there were where really something bigger and better waiting for these people beyond the walls of every church they'd labored to make, ready to show them an otherworldly bliss. Ezra shook off these notions. No, he thought. This life is it and that was the chilling thing. It was all anyone ever had and nothing more.

He approached the crucifix. The sight was so foreign yet familiar. He took up a position alongside the wall facing the statue of Christ on the cross as a woman kneeled next to him placing her head into her hands. Ezra watched as she whispered over and over again a few words in Spanish, probably a prayer or song of some kind, before turning away from him completely and making herself comfortable before resuming whatever devotions occupied her mind while looking directly at the lifeless form before her. Approaching the divine, as many saw it, reminded him of Myra but, then again, what didn't. The woman was elderly, not quite beautiful but somehow intriguing in her devotion nonetheless, strong features, brown wrinkled skin, deep brown eyes staring out into space full of longing and emotion.

The stranger turned her head towards Ezra and said something he didn't quite catch, probably because Ezra didn't speak Spanish. It was quick though. He wouldn't have heard it anyway. He stepped forward, hugging the wall, doing his best to stay out of her way. She nodded her thanks to him then rose back up to her feet with a weary sigh.

Ezra remained still standing adjacent to Jesus until he decided that enough time had passed since his appearance at St. Mary's. He was anxious now and had no idea what he was about to do after following the instructions given by the cryptic Replica.

He stepped outside to the nearby cemetery. An eerie haze hung over the headstones beneath the pale yellow streetlights facing the road by his car. He found himself walking through the rows of stones as if in some sort of dreamy trance. Inevitably he thought of his parent's deaths. Ezra kept walking along the gravesites. His parent's weren't buried here but the memory of their passing did stir in him, especially because he didn't believe in any kind of life after death. There is no heaven, he thought, but it's probably for the best that we still dream of better places. A strange sentiment but one Ezra clung to after becoming a self-proclaimed nonbeliever.

"Ezra?" A young accented feminine voice called out to him from beyond the gravestones. Ezra looked up, his hands still in his pockets. There was a quiet exchange of glances between him and this unfamiliar figure as Ezra walked back over the the door of the church where they stood.

The woman seemed small next to him and wore simple clothes; a plain deep blue t shirt and jeans. She had a nametag with a logo for the Crescentview Aquarium above what Ezra presumed to be her name "Anna Sokolov". Her hair was long, dark brown, and done up into a ponytail. She had her arms crossed.

Ezra began to talk but she closed her fist in front of him signaling him to stop and simply said "Follow me". He obliged. They made their way past several headstones and through the fence out to the sidewalk by the street where Ezra had parked but passed his car to walk even further up the street. Anna didn't speak though Ezra thought to ask just who she was and where they were going. They walked about three blocks to the building labelled on her name badge, The Crescentview Aquarium. Ezra checked the sign posted on the large glass door. The place was closed as it was after eight now on a Tuesday but that didn't seem to matter to Anna as she pulled out some keys to unlock it. She led Ezra inside to an elevator. As he followed her he noticed a pair of security cameras mounted high on the walls facing them from opposite directions.

The ride to the upper floor went quickly enough and soon Ezra found himself in the aquarium's main exhibit hall. All the lights were out. There was a little information desk near the center of the room. Anna led him beyond it. They made their way into a large room containing a glass tank filled far above either of their heads with water. The couldn't see anything through the glass in the dark. The atmosphere was weirdly silent as the confounding circumstances began to daunt on Ezra. Did this woman know anything or am I being played somehow? Did she know of the Skeleton in his mirror? Why did this Replica choose to send me here at all? These thoughts racked at his mind until he eventually asked "What are we-"

Anna pulled a bizarre helmet from a nearby maintenance closest. "Here." She told Ezra throwing the thing into his arms. "You'll need this to hear him." And she put on a special helmet herself strapped with diodes and electrodes.

Consciously Ezra placed the helmet onto his head as Anna switched the light on illuminating the tank. The only creature Ezra noticed in the tank was a lone dolphin. It swam effortlessly around the inside like any other aquatic mammal swimming in its natural element.

Ezra looked up at Anna for a moment then down to his feet before taking a deep breath to calm himself. He turned to face the glass wall looking straight into the tank, staring blankly ahead as he tried to focus on something familiar but found nothing but the dark abyss of the water beyond. He turned his attention to the dolphin. He heard her say, "There, you're set now, just relax and try not to fall over."

Ezra reached out and grabbed one of the support beams that surrounded the room's perimeter keeping it from falling over from beneath the weight of the ceiling's main beam above. He watched the dolphin swim back and forth in front of him in what felt like slow motion. Then it approached Ezra in the tank.

"Ezra." He heard his name coming from all sides again but this time it sounded different. It didn't sound like the Replica in his home. This time is name was more straight forward, even professional sounding. "Ezra, can you hear me?"

"Yes..." Ezra said nervously aloud.

Anna shook her head and gazed at him with her arms crossed from the other side of the hall.

"No, Ezra." The voice said, piercing his thoughts. "This voice is only in your head! You'll communicate with me here."

"Yes." Ezra thought to himself but apparently to someone else as well. "Who are you? and why did you bring me here?"

The voice echoed back in a cheesy tone like something out of a used car commercial. "Ezra, You're looking at me!"

His eyes trained on the dolphin and put two and two together. It couldn't be. His heart dropped at the sight of the dolphin swimming towards the glass wall. Its movement seemed oddly slowed. This couldn't be real.

Ezra started walking towards it when the voice spoke up once again, this time it sounded calmer. "Ezra, I am Ecco."

Ezra stopped short mid-step before continuing slowly in an effort to not startle the animal but perhaps it was for his own benefit. The dolphin's face was directly in front of him now behind a thick pane of lighted glass staring ahead keenly aware that he was there. Ezra thought this had to have been a prank.

"Ecco communicates telepathically." Anna explained to him through their connection in the helmet.

"Telepathically?" he asked incredulously while he held eye contact with the creature as it stared back at him from within the water. He'd seen some strange things over the last few days but nothing like this.

"Yes." She said matter of factly with her hands still folded across her chest. "We've always done it this way."

This gave Ezra more questions than answers. Who are these people? This Dolphin? Why this place? To what end was he here? What did it all have to do with the skeleton in his mirror?

Ezra took off the helmet for a moment then put it back on staring at the dolphin in front of him in disbelief.

"Ezra," Ecco told him in gaps between taking the helmet on and off. "We won't understand each other when you take off the device."

Ezra thought back to Ecco. "I was just checking to make sure this was real."

"Yes," Ecco nodded. "We understand this must be very confusing for you."

He tried calming himself down but it was difficult with the whole situation being surreal.

"Please, don't worry, we will explain everything." Ecco spoke calmly once again as if reading his thoughts as they continued communicating in a stream of words through the communication device. He felt ridiculous talking to a dolphin about anything really. And yet he found he wanted to continue despite the awkwardness of the experience.

"How long has he been able to hear my thoughts?" he asked Anna after catching his breath enough to ask a question of his own.

Ecco paused before responding. "I can only hear your thoughts with the helmet on. I can't hear all your thoughts, Ezra. Just ones directed to me.

Ezra looked at the tank with a new curiosity now as it wasn't quite so weird anymore, though it still very much was. "I have serious matters to discuss with you." The dolphin stated flatly through his earpiece.

"You do?" He replied. Ezra laughed nervously through their connection in a strange place between his thoughts and physical body.

"Yes, Ezra." The dolphin replied. "We have much to discuss."

What on earth could they possibly have to discuss?, Ezra thought.

The aquatic creature circled in front of Ezra in his tank. It's face looking up at him intently as its large black eyes stared deep into his soul from behind the glass wall separating them both. As it swam around Ezra took notice of the animal. The coloration of it's body. Not green or white, but a peculiar bluish grey. He couldn't tell if it was just the light or if the dolphin was authentically this skin tone. Its nose was round and not pointed, also unlike a fish but more like a dog's. Its mouth was wide open revealing a row of sharp teeth inside that reminded him of a shark. But there were no fins of any kind. It had a stubby little tail with a single dorsal fin.

"Ezra." Ecco said again. "Are you alright?"

Ezra nodded his head as he continued to look the animal in the eyes. Ecco continued swimming in circles. Ezra viewed this movement as the animal's equivalent to pacing, a habit most people unconsciously perform when waiting for someone else to talk. There were three things he'd come across while watching it swim back and forth so far, one was an eerie quiet, another was it's lack of movement, and the last being how slowly it swam compared to a normal