>>543
Now that you think about it, if this really is the afterlife then it ought to be a little better populated. I mean, not just the famous historical figures, but you distinctly recall brutally murdering several grunts. Perhaps the other dead are elsewhere in this place, or perhaps they went to a different afterlife. You decide to go off searching to see for yourself. Who knows? Perhaps you might happen across some famous communist dictators.
Turning your back on the tea party, you head into the woods, climbing generally uphill and out of the little valley. The trees are sparsely set, and their branches allow plenty of sunlight through. The forest floor is littered with pine needles and patches of clover. You wander for about an hour, finding several grassy clearings, banks of wildflowers, songbirds, colourful insects, wild rabbits and other such lovely things, but nothing human. Disappointed, you return to where you started. The three of them are still sitting around just as they were when you left.
Ghosts or no ghosts, it's time to take a stand. "Comrades!" you entreat, banging a fist on the table, "It is time for a revolution! No longer shall we suffer at the hands of the bourgeoisie; under my benevolent rule we shall live in a fair and equal paradise, which I hereby name the People's Republic of Heaven!" Alexei laughs and toasts to your success, apparently happy with the arrangement. Aaron objects, in mock seriousness, to the name of your new state, saying that he thinks it seems more like Elysium or perhaps the Asphodel Meadows rather than Heaven. Jacqueline smiles warmly, but says nothing.
>>544
You decide to exercise your new power. Best to start simple, though. Your demand for a cigarette is met with troubled glances, as none present seem to possess anything of the sort, but after a moment's head scratching you notice one perched on the edge of the saucer in front of you. How odd, you don't remember seeing it there earlier.
>>545
Happy that your budding communist utopia can govern itself in your absence, you decide to go for a second expedition, this time to the source of the little brook nearby. You follow it upwards through patches of forest and small fields of bracken, then through rocky outcroppings and alpine meadows. You find its source: a small waterfall - little more than a trickle down the side of a cliff - above a round mountain lake, no more than ten metres across. The surface of the water is perfectly still, reflecting the open sky. It's very pretty, even if it isn't what you were looking for.
There's something odd about the reflection, though. Whilst the blue parts should be solid colour - with, at most, a slight gradient - the more you look, the more you begin to notice faint lines, or seams in the texture. You cannot tell for certain whether it is the outline of something under the water, or faint ripples on the surface, or even the reflection of something in the sky.