Emily always considered herself a good person. Sure, there were the occasional bumps in the road, but that’s everyone, right? She was 16, headstrong, and prepared to graduate high school a year early. Her biggest roadblock seemed to be an innocuous one–she had broken curfew too many times for her father, Todd, to look the other way. Todd’s final straw was Emily’s absence from church last Sunday morning. He knew she had been out at the local nonsecular rock ‘n roll club with her best friend Stacy the night before, possibly even cavorting with known vape users. He feared Emily was falling in with the wrong crowd, the sort of kids who would rather drink soda before bed than do their theology homework. Stacy loved Dr. Pepper.

When Todd grounded Emily for missing church, she wasn’t surprised. She knew there was a chance her reasonable mom, Jessica, could change her dad’s mind. She also knew that the worst-case scenario here would be a week or two stuck in the house. “I get it, dad,” Emily said to Todd while maintaining eye contact. “I know you establish rules for a reason, and I know you’re just trying to look out for me.” She was careful not to lie. Emily really did believe her father loved her and wanted the best for her, but she also knew she wasn’t the church type.

Todd struggled to accept that Emily was different from him. She found fellowship hanging out with friends and playing board games with her family. She understood love and forgiveness by exposure to both. She didn’t understand why all these qualities could only be attained with the permission of an authority figure, and while she prayed every night, it seemed many of the church’s social values strayed far from what her heart told her in her quietest moments.

For his part, Todd didn’t relish in punishing his daughter. He only followed through with it because he felt it would benefit her in the long run. Todd and Jessica had different views on a lot of things, and he had learned a great deal of compassion from her since they met in bible college all those years ago. Todd had since become an usher at church, while Jessica’s career as a journalist ultimately led her away from the pews and into an array of curiosities for her mind to chew on. Emily had come to appreciate her parents’ dovetailing personalities and they impact they had on her.

Post-grounding, Emily paced around her room listening to her angriest music through earbuds while wondering why her mom wasn’t home yet to hear her appeal. Then, over the roaring guitars of her favorite band, she heard a thunderous crash. The lights in her room flickered. Emily flung her earbuds out to the floor, trying to get a sense of what happened. She heard her father yell something downstairs. Emily flung the door to her room open, all animosity gone. “Dad! What’s going on? What was that?”

“I don’t know, Emmy, but whatever it was, it was really close. Go ahead and come down.” Emily could tell her dad was worried, so she quickly shuffled down the stairs and joined him by the bay windows that faced the street they had lived on her whole life. Todd unlatched one of the windows and poked his head out, Emily following suit, both of their hearts dropping at the sight of a blue sedan smashed into the telephone pole at the intersection bordering their lawn. The car was her mother’s, Todd’s wife’s. The car was Jessica’s.

Emily flew out the front door of the house, screaming “no, no, no!” into the evening air. None of her neighbors bothered to open their doors to see what was happening, let alone to help Emily. Todd ran ahead to the car, to the accident, still unable to believe what he was seeing.

Emily’s mind raced. She had seemingly lost her mother in the blink of an eye, a punishment more severe than any her father could dole out. A punishment crueler and more forced than any Hollywood plot.

Wait. Come to think of it, why wasn’t anyone coming out to check on the crash? Emily felt as if she was in a movie with a budget so small the casting director couldn’t hire extras. It was only now that Emily realized the mortifying truth: she was trapped in a PureFlix original film, and she had no idea how to get out.

Emily knew what came next. She would never have admitted this to her father, but she had watched plenty of PureFlix original films with her friends as a source of laughs, not as a means to deepen her faith. Emily considered herself a Christian, sure, but she didn’t believe in the blind dogma she saw in these movies. It also didn’t help that she found the plot lines and dialogue laughable, or that many of the lead actors were reprehensible people adopting a faith to stay relevant.

It all went just as Emily knew it would, and she was numb the whole time. After Jessica’s funeral, Todd found himself unable to juggle his all-consuming grief and Emily’s continued misbehavior. First, he found a DVD copy of “Turner and Hooch” under Emily’s bed, a movie he had specifically instructed Emily to avoid after learning it featured both canine excitement and police officers admittedly to mistakes. Then he caught her listening to a particularly disgusting podcast about television called Boob Tube Boys. From what Todd could make out, all these delinquents seemed to talk about was necromancy and someone named Gyor, which was most certainly not a name from either testament.

Feeling he had no better choice to save his daughter’s future and make her a true believer, Todd sent Emily to stay with his brother Kevin’s family out in the country. Kevin was a tall, weathered man, a rancher who had earned his stripes in battle and among the cattle. We’re talking a real man’s man here, but also a real man of God. Kevin was nothing if not a devout Christian, and it was his faith that had gotten him through losing his wife a decade ago. Todd figured Kevin and the local community of Freedomtown could help Emily get on the right track, and just maybe she could warm up ol’ Kevin’s cold heart along the way.

“It’s just until we figure things out,” Todd assured Emily as she stood on her uncle Kevin’s dusty porch, looking up at the antlers nailed above the doorframe. Emily nodded as her father drove off, turning around to see Kevin, the uncle she had never actually met despite her father’s kind words about him. “Wait, you’re Kevin Sorbo, you’re the actor Kevin Sorbo?!” Emily exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes, dear, you’re every bit as lucky as you think you are. It is I, Kevin Sorbo! As you know, I played Hercules in prime time. I was a big deal. I would have been cast as Captain America or Ryan Gosling if it weren’t for this ‘woke cancel culture.’ It’s practically illegal to be a Christian in America these days!”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Emily said with a forced smile as Kevin began to show her the assortment of wooden signs with family-centric phrases on them that adorned the walls of his inordinately huge home. Emily noticed several trophies on the mantle above the fireplace. She moved closer to investigate them as Kevin stoked the fire below with copies of “Little Women” (he believed only a patriarch should be represented in a book’s title) and Garfield comic strip collections (which he sincerely believed included a homosexual relationship).

“Hey, what are these trophies from?” Emily asked of the dozen gold horse statues before her.

“Oh, those? Those are, uh, those are nothing,” Kevin said bluntly, turning away from his niece.

“Sorry I asked, I just—” Before Emily could continue, Kevin whirled back around. “You see, I was the state champion in horses four years running. Could’ve won Nationals if it weren’t for the accident. Or maybe it was because of when my wife died. Was that because of cancel culture too? I don’t know, I’ve been in a lot of these movies, and I’m an idiot, so it’s really hard for me to keep track of it all.”

Emily saw her opening. She could use Kevin’s confusion over which low budget Christian movie he was in to mount her escape. Her deep knowledge of Pureflix plot conventions would surely suit her well. As Kevin peered off into nowhere while muttering something about “the border,” Emily made her move for the door. She padded over to the door quietly and eased it open only to find the blondest family she had ever seen standing before her.

Two twins, a boy and a girl around five stood up straight in front of their mother. Emily felt blinded by denim and checkers, though it’s possible some of the clothing was also khaki. “We are all so happy you are here, sweetheart! Your uncle has told us all about you and your walk with Christ, as well as the complaints he lodged against the showrunner for Andromeda.” The woman paused to smile even bigger.

“I’m Heritage May Justice. These two little warriors for the lord are Noah James Liberty and SinPiercer!” The twins said “hello” and waved in unison, pee slowly tricking down the smiling boy’s leg. “I made you a painting!” the little girl Emily supposed was called SinPiercer said excitedly, holding up a sheet of yellow construction paper with a crude cross and the word ‘REPENT’ scrawled on it. A chill went down Emily’s spine. Emily tried to return Heritage May’s smile as the color drained from her face, but it wasn’t working. Scared, Emily turned back around to find her lumbering, hollow-eyed uncle Kevin Sorbo standing directly behind her. Emily was trapped.

“The church is screening my cult classic ‘God’s Not Dead’ tonight, Emily. I think it could open your eyes to how the world really is,” Kevin said as he moved a step closer. Emily turned back to face the blonde family on the porch.

“Yes, Emily, come with us and learn why the dirty atheists are ruining our ordained land, and why you’re dumb and worthless without the strength of a good man,” Heritage May said, her eyes narrowing. “Mommy, is Emily gonna come play worship and shame with us?” Noah James Liberty asked, gazing up at his pale provider. “She sure is, my tiny prophet,” Heritage May answered, tussling her son’s hair.

The walls closing in on her, Emily had to think fast. She remembered unloading her cell phone on the entryway table when she arrived, right beneath the “Faith, Family, Gerrymandering” placard. She had an idea.

“Siri, play ‘W.A.P.’!” she called out in desperation. Her phone responded dutifully, blasting the Cardi B hit loudly. The porch blondes and Kevin Sorbo all gasped audibly, their hands flying to cover their ears. Emily knew even one verse of “W.A.P.” could buy her some time. There was perhaps no greater specific fear in the Pureflix community than a black woman speaking candidly about sex, let alone in a format of music that could not be performed by the Newsboys or Carman.

Emily used the song’s distraction to brush right past the family on Kevin’s porch. She didn’t know what to do or where to go, so she just kept running. She ran right past the handsome young ranch-hand in the checkered shirt who she knew would teach her how to feed apples to a horse. She ran right past the horse she would have fed apples to. She ran past the stables she would have worked at all summer, past the pavilion where she would have won her own golden trophy for being the best at horses. Emily hoped that if she just ran fast enough, she could outrun her tragic past.

With a gasp, Emily shot awake, covered in sweat. Had it all been a dream? It had all been a dream! She was back at home, back in her bed. Her earbuds sat on her nightstand beside a picture of her and her parents at Seaworld, years before her dad had disavowed orcas as “instruments of the left.” Emily climbed out of bed and ran out into the hall, dashing down the stairs. Emily was ready to reclaim her life. “Mom! Dad! Where are you guys?!”

“Sweetie! Did you have a nightmare? You are drenched!” There was Jessica in the kitchen, having her morning cup of coffee like she always did, like she had never been in a car accident, like she had never left. Todd walked into the kitchen to join them. “Whoa, Emmy, you look like you ran a marathon!”

Emily was too shocked to speak, too grateful to move. The doorbell rang before she could say another word. “That must be our company!” Jessica said excitedly. “Your uncle is in town. Emmy, will you say ‘hi’ before you take a shower and get ready?”

Emily nodded in agreement, but as Jessica walked to answer the door, her heart began to race. How would she react to seeing her uncle Kevin after the awful nightmare she just had about him? The door opened and Emily heard a deep, unintelligible mumble answer her mother’s greeting. Oh, whew, it’s just my uncle Kris! It hadn’t occurred to Emily that when her mother said her uncle was in town, it might not be Kevin. Why would she have meant uncle Kevin, anyway? Kevin hadn’t been around since she was born. Emily felt silly for worrying.

“How was the drive in, Kris?” Todd asked his considerably older brother.

“Murble mumphindump sockle calter the digger one!” uncle Kris replied. “Umph smurfle clop,” he added after, as if for clarification.

“That’s…that’s great, Kris!” Jessica offered, completely unsure of what Kris had just said. While Kris had once been a prominent musician and actor, he had lost the ability to enunciate clearly decades ago.

“Murphle clump storf dorkev rommus.” Kris said, pointing to his truck in the driveway. No one knew what the fuck Kris was talking about, but he repeated himself anyway. “Murphle clump storf dorkev rommus!” Kris said with increased emphasis. Everyone’s eyes followed Kris’s finger, still fixed on the pickup truck in the driveway. It was then that Kevin emerged from the passenger seat.

Emily’s panic began anew, but she quickly went to work undoing its faulty logic. She had a dream. It isn’t like Kevin had any way of knowing about it, and the Kevin from her dream wasn’t real.

“Kevin!” Jessica called out. “It must have been, wow, 20 years! It’s so good you came!” Todd ran out to give his brother a hug. Kevin had lived in the middle of nowhere for so long that Todd assumed his brother might never come visit, might never meet his only child.

“Kev, this is an absolute blessing,” Todd said, pulling his brother close. “Let’s all go inside and catch up!”

As Kevin approached the house, Emily stood in the doorway smiling, ready to put her nightmare behind her and greet her uncle. Maybe the lesson she could take from all her terror was to cherish family, to embrace love wherever it might be.

“Kevin, you’re not gonna believe this as tall as she is now, but this is our daughter, Emily,” Jessica said, squeezing Emily’s shoulder proudly.

“It’s a pleasure!” Kevin exclaimed graciously, hugging his niece. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we met before,” Kevin said with a wink.

Emily forced another smile as everyone began taking their jackets off and making themselves at home. Emily plopped down in her favorite spot on the couch, right in the corner, exhausted but glad to be surrounded by the people that she loved. The people that loved her. Glad they were all still here. Glad that the trauma she experienced in her slumber had not crossed into her waking moments.

I have to text Stacy about this, Emily suddenly thought. A lifetime worth of trauma in 24 hours, and she hadn’t even been able to tell her best friend yet. What good was being 16 if you couldn’t unload all your emotions to your friends?

Todd and Jessica sat down beside Emily, while Kevin and Kris took the recliners flanking the couch. Emily fumbled through the pockets of her hoodie and then her purse, realizing she had no idea where she put her phone before her hellish sleep. “Have you guys seen my phone?” Emily asked, turning to her parents beside her on the couch. Both parents shook their heads no. Emily assumed her phone was upstairs, but she didn’t want to leave her mom’s side. Not right now, not after just getting her back.

“Siri, play ‘W.A.P.’” Emily instructed aloud, smiling to herself at the allusion to her dream, her own private secret about the worst night of her life, a night that never really happened.

Emily hard her phone ring, but it wasn’t from her room above. It was from Kevin’s pocket.

By Brian Vaughan