The void implies empty, but the void is not an empty place. It is not true oblivion.

Nicole Bauer’s soul floated—or fell—she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell until the bottom of the void smacked into her consciousness. This was the bottom, as much as there could be a bottom of a place like this. She now felt aware of a vast plane extending in all directions upon which she could travel. She felt it, but not in a manner of touch. It wasn’t a physical surface. It was a limit, or maybe a center. Sight was not a thing here, nor was touch, or smell, or taste, or hearing. Only an intuitive feel that now she could move along this plane.

Nicole didn’t know where to go, though. Not without his voice.

Or maybe sight was a thing. A pinprick of red light appeared to her, though she couldn’t tell if it was near or far with nothing to gauge distance by. And now a second pinprick of light appeared, this one blue. Then a brown one winked into existence. White. Blue-white. Violet-black. In total, twelve pinpricks of light appeared in a circle all around her. She was still unable to tell if they were only a short distance away or as far as the stars in the sky of the mortal world.

The first, Nicole. Go to the first.

My Lord.

Silence. Eerie, complete silence. Nicole could hear it, or rather she couldn’t, but she had become aware of a sense of hearing again; the faintest whisper of a wind filled the air around her. Nicole fixed her awareness upon the pinprick of red light, almost certain now that distance caused the size of it. Focusing her will, Nicole moved forward through the void, following his direction. Her last mortal memories surfaced again, the pain of being killed for a second time implanted hard upon her soul. Seth kicking through her leg hadn’t hurt, merely hampered her movement.

But a bullet straight through her brain? Pure fire.

Anger seethed in Nicole’s soul. How dare he? How could he take what was promised from her? Luck had put it in front of her and she had seized the opportunity with reckless abandon, consequences be damned. She just wanted her family back.

Nicole moved through the void.

***

The colossal oaks of the forest rose skyward, their branches entangled into a thick canopy under which the other arboreal denizens of the forest grew and created their primeval court. The air was rich with the moist scent of moss and pine, heavy and wet with the late summer humidity in the early morning. A fog bank enshrouded everything, a white mantle of uncertainty that reduced visibility even more than the many trunks of the trees and the thickets of bushes and brambles.

Seth moved barefoot through the woods, on a path he couldn’t see, but nonetheless knew. He and Andrew had played there as children, running and wrestling and pretending they were the kings and conquerors of their forest realm. The path they used to take was overgrown now, but Seth knew it. He picked his way through the foliage with smooth assurance. He had to get there. He had to get to what they used to call the Kings’ Hall.

The wooden guardians loomed above him, watching his passage through the sacred unseen roads. Somewhere in the distance a mourning dove hooted it’s undulating call. The grassy earth sloped upwards as Seth continued, steeper and steeper. The trees were sparser here, but their conglomeration resumed the moment the ground leveled out again. Except to the right, where the earth fell away to a steep cliff-side, allowing Seth a view of the lake.

This part of the forest grew on a small outlet of the lake, across which sat a new construction, an extravagant lake-house complete with a dock and a sailing boat moored there. Someone, he thought a girl, sat on the end of the dock, her legs dangling over the water. He always wondered who lived there.

No, he knew. Memories just out of reach swirled beneath a veil in Seth’s mind, memories of happiness… and memories of pain. He stared at the lake-house, trying to remember what had happened there, but it was a distant future and inaccessible to his mind. What was to be could not be seen. He narrowed his eyebrows and turned away from the lake-house, surveying the woods to find the sacred unseen road once again.

Intuition guided him and he continued up another sloping ridge, cresting this one at the start of an actual path, the trees pushed aside here to allow three or four people to walk abreast of each other. The ground here felt firmer, packed, his heels no longer cushioned by long grass as he continued deeper into the forest. The path twisted back and forth, leading him like a drunken lover until it opened up into the boulder-filled glade of Kings’ Hall.

Six boulders of the same size crowded here in a semi-circle, each with only slight deviations in shape from the other. No moss covered them, nor had it ever. They were the thrones of the forest, and reality respected them.

A sound like thunder broke the stillness of the woods and Seth ran towards it, drawn onward by his senses. He ran past the thrones, and deeper still into the woods as it grew crowded and dark, slipping beside tree trunks as he searched for the source of the sound. Brambles tugged at his jeans, and branches whipped his face. Still, he ran.

A few moments later, Seth slowed to a halt at the entrance to a cave that sprouted from the side of another gentle slope. In between him and the cave lay a bear on its side, black fur caked with fresh blood, lungs heaving with intense labor. Steam rose off of the bear into the air and mingled with the fog.

The wound was deep and grievous, a jagged hole in its side, too big to be from any sort of firearm. The bear lifted its head and looked at Seth, then let out a morose growl and settled back down, awaiting its death. Seth approached the black bear, kneeling in front of it. The bear moved a paw to him, not with intent to wound, but a feeble, pained movement. Seth put his hand on the leg of the bear, his eyes drawn to the wicked claws of the beast.

“Who did this to you?”

“You did,” came the voice behind him. The bear made a fearful growl and Seth stood to his feet, turning around.

A young woman stood there in a revealing black gown, olive skin of her face framed in the golden circlets of her hair. Violet eyes pierced Seth. “You killed him, as you will kill many others.”

A memory, a flash. Gun in hand, barrel to skull.

Seth swallowed. “I didn’t kill the bear.”

“Bear?” She smirked, and that brought forth another flash, another memory. Chocolate-brown eyes staring up at him. “No.” She moved closer and the wind ferried the scent of roses off of her and to Seth. Goosebumps on Seth’s neck offset the pleasantness of the smell.

“Stay back,” said Seth, as he began to blade himself. His hands stayed by his sides, but he began to tense his legs.

She came just outside of his reach as her eyes roved him. “Very well,” she said, full lips curled into a secretive smile.

Seth walked forward, the path twisting back and forth as it lead him like a drunken lover to the boulder-filled glade of Kings’ Hall. He blinked. Where… Seth turned in a full circle. No bear. No woman.

A high-pitched scream echoed through the forest and Seth ran again, slipping through the trees, knowing where to go without thinking. The cave loomed ahead of him again, and between him and the cave lay the woman, dress ripped to shreds, deep and grievous wounds all across her body. She reached up to him, hands shaking in pain, eyes filled with agony as the blood pooled beneath her and stained the grass crimson.

Seth turned before the noise came and saw the bear standing there, claws stained with blood, eyes unblinking as they stared at him. Deep and vibrant, a voice spoke within Seth’s head.

You did this.