Charles Monroe was dying.

No exaggeration, no manner of speaking, no flourish of some poet or philosopher to bring drama or emphasis. No, he was truly, utterly, horrifically dying. The man in his mid twenties was uncertain whether or not he should possibly be glad for this roller coaster to end, or if he should be bitter that the haunting specter of death knocked on his door so many times, only to say “Oops, it seems I’m still a little too early. Sorry for the inconvenience, again, I’ll just come back when you’re a little bit worse.”

And worse Charles was.

It had started ten years ago when both of his parents simply disappeared without a trace, leaving himself and his sister alone in a home that was left cold and hollow in their absence. They’d been left fairly well off, he admitted to himself even now, and they didn’t need to go hungry or homeless.

By some stroke of luck, they’d also been left primarily well enough alone by authorities that might have separated him and his sister in the absence of his parents. All the same, they were so heartbroken and bereft of family that taking them from each other would have been a cruelty too far.

The world moved on, however, and time mended wounds and left scars in their place. There was no mistaking the empty hole left behind by their parents' disappearance, but the siblings strove forward, hand-in-hand, eventually making their own ways in the world.

All was good.

And then the other shoe dropped.

On Charles’ graduation day from his University five years ago, the rest of his world lost the little bit of color he’d painstakingly rebuilt. His sister disappeared.

A note of explanation that failed utterly at explaining was all that was left on a table. The handwritten note boiled down to one, bewildering sentence.

“I’ll be back, someone needs my help.”

And that was all. The sheer frustration was all that he was left with, no further whisper or trace of her left. Police investigation was rapidly met with nowhere to go - she had simply seemed to vanish, after all - and eventually there was simply nothing else to investigate, though he hadn’t stopped trying.

What he did know, though, was that the world was a cruel, cold, terrible place. Even bereft of faith in life, Charles strove to do his best, hoping this, too, would heal with time. Or perhaps the day that his sister would walk back through the doors of his family home would come.

Looking back on it, not everything was so black and white. He’d made enough friends to dull the ache - fewer, perhaps, that he’d invite into his home - but they kept him moving forward. They’d held his hand, offered a shoulder to cry on - more than once - and finally gave him the drive to put his sister’s things in boxes, sorted away for safekeeping in the basement.

They were there, too, when the cancer set in.

Naive, that’s how Charles could describe his previous mindset. He thought that he’d had enough, that the world had already given him enough suffering to last a lifetime.

Testicular cancer was, by and large, fightable and nigh fully treatable. And to the appearances of all involved, treatments had gone well. He’d gotten better, surgical operations and chemo seemed to have done the trick.

The months had passed, and when it seemed that his health was in the clear, he couldn’t have been happier. However, his new lease on life had only lasted just long enough for him to realize that the cancer hadn’t been beaten, it had moved.

Multiple myeloma, cancer of the white blood cells, was almost always eventually fatal, or so Charles was informed clinically by a doctor wearing a tired expression that came with the delivery of such news again and again.

He supposed that having him sit down for the news was a good idea, given that his legs suddenly felt like lead. Afterwards, Charles couldn’t help but almost snicker hollowly at the sight of himself in the mirror. Being told the world was cruel was different from knowing the world was cruel.

Such highs, and such lows.

Treatments followed, the gamut of which left a weakened and utterly immune compromised Charles to move through life in a fugue of medicines and careful planning. He could, theoretically, beat the odds and live a longer life. Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty years.

Five was considered very good, so Charles supposed that he was being overly optimistic all things considered with his previous mark.

And yet, the punch line was yet to come. It wouldn’t be the returning cancer and subsequent and semi-successful treatments that would kill him.

No.

It was ebola.

‘Ebola!’ Charles thought to himself, ‘Fuckin’ super ebola. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.’

It was bad. Some strain of ebola propped up out of somewhere - the CDC were still trying to track down patient zero - and immediately displayed a mortally terrifying infectivity quotient. It spread rapidly, but most areas had been utterly locked down.

‘I guess seventy-five percent fatality rate is enough to actually get everyone on the same page.’ He thought, trying to clench a fist with strength that only managed a twitch.

Across the wide open room, he could hear a patient’s agonized throes, the beginning of the end. He’d gone through the same, roughly two days ago, where wracking pain and bloody seeping began, and where total organ failure steadily began to set in. Perhaps they’d get out in front of it, keep the body stable enough that it could fight back. The elderly and children were at the most risk, and those of compromised immune systems.

Charles of course knew he fit snugly in the last category.

Even so, he was no naive dreamer anymore. His parents had abandoned them or been abducted, either way having the same effect. His sister had left to help someone, and he couldn’t help but think that perhaps she’d been tricked and abducted - she was a very pretty young girl and maybe more impressionable than he’d thought - or had decided to run away for some reason. The world didn’t need a reason to be cruel, even for no real reason at all.

No, Charles was not naive, and he detested the world and was suspect of most in it. But, for all of it’s cruelty, there were beautiful things in it, too. Friendships that warmed hearth and home, wonderful vistas of nature that filled the soul, good food that let one forget their troubles if only for a time, entertainment that let passion and amusement abound. Many of these things had slowly bled away from him as the cancer stepped up its steady assault.

‘But, god damn it, is it so wrong to want to live?’ Charles' thoughts rebelled against the steady failure of his body.

“You’re not long for your world.” Charles' mental struggle faltered for a hair's breadth at a statement that he heard somehow from within. He redoubled his constant struggle a moment later.

‘...This again. Wonder if the cancer got to my brain. Or maybe the medications are causing a psychotic break?’ He immediately put the consideration out of his head, efforts better devoted to the marathon against dying. The voice had come a handful of times before, each time faint and, with what little luck he had left, mercifully short in how long he’d experienced it.

“Charles,” the voice startled him. It sounded crystal clear, as though its source was right next to him.

A glance with his eyes assured him he was not alone in the room, but the other occupants in the beds around, some stained red, told him he was likely the only one conscious. ‘Or maybe even the only one alive,’ he added dryly.

“I need your help.” The voice called, and all at once Charles felt his body vibrate.

For the briefest moments, he sought the voice. Perhaps in his illucid state, loosened sufficiently from the mortal coil, he was able to touch onto that connection easily, like dipping a finger into a warm swimming pool.

In the next moment, he was looking at a bleak, black void, marred only by a silvery rift that hovered in the air before him. Effervescent energy rimmed the rift, appearing for all his observations to be a window to a world far below, lush landscapes cut radically with other climates, some of which with landmarks visible even from above the clouds.

“Did I die?” Charles’ despairing voice resounded in the blackness, the compound efforts of all of his years suddenly feeling as though they’d come to nothing in one fell swoop.

“No, Charles,” a voice replied, seemingly coming from all around, and yet more focused at the portal. “Not yet, at least. The life within you yet smoulders, but it will not last.”

There were many things that Charles felt he could roll with. But, exhausted as he was from his nigh constant battle with death, struggling day by day just to keep breathing, something wavered in him.

Charles grit his teeth against the manic whimper that strove to push its way out of his throat. The part of him that fought, that strove to survive, sagged with the words, as though they were the inviolable truth that his demise was inevitable and quite near.

Then the steel in his spine asserted itself and Charles forced his body upright, sternly meeting the darkness. “We’ll see. Who are you and what do you want?”

A quiver in the air answered him, uncertainty touching the edge of his psyche, “Hmm… you’re stronger willed than some of the others,” the sensation of scrutiny enhanced suddenly, “but, I don’t dislike that quality.”

Before Charles could say anything, specifically the myriad questions that popped into his mind, the gash in the void flashed.

“Allow me to show you some things. I find this provides the necessary framework for any explanation, and… for what comes next.” The voice began, several images slowly cycling through the window. A great chasm of earth filled with luminescent plants reached out to Charles, suddenly replaced by a towering system of trees that spread like a spider's web across the sky. Lava belched viscously in another image, round a gemstone wrought land of silver and gold, replaced only by a far colder counterpart filled with crystals of ice and shining opalescence. More awesome and terrifying visions of the place began to cycle through, some things also becoming apparent.

They were monsters, that’s all he could think of them as. Shadowy hounds with bare skulls exposed shackled by towering brutes with sickle claws and razor fangs. Small green creatures - he presumed goblins from fantasy - attacked and overwhelmed a deer-like animal, howling and snarling triumphant. Humans, Elves, and Dwarves crossed blades with what could scarcely pass as more humans, coated in blood, gleaming sigils, and a bloodthirsty aura that he felt even through the window. Beyond that were massive cities teeming with life, mingled with qualities that defied common technology; what could only be described as arcane sigils and magical phenomena occurring the likes of which Charles couldn’t believe or imagine. “This world is me, Alterra,” the voice said in an almost bittersweet tone,“in all of my glory.”

“I…” Charles felt his breaths hitch for a second, “you’re this world?”

“I am. The Will of the World. Some of the Old Blooded still call me, others scarcely know I exist these days. The deities have seen to that.” Clear scorn emanated from all around, and Charles suddenly felt very small indeed.

The voice collected itself, seemingly apologetically, “That is a topic for later. I have called on the essence within your blood, and you have come, bridged the gap to me.” Alterra then offered more explanation, “Some small handfuls of your kin exist, scattered across the eons and verses. I call out to you, and most of you will never hear me. But others… Well, you are here now, afterall.”

Charles struggled visibly with that line of thought, before quickly realizing that his full understanding was not only unlikely, but also not especially helpful. Introspection and a measured, logical approach to situations was a strong suit of his, and in spite of the outlandish situation, the unbelievable claims, he was wary of the potential that the being was real.

But that wouldn’t stop him from speaking on that point.

“Assuming my mind isn’t somehow trying to rationalize dying with some sort of transitory allegory to speaking with a being from another world, then what would something as powerful as you need from me?” The man asked, unsteady in the floating space of the void.

“You seem to have expectations of my power,” Charles felt an almost wistful sigh from the air around him, “when true power is exactly what I lack. I have no way to interact with the larger elements of my world, at least anymore. There was a time where I could churn oceans, bend rivers, evoke mountains. Alas,” it said sadly, “it has been some time indeed since then. My essence is being robbed of me, my power ever more shackled. Many who have come before you were my heralds, my Chosen, heroes and mundane folk all. I have asked those in the past that have come before you merely to live, to strive to be the best they can be, to live their lives to the fullest…”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming, here,” Charles uttered with mounting disquiet.

“Indeed. I grow weary of the leeches on my flanks, the deities. All of my Chosen have done admirably, cycling the essence of the world back to me, reinforced against the predations of the Acolytes. But I seek a more direct measure.”

“It sounds more like you’re asking for someone to be a hitman,” the young man, well weathered in the ways of a cruel and unjust world, shook his head, “Is that what you want?”

The words seemed to stir, uncertainty showing, “I do not know, it is… difficult. I do not want to have such a thing, but,” the voice firmed then, a hardness to it that spoke of defiance, “I do not want to die without a fight.”

Charles felt his heart quicken to those words, but he quickly reminded himself that agreeing with the sentiment and agreeing to be anything’s executioner were two very different things.

“I think you have the wrong person, then.” Charles carefully stated, “I’m not err… assassin material. I’m also not certain about killing someone who has done me no wrong personally. Not that I can’t sympathize...”

“I… yes, I expect as much.” The voice churned, “I will not force you into this decision. And even so, I would not want someone who could kill without question.”

Silence pervaded the empty blackness as the being contemplated its words. Charles’ waited patiently, gratefully taking the moment to calm himself and, at least marginally, convince himself that he was under no immediate threat. In the process the man turned his attention back to the portal and it's now mirror-shine, marveling at the lack of pain in his body for the first time in months. Living was high on his list of things that Charles wanted to do.

There were hundreds of questions that Charles had, but for the moment he relished in the feeling of a healthy body. He drank deep of the image of himself in the mirror, marveled at how his cheeks were fuller, his gaunt frame replaced by a hefty, well muscled body. It was a great lie, one that looked at him through a lens that asked ‘what if?’ instead of the clinical eye of reality.

A question bubbled to the surface and released before he could draw it in, “Can I come back?” He began, “It’s a lot to take in all at once, and I’m still not sure this isn’t a hallucination.”

There was some mirth in the air, tinged with a mote of sadness, “Of course, we can converse again when you are once more at the borderline.”

“Borderline?” Asked Charles, afraid he knew the answer to what that was.

“Of life and death,” Alterra confirmed, “in any case, it is best to send you back for now. It seems that I have some things to consider, and a body does not do well separated from its soul for so long. I do hope that it will be some time before we speak again, Charles Monroe.”

For a moment, Charles tried to reach forth, as though to delay the return in spite of his desperate fight for survival. This was a refuge rarely found, and he was reluctant to go back to the pain.

Yet, he fought down that urge when he realized the weakness of the sentiment. It was natural to shirk away from pain, but his life was on the line. Living was his ultimate goal, even if it was painful.

And, just as quickly as the disquieting journey had begun, it had ended. Charles instantly felt the mire of pain and agony, steeped in weakness, like he was being drowned in it. The dried spots of blood that still stained his bedsheets greeted him out of the corner of his eye, and if he had to guess hours had passed in what seemed to have been moments.

It could very well have been a fever dream, but if nothing else, the voice had wished him well. Charles took some solace in the fact that Alterra - or his subconscious - hadn’t wholly given up on his life.

In the darkness of the room, though, he noted something strange. A single nurse was moving between beds, while others stood off on the far side of the room, his bleary vision denying any clarity to match faces with names.

He’d gotten to know much of the staff quite well at this hospital even before the current epidemic.

Charles, watching the nurse, felt something amiss even as she went about her duties. In all of his time, they never worked alone, yet, he realized with wariness, she was the only one to move between all of the beds, administering medicine while the others continued to watch on from afar. Their standard practice to ensure personal safety was to wear full protective equipment and maintain a buddy system to make sure no breaches in safety occurred for personnel.

She passed by some of the beds with a quick check of the charts attached to the foot of each bed. Lacking the mental faculties, Charles couldn’t put together any particular pattern.

After nearly ten painstaking minutes, he turned his attention back to the patients, some of whom had gone from squirming painfully to being utterly still.

‘Ah, just painkillers.’ He sighed in relief, a weak wheeze from his wracked body.

She took some time with each bed that she stopped, applying her craft and moving on. Finally, she stopped at his own, looking at the charts, no doubt also noting the cancer in Charles’ body. Ordinarily, he’d have been in an entirely different room, ventilated, completely separated on account of his immune system. Given the state of the hospital being far, far over capacity, that simply wasn’t possible.

The nurse hadn’t even looked at him when she approached the side of the bed with the I.V., and now I could clearly see a tray of liquid filled bottles and a large syringe. She plunged the needle through the pierceable top of one such vial, and pulled… and pulled… and pulled.

‘Christ, is that a normal dose for painkillers?’ Charles balked, eyes wide open as she shifted the I.V. bag to more usable positions.

He forced his head to move, a monumental task with such a burdened body, sending his head swimming with the effort. There were a lot of filled beds, more than he’d seen earlier. They even seemed to have been cramming cots where they could.

Another monumental turn later, and his eyes settled on the needle as it plunged deep into the I.V. drip, draining the whole of the needle.

The realization hit him like an ice sheet across his spine.

“No…” a whisper like an autumn breeze in a graveyard met the nurse's ear as she turned in surprise and shock.

Her eyes quaked upon meeting his own, and all but confirmed his own fear, dread settling in like a cold, cloying mantle.

A hollow attempt at a smile was visible past her plastic visor, “It’s going to be okay. You’re just going to sleep for a while.”

The lie was pretty, and Charles wanted to believe it, wanted more than anything for that to be the truth.

But they were a city in lockdown, with a virulent and lethal disease and nowhere near enough resources to save everyone. He knew exactly that it wasn’t going to be okay. Pragmatically, he had a few hours left before death, he was already knocking on its door. If not ebola, any of the hundreds of other diseases in the room could do the job. Surely that was what the nurses and doctors were thinking.

Because the world was cold, and cruel, and casual in its brutality. And, just sometimes, even the greater good, or mercy, felt like anything but.

Charles struggled, feebly, with his other hand, a feverish rush of energy pumping through his body. If only he could rip the needle out of his arm, maybe he could earn a few more hours, maybe he could turn things around. It amounted only to lifting his hand, the drugs already rushing through his punished system. Accusation burned through his wordless lips, every bit of steel in his spine suddenly melting with the heat of the drug that worked away inexorably at his chemistry.

‘I want to live!’ Charles whimpered even as the darkness took away the choice he had in the matter.

Mired in the blackness, there seemed to be a tacit difference this time. There were many tides that he could feel, ripples in the black, and he instinctively knew he was moving, though lacked any way to tell where he was moving.

Instead of the moment's travel he expected, he felt the tug grow stronger, just as the ripples began to feel more like being dragged through water. Sensations wracked his mind, instances of his life pouring through his conscious thoughts, reminders of all that he’d accomplished, all that he’d failed, and everything he still sought to do.

Then the pull became stronger again, and it was almost painful, like being dragged through a writhing sandstorm. It scoured at his thoughts, and the pain, the vices and the passions, wearing down the edges of what he could remember.

Before it became unbearable, though, something else buoyed his fragile self amidst the swirling ocean.

“I was unprepared,” the familiar voice of Alterra alighted through to Charles, “I did not expect to speak with you again so soon.”

Tears would have cascaded from Charles then if not for the fact that he no longer possessed a body. The pain and anguish, however, translated ever the clearer for it.

“She killed me,” Charles didn’t care that his voice reverberated, “She looked me in the eye and let me die.”

There were many seconds of silence as Alterra waited for Charles to calm himself, finding itself unusually helpless to offer comfort to him as he allowed himself to weep. The pain, at least, dulled with the gentle pulses from the presence that was Alterra.

“I am sorry, truly,” Alterra sounded genuine, “it is not pleasant. And I would like nothing but to give you time to grieve and pain, but I am holding you within the tides. I cannot do so for long, you must live or die, soon.”

Charles, for the first time, really looked beyond the calmed boundary, his senses relying less and less on what he had been so accustomed to. Beyond the tranquil bubble, reaving, howling energies whorled deeper and further from their position, to where he did not know.

But he knew that the pain had begun to become insufferable; what would lay further down that road? Would anything be left of him?

“That road is oblivion as you know it,” Alterra seemed to be aware of his distant gaze, “I offer you a new life, though I would require your aid. I do not wish to force it upon you. And…” Alterra paused then, sighing lightly beside itself, “if you do not wish to help, I could at least desensitize your soul. You wouldn’t feel your dea-”

“Never again.” Charles nearly snarled, “never that!”

“I understand.” Alterra managed to sound contrite and strained at the same time, “Then, please, you must choose. I can place you in the world, gift you as I have my other Chosen, and you will commune with me later. Or I release you. What is your choice?”

Charles decided three things at that moment. The first, that Alterra was real, and at least seemed to give a damn. Second, the world, no matter the world, was a cruel, cold place and with new wisdom, Charles understood that the only change he would see in it would be what he could carve for himself. And thirdly…

“I don’t want to die.” Charles stated resolutely, “I will be your Chosen. Even if that means I have to kill for you, I want to live.”

“Charles Monroe, I thank you,” Alterra’s voice vibrated, pushing the churning tides even further away as I was dragged onward far faster, “I will give you my blessing now while we go, it won’t take long. I won’t be able to speak with you at first when you get to the other side, but I’ll have another Chosen nearby ready to receive you, they’ll explain things in the meantime.”

As she spoke, Charles felt a warmth chase away the coldness, not unlike death in it’s cloying fingers, “When can I speak with you directly?”

“Gather enough essence. Fortify yourself,” Alterra noted, “the population does it all the time, you merely exist, strive for betterment, succeed in battle and prevail over strife. Guide your growth and you’ll get there, eventually.”

Charles opened his ‘mouth’ again to speak when the warmth receded, leaving a kernel of something more solid behind.

Alterra seemed pleased, “You take blessings well. Perhaps we can gift you with more lat-”

The cosmic being’s words were interrupted as something crashed into the bubble Alterra formed - a strange, alien mind barreled into contact and overwhelmed Alterra’s hold over Charles’ soul for just a moment. No words flowed through the energy, a bolt of power cut deep into Charles' very core. Where Alterra’s presence was warm, this was chaotic, shifting always, sometimes soft, sometimes hard. Cold and hot washed over him in waves of sand and then broken glass, then more things that he couldn’t begin to describe. In the moment it embraced Charles, it saturated his being, and all at once the feeble light that was Charles waned, overwhelmed and shot on a careening, twisting path down to a world that he now knew as Alterra…

...And then became murkily aware of himself in a snuggly confined darkness, a physical warmth suffusing his being.

‘Alright, what the hell happened just now?’ Charles' confines did little to bring peace of mind, and the ache that suffused his entire being from whatever had happened still lingered. Panic set in as he struggled weakly before Charles took a hold of himself, trying desperately to analyze his situation.

‘Take stock. I seem to be able to move, somewhat, but my limbs are really, really constrained, and… feel strange. I can’t tell if my fingers are working, or toes.’ Charles cringed, ‘really hope I have my fingers. God’s, I hope it’s just blood flow related. I just need to move around some.’

Charles was doing just that when he suddenly felt tired, sleep washing over him. Then, he awoke once more from the blackness, suffused with the same primal need to move, only to eventually wear himself out again. Even thinking was difficult, and Charles tried again and again to consider his situation, only to force himself to move to the point of exhaustion.

‘What is this? One big panic attack?’ He shuddered, frankly terrified that his body and will seemed to be clashing on something so fundamental as movement. ‘Am I paralyzed? What’s going on?’

The same pattern held, several times, until finally he was strong enough to begin to push against the edges of whatever held him captive, before a desperate thought occurred to him, ‘Shit! Am I in a coffin? Did I get buried alive!?’

The next few minutes were spent, fruitlessly, attempting to override his subconscious needs and breathing as shallowly as possible while estimating what was happening. He tried to tap the edge of the wall, finding that upon turning his head a distinctive thunk resounded from the wall.

‘Odd…’ Charles considered the noise, before repeating the gesture. A vibration and sensation that traveled through his head. ‘Do I have a mask on? What the hell?’ He continued battering it, finding that there was a hardened tip at the end of his mask.

Pushing against the wall, he felt the hardened tip steadily pierce through, and held his breath against the cavalcade of dirt that would come tumbling in if it was really underground.

Instead, a brilliant flood of light surged in through the gap.

‘Yes! Oh sweet God - Alterra? - Yes! I’m not underground!’ Charles would have clapped triumphantly if it didn’t feel like his arms were limp noodles by his sides. Instead, he pushed and prodded, struggling frantically for what felt like several minutes before there was finally a loud, resounding crunch as the entire wall gave way.

Charles landed in a lump against the ground, fresh air streaming into his lungs, and the rough, but oddly comfortable, floor beneath him. Bleary eyes blinked multiple times as he tried to survey the area surrounding him.

Speckled reddish oblong objects larger than he was littered the room - no, clearing, this was outside - in a loose ring. Frantically, his eyes searched around for signs of anyone else nearby.

‘Alterra said that another Chosen would be on hand to answer questions. Where are they?’ Charles' hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Alterra even amidst all of the chaos. However, he couldn’t help but doubt that anything would go according to plan, considering what his awakening situation had been. Regrettably, his eyes refused to focus beyond a few centimeters in front of his face, leaving him helpless to see anything but the elongated front of his mask.

‘The hell is up with this mask anyways, it looks like a… beak…’

For a few harrowing seconds, Charles' brain and soul caught up with each other, the sudden realization was a bucket of cold water on what had initially looked like a comparatively decent start of his new life versus how the last had ended… Potential buried-underground-alive scenario notwithstanding.

He took the time to look down, seeing downy fluff upon his body, cute shades of pink, blue, and magenta coloring his feathers, from what he could see as he cocked his head to the side. Of course, there was also the fact that his feet were splayed, elongated toes with scales on them, and itty bitty claws that couldn’t even be remotely claimed as talons. Then, there were his arms, which were feebly able to move somewhat, but were clearly not human, and in fact decidedly resembled avian wings. And through all of this inspection, he realized his head was far too large for the rest of his body when he toppled over forward, leaving him staring high up into a canopy of trees that seemed, realistically, far too large compared to a human.

At least, until he realized that he was most definitely not human anymore.

The baby bird, panic finally setting in beyond anything that Charles could, or would, control, let out its first majestic cry to the world.

“CHEEP!?”