'Never look back'

His mother's last words echoed in his mind. The large wound on the side of his body bled, leaving a small pool of red on the road.

He drew his last breaths as he glanced at the kid he saved from a car accident, cried rivers for him while calling out his name ‘Lace!’. It was his friend's daughter, someone who he thought had a better future than him. For so, he gave his life out of self-hate.

A void shaded with ominous purple threw his soul into oblivion. Freed from the shackles of mortality, his soul was sucked into the unknown.

“This is… the afterlife?”

Lace stared into the never ending darkness, there was only nothingness. No matter how far he runs through it, there will only be himself.

His whole body was translucent and the lack of clothing caused him to frown. His manhood dangled aimlessly, “Hmm, still the same size.”

Something cold held his shoulder. He glanced and saw a pale hand sliding along his skin towards his neck. The softness behind the action sent chills up his spine.

“Look back…” A voice cooed into his ears. Gentle, yet laced with poison.

‘Never look back’

His mother’s voice replayed in his mind, telling him to not pay heed to whoever was behind him. As if it was a message for him when he reached the afterlife.

The thought of it made his body tremble, as he froze in place when the touches felt more than just two hands.

More voices whispered to him. All of them were identical, but each in different tones-- deranged, crestfallen, anger, joy and an abundance of others which clustered together as a headache mess. Pulling on the strings of his sanity as the words hastened like winding up machine-gun.

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

He covered his ears with his palms while holding his head down onto the non-existent floor. His eyes were bloodshot, as the numerous touches on his body began to feel disgusting.

Alas, he turned around.

There were no souls, instead, it was a broken space.

It was cold and dark, the stars and the sun were nothing more than debris. Remnants of planets entered his eyes. Fossils of the living he had once learned were floating amidst the destruction left behind. Turtles, birds, cows, rabbits and above all-- humans.

"What the hell is this...” He muttered.

More questions arose instead of answers.

Is this the future? Did this happen after he died? Is this an alternate universe?

He was hyperventilating. Even though he was already dead, the rapid breathing was painful. Holding onto his puffing chest, the need to vomit swelled through his throat yet nothing came out.

The voices and the hands were gone, but the overwhelming scene was more than enough to rouse his headache once again.

“The blood of the willing…” The voice returned, delicate yet lingers danger. Like holly berries, sweet to the eyes but deadly to consume.

In the middle of the ruined space, a large, slender figure loomed over him. Black goo dripped from above and its pair of arms, covering the creature from top to bottom, making it look like a humanoid black sea. Its several eyes sent sharp, violent gazes that pierced through Lace’s eyes, looking deeper into his soul.

Lace choked at the aura it exuded. Suffocating and painfully, heart throbbing, as if something was stabbing through his chest. Invoking heat in his blood flow, a familiar emotion-- hate.

“...has returned.”

A scene flashed before his eyes. A man with dull eyes stood against a ruined civilization, with a broken stick in his palm. He whispered a word and a coat of energy enveloped the stick as it turned into a bright spear in sky blue hue. All of which are then consumed by complete darkness.

Lace snapped back, a swarm of hands was pulling him towards the source of the voice. The size of the figure became larger as the distance closed in. The oozing animosity caused him to cringe.

“Let me go!” Lace struggled. He tried to peel the hands from his body, but it was all for naught due to their sheer number.

The hands and arms were twisted, most of them were either badly severed with blood dripping from freshly cut mortal wounds. White and broken bones could be seen, either piercing through the skin or dangling from whatever left connecting between the pieces.

"Hold up, shitface, you won't be taking him away."

A different voice came from behind him, a woman. Smooth yet tough with an edge that cuts through tension. One that can take attention away.

A warm hand took his arm and stopped him from getting pulled further.

Lace took a glance at his arm and saw a red mechanical eye twisting and turning behind a pair of shades. Her cerulean bob cut hair swayed against the force built up from the eye. Unlike him, she had clothes consisted of a black suit and trousers with a white button-up t-shirt underneath, which gave her a slick yet elegant appearance.

She lifted her shades, a bright crimson red enveloping her entire right eye as a streak of bright red lightning blitzed through the hands and the large figure.

“Vaporize!” She bawled, dyeing the darkness in red as Lace screamed for his ‘life’, witnessing the death ray up close from below.

A huge cavity was left behind among the debris. The gruesome hands were nowhere to be seen.

Lace felt slightly relieved and glanced at the woman, "Who are you—"

“101, but save the chit-chat for later,” She pointed towards the centre of the clouds of dust.

Lace’s face darkened. The dust dispersed and revealed the large figure still standing tall, who was completely unscathed while calling out ‘The blood of the willing’ again.

The figure summoned a dark cloud where the hands emerged once more, rushing towards them with it scrawny decaying fingers.

101 wasted no time and thrust one of her palms. A surge of energy burst and formed an oval shaped portal which hums a deafening tune.

“Meet you at the other side, mon chou,” She murmured before swinging Lace like a lasso. The strength behind her arm was a contrast with her appearance.

“Hold up for a second!"

Lace was thrown into the portal. His vision suddenly darkened, his ‘soul-body’ could no longer be seen.

“Agghh,” He grunted like it was Monday morning.

The bloody body that was on a stretcher rose up. The weathered strap snapped from the sudden movement. Someone that was already considered dead had moved, startling the paramedics that were carrying the body. Everyone’s eyes seared themselves onto Lace.

His body was cold like a corpse, as he shivered. The heat from the air was comfortable, but too little to give him warmth.

“How…”

Lace muttered, bewildered by the fact that he somehow resurrected. He hugged his own body and touched the fresh blood from his bleeding wounds. The pain was still there, but less than before.

“What a good time to be alive, isn’t it, mon chou?”

A familiar voice came into his ear, he looked left and right, but not even a single hair of her could be spotted.

“101?” He replied, clueless of the current predicament.

The paramedics were calling out for his name, but he ignored them. The mess of his thoughts were pushing him to the verge of insanity.

“The one and only. As for now, I’m living in your head since there’s no time to explain… they’re coming for you and everyone here.”

“Who are they?”

101 sighed, “The fallen gods.”