The sound of silence. It's beautiful, like static. No buzzing of flies nor the glistering sound of burning wood. Where am I?

Opening my eyes slowly, I see a beautiful blue mingling with a shade of white, dancing through the so called sky. I smell the fresh dew of the ground as I felt the grass rustle on my shoes, rubbing against my heels. The sun shone. brightly as it reflected off my eyes, an old yellow shade that I haven't seen before.

As I take my first step forward in this strange peaceful place, I felt a touch on my shoulder. Surprised, I tilted my head and turned to the direction of touch.

A small insect, curiously watching me with its two tendril like ears, a long nose and big bugged eyes. It had a pair of wings which was splatted with a mixture of yellow and black, like my clothes.

A butterfly, I think it was called. I remember my teacher who showed about this interesting species in his old journal. He said it wasn't his, but was rather a friend's. I suppose he or she was a fan of insects or rather, a researcher of it.

This place isn't like my old home, I remember it being a grainy saturated brown with old dim colouring, like an old western film. Here, however, is like a fantasy, a dream come true. Is this the so called dream, the others wished so badly from their past.

Is this the power, I hold? As I walked through the plains of this place, I noticed rocks and metal moving about slowly as it twirled like a whirlwind, forming up strange rectangular contraptions. Pathways, strange long flatland and also other stranger inventions. The sound of creaking and time clicks could be heard from afar, yet how close I near it, it still sounds infinitely further away from me.

"Anyone?!" I called out after wiping my lips with my moistened tongue. "Can you see this, anyone?"

As I called out, I felt the brush of wind from the opposite of me blew my hair onto my face. Clinging on, I spat out the excess hair between my teeth and gums, as I combed it back behind my ears.

Looking left and right, I noticed anyone but flora and fauna. "Where is everyone?" I asked myself as I bit my lip. Was it not successful, or was the process only half completed. As I sway about and walk in a zigzag pattern around this strange district, I watched as the sun slowly raised way up high to a bright blight onto the face.

Holding my hand over my two sensitive pair of eyes, I looked at the sun's bright rays as I wished closely in my head that everyone will be alright, at their place.

...

Meanwhile, in the unknown ashen world of death, comes purgatory. A place where a person is neither bad or good, alive or dead. A spiral of two different forces fighting each other for a reason, that is somehow unknown.

"Wake up, ashen one. Wake up." A crippling yet soothing voice called out as it softly cackled a dry heinous cough.

Scratching his ever aching head, William slowly pushed himself up from his slumbering posture on the ground, as he supports himself up with the palms of his awakening arms. Rubbing the dust off, he turns his head to the direction of the voice who called him, only to notice a strangely humanoid figure, staring back at him.

Eyes devoid of light nor reflection, a gaze so black, it feels like you are looking into the void. Almost frightened to a second death, he inhales quickly as he took a step back, looking back at the figure with a strange curious yet worried smile.

"Where am I? I don't remember what happened, this is not the place I expected to be." He asked the figure with porcelain white pale skin as it slowly crawled its way towards him on all fours. A head of a female yet a body of a monstrous beast, its no wonder, something irregular could give anybody a heart attack.

Tilting her head, the figure looks at him in a curious gaze as she stands up onto two legs, taller than William, she looks down on him as her smile showed off a set of razor sharp teeth, grinning with crimson red liquid between its crevices. "You ask many questions, ashen one. Relax yourself, let me guide you to your eternal rest."

In a speck of time, William prepared himself, worried that he may get attacked by this unknown person, figure? No, a monster, maybe even more. "What the hell do you want?" He asks as he raises his fists towards the beast. Protecting his face and his abdomen, he looks at the beast straight into its eyes as he stand forth, like a bastion.

"No, no Mr Endicrite, there is no need for violence here. Mind my manners, I should have introduced myself first. Don't be fooled with my ghoulish figure as I am but a guidance for the person who had passed a unknowingly yet peaceful death." The figure replies as it waves its two hands about as if trying to apologies.

"How would I know, you are not trying to trick me? I have been through hell on high water, for all I know." He looks back at the figure as it scurries a step backwards, trying to produce a form of way to ensure his safety. Looking left and right, he notices the place being quite dim and rather recluse. A cave-like structure with stalagmites and stalactites strewn around with a gleaming orange-red tint, there was a soft drop of running liquid with strew across the corner-side of this strange cave which resembled a very similar looking colour which the figure had on her own face.

"What is this place? Its dark, grim and depressing. All of the three words, that I am displeased with. Why is the water red and what are this strange coloured ice, if it's even that."

Breaking off a crystal, he rubs on it and sniffs it for any odd reaction that it may return. The so-called crystal, produced a liquid that glowed the same tint as itself. However, the crystal neither melted nor change form, Did it manipulate the moisture to produce this liquid? No, it can't be the place feels so dry and rough, even the "water" that is around here doesn't even seem to help to dampen the cave.

As the figure watched curiously as the human inspected the place around, it turned around and returned back to all-fours as it started to drink the liquid that produced by the small pond of strange liquid.

"You can drink it?" He asked in a surprised manner as he raised his head, watching the figure drinking, filling its dry pale body with a somehow refreshing liquid into itself.

Raising her head, she rubs her mouth as she turns around, still in all-fours, as it stares back at him and tilts.

"Yes, you can drink it, but I don't recommend you to do it. Look at me, this is what happened because I relied on it since my very first day of existence. My name is Madame Gelegra, the countess of death and you are invited to my archives to learn more about the history of your world and how it ended up the way it is today."

"Archives? Liquid that makes you a monster. What is the meaning of this?" Confused with the strange mambo-jumbo he is experiencing, he wondered if he was actually just asleep and dreaming or he had met something even more powerful than a god or even a guardian. "Just tell me, where am I?"

"I did, you accepted my invitation to my archives. I am the owner of this place and also hold the power of all knowledge in the many countless worlds I have foreseen and had a browse over." The countess replied as she scurries beside William and switches on a mechanical switch which somehow turns on wax candles scattered around place, oozing out its white slow running liquid as it stained the rocky terrain like tears or dried milk.

"The actual fuck?" He asks himself in the head as he follows the countess to a seat which was suddenly summoned and gestured to sit upon as a small tea table appeared before him with a set of cutlery and a plate and as well as a napkin to protect the wearer from food spills.

Smiling, the figure sat like a normal human on her own summoned chair, as she picks up her own napkin and ties a knot around her own neck. "What would you like with your meat? Wine, beer? Or something more stilled like juice."

"Ugh... I guess beer would do. I need something to clear my head off this weirdness." He replies back as he copies the same actions of what the person sitting the opposite of him did.

With a smile, a bottle of wheat beer appeared as it poured itself into a long glass before being served beside him. Other than that, a piece of meat was summoned on his plate as it was sizzling and cooking in mere seconds to a perfect medium to well done grill. "Sauce?" She asks as she left her meat raw, oozing out fresh blood as she slowly picks up her utensils.

"You know what, excuse myself. I don't feel hungry, I will just drink, thanks." Disgusted by the odd scent that vapoured into his nose, he smelled the metallic taste that was appearing before the eaten meat, savoured by the strange figure who introduced herself as a lovely countess named Madame Gelegra.

This reminds me of a book I have read. It starts out dark and slowly preaches to a deeper more insightful explanation of strange phenomenons. Strange figures, monsters powerful than god itself, the faithful becoming faithless, laws becoming useless. As I fathom, this isn't so faint of heart, so I express, I wish this is not a dream. But I wish, I could remove those memories. Destroy. Them. All.

As William was in his own head, reaching upon deep thoughts, he instinctively picks up his glass of beer as he sips it. Tasting the bitterness that rolled own his throat as he savoured the grainy and dry feeling at the back.

"Alright, let me get this straight. I am dead..." He asks as he places the glass down and looks at the countless sternly. "Right?"

Swallowing down her meat with a sip of wine that falls down like a small waterfall, she then picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth as she looks back at him with a soft yet enchanting chuckle. "No, you are not."

"You are in a place, better than death and better than your own world, where you are so-called alive. You are in the archives, your are forevermore yet never at the same time, it is called the archives and just The Archives." Speaking in a strange poetic tone and a very confusing syllable, William listens closely as he tried to understand what she meant by the strange slew of sentences.

"Alright, simpler words, layman terms. Am. I. Dead.?" He asks again, this time willing to understand his true purpose of the reason he is here and why did he accept such an invite from a ephemeral stranger, thinking it was a messenger from heaven or hell.

"No, you are not." She repeated again. "You are in The Archives."

"What is the archives?!" He asks a little strictly as he still couldn't understand. Maddened in rage, he got up as he held his fury in his fleshy case of a chest.

"A place better than death. A place where your knowledge is infinite." She replies kindly once more as she sips herself another mouthful of red wine from thin air.

"Oh goddammit, this is madness. It's like wandering about the guardian's forest all over again, nothing makes sense." He replies as he pinches his foreheads thick flesh as he rubs his wrinkled skin. "You are just repeating the same thing over and over again, it's like that is your definition of this so-called Archives."

"Look at this!" He shouts as he shows about this empty cave with just reflective crystals and strange blood curdling liquid and the excess amount of wax released from lighted candles. "This is no archive, it is a freaking cave which makes no sense, other than your supernatural powers of summoning entities."

Listening to William's rambling, the countess smiled at him and watched happily and curiously as if a showman, ready to prepare the stage for the act of circus. An audience of one, yet enjoyable to its finest. Least of a mere jester, yet rather more of a bard, ready to play its another creative self-made song. In glee, she shook her head as she enjoyed the show as the man releases his energy for the final act that will soon come. The act of exhaustion.

"...For fuck's sake, if you understand, I just wish I was back home, with my loving wife and my goddamn tribe with the silly curious gal, listening to my tapes as I explain and show her my past as my two guardians relax themselves my lap in their animal forms as I sit and enjoy a cup of drink with my old comrades." Out of ideas on what to say, William runs out of breath as he starts breathing heavily as his lips start to chap from the loss of moisture in this place.

"I understand what you mean. Sit and relax, I will explain all. Like the tape-player you used, to record your logs and wonderful stories for it to be stumbled upon by the curious maiden, I would do the same for you, here, in the archives. I am not a guardian, but an entity even more. I am not god either, so that is something, you can relax about. This is the Archive, you are not death nor alive. So believe me, I understand your situation, human."

"I am but a humble countess, owner of The Archives and story-teller for all. Let's start our first chapter together, beginning from the time, when you and your soldier friends raided the building, to rid of the Bio-Mother."

"Pestilence, itself."