Moments ago, it crossed my mind that death is ethereal, intangible and hardly explained with no one to claim for what it could be. Of its feeling. Because it was a word meant not be understood, but think upon endlessly. To be left mystified. To have many definition but believe one that we wanted real. Who could prove a singular truth, anyway? As much as we believed what many had thought true of themselves, void was a word simply made to conceptualize what lies in death.

But momentary thoughts were only that most of the time, fleeting. It pass and go, rekindled only for imagination's sake. Or if the moment requires it.

Death still as it seems for. Void. Clear emptiness strewn in black. Like they said. Like we believed.

And now it is.

I felt it slowly feed from me, making something I had felt earlier feel hollow. Only left to think. Think. And think more. To do the darkness more rather than just gaze at it and wonder. To think if I could bring color in this place as well. Bring something I'd feel feel happy about. Feel alive about.

That felt calming, even as much as I knew it too soon would be claimed away from me.

However, that stumped me.

What was color?

I did all I could to bring some life here: yellow, blue, green. I wanted to paint it. But I couldn't do as much as that. Not because there was no brush nor the memory of how those colors looked like. I could still see those rough and clumped uneven hairs. Of the word sun, of the word sky, of the word trees.

It was something else. As if I had forgott—no. It was because those colors became something new to me. Yet familiar.

As if yellow was... black, blue was black, and everything was black. In a way, color didn't mean as varied to me anymore. As if its meaning had and always have been this place. Just the expanse of darkness and nothing else. I would have scrambled away from that realization if I could, knowing this could be a nightmare I could still escape from. But there was no reason to.

Darkness instilled no sense of urgency like I had thought it would make me. In a way that I'd feel suffocated by it. Perhaps develop some kind of of madness over it. To make me think that days, months, or even years might have passed in mere seconds. But it did not.

An unmovable body and darkness. It was just that and all plain black to be had. Think or not think. That's all that was needed to be done, for I couldn't feel the terror of it. Or of anything unlike earlier. The sadness and the peculiarity I initially felt seemingly eaten to nothingness.

And now everything else, it seems.

That—that, however, was then. This time, void seemed much more concrete.

The seemingly impenetrable darkness appeared to have bent to something. As if it receded to whatever made it do so. It shouldn't be right to say it had feelings. I didn't want to admit it has. Not this color. But I saw it shiver as if in fear.

The darkness that once surrounded me now felt hazy. As if a distortion was occuring in the space around. Quite hard to think about when black is all that could be seen. No colors that would otherwise suggest what a visual change would look like.

But then as I puzzled and thought, I came to realize it wasn't actually a change that could make the black more dispersed. Painted with some light. Or the meaning of colors finally settling to my eyes—mind. It wasn't. The darkness was changing because a more vivid hue of black was permeating it. Around myself.

Like it wanted to eat me.

Devour me.

Make me scream and run from it—when I couldn't.

But it wasn't that. I didn't think of it with this darkness. It was different. It was... comforting to think.

Then before the weird imagery or feeling completely blanketed my numb mind, a part of my mind screamed. Another finally eased up. Another curious. Another blank.

But I knew exactly what coursed my mind from this.

My true death had come. The promise of return to the void given to me. And finally, I let go of my thoughts. I could feel no longer. Crave for it no further. But I knew and still wouldn't forget.

This is it. Rest.

—–·–—

... Or not. When I came to again, I realized that it wasn't the void that took me. Although the darkness that still encapsulated me would otherwise suggest, the senses once lost to me came to life across my very being.

From my bones, to my blood, to my skin. It surged to my still stiff body with ginger as it ravaged all sensations that could be gathered around. Hoping to grasp a stimuli to make my mind work like it used to be. To make my body feel.

To be alive.

Living. And I breathed hard at that, relieved. Relishing the comfort of a body I didn't know would be granted to me again.

How was this possible?

I had no answers. So I breathed this moment. Took in life and settled it deep in my body. Then I realized how graspable it is now when a sudden burst popped on my left wrist, then towards the hand. Then my whole body rang with the same memorable pain. Only registering after a split second of momentary deja vu. Then to a complete recollection.

You can't mean—before I could even finish my thought, hardly able to mouth my incredulity, I widened my eyes in realization but more in horror as the sensation I so wished was canceled out course through my body. Then I relived what the Northers had promised.

I screamed. But only in my mind. I was unmoving again.

Surely, I would have thrashed around—if I could; screamed—if not grit; and cursed the headsmaid just to alleviate the pain I suddenly found myself remembering. Hoping to instill this pain to the everlasting smile the headsmaid always wore. It's not a sight I would love to see, but a situation where I'd feel content knowing that a stretched smile can be scrunched with pain too.

But again, those were only mere thoughts. Conjure and will it as I want, it won't happen.

The reality of pain and how I died rang through my entirety, as each part of my body were fried with heat and cold. Crude. Yet it intertwined together for a memorable agony. Which continued until my senses were slowly cut off to replicate the state of my body in that once empty, dark world. Completely unfeeling.

Neither with furrowed brows nor with gritted teeth were my companion along as I endured. Not even a whimper slithered past. As if the darkness couldn't be bothered to hear my pleas. Even though I knew it was no more than but seconds.

The only thing I had appreciated, if not considered a saving grace about this ordeal, was that even with that magnitude of pain, my mind was still kept sane all throughout. It never broke my mind. It never brought me back to that feeling of emptiness, or something much worse.

I was feeling this time.

Darkness returned for me, and I couldn't find any different of it if not for the coldness that shivered a crawl all over me. I was feeling this time, I repeated again. And then my heart skipped a beat at what that means. So I prepared for what's to come. Took the cold air deep into me and waited. Yet the magnitude of pain I expected to grit through was absent to my surprise. It only felt like a zap. Completely negligible in comparison. As if what had transpired was just a memory when it was not.

I waited again. For a second. A second more. And then more. Yet no sense of grim rekindling followed. Would it not come again? I hoped, yet the question that followed broke that thought.

Or would it bring something far worse? My heart stirred at that. I felt it become hollow. A beat that made me immediately clench my teeth to prepare for what's to come.

Slowly, I could hear my heart beat faster. It bellowed deep. Reaching away from my chest as it reached for my ears. As if any moment now, my heartbeat is all that's left before the worst came. Before I die again.

Then all of a sudden, relief washed over me with another thought.

It won't be coming again. I hoped. And that's just something I could be happy about. Thinking positively than worrying if a second or even an hour later, the sudden torture would just surprise me in jest.

Still, nothing came. As if it really was just a memory as I had thought.

Yet I knew it wasn't.

I went through pain, not just the memory of it. For it wouldn't only happen once, nor twice, nor thrice. It would frequent me like plague etched in my mind ready to be strung at any moment if it was a memory. Endlessly in pursuit of enactment in various ways I couldn't even think of. But, it wasn't. The zap and the stiffness of my body a reminder.

And that was pain as I knew it. It takes a long time to heal but would easily be hurdled

Relief washed over me for a moment at that. All before the obscure feeling of darkness was accompanied by another sense. Stench of wet wood mixed with some sort of earthen decay, then mixed with a smell of burned flesh, which was then mixed with the scent of musky odor from who knows where were sprayed around. Assailing my memory to a confusing image as I inhaled gulps of the cold air I now relished in relief.

But one that captured my attention best, and which changed the frame of the seemingly unending darkness, was the ethereal words that flashed in front of me.

Zoärzecht's Last Message:

We find it quite a joy that, finally, a once departed soul finally found its lost footing to step into balance. Though there is no assurance of never getting lost again, it is to this existence's hope that it may not end to that disaster—nor shall such thoughts bode that reality for you. Still, a congratulations is worth your way.

Be guided, until you find truth.

With the Last Journey's completion, it is found that the individual's body is incapable of holding the individual's soul. Restoration and Assimilation is currently ongoing. Do note that the soul can only be bounded to the individual's body on their Last Journey. As such, all of the individual's newfound potentiality will remain unavailable and cannot be used or willed as of the moment. Let Mana guide you through the path you seek.

I wanted to blink at the magical words, stumped what to make sense of it upon its immediate arrival, to know that it was real. Even if I couldn't. But I just breathed instead. Still, I held on my stare at the words. Not willing to let it go and leave me alone in this space. Not now. I needed this. And knew it what it was.

Magic.

Something we've wanted. Something we needed.

So I read it. Took the confusing words hoping that it wouldn't fade if I give it enough attention. That if just go and read it perhaps I'd see the reason for what was happening. Even if there wasn't anything I could take and understand. It was... confusing. But it wasn't something I needed to fully understand now. Still I tried to read on. For even if I couldn't get a sense of it, it would still be there. Accompanying me. And how joyous a decision it was. I saw something I really needed.

My mind blanked as I zoomed to the word I could make sense of. The only one that did not elude me at all.

Mana... I repeated. A single word that brought eagerness and a little bit of expectations at this moment of sudden change. Begining to catch up to the uncertainty of the situation. Grasping but not understanding any point of what's going on.

But now I realized one thing. The very thing I thought as I remembered.

In magic, there is life.

A phrase. Short as it was but I held onto that. The way I breathed, the way I could feel my body. The cold touch of everything. The sense.

Death didn't have that. The void never promised that. And both never knew of what magic is. But now I have it.

So I believed.

And as drowsiness started to blanket my entirety, I hoped that this was not just a dream, not a part of my imagination, and that I won't end up in that emptiness.

My eyes bore holes at the darkness knowing it held life, my last attempt to find proof. And there it was again.

Catacomb of the Departed

Death, seemingly now the continuation of life. It begins as the promise of life faded along with me.