Death had never been so terrifying.

He knew it made sense, knowing you were going to die was just… it didn’t feel good. It was brutal, every breath sucked in lung fulls of water desperately seeking for the smallest pocket of air to sate his body’s yearning desire for breath. His eyes stung which was just another kick in the head as he stared up at the blaring red flames billowing high on the surface of the water, chunks of aircraft descending all around him alongside the dead and unconscious bodies of the other passengers.

Lucca tried to pry himself free, a piece of the aeroplane had fallen with him, his seat namely. He was still strapped to it and no matter what he did he couldn’t unfasten it. She pressed everywhere, pulled the tab but it just wouldn’t let him go, it was like it was the hand of death holding him down telling him ‘you’re mine.’

He never should have gone on that trip, he hated leaving home, hated being around people, his class especially. Everyone was skin-deep at best. Hollow images of ‘kindness,’ ‘caring.’ There were very few he could confidently say were different. None of them would last long in the outside world where reality set in.

His life wasn’t terrible, he wouldn’t even dare to say it was bad. Both his parents were there and still loving, his sister just as well. He was just realistic. People weren’t good by nature. They were ruled by their shadows and the lights… they were rare.

Lucca's struggles ceased, fizzling with his hope and he simply relegated himself to staring at the carnage above. The water had been dyed with red clouds in places and in them he could see chunks of meat drifting to the seabed. His arms shrunk and sunk to his side resting on the armrests while his chest still heaved, pleading for real breath.

It wouldn’t be long till he was gone. And just like that, he was thrown into darkness, his entire body aching from the pressure the seabed brought with it.

And like with all stories that began in death, that was just the beginning.

Not what felt minutes later did Lucca gasp awake, his eyes flaring open and he forced himself to sit upright, hacking up spittle and an ocean worth of salted waters over the whitened void presented before him. His coughs being only one amongst an orchestra of others blended with the combination of cries all around, a staccato of weeps here and the odd filibuster of manic chanting.

Clenching his hand to his chest he felt his heart pumping a mile a minute, his head spun around and scanned the horde of many surrounding him. He didn’t focus anywhere at first, too caught up with comprehending his situation. The faces, they were familiar but many more were just illusory memories he’d seen in passing in the airport.

There was about one thing in common with them all though. And that was their blatant nudity. Breasts, balls, vagina’s, butts, everywhere he looked there was a different set on full display, many though were doing their utmost to hide behind their arms, the women, in particular, struggling to decide if they should leave their breasts open and hide their behind or the other way around. The front was easy enough for everyone, clasp your legs together like you were trying to protect yourself from grandpa.

Slowly Lucca’s mind grew clearer, his focus drawing away from the people and onto the world around him. Nothing was the only way to describe it. The place he and all these people had found themselves was just nothing. A white void of oblivion, a limbo of light. A white so pristine Lucca knew it should have been hurting his eyes, and yet it didn’t, he could turn to the sky and block away everyone else and only see white.

He turned his focus away, the more he thought about it the more his stomach churned sickly and he turned back to the crowd rapidly processing this situation he’d found himself in. “Oh god… I’m being reincarnated.” It was a joyful if not unsettling idea. Which… was strange considering it was a second chance at life. Just depended on where and as what he’d be reincarnated as.

“Lucca!” a voice called to him, drawing him to turn his gaze to the side and saw a crosslegged girl hobbling herself towards him, her arms covering her crotch and breasts as a bright red flush overtook her normal pale complexion.

Katelyn Anderson was her name. She was a relatively cutesy girl with soft features and bright, almost white-blond hair and contrasting eyes which gave her this almost mythically regal appearance to her. Oftentimes she was dressed in baggy clothing all in the effort to hide her absurdly adult-for-her-age figure from prying eyes. Add that in with her thick-rimmed glasses and tendency to droop her head in the presence of people, which made her the perfect shadow no one noticed.

“Kate,” Lucca rubbed his throat, the lingering pain from his drowning still there like a phantoms dagger in his skin. “I told you going on that trip was going to be the end of me. I didn’t mean that literally.” Grumbling he coughed up a few more small smatterings of water and watched as it disintegrated the moment it touched the white void below.

Describing the feel of the void was a challenging task. But given the attempt he would liken it to walking on a perfectly clear bridge of glass over a ravine, he could tell there was emptiness below him, he just wasn’t falling through it.

Lowering one hand to the voiden flooring, he felt its hardness, almost like a stone that had been warmed by central heating. Knocking on it with a low, reverberating ‘thump-thump-thump' he found out it was hollow. When a returning rumble of ‘thunk-thunk-thunk.’ Came from below his brow rose high and he muttered, “and… that was god… I guess.”

Finally pulling his attention towards Katelyn he smirked at her nudity and crossed his legs to hide his own then leaned back onto his hands, “so, what can I do for you, Ms Anderson?”

A twinge of amusement took to her expression and for a second seemed to calm her. “Don’t joke!” she dropped to her knees, arms shifting position to more suitable places, “how can you be so calm!? We just died!”

He shrugged, “eh, I’ve seen this type of plot enough to know I’ll be just fine. The death though,” a lump grew at the back of his throat and trembles took to both his body and eyes, “I’m… yeah that’s uh, not something I’m going to forget anytime soon.” He knew he had a new phobia, just the idea of the ocean seemed sickening to him now. He looked to Katelyn, “did… how did you…?”

Katelyn frowned and shook her head, “I…” she whimpered, “I only remember us crashing,” she jerked uncomfortably, her words halting for a single moment at the terror suddenly returning to her. “I… I died on impact… didn’t I?”

There was nothing Lucca could say to her but to set a hand atop her knee and give her a comforting squeeze, “try not to think about it.”

“That’s easier said than done. It happened like, ten minutes ago.” She pivoted her head and looked to the crowd of terrified and in shock souls.

Out of nowhere a flash of light beamed down from above and with it came the titanic form of a static hued man. He stood easily tens of hundreds of meters higher than everyone perhaps trumped only by the Burj Khalifa in sheer height. And was otherwise nondescript in appearance, a golden man blaring in holy light.

“Good, it appears all souls have arrived in one piece.”

The voice was a blend of man and woman, of child and adult and echoed with hollow howls of hawks and eagles. It echoed through his mind, through the minds of everyone present like the constant thrumming of a mosquito buzzing past their ears.

Annoying as all hell.

The form shimmered and swished towards the crowd but never drew closer, his size growing even more until Lucca’s neck ached from how steep he had to tilt his head upwards just to see its head.

Screams filled the air, a blend made with fervent prayers pleading for forgiveness in their afterlife. ‘As if God cares about what you do now.’ Lucca snorted.

“Oh my god,” Katelyn uttered, her mouth hanging wide.

The gods ‘eyes’ of dark spots seemingly swivelled and latched to Katelyn, freezing her solid, “yes. That is I. How very astute of you, Katelyn Anderson.”

She paled, her lips zipping tight as an unbearable pressure caused sweat to coat her back and send shivers through her body.

“Could you shrink down a little? Necks getting a little sore here.” Lucca pressed his hand against his neck and cracked it with a few loud, repeated pops before looking back up to gods orbs now bearing down on him.

“Hmm… I can. But I don’t think I will, Lucca White. It is more amusing seeing you lesser being at this apt of a height.”

Gods—or at least this god—Lucca was swiftly discovering to be an arrogant, more than likely dickish person. Which meant two things to him, the first being that this reincarnation was going to be more of a hassle than he hoped, and secondly… it well, just proved that earths more popular gods being dicks was just how gods were. Wouldn’t surprise him if this one thought flooding a planet and killing everything on it would be a fun pastime.

The God hummed, a tune to rumbling Lucca and the others could feel there would shaking like newborn deer. “I won’t linger long,” God spoke, “I am creating a horde of monsters to invade and destroy your world in a few hundred years.”

Just like that, silence permeated through the crowd, “I will be having you all go to another world to get stronger, die again, and by then you should be of sufficient strength to challenge my creations and keep me entertained.”

Lucca, and most everyone else, paused, “excuse me?” he murmured the only words he could think. Besides him Katelyn could only gape wide eyes at god, completely lost in her malfunctioning world.

“Vincent Dijkman.” A pillar of light ruptured from on high, it fell night instantaneously and grew rapidly in power. Lucca couldn’t see what happened but he could hear the screams of terror even from here.

“Oh shit. I was expecting at least a bit more explanation.” Muttering to himself, he looked to Katelyn and met her gaze.

“Paloma Wilcox.” A girl with dark skin and eyes as blue as sapphires was engulfed in the light, gone was she. Just like that.

Katelyn’s pallor darkened as confusion and shades of terror filled her. That terror only amplifying when she heard it, “Katelyn Anderson.” Lucca saw her lips part as if to say something though no sound escaped him fast enough to intercept the pillar of light that swallowed her whole.

“Shit, Katie!” Lucca bolted to his knee and reached into the light pillar, his hand sinking halfway in only to be repulsed and thrown onto his back.

“Garry Malv-” Gods words halted and pressure, more than even the ever crushing depths of the ocean weighed down over Lucca. His bones creaked as his organs crushed, “it is not your turn, Lucca White. For your interruption, you shall be punished.”

Lucca hadn’t the time to think, to even respond before a hole, not one of light, but unintelligible darkness formed around him. And just like that, in a single blink, the solid white void disappeared.

“AHHH!” he screamed, his body engulfed into a world of darkness. Above him, the hole he’d been sent through sealed, removing the final bit of light from the world. With that loss of light came a chill, it pierced his skin, chilled his bones and tore at his screaming throat as he kept falling.

And falling…

And falling…

At first, his arms flailed windmills, flaring out and dancing across the dark void in search of anything solid to grasp onto. Knowing perfectly well that if he did, he’d more than likely rip his arms off if anything. But if it slowed his descent, gave him some rest… who needed arms.

But there was nothing, all he could do was accept this unending fall through the abyss so dark he couldn’t even see his hands. So quiet was it that his heart thumped like thunder, the steady rhythm at first was his reprieve in the hours he felt to pass.

But as those hours turned to days, turned to weeks. The beating could only become annoying. The repetitive thrumming ‘thu-thump, thu-thump.’ It had since overpowered his screaming, no longer did he do even that. Not by the first month… years? Decades? He didn’t know anymore. It was impossible to tell without a sun… without time.

He didn’t grow older, no wrinkles collected on his face and he grew no aches to his joints. So it couldn’t have been that long? But he was dead? Would a soul even age? Was he just going to fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and just fall some more?

Mania had festered in the recesses of his mind. Lucca began to feel it, enjoyment, a thrill for the fall? For the endless descent so unfettered by the constraints and concepts of grounded and reality? He wasn’t sure, but what e knew was that his voice, there was no more fear to it.

“Ha-hahaha!” he tossed out in laughter, his hands thrown back as he launched himself into a backwards roll and tightened his arms together, head pointed down like an arrow to pick up speed, more than what should be possible considering the constraints of mass and acceleration.

There was a certain limit to how fast one could go in a free fall. He was like a feather and a bowling ball, dropped yet when they touched the ground he kept going, faster and faster, like a rocket through the sky he descended, at home, as one with the all-knowing abyss.

Yet even that mania… it was growing dull and tiresome by the fifteenth hour… year?

He didn’t care anymore. Damn the fear, damn the joy, damn god and his void, damn those people who got to explore a world with colour and sounds and food and sleep… sleep, he missed it. He wanted to feel it, to shut his eyes and just wander off to the world of the unconscious, but vertigo would hit him and churn his stomach, cruelly awakening him every time he felt the touch of sleep approaching.

“Haa…” sighing, Lucca presumably slipped onto his back—the lacking air pressure hitting his body had been the sole reason orientation such as that was a nigh impossibility for him—and stared up into the nothingness above. It was pretty, he guessed. ‘Is this what being blind is like?’ he lifted his hands before his face yet couldn’t even imagine them. How many fingers did he have? He tapped each against his thumb and counted, ‘One… two… three… five… eight… ten…’ how many toes? He curled, brought his arms across his knees and pinched his toes, “one… two… three… eight… nine… ten…”

Then, he felt it. A shift.

At first, he was confused, his head spun around seemingly disembodied from his body searching for the shift but found nothing. But he had nothing else to do, so he spun some more, and kept spinning, slower then faster then slower again.

Another shift, he lifted his head, lifted his body, fell into a tailspin then a dive then a tailspin again and still found nothing.

By the third ‘shift’ he stopped caring. No point wasting himself on something that wasn’t there.

And that’s exactly when it was.

There, betwixt the shadows was darkness. But not like the other darkness. It was a blackness so dark that even the dark dissipated within it. Like a black hole, he could make out a shape though it was all shadows and fog to him with little to no recognizable characteristic's.

Sometimes it was a worm, at others a spider then a whale or an eldritch monster bequeathed in tentacles that splayed out like clouds across the endless void.

There was but one constant.

All those forms, those elegant and ominous shadows, were made of swirling vortexes of darkness and with that revelation. Came one word.

“Zushakon.”

The void stopped with his descent as Lucca felt his body enraptured within the soft grasp of the abyss. The indecipherable shadow pulled him close and loomed over him like stormy clouds over an ocean.

“Thou speaketh a name thou hast no business partaking in.” The voice of rabid, hissing darkness spoke, “thou hath been tossed to unto the unfathomable abyss, oh child of man left to its insanity.” The voice both male and female echoed around him.

Then a ripple lifted its gaze to a tear of light above. “Ahhh. Thou tormentor hast returns for thou” Lucca laid there limp, uncaring to the voice and the golden hand lurching into the abyss in search of him.

Zushakon brought his darkness to Lucca’s ear and whispered a congealing thought into the deepest parts of his psyche, “I shall grant thou a gift, a partaking of the abyss so thou insanity may billow free like the darkest night of nights.”

Tendrils of dark smoke coiled around his body, digging into his flesh and bones and stained them black. When Zushakon peeled away the fabric that was himself, so too did the darkness retract and Lucca was returned to freefall.

Gods hand jerked as if sensing his presence and shot out and grasped for him. Soon taking him in its tight, uncaring hold before throwing Lucca wayward to the solid white void.

“AHHHH!” he screeched, nails clawing at his face as the bright whites tore at his irises. Lucca clenched his eyelids shut and curled into a ball, his fingers clutching bundles of his hair, ripping out pieces that would only fade away and regrown within seconds.

All whilst god watched from on high, chuckling amusedly at the pitiable sight before his holiness. “Perhaps fifty years was too much for your mortal mind to handle in that place.” The God mused.

“Giveitbackgiveitbackgiveitbackgiveitback-” Lucca chanted.

“Hmm, should I keep you here till the others die?” No, no, that would be dull. You shouldn’t last long on Marga either way.” Flicking his wrist, god unleashed a torrent of light, yet another pillar that engulfed Lucca’s body sending him screaming once more.

Agony filled him, like every cell on his body was melted and reassembled in seconds repeated. Pain, it was pain. In that hearth, that void, he had been touched by soft, comforting darkness, but never pain. It was excruciating being apart from it.

Until it wasn’t.