“ding ding”

Mark sighed deeply using familiar sounds of wind bells tied to the doors, to regain his calmness.

And then he steeled himself for the upcoming battle.

He could feel, how his muscles tensed and fist tightened, almost without any conscious thought.

There was nothing strange in it, as this was almost a ritual at this point. An exhausting battle of will, that he underwent almost every day, during last half a year, when he discovered this place.

How many his loses this building had already seen? Definitely more than victories – guys were simply too good. From what he heard, they had decades of experience, not even counting supposedly hundreds years of tradition.

And he? He was just your everyday student – fine maybe a little more than every day – there were probably not many second year students of physics, that feel confident of possessing all knowledge needed for their bachelor degree.

But he knew well, that this kind of knowledge was useless here, still this didn’t mean that he was willing to just give up.

His parents did not raise a coward, damn it all!

His heart thumped loudly, when he realized that all this thinking made his preparation time vanish in the blink. He was already standing before his todays opponent. Muscular man face was expressionless – clearly sign of a veteran, even his eyes – Mark knew this look – this were eyes that told you 'no hard feelings boy this is nothing personal' while body won’t show a shred of mercy.

There was no more time. This was it – eye for an eye, blood for blood, flesh for flesh – nothing but animal desire that left your soul bare all the way to its core. To a point where you could nearly hear the cry of a primordial monkey inside you.

“One chocolate donut please.”

“Dollar and twenty-two.”

“I will pay by card.”

“Thank you very much.”

***

Mark left his new favorite bakery in good mood. Not only they still have "chocolate standard" event quite rare as late as his lessons ended in Tuesdays. But he also managed to steel his resolve enough to buy only one.

Now he just needed to keep this up and maybe add some exercises, and he will definitely lose these ten pounds, that he gained after discovering place, that turned out to be the best bakery in the city. Physics student took a bite and smiled delighted by a snacks taste…

Just a second before giant 'BANG!' sound of a crashed car knocked him down and nearly tore his eardrums.

Shocked young man blinked few times and tried to stand. He was not completely sure, but he did not feel any pain, so he was probably fine. The world around seemed weirdly blurred, but fast check reassured him that he just lost his glasses. Mark shook his head trying to find them, but it didn't seem that they were anywhere around.

No matter, his eyesight was good enough without them.

And directly behind him, he could see a midsized delivery car, with the completely crashed front, that hit straight into the wall of a building.

Less than fifteen foots from him.

Mark blinked by full five second simply staring, before his sight fall on few unconscious people, that clearly did not have so much luck.

There was a lot of red… blood?

This was a main street of a big city, who the hell was riding this, and what he or she was thinking?!

Physics student felt unhealthy calm descending upon him, when old memories about lessons teaching first aid and proper behavior during accidents kicked in.

First… was car on fire? He should run if it was right? Because… there can be explosion… but… no, there were no flames…

next… should he call for emergency? Or look for victims first? Ugh… why wasn't he more cautious in school, all these years ago?

But his ears seemed a little better, and in this moment Mark could hear few people around talking nervously. His head still hurt, and constant ringing sound in his ears was irritating, but he could differentiate words like: "accident" , "come fast" and "6th Ave." So emergency was already called… and the next step should be first aid, to the victims right? At least he should check if he could help someone stop bleeding… there were bodies… but surely not all were… d-dead…

Just few steps were enough to bring Mark to closest person "body?" lying directly next to the crashed car. The view was… far from pretty, but student clenched his teeth and tried to check the pulse…

His brain never actually managed to process the giant flash of light, that occurred right in that moment.

And then there was nothing.

***

Darkness…

Everywhere, as far as an eye could see, there was nothing but darkness.

How long he was here?

Day? Year? Minute?

Nothingness…

There was no light here, nor floor or walls… nothing excepts from him.

Actually Mark doubted that there was even air here. Or his actual physical body come to think of it.

There was simply nothing.

No wait, that was incorrect…

There was certainly no light, nothing "material" but there was… security.

As much as Mark had no idea where or what this place was, he could not help but felt safe like… there was simply nothing here, that could harm him…

Granted, that from what he could see, there was nothing in this place at all… but the point still stands right?

Don’t judge him. He just died okay?

“Yes… that much is rather clear. I’m dead.“ Student… well now former student could feel that his though got much clearer than in last moments of his life.

“come to think of it, I didn’t hear any sound of breaking before this car crashed… and if I died in an instant… explosion? But the car was not on…“ At this point realization hit him like a hammer “Terrorist attack?! Ugh… yes obviously this was terrorist attack… there was no way that someone would drive so fast in the middle on the city… and if the car exploded when I was right next to it then there was no way that I would survive. Ugh, a hundred times cursed religious fanatics! Did they not care at all about innocent people? For all gods sake, there could be children here, people that were returning to their families! People that just wanted… to eat… a donut… ugh… stupid, stupid! What an utterly nonsensical death, I should just run I should guess… “

To be frank Mark actually knew that he was too harsh to himself – terrorist attack was certainly one of the possibilities of such a strange accident, but definitely not the only one. A driver could – for example – faint or get a heart attack, or car brakes could just fail…

Granted that last case wouldn’t explained sheer speed, achieved by vehicle in the moment of accident, but it is not like young physicist was in the ideal position for drawing a proper conclusion…

On the contrary now despite his inside rumblings he felt unexpectedly calm… too calm perhaps, for someone who just died.

“Is this because I don’t have a glands responsible for anger?” somehow he didn’t think that… whatever his current form was… Soul? Astral projection? Had an equivalent of adrenaline.

“fine so again - I'm dead… can I do something about it? - Obviously not, I am sure that I would hear if people could rise from dead… I was not THAT of a shut-in… So the question is… what now? “

Just like it was a signal, or perhaps such though really was one? Everything EVERYTHING started to burn.

The world of, previously, darkness was now the world of fire, where was nothingness, now appeared flames beyond everything that Mark had even seen, beyond everything that he could ever imagine.

They were beautiful, they were powerful, they were like ocean of the flowing gold, concentrated, focused, gigantic beyond all scope, more than that - infinite. They were like sea, like hurricane, like earthquake, they were water, they were earth, air, lightning, thunder, metal wood bronzegoldsilverblastflowersmell…

They were safety.

This one though, this one confidence, that young soul feel from the moment of his appearance in this weird afterlife didn’t change. This security seemed to be a certain metaphysical quality of this place, and that didn’t change even after materialization of this… whatever this was, because calling THAT a fire would be as adequate as calling sun a firefly.

That said, this embodiment of everything that fire could be indeed did not hurt him.

Oh, it was not, however, like it did nothing. Quite the opposite, Mark could feel change instantly.

He began to disappear.