Adam felt like he was walking through a dense curtain. His sight momentarily went black before color once again assailed his eyes! Before him was a tunnel that was made of wispy black and red colors. The tunnel itself moved and undulated, as though it was alive! What was more surprising was that Adam suddenly found himself weightless! There was no gravity here!

While Adam started flailing about to try and control his weightless self, the spirit zipped in circles around him: “See, perfectly safe! This is the passageway between the death and fire planes. Uh, why are you flailing about like that?”

Adam angrily scoffed: “There is no gravity here! I can't carelessly float along like you can!”

“Oh... Didn't think about that.”

“Obviously.”

Adam turned away from his momentary anger with the spirit. With his flailing, he slowly learned how to control the movement of his body, but he knew it was nowhere near fast enough to follow his father's soul when they released it. Adam frowned. He turned to the spirit and asked: “How do you move around so easily?”

“I don't know, I just move.” The spirit moved from one spot to another. “See?”

Adam thought to himself: 'Well, the spirit is only made of spirit essence. He has to be moving with it somehow. I could use wind essence to move my body externally, but that won't work in the desolate flow. Any spirit essence going outside my body will be lost. Hmm... maybe...'

Adam caused the death essence in his body to surge within him, all flowing in one direction. It was as though Adam was forcing all the weight in his body in one direction! Adam instantly felt sick as the death essence forcefully moved in his body! However, he did go in the direction he wanted to! Now, though, he was heading straight for the wall of the passageway! Adam immediately sent the death essence in his body in the opposite direction, once again feeling sick. He did manage to stop himself, though.

The spirit zipped up to Adam: “Hey, you moved!”

“Ugh, I am going to have to practice this a bit. Moving like that makes me feel sick!”

Adam practiced moving around by surging the death essence in his body in the direction he wanted to go. He weakened the strength of the surge, so he wouldn't feel quite as sick. It made his initial speed slower, but through repeated surges he could increase his speed over time. It still didn't feel great, but he didn't feel nearly as sick as before. Adam could only hope that they could find their destination in the desolate flow quickly.

Adam turned to the spirit: “Okay, I think I'm ready to go! You never said, how am I going to take you with me?”

“Like this!”

Before Adam could react, the spirit entered Adam's body! It found a comfortable spot near one of Adam's bones and nestled itself snugly in. “All right, I'm ready. Let's go!”

Adam could only blankly stare at the spirit. Adam had the feeling that he was just violated! He couldn't even form a coherent statement. “You... how could...”

The spirit exuded an extreme air of innocence: “What's the matter?”

Seeming so innocent, Adam couldn't find any words with which to rebuke the spirit. It obviously didn't think anything of blatantly entering someone's body without permission. In the end, Adam merely sighed and said: “Nothing.”

Adam had long ago come to understand that spirits did not think the same way as humans did. Things that would be obvious to human's completely eluded spirits. The thought that entering Adam's body without permission was rude, or that Adam would not like it, never touched the spirit's thoughts.

“So... do I just go through the wall of the passageway?”

“Yup! And if you feel like you are starting to get pulled apart, don't hesitate to go back to the passageway!”

Adam gave one more glance at the spirit that seemed to be shaking with anticipation and glee before surging his death essence forward. The wall off the passageway quickly approached and then Adam went straight through! The sensation was much the same as when he came into the passageway, as through he was going through a curtain.

Blackness once again filled Adam's vision. He felt a slight swelling sensation in his body. It was a little painful, but it didn't feel like he was getting torn apart. The most surprising thing was the sudden lack of spirit essence! For the first time ever, Adam found himself in an area completely devoid of it! There wasn't even any air! Thankfully, Adam's current body only needed the death essence already contained within it to survive.

After a moment, Adam began to realize that the area he was in wasn't actually complete black. In the deep darkness, there were white specks of stars! Adam turned his body around to look back to where the passageway was. There, he could faintly tell there was a distortion, but he otherwise couldn't see it at all! As Adam continued to turn, his scalp started to tingle with what came into sight!

Far into the distance, there was a sphere of blue and green with another white sphere near it. Standing further behind, was the yellow sun! Adam instantly came to realize, that was his world! Somehow, unfathomably, he could see his entire world!

Breaking Adam from his surprise, the spirit spoke: “What does it look like out there? I can't see anything from here!”

There was no longer any spirit essence in the air to transmit his voice, Adam sent a thread of death essence through his body to talk to the spirit: “It's... incredible!”

Adam described what he was seeing to the spirit. The spirit became equally awed. “Few spirits ever make it back from the desolate flow and they never had the time to examine it like you have! This is so remarkable! The spirit planes are transparent, yet your world is plainly visible. Well, that's not what's important. Release your father's soul and let's follow it!”

Adam took an extra moment to marvel at his world before shifting his concentration. Adam had been keeping a firm hold on his father's soul for the past year. He had also been trying to communicate with his father, to no success. Finally, it was time to follow his father's soul and protect it on it's journey. Maybe, just maybe, Adam would be able to talk with his father after they had reached their destination.

Carefully, Adam undid the restraints on his father's soul. After the last restraint was released, Alaric's soul suddenly took off at great speed! Startled, Adam had to surge the death essence in his body with all his effort to catch up with Alaric's soul and keep it in sight!

The sudden large surge made Adam feel terribly sick, but he bit his tongue and poured his all into following his father's soul! Luckily, Alaric's soul did not speed up much after its initial burst of speed. Adam was able to more comfortably follow behind after a few moments.

Alaric's soul was heading in the opposite direction from the sun, heading out in to the starry blackness and never stopping. The hours ticked by, before days and then weeks! Yet Alaric's soul kept going! Luckily, Adam's momentum preserved itself and he didn't need to keep a constant surge of death essence going to follow along.

A full year passed as Adam fallowed his father! All throughout, Adam couldn't help but think back to the world that he was getting further and further from. Looking back, the world could not bee seen and even the sun was only a tiny yellow speck in the distance! Only the spirit remained his constant companion and discussed various topics of interest with him. Whenever it got bored, it would quickly switch to something else. Recently, it had developed an interest in mathematics.

“Hey Adam, let's play the math game again!”

Adam started to moan: “No, not aga-”

“What's four plus four?”

“....”

“Come on, you can do it! What's four plus four?”

“.... eight.”

“See, you can do it! I think we really need to play this game some more. It took you so long to answer a simple one! Now, let's do five plus five!”

Adam inwardly cried: 'When is this going to end!?'

Adam originally didn't mind the math game too much, but the spirit had been going on with it for the past month! It just wouldn't move on to something new! Just as the spirit was going to continue pressing Adam to play its little game, Adam felt an odd sensation! He quickly told the spirit: “Wait, something's changing!”

“What? What's going on!?”

It took Adam a moment to pin the sensation he was feeling. It was as though he was coming upon or approaching something big. Something huge was looming in front! Adam carefully looked out, ready to do anything necessary to protect his father's soul. That's when Adam noticed something subtle! Everywhere he looked out in front, space was distorted!

He quickly told the spirit: “It might be something else, but we may be coming upon the place souls reside!”

“Really!?”

“The space in front of us is distorted, kind of like the space where the passageway was! I can't say for sure what is there, but something is definitely there!”

Adam and the spirit could only wait with extreme anticipation. Even though Adam had sensed this looming distortion ahead of time, it was still a very far distance off! The distortion was simply so large that it was noticeable from such a distance. In the deep black emptiness of the desolate flow, it was also extremely hard to tell distances.

It was only a week later that they finally met the edge of the distortion! Adam felt certain that they would meet the distortion any moment now! Keeping a keen eye on his father's soul, it suddenly disappeared through the distortion while sending a tiny ripple out!

Adam excitedly told the spirit: “We're here!” just as he too crossed over the distortion!

Once again, Adam felt like he was going through a dense curtain while passing through the distortion. On the other side, Adam was greeted by an entire world of milky white! Uncountable amounts of white specks existed in this place, all were true souls! But Adam couldn't differentiate from them, he couldn't tell where his father was!

At this time, the spirit chose to emerge from Adam's body. It was dangerous, but it had to see this place on its own. Finding and understanding this place had become the sole meaning of its existence! It marveled at what it saw. “Oh, wow! This... this is so marvelous!”

It started zipping around, examining the souls. It entirely ignored the fact that it seemed to be slowly shrinking. Instead, it exclaimed: “I'm starting to understand now! Hello there! Hi! And a hello to you too!”

The spirit had started greeting all the souls around it! Adam smirked a little when he saw this. Still, his concern for his father took precedent. Adam stretched out threads of spirit essence and tried to talk to the souls himself. “I'm looking for my father, Alaric. Does anyone know where he is?”

Adam's words seemed to fall upon deaf ears. None of the souls stirred at his words. They seemed to be reacting to the spirit as it greeted them, though. Adam quickly asked it: “Hey, are you actually able to talk with the souls?”

“Yes, it's marvelous! Simply being here seems to change my understanding of everything!”

“I can't seem to communicate with any of them, can you help me find my father?”

“Oh, yes. His name was Alaric, right?” The spirit turned to the various souls around them: “Alaric, where are you?”

One of the souls seemed to stir. The spirit pointed: “There he is!”

Adam was a little dumbfounded on how simple that was. It was only at this time that the spirit started becoming aware of a problem it was having. “Uh, Adam. I seem to be in trouble!”

“What?”

The spirit immediately fled into Adam's body. “I'm falling apart! This can't be! Not when I just started learning so much!”

Adam quickly asked: “Is it like the desolate flow? Are you fine in my body?”

Even as Adam asked, he watched with his elemental sight and could discern that the spirit was still shrinking! The spirit spoke: “I... I think I know what's going on. I've learned too much about the soul. I gained to much here, I can no longer be a death spirit! My being is trying to become a soul!”

Adam was surprised. “In a way, isn't this a good thing? You always wanted to know more about souls.”

“No, Adam! I am purely made of death essence. If you get rid of it all, there is nothing left! There will be nothing left to turn into a soul!”

“I... is there anything I can do for you?”

The spirit seemed to suddenly come up with an idea! “What if you let me join your soul!?”

“What, join my soul!?”

“Yes! I would just become a small addition to the aura around your true soul! I don't know what exactly would happen to me, but you should remain mostly unaffected!”

Adam was resistant to the idea. But... the spirit had been his friend for the past two years. He couldn't just let him slip away. He trusted the spirit enough to believe it when it said that he would hardly be affected.

Adam sighed: “Alright, what do you need me to do?”

“Just relax your soul and I will do the rest!”

It took Adam a moment to settle his mind and relax. As soon as he did, Adam suddenly felt a surge of pain spike through his mind! The searing pain lasted for well over ten second, putting Adam in agony! Then, it all stopped. After a moment to recover from that sudden pain, Adam sent out a message: “What was that, did it work?”

Only silence was returned to Adam. Adam used his elemental sight to check the area where the spirit had hid itself in his body, but couldn't find it! Adam really felt no different and he had no way to tell if the spirit had successfully merged with his own soul. Adam thought to himself: 'I hope he got what he wanted, in the end.”

Adam turned his attention back to the outside. Adam became immediately shocked! When he looked at the souls before him, he could feel something inside him whispering! As it did, Adam suddenly found that he could visualize an image for each of the souls! There were humans and all the various animals and insects. Adam somehow intrinsically understood that this was the most recent and vivid memory the soul had for itself! Surprisingly, Adam even saw a few plants among the multitude of souls around him! Adam didn't understand how these plants could have possibly had souls, yet there they were! Marvelous and exotic plants that Adam had never before seen!

Adam quickly came to realize that the spirit was successful in merging with Adam's soul! It was the only way to explain what Adam was seeing now! As Adam looked around, he could see his father's figure in one of the souls! His father appeared to be terribly confused at the moment.

Whatever the spirit gained for merging with Adam, it had given Adam the chance to talk with his father! Adam could only silently say: “Thank you.”

Adam then called out: “Father!”

Inside, that little thing that was whispering to Adam echoed his voice out: “Father!”

It was to this echo, that Alaric turned around. Echoing back to Adam, Alaric said: “Adam?”