Chapter 1

My Afterlife

(that time I spent floating in the void...)

5:37 PM, I think it was a Tuesday.

Surrounded by darkness. I can’t feel my body, I can’t see, I can’t feel anything. I am conscious lost inside some weird black void. I feel like I’m floating in outer space, only I’m not cold, not warm either, not anything…

…All I know is that I exist.

I remember being swallowed by the dragon, sliding down its tongue through its mouth. Barely missing its teeth as I slid into the beast’s esophagus. My body prepared itself for what came next but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t about to become the Dragon’s next meal. I took my dagger, I drug it through the Dragon’s soft tissue, through the esophagus and the muscle that led to the beast’s heart. I cut it open. I felt us fall. The Dragon take its last breath with me inside of it. I remember my body going into shock. Maybe it was stomach acid pouring in with the blood over my legs. There was a numbness, a crushing feeling as the Dragon’s body relaxed itself over top of me.

Gravity did the rest. Blood poured down from the bleeding heart above me. I screamed until I couldn’t anymore. My friends, my guild trying their best to reach me. There was no way they were going to break through the Dragon’s scales in time to reach me. I couldn’t even find Gob, my pet Tenrec, who had fallen inside the Dragon’s mouth with me. Poor little guy. The two of us were to suffer the same fate. Drowning inside the Dragon. I never should have taken him on such a high-level quest.

Sitting… no floating in the darkness I decided to start counting. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was my mind’s way of fighting off the boredom. The emptiness. I had already replayed my life three times over in my head. Thought about my every regret. All the missed opportunities to kiss Chel, to tell her… I missed a lot. Maybe this is what I get, I wasn’t a bad person but I wasn’t the greatest either. How many times did I pass over quests for people that were in trouble, thinking I’ll leave that to the noobs.

I was selfish, sure, but did I really deserve this? Eternal darkness.

‘999, 1000,’ I keep going until I hear another voice. Still, no sight of anyone. Just a voice, close by. Maybe a few feet away from me. If feet even exist in this world.

“Kaeya?” I almost don’t recognize it at first.

“Rak?” I think aloud, my thoughts projecting through the void.

“Kaeya, it is you, dumbass. I guess you got yourself killed too, go figure. I thought maybe Puck or May would die but not you. I thought you never ran into a fight you couldn’t win. What happened?”

“We killed it. I killed it,” I said before filling him in on how the rest of the battle went.

“Sorry man, sucks. I hoped you guys would run. That Dragon… it..”

“I know,” I said. “So what is this?”

“Hell if I know.”

“You mean we’re in Hell?!”

“No, I mean, I don’t know. I woke up here. Floating through the void like you.” His words weren’t reassuring.

“This can’t be right, what about other people?”

“I heard voices when I first arrived but they disappeared, at one point the void seemed to fill with light,” Rak said.

“Do you think this is some kind of limbo?”

“Maybe, its pretty boring though, so I’m glad you’re here now,” he laughed. Not that I saw the two of us being trapped together for all eternity as a real joy. I didn’t want to be a mood-killer.

From what I could gather our souls had been taken from our bodies. We were able to communicate with one another telepathically, through some kind of mind melding. Besides the two of us I had the feeling that we were actually being watched, of course that could just be some kind of mass paranoia I’ve carried with me from my old life.

“Why do we remember everything?” I ask.

“Maybe we’re suppose to repent? You know, the garbage those Holy Knights are always going on and on about,” Rak says.

“Have you tried?” I ask.

“I’m not really sure how to begin, I mean, I don’t remember doing anything that was crazy bad. I guess when we lived in the slums we stole a lot of food. Maybe killed a few guys,” Rak answers.

“What about the monsters?” I say.

“What about?”

“Maybe we should have found another way? Maybe we should have captured them?”

“Doubtful,” Rak answered.

We float in silence, both of us contemplating our past lives, our existence. Trying to figure out what we might have done wrong. What we could do now to make up for it.

“Maybe we just have to wait it out,” I suggest.

“What like a hundred years?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard reincarnation can take hundreds, even thousands of years,” I answered him.

“So like what… meditate? You know I’ve never been one to sit still. Even now I can feel the itch, my mind running with ideas. I want to create.”

That had been Rak’s burning desire. He was always trying new weapons, bigger and badder than the rest. He was a pro at welding things together and if he hadn’t died I am sure he would have figured out a way to build a weapon strong enough to slay the Dragon. It had been one of his metal bolts that injured the creature. Had he had more time, even a shield, maybe neither of us would have died. If we had scouted the mountains first rather than run in headstrong, maybe even as a small team…

“Hey, Kae,” Rak started. “How do you think the others are doing now? Do you think its been long?”

I had been trying to avoid thinking about the others for as long as possible. Replaying my life moment by moment but avoiding the last moments of my life, searching for Gob, hearing Puck and Chel crying, screaming, as they tried to break through the Dragon’s hide.

“I just… I hope they don’t resent themselves,” I said.

“Chel, Puck, May, they are strong. Who knows, maybe they even got Gob out. Little guy could have floated right up and out of the monster’s mouth.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he could have,” I said. I felt like I was crying? Strange. The more Rak and I spoke the more I felt like I was sitting around a table in a tavern, or a campfire, sharing stories with an old friend.

“I’m sure they gave us both one hell of a send-off,” I assured him.

“Well, at least you had a body,” he said.

“Do you remember it?” I asked, totally not appropriate. Rak floated in silence for a moment. I felt like I could see a blue orb blinking in and out of the darkness. Maybe it was just my imagination.

“Yeah,” he answered, “I remember all of it. Every second. The Dragon’s eyes, the orange glow of the fire. The way it felt against my skin. When I really think about it now I can slow it down. I can still feel it. My skin withering away, the pain, the feeling after, when there is no pain. When my flesh disappeared and I turned to bone. I was alive until my skull burned away. All the nerves in my body shutting down. When it finally ended all I could feel were my teeth chattering, a handful of nerves in my mouth, hidden behind my crooked bastard teeth. I didn’t lose feeling in them till I lost consciousness and woke up here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt like I could feel my fist. I felt like I was clenching it tight against my side. A body I didn’t have. I couldn’t remember my death like that. I must have lost consciousness just before I died. I knew my lungs had filled with blood but I didn’t remember gasping for air, just the struggle that came before. I guess that made me lucky.

“Hey Kae,” Rak started.

“Yeah?” I felt like I had been inside my head for minutes, maybe days. Time seemed endless here. Our conversation. It was like we were drawing it out as long as we could. Speaking to one another as if we were in slow motion. Rak sounded like he was farther away this time. I thought we were floating side by side but maybe I was wrong.

“When do you think the others will get here?” he asked.

“We only just…” no, what I was about to say was wrong. We hadn’t just died. “I don’t know.” I answered him.

“Are you going to be mad if Chel married? Had kids?”

“Of course not,” I pretty much growled. I was going to be jealous sure, not mad. I was gone. I expected her to move on with her life.

“Kae, you sound far away, is everything alright?” Rak’s voice trailed off towards the distance. I started to do everything I could to push myself, my consciousness in the direction I thought I had heard him coming from but when I did I could hear him, struggling, there was someone, something else in here with us.

“Let him go!” I shouted as loud as I could. Still, the sound of something, continued. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t good. I could feel my consciousness telling me to run, to move away, to hide. Not that there was anywhere to hide in the void.

“Kae,” Rak’s voice sounded so far away. I worried I was moving away from him.

“Rak, Rak please! Keep talking!” I said, trying to push myself forward. I felt like I had an idea of what I was. I could feel ether surrounding us. I was some kind of orb. I pushed farther, trying to picture Rak in my mind, following his struggling voice as he continued to say my name, following the sounds of the dark presence.

I worried, since we had been killed by the dragon, had our souls been taken prisoner? Was this some kind of ward? Worst, maybe we had somehow merged with the Dragon’s core and we were being consumed by its soul. I’d heard of Necromancer’s using gems to store souls, brining the dead back to life. Our guild, they wouldn’t… I hoped.

No. There is no way. They wouldn’t have had the time and the only person in our party with magic strong enough was Chel, and she swore never to use her abilities.

“Kae, run! Get away!” I hear Rak shout.

“What is it Rak? Let me help! Tell me how to help!” I begged. I wasn’t going to lose him, not a second time.

I follow his voice.

I felt like I could feel my body. I started screaming, I felt my legs. I kicked. I kicked as hard as I could. Moving my body, I could feel my body turn on its side, upside down. I was floating through the void. Rak stopped screaming as I reached forward. Feeling my arms, my hands for the first time. I could feel the ether move around me, like water.

I feel like I am drowning all over again.

I start to cry. I hear another person. Another voice. A woman, crying.

I open my eyes for the first time and see a bright light.

‘Rak, Rak Rak,’ I cry. Two hands, large hands reach passed the light. I feel them move over me. One slides against my head and my back.

‘Fucking Giants,’ I think. My vision is blurry. I can barely make out anything. Continuing to cry. I feel weak. Completely exhausted.

The giant hands pull me outside of the darkness. I can hear loud sounds all around me. Too loud. I just want to crawl back into the darkness. I want to go back. Rak is gone. I can hear sirens of some kind. A man is yelling. There is a woman close by crying. Another giant. I try to twist my body around as I gasp for air. I feel like I haven’t taken a breath in such a long time.

Throwing myself around as the giant wraps me in some kind of cloth. I feel him hand me off to the woman and…

She’s no giant.