Breathe…
And he inhaled a sudden gasp of air, filling his lungs and bringing life to him once more. His eyes burst open, yet the world remained dark.
Open the way...
He could feel his body tense up, he could feel his body once again; he could move, he could breathe, he could do as he wished; so he pushed at the lid of his casket with all of his strength, and it too burst open, letting a dim light enter his world; this light was dark, and the vision that he now had was dark as well, but at least there were visions; there were things here.
Enter…
So he entered, and he walked out of the casket, leaving behind its darkness and discomfort. And all he could see in this darkness were figures—people.
The figures seemed to walk without direction. Among themselves, they went wherever they could, and when they would almost touch or hit each other, they would somehow just walk past, just ever so slightly missing each other. Not once touching, not once feeling the warmth of another; not seeing each other; not recognizing the eyes of another; not the face of another. Nothing.
They kept walking past each other; they were blind to each other; not once did they see each other. In that eternal darkness, one that was like death itself, one that seemed not so different from the fall, everything suspended in that darkness, on a platform that continued perhaps for eternity; an infinite number of people, walking past each other, singular lights of existence, of something that once was. People who once lived.
This was what was left after death. Souls lingering, walking in darkness, in an endless hall of nothing, in an endless darkness with no other light than the one that you once had within. All the other people who might have once lived, who might have once existed, were not there anymore. They had lived, but they weren't there; they might as well not have ever existed.
The faces of thousands that walked past him all had such detail in them—the faces of those that had died, the young and the old; children and adults; babies and the elderly—all holding on to their faces a mask of death, a face they had worn on their last moments, just before death.
There was pain, there was surprise, some had no emotion, some had a smile, but they were all here, everyone. Those who had done wrong, those who had done good, those who had done nothing at all. Even those who had barely lived.
They were as if planets, suspended in the dark universe, going by each other, perhaps for a moment seeing one another, but not once taking contact with that life that flies past you. These souls are all cursed by such a condition. Such unfairness. This unfairness was perhaps death.
Why was he here? Surely he had died, or at least the body of Hartar Agna had died. They had brutally tortured them to death; they had buried him alive; they had brought him here. Into this. Into this great walk that had no end. To this abyss.
Surely he was there only to observe it, but was he then a part of it? Why could he not take a step left or right? Why could he not break free? Why could he see but not say a word? Why could he move but not take the move he wanted to take? Why was he here? If he could think, or if he could feel pity—if he could still feel...
Was this death? Was this all it was? Was this what they all felt at the end of their lives? Was this all that there was to everything? The end of everything. The end of life. The end. Was this it?
Was there no paradise for the tortured? Was there no suffering for the torturers? Was there just this—nothing?
In this silence, there are just the memories that you had. These steps are just those that you take toward those memories, those moments in which you felt something—in which you had love, in which you felt fear, in which you were lonely, in which you had everything a man could ask for... In which you had nothing, and you were nothing...
In this nothingness, he could only remember the times when he had something. He could only have those memories. Those ever-so-powerful and ever-present memories that cared not for his will, nor for his wants or needs. They only cared to exist as they were until they could be released and relieved through remembering. Through this never-ending darkness.
Why could they not become true again? Why did they have to be so faint—almost unreachable and untouchable? Why did they have to be just a faint whisper and not the entirety of the feeling itself?
Why can't I be the way I once was? Why can't I find within myself the will to dream again? Why do all of my dreams revolve around a memory of something lost? Oh, how I yearn for that which was lost. Oh, how it whispers to me, oh, how it calls me, a slave, to kneel before it, to feel it again and again, to tremble in its yearnful pain, in this bliss that is loss.
A child. We are all just children; we never wanted to leave the embrace of our mothers, not the dreams that we had, or the world that we saw. There was no agony to yet torment us; there were no other needs than the love that was provided by our mothers and fathers. And those dreams we had—how they made us roar through the heavens, how they made us fly, how they made us slay giants, how they made us heroes, how they made us children—were so innocent and human.
What have I become, and what have I done? I can only regret it; that is all I have.
And then it ends. I lay naked in darkness, submerged in a mist that covered the back of my mind and even the fields of my heart. I am lonely, but not alone, for they now stand above my corpse; they look not down on him, like the other Angels, but as if on the same level. Their eyes are filled with something—a feeling far too familiar to Kanrel and his kind.
"When you leave, when they all leave, would it be like that to all of them?" Kanrel asked, not getting up and just observing that mist that approached, to cover more of him, more of his mind, more of his heart, more of all. The mist, like shadows, would cover it all. From his mind to his heart, to every corner of the earth. So it would be, in the end.
"Perhaps. Only those who have died can surely tell."
"I see…" He whispered, to no one in particular, "What comes next?"
There was silence, one far too familiar. It prompted him to get up to see if the angel had gone away once more. But there they stood, their face lacking all joy and their eyes a deep blue gaze so intense that one could forget all else except the dread of the world. If one answered that gaze, one would drown in their sorrow, in regret felt for a time unknown and only observed by a select few.
"Life," the Voice promised, hanging a sad smile on their face, one that held the promise of it. Soon that smile faded, and they spoke: "Find me, so that they can be free; so that you can be free; so that I—can be free."
Their eyes met, and Kanrel now stood across them, so short he was before the magnificence of an angel. The great presence of the Angel of War and Peace.
The mist veiled the angel, and in the end, it would veil them all, and Kanrel was left there, confused and without understanding how he could find them or free them.
He looked ahead at the line that continued and continued, and he kept walking toward the place where the others were walking as well. Walking past more and more of those that had died—thousands of more, perhaps millions—who knows how many were stuck here...
But soon he came to a sudden halt, as he could see another figure, one not quite the others; they stood between the lines, looking directly at him; their expression was solemn, and they were none other than the Angel of Time.
Kanrel walked up to them, hoping that they might give him guidance—a way out from here.
"This… is death. You see, we believe that after we die, our souls will live on, but that which we become part of in our deaths is not an afterlife where one receives bountiful gifts from god or eternal salvation, but instead emptiness. A queue, of sorts, for those who are then reborn, perhaps not as Sharan, but perhaps as ants, or even as a human like you." Time said as Kanrel finally reached them.
"And those who have done well will take their queue closer to the gates, from where they may enter life again. Our souls will live on. Our bodies will become ash, but our magic... will leave a memory of us, one that can be seen long after our deaths."
"Our ashes will help the flowers bloom one day, and our magic will give a shapeless, formless memory for those who can see it and who can feel it."
"What do you feel when you touch magic?" They asked.
"Disgust." Kanrel promptly replied.
The Angel smiled briefly. "It is no wonder, for the magic that you feel all around you is that which is filled with regret and violence. I can feel your magic as well; it is similar to ours but filled with even more regret and disgust than the magic that is here now, in this city we called home."
"Tell me, Kanrel. Do you, humans, believe in such a concept as the afterlife?"
Kanrel let out a sigh. "Some of us believe that after death we will be re-united with those who have died before us, and some believe that those who have done well will earn a place in the court of the Angels."
"But there is no 'official' stance given by the Priesthood."
"I see… The first one sounds... good." The Angel replied, sounding somewhat intrigued, "But alas, you may not remain here for much longer."
"The innocent Hartar Agna might be dead, but you are not; you don't belong here; this isn't the right place for creatures like you."
"And besides, there remains one more door for you to open." They said, and as the lines began to shift by, Kanrel could feel how they were rapidly transported toward the end of the line, toward its destination, passing by more and more dead Sharan, until, at last, he could see a door. A row of doors; each of them looked like the third and last door that was in the round room where the Angel of Time had let him enter two of their doors.
The door was dark, and it had no handle; it didn't even seem to have hinges. It was more like a doorway than anything else. But it was something that called for him; it reminded him of the dark mirror that he had broken and entered to get here. Within, he could feel this sense of anticipation—this want, this desire—to enter.
A priest is not supposed to feel desire. Yet now, he could feel it. This want. He wanted to go through that door, and before even thinking about it or trying to control himself, he found himself walking toward it. Again, he came to a sudden halt.
As he waited for the final instructions from the Angel of Time.
"You will go where you belong, at least in the sense of time; the place may be something that you might not recognize, but there you will see, perhaps, our greatest sin." The Angel spoke, walking next to Kanrel.
"Go now; you will not see this version of me again." The Angel said lastly, and with that, they too were veiled by the mist; they too were no longer there; they too had gone or returned to wherever they had come from.
He went closer to the doorway and looked into it, trying to see anything that might be on the other side. He then looked around and saw the other lines, the other doors, and the many Sharan that just kept walking in; in every line except this one, the line behind him stood still. It was clear that they, somehow, knew to wait for their own turn.
So, he did the only thing he could do; he took another leap of faith; another moment in which he entered something he perhaps shouldn't... He took a step forward and instantly felt its pull. He was sucked in, and all the light that there was or ever could be was no more; all he now knew was that he was again falling, drifting away from the place where he had seen that beautiful angel—the Angel of War and Peace; their loving warmth; their lonesome words; their heartbreak. Oh, how he longed to save them... How he longed to be saved...
He fell, and it was cold again. He fell, and he did not know if the fall would ever end. He fell, and he did not know if there was supposed to be an end. So he closed his eyes and let his tears flow at last. To get here, it had been so painful; to get here, he had nearly lost himself; he had lost a part of himself; and he did not wish to lose the rest that he had of himself.
He cried. For the first time in such a long time, he cried as himself. But the fall continued and refused to end.