Chapter 1
Written by Bayzo Albion.
Death is not the end.
Death is the great beginning.
I died.
I didn't understand it with my mind—I felt it deep in the core of my being, a profound shift that transcended logic or reason.
As if the world itself had frozen in place, slipping inexorably from my grasp like sand through clenched fingers, only to scatter into the boundless dust of oblivion. The colors of life faded, the sounds muffled, until all that remained was a vast, echoing void.
There was no pain.
No body to feel it.
Only silence—not the gentle hush of a quiet room, but a thick, suffocating blanket that pressed in from all sides, as if the void itself were coiling around my throat like an invisible serpent, squeezing tighter with every non-breath I took.
I hung there like a spirit unchained, adrift in the ether.
No weight pulling me down.
No time ticking forward.
No direction to guide me—up, down, left, right; all concepts dissolved into irrelevance.
Just… suspended in the infinite.
But the flight was motionless, windless, endless, a perpetual stasis that stretched on like an unbroken horizon. Only the infinite emptiness, and me—nothing more than a fleeting dot cradled in its cold, indifferent hands.
And yet, with that profound isolation came an odd, almost absurd calm that washed over me like a forgotten melody. As if I had finally shrugged off the crushing weight of the entire world, all its expectations, its relentless demands, its petty cruelties. The burdens I'd carried for so long—regrets, failures, the endless grind of existence—evaporated, leaving me lighter than air.
I could have stayed there forever, basking in that serene nothingness.
But then—something yanked me back with brutal force.
A violent pull, like a hook embedded in my soul, reeling me in against my will.
A return to what I had so desperately escaped.
A sharp gasp tore through me—air seared my lungs like boiling water poured over raw wounds, igniting every nerve ending in a blaze of unwelcome sensation.
"God…" I groaned, twisting in agony as my body reformed around me, piece by excruciating piece. "Again… Even after death, no peace? Why drag me back into this torment?"
The world sank its claws back into me with merciless precision. The burden of flesh returned, heavy and insistent, pressing down on my chest like a stone slab. The pressure inside my skull built like a storm, throbbing with the suffocating demand that everything around me—people, places, obligations—wanted more than I could ever give, more than I had left to offer.
"What happened?" a voice asked, cutting through the haze of my revival. Not commanding, not distant—soft, deep, resonant. Like warm water seeping into the cracks of my shattered soul, mending them with gentle persistence.
I forced my eyes open, blinking against the sudden influx of light that seemed too bright, too real after the void's embrace. She was there, kneeling beside me, her presence a beacon in the disorienting fog.
A woman. Radiant, ethereal, with an otherworldly glow that made her skin shimmer like polished marble under moonlight. So beautiful that even the subtle lines of fatigue etched on her face—faint shadows under her eyes, a slight weariness in her posture—seemed divine, adding depth to her allure rather than diminishing it. Her hair cascaded in silken waves, the color of midnight laced with stars, framing a face that held the wisdom of ages. In her gaze, no fear, no judgment—only quiet understanding, as if she had peered into the depths of my essence and accepted every flaw, every scar, without reservation.
"I… I don't want to return to the living world," I rasped, my voice rough and broken, like gravel scraping against stone. "I'm tired of it all. Exhausted to my very core."
"What exactly are you tired of?" she asked, her eyes unblinking, holding mine with an intensity that felt both comforting and probing, as if she were inviting me to unburden my soul.
"Everything." A bitter smile twisted my mouth, pulling at lips that felt foreign on my reformed face. "Eating to survive, only to hunger again. Breathing in the stale air of a world that chokes you. Talking endlessly, words that mean nothing in the end. Looking at the same weary faces day after day, masks hiding the same hollow emptiness. Pretending someone needs me, when deep down, I know it's all a farce. Even thinking—I'm sick of it, the constant whirl of doubts and fears. I just want silence. Rest. Oblivion. Is that so much to ask? I died. So let me stay dead! Why chain me again to this miserable body, this prison of flesh and bone?"
She was silent for a long while, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of my emotions. Her eyes never wavered, and I felt as if she was peeling away my soul layer by layer, exposing the raw truths I had buried beneath years of pretense and pain, until nothing remained hidden, no secret too dark to reveal.
Finally, her lips stirred, parting with deliberate grace.
"You did die."
"Perfect! Wonderful!" I laughed, but the sound cracked and died almost at once, echoing hollowly in the space around us. It was a laugh born of despair, laced with the irony of a man who had glimpsed freedom only to have it snatched away. "So now I can finally rest from that damned labor called life… Or wait… no. Don't tell me—"
"Yes." Her voice was quiet, but it cut through me like steel wrapped in velvet, firm yet gentle, carrying the weight of inevitability. "There is still work left for you."
I froze, my newfound body tensing as if struck by lightning. The words hung in the air like a sentence from a judge I hadn't known existed.
"Even after death?" My voice was hoarse, raw, cracking with disbelief and rising anger. "You've got to be joking. Life was nothing but labor—endless toil, day in and day out, grinding away at my spirit until there was nothing left but dust. And now, in the afterlife—more toil? Where is the rest I was promised? Where is the justice in a universe that demands even from the dead?"
She tilted her head slightly, her long hair shifting like a curtain of silk, and her gaze remained calm and strangely tender, like a mother consoling a wayward child.
"They say the harder a life was, the sweeter the rest that follows. Your path is almost complete. Just endure a little longer. The trials ahead are not punishments, but steps toward true liberation."
The beautiful priestess of worlds leaned closer, her scent—a faint, intoxicating blend of jasmine and ancient incense—wafting over me like a balm. With unearthly grace, she reached into the hollow of her full bosom, her movements fluid and mesmerizing, as if time itself slowed to admire her. She drew out a small, colorful feather fan—more like a delicate toy than a sacred tool, its plumes iridescent and shimmering with hues that shifted in the light, from sapphire blues to emerald greens. With a soft, almost maternal smile that lit her features from within, she began to brush away the dust that clung to me, each stroke light and deliberate, as if she weren't merely cleansing my body but my very soul, sweeping away the accumulated grime of a lifetime's regrets and sorrows.
"Do you feel lighter now?" Her voice was velvet against the rawness of my nerves, a sound that caressed as much as it soothed, wrapping around me like a warm embrace in the chill of uncertainty.
"Like it never weighed on me at all!" I replied, my tone suddenly bright, infused with a spark of unexpected joy. The heaviness I'd carried for so long—the fog of depression that had clouded my every thought, the cold knot of despair that had twisted in my gut—melted away.
"Thank you… though, forgive me for asking, where did you get that… feather duster? It seems almost too whimsical for such a profound act."
"From here," she answered with a mischievous smile that danced in her eyes, giving her shoulders the slightest, teasing shake. The motion set her chest trembling with such effortless elegance that I was reminded: beauty doesn't surrender its power, not even beyond death. It commands attention, draws the eye, and in this realm, it seemed amplified, a force as natural as gravity.
"So it's… some kind of spatial magic?" I asked, scratching the back of my head, bewildered by the casual display of wonder.
"Something like that," she admitted, the faintest blush rising on her cheeks, adding a human touch to her divine poise. "Congratulations," she said, her words carrying a ceremonial weight, as if bestowing a title upon a newly anointed king. "You're dead. From this moment on, you are a resident of the world some naïve souls still call paradise—a realm beyond the veil, where the boundaries of mortality dissolve."
The interface appeared before my eyes without warning—half-transparent, pulsing with a soft, ethereal glow, as if the light itself leaned toward me and asked: Who are you? Who do you choose to become in this boundless expanse? The letters hovered in the air, inviting yet insistent, a digital apparition in a world of wonders.
Enter your name.