Saturday, August 6, 2005

Story time!
So yeah. I know I haven't been posting in a while. I just haven't felt like it. But now I do.

Oh yeah, I also changed my AIM name... I actually did that a while ago, but I can't really remember if I told anyone or not.. (Come to think of it, I don't think I told anyone 'cept Subaru... hehe, oops.) Well anyways, anyone who wants to hunt me down can find me at my shiney new SN: RedChaosEmerald. So yeah.. sorry all the people I forgot to tell, hehe, I'm just not good with that kind of thing. ^^

Oh, you might have read the post title here and been like "Eh? Storytime?" Well, for this post, I decided to share with you a story! I have no idea where it's going, but I like it so far. I've just been thinking about the afterlife a lot, for some reason, so I figured I'd just write a story about it! So here it is. It's two pages long. Fair warning! Hehe, have fun reading it, if you feel like it.


“He’s too strong!”

“We can hold him! Don’t stop!”

“I can’t keep this up!”

“Just hold on! We’ve almost got him!”

Sickening laughter. “FOOLS!”

A deafening, earth-rending sound. A bright flash of light. A wave of scorching heat.

A blood-curdling scream, coming from everywhere. Coming from me.

“No! NO!”

Sickening laughter, as pain overtakes my body, inside and outside, crushing my bones and shredding my flesh.

“Please, no! Don’t leave me!”

Crushed. Shredded. Torn. Burning. Screaming. Sickening laughter. And a voice crying out my name in desperation. Blood covers my eyes. Everything goes to black. The blackness covers everything. A light appears. The light grows, obliterating the darkness, and consuming every inch of my being.

I feel nothing except for the comforting warmth of the light surrounding everything.


“And that’s all I remember.”


Dry, dead twigs crack under my feet as I wander underneath the black starless sky. The harvest moon sits upon the horizon. It’s always harvest time for death, or so they said. Such a sad life that one must have. The reaper, I mean. No one wants to see you, everyone thinks you’re a real bastard just because you do your job, and most of all you never, ever, ever get a break. No wonder he’s so angsty all the time.

Dry, dead trees surround me, rising up above me and making a sad attempt to cover the sky with their interlacing branches. Dead, just like everything else around here. Sounds like such a dismal place, but really it isn’t so bad. I mean, it’s not like anything here can kill you. And it’s a much better place than where the evil ones go to. So much burning, and screaming, and begging for mercy that will never be shown to them. It’s torture just to see it, so I try not to. It’s not like the people there aren’t getting what they deserve. But still...

I wander aimlessly through this forest. That’s what we newly dead are supposed to do. We just wander around, trying to learn our way around this afterlife. Oh, and we try not to piss off any of the more... influential people too. Death was pretty clear about that point, and he had some rather nasty tales to tell about those who angered the wrong people. He was actually pretty informative, if a little moody.

Maybe he liked me because I didn’t whine as much as the others. The ones who came after me were... well, let’s not get into that, shall we? Let’s just say that not everyone has accepted the possibility of death by the time they expire. As for me, I’m a warrior. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. It’s our curse, but it’s also our sacrifice. I shorten my life to lengthen the life of others, and so death isn’t such a surprise for me. In fact, considering the amount of battles I’ve seen, it’s about time.

But enough rambling. I’m walking through the woods, and I see this guy. He’s a little hard to see. His grey form blends in with the trees around him, and he’s a little translucent. Almost like a ghost. Turns out he actually WAS a ghost, but enough of that. I see this guy, and I walk up to him. He turns to me, looks at me, and starts to vanish. So I say, “Hey, wait!”

He completely vanishes. I mean, I don’t see him at all. But then he appears right behind me and says, “Whaaaat doooo yoooou waaaaant?” You know, in that sort of moany, drawling voice that ghosts like to use. So I turn around and I explain to him. I’ve been walking through the woods for what seems like a few days now, and I have no idea where I am. I ask him if he knows where to find the path the city. The city of the dead, I mean. There’s only one city around though, so it’s not like I need to elaborate. There may be a city inside the Burning Pit somewhere, but no one really cares to look.

This ghost guy, he doesn’t say anything. He just vanishes again. At first I’m a little insulted, thinking he just ditched me, but then I see a trail of burning footprints appearing before me. I follow the footprints for what seems like a few hours, and they take me out of the forest. On the top of the next hill, I see the gates of the city. I say thank you, wondering if the ghost was even around to hear me. He doesn’t say anything, and the footprints just fade away, you know, like they weren’t even there.

So I start walking towards the city, and I see my buddy Death carrying some poor bastard off to the Burning Pit. The guy is flailing around like crazy, I mean like, the reaper was barely hanging onto him. I think to offer the guy a hand, but I’m just a newly dead, and old Grim has a lot of experience with this. Instead of getting in his way, I just wave at him, wish him a good day, and go on about my business. I’m not sure if he saw me, but it really doesn’t matter.

The moment I step through the city gates, I see this guy, and he’s totally dressed in white. White glowing robes, mostly. They cover his entire form, and his hood casts a shadow over his whole face. He’s got a pair of huge feathery wings though, as well as a belt around this waist with a sheathed sword hanging from his side. I look at him for a few moments. I’m walking in his direction, purely by chance, and as I get close I notice that this guy is huge. I mean, he’s half again as tall as I am. And his sword? It’s so big I could put my arm over the hand guard and use it as a crutch. Man, I wouldn’t want to tangle with him. He wasn’t out to cause trouble, though. If anything he was just checking the place out. Not much different than me I guess.

But then he did something strange. He looked at me. That in itself wasn’t strange at all, as I had gotten a lot of looks from people in my first week here. I was a newly dead after all. But when he looked at me, I could see two shining ovals where his eyes would be. His face was still cast in shadow, but his eyes were blindingly bright. And then he came up to me. At this time, I had stopped walking, wondering who this guy was and, more importantly, what he wanted from me. “You’re a warrior?” he asked.

“Yes, I like to think so.” I replied. What else was I going to say?

“Are you any good?” Compared to him? I wasn’t sure at the time, but I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to find out.

“Oh you know. I’ve been in a few battles, won a tournament or two.” I’ve won ten, actually. But I never really did like to brag.

“Don’t slack off. Keep up your training, your skills will help you here in the long run.” I’m just looking at him. It turned out to be good advice, though I’m sure what to make of it at the time. I nod my head at him, and ask him where I could find some place to train. “Talk to Fredrick. Tell him that Nicolas sent you. He knows who I am. You may find him somewhere in the Storm Cloud District. He likes to drink at the Weeping Hollow, but he... wanders from time to time.”

Little did I know, I had just been recruited by this mysterious man. Nicolas would become an important and integral part of my life. Or I guess I should say after life. I thank him for the tip, and go about my business. Right now I’m thinking “Why shouldn’t I keep fighting? It’s what I do. Just because I happened to lose one battle, that’s no reason to give up the ghost.” So I go to the Storm Cloud District, looking for a guy named Fredrick. Who a man named Nicolas told me to meet. Because, in all actually, I have nothing better to do, and an eternity to do it in.

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