but I’m positive I’m dead. Others pass by me, stranger after stranger, men and women, and they wander past with the same bewildered look on their faces that echoes how I feel. Muted, and confused. Like emotions are very, very distant things that belong to others.
I can see through the other people, too, so that’s how I know we’re all dead. We’re gray, and we’re spirits, and if that’s not a big honking clue, I don’t know what is.
I think of Aron, my Aron, and find myself smiling. He’s probably mad at me right now, if he remembers me. I have no regrets, though. I’d do it a hundred times again, because I love him and that’s what you to do help those you love. Even now, the sad ache of losing him is distant. This must be what death does. It makes you not care about…anything.
“Faith?” A hollow voice calls out my name. It sounds vaguely familiar.
I get to my feet, looking around at the sea of drifting, non-corporeal strangers. One steps forward, wearing armor and carrying a sword.
It’s Vitar. “Oh wow, hi.”
He smiles at me, and I go to hug him—and our arms pass through one another. Figures. “I am sad to see you here.”
“It was inevitable. I’m sorry you got eaten by a giant lake-worm.” I want to touch him, to squeeze his hand, but my fingers just pass through him. Another person steps forward and it’s Solat. “Hello friend. I’m so sorry.”
“It is all right,” Solat says, and it is. Nothing much seems to matter here in the afterlife.
“Where are we?” I ask, curious as more people shuffle in.
“This is where the dead go when there is no body for us to be attached to any longer. We are between all webs. Between life, death, everything.” Solat shrugs. “So we wait.”
“Wait?” I echo.
“Wait for the god of death to return to his throne.”
I nod. “Can I wait with you guys?”
“Of course.”
We sit together in the gray, and it occurs to me that if I have no body to inhabit, I must have been burned, like all the others. I wonder if we stopped the war in Yshrem. I wonder if we saved lives. I guess it doesn’t matter one way or another. Death isn’t so bad. It’s just kind of…blah.
Time passes. It’s not so lonely with Solat and Vitar here. We talk some, but mostly we’re content to just sit in the fog and wait together. Eventually, a distant light flares, like a firework rising into the sky.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing.
“One of the gods is re-ascending to the Aether,” Solat says. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I nod, thinking of Aron. “Was Aron’s star beautiful?”
“It was perfect.”
That makes me happy.
It’s hard to know just how long I sit with my friends. The gray is…endless. There’s no hunger, no need to eat or sleep, nothing to break up the endless time. I feel no boredom, no nothing. I’m just…waiting.
Then one day—or many days—later, a large man stalks through the sea of gray spirits that wander in the fog. He wears a long, black cloak, a heavy hood, and seems to be heading straight for us.
“Should we run?” I ask Vitar and Solat, but I can’t bring myself to care, not that much. Death does that to a person. I get no answer, and look around. They’re gone.
In fact, everyone’s gone.
Well, I guess that’s my answer.
I get to my ghost-feet, but the man is already standing in front of me. He lowers his hood.
This must be the god of death. His skin is deathly pale, his hair black as night. His brows are black slashes and his nose is big and would be overwhelming if it weren’t for the cloud of thick, loose waves that somehow break up the harshness of his features, and the softer line of his mouth. He’s missing an eye.
A green one.
“I know who you are,” I say, surprised. That surprise zings through me. It’s the first real, honest emotion I’ve felt since I died, and it feels…good. “You’re Rhagos, aren’t you? God of the Dead? Original owner of Aron’s left eye?”
He reaches up and touches my chin, and his hand doesn’t pass through me. Huh. He tilts my face up and studies it. “So this is Faithful.” His voice is deep and smooth, like rich chocolate.
“Nooo, this is Faith.” I point at my face.
“I was curious to see what made you so different from the others, but I see it now. You’re not afraid of