The weight of the rubble. I was buried in a prison I couldn't see. Experiencing what it must be like to be blind for the first time in my life. It was complete darkness, where I couldn't see even vague shapes.

However, I could feel the limits of my prison in another way. As soon as I tried to move my shoulders or hands, they wouldn't go very far before meeting resistance. I had never considered myself claustrophobic or anything like that. However, I thought that would have been terrible enough even without the pain. Without the pressure, like my chest was going to split in two.

Maybe this prison was a taste of the hell I deserved. But if I cared about what I deserved, I wouldn't have even tried to achieve this. It had never been about what I deserved. My sister, my sister.

I had to get out of here. I had to.

Plague had to be dead. With the vampire off the game board, she wouldn't be my ally even if she had survived, anyway. Lucia had surely suffered the same fate as the vampire. For the first time since the first few minutes I spent in this world, I was truly alone.

I took a deep breath, gathering strength in this mess of a body.

Lately I had been failing a lot at becoming intangible. It was more of an instinct than an ability, as a result. But the problem was only in my head. If I calmed down, it would be easy to get out of this one.

It didn't matter how high the mountain of rubble was. I would walk through them as if nothing was there.

It was hard. Even though Death had gone quiet, that buzzing had left my mind, and all was silent. Except for the grunts of the hungry creatures that lurked outside my prison, of course, and also a few that would be crushed inside like me.

It was difficult, but in the end I made it. I trudged through the darkness and debris, stumbling blindly. I felt like I was lost in a deep cavern. I didn't dare raise my voice. It would be pointless even if I dared. Who would answer me?

As I had said, I was alone. Most likely one of those things would bite me. I had to let go of the idea that Lucia might still be alive.

I climbed out of the rubble. I was immediately surrounded by enemies, but I didn't pay attention to that. My eyes immediately went to the big hole in the building. As if some giant had taken a bite out of it. The explosive energy had taken out a few floors with it.

Yes, there was no way any human being could have survived that. As bitter as it was, I had to accept that I had killed her. I had stained my hands with the blood of an innocent for the first time. Do you find that hard to believe?

Well, it's the truth. I've always only hurt those who crawled through the same mud as me. Of course, many of the people I killed would have families who mourned for them. I had done a lot of damage, I know. But that was completely different. I had never, ever killed an innocent person. I'd made sure of that at least.... Until now.

The zombies immediately moved towards me, the only living presence in this place. As I had suspected, I could barely move or even stand. My legs were shaking like jelly. Fighting so many of those things was out of the question.

Running away from them too. My feet wouldn't carry me very far. As soon as I fell, they would descend upon me like hungry hyenas. There was no skin and flesh on this body, but at the very least it would be a horrible experience.

I couldn't fight, I couldn't run or hide. That didn't mean I had no options. Five jumped out at me. As if they possessed rudimentary intelligence, each attacked me from one side, surrounding me as if not to let me escape.

I certainly couldn't escape. The attacks should have reached me, but their claws and teeth passed right through me. I wasn't the least bit relieved to realize that it had worked. It was turning me intangible, not invisible. In other words, they wouldn't let me out of their sight, and how long could this last?

Not long enough, but I could think of all those things later. I took a step forward. That's what life was all about, taking one step at a time. If you tried to get a broader perspective, you'd be paralyzed by the enormity of the road in front of you.

They couldn't touch me, but that didn't stop them from trying. They followed me closely and continued to attack. Sooner or later they would succeed.

Where was I? I needed to find the remains of the vampire, even if it was just the pool of blood. That was my only possible starting point in the middle of this mess. I hoped the gunshot or the fall hadn't damaged my soul in some way.

Speaking of avoiding having too broad a perspective, I had enough to worry about. I didn't need to be afraid of running into Death here, even if I was badly injured. Try to force myself not to think about it.

Where? Where? Where, damn it?

I didn't see a large pool of blood, but I did see a severed arm in the middle of the devastation. The arm had belonged to Edmond Dantes, no doubt about it. I recognized the clothes he was wearing and didn't believe in coincidences.

How was the intangibility lasting so long? I had been receiving attacks continuously almost from the first second I stepped out of the rubble prison, but none of them had hit me so far. Fear had made it impossible for me to maintain this state at other times and I couldn't say I wasn't scared shitless now.

I bent down to try to remove the debris. I shouldn't have pushed my luck. I jumped, feeling a twinge of pain. I said twinge because it came and went in a second, but it was so intense that it made my mind go blank. It was no wonder.

I glanced down. Only then did I realize I had made a mistake. My left arm and a good chunk of the respective shoulder were gone. They were already on top of me, but it hadn't been from an attack. I had lost it even before they touched me.

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Things couldn't get much worse. No attacking, no running away.... And now my only method of defense was self-destructive? What the hell had happened?

Trying to escape from their hands and their teeth, my back soon hit a wall. I had no escape; I don't want to die! It made no sense. I was already dead and nothing could change that. Still, that was the first thing that went through my mind.

The first and last thing? No, obviously not. I'm here to tell this story for a reason. But hey, it came close.

I didn't save myself. Not even by figuring out some trick at the last moment. The corpses that had me cornered were surrounded by a golden light and in a matter of seconds collapsed like empty straw dolls. Revealing, behind them...

“Are you alive?”

Lucia, of course. Somehow, she hadn't died yet. The wound in her stomach was still open. It wasn't as ugly as before, or at least as it had looked to me before, but at least it wasn't bleeding.

A golden light. A heavenly light, huh? I had found myself in the middle of this mess and saved at the last moment. What could I call this if not divine aid?

I approached her as if to check if she was really there. Lucia was the next to collapse, but luckily, I caught her in time. Then I could feel that she was real. That, at least for the moment, she was still clinging to life.

There was no hatred in Lucia's gaze, as I had feared, but nothing in particular either. Her eyes passed through me, looking at some point beyond. Not that she was on the verge of losing consciousness. She was simply focusing on something else.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes. think so.”

“No... Not the vampire, he doesn't matter. That... That thing...”

I swallowed.

“I... I don't know.” It didn't sound anything like the answer that had crossed my mind. I thought I shouldn't say that, that I couldn't.

Lucia didn't answer. Maybe she had read my mind, maybe she didn't need to for another reason. We approached the severed arm. She had gotten rid of a few zombies, but there must be many more on the way.

Not even very far. I could hear their grunts, their hunger.

She helped me move the debris out of the way. We found more pieces of the vampire's body underneath. He definitely couldn't be alive after all that shit. Edmond Dantes had died miserably without even being able to check with his own eyes whether his plan had succeeded or failed.

Good. That bastard deserved that and more, much more, but I was satisfied.

And now, my soul... Could something have happened to it? Because of the shot or the fall, or both? Had I come this far for nothing?

No. It was there.

I had never seen a soul with my own eyes, but it couldn't be anything else. A burning white ball lying on the ground. It wasn't burning that much, I'd almost missed it, in fact. But it had to be that.

I reached down, grabbed it with both hands. This was the end of my journey, wasn't it? I could finally be at peace, couldn't I? Or at least stop fearing oblivion.

What should I do?

Should something be happening already or maybe...?

I pushed the white ball into my chest.

The pain was indescribable, but as transient as the life that now burned in my chest. I felt whole for the first time since I came into this world. Fuck, for the first time in my fucking life. You don't know what you have until you lose it.

No, until you lose it and find it again. That's why human beings are so stupid. Usually loss is forever. That's why we don't even get a chance to realize it, not really.

I recovered the guilt. I had already felt vaguely bad for the innocents who had died because of my actions or were trapped inside their own bodies like the undead. For Lucia, who I had deceived and dragged into this. But now?

Now the guilt was so heavy I couldn't even breathe.

I also recovered the memories of my last moments. As I suspected, it was violent but trivial. In the wrong place at the wrong time. I already felt like I couldn't breathe. It didn't help at all to see myself hanging upside down, with my head in a bucket full of water.

Classic and usually effective torture. I refused to tell them anything, though, because I wasn't going to get out of it anyway. And I died. I wondered what they did with my body afterwards, how they disposed of it. Did it matter?

No, not really. Dead is dead.

I threw my head back. For long seconds I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't. I swallowed hard. I just hoped my sister hadn't seen my body.

Or maybe I should hope otherwise?

Maybe she would be much more tormented by not knowing, by visiting an empty grave. Oh, my little sister, my baby....

The only thing I knew for certain was that in holding her for the first time, I had understood that my mission was to protect her.

And I had failed.

I had failed completely.

Still, I didn't shed a single tear.

“So that's what you really look like," Lucia said. Oh, my body had changed too. The adolescent phase hadn't lasted long this time. "I see. All bad people were once innocent children, but I can't help but wonder what happened to make your eyes change so much.”

I looked away.

“I tried to do the best I could with the cards I was given. That's all. I know it doesn't help, but I'm sorry I did this to you. You're a good person. Now I understand that even if I had told you the whole truth, you would have tried to help me anyway.”

“Yes, you're right. It doesn't help.”

Lucia coughed several times, hard. The effort made her whole body tremble. She was sick. It was bad, evidently, and it was going.... To get worse before she got better? Could she really get better from that?

I was asking questions I already knew the answer to. Answer, not answers. There was only one.

I bent down and looked her in the eye. Enough of the cowardice.

“Not everyone can be like you.”

“What are you talking about? Don't bother making excuses.”

“That you'd even help someone like me just means that you'd help anyone. There's no one special to you. Not even yourself. I'm just a human being and I have priorities. I'm not ashamed of that, I can't be. But I respect you. I admire you. I know the world would be a better place if there were more people like you. So I'm sorry. And thank you.”

Lucia flashed me a wry smile. Then she fell to the ground. Not dead, not yet, but...

“You're good at talking. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”

Wait, that was biblical. Our worlds were similar even in that?”

“Well, come on. Get your priorities straight, do what you have to do.”

“I'll get you help.”

“What are you talking about? I'm already dead. At least let me die in peace.”

Once again, I ignored her. I bent down to pick her up and carry her out of here. Maybe it was impossible. Maybe she would die on the way, but damn it, I had to try. I couldn't just do nothing and watch her die. I wasn't a great person, but I wasn't a complete sociopath either.

I didn't get to pick her up, though. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and froze. It wasn't more zombies coming for us. It was Edmond Dantes, though he should have been crushed like a cockroach under the rubble or bled to death after being ripped in half.

No, no. Tentacles protruded from under the eyes.

It was Plague, using his corpse as a new host. It had survived being cut to pieces. Like a true plague, there was no stopping it, it continued to spread relentlessly. And of course. Of course it wouldn't stop even if my soul was back inside my body. I could simply tear it out of my corpse.

“Of course. Of fucking course," Lucia said, laughing because the only other thing she could do at this point was cry.

And me.

Same with me.

Fuck, what a shitty luck.

Then Death's voice came back. Earlier I had thought that the only way to save Lucia was if Death really had died, if that would make it stop, make her unable to die. But that thing was still clinging to life, ironically. It didn't matter if there was only a tiny spark left. The point was that it was strong enough to talk to me.

For some reason, this time I understood every word.

LET ME IN AND I'LL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT

Then I... Well, as you know, I let him in. You feel it, don't you? That he's still here. That's the only reason you agreed to talk to me, isn't it?

The only reason you didn't walk out that door after hearing so many things that were hard to believe.

Well, it's all true. And this is the end.