Michael kept on fighting through the black sludge of the golem that had now entirely enveloped him, the darkness thick and suffocating, yet seeming like a bare black abyss to his eyes. His breathing felt shallow and his legs and right arm ached with a dull pain, yet he kept swinging, he had to. Each time he felt sluggish and slow, his legs and arm shot with a sharp pain, as if his three damaged limbs were being torn in place. The sensation burned his veins with a fresh dose of adrenaline that would fade as quickly as it came, yet it allowed him to keep fighting the creature. If only he could see its cold burning blue eye, just one glimpse was all he wanted to know where to swing. He could feel his mind slip into a hallucinatory madness as he saw flashes of Woh consoling him or dancing about.

These were passing though, unlike the darkness of the void he was in now, so deep it was that he couldn't see his own body, despite feeling it there. Eventually the fight in him died down, even forgetting about the monstrosity he was apparently being swallowed by. He just existed in this place, where there was no sound except his echoing thoughts, no smell, except the memory of the iron stink of his own blood, and no life, except his own. 'Am I still alive?' Was the one thought he didn't want snaking its way into his mind.

'Are you?' He thought upon it once more, but it nearly didn't feel like an idea that he came up with, by himself.

'I... don't know. This feels like being dead.' Michael would reply with a defeated sincereness.

'Weren't you afraid of Death? So afraid that you obsessed over it and so much, that you in fact had nearly two months of constant panic attacks due to the mere idea of it? The mere idea that, you will die, one day?'

'I did, but... if this is Death... I seem to have riled myself up for nothing. It is...'

'Peaceful. Yes, it is.'

'As if you have barely woken up from a comfy sleep that is too short for comfort, but... you are still laying in bed trying to rest.'

'No pain. No misery. No struggle or tiring commitments. Nothing but your mind's dreams to keep you company, nothing but finally being able to rest in an eternal morning nap, with no sun to pick at your eyelashes to awaken.'

'Y-yeah... I love dreaming.'

'I know. You did do that a lot. Every time the world shoved unnecesarry struggle and conflict in your arms, dreams were your comfort. Each day you came from school and crawled in bed crying, the dreams you had as you drifted off and that tension broke... those were your most relaxing. Now, you get to dream all you want, to simply fade away into them, embrace them.'

'I was being a cry baby about it... my struggles don't compare to true ones. I was dealt a pretty good hand in life. I just couldn't handle mine... not as well as I would have wanted to...'

'Perhaps, or perhaps not. You only truly know your struggles, never another's, nobody could, even when you cried for someone else, as you imagined their pain, you truly never could, no matter how true it felt.'

'I know... but it just felt like a stab wound... when my best friend would struggle with his own problems, I wished I could do something to ease it. When my mother broke apart from my dad... while my pain ate away at me about the situation and while I pretended it didn't bother me... I wish could have helped my mother more about it, even if I struggled to think about how she experienced it.'

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

'Yet, in the deepest crevice of your mind, you still always embraced the thought... 'What's the point? If it all ends anyways? Why bother if in the end it amounts to nothing? If there is no higher meaning to things, why even do anything?' You thought this and yet, your naive mind still lied to you that you cared. That you cared about others' problems, about your family... about your life. But you didn't... you just yearned for the idea of being able to do that.'

Michael fell silent, as he knew this as true. Longer ago he may have approached things with the naive optimism and kindness to want to help others and to care for everyone, but the truth about life, the knowledge of how people acted in the time in society that he was born and grew in, it all chipped away at him. Cynicism replaced his insides wrapped in thin wires of nihilism, leaving his previous views on how he wanted to live life as only a fading crust coating his outer being.

'What a joke. I told these people I cared about what happened to their world and I wanted better for them, I wanted to help ensure that, yet, how can I help them all... if I couldn't even help myself. I told myself I could find a way back home to my family, yet was I even thinking there was a point to trying and go back? To go back to that world of constant selfish conflict, where we slaughtered one another as bad as beasts would one another.'

The young man knew his genuine feelings, to his unspoken ones, for a long time he felt like there wasn't one. He simply existed now in this void and for a few moments, he was genuinely enjoying the finality of it all, the stagnant stillness, until a new realization creeped back from his mind, aided by his memory.

All the times he got to see his family members smile, all the times he shared laughs and tough moments with his friends or his younger sister, all the times he reminisced about a struggle he had, as he eventually managed to overcome, if not entirely, at least mostly. All the small things he did were now adding up, the shows he enjoyed, the games he played, the conversations he had with actual pleasant people he met, all of these experiences had meaning only to him and many he was truly happy and proud of.

'There is no actual meaning to life in general, is there?'

'Maybe.'

'I am not truly dead, am I?'

'How could you tell, if that was true?'

'Because my heart wouldn't sting so hard from how much I yearn to go back, it wouldn't hurt... I wouldn't feel this. I wouldn't want to go back to see it through.'

'Even if you could, what is the point of that? In the end, it will all still be for nothing. Life has no purpose, but to be and then to stop being.'

'Maybe. Still, even if life in general doesn't have a purpose, I get to choose the meaning of my own life! WHAT IT MEANS TO ME! My short and insignificant life... it has meaning to me, all the small things... THEY HAVE MEANING TO ME! IT IS THE ONE THING I CAN TRULY CALL MINE AND I DECIDE IF IT IS IMPORTANT... If not to anyone else, to myself it is. The one thing I get to cherish even if it's hard to be alive, even if it is pain to be alive, I decide if all I experienced meant something to me.'

Michael could feel himself breath, he could feel warmth and even a dull pain growing stronger.

'Death. I have a new purpose.'

'Which is?'

'To enjoy my life with all the bitterness and sweetness it has for me and to defy you to the end of it.'

'I will still have you, regardless.'

'Maybe, but you don't get to have my life. I will spend it and enjoy it as I may and you will only have me. When it is time to embrace you, I will do so with a shit eating grin, because you will not have one moment from my time to feast on, for you only get to be the end of life, but not in the middle of its path!'

The voice fell silent and as Michael spent just one more moment in the darkness of nonexistence, his eyes slowly got opened by stray sun rays that licked as eyelashes, the warmth of them, dancing on his cheek. His breath released an exhale as it then drew in a fresh bit of air, slowly coming to an even pace. His eyes stared at the ceiling of his hut and he could feel his legs and right arm pulsing with sharp pain. He could feel the wool blanket on him warm his body up and his fur covered straw bed under his back. A big smile slowly crept on his expression, one of relief as he then broke into a light hearted laugh, the corners of his eyes spilling thin strands of tears down the sides of his face like dew.

"Fuck... t-that hurts." Michael said through the tired laugh that left his quivering lips, yet the laugh itself was warm, gleeful... one could even say... full of life.