There had been dark. For how long I had no understanding, for memory only lightly touches upon it. But it had saved me from the experience of the fall, one that would have broken my mind. Death by gunshot had been far, far more preferable. My body plunged ever downwards, into the mists and beyond, all unknown to me.

Then there had been a flash of light, bright, searing. I felt my body shudder, convulse at the touch of it, coursing through every part of me.

No longer was I falling. No longer was I out in the mists, plummeting down the long drop.

Confusion was my first response, all thoughts jumbled and mixed. Flashes of visions and memories came, of many things from throughout my life, not a one in any order that made sense.

My sense of being, of who I was came back only slowly. I had to struggle for it, to fight through the memories until I could focus on the core, of me, of Marcus Stone. It was a battle, of clawing forward with fingernails, trying to piece together broken fragments, like a mirror shattered into a million parts that won't show the whole until at last it is all back together. I clung on through sheer will, as to slip for a moment was to lose all sanity. To do so would have seem me dissipate away, into nothing. It could have lasted a moment. It could have lasted a lifetime. I had no way of telling.

It was the hardest thing I'd ever been through, even if I could not remember most of it.

When at last I returned to myself, I was laying down and all around me was the bright, warming glow of flames. A steady click-clack came to my ears.

I sat up.

I was in some kind of round chamber of grey stone, one with a domed roof above me A ring of candles surrounded me while beyond the circle of light, sitting on a stone bench, knitting away, was the Rag Lady.

Part of me was not entirely surprised by her presence there, even if I had no idea where there was.

"Where am I?"

"Where you are meant to be," she told me, still knitting her mismatched article of clothing. It may have been a sock. I was not entirely sure. "Where you belong. In Spire."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Wasn't I...?" I started. "Didn't I...?"

"Die?"

I nodded slowly.

The knitting stopped. The Rag Lady set her knitting down on the bench beside her before standing up. She started to walk towards me. As she stepped into the circle of light, between the candles, she changed, flowing from her old look into a new one.

No longer was she clad in clothes of patches that I had been used to seeing. Instead she wore a flowing dress of rich red velvet. Her appearance had changed as well. Gone was the old woman. In its place was a young one, with flowing dark hair and a luminescent beauty that almost hurt to look upon.

"Who are you?" I managed to ask, taken aback by the change.

"I am the same person that I have ever been."

"Why the illusion then?"

She raised a hand free of any blemish and looked upon it. "This, now this is the illusion. A remembrance of what was. Of what I was. Of what we were." She extended her hands towards me. I took it. The hand felt real enough to me, warm and firm as flesh should be.

Still holding my hand, she led me out of the circle of candles and as she did, she returned to her original appearance, that of the Rag Lady.

My hand slipped from her grasp. Or rather it slipped through it. A cold chill ran through my body and I felt light headed, as if I would drift away if I didn't pay any attention to staying on the ground.

I raised my hands and stared at them. Stared through them. I could see right through them. They were translucent. Ghostly. As was the rest of my body.

I had died then. And I had come back.

I was surprisingly calm about the realisation. When you die, the worst that can happen is already over with. To return is something of a bonus. I had never expected to be one of the Departed, let alone as a ghost.

"This is who you are now," the Rag Lady told me.

"How?" I asked, still staring at the ground through my hands.

"You were not finished with yet."

I reached out with a hand and made a grab for one of the candles, as an experiment. It passed right through it. "I am not sure what good I can do like this. A body would have been of more use."

A low laugh came from the Rag Lady. "You are taking all of this remarkably calmly. A body is not necessarily required. You will find this of more use and there are ways and means that you will discover to circumvent any such restrictions."

"Fair enough. You said that I was not finished with yet. By whom? You? Is this about the debt that I still owe you"

"Our debts still remain, Mister Stone, but I am not responsible for this. I am merely a guide, provided to help you through the change that has come to you. No, another has need of you, if you but put your mind to it to discover who."

"You are referring to the city itself, to Spire, aren't you?" I had not considered the option until I had said it, but the moment I did, I knew how right I was. It explained much that I hadn't realised earlier, hadn't figured out.

The Rag Lady laughed again. "Yes. At last you have the truth of the matter, the one that you have long stumbled around."

"It took some doing, I must admit. What is it that the city wishes of me?"

"That I do not know. But it will be interesting to find out, will it not?"

And that it was.