Damien woke up naked and sore, face down in the grass. Weird, his last memories were of hiking. He vividly recalled how he had just finished an arduous 20-mile route and had encountered only scenic views and prolonged quietude in the snowy Albertan forests. It was peaceful. It was when he had left the forest and had crossed into a busy nearby street to head home, that a rusty 2003 Toyota Corolla that had gone runaway madly swerving down the road started barreling towards him. He remembered himself being briefly overcome with a shock, like a deer caught in headlights, as the vehicle blurred towards himself and milliseconds became minutes. As his stunned eyes glanced at the driver's visage he saw she was a middle-aged woman, sobbing to the extent makeup trailed down her distraught face, but what Damien most vividly recalled, was the manic glint in her eyes, as if nothing mattered anymore. Damien snapped out of shock as it neared him as he forced his exhausted body to dodge. Memories of lucid pain assailed his consciousness, as he recollected the impact from the vehicle clipped him in his side, cracking his ribs and sending him flying. His last memories were of a rapidly approaching Lodgepole pine tree as pain clouded his mind, and then everything went black.
Eyes wide, breath ragged, and heart-pounding, Damien shuddered as he lay on the ground in a cold sweat.
He clutched his ribs and neck in unstable panic. Even thinking about the memory made Damien flinch and twitch, something he would usually never see himself doing.
No, no way. He must be going delusional?
Calming himself down, he steadied his breath and loosened his grip on his ribs and neck. Paling, he noted how oddly sore, but undeniably uninjured, they felt.
It's not possible, right? He was still here, he was still breathing.
Racking his brain for answers, his thoughts came to a sudden standstill as he looked around.
The sky was a cool shade of grey, filled with wispy silk-like clouds that overcast rolling fields of lustrous black grass. The grassland's breeze of crisp chilly winds carried with it scents of musky-earth and rotting foliage as it subtly swayed the vast sea of charcoal grass. It reminded him of childhood school trips to collect maple sap in the Fall, of simpler and easier times. If there was sound other than the low hum of the grass rustled by the breeze, his ears were not sensitive enough to pick up on it. There was no sun, nor source of light for that matter, and yet the place was suffused with a pale twilight glow that made it look all the more unreal. There was no discernible end to the fields upon fields of dark grass nor the endless ashen skies, just more of the beautiful albeit dreary same. The view was as if a sorrowful master painter had crafted their magnum opus vignette of only black, white, and various shades of grey in such a subtle concordance of colour words alone would never describe its profound bleakness.
"Am I... am I dead?" Damien shakily drawled out.
Almost as if in response to his question, the monochromatic sky buffeted Damien with a particularly strong gale. Unperturbed if not emboldened by the draft of air that had blasted at his bare body, Damien leveled his gaze on the enrapturing view before him.
Oddly enough, Damien couldn't find it within himself to stay despaired over what was undeniably his death. Nor feel malice towards the woman who had killed him in her apparent distress. He guessed it had to do with this place's natural and yet unnatural beauty, and the calming atmosphere the strange dichotomy produced. He had spent his life climbing mountains and biking trails for moments like this, times when he could take solace in the embrace of solitude in scenic views away from the sting of painful memories.
Damien's lips quirked upwards. Yes, he wouldn't mind all that much an eternity spent here.
Curios, Damien ripped some of the jet black grass out the soil and massaged it in his calloused hands. Not surprised, he sighed.
Same as usual.
Unwilling to dwell on bad memories any longer, Damien opted to simply forget his worries and bask in the miraculous view. He lazed silently for hours on end, coming upon an engrossed trance as if nothing but this singular place and moment existed.
He had found his Nirvana.
***
It was roughly three hours later that a dot appeared on the horizon. It moved like a bullet through the sea of grass, homing in on Damien's position like a God-guided arrow.
Watching the rapidly approaching Dog? No, person. Damien frowned.
Like a student would slam off their alarm to savor a few more minutes of sleep, Damien wanted to ignore their presence as long as possible. Yet in the same manner, a parent would gradually raise the volume of their rousing yell, the ever-increasing visibility of the individual was a single creeping blemish on an otherwise pristine painting.
His peace had come to an end.
Cautiously, he watched the reaper-- no, sharply dressed woman-- as she approached. She casually bounded towards him at speeds that would put Usain Bolt to shame. Damien mentally prepared himself in case this was how it would all end, truly this time.
Damien warily evaluated the woman as she settled before him.
Her charcoal-gray eyes shone with glee as they locked with the abyss black of Damien's. Her smiling face was pale--deathly so-- and softly featured in such a way Damien could not tell her ethnicity. Her wide mouth was glossed over in a gothic black and set in a thin grin that spoke of relief. However, her hair was silvery-white, like an elderly woman's, yet her exuberant face and luxuriant hair suggested she was in her prime mid-twenties, if not younger. Her glowing locks cascaded down from her face into immaculate greek braids that lead into a bun just below her sable black fedora. She was tall, lanky, and wore a finely-tailored buttoned business suit that was as onyx black as the slacks and fedora she donned. She wore nondescript sneakers that were soaking wet-- though she didn't seem to mind-- and softly clutched a pair of shiny black heels in her hands.
Her lips pursed into a professional smile as Damien cooly regarded the woman that had been rushing him at superhuman speeds a few seconds prior. He made a mental note of how she seemed not at all breathless by her unnatural display, nor aware of how odd and worrying it would be for someone to see a deathly pale woman sprinting at them faster than a hungry Cheetah.
Or rather, as Damien shrewdly noted, that was her intention. After all, what better way to establish a position of power in whatever purpose she had for approaching him other than make a blatant display of how utterly beyond his ability she was.
The woman expectantly stood before Damien, obviously refusing to initiate and wanting him to acknowledge his lack of both power and understanding in this situation by initiating the conversation. Unfortunately for her-- Damien darkly thought to himself-- he spent his life being forced to deal with people like her and couldn't give half a shit.
Damien gave her a raised eyebrow and apathetic glance before he refocused on the horizon. The woman's smile twitched then faltered as her face contorted in confusion.
"Aren't you anxious at all, you're dead?" She inquired, her voice high and steady. With his side-eye, Damien noted how head slightly tilted left as she spoke, the woman's eyes focusing in on him in the process like a hawk eyeing their prey.
Damien almost shivered but hid his anxiety behind a relaxed front as he nonchalantly shrugged.
"It is what it is," Damien calmly replied. "If I can't do anything to change the fact that I'm dead, then it would be stupid to stress over it. Now is there a reason you're obstructing my view?"
She gawked at him.
The deathly pale woman seemed simultaneously miffed, surprised, and confused. Narrowing her eyes at him, she suddenly paused in thought, looked around at the scenery, and seemingly only now took in its unnaturalness.
She gave Damien a perplexed glare when she turned back. The woman stared at him in silence for an awkward dozen seconds that Damien politely chose to not say anything about. Instead, he attempted to subtly end the conversation with more silence a turned head.
Damien's heart skipped a beat when she spontaneously broke out in laughter. She laughed seemingly not at himself, or herself, but some inside joke Damien was not in on.
It sounded like a dying bird.
Her laughter slowly winded down as her lips resettled into a thin smile, albeit this time accompanied with the hint of a slight smirk.
"It's a bit ironic you know, you just said that you can't do anything about your death. Well, that's not exactly true, cause that's what I'm here to talk about, so let's get to business. By the way, can you at least get up? It's rude to laze on the ground while someone is speaking to you," She asked.
Waiting for Damien to get up, the woman took off her sneakers and slotted her feet into her heels as she hummed an odd tune. Damien did not spare a comment on how the sneakers she took off soon dispersed into motes of black light. Today had been strange enough as is, a bit more mystery is just more to ruminate on once she left.
He sighed and hauled himself up. Despite Damien's abrasive tendencies It only made sense to not overly annoy the strange superhuman woman that and he had already obtained some useful information from her reaction to his first stunt.
Clearly she couldn't use force to persuade him, or rather would prefer not to.
Damien stretched, feeling a few satisfying cracks ring out, he had sat down for hours after all. It would seem a replica of one's physical body-- or at least the illusion of one-- stays with you in death. Damien thought it made sense to an extent. In most of the fictional renditions of an afterlife or underworld he had seen, authors would often keep the physical body the same. Though whether that was because of some hidden insight, creative liberty, or authors just being too lazy to establish a whole new sense of reality and character interaction, he would never know.
"You do realize that you're-- mister you're a really interesting guy. You're not even the tiniest bit embarrassed," she said as her eyes drifted downwards.
Damien stood naked and stone-faced her as the sharply-dressed woman before him contently smiled. She blatantly appraised his physique and nether regions like a Lion checking out prey. Damien, silent as a mouse, mentally classified her into the 'creep' category as he somewhat angrily internally questioned the series of events that had lead to this moment.
However, despite the discomfort, Damien had to admit he was a bit proud. In life, he had dedicated time far beyond the casual to training. After all, he had to be prepared if he was too do hazardous things like free solo climbing, and wingsuit base jumping, among other hobbies that to most seemed suicidal, but to him just began to get his blood pumping. Damien did not doubt that had he spent a second less preparing, he would not have survived all the crazy endeavours he put his body through. So he indifferently held his calloused hands on his hips, he had earned this well-toned figure, and wouldn't be flustered like some awkward teenager at showing it off.
Still, there was something wrong with the woman for still ogling him the way she was. He glared daggers at her until she reneged her gaze. Then she sheepishly laughed. What, did Reapers have a fetish for the recently deceased or something?
Then again, based on how confidently she swaggered up to Damien before being set on the back foot by his antics, he bet he wasn't exactly what she was expecting either.
She cleared her throat and placed her left hand in her pocket and continued her spiel nonplussed.
"You know, this whole conversation has been super out the norm so far. Usually, when I meet people, I arrive a lot sooner, and at first, it's really not much of a conversation. I mean, it makes sense they'd still be a bit unsettled, but still, people do all sorts of things. Generally, they either pray, break down, go crazy, or even just plead with me to send them back. Oh yeah, sometimes they even put on a brave face, but the moment everything sinks in: they panic," She ranted on. "Of course, there are a few calm people too. they do things like meditate, recite scripture like I'm the devil, or stare out into nothingness. But you, you're different. Yeah sure, I can definitely tell you're putting up a cool facade, but that's not it, or at least all of it is it. You know most people's souls don't last this long before they succumb to this place, and yet when I reached you you seemed like a Barn owl in its nest. I dunno, guess it's just been so long since someone like you ended up here, I ended up rambling a bit. My bad mister."
Succumbing to this place?
Damien slightly stiffened as the gears in his head ramped into overdrive. So this is all normal for most, and if you spend too long here, something happens to your soul or spirit or whatever. Filing the information away, he opted to nod at her. Best he to not interrupt her rant and play listener for now: easy information.
"Now mister, whether that ends up being a good thing or a bad thing is the more interesting part," She brightly said as she clapped her hands together. "Now let's get on to business," She said as she revealed a large gold coin within her palm.
Seemingly zoning out, Damien focused on a particular group of clouds in the distance. It reminded him of a leaping stag, its crown antlers of spectral white that melded like pudge with the landscape's ethereal atmosphere.
"What I'm offering you is the chance to revive and--" she stopped mid spiel as she saw Damien walking away.
Flustered, she grabbed his naked shoulder with a grip so firm it shocked Damien, then again with the speed she was running at she might have been able to break his shoulder with some effort.
"Listen up, if you run off your soul will eventually erode until its capable of leaving this place, and keep in mind, even I have no idea what happens from there. But what I can offer you is control over your fate: the opportunity to revive yourself." She said, this time with an edge to her voice.
The gambit had some payoff.
Despite her abilities, despite her not knowing or having anything to do with him, and Despite the woman wanting him to accept this sketchy agreement. She still rather Damien willingly accept her deal.
In all honesty, she might have purely benign intentions. Yet, that doesn't change how much this sounds like some sorta soul binding deal with the devil. So now the question is, what does she have to gain?
Damien paused and looked her dead in the eye, cold discerning steel to his gaze.
She painfully sighed and continued.
"What I can offer you is an entry into the Tartarus Trials. An admittedly chaotic place where it's possible to pay for anything, even another chance at life. But, as you can expect, it's not nearly that simple," She sincerely said.
"You'll have to complete all sorts of missions, like participating in historical conflicts and accomplishing mythological quests. By completing them, you can pay for equipment and even unnatural abilities, with the penultimate prize being a revival," She brightly said before her tone turned dour. "But that doesn't change the fact that you're not some prophecized protagonist outlined to succeed by some cliched author. Death is always a possibility, no matter how powerful, skilled, or well-equipped you become, there's always a bigger fish. Crazily enough, with all the fantastically places a mission may take you, an actual 'bigger fish' might be something you would have to go up against. And don't think dying there is the same as your soul progressing here, there are real consequences for trying to change your fate."
Damien impassively regarded her. His eyes looked uninterested, but his mind was running a hundred miles a minute.
It would make sense to just accept his fate. After all, when he had first come here, he was content in a way he hadn't been in a long time. That and just leaving it all behind. All his mistakes gone. The countless poor experiences being completely forgotten about. And all the obligations null.
Despite all the reasons to ignore the woman-- and Damien could keep on coming up with more-- he already knew what choice he was going to make. Despite all the bad memories, the idea of losing all the good ones was off the table especially since it would mean forgetting this place and all the other amazing moments...
Fuck that.
And the sites, without a doubt, would be just as unreal as where he was now. It was worth whatever hell his soul would be sent to if he failed, she need not say more.
But if he was doing this, and he without a doubt he was doing this, then he would do it intelligently.
Gather information, make predictions, execute to the dot.
Ending his internal marathon, Damien gazed at the calming atmosphere for one scant second until he offered the deathly pale woman a raised eyebrow.
"What else can you tell me, and what do you gain from me agreeing?" Damien almost demanded.
She cast him an annoyed glare as she reluctantly answered.
"Sadly, I can't tell you much more than I've already told you. Nor what I gain from this. However, I can give you one piece of essential advice. Though from what I can gather of your personality. You're probably the type of person to have already realized this. Don't trust anyone! Everyone else there will also have a motivation strong enough to risk a fate worse than death, so being moral and fair is low on their list of priorities," She grimly said. "The Tartarus Trials are not like anything you've experienced before, you make one mistake, and it's over."
Damien held back a chuckle. If anything, it's ironic that Damien had been done in by a car accident of all things, despite putting himself in more danger every week than most people did in their entire lifetime.
Done digressing and not the least bit dissuaded, he decided to probe to see if she truly could not tell him anymore or if she was lying. After all, she just said it herself: don't trust anyone.
"I see. Can I at least assume there are others in these trials, people who went through something similar and got the same offer?"Wade inquired. He knew the answer to his question from what he had gathered from their conversation so far. But he wanted to see if she would repeat herself, and maybe give something up in the process.
She sighed and replied.
"I can understand you would want to get all the information out of me you can; it's sensible even. But Keep in mind, every second here is a second your personality and memories are chipped away at. I've already answered your question and that's all I can tell you," She droned out as if she had said the phrase hundreds of times before.
Disappointed but not deterred, Damien knew when someone absolutely would say nothing else. After all, he was often like that himself. But still, the fact that she is so straightforward about how little she could tell him rather than deflect the question as a whole spoke volumes and even caused Damien to consider if their conversation was being recorded or watched somehow.
"Well suppose I were to agree to undertake these Trials, how would it all occur?" Damien said.
Her thin smile returned as she offered the large gold coin to Damien.
"Don't be too surprised," She said.
Damien apprehensively took the coin. He eyed it for a second until he realized it was not a normal coin at all. He somewhat recognized the unique design. It was a Drachma, a sort of currency from ancient Greece, though it was in no way a normal one.
It was gleaming what to Damien's sense was pure gold, about the size of a chocolate chip cookie, and had intricate inscriptions on both sides. One side bore the design of a hooded man in robes holding an oar as he rowed a skiff across a misty river. On the other side, there was a hellish looking gate that bore a single flaming eye in its center.
What was he supposed to do with this?
As if in response to his question, something appeared in front of him. It looked like a silver touch screen but was opaque enough for Damien to simultaneously focus on it, and see the sharply-dressed woman, sporting a slight grin, behind it. It floated in the air disembodied, and when Damien moved his head, it followed. His hand reached out to grab it, the screen shimmered as his fingers passed straight through.
----------------------------------------
Will you undertake the challenge of the Tartarus Trials?
There is no turning back.
[Yes] / [No]
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Did he seriously want to do this? This could go wrong in a dozen ways, and by now, he was ninety-ninety percent sure the woman could not be trusted.
And yet he had already gone through the rounds in his head and knew this was what he, no his soul, wanted.
"Just think yes while focusing on the screen," She enthusiastically said, a bit of her former pep now creeping into her voice.
"I see..." Damien intoned, as he impassively eyed the woman one last time. He searched for any dishonesty, any hint of ill intent he could find, and found only sincerity-- which he was sure was a facade-- but as he soon realized, the mask was the type one would wear while conducting a tightly regulated business deal. Which despite his cold lack of trust, and even colder expression, he appreciated.
Still, if he refused the deathly pale woman might have just been confident in using her superhuman abilities to squash him like a human would an ant.
Sighing, Damien thought an experimental 'Yes' before the box disappeared.
Damien questioned if he had gone mad for a moment before dark ooze started pouring out from the Drachma. The viscous liquid flooded over and around him in a dark cocoon. The deeply colored liquid had quickly submerged him foot first as it trailed up his body.
She exhaled a sigh of relief as Damien's glare bore into her.
"Oh, and if you survive orientation, ask for a Ferryman named Aernea. Now I would say good luck to the most abrasive client I've had in a decade, but it wouldn't be able to save you. Have a nice unlife," She hastily said, a mischievous smirk donning her deathly-pale face.
Damien ignored her remarks, he instead stole one final glance at the shifting grey sky as the dark waters inched over his composed face. The last thing he saw was a particularly odd group of clouds that bore a striking resemblance to a crescent moon.
Damien Martins felt truly cold-- for the first time in a long time-- as everything became black.