The last thing I remember was climbing the stairs to my third-floor office.

My new physician, a young woman with suspiciously inflated lips, had insisted that I needed to exercise more, to shed some weight. 'Take the stairs, it's good for you,' she said.

I was 95 percent sure she had just killed me.

I remembered feeling tired, pushing through up the flight of stairs, then the insane chest pressure, then blackness, then….this?

I was laying on my back, surrounded by lush grass and colorful strange flowers. Birds serenaded from above and the sun's warmth caressed my skin. Normal, in many ways, hadn’t it been for the fact it was winter when I woke up that morning. Oh, and the two twin moons dominating the sky.

I sat up and looked around, noticing I was sitting in the exact middle of a circular clearing. Ringing me were identical-looking pine trees, unnaturally symmetrical as if they were planted with surgical precision, even the boles had the same heights.

There was only one logical explanation.

I was dead. Kaput. Expired. Checked out.

I stood up and looked around, feeling good, way too good…. None of the normal back, neck, head, and joint pains I’d gotten used to in my fifties. Everything was clearer and more vibrant as if I was inside a colorful children’s book.

Glancing down, I was surprised to see that the ground seemed closer than normal. A sizable belly obstructed my line of sight - that in itself wasn't unusual. The startling part, however, was the long, intricately braided beard resting on it.

My hands looked enormous, calloused, with fingers as thick as sausages, cloaked in dark brown hair and ending in thick yellow nails. It was a sight that catapulted me into full panic mode for the first time, but certainly not the last. I attempted to scream and run in a random direction, but my feet felt as though they were encased in huge blocks of concrete. So, I defaulted to the next best thing during a panic attack: I began to hyperventilate. I would have given anything for a brown paper bag to breathe into at that moment. Why was I still capable of getting tired if I was dead? And what on earth had happened to my body? A mirror or anything with a reflective surface was urgently needed.

Standing there, panting heavily, drenched in sweat, and emanating a smell that suggested something had died, I tried to remember what I'd learned from the only Yoga class I had ever attended. Inhale deeply through the nose, draw the breath all the way down into the belly, and slowly exhale through the mouth.

Once I had the panic under control, I surveyed my surroundings again. Directly in front of me was an opening in the forest, a dirt path leading away from the meadow. Why hadn’t I seen it earlier?

I started hauling my heavy feet through the dense woodland. The road, like the trees, was perfectly symmetrical, and it looked as if I was the first man - or whatever I had waken up as - to walk it, another thing that didn’t make sense. I had to be dead.

In my mind, I painted a picture of St. Peter stationed up the road behind his lectern, ready to cast judgment on the newly deceased. I kept walking, but no gates appeared. Nothing changed. It was as if I was on a treadmill, remaining stationary despite my steps. The landscape, the trees, the road - everything seemed to loop continuously, like an eerily silent, unchanging conveyor belt.

“Hay there!” A voice boomed ahead, startling me out of the mundane walking. Besides a small cart, like the ones horses used to pull back in the ol’ days, stood a crooked man, dressed in a cape and a pointy hat. I couldn’t see any horse.

“Here, here, come, come!” The man said with a surprisingly deep voice that didn’t match his small frame, waving me forward. I hesitantly approached the old man, who looked like a Cosplayer lost in the forest.

“Eh, hi?” I said and reached out my hand to greet him.

The old man jumped back and raised both his arms.

“No! Please, I am a friend,” he said, staring at my outstretched hand with wide-open eyes.

I mirrored the old man and put my hands up.

“Sorry, I just wanted to greet you.”

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“Greetings we did, younglings. No reason to present me the combat hand.”

“I…” I started but changed my mind. “... I’m sorry.”

“No worries, no worries. Please, sit down on this log with me. I will make you some hot delicious tea.”

I did as told and sat down on the log that was strangely clean, and also the only fallen tree I had seen; almost as if it was placed there for me to sit on, like I was in a huge theater set. I suddenly got a flashback to the movie Bruce Almighty.

“Do you know where you're at, youngling?” The strange man asked when he handed me a wooded cup with green liquid that smelled like death.

“Tim, please,” I said.

“No, there's not such a place in Highland,” the old man said, grinning.

“Tim is my name, not Youngling.” I was starting to get annoyed with the stranger sitting next to me. “And why am I in Scotland?”

“Scotland? No, Mr. Tim. This is Highland. And I am Merlin.”

I stood up and smiled at him.

“Let me guess, you are a wizard?”

“How did you know? Are you a wizard too?”

“Is this some intricate practical joke?” I looked around, waiting to see some familiar faces jumping out from behind the trees, laughing their pants off.

“Kidding? No, I am certainly not. This is nothing to joke about.”

I opened my mouth to say something but shut it again.

“Mr. Tim, I know this is new and strange to you, but if you let me, I will tell you why you are here, and your purpose in this lovely land. But first, take a sip of the drink, it’s good for you.”

I did as he said and took a sip, somehow trusting this man claiming to be a wizard. The tea tasted a mix of motor oil and manure, or at least what I imagined that combination would taste like.

Then an intense and sudden warmth spread through my body, washing away any fatigue I had felt after the long walk.

“Thanks. What is it?” I said.

“It’s a drink of energy,” Merlin said.

It didn’t taste remotely like Battery or Monster, but I did feel more energized.

“Do you have a mirror,” I asked.

“Yes, indeed. But before I present you with yourself, I need to tell you something that will dampen the shock. OK?”

“Shock?”

“Yes, please humor me, Mr. Tim.”

I shrugged. “Only Tim...”

“Good. As I told you, this is Highland. The first area of Purgatory. A place between your earthly self and the final destination. Look at Purgatory as your final test, Mr. Tim. There is no wrong outcome, but if you want to return to the earthly life you have to beat…” He looked around before he came closer, so close that I could smell his horrible breath through my own dead-body-odor, and whispered “The Harbinger of Eternal Doom.”

He said the name as if it was written in bold. Like someone talking about Thanatos or Voldemort.

“So I have to beat someone to come back to life?”

“Yes, Mr. Tim.”

“Great! Show me where he is so I can kick his ass and return home!”

“HA HA HA, no no no, you wouldn’t last a fraction of a second, Mr. Tim. You are not nearly the same level as HIM.”

“HIM?”

“Yes..” He came close again and whispered “…The Harbinger of Eternal Doom.”

“OK? So what do I have to do to beat HIM?”

“I cannot tell you that. What I can tell you is how to survive in the Highlands.”

“OK? And when can I go to HIM?”

“I don’t know, but you have to be at a much higher level.”

“So this is kinda like an RPG?”

“An arpegee? I am afraid I don’t know this word, Mr. Tim.”

“It’s a Role playin.. You know what? Let me guess, you have a quest for me?”

“Yes! Indeed I have Mr. Tim! You are a smart youngling. I do have a quest for you. It’s not a dangerous quest, but it’s in many ways the most important quest you will ever undertake. Here, take this.”

Merlin gave me an empty brown satchel, like the ones they used in old Western movies, strapped to horses.

“This is yours to keep now. In itself, it does no good. It’s a carrier of fluid, and the most important fluid in Highland is..”

“Water!” I hollered.

“No, Mr. Tim. Please let me finish. The most important fluid is aqua-vita. It will heal your wounds, return your stamina and make you feel stronger.”

“So it’s a healing potion?”

“Yes, indeed, it will heal you. But to make it, I need you to gather flowers called Vitum. You will only find them in lush biomes.” Merlin bent down next to the log and pulled a red flower looking very much like a tulip. I remembered seeing it in the clearing where I woke up. “Here, take this, Mr. Tim. But you need more. To make aqua-vita you need to mix ten of these together with water.

“So this is a gathering quest?”

“Yes indeed. A quest to gather the Vitum flower. It’s all around us, so you shouldn’t have to wander far.”

I looked at Merlin for a long time. This was probably the result of me lying in a coma at some random hospital because of my bad insurance, having spent too much of my life playing role-playing games online, and devouring unhealthy food.

“OK, I accept the quest!” I said and shot my hand toward Merlin again. Merlin screamed and stumbled over the log, falling on his back, only his sandals sticking up.

“Sorry! I…It’s a way of greeting we do back on earth.” I said and helped him up.

“It’s OK. I am fine, Mr. Tim. But please remember that you are not on Earth anymore. There are other rules here, and the most important rule is that if you die, you will go to your final resting place.

“Heaven?”

“I am not a judge of that, Mr. Tim. But since you are here, there are probably reasons for it, and I would recommend trying your best to survive for as long as you can.”

“So this is hardcore?”

“Hard core, like this?” Merlin said and knocked his slim fingers on the log.

“No…OK. I am going to pluck some flowers now!”

“Before you do, you need this,” Merlin said and gave me a long wooden stave. “This is only to protect yourself on the rare occasion you are attacked. But if you don’t wander too far off, these forests don’t have any enemies. But do not attack any living creatures you see, you are still too weak to fight.”

“OK, I understand, that’s the next quest, right?”

“No. The next quest is… Well, I cannot tell you the next quest until you have successfully completed this. Now, off you go. I will be standing here, waiting for your return.”