Dirty air; that was what you woke to upon your death. Dirty, polluted air. The room around you was dim and its walls were a dark blue. You were in a tub, the lower part of your body from the chest down submerged in a black, dense liquid. Something was lodged into both of your nostrils. Tubes. Were they helping you breathe? Or were they the source of the Sea-damned stench? Your hand reached in, with an intent to remove them, but it stopped mid-way, shackled. No. Wires ran from all over your limb to something behind you. Same with your other hand. Not shackles. If you applied enough force, they would more than likely separate from you entirely or be torn into two. They were still a problem but a bigger issue thrust itself into the storm’s eye at the moment. Your hands. Their skin. It was brown; not blue.

A second or septillion passed with you turning both of your hands back and forth, not quiet believing what you saw, before the dam broke.

“ZETA!!!” You called for your closest friend, trying to extricate yourself from the black goo.

The first attempt was a failure. The dense liquid kept you in place, giving you whiplash after a few moments of shaking your head and shoulders. The second attempt was much more forceful and herculean. Ripping off the wires from one hand and letting tiny droplets of red blood form on the spots where a complete severance had been made, you placed it on the edge of the metal tub at the other side, a few centimeters from your second hand, and pulled; legs and hips trying their best to push themselves out of the goo. It began to give way, letting your legs come up and move away from the bottom surface. Seeing the opening, you applied even more pressure, wrists turning red, and almost broke your back, the nerves in your lower body screaming, as brown skin threatened to slough off.

Sinking back down in a couple of seconds, you let out a heavy laugh, fast breaths cutting through it like a blunt saw as you reconsidered.

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“Zeta!” You yelled out again, hitting the tub’s edge with the still-wired hand. You know where he is, a voice said. Your voice. You know what happened to him, because of what you did.

“What…” you said, turning your head left and right, looking for a culprit. For someone you could blame or fight. No such luck.

You know.

“No.”

Remember? a laugh as discordant as your own; Remember the bridge?

Eyes closed up and hands over both of your ears, even the lobe you were not supposed to have, you tried to will it away. The voice just kept on laughing instead; getting louder instead of fading away, before it hit you. The more brute force you tried to use in the escape attempts, the harder the fluid became. Like normal water, whenever you came at it at speeds unfathomable and weren’t streamlined, only a septillion times worse. The surface would be a stone. The entirety of this viscous liquid would be a stone. It would keep a tight hold. There was only one recourse if you wanted out.

Total fluidity. A refusal to stagnate; to be rigid.

Again, your hand found the edge at the opposite side. Again it pulled. Only, you decided to merely float now instead of tossing yourself; instead of raging like a Leviathan. The dense liquid parted, letting out first your lower chest, stained in black, before your belly, before your abdomen. Slowly, you rose from it, crawling out of the metal tub, hands leaving the blunt edges to meet the tiled floor, mind remembering. The Sky-Elf who was to be your mentor, going for the attack. The Pocket System defending you, paying the price. His corpse, atop the bridge. Because of you... Because of me. Your feet were the last to leave the dreaded hell-water, standing on the tub’s edge before one fell forward, and the other slipped, and you let the ground have you. A second or septillion passed with you lying there, remembering his corpse, remembering so much more. Who you were; not Tolemvria Sitiso or Mackenzie Goldenblade, those were merely avatars you’d made, tools in your pursuit for vengeance—but who you really were. Destroyer of the [Achilleon] Dumastres. Apprentice of the Green [Hellion] Qiathumariel. Enemy of the Prime Hellion Mattheus... Father of the God-Path Treader Nathalie. Her vengeance. You were Nathaniel Oheritas, the Amber Hellion, and there was work still needed to be done. So, mind unencumbered, you let yourself rise.