You didn't see it coming, death that is.

DESTINATION: And I was somewhere else. It was like remembering something profound that I'd forgotten. I'd seen this before.

Life had been hell lately, true, but not in any way that would have prepared you for the end.

AGREEMENT: Huge creatures filled my perception.

As the pain ebbed, you wondered for a moment, "Would anyone really miss me? When will they find my body, rotting in my locker?"

TRAJECTORY: It was hard to say how I knew they were two different creatures, when each of them existed in multiple parallel spaces all at once. Countless mirror moved in sync with one another, each occupying the same space, just as solid as the others, differing in how they moved and the worlds they interacted with. Each of them folded, unfolded, expanded and shifted without taking more or less space. I couldn't wrap my head around it, even as I felt there was something like a pattern there.

Some distant part of me realized I'd seen something similar to that folding and unfolding once, in a much simpler form. A tesseract, a fourth dimensional analogue to the cube. The difference was that while the cube had six flat faces, each 'side' of the tesseract had six cubes, each connected to the others another at each corner. To perceptions attuned to three dimensions, it seemed to constantly shift, each side folding or reshaping so that they could all simultaneously be perfect cubes, and each 'side' was simultaneously the center cube from which all the others extended outward.

You had always thought the phrase "my life flashed before my eyes" was nothing but an exaggeration, but as everything faded away the last 24 hours kept running through your head.

INTERUPTED: The primary difference between these things and the tesseract was that these beings I was looking at were alive, and they weren't simple models I was viewing on a computer screen. They were living entities, lifeforms. There wasn't anything I could relate to any biology I knew or understood, nothing even remotely recognizable, but they were undoubtedly alive. They were enigmas of organs that were also limbs and also the exteriors of the creatures, each simultaneously some aspect of the entity as it flowed through empty space. It didn't help that the things were the size of small planets, and the scope of my perceptions was so small. It helped even less that parts of them seemed to move in and out of the other dimensions or realities where the mirror images were.

The pair started in sync, spiraling around one another in what I realized was a double helix, but off somehow. Each revolution brought them further and further apart, but unevenly. Innumerable motes drifted from their bodies as they moved, leaving thick trails of shed tissues or energies painting the void of empty space in the wake of their spiraling dance, as though they were made of a vast quantity of sand and they were flying against a gale force headwind.

"What could I have changed, what could I have done differently?"

You remember every mocking word from Madison, every time Sophia had tripped or hit you, every time that Emma, poor sweet innocent Emma, had used something you told her to tear you down. Even just going over the last day you lost count after 20…

RE-CONNECT: When they were too far away to see one another, they communicated, and each message was enormous and violent in scope, expressed with the energy of a star going supernova. One 'word', one idea, for each message.

You remember the gym room locker, smelling it and slowly opening it in dread. Seeing the filth before you, and feeling the hand on your back as Sophia pushed you in. Hearing her whisper to you, "And another weak prey bites the dust."

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CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHED: You saw a mote miss you then turn around until it took up all your sight. The mote touched you.

In your memory, you see yourself turning, seeing the snarling smile on Sophia's face as she closes the door, trapping you in filth.

ERROR: The mote… seemed to blink before freezing and just hovering above you. The pair did not notice the mote frozen in… indecision.

You see her hand fade away into shadows as she pulls back a moment while shutting the locker. Emma's voice drifts over, "You okay there, Hero?" Sophia's voice growls back at her as they walk away, "Yeah, just almost got cut by the loser's locker. Thankfully, I was able to avoid it."

Your thoughts are filled with mild outrage as you fade away, too exhausted for any more emotion. 'That bitch is a Ward!'

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DATA: The mote had never seen data like this before. Light was leaving its chosen host, but light with no source. Almost in a trance, it followed the light. And it saw a place of frozen RAGE. A place of STASIS.

A disconnected moment passes before you suddenly smell something still foul but different. 'Why do I smell… sulfur?'

It took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light differential. You were floating in a frozen wasteland. It felt like… cold death and… rage, pure burning rage. All around you were sharp frozen spikes of ice, shaped by the burning cold and sharp wind that howled around you.

'Weird, I didn't think I would still have eyes when I was dead.'

"Oh, you don't, little soul. You just expect to have eyes, and so you think you do. Why don't you look at yourself?" The dark voice that growled out made me spin in fright for a second but I could see nothing but ice around myself.

Somehow looking down to see nothing but a small wispy white orb was… an unnerving thing.

'WTF! Where is my… everything!?!?'

"Manners, little soul." The same dark voice growlingly crooned into my… ear? "Everything in time. Now, come closer to my prison."

'And that ice wall next to me is glowing with cold blue light. This is a great idea, getting closer to this. Not like I have alot of options, I guess.'

"No, no you do not."

Slowly drifting over to the ice wall, I saw a dark smudge deep inside of it that suddenly came into focus. A man was frozen inside of the ice, a huge unnerving grin stuck on his face.

'... is that you?'

"Indeed, child. You are currently beholding what remains of the plane of Stygia, and my wretched flesh. I was and am Levistus, the Lord of this place, trapped or not."

A moment of silence passes as I gaze upon him. 'Huh. That sucks.'

"...heh… haha… HAHAHAHA" The dark laughter ringing out from the icy prison before me caused the ground to crack and shake. "Yes, little one, this does indeed suck. But for the first time in an age I have hope. You are dead. Accept it and move on. But that does not mean you are trapped here..."

'I feel like I should be saying something along the lines of 'Get behind me devil'' I murmured in amusement. The pain and shock of the day had taken every fuck I had to give. There would be time to panic later.

"That would indeed be appropriate, as I was an Arch-devil and still am in many ways. I offer you a pact, kindred spirit that you are. I will aid you in your vengeance if you aid me in mine."

The very thought of vengeance inflamed my anger as everything I had suffered in the last day came raging again to the forefront of my thoughts.

'State your terms!' I shrieked at the devil before me, my ethereal voice echoing around me with an odd weight as the feeling of an insane smile radiated through me.

"By the authority granted to me by the Stygia and the Nine Hells, I decree this pact!

I will share your senses, I will share my power;

You will be clothed in frozen flesh, remade in Stygia's image!

You will pursue my vengeance, I will pursue your vengeance!

My wrath will be yours, my enemies your own;

Your rage will be mine, your enemies my own!

I declare you my daughter in spirit, my kindred in soul;

Until the Heavens fall and the Hells are unmade, let this pact stand!"

Everything around us stops as he speaks, chains of ice and shadow flowing from everything around until I am surrounded in a sphere of wispy frozen shadows.

"Do you agree to this pact, will you be remade my daughter?"

DATA: Best Host has located the source of STASIS. DATA has been offered.

'Yes!' As I shriek my acceptance, everything falls to darkness.

AGREEMENT: Data exchange initiated.