Drifting in darkness, slowly moving to where I don't know. Doesn't really matter since I'm dead, or something close to it. When I first found myself here I was relieved, no more sickness, no more pain. No more people around me watching with worry and sympathy. After a time of general relief and happiness. Slowly the awareness crept on me. Then came panic, I can't feel, I can't see. Which lead to questions like, Where am I? what's around me?

After sometime had past I finally calmed down. Dead, I must be dead. This is afterlife or the gateway to it maybe. Since religion never was something I had believed in, other questions started to pop up. Is there an afterlife fore someone like me. A paradise with more beer then you can drink and the party never stops. More likely this was just a long dark tunnel going down. My soul slowly falling, making its way to the bottom. And we all know what they say is at the bottom. Fire and brimstone for an eternity with some half-goat madman with daddy issues. Slowly roasting souls in some sick barbecue for his own amusement. All My senses removed since I no longer have a body. Still I know that I am moving slowly toward something. What it is I have no idea.

After sometime I started to feel vibrations from another direction then I was moving. The vibrations were getting more and more violent. Soon my soul was like a small ship tossing around helpless in a storming sea, until the force got a hold on me like a fist closing around and dragging me through the darkness faster and faster. Until I was slammed into a wall of softness and warmth.

The power that had taken me pressed me against the softness, it hurt like nothing I ever felt. It was trying to splatter me. Through the fog of pain I heard a sound like someone was crying. It was another soul, I was being pressed against another soul. Me and the other person/being I don't know what was jammed together.

To my horror I felt how we started to merge together. I could hear and feel the other beings thoughts of fear, pain and confusion. I was losing myself slowly not knowing if it was my pain or the other one's. I tried to gather myself and "send" my thoughts and feelings to the being i was slowly becoming a part of. It didn't work and I started to realize that the soul I was merging with, must be young or some kind of lower life form. It didn't have control or awareness enough of it's own being.

In a desperate attempt to not lose myself, I started to pull the parts that were me together.

When I had gathered enough of "me", into what felt like a hard small ball, that didn't get affected by the unchecked flailing about the other soul was doing. I tried to call out again to no avail. It was draining to keep my own person locked and sooner rather than later I would be forced to open up. Thinking about this I came to the conclusion that I would have to remove and silence the thoughts that were not my own.

The small ball that was me had to slowly expand until it was only me left in what was now our merged soul. Time was of the essence so I tried to expand. The small ball started to grow, forcefully punching back the other beings thoughts and feelings. The more space I grabbed the faster and easier it went, since it wasn't a gathered as whole like myself. I was erasing the other being.

When I had taken control of more than half the space available, our merged soul shook and pain once again flared up. I almost lost control and dropped the wall I built around me, losing all the ground I had made. Gritting my imaginary teeth I held on, then a wall of force not too different from my own slammed against me. It felt oily, sticky and sick, I wanted to back away but was too afraid to give up the ground I gained.

"What is this?"

A thought brushed against me.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in this baby's soul? "

The third being in this already crowded soul asked, sounding surprised. I didn't know what to answer, just sometime ago I had been floating around in darkness in my own soul. Now I was somehow sharing one soul with not one but two beings. And while the first being had felt young and confused, this latest addition felt dark and sinister.

"Well your answer does nothing to change the fact that this soul is mine."

With that thought the uncleaned part started to push against me. I barely held on, while the younger part of this soul was fast losing ground. I tried to help, if only so we together could more easily beat this new threat. The clean part of the soul, started to rally if only in what felt like some inborn trait against the oily darkness that had attacked. I had conveniently forgotten that I had been forcing a takeover just a few movements before.

Together we stopped the dark part of our three way split soul and slowly I was gaining on it. I had before it joined us the biggest part of the soul, and now I was pressing my small advantage. I was running out of time because I could sense that my ally was getting battered by this dark sickness.

The darkness was ravaging in madness and hate, when a bright light of warmth started to spread and envelope me and give me strength.

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"Fucking paladin"

The darkness cried out, it started to take some serious damage from the golden warmth, the oily darkness almost bubbling and bursting where it touched me, slowly I was able to force it into a small space of our soul. My ally had been silenced for sometime now and was no longer helping in the battle of wills. I paused for a moment and then with one last thrust off will against the darkness, I was finally able to erase it.

I took a minute of rest to gather myself and get my bearings, about three fourths of the space that was our soul was now under my control. What had that glow been, where had it come from. Questions I had no answers to, and for now I had another problem. I was still sharing the merged soul with someone else. I tried to call out to my ally, but nothing answered me, so I prodded against the wall that separated our two consciousness trying to get a reaction. But I got no response, I hesitantly started to push myself into the last part and found it silent and empty. It had given all and perished in the fight against the darkness. I was alone and with only a small pause to be sure nothing more was in here, started to take control of the last part.

After having assimilation of the last part of space, I sent a small thanks to my now dead ally. I was happy I didn't have to fight it to the end after our stand against the disgusting darkness that had been removed. Too bad it had ceased to exist, but don't get me wrong. Sharing is caring and all that, but this was a soul and in here I don't want to have friends over for beer. And to mix myself with it was not something I had any interest in. Feeling around myself I realized that I was now more than before the merger, my soul was much bigger and seemed to be made up of three parts. Guessing that the different parts or rooms might be a better word for it. The three different rooms that made up my soul must be the different person's souls that had been forced together to unite into one whole.

The same light that had earlier helped me in the fight and then reseeded exploded In a glorious golden light around my soul and warmth spread through me. Where there had only been darkness before, was now a golden room and the light from the reflections on the walls warmed me like the first rays of the sun in the morning while the cold darkness of the night gave way for a new day. And in the room was the shape of a woman and all the light reflecting of the walls seemed to come from her.

"Welcome mortal, I understand that all this must be very confusing. But let me explain."

I felt her voice brushing against my being, it installed an assortment of reassurance that everything would be ok, that I was safe and nothing could harm me anymore.

" The things that have happened to you is a stroke of bad fortune, but let's take it from the beginning."

She paused for a second then resumed.

"You were dead and on your way to what in your universe would be reincarnation. You were ripped from your universe by a dark summoning interrupted here on this world. The power of the summoning was already gathered, and with no one to direct that power it was thrown out without control and grabbed you instead of the dark being that was the target of ritual."

She looked at me and gave me a moment to reflect on what she had said. My thoughts were jumbled and I blurted out.

"How is this possible? And there was already something or someone here when I arrived. And that summoning most have been completed. That last..."

"Stop!"

She said forcefully as she interrupted me, I had what felt like a million questions.

"First let me tell you what happened and then you can have some questions. We don't have forever, so quiet and listen"

It seemed we were on the clock, and from all that light and power coming from her I deemed in all wisdom that it was best to listen. So I shut up and waited for her to continue.

"One part of the ritual was a pregnant woman, my priestess. Her child was to be the target to hold the summoned creature and let it take over."

If I had a spine I would probably feel cold sweat run down, maybe I should try to run away and hide in some dark corner. because hadn't I done the same thing as the demon or whatever was being summoned would have done.

" But as I said, the ritual was interrupted and now you are here instead. The necromancer that was conducting the ritual perished, killed by a band of adventures that had been hunting the necromancer for the abduction of my follower."

In her voice I heard a touch of sadness, whoever this goddess was she at least seemed to care for those sending her prayers.

"The necromancer realized that the ritual was about to fail and that he was about to die. Forced his soul to move in to the now born baby. That was the darkness you and the newborn were fighting."

So it was not some hellspawn I had beaten but the necro.

"The light you felt before was the blessing that the paladin of the adventures gave the child while it was being born. Giving you a fighting chance against the necromancer. The child perished in the fighting, leaving only you as the victorious and in control of the strengthened soul. And since the paladin is my follower and the blessing is part of my power, it makes it possible for me to interact with you. Now you can ask your questions "

Of all the information I had gotten, only two questions came to me.

"Ok, first who are you? And second, am I in trouble?"

I got the feeling that she started to smile but I could not really make out anything from all the lights flowing from her.

"Oh child fear not I won't do anything to you and my followers call me the lady of the dawn. But my name is Shyann."

She was radiating warmth and I calmed down. I just knew that I could trust her.

" Now I have a question for you, do you want to stay in this universe? Know that I can't send you back, and the two alternatives are to erase your memory and send the soul to be reborn, or rip you from the child and throw you out from this universe to take a chance for something else. If you choose to remain, know that you will inhabit the newborn child that your soul is now part of, and I will still remove parts of your memories and the rest will be in something like a fog. To others it will look like you are a fast learner but you are just remembering parts of your old life."

Well this was all overwhelming for an atheist like me. I was a soul in another universe, where there seems to be magic. The gods exist here, is that even a good thing? From the alternatives she had given me, the option to be thrown out from this universe didn't sound good. What was the chance to get back to my old universe? Questions... I must get more information.

" Can I ask some more questions?"

"Some but time is running out"

She answered me patiently.

"This universe we are in now, can you describe it? And what are my chances getting back home? And what is the difference between this child here and being reborn somewhere else?"

"Well the chance to go home is abysmal, and the chance to land in another world before your soul gives out for lack of energy is maybe one in a million. And the difference between the child and rebirth is that you run zero chance of being reborn as an snail or and gobling. Your soul have no karma here, no past deeds speaking for you and no God who claims you. So anything is possible, dragon to dungbeetle."

Well this no longer seemed like a question at all, and with how things were going i had a feeling that reborn as a dung beetle was going to happen. But she had not said anything about this world.

"Now make your choice mortal. And for this universe you will have to find out for yourself, time is up."

And so I took the only real alternative.

"I chose to continue as the child"