‘Am I dead?’ Faust asked himself as he came to. His eyes were closed, and he was laying on something hard. He felt cold but oddly comfortable. His armor was gone, and he only wore his long undergarments.

‘I must be…’ he pondered as he felt that his right shoulder and the rest of his body were in perfect health. It was odd. His body felt cool, yet not uncomfortably so.

‘But if I am dead… why can I move my body? Let me try to open my eyes…’ he said and attempted to open his closed lids.

Slowly but surely his lids fluttered, and he opened them.

“Huh?” a groan escaped his mouth.

‘Am I dead after all?’ all he saw was complete darkness as he turned his head.

“HELLO? IS THERE SOMEONE?” he shouted, and his words echoed through an incredibly large empty chamber. He gulped.

‘I am not in the same place I was…’ he groaned as he propped himself up.

‘I must be dead, there is no way my injuries could’ve healed, especially since… I was so deep down a lake. Is there a life after death? Is this it?’ he looked around and slowly noticed a change.

He could make out the outline of stone on the floor several meters around him. He could not see any details, but he felt it and the contours he saw were enough for him to recognize it. He saw that he was in a small ditch.

Beyond a few meters of reach, he could not see anything at all. It looked like a wall of black fog, impenetrable to the eye.

‘Since when can I see like that when there is… no light?’ he looked around to find the light that allowed him to see, even if it wasn’t much.

His astonishment was all the greater when he could not find a source of light.

‘Does that mean my eyes can see in the dark?’ he scratched his head and slowly got up on his feet.

‘I am dead… so I shouldn’t be too surprised a few things changed…’ he took a few steps to his right and saw that he could leave the ditch he was in. Moving his body felt much easier than before.

‘I’m really uninjured…’ he thought as he climbed over a small slope effortlessly.

‘How can this really be the afterlife? It’s supposed to be either a land full of joy and fulfillment or a burning hell… but this… is weird.’ He pondered but couldn’t come to a conclusion.

When he arrived on top he looked around and saw a completely flat stone floor all around him.

‘Too smooth.’ He thought and walked in a general direction.

‘I am dead anyways, what do I have to lose?’ he shrugged and started walking.

He was sure he was dead. It just made sense. If this was the afterlife, then why wouldn’t he just walk on? What would happen anyways? He had lost everything already.

‘Father…’ he thought of his father, and he thought of a scene from when he was younger.

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His father lifted him above his head and laughed heartily. The 8-year-old Faust protested at first but soon couldn’t contain his happy laughter.

Thorus then threw his son in the air and caught him again, making the boy laugh so hard he struggled to breathe even after he was put down.

When the boy slowly calmed down and wiped away some tears of joy Thorus couldn’t help but smile at his son. Thorus took pride in his son’s above-average height.

‘My son.’ He thought happily and patted Faust’s shoulder.

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They were taking a walk in the peripheral woods near the village and had paused near a small stream.

They played and fooled around as they walked through the forest. Faust attempted to tackle his father from behind but was quickly suppressed by his father, a soldier in the village militia.

Faust found himself lying on the ground with a hand on his back, twisted so he couldn’t move. But he never had any fear because he knew his father wouldn’t hurt him.

So Thorus released his grip and helped his son up.

“Kid, you have my spirit, that much is clear.” He cackled as he saw his son prepare for another attack.

“Someday I’ll be strong enough to wrestle you to the ground!” Faust retorted with a grin but stopped his attack. His gaze was full of admiration and love.

‘Father is so strong!’ the boy thought and vowed to keep his promise to get strong enough one day.

Then Thorus knelt next to his son.

“Kid. Promise me you will always take care of those dear to you.” He said and put a hand on Faust’s shoulder who furiously nodded.

“Always! I will never let anything happen to Mom and Sister! I’ll become a strong soldier like you!” The boy balled his fists.

Thorus laughed and ruffled his son’s hair. “Us men need to protect those weaker than us. Always. When there is danger, it is our duty to give ourselves up if it means saving our family. If we can’t protect what we love, then how can we look at ourselves in the mirror?”

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Back to Present

Faust smiled weakly.

‘How come I remember this only now?’ he shook his head.

‘I was too weak to protect him… and the rest of my family. He died trying to save his wife and daughter… uncaring of himself…’ Faust stopped walking and looked at his hands.

‘I was unable to do anything… just a boy with no training, weapons, or even the strength to do anything…’ he sighed as he balled his hands into tight fists.

He stood there for a few seconds before another thought crossed his mind and a gentle smile curled up his lips.

‘Yet in the end I died like him… trying to protect those dear to me.’ He couldn’t help but feel happy about it in some weird way.

‘I have done the right thing.’ He smiled and saw Aquila and Cassius before his eyes, smiling at him.

“I hope they will be alright without me…” he muttered before Leona's face appeared in his mind, shutting out everything else.

Her smiling blonde face on the day they first practiced looked at him with her deep blue eyes that never failed to hypnotize him. The mere thought of her made his heart skip a beat.

‘For you…’ he thought. His chest contracted uncomfortably. The face then warped into the crying, desperate girl he saw when they parted ways in the forest.

‘The last time I saw her… I swear she said she loved me…’ he shook his head.

‘Flora… I can now see everything clearly… we have both been played by life…’ he sighed and couldn’t help but think about the time they had held onto one another tightly for an entire night.

They had been like small sailing boats in a large storm, desperately searching for something to hold on to.

‘Our love was never real… it was a place to flee ourselves to… a place for calm in the storm… but we cannot always keep running away from our problems. We must face them…’ he paused.

‘A pity I only learned to see things this clearly now… when all is for naught.’ His thoughts spun.

‘Probably I can see clearly only now that there’s nothing I can do anymore…’ he wondered.

He was weirdly detached from things. He was dead after all.

‘I should have told Leona how I feel about her… If I only knew the truth about my feelings earlier…’ he started to lament but quickly stopped himself as he realized regret wouldn’t change anything.

He would never get the opportunity to do so anyways.

Then another wholesome thought entered his mind. He remembered when he swore Schenk his allegiance.

‘I have finally repaid what you gave to me… all the kindness… training and more.’ He smiled.

Mirabella entered his mind as she hugged him, Schenk on the castle top showing him his scars followed right after before his smile turned even wider.

Then, while he felt some initial detachment he felt something incredibly intense boiling up inside of him. He felt pressure building up behind his eyes and had to blink repeatedly.

‘Schenk… Mirabella…’ he thought of the couple and what they had done for him. The kindness he had received, what Schenk taught him, how welcoming they were…

‘They were like parents to me…’ he thought. He had to gulp and a tear forced its way out of his eyes and rolled down over his smiling face.

He didn’t wipe it away. It was a tear of joy. Schenk had saved him from his village and treated him like a son.

‘I have done nothing to be deserving of such kindness…’ he smiled as a picture of the mighty Schenk and his smiling wife appeared before him. Schenk nodded at him, and a tear rolled down Mirabella's cheek.

Then he thought of his parents and the smile broadened even further.

‘How did I deserve so many loving people around me?’ he shook his head and after a while laughed about himself.

‘I am dead. Why am I so happy and relieved?’ he smiled weakly as he walked on.

He knew the answer. Things had become so wonderfully clear to him.

Many more thoughts assaulted him as he made his way in a general direction through what he couldn’t identify as anything else but a gigantic cave…

‘Maybe it's something else entirely… I can’t know where I am…’ he pondered.

‘What if…….’ He looked around and then noticed the sound of rushing water in the distance.

‘What if I wasn’t dead? No. It can’t be.’ His eyes widened and he started running towards the noise.