The Eleventh of July 2024 is the day that Earth is destroyed. There’s nothing that can be done to save it and any who could, wouldn’t bother. It’s a petty world, with no magic and bronze grade life at best. It fades because that is its purpose. Earth is a cosmic heatsink for mana, the fuel for magic. Without worlds like Earth, the ambient mana flowing around the Tree would lose concentration and weaken.

All that being said, it is rather strange then, that we’re having this conversation.

“Yeah, agreed on that one, chief.” I replied, still in shock.

Earth had indeed been destroyed, I had been able to see it with my own eyes. It seemed to shrivel, dark and brown, before POP it was gone. Just like that, everything I had ever known, every person, every street, every building, animal, plant and anything else he could think of was gone.

That was going to take some getting used to.

To reiterate, it would definitely be more simple for everyone if you just fell into the void like the rest of your section of creation.

“Still not feeling like that’s my only option here.” I couldn’t see whomever it was that was talking to me, but there was a tickle in my brain telling me I had an advantage here. Well, I suppose I don’t have a brain. It’s all a bit up in the air right now. Not that there’s any air-

Enough of that tangent. “You showed me the replay of Earth’s destruction when I was panicking and flailing about, and then you pumped me full of the ‘emotion of being overwhelmed by puppies’, which I’d be happy to return to later, but to me, that says you’ve got some stuff going on that I don’t know about. What’s the deal, friendo?”

I can show you the destruction again if that’s what you’re looking for? Or maybe a different world? Some of them put up a fight.

“No, honestly, it’s fine, seen one, seen them all. I’m more interested in this mana stuff you were talking about. Isn’t that a video game thing?”

I am not going to spend the cycles to understand what a video gam- oh wow, okay that actually does a good job of explaining it. Yes, mana works like in your video games, loosely.

“And… Can people use it? On certain planets, at least?” I’d played these games, enjoyed them even. “Could you just put me on one of those planets?” I quite liked the idea of learning how to use magic.

It doesn’t really work like that. So, no.

“Still, you have to do something with me, don’t you?” I wasn’t stupid. If this entity could have just removed me from the equation, they would have. Something was stopping them.

Look, this is all really above my paygrade, so I’m just going to run you back through the system and wish you good luck. Tell you what, I’ll even throw in that video game stuff, just for you.

“Wha-”

Suddenly, feeling rushed back into me. It was excruciating. I felt like I was burning, drowning, being crushed and being frozen all at once. Every fiber of my being, and I could feel everything was screaming out in protest of this silent torture. Suddenly I understood infinity, and it existed inside this pain somewhere. I writhed and howled. Except I didn’t, because I didn’t have a physical body. I was nothing but pure agony.

Oh, wow, that… my bad.

And with the same lurching suddenness, the feeling stopped. I was back, in the blind, calm, empty void. As though my soul had never been torn asunder.

“What was that?!” My howl echoed around the infinity of nothingness around me.

Sorry, sorry. I’m really new at this and… Yeah, I see what happened. Apparently you have some choices to make before you go. Look, like I said, sorry about that… Definitely not allowed to do this, but who’ll ever know. Good luck, and this time, I mean it. I’m out, but I might speak to you again. For now, I’ll leave you alone.

I still had no answer, but I gained form.

A space began to appear around me, blank and formless but somehow there. Like cream on white. A feeling of momentum came to me, the sense of turning my head. There was nothing to look at, but I could look, which was a change.

Then, like a slowly loading program, the nothingness began to fill in. All around me, an actual room formed. It reminded me of a smoking lounge, all plush and vibrant. Furniture began to populate the space, and my disembodied self became more strange by the moment.

A bar filled some of the space, complete with a rack of drinks behind it and taps on the front. Stools lined up before it, the rest of the room becoming luxurious in the area behind them. All in all, it looked like the nicest bar room I had ever been in, and I had enough experience for that to be impressive.

I whistled, looking around the space. Oh cool, another new one. When speaking to the entity before, my words had really just been thoughts, but there it was. Soft, but high pitched. I revelled in making sounds, all of the strange ones I could do.

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“Agggghhh take it off us,” I gave my perfect gollum impression - thank you very much, no reviews needed - “It buuuuuurns us.”

“Nothing on you quite yet, chap.” I swivelled, both shame and shock bringing out a yelp as he turned. Behind the bar was a mustachioed man, as wide as three. His hands were monstrous, but his fingers dexterously handled the fragile glass and ingredients, mixing a cocktail.

Finding that desire begets action in this space, I moved over to the bar. By feeling as though I could, it became possible. It was altogether very disconcerting and I was looking forward to it stopping. I could only describe it as feeling as though I were unlocking senses. Sight, then hearing with my whistles, and now touch as I felt the floor beneath my feet.

I looked down and saw no body, and got a sense of vertigo before just looking up. Just don’t think about how insane all this is and get what you can, that’s the plan, Stan. My name isn’t Stan, it’s Isaac, I’m just losing my mind a little so bear with me.

Mind lost or not, I moved. I sat whatever ethereal body I had on the stool in the middle of the mountain of mass. The bartender’s back was to me, so I waited. The barman used his size to his advantage somehow, seemingly able to reach every space on the bar. Whatever he was making was certainly fancy, as it was taking him a while, but I thought “why worry”? There’s no world to go back to, so I must have all the time in the void.

I was sure that my mind would eventually stop being so erratic, but I was forgiving myself.

“So, what’ll it be, Isaac?” Somehow, even though I didn’t blink, or need to blink, the bartender had managed to turn around with his bulky frame and get right up in my non-existent face. His voice was deep, like cognac, and it lilted with a highland accent. The cocktail which the barge of a barman had crafted was sitting before me.

It looked incredible. The glass was a fishbowl, large and classic. Within, the man had crafted a miracle. It looked like a swirling galaxy, yet at the same time the inside of a volcano’s mouth. Then again, from a different angle, it looked clear, more clear than anything he had ever seen before. Like the void. There was a wedge, or slice, or peel, of fruit. Maybe it was multiple, whole fruits, but they looked like spacecraft, and then dragons.

It was like looking at magic, distilled.

“Well, I mean… this looks fantastic. Do you mind if I ask what it is? And your name?” Years of drinking strange substances had taught me one thing, always find out the name of the person who might have to put you in a taxi home.

“This,” the man said, gesturing to the drink, “is the right answer to my question. The starting line, if you feel like it.” He seemed to consider me, huge large dark grey eyes scanning my being, such as it was. Or wasn’t. Whatever he saw, he seemed to find it agreeable. “You can call me Dion.”

“Well, Dion. I trust your judgement.” I gave him a big smile as I reached for the drink. I froze halfway, as I saw my arm. My arm. Below average musculature, with a questionable fox mask tattoo and a scar from tripping over a fence when I was thirteen. I knew looking down, I would see my body, but I did it anyway. “Nice to meet you, properly, Dion.”

I lifted the strange concoction to my lips and drank the nectar. It would be impossible to fully describe the entirety of the liquid that passed my lips. It was the taste of understanding a great joke, the texture of the pride in good work. It was the most perfect drink in existence, and my life would be forever changed having drank it.

“Bottoms down, looks like.” Dion joked as I placed the now empty cocktail glass back down onto the bar.

And suddenly, for the first time since I died, I wished that I had just vanished alongside the rest of my planet.

“Wow,” I yelped, shaking my head and feeling it already, “that’s got a fucking kick. Whoa.” The drink seemed to ignite. All throughout my body, which I was now wishing I didn’t have, it seemed like nodes were turning to magma. Both of my hands first, right in the palm. Then the elbow, up to the armpit. I was, of course, howling for it to stop at this point.

It did no such thing.

The lava rolled through me, piece by piece. After my armpits were my shoulder blades, small areas where hell had erupted continued to follow. From my back, over the ribs and down, over my hips which felt like they were made of acid, destroying the rest of me. The waves of agony continued, past my knees and ankles and the soles of my feet.

Then, horrifically, the slow wave returned. I hadn’t moved, white knuckled on the bar in frozen, silent scream. Every muscle was locked like iron, the cramp of the millennium currently seizing them. I must have been ridiculously allergic to whatever Dion, that bastard, gave me.

Time was a little all over the place, but to my estimate, hours passed in the throes of that excruciating pain. Dion never moved, except to blink and breath. I focused on that, counting each breath as Dion made the great, shuddering things. Five hundred and eighty seven… five hundred and eighty eight… five hundred and eighty nine…

Dion cleared his throat as I hit nine hundred and seventeen breaths, and the pain ceased. Like a cork being unstoppered from a bottle, it all just flowed out of my head. A slight pressure in my skull as it went and then gone. I lay my head on the bar and wept for a while. That really sucked. All of this sucks. Everyone I loved is gone, and I had important people, people I wasn’t ready to miss yet. The spiritual pain seemed to burn away the emotional, leaving me a husk.

Not a scratched out, damaged one though. I felt like… a porcelain container. No blemish, or mark on me. I felt, suddenly, as fresh as the day I was born. After the pain, the joyous feeling was a blessing that I took gladly, and revelled in. I wasn’t ready to talk to Dion just yet, and he sat quietly waiting for me to compose myself.

And waited. Seriously, this was going to take me a moment.

“Not sure you’re getting a tip for that one, Dion mate.” I finally had control of myself again, my mouth feeling like my own.

“Aye,” Dion replied, his voice sounding soft, as though filled with melancholy, “I reckon you won’t like what comes next too much. If it helps, I’m confident you’ll forgive me, in time.”

“Wh- what comes next?” I was stammering, panic starting to rise in my throat as I cringed away from the bar.

“Next,” The gargantuan face before me creased into an easy smile, “I ask you for a favour.”