Imagine, that you are diagnosed with advanced brain tumor, on the first month after starting medicinal study – sound like quite bad joke right? Personally, I think that you could compare it with obtaining the high grade “Fuck yourself! ” from the universe.
Ok, enough with rampaging, my name is William Barke and my dream was always to be… No, not a doctor, or at least not a normal one. What I always wanted to do was working to police, or one of this government organizations with cool acronyms, and carrying autopsy on dead bodies.
Just to make it clear I don’t have any ill interests, or anything like that, it is just… living things are beautiful, they are work of art, and evolution with a right dose of mistake and error, and human bodies are the absolute peak of them all.
Obviously as a person with high moral standing (though self proclaimed one) I will never allow my personal interests to directly hurt anyone well being – and this will probably happen if – putting an example – someone will stop in the middle of operation, bewitched by perfect harmony of heart and lungs. Solution? Working with someone that is already dead.
OK, I suppose that I am a little strange.
Obviously all this no longer matter, since right now this is me who is dying.
First thing that I have done after becoming diagnosed was searching over the internet for five stages of grief – they where denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But thinking about getting though all of them somehow make me angry, so I decided to go straight to acceptance. In the first place I did not have enough time for all of this shit anyway.
So I go straight to my doctor and we have short, but sincere chat, during which I learned that my condition was truly hopeless.
Considering that my death was inevitable, I rejected all kind of treatments, tell my family, that they should remember, that all of them will die one day too and – because I was curious – make one bungee, and one parachute jump. After them I decided that dying from brain tumor was still better, than dying from heart attack when you see earth closing to you, with speed high enough, to make you do “splash! ” sound.
Rest of the time I spend under anesthesia, catching with the last books and novels from my beloved series.
By the way this was probably first time in my life, when I was thankful, that I did never have any girlfriend – at last, no one will be grieving after my death. Well there was my family of course, but all of them – my parents, grandparents and two siblings were strong people, and I think that they will mange it, while knowing that I will never want for them to be sad because of me. Or so I hope.
And like that, in the age of 19 years 3 months and 6 days I William Barke have fallen asleep never to wake up again.
William(?) 3 POV
Fire.
This was first thing that anyone would see in this place.
Endless domain of flames was surrounding William from every direction, but strange thing – he was not afraid nor he feel any pain. Fire was bright and hot, but it was not stinging. It was endless and powerful but does not seem… threatening.
Then William feel surrounding flames sinking inside him
“sinking? Strange word to choose from… ”
it was like something natural, like… sleeping, or breathing. So he relaxed and allowed them to infiltrate. Golden light seemed to become one with him, and with it burning within his insides, while spreading pleasant warm, his consciousness started to vanish.
“is it really okay? ”
Yes this was not a bad thing, he could feel like all his memories are vanishing, one after the other, but this was not anything bad. That life… has already ended.
“ is it really what I want… to stop at this point? ”
Yes it was… it was right? Even if all of what was William will disappear in this place, the most important thing, something far deeper than his name or memory, will stay untouched and just go further.
Despite this rationalizing William(?) could feel a little doubt inside his… heart? But even this tiny bit of reluctance instantly made surrounding fire – or what ever it really was - tremble. William could feel like his memories stopped to disappear and his consciousness instantly get sharper.
“Just the fact that something isn’t a bad choice… doesn’t necessarily mean that it is best one, I don’t know if this will end with troubles, but if possible I want to still be fully myself..“
It seemed that sea of flames was capable of somehow comprehending his wish, as fire moved away leaving around William circle of pure nothingness with radius of around five meters.
Finally at peace, former student could start to look around. But before this he decided to look at himself first. Quite unexpectedly – or maybe he should expect exactly that? There was not much to see. He could notice only white glow instead of his hand or legs… most likely his head was like that too, but then how he was even able to see?
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Unfortunately it doesn’t seemed like anyone would answers him, so after pondering by few minutes Will just starter roaming around.
Soon this proved unexpectedly boring. This place seemed unimaginably gigantic, consisting of nothing but endless fire. From time to time he could see other souls here, but they did not seemed to make choice similar to him, and vanished quickly without answering to his calls.
More or less around the moment when he starter to feel uneasy, William started to feel kind of pulling… and again in a way similar to when he first appeared in this place, he simply know, that it was possible to leave this place, simply by allowing this strange force to work.
It was obvious that time for it was anything, but coincidental and that finally made former student ponder, about how convenient this place was. Whoever build it – was it perhaps a god or the universe itself? Seemed very careful and cautious.
At this point this was quite obvious for William, that this place was something akin to circle of reincarnation, or at least something similar. Still, it looked like it was extremely protective and obedient, careful about not forcing any-
“oh! This one is interesting! ”
“mhmm? ” sudden voice “was it even a voice” broke wondering soul way of thinking. William turned around and looked straight to its source. The source, no surprise here - was other soul similar to one’s that he already se-
No, it was not exactly similar. First thing – the soul was surrounded by ring of nothingness without fire – just like William, and second – there seemed to be kind of strange structure in its center, something impossible to describe like… geometrical shape, but built within at least ten and not three dimensions.
“It really is unexpected to find another formed Just like that. This is definitely destiny! Definitely! Can I call you friend, my- ummm… friend? Oh sure I can! So what is your name? From where you are?... Hey friend, where are you going?! Wait! Wait! “
Under the bunch of suddenly thrown at him questions and remarks William decided to draw back a little. It looked like this make foreign soul a little panicked.
“I’m sorry, mum told me to not speak with strangers… “ William answered while acting nervously.
“ehh!? Ch- child? Soul-formed one and with preserved memory. Th- this is bad. What should I do!? Should I help somehow? Hey! I’m not scary you know! Seriously I-“
“don’t fret this was a joke… who you even are exactly? “ it seemed that whatever this being was he, or she, did not have any bad intentions, especially considering it earlier panicked state.
“you can call me Raber… or Rabe…something like that, well I will have a new name after reincarnation, so it does not really matter. Ah! But considering that, there is no meaning with asking you also… then I will call you Bernee are you okay with it? “
“I am most definitely not okay with it. Why would you even think that I will be!? Call me William and in return, I will keep calling you strange person. More importantly this place really is something like cycle of reincarnation heh… “ This was something that Will already guessed, but it was always nice to get confirmation.
“yes it most certainly is, or rather have you never heard about it? Are you possibly from some low level world? But wait even if, as a soul-formed… Ah I understood you are a new one, like me right? And…. ”strange person” is a little to much, can you think about something better? ”
“with no doubt about it, I don’t understood nearly anything of what you are speaking. What do you even mean by soul-formed? And no I could not”
“you are not really a nice person are you? Well this is… complicated to explain, if you did not have any basic… and sincerely, I do not have much time, if I want to be reborn into the same world where I died and I made a lot of effort for this to work… Making long story short soul-form are special property of… well soul, that can be acquired under certain circumstances, usually death, or birth though theoretically you should be able to take a form during life too, but I never heard about it… Well they are unimaginably rare in the first place. Anyway, this entire matter is much more complicated, but I unfortunately do not have time for exact explanation. ”
“is this somehow related to this figure inside of you? And actually I am trying to be nice, just somehow it does not work well” William decided to interrupt his new companion.
“ah, it is indeed quite hard to not be sincere and truthful to himself in this place, right? Also figure? Is it like my soul-form look for you? In my perspective yours is like void space, that seems infinitely growing the more I try to look at it’s center. ”
Well that was unexpected. There was no mirror in this place, so Will could not See, how his own soul central parts looked. That itself was worth meeting with this strange person.
“Well it was nice to meet you and all, but I will be going, or are you perhaps willing to go with me? My world is one with really high level, just so you know. ”
This was strange proposition and Will did not have any real reason to refuse, especially considering that person(?) in front of him was definitely no ordinary.
There was no way, that normal existence could somehow affect place, where it will be reborn.
This space was certainly also interesting, but thinking about it deeply, even if he somehow was able to keep his memories intact, he was not someone capable of searching for its secrets.
And another thing – he was definitely to calm for all of this, yes – he died prepared and all, but it was still obvious, that this place affected him in many ways. Not necessarily bad, as there will be nothing good to obtain from panicking, but still… perhaps this was time to leave.
Exactly in this moment – and Will would bet his left non-existed arm, that it was not a coincidence, pulling force got significantly stronger.
“to go with you… I guess that I have to just go right after you vanish? “
“certainly my dear Will! ” His acquaintance looked rather happy seeing his consent. “when you start adventuring or something just look for greatest young genius in space-time magic, this is my specialty! ”
The pulling force grow even stronger when Will stopped resisting it, and in the same time soul of the one called – in his previous life - Raber started getting transparent.
“Oh this is really exciting, after so many years, I have finally managed to form my soul! I am really full of expectation about what soul-formed skill will be constructed for me! “
Suddenly William have a hunch, that he hard something outrageous.
“What? What do you mean skill!?”
“mhm…? I mean that power of soul-form will manifest into the skill, in accordance with the system. Is not that much obvious? “
“for who!? In the first place what do you mean by “system”? “
“ehh…? What do you mean by “what do you mean-”? “
Vanishing soul’s voice, stopped in the moment when it disappeared completely. William cursed silently, while thinking of what kind of strange world he send himself, before pulling force make him also vanish few second after that.