Pain.  Pain.  Agony.  Pain.  I think I’ve said it all before, but dying hurts!  Especially when a 3 meter tall monster is dancing on your corpse and turning you into toe jam – or hoof jam in this case.  I could feel my bones break as my body flattened.  Every stomp, every kick, every smash… I had the, *cough* *cough*, pleasure of feeling.  All I could do is just float and scream.  I couldn’t even cry, and no one could hear my screams.

This might not be Hell, but it was close enough for me!

After another timeless torment of suffering, I felt an incredible pressure and pain burst through my side; and then it stopped.   Blissful peace as the torment ended, and I tried to focus on my surroundings with the minotaur and my corpse. 

From what I could tell, it seemed as if the Monster Rain had stopped for now.  The giant crack was still in the sky, bright and ominous, but it didn’t appear that anything was falling out of it anymore.  The minotaur was over towards the edge of the roof and my corpse was nowhere to be seen.

And then, “AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!”  Pure agony once more as I felt a sudden impact that made my whole mind go blank as it felt as if what few bones I had left in my corpse were just powderized in a moment.   The minotaur was leaning over the edge of the roof and when it turned back towards me it had, what looked to me at least, a satisfied smirk across its face.

The bastard had kicked me off the building!  Or kicked my corpse off the building at least!

Stomping, the beast turned and headed towards the door leading down into the rest of the building, where it stopped and looked confused for a few moments.  Apparently minotaurs aren’t smart enough to know how to turn a doorknob – not that it seemed to matter!  All it took was one swing of that massive double sided axe that the beast had and the door was shattered and burst apart almost as easily as I’d been.   All I could do is float and hover and watch as the creature stomped down the steps into the top of the 5th floor.  If the people there hadn’t looked outside and seen what was coming for them by now, they’d find out real soon!

And there I was, for the first time since this whole mess had started, alone on the rooftop again.  Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the rooftop and even my corpse was off the side of the building.  All I could see from here was the sky and The Crack.  From my perspective, I couldn’t even see the most of the rest of the school or the town from here.  Ever hear the saying, “can’t see the forest for the trees?”  Well, that was me at the moment, except I couldn’t see anything for the roof itself.

Oh, I know someone would say, “Dude, you’re on the roof!  You’re bound to have a great view.”  And, normally, they’d be right – except I was on the middle of the roof of a building that housed hundreds of rooms!  I could see the little – What the heck would you call it?  A shack? – that the stairs came up to from the other floor.  I could see the water tower that held the school’s water reserves.  I could see the solar panels that helped provide electricity for the school and supposedly kept us “green and clean”.  And, I could see the sky and The Crack.

Since my pain levels had more or less stabilized since my corpse had been punted off the edge, I decided to practice moving once around once more.  Like most people, I was dying – Ha ha! – of curiosity at what was happening while I was out of the loop. 

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Stare.  Concentrate.   Stare.  Concentrate.  Float a few inches towards where I was staring.  Stare.  Concentrate.  Float a few more inches.  Rinse and repeat.  It was slow; it was hard; but what else did I have to do with my time?  For all I knew, I wasn’t going to come back again and I was going to be stuck as Cloudme (that’s what I’ve decided I’m going to call this version of myself: Cloudme) forever more.

Stare.  Concentrate.  Stare.  Concentrate.  Float a few more inches.   Do you know what?  I’d swear I was giving myself some sort of headache, if I wasn’t dead.  There was a dull throb starting in the back of what used to be my head anyway.  Knowing my luck, my corpse probably had a cute little bunny hopping up and down on what was left of my skull or something.

Stare.  Concentrate.  Float.

DING!

Congratulations!You have gained a new stat: Spiritual Endurance!

You have gained a new skill: Spiritual Manipulation!

Stats?  Skills?  What the fu…   Sighing, I took a deep breath to calm myself.  I’d promised my mother that I’d try not to use so much profanity here at school; she thought that it might look bad on her and my father and how they raised me.  I suppose I should say “What the flip” if only for her, if nothing else.

As I was pondering on the little blue information box that float so casually before me, another DING went off and the box before me disappeared to be replaced with another one:

Physical Reconstitution Timer has been reset.

You will be reconstituted in 10 seconds.

Time to next possible reconstitution: 3 hours.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5…  I was watching the timer slowly count down towards 0 and wondering if this message might be the same as the one I’d heard last time I was dead but couldn’t read for the torment of the minotaur feasting on me.  4, 3, 2, 1…

ARRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

Burn!  Pain!  Hurt!  Burn!  Burn!  Cloudme was on fire once again!  And it certainly didn’t feel any better this time around that it did the first time!

AG!

O!

ME!!

And then finally, it was over.  The last smoldering wisps of smoke was fading and I was on the rooftop once more, whole and unhurt – and just as naked as the day I was born.

But, at least the minotaur was gone this time and – presumably – I wasn’t going to end back up a ghost before I could at least take a moment to catch a breath of air in my newly reborn lungs.