"Have you got the edge?"

"It's slippery."

Adalai shifted back and forth, trying to look around the legs of the kid standing on his shoulders. "Use a sleeve to brush -" A fit of coughing interrupted him. "Use a sleeve to brush the glass off the side of the frame and grab onto that."

A series of oddly musical sounds accompanied a shower of uncomfortable glass slivers raining down on him. Adalai flinched away from them but kept his balance. The weight of the twelve year old kid shifted back and forth, briefly pushed down extra hard then vanished. Adalai craned his neck back and reached up to push the kid until he could plant his feet on the jacket covering the jagged lip of the broken widow.

The kid was right about the jacket being slippery. His feet shot out from under him almost immediately and the main reason he didn't take a nasty fall was because he still had that grip on the window's edges.

"Careful," Adalai yelled, choking on another cough. "Is the ground clear?"

After a quick, panicky look down over one shoulder he answered, "Yeah, I think so."

"Then turn around and drop yourself down."

"It's kinda far, mister," the kid said, his nerves clearly getting worse. "Can't I wait until the firemen can come and help?"

Adalai glanced over his shoulder at the bathroom door, where smoke was already creeping around the edges in frightening quantities. "I don't think that's a good idea, buddy. Besides, how am I gonna get up to the widow if you're still in it?"

"Oh, right." Suitably admonished the kid carefully twisted himself around in the frame, took a deep breath then dropped with a loud scream. Probably unnecessary but hopefully cathartic. It ended with a hard thump then the kid called, "I'm okay! You can come out, mister!"

And that brought Adalai to the elephant in the room. If he reached up to full extension he could get a grip on the lower edge of the windowsill but he wasn't any good in gym class so the odds he could pull himself up and out that way were pretty slim even if he hadn't thrown his windbreaker over it. With the slick fabric there he could forget it entirely. So instead he grabbed the wooden push broom they'd used to break the window in the first place.

His first idea, to wedge the head of the broom in the corner on the window, didn't work. The angles weren't quite right and he couldn't make it catch. So instead he hooked it over the sill and tried to pull himself up that way. That did work.

For about eight seconds, until the head broke off the handle and sent Adalai crashing back to the floor. He tried to catch himself but there was nothing to grab onto and he rolled backwards and crashed head first into a sink.

For a moment his vision swam.

Then Adalai found himself sitting on one side of a large, square glass table in a domed room about the size of a three car garage. Confused, he looked around. Then he froze in place, realizing there was a twelve foot tall man made of deep blue light standing there.

A panicked thought that he'd been abducted by aliens flitted through his mind.

"Not abducted." The voice was unusually deep and echoed in the room a little more than you'd expect but otherwise didn't seem a good fit for the creature that stood next to him. "What kind of voice were you expecting?"

Adalai shifted uncomfortably as he realized the thing had read his mind. Probably shouldn't have surprised him. "I guess -"

A deep, rasping cough cut him off. At first he expected things to clear out right away but, after the third rib shaking explosion tore out of him, Adalai started to worry they would never stop. A hand touched his shoulder and his muscles froze up. Something in his chest shifted and a stream of damp ash trickled out of his lips. That probably only took a second or two, though it felt like an hour, and once it was done the cold vanished and he could breath again. Adalai straightened up and realized the blue presence was what had touched him. Furthermore, the silhouette had small points of light glistening deep within it, like it was a living field of stars.

"Next time make sure he's ready to speak before bantering with him." This was a new voice and Adalai quickly concluded that this voice belonged to the starfield, not the first one. The first had been sharp and precise. This one was strong yet unhurried, like a lazy river that concealed surprising depths. The silhouette turned is attention fully towards him. "Welcome, Adalai Carpathea."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Thanks," he rasped. "Where am I?"

"The Corners of Eternity," the first voice replied. Adalai took a harder look at his surroundings, which included very little beyond the table where he sat. The smooth dome overhead looked like it was made of marble or some other light colored stone that had four doorways in it equidistant from each other. He presumed these were the corners the voice mentioned as the dome itself was round. A figure wrapped in green light stood in front of one of the doors and Adalai had the clear impression it was the source of the first voice.

"That's right, Adalai." The verdant figure gestured to itself. "I am the King of Dreams. You were brought here by the King of Stars, who now stands beside you. This is the King of Scars."

As if speaking the name caused it to appear a third silhouette snapped into existence in front of the door to his left. This one radiated a soft, brown light that reminded Adalai of an autumn afternoon. "We're all here," the new figure said, its voice a rich, rolling sound. "Is this the one?"

"He is," Stars replied, drawing itself up to it's full height. "I suppose it is time to propose the question, Adalai Carpathea. Do you wish to live?"

Up until that point the bizarreness of the situation had distracted Adalai from the fact that it was also quite terrifying. "W-what do you mean?"

The King of Stars left his side and moved to the door in front of him. "You stand on the doorstep of Eternity, Adalai," it said. "If you wish to cross the threshold to that blessed place you may do so and we would not hold it against you."

"In many ways your death would be a noble one," the King of Scars added. "Not everyone would have the presence of mind save another when confronted with the end of their own life. If you live longer who knows if the rest of your life will be as worthwhile? "

Adalai rubbed nervously at his throat, remembering the acidic taste of smoke. "Sorry, I'm a little lost. I know I was in the museum bathroom and the building was on fire... does that make one of you Charon? Because this doesn't look like the Styx."

"That's something I've been called," the King of Dreams replied. "The River is close, and you will see it when the time is right, but first you must make your choice."

"That doesn't make things much clearer," Adalai admitted. "What am I choosing?"

The King of Stars raised up its hand and a constellation formed there from the light of it's body. "We are the keepers of Eternity's rolls. Today Eternity called out to you but you are offered a rare gift - you may choose how you answer. You may pass through these doors and into the timeless realm or you may cross the gulf between mortal realms and face the trials and cares of human life once more."

"Eternity?" He stared at the door behind Stars. "What is that like?"

A rumbling sound shook the room and it took Adalai a moment to realize it was the King of Scars laughing. The creature's silhouette rippled as the sound echoed. "It may sound odd," it said when it's amusement subsided, "but we haven't been there. Our duties are on this side of the River. If you choose to remain in the mortal realm then your duties will be there as well."

His eyes narrowed. "My duties? What are those?"

"The same as they were before," Dreams replied, "only of greater significance."

"That sounds awfully vague," Adalai said. "If you are who you say then you're supposed to be the Ferryman who conveys souls to the afterlife. There has to be some reason you're not doing that with me. People don't just come back from the dead at random, if they did everyone would be talking about it."

The laughter of the King of Dreams sounded like a rushing wind, battering the dome overhead. "Didn't you know one of my names when you first got here?"

Adalai's mouth hung open for a long moment as he tried to think of a good response but, in truth, he didn't have one. "Okay. I either cross into Eternity or I cross to a... what, another world?"

"You will cross the horizon," Dreams replied. "The world is your own, but given to a different people with different ways."

"But can I go back to my own world? Or, I guess can I go back across the horizon?"

"Such a thing is possible," the King of Scars said. "It does not even require power beyond what a human being can acquire in the realm you're going to. However it requires a great deal of time and effort, Adalai. I can't guarantee you'd accomplish it, even if you spent your whole life."

He could. The voice boomed out from behind him like a thunderclap. If his duties are fulfilled, he could.

Terrified, Adalai spun in his chair, trying to find the source of the voice. Before he could turn a quarter of the way the King of Stars was beside him, holding him in place. "Show some restraint, Karoushi. His mind won't survive seeing you like that."

Now that he knows this he will not look upon me. Is it not so, Adalai Carpathea?

He fixed his full attention on the table in front of him. "Yes."

It is well. Now that he was a little calmer he realized the voice had a slight feminine lilt to it.You must know further things than these, Adalai Carpathea. These Kings of the Doors have only the authority to judge a man's death. However I am Karoushi, Who Knows the End. My purpose is to uphold the path, from the first step to the last, for all who tread the mortal coils. I can see that if you uphold your purpose in the place you are sent one day my sister, Who Spans the Horizon, will return you to the place you began.

Then Adalai felt there was really only one choice to make. "In that case I want to live. Send me to whatever this place beyond the horizon is."

He must have a Gift.

"A what?"

The King of Scars shifted as if folding its arms. "We don't give Gifts, Karoushi, unless you consider turning people back from Eternity a gift."

Do you not take them from those who depart? My sister, Who Brings the Harvest, takes them from you and plants them in new lives. This once you must offer them yourselves.

Some kind of communication passed between the three Kings. It wasn't words or motions but Adalai could still sense that they were skeptical enough about this idea they were debating it. Then the three doors behind them opened.

Adalai caught a brief glimpse of a man choking on blood as he lay on a muddy battlefield, a child lost and starving in a forrest and a man crushed under the wall of a house he was building. Then the doors slammed shut.

The King of Scars held a dim bronze colored spark of light. "The Gift of Impulse," it said. "With it you may move whatever you last held whether you are touching it or not."

The King of Stars held a smudge of silver mist. "The Gift of Clouds. With it all mist or fog that you touch will be as a part of yourself."

The King of Dreams held a box of bright white light. "The Gift of Arms. With it you will discover the purpose imbued into whatever you touch."

You must choose one. However, once you do the decision is made know that you cannot go back. You must suffer through the fates of mortals until Eternity calls you once more.

For a long moment Adalai hesitated. There was something tempting about the great unknown that Eternity represented. On the other hand there was all the friends he'd left behind, to say nothing of his parents and little brother. It getting back to them meant doing something over some horizon he'd do that.

"Wait." He pause in the process of pushing his chair away from the table. "How do I know my purpose in this new place?"

The same way you knew it when you saved that child. That is all mankind has ever needed to know their purpose.

He could see the truth in that but it couldn't hurt to have something to help him work things out. Adalai got up, approached the King of Dreams and took the Gift from his hands.

There was a flash of light and he found himself standing just inside a massive stone gate, surrounded by a bustling crowd of people babbling in a strange language he'd never heard in his life.

That was how Adalai Carpathea first came to Citadel Fionni.