Chapter 2: What Happens After Death

For a while there was nothing, pure untainted nothingness. Tide had no thoughts, no body, and nothing to worry about. It was oddly relaxing, and Tide was at peace.

After an imperceptible amount of time something began to happen. At first it felt like a small tug, but the force grew until it felt like gravity dragging him towards somewhere.

Wait he felt something? He could think once again! Perhaps he was just kept in this void for the moment. Maybe that state was some form of purgatory.

If that was the case, was there an afterlife? Was he on his way to some form of heaven? Probably not, based on what he did to survive in the game. Regret flashed through his minds as images of dead faces surfaced in his mind. Friends and foes alike. Yea, most likely he was headed to hell. On the bright side perhaps, he was about to be reincarnated as a baby and his memories would be wiped. Tide didn’t really subscribe to any religion. He instinctively thought that no god would allow what he and everyone else went through.

After a while he began to realize the force was ramping up. His nonexistent body felt like it was accelerating at a slow rate. There was nothing to mark the distance and speed of this pull, but he just felt it. The speed that he was going at began to exponentially get faster and faster. It reached a point where it felt like he was getting ripped apart by the strange force.

Right as it was becoming almost unbearable, he felt a thud and felt something underneath him cause him to stop.

He instinctively opened his eyes to gauge what was going on only to realize that he was back in his body. Or at least something close to his body. He was totally naked besides a cloth band wrapped around his waist covering his privates. All the scars and blemish that were accumulated on his lanky but muscular body were gone. Looking up from inspecting his new body he saw that he was in an odd room and that he wasn’t alone.

He was in a quite plain room with neutral-colored walls. It was about the size of a classroom and along its walls were around twenty or so chairs. Some of them were even occupied by other people looking to be in the same situation as him. They were naked besides the same minimal white cloth covering them. Some looked visibly panicked while others looked bored.

Tide looked next to him to see a burly man of impressive stature sitting one chair away from him. He was one of the people who seemed to be calm.

Questions began to race through Tides mind as he tried to speak to the man.

He was going to ask where they were and what was going on, but nothing came out of his mouth. Confusion raced through his mind as he tried to ask again, but there was no difference. The confusion quickly turned to panic. He strained his legs to stand up, but once again his body just wasn’t listening to his mind. He was firmly stuck in the chair with no sign of movement. It seemed that the only thing Tide could move was his head and eyes. Tide began to stretch his neck and look around in a panic trying to find anything that could help him or explain the circumstances. The only thing in the room was the chairs, people and a single door on the wall opposite him.

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The man next to him noticed Tides panic and looked over to him before gently shaking his head back and forth as if pitying him. This action caused Tide to take a second and realize that it seemed that everyone else in the room was in the same situation. Unable to move and unable to speak.

After a little bit Tide began to calm his breathing and regain control of his racing thoughts. It looked like he wasn’t in any danger at the moment and wasn’t even uncomfortable in his chair siting still as an inanimate object. With no choice but to just sit there and await his fate time began to pass again. All he could do was look at his fellow captives who were either panicking or calm like the man next to him.

After what felt like only ten or so minutes of nothing happening, one of the people in the room suddenly stood up and began to walk towards the door. The woman in question’s eyes were flooded with panic as her body walked across the room. Tide once again strained against the invisible restraints keeping him still. Nothing changed for him, as he watched the woman open the door and walk through it. From the angle he was sitting Tide saw a bit through the doorway and could only see what appeared to be a hallway with the same plain walls. Tide was unable to see what the hallway was leading to and after the woman walked through the threshold, she closed the door behind her.

After this brief moment of activity, the room settled back to the state of inactivity like nothing happened. After a couple more moments another flash of movement caught Tides eye. He suddenly noticed one of the unoccupied chairs suddenly had an occupant. Like a magican making someone reappear the newcomer was sitting there like he was there the whole time. This time the man was an older gentleman who looked like he was going through the same mental process Tide had just gone through.

Confusion, panic and then finally acceptance.

More time passed before another person stood up and went through the doorway into the unknown. This marked the beginning of the cycle that Tide watch for the next couple of hours as the people here before him one by one left through the door while new people appeared in the seat they previously occupied. It was almost like they were in a waiting room or holding cell patiently awaiting their turn to see a doctor. Eventually the burly man next to him stood up and went through the door as well.

Tide’s panic and fear began to grow as there was less and less people left that were in the room when he got there. Based on this observation it seemed that everyone was leaving in the order of which they got there. It was the only thing that made sense to him. This meant that it was going to be his turn soon.

As time ticked on and on, he began to accept that it was going to be his turn soon as one of the older occupants of the room.

Just as he predicted, while he was waiting for his turn his body suddenly stood up and began to walk across the room. It was automatic, and he had no control. He wasn't walking himself; his body was just doing it on its own. Seeing no use in panicking Tide resolved himself to just go with it. Whatever happened at the end of that hallway wasn’t something that he could change. There was obviously a higher power in control here.

After crossing the room, he opened the door and got his first full look at what was behind it. He was almost disappointed as it was just a hallway with walls of the same color, which was about twenty paces long with a door on the other end. At this point he couldn’t care less about what fate awaited him and just wanted to know what was going on.

As he crossed the hall and began to open the door, he heard a familiar soft feminine voice speaking and state what sounded like an introduction for him.

“Tide Blackwater. Class- Geomancer. Potential rating- A. Survived 85 day and was killed during the final undead attack.”