John awoke to a throbbing at the back of his head and groaned. His hands were roughly tied to something cold and hard. He looked up to see a faded red pipe. His hands were bound tightly together with rope, someone’s belt wrapped around the pipe, and through a loop in his bindings. The low hum of the machinery taunted his ears.

“Wes,” he groaned, looking around. He found Wesley across from him bound in much the same way but rather than ropes chains wrapped around his waist and hands.

“I’m so sorry I got you into this man,” Wesley said quietly; tears fell from his swollen eyes.

“Dude, what is going on? Why are we tied up?”

“I saw that big guy that brought you down here shoot a man in the alley behind my office the other night while I was smoking. I was so spooked that I tripped over a glass bottle, and the big guy chased after me. I was only thinking about getting away and didn’t realize I had pulled my wallet out to order Jamie’s birthday present off some website. I left it there, man, and they found me. They sent me a package with pictures of my parent’s house, the places they worked, Jamie’s parents; they knew everything, John. The note said to come here, and if I called the cops, they would know,

and they would hurt my family until I showed up. So I came here, man; I'm so sorry.”

He started weeping; John let him have his moment before saying, “Don’t apologize, Wes.”

Wes looked up at him, and John continued. “You have pulled me out of so much bullshit over the years. What kind of friend would I be if I hadn’t come to get you?”

“This is different, John; we aren't in some bar brawl. These guys are going to kill us.”

“Jamie is outside. She will call the cops when I don’t come back.”

The sound of a door crashing open made them turn their heads. The sound of footsteps caused John’s heart to swell with hope. Those hopes were soon dashed as the Irishman and his three goons walked down the aisle of machinery where he and his friend were tied.

“Alright boyos,” He announced. “Hope you’ve said your goodbyes, and I do hope ya don’t take it personal like, but this bit is just business.”

The man pulled a pistol equipped with a silencer from the inside of his suit jacket and shot Wes three times in the chest. John watched, horrified, as his only friend’s head slumped to his chest.

“Wesley!” John screamed, pulling at the rope holding him to the pipe; his eyes glued to the growing patches of blood. The man turned and approached John he knelt and dropped John's wallet in his lap, “You, Johnny boy, ya should have just stayed home today.” He raised the gun, and John's face was sprayed with hot powder; he felt every centimeter of the bullets passing through his torso. The pain was so great that he couldn't even scream as his lung and liver were punctured. The pungent odor of the gunpowder and burnt flesh mixed in the air while his blood pooled under him. A thin sheen of cold sweat appeared on his forehead, and he gasped for air, sucking a wave of blood into his lungs. Blood sprayed from his mouth as a coughing fit overcame him. The floor in front of John was spattered with blood as he struggled to keep his airway clear. The droning machines and the quiet dripping of his own blood calmed his panic-addled mind. John took in a ragged breath and leaned his head against the pipes behind him. He closed his eyes to block out the creeping darkness.

Twenty-three years, twenty-three years, and I can’t do a goddamned thing right. The self-detrimental thoughts came to him unbidden. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the warmth of the street, waiting for help. Seriously, what have you accomplished? You’re stuck in a dead-end job with no money, a friend you couldn’t help, and a disappointed family. That fancy degree that your parents hung on the wall in the family room used for nothing, a waste, just a scrap of paper, in your useless dumpster fire of a life. He was torn away from his thoughts as the Irishman tapped the silencer on his forehead.

“Oye boyo. You not dead yet?”

John opened his blurry eyes. The Irishman was crouched down in front of him. He was very close to John, inspecting him. John grinned, revealing bloodstained teeth, and with everything he had left, he jerked forward, hammering his forehead into the man's nose. The sickening wet crunch brought John immense pleasure; he hung against his restraints giggling as blood poured from his mouth.

“Ack, fuck. Ya right prick. ” He fell back onto, holding his nose. Raising the gun while worrying over his nose, and emptied the magazine. John couldn’t even process the pain; he was dead before the third bullet struck.

…

The void after death was bewildering, it felt like both years and seconds, but as soon as it had started, it was over. A dull blue spark shattered the void in defiance. The small, infantile light pulsed and ignited; roaring blue flames exploded outwards. John panicked as he realized the flames were licking his skin. That panic only increased when he further discovered that the flames were not only touching him but that he was on fire.

“Oh shit!” John's voice rang out into the silence as he swatted at his arms and shoulders. His attempts to snuff the flame were in vain because as he swung for the third time, he realized his hand was passing right through the upper section of his arm. His eyes widened in disbelief as he waved his hand first through his arm again, then his shoulder, and finally his face.

“What in the actual fuck is go…” The harsh shout was cut short as John took stock and observed his condition; no pain or heat accompanied the fire, and his body was… glowing? He lifted his arm to inspect this anomaly closer. Slightly transparent, he could see the outlines of dark buildings through what should have been flesh, and there seemed to be small motes of light that traveled down the invisible conduits of his ghostly form.

Are these veins? What in all of the hells is going on? Okay. Okay, maybe take a breath, John; calm down. Then we find answers.

The short string of thoughts stopped as he finally looked up at his surroundings. The world John found himself standing in was illuminated in a thousand scales of gray ranging from near white to blacks darker than pitch. He was standing outside the DownEasy standing on the street. He walked inside the bar and looked around. The beautiful wood grain of the bar and the bottles lined neatly on the shelves were all hues of gray. No one was inside the bar, a strange pull in his chest took him into the back offices of the bar. Looking around as he went, he found no members of the staff. He was drawn again towards the stairs leading to the basement equipment rooms. John descended the stairs in a daze. He walked through the door and rounded the equipment bays. John froze; two bodies sat hanging limply against their restraints. Slowly, he approached the bodies; they sat in dark pools of liquid that looked like oil. There were sprays of the black liquid across the floor and machinery. Like a quiet echo that refused to be forgotten, his ethereal form rippled. He felt the hot bullets and the pain that accompanied them, burrowing through his flesh. His eyes widened as he realized he was looking at himself and his best friend, and the oil patches were congealed blood.

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The grim scene forced him into a state of tunnel vision as his thoughts ran wild. He staggered away from the bodies, his mind spun wildly, and he fell to his knees as he burst through the front door of the DownEasy. He threw his head back and screamed into the silent gray world. Time passed as he knelt, heaving great breaths. Eventually, he calmed, and suddenly all of the things John had committed himself to doing came to him. His little sister's dance recital that she had been practicing for, for months. His meaningless data entry job for Hexicron. They constantly preached, “Loyalty and time are rewarded!”. Then turned around and did what major companies do, not give a shit about anything but the wellness of the business and those at the top.

He chuckled morosely as he remembered Dave, his boss, and the face Dave made the time John had put the letter o instead of a zero into an Excel sheet ruining the whole data string. “You, dickhead Dave, you will not be missed.”

His dog, Jerico, who would feed him? And who would know that he had hidden Jerico’s favorite ball under the couch in his apartment just to get a break from constantly throwing the ball? A frown tugged at the corners of John’s mouth as he sent a thought to his best friend in the world.

I'm sorry, buddy; Mom will buy you an even better ball.

He stared blankly at the street for long moments.

“I…… I’m dead.” John muttered in a breathless voice.

A deep grating voice whispered from above. “You are, and deepest, condolences.”

Ice raced through John's veins as he saw a figure in a long black robe that billowed languidly. Gnarled bone hands jutted out of the long draping sleeves to grip a wicked scythe. The hood cast a dark shadow over the creature’s face. Massive charcoal feathered wings stood unfurled and motionless as he descended. John found himself forced to take an involuntary step back. The man settled to the ground and bowed deeply, his left arm out straight while his right held the scythe blade close to his chest.

“Please do not fear me, child. I am, but a courier of the dead, and I bear glad tidings, for you have been selected.”

“Selected, selected for what?” John croaked, fear evident in his voice.

The courier stood from his bow and loomed over John, the abyss in his hood doing nothing to quell his terrifying visage.

“You have been selected by well, for expediency’s sake, we will call him a god, to become… more.”

The fear and confusion washed out of John’s face as it fell flat, and he barked out a dry laugh.

“Ha. You’ve got the wrong guy. I was murdered in a basement, unable to protect the one friend I had in this world, and now I’m supposed to believe that a god saw that pathetic show, and now, now… I’m some sort of chosen one? You’re a reaper, the man in the boat, death himself. In every movie I’ve ever seen, someone going anywhere with you ends poorly. Likely this is some ploy so you can throw me into a flaming red nebula of screaming souls. Nope, no chance in hell that’s happening; kick rocks, pal. I’ll go this way, and you can float back up into the sky from which you came.” John snapped as he pointed up into the endless expanse of gray that surrounded the two of them.

“Ah, I am afraid, you have no choice in the matter. You will come with me.” The courier’s stern grating voice took on a note of sorrow. “It is a matter of grave importance.”

He extended a hand toward John, palm raised to the heavens. A thick wet smog bubbled out from the bones of his palm and cascaded to the ground. Inky, void-like chains erupted from the ground, causing chunks of pavement and smoke to fly in all directions. The wall of debris obscuring his vision parted obediently for the chains as they barreled forward. Realization began to dawn on John, and he quickly grabbed for one of the chains-turned projectiles coming at his face. As he felt the hard impact on his ethereal hand, John clamped down hard, squeezing with every fiber of his being.

It wasn’t enough, though, as the chain easily tore through his grip and wrapped itself around John's neck. The flames emitting from John's body retreated from the new shackles as they began to coil around his limbs. John surged his arms outward, fighting against the snake-like chains as they continued to weave around him. Inch by inch, the chains pulled in, and the links seemed to shrink, becoming tighter and sucking his arms back toward his body. John quickly found himself wrapped in crossing patterns from head to foot and realized that his struggle had quickly become futile. John glared at the robed figure, trying to kill him with pure hatred and vitriol. John spat at his feet and narrowed his eyes further as he approached.”

“As I said, you have no choice. You will come with me, you will meet with Kelldar, and everything will be explained. Now, we will go as time is short.”

“Fuck off, you overgrown emo fairy,” John screamed. “Do not touch me .” The rage suffusing John grew to a blinding fury as he struggled against his bonds. Just as the courier of the dead extended his boney hand to take hold of the chains, the fire that had been meekly avoiding John's bindings exploded outward, responding to his emotions. The tips of the flame darkening to an ominous shade of violet, they sought out the target of John’s vitriol and scorched the bones of the courier’s hand. John grinned defiantly as the reaper pulled his hand back in surprise. He immediately started working on a smug one-liner to throw at this bastard who had captured him and promptly fell to his knees. The hooded figure chuckled, rubbing the scorch marks away as John’s ethereal flames died down and the overall brightness of John’s form dimmed to a soft glow. He felt like he had just run a full marathon in an old-fashioned navy dive suit. Exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he slumped backward, sitting on his heels.

“It seems you are finally ready.” The reaper stated.

Rather than collecting John with his hand, however, the reaper casually brought his scythe down in a quick arc onto the base of his hostage's neck. Though no physical pain accompanied the blade shredding through John's torso and neck, the mental damage was immense. The feeling of a severed spine that he should not have had in this form, and all sensation leaving his body, killed all thought of escape or struggle. As his eyes focused on the point of the savage weapon protruding from his chest, the reaper began to drag him down the silent streets of this strange shadowy afterlife. The grating of the chains against the pavement droned on for countless minutes before his captor stopped, and from John's position on his side, he could see the intricate patterns the reaper wove with his free hand. Suddenly a gaping violet portal yawned open, and the reaper stepped through, dragging John behind.

As John entered the portal, the grayscale of the previous world fell away into a bright flash of multicolored light. John landed roughly on a set of glassy obsidian stairs that seemed to go on for miles leading upwards to an awe-striking scene. A dark Parthenon-style building nestled between a massive mountain's split peak. Above what John could only describe as the temple to this Kelldar, a gigantic red sun seemed to be permanently eclipsed by some other unknown celestial body. Sibilant disembodied whispers seemed to come from everywhere, quietly telling him something that he would never understand. The reaper pulled the gruesome weapon from John's ethereal form, and sensation immediately returned to his extremities. The chain's bite against his arms and neck was irritating, but their grip loosened slightly. The links binding his legs fell away to clatter against the stairs hanging loosely from his torso.

“Stand, please. I wish to drag you like a disobedient dog no further.” Said the reaper as the abyssal hood turned back to look at John over his shoulder.

John wordlessly stood, unwilling to protest any further. There was a strong hint of finality in the courier's voice that had not been there before. With a single step, the world warped around the pair, and they stood inside the temple. John was unable to appreciate the raw beauty of the scene before him. The open pillared walls lead out to the darkened cliffs, lush with vegetation and strange creatures that no being from earth had ever laid eyes upon. The heavy obsidian roof cut the eclipsed sun in a way that the entirety of the room was cast in a baleful glowing light. In the middle of the temple, with the radiant eclipse as its background, stood a black liquid throne that seemed to contain galaxies within. His mind, reeling from the implications of the past hours, started to fray. His sharp and shallow breaths came faster as he began to panic. “Magic? Portals exist, how and I'm dead but not dead? Metal manipulation blue fire and magic smoke?” Beads of sweat appeared on his palms and forehead as he mumbled. “This has to be a byproduct of death, hallucinations in my last moments of life. It’s the only thing that would make any sense?” John began to cackle with an air of madness. The blue flames crackled and sparked. “It's all fake; none of it's real.”He screamed as he turned to the reaper. “You’re just my imagin..”

“CRACK!”

The sound of a bone hand hitting the chains wrapped tautly around John's neck echoed with a hollow reverberation through the temple. John again hit his knees and tears came to the corners of his eyes. The sibilant whispers that had been quietly grinding against his mind grew louder, taunting him and encouraging the madness. Nausea settled over him like a warm wet blanket. John retched, his stomach heaving as he gagged back the vile liquid trying to escape his throat.

Due to his fragile state, John missed the large figure that stood from the celestial throne; the dark humanoid creature walked forward, carefully staying within the dark shadow his divine throne cast to the floor. The featureless shape stopped at the edge of the shadow; it extended a hand from the shadow and snapped its fingers. John’s madness receded along with the whispers, and a deafening silence hung in the air. His mind focused, and he began to accept his new reality. A quiet pulse echoed from deep in his chest as he focused on calming his breathing. It spread through his limbs like a calming wave, and the fires that were crackling chaotically across his skin settled. He looked up to see a massive black hand that contained brilliant stars and nebulous eyes receding into the shadow of the throne.

A deep melodious voice flowed through the temple, “Hello, John.”