Ed tumbled and rolled onto a cold stone floor, like he had been tossed by a giant. He skidded to a halt, back up against a moss-covered wall. He took a second to breathe, and was flooded with relief as cool, fresh air filled his lungs. It was refreshing beyond belief, like a cold bath on a hot desert day. No sand, no choking, no darkness.

He patted his hands over his body, making sure everything else was intact. Everything was there. Skin. Limbs. Eyes. Clothes. Headband.

Even the scrapes and cuts from the biting sand were gone. He was fine. In fact, he felt good.

At least physically. Mentally, not so much.

Disoriented, he strained his eyes as they adjusted to the darkness around him. But not the pure blackness of wherever he was before, when the lumie had saved him. He glanced around anxiously, his vision picking up rough outlines of the space around him. A dim light seemed to emanate from the air itself, casting an almost imperceptible glow about him.

He realized was in some kind of cave. This was the cavern the lumie had ushered him towards.

Speaking of the lumie, it was nowhere to be found.

“Hello? Little lumie?” Ed called out. No response.

His breath came in quick gulps as the weight of what just happened fell on him like a boulder. So many people were dead, unless they were stuck in this place with him.

Was he dead?

“Hello?” he called out again, louder than before. His voice echoed back at him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled his skin as they stood up straight.

His mind reeled, torn between past and present. One moment, his body was being ripped apart by vicious sand. His wife was seemingly possessed by an ancient goddess… the mere thoughts of those words made Ed’s head hurt so much he thought he may vomit.

But now, he was breathing freely. And apparently alive.

This could be the afterlife, he thought to himself.

Ed had never believed or thought much about the afterlife. Life itself was hard enough, he always figured he’d tackle what came next when he got there. As far as he was concerned, the closest thing to a divine presence was a lush oasis in the middle of the desert.

This place was the exact opposite. If this really was the afterlife, it was not the one the oasis priests talked about in their sermons.

All these thoughts were so jarring, his head spun. He let out a heavy sigh and pressed his head between his knees, palms clasped behind his neck.

He was either dead or having a terrible dream. A nightmare.

No… the feeling of sand shredding his lungs apart was too visceral and real to have been a dream. And the image of Lila with those bloodshot eyes that weren’t her own… it was burned into his mind. It was all too real.

So, Ed concluded that he had died. There was no other logical explanation. He thought of Lila. What did Somnia want from her? Was Lila still alive? Was she a prisoner in her own body?

Would he ever learn her fate? He shuddered at the thought of never knowing what happened to his beloved wife.

Ed sat for a while like this, slumped against the wall. He wasn’t sure how long, the quiet and empty nature of this place made time feel like a foreign concept. The longer he sat, the calmer he felt. His mind stopped racing, stopped replaying the horrific scene at dinner. Lila’s haunting eyes transformed into the warm ones he came to love after years of marriage.

He found a strange peace in accepting his death. For as chaotic as the event leading up to it had been, he felt relief in how calming things felt now. Maybe if he fell asleep, he would drift off for good…

Before he had a chance to test this theory, Ed was jolted to attention by a scraping sound in the shadows. The sound was close, just out of his eyesight.

“Lila? Lumie?”

No response. More scraping, accompanied by some kind of rattling noise.

“I know someone is there.” Ed’s voice cracked with fear as he spoke. “Who are you?”

As the sound grew closer, Ed could faintly discern a shape materializing. A short, thin figure appeared from the darkness.

It was a skeleton. And it was dragging a stick behind it as it walked.

Ed’s mouth went dry, finding no words or coherent thought to explain what he was seeing. The skeleton turned its cracked and broken skull towards him, eye sockets igniting with a dull, white flame. With great effort, it lugged its staff into the air in front of itself and tapped it on the ground three times.

The darkness washed away, as if it was being pushed by some invisible breeze. Torches along the cave walls lit up. Dim white flames flickered as an endless line of torches ignited, illuminating the dark cavern far into the distance, around every nook and cranny.

“What is going on?” Ed asked the skeleton. “Where am I?”

The skeleton faced him but did not reply.

“Am I dead?” Ed asked, pleading.

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The skeleton’s bony jaw unhinged, and a haunting voice followed.

“Be calm, mortal. You will have your answers.”

Ed shivered, his skin tingling with goosebumps. He had either gone entirely mad, or the afterlife was nothing like anyone thought.

“I know you are confused,” the skeleton continued. “Patience will serve you well.”

The skeleton hobbled forward, down the path the torches had ignited. The cavern’s ceiling was tall and lined with stalactites and lichens. Ed’s shadow danced around him from all angles from the torches.

“Follow,” the skeleton hissed, its voice a dry rustle.

Ed followed the small skeleton, matching his glacial pace but keeping his distance. The cavern was utterly silent besides the clicking of his guide’s bones and the scraping of its stick. The air here was thick with the scent of earth, which gave Ed a modicum of comfort. Maybe it was a real cave, in the real world.

Maybe he wasn’t dead?

He followed his skeletal guide deeper into the winding cavern. Before long, the path ended abruptly. Ed stood before a grand archway, beyond which sat a throne carved from bone.

On the throne sat a figure draped in massive black robes, spilling to the ground in folds.

Ed jumped as the small skeleton beside him collapsed, bones tumbling to the ground. Its skull rolled across the floor and came to a rest by Ed’s boot, its hollow gaze now vacant.

“Eddarion Key,” the robed figure called to Ed. Its voice echoed throughout the grand room. Its voice was as loud and clear as if Ed was standing right beside it, not across the room. “You trespass in the realm of the dead, yet you walk and breathe.” The voice was the sound of gravel and midnight, deep and dark, calm and collected.

Ed was frozen with fear. He didn’t know how to respond.

“An anomaly,” the voice continued. “A thread pulled loose from the tapestry. How is it that you enter my realm without being summoned?”

Ed swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “Am I dead?” he asked.

A low, hollow laugh echoed through the chamber. “Death is but a door, mortal. You have slipped through its cracks. Entered the other side without passing through.”

A small, luminescent blob scurried out from behind the massive throne of bones. It scuttled across the room towards Ed.

“The lumie…” Ed said.

“This creature somehow found my single thread sent for another in the Nether and latched onto it. It bound your fading soul to its own, dragging you here.”

Ed didn’t understand.

“It was a desperate gambit, but fate favors the bold. I have seen humans with much less desire to survive.”

“What about the others? Ed asked. What about my wife, he thought to himself.

“Beyond even my reach,” the figure said. His tone had a finality to it, halting any further questions. Ed’s heart sank.

“Who are you?” Ed asked.

“I am Mortem, the God of Death”.

Ed stared dumbfounded at the simplicity of the answer. His first thought was that he didn’t believe it. Less than an hour ago he was at dinner. Now he was in the presence of the god of death. And uninvited, whatever that meant. He couldn’t comprehend it.

Mortem seemed to pick up on Ed’s confusion. “You have questions, Eddarion. I have little time. Ask them.”

Ed’s chest tightened at the mention of his name again. This being, this god, knew his name. It made the massive cavern feel impossibly small and suffocating. He walked forward, approaching Mortem’s throne.

“Why did Somnia possess my wife?” Ed blurted out. “What does she want from us? What do you want from me?”

Mortem shifted on his throne, the myriad bones clattering softly as he moved. Ed was able to see beneath his hood. Bright white eyes, flickering like fireballs, looked back at him.

“If what you say is true, Somnia has breached the bridge between my world and yours”, Mortem said solemnly. “And if she truly has, then what you saw was just the prelude. I intervened through the Nether, to the limits of my power, to seize but one soul she sought. But you were an unintended catch. The result of this one’s meddling.”

He raised a sleeved arm and a bony hand emerged, pointing at the lumie that was now resting in Ed’s arms.

“But my wife… why Lila?” Ed whimpered, a tear streaking down his cheek.

Mortem considered for a moment before speaking. “I can’t say. The most likely answer is that your wife was an easy and willing conduit. Somnia had countless devotees in the past. I assume she still has some even today.”

The answer didn’t make sense to Ed. How could his wife be a willing accomplice to Somnia?

A sudden realization hit him like a sandstorm. A pit formed in his stomach, and he became so dizzy he collapsed.

Lila was the one who had mentioned the expedition to him. She told Ed she had dreamt of a treasure in the desert, a dream so vivid she felt it was real. Of a treasure so wondrous it would change their lives.

Ed exhausted every contact he had, at Lila's insistence, to investigate this claim. Eventually word got to Ser Tristan. Everything since then had happened so fast, the expedition, the dark incident in the cave, the dinner… Ed just now put the pieces together.

“You see now,” Mortem said. He climbed down from his throne, shuffling slowly to Ed as his massive robes dragged behind. “Somnia plays a game beyond even my understanding. You saw but a glimpse of what she is capable of in that cave.”

Ed was speechless. His body started to shiver uncontrollably.

“Enough.” Mortem waved his hand in a short pattern, and the bones of the skeletal steward formed into a massive hand, lifting Ed up by his collar. Ed willed himself to not fall over again, standing steady on his feet. The lumie scampered to the ground and wrapped around his ankles, as if to steady him.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ed said in a hoarse whisper.

Mortem was moving now. He fetched the stick the small skeletal guide had wielded, waving it about in the air.

“You shall serve as my thrall, along with the other I brought here.”

“Your thrall? Ed echoed.

“I will bestow you with a portion of my power, the ability to see beyond the veil that binds mortal eyes. To reside between your world and the Nether. You will fight those that should not walk your world, and you will uncover Somnia’s intentions for me.”

Ed could barely follow. “Power? What power?”

“To understand death, one must face it. To wield its power, one must conquer it,” Mortem replied. “Those mortals who walked the Nether, millennia ago we called them Netheryn. You will take on this mantle for me.”

Mortem approached Ed, standing inches away from him. Ed stared into the face of the god of death, confused and scared. But a feeling of determination, hot and intense, started to burn in his chest. The lumie crawled up onto his shoulder, pumping itself up in response.

The god of death placed a bony finger to Ed’s brow.

The instant Mortem touched him, a jolt of raw, untamed power surged through Ed. It left him gasping for air, anchored on the brink of an unfathomable abyss.

Mortem raised his hand, drawing a seemingly endless amount of bones from around the chamber. Small skeletal warriors formed, wielding weapons and shields made of bone.

“We have much to do and little time,” Mortem said. “Let’s begin.”