It was an unfamiliar place. One which did not make any sense.

He stood on the middle of a bridge, if you could call it one.

Spencer blinked, the action slow and soundless. It was difficult to form coherent active thoughts. He could only passively accept what he was witnessing.

Here, on the Bridge of Life and Death, sensation played by its own peculiar rules. To the left of the bridge was the Life realm, while on the right was the Death realm.

Standing a bit towards the left side of the bridge, he involuntarily took a step forward towards the death realm. Why did he do it? He didn’t know. Everything told him it was how it was supposed to be.

Spencer, standing on the bridge, felt an overwhelming sense of detachment. Here, in the unique dimension of the bridge, all sensations from the realms of life and death were muted. His sight unconsciously moved around.

He could see the blurry vibrancy of life and the stillness of death, but he could neither hear the rustling of leaves nor the clatter of skulls.

No fragrance of blooming flowers reached his nostrils, nor did the scent of decay invade his senses. The bridge's dimension held its own sensory tapestry.

It smelled of forgotten memories, literally, as pieces of memory invited themselves into the stillness of his mind. Everything about this unique dimension screamed of the metallic tang of inevitability.

The Bridge itself was a marvel of impossible geometry. It stretched in both directions, made up of titanic bones, strung together by thick roots, or what it seemed for a second.

Its surface shifted and morphed with every blink, appearing as polished obsidian one moment, then a swirling vortex of nebulae the next. It blurred more, the farther he looked.

Spencer felt adrift, a solitary speck in a canvas that defied comprehension. Here, in the liminal space between breaths, he couldn't quite tell if he was breathing at all. The only sound, a low, rhythmic hum, vibrated through the very core of his being, a constant heartbeat of the Bridge itself.

He was neither alive nor quite dead. He was a traveler in a place between, a witness to the eternal dance of existence and oblivion. He was a single thread caught in the cosmic loom. And as he stood there, overwhelmed by the sheer impossibility of it all, a single thought, sharp as a spear, pierced through the numb silence, bringing with it a golden glow.

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“Go back!”

The thought wasn’t his. The voice, it was his girlfriend!

He suddenly felt his mind clear up, as if that single voice had broken through the icy stillness of his thoughts. He could think.

He realized he was on the perfect middle of the bridge, having unknowingly walked this far, about to take another step, into the latter half which belonged to the death realm, when the voice woke him up.

He put back his lifted foot and looked ahead. His girlfriend stood on the edge of the Death realm, limbs bound by black chains. A rush of emotions surged inside him as another voice rang in his head, this time shouting, a pleading undertone and confusion in her voice.

“Don’t come here. Go back! You’ll be truly dead if you do. I don’t know, but I am somehow alive. But I am trapped here. You staying alive is our only hope.”

His emotions begged him not to listen to her. Here was his only reason for living, telling him to live on without her. The cruel irony. His foot lifted again only to be shot down, this time by force.

“Go!”

He realized the chains on her seemed to have increased, if it was only limbs before, this time it also bound her neck.

Is interfering with my process resulting in a punishment for her? Was I about to die? Did she stop it? How?

Guilt ripped through his being as he vomited the unpleasant words out of his mouth.

“I’ll come back.”

He didn’t hear her reply. Or did his voice ever reach her at all?

It was an ironic scene as she smiled only when he reluctantly took a step away from her.

The volume of emotions left him with breathlessness, even though he was sure he didn’t have a physical body. He didn’t turn around, searing her figure into his mind, as his sight blurred the farther he went. He would have preferred if it were his tears blocking the sight, at least he could wipe them.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind, to step forward. If only to see her once again. But he couldn’t, knowing she would be penalized more if she interfered after misunderstanding him as heading into the Death realm to save her. The inability of which shredded his figurative heart to pieces.

By the time he was at the edge of the bridge, a step away from the Life realm, only a mote of her image remained on the other end.

Half step into the Life realm, her reply finally sounded in his mind. He could feel her smile through the voice, sounding relieved and happy.

And maybe a bit of hope?

“I’ll wait for you.”

A chuckle escaped his mouth, if there was one. It spoke of helplessness, powerlessness, and sadness.

And maybe a bit of hope?