Max walked deeper into the mist, the black sand making his entire body feel more on edge the further he went in.

After some time he saw a tree, with red bark and black leaves. The odd color made him nervous to touch it, so he kept going, and the terrain slowly turned from black sand to purple dirt and black grass. The trees became more populous and eventually, Max was inside an eerie forest.

Unlike the river, where he could hear the sounds of the currents and spirits, inside this forest, it was absolutely silent. No sounds of birds, people, or even the wind. He was lost and didn't know where to go, but turning around would cause him to become stuck like the other spirits in Elysium. It was now dark and he had nowhere to go.

The sky itself was even more confusing to Max. When it was bright, he could see the three moons, but now at night, the sun was out.

A sudden flash of lightning and the clap of thunder echoed in the distance.

He stood still in place thinking about what to do next, and then something wet hit his head.

And then again.

And again.

The mist had cleared but now was replaced with a sudden downpour in the middle of the dark. Max started running to find a place free from the rain and kept running until he reached the edge of the forest.

At the edge of the forest was a tree stump. It was the size of a building, and in the middle of it, sat a young woman. No rain touched Max when he stood near the giant tree stump and believed that this was possibly his final destination.

He grabbed onto the side of the tree stump and climbed his way to the top. His hands still stung from the scratches of the dead and the rough bark now tore at the underside of his feet. When he pulled himself over the ridge and rolled over he was now bleeding from the knees down. When he sat up, he saw another ghastly sight when he looked at the young woman.

She still wore the clothes she died in, and her body was still charred from the fire. Pieces of her red shirt had melted into her skin and her left ear was missing. From far away Max could smell ash and flesh from a distance and his chest started to burn. The memories of being set on fire returned and he was stuck, frozen in place out of fear.

"Come here," she said. "It's okay. It's wet out there anyway."

Max slowly walked across the old stump and his fear became reality once he saw her face.

Or what was left of it.

"I don't like this," Max said. "This isn't funny."

His original corpse, the corpse of Mari, looked up at him from where she sat and frowned.

"Who said this was a joke? I don't like this either. You don't belong here."

Max stared at the living corpse and told himself it was a nightmare. One of the many he had since he saw the people die at the train station. That he would wake up soon. He told himself that he should go along with it.

It will make the pain end faster.

"Why am I here," he asked quietly.

"I need you to do both of us a favor," the corpse said.

"Anything," Max replied. "You must be so sad here, all alone."

"Thank you," she said with a smile. "I need you to die."

Max looked around as if there were to be some answer to be found in the dead forest. He flinched when the corpse stood up on its own and started approaching him. He put up his hands in fists, ready to defend himself, and the corpse stopped dead in her tracks.

She giggled.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she said. "I just need you to die. It's what's best for the both of us."

"No! I got my second chance and I'm not wasting it!"

"That's the thing," she said with a sigh. "You were never supposed to have a second chance. We are supposed to be one. Two souls, one body."

She walked closer to him, and Max took a step back.

"You did good work at the desert," she said. "You set our people free. They have been trying to stop our rise for millennia, and they have been near successful."

"Our rise? Whose?"

"Those that follow the Ten Paths. They have killed many who had the chance to reach their full potential before they knew. They have killed my descendants thinking that it would stop my return. They fear those who respect what is greater than themselves because they respect nothing, not even their own self."

"So you're saying that what happened in the desert wasn't just a few military leaders who were crazy, " Max asked.

She nodded and grinned, her rotting teeth on display. She took a few steps closer to Max and he stepped back again, but there was no more room left behind him.

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"They know that I am to rise again," she said. "But they are stupid. One is not born a Weaver but you can become one. They can't kill everyone."

"Who are they?"

"Filthy parasites that defile nature, and if they continue, they will kill us all," she told him. "If one of the Paths were to die, then so would the rest. That's why I need you to die."

"I don't understand what this has to do with-"

"You're weak."

Mari's corpse said it like a statement. That water was wet, fire was hot, and Max was weak.

"This is the first time in a long time that I have had the chance to return, and you are too weak to be of any use. If you die now then in a decade or two I can have another chance."

"You're the Stormweaver," Max said. "You're him."

"Yes. And there can only be one," the corpse replied. "That evil woman in the desert wasn't wrong. Unlike her though, I am asking nicely."

"I am not weak," Max shouted. "Every day I train to become stronger!"

A loud crash of thunder and lightning shook the forest, and suddenly the water decided that the tree stump was no longer a safe place. Water washed away the blood down his hands and legs, but Mari's corpse started to die one last time.

"You are weak in spirit," the corpse screamed. "And that is all that matters! I cannot risk the lives of our people, on the world, on some stupid, weak, child!"

"I am not a child," Max screamed back. "I turn eighteen in like, a month!"

The corpse paused for a moment at the weird turn of conversation. Its remaining ear fell off, and then its nose from the torrent of the rain.

"Shut up," it hissed. "I will kill you!"

The corpse charged right at Max and he screamed in terror, frozen in place. Its cold, bony hands gripped onto his neck and Max tried to push it off, but it would not let go. When he tried to grab the corpse's arm, the dead skin sloughed right off the arm, leaving a slimy goo all over Max's hands. He tried walking backward again but forgot that he was on the edge of the giant stump, and fell backward.

"Help," Max screamed. "Someone help-"

He awoke on the floor looking up at Eric.

"What happened to you," Eric asked. "Your body's all messed up."

"W-what are you, who? What's going on," Max said.

Eric stood up and turned on the lights. Max looked down at his body, and the wounds he suffered in his dream were still there. His throat hurt and he was wet all over still from the rain.

"You started screaming in the middle of the night," Eric said. "Then you fell out of bed, soaked all over and bleeding! What happened?"

"I'm weak," Max replied. "My ghost told me I need to die and that someone is trying to kill all the Weavers."

Eric rolled his eyes and helped Max get up from the floor.

"Someone is always trying to kill us. We suffer from success is all," he told Max. "Your subconscious is stressed and telling you horrible things."

"I didn't go to bed wet and covered in bruises," Max replied.

"Oh. Huh, yeah, that's problematic...."

"What should we do," Max shouted.

"I got this."

Eric got him a towel, a glass of water, some painkillers and a sandwich.

"You a gweat roomfuate," Max said while munching on his sandwich. "Good sammich! What now?"

"This is tomorrow's problem. We can deal with it tomorrow," Eric told him.

Eric got back into bed and laid down.

"I dun fink that's a good idea," Max said.

"Sleep mode on," Eric replied.

"You are not sleeping! Stop that!"

He was asleep.

"Fine, it's tomorrow's problem," Max grumbled to himself.

Max sighed, found an extra blanket in the closet, turned off the lights, and got into bed.

He couldn't sleep and was alone with his thoughts until Eric fell out of bed in the morning.