Blurry blues and small dots moving upward. He had opened his eyes. He laid down on soft soil. Someone was there, they reached out a hand. Zifeng grabbed it and pulled himself up. A cool breeze swept over him as he saw the greenery of the forest. “Where are we,” he asked. He looked around, and there were many others who lied on the same soil as he had. “Did you also die?” the man asked.

“I thought I did.”

“I met some of my clansman. We all thought we had died from the huge beast.”

“Beast?”

“Yes, Grew Di Cal. I can’t recall you from my clan, perhaps you experienced another death?”

“My brother… My master. I thought my master killed me.”

“It’s strange,” he paused. “Everyone I’ve talked to here believed they had died.”

“My brother? Is my brother here?”

“I’m not sure. Had he also died? Do you know what he looked like?”

“My brother had—” and there he was. He had been lying peacefully beside him. Zifeng kneeled down and began crying.

“He’ll wake up on his own soon,” the man patted him on the shoulder and went off.

“I thought I had lost you, brother,” he wept. “I thought I had lost everything.” The cheers and noises of others around him lent a bittersweet feeling. “What has happened to us, brother? Are we in the afterlife?” He could see Zhu begin to move his eyes through his lids. “Brother!” He opened his eyes.

“Zifeng?”

“Yes, it’s me, Zhu!”

Zhu sat up. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I thought master had killed you.”

Zhu looked around in awe. “Brother, this is it.”

“What?”

“This is resurrection.”

Right then, it hit Zifeng like a meteorite. “Did she— did our master bring us back?”

“Yes, she brought us back to life. Why us though? We were merely her puppets. I guess, she brought back every single creature she had killed.”

Zifeng looked around. It wasn’t just them and a couple others, it was cats and dogs, it was children and adults, it was a forest of plants and trees, it was all of flora and fauna.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The brothers got up and did what they did best, educate themselves. The more they asked, the more they learned, the more they were in disbelief. They talked with villagers like themselves, they talked with leaders of empires and civilizations, they inspected the extinct and endangered species, there was no doubt about it, their master had brought back everything she had destroyed. From living organisms to inanimate objects. Zhu saw the castle of Neteroids. It belonged to some of the people who had been brought back. One of the folks pointed towards the mountain that was barely noticeable from the distance. It was far away, and the top could not be seen as it seemed to be extremely tall. “That,” the man pointed. “That is Mount Erodica. The mountain with an immensely complex tunnelling system that our people built. Grew Di Cal had obliterated the mountain to large rocks and lava. I remember witnessing the destruction myself,” he began to shake like he was anxious, and paused between each word. “All my friends were burnt alive in there,” his bottom and upper jaw rapidly collided with one another. “I get chills just thinking about it.” As the brothers roamed around, they say people crying from experiencing death but also crying from relief. The most joyous thing they saw was the reunions between families; the happy crying of a family in each others arms. The memories of everyone remained intact. Even their traumatic deaths seemed to not have been erased. Zhu guessed Mei decided against it as it would be erasing a part of themselves.

A question that everyone had asked and the brothers had pondered about. “Am I really me?” Perhaps not the original, Zifeng wondered, but if Mei had not altered anything and made an exact clone, then this had to be Zifeng. Although one could argue it isn’t the original and only a copy since the atomic makeup was from different particles. Or were they? How could the brothers be sure that the atoms and energy used to resurrect everyone here had not been of the original. As in, how could they know that each atom on them was not the exact same atom they were when they died. They couldn’t, but it was of a slim possibility. If they were to be made of the exact same atoms, then Mei had to extract them from the world. If they had been used by other organisms for energy or even breathed in, they had to be taken out of them somehow and reverted to their previous state. If that were the case, would that mean she had killed the entire world so she could organize each particle the way she wanted? Impossible, they thought. They wished to confirm their beliefs and went out looking for individuals who had no memory of death, for if they did not then their master had perhaps not killed all.

Zifeng and Zhu had come by a city. It was blustering with color, and there were many people on the edge of its border, waiting for something. They asked the people of their deaths, and none could remember. However, they had said that a mysterious woman had given the city very valuable resources which was to be used to rehabilitate the people coming from the south; the forest.

The city let in all of the wanderers from the forest. They had prepared shelters for each one of them. They had even assigned paid duties. The brothers were given their own homes and their own offices for their highly important jobs. The brothers wandered the city, they were incredibly delighted by how technology had advanced. The city was jarring, yet they had noticed that they could not see the stars. The brothers already knew the terms for this, “light pollution.” So, they went off, far into the forest, uptop a mountain. The brothers had raced, and as expected, Zhu had won. The two brothers gazed upon the city from such a height, and the stars above were all so magnificent.

The brothers discussed the morals of their master on the apex of that mountain. Why had she done such a thing? Was she to be forgiven? Was this the right choice? When they had looked around, everyone was relieved and cheerful. The problems that a bunch of loners would wake up to seemed to have been already solved before they were awoken. The big question that they both had was if their master was still alive. They went back to the city and asked many more questions. They got up to higher ranking officers and to the ruler who delighted them with a feast. The ruler said: “we had only known the woman for a month. She had built an extremely large portion of this city. This room was created entirely by her. We don’t know how she did it, it was like magic. We would sleep and wake up to hundreds of new buildings. We have no clue as to where she has vanished, unfortunately. She only wanted us to let all who wandered in from the forest to live within our city. We were first confused as to what that meant, since we had no nearby forest, but one day when we arose from our beds, we saw it. I don’t believe we would be able to repay her.” When had she disappeared, the brothers asked. “Oh, it was two days ago. That was also when the forest had appeared. The woman had said to not go within and to not destroy the forest ever. So, we always guard the border of the city, to not let anyone out into the forest or any creature into the city. We also set up there to wait for the wanderers to start wandering.” It was recently that she had gone missing, perhaps the brothers could catch up to her. “I know you wish to meet your master,” the ruler said. The brothers were surprised, as they had not told anyone that the mysterious woman was their master. “Zhu and Zifeng, was it? She told of those two names. The woman had said you have a vendetta against her, but that you are truly nice people,” he paused. “And that she hoped you could forgive her.” Zifeng’s heart ached. Zhu didn’t know what to think. “She said that by the time I met you two, she would no longer be of this world. Which I advised against, but she didn’t let me argue that,” the ruler smiled sadly. “She always wore a mask and said she was a bad person, that she had done horrible things. Yet, all that she had done for us, was nowhere near terrible.”

After they were done eating and more importantly done talking, the two brothers walked silently to their homes. They didn’t get much sleep that night, as they wondered on and on about what had happened. They knew there would be many disabled from what they had experienced in death and before death. This cloud of grief and despair slowly transformed into hope and aspiration. The brothers would make everyone's life better, that would be their duty. When the sun rose, the brothers were told to visit their office, where instructions for their jobs had been given.

They arrived at their separate offices, on their desk laid a familiar book named ‘Penny Book.’ The first page had written on it:

> Quantum Entanglement is now a common psychological practice. It has resulted in cures for bipolar and depression and many alike illnesses. My duties are to study such cases and provide useful data that will benefit society. Here, I write the thoughts of others for the benefit of the individual I practice it upon. I vow to never use it for anything else no matter the cause, here is my blood to entail this promise forever.

At the bottom was a circle. The two brothers, as if their thoughts were entangled, bit their thumbs and stamped their blood within it.