How's it hanging, yo?

Alright, I'll be straight with ya: first chapter of my first fanfic, so please don't be expecting Picasso.

Send Reviews, even bad reviews, and Private Messaging. Profanity is a no-no, and you'll be on the fast track to not being a valued reader if you do.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Dragon Age. It wouldn't be as good as a game if I had owned it anyway.

Enjoy!

Death is a real eye-opener. Most people devote their entire lives into shaping the person they think they ought to be by wearing the new styles, associating with certain characters, even marrying those they do not love for ulterior motives.

However, death weeds out the superficial from the genuine, and how you die puts even more emphasis on who you really are. The only downside is that it's purely hindsight: too little, too blasted late.

What can I say? I know from experience. And from my experiences, I had learned a most true thing about myself: I really don't want to die right now. For a youngster, it's obvious that I would think that way, but I am different from everybody else. I don't fear death, I accepted it as a natural phenomenon that could happen to me at any point of my life, though it chose to happen now. I was somewhat excited to cross the abyss and discover what it was to be dead, free from pain, deception, fear, and heartbreak.

Oh yes, I wanted to be free from all that.

Still….somehow, in some small way…..I really don't want to die right now. Like this. But what did my feelings matter on the subject? What did they accomplish? Absolutely nothing.

It felt like the whole world had gone silent, silent and dark, with the exception of my slowing heartbeat. I felt numb to all types of pain, my brain strained to make congruent thoughts, and all the strength I had left centralized on the beating organ in my chest.

I felt so lonely. Just little old me, laid out on the ground, slowly dying to death.

Then the physical aspects of my life began to transform into….I dunno, spiritual or whatnot. The heavier my body felt, the lighter something inside me felt. It was like inhaling deeply; you watch your chest rise and get full of air, then you're so full of air that you're compelled to breathe out. It was like that, but it felt like I was a balloon, that I could take in so much air, I could float to the sky.

I'm probably talking all sorts of crazy, but that's how it all felt.

Eventually, I did float into the sky.

My vision was completely overtaken by darkness for the briefest of moments, until light illuminated the way in the form of several billion stars, more than anyone has ever seen.

I was floating -or perhaps falling- farther than I had even thought possible: out of time, space, even thought, to that proverbial bright light everyone talked about, and I had the strangest of feelings that everything was going to be okay, like I was heading to a happy, familiar place I hadn't been in for years.

Then I stopped. Stopped floating, or falling, whatever I was doing.

I just….stopped.

Was this Heaven? Didn't feel positive enough to be so. Maybe Hell? Thankfully, it didn't feel bad enough to be so. It was like I was somewhere…between. Wasn't a terribly comfortable feeling.

"Don't be afraid…."

"Do not be scared….."

"Do not worry…."

It was a voice, but one I did not recognize. It came like an echo, an echo that said a different phrase each time the voice bounced back into my…..astral perception of hearing, I suppose is the more accurate term. Y'know, still dead.

"A new life begins for you, my old friend. A new birth…."

I barely had time to understand what was being told of me when I felt something grip me and pull me down. I became reacquainted with an old friend: gravity. The stars beside me became only flashing blur at the speed I traveled, I could barely move or blink. I was almost beginning to feel a crushing weight that suppressed me.

Suddenly, it felt like I fell into the sea. A sense of rugged weightlessness fell upon me and I myself felt tired once again. Not the content type of tired, but the harsh, sore feeling of tiredness.

I…will live? I wondered in my head. Such a thing couldn't be possible. Shouldn't the dead stay dead? How many laws of would that be breaking?

"A new life, another journey to take, though this one be more treacherous. Stay to the path, and you may yet save yourself…."

Danger? What path? Is it a physical path, or a philosophical one?

Despite all my protests, the only response I got to my questions was silence. Silence, and the undeniable urge to sleep.

But in the distance of my mind, the echoes of my thoughts, I swear I could hear a baby's cries….

Chapter 1

So…think you'll come back? I'm working on chapter 2 real quick. I want to get to the best parts as fast as I can, but backstory is necessary, so we do this slow and steady.

See ya in the next chapter!