Red, orange and yellow are all described as quite warm and happy colours, and it's not like there isn't any evidence to show that they can't be. They make up the most beautiful and relaxing things. Sunsets and luscious fields of flowers are just a couple of things that do nothing but stress how innately blissful these things are, encouraging us to lay back and relax; just enjoy life with the people we love the most.

However, I can tell you that warm and happy tend to be the final things that flutter into your mind when the world around you is on fire.

I laid there, staring up at the ceiling, as the world around me screamed in a sort of screeching silence. The urgency of the situation was somewhere at the back of my head I was pretty sure, but for the life of me, I just couldn't grasp it. It was somewhere between the burning agony that enveloped the right side of my body and the cold numbness that had started to slowly slither down my neck.

None of it seemed important though.

When my brain had finally caught up with what was actually happening, it decided that it would slowly start to help me look up at what was happening; it was all I had the energy to do. I couldn't scream out, I couldn't get up. I could just look.

I wish I hadn't.

My best friend stood above me. The one constant presence I'd ever had just stood there and grinned that stupid, inhuman grin that I had somehow tricked myself into believing that I would never be facing like this. It just stood there and stared at me which made it nearly impossible to acknowledge the state of the room I was in.

Everything had been burned to ashes. Stacks of papers that I had once spent hours and days and weeks hunched over were now reduced to piles of dead dust, just waiting to be laid to rest. The once pristine, silver walls were now coated in greasy black stains with the ceiling having turned almost completely dark instantly. Opposite us was a giant glass tube, number pads and screens reduced to mere skeletons of what they once were. The glass had mostly been shattered, leaving wicked spikes at the base of the contraption, a thick gel substance leaking to the floor as a shiny figure just sat there trying to come to terms with the world around it, like me.

Only it wasn't like me. It would probably live to see another day.

It got up slowly and shakily as if this was the first time it had walked in a while. It started to walk towards us slowly, stumbling a few times but getting the hang of it rather quickly, walking with power and absolute confidence. It knew exactly what it was.

Under any normal circumstance, I would have been terrified. I would have been a snivelling wreck under its mighty shadow, pleading for it to spare my meagre and pathetic existence; I just didn't care.

My world was quite literally up in flames. Everything I had devoted myself to, everything that I had achieved, everything that any of us had achieved was now gone. Lost to a force that had managed to creep in right under our noses. A force of such power that it probably hadn't even needed to surprise us, that was just to show us that it was better than us.

I suppose we deserved it. That was what we got for trying to experiment with, and alter, life. We had tried to play God, and in return, we had been blessed with the consequences.

I was suddenly yanked out of the safe confines of my own thoughts as I found my self suspended in the air, facing the abomination that I had once upon a time believed was a genuinely great idea. Its eyes bore into my soul, a bright and invading blue that I could practically read the seconds that I had left from.

It faced my now worst enemy and listened to it talk in that damn language that I had never been able to understand and nodded in what I assumed was understanding anyway.

It didn't matter to me.

The final things I remember seeing were those eyes, that smile and the remains of what I had once theorized to be a successful and blithe life be engulfed by man's red flower.

A brief memory of a line from a movie came to mind about creating the strongest something or other and succeeding. The giddy thought of that at least made sure that I was thrust into the void with a smile on my face.

Hello.

Ugh… My head… What is this place? Where am I?

This is the Gap. This is the space between one world and another; between one perspective and another.

This is your chance at retribution and your chance at earning your place once again.

What do you..? Chance at retribution? What? All I remember is fire and noise and pain and ugh…

Never you mind about that now. The past is the past, time has come and gone. All you must know is that you have a chance and a choice.

A chance… and a choice? What do you…

You have a chance to be again. You have a chance to leave your past of immature delusions of grandeur behind and to be.

You have a choice of whether you take that or not.

I have a choice? Does everyone get this kinda deal or am I getting special treatment?

Stop being a child.

Tough crowd… I mean, I'm not all well versed on the rules of being… gone or whatever, but isn't that supposed to be kinda permanent?

While you are correct in your assumption, you must understand that you weren't given this choice under some want to be nice to you.

Gee thanks…

The world is in disarray. Your actions indirectly offset the balance of all things, and as a result, you are the only one that can right the wrongs of a misguided past. You merged two perspectives when you had no right to; you must fix it. You have the choice to take up that mantle, and if you don't then this plague will spread.

What should it matter to me though? I'm dead right?

You are correct.

Exactly, so I thi-

But can you let yourself sit by as the world falls to ruin due to your arrogant judgement?

…

Being dead is way more complicated than it should be…

That does not answer the question.

…

Fine… But on one condition.

What do you propose?

Next time I die, I die. That's it. No saving the world and responsible crap.

If you die then it will reflect on your resolve. I would not want someone with weak resolve to attempt this mission twice.

Now, be careful. You are about to embark on a mission of the most severe consequences. You must be quick to learn, adapt and be at your strongest.

We cannot afford to let the world fall to such a fatal error of judgement.

Good luck Adam.

A/N: Hey! Thanks for reading the first chapter to this, I hope that you all enjoyed it! Just a little bit of backstory, this is kinda the second time I'm writing this. Once upon a time I uploaded a story here called "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Balance Keepers" but I ended up deleting it because I really wasn't satisfied with what I had written and I had no motivation to write it.
Well, here's attempt number 2, as I have a lot more time, a lot more energy and a lot more ideas for this one.
Please leave any criticisms or anything that you have, I look forward to reading any because I really hope to improve as I go on.
Thanks!