Hollow Bastion was the world of the dead. Unlike the Underworld, the dead there just keep on living.

He can remember dying.

He remembers the scream rising from his throat, torn out of his lungs and discarded into the empty, bleeding sky.

He remembers his head falling sideways and sighting the abandoned, bloody weapon at his side.

He remembers that he hadn't been the last one standing, because long after he fell off his trembling, tired legs she was still standing and running and crying and begging. He remembers her holding him, her tears falling into his eyes and making him cry.

He remembers dying thinking that he had to go up for air and breathe.

He remembers how the blood rose like a flood in his throat and poured like an angry red river out of his nose and mouth, down into his chest.

Now that he remembers he knows he died because he had drowned in his own blood; when it gushed out of his arteries and veins and soaked his heaving lungs.

Above all that, he can remember dying in her arms as shee died too, and he knows this because he had felt the sticky red syrup on his shirt, coming out of her chest with every wheezing last-breath.

He remembers watching the blood spray out of her like a red fountain each time she tried to fill her punctured lungs with air.

Now he remembers staring up at the person with shining eyes that held on to him long after his eyes darkened.

And he remembers waking up looking for the person with the shining eyes that he could not, for the life of him, remember.

He remembers remembering the bright, loving eyes and the dying breaths and the face that smiled as he faded away.

He remembers not remembering her name.

He remembers crying and begging over and over again to whatever god or gods were out there, he begged and prayed please please tell me what her name is?

He remembers thinking even as he prayed and begged and cried that he was dead.

And yet he had kept on living.

And he kept on looking.

He remembers not being able to tell anyone he was scared of finding her. Of finding that kind, bright light that remained in his vision long after his eyes had closed.

Then he remembers her blood rushing out unto his clothes and he would start panicking and wish he could find her.

Every now and then his lungs feel heavy and the air coming out of them would be laces with blood, but he knows he'll be fine.

Because it's her blood saturating his dead, dead lungs and his blood coming out her punctured lungs and torn up remains in his head.