Desmond awakened.
Three things quickly became apparent.
He lay face-down in a pile of cool, green grass. He was naked. And his entire hand and forearm burned like it had been injected with lava.
For a moment, he took the time to process these things. The part of his brain responsible for this task appeared to have broken down, for the information bounced around his mind like a rubber ball, going everywhere but getting nowhere.
He gave up on trying to make sense of anything. Instead, he managed to flop over onto his back, a groan breaking free as pain and heat stabbed through his arm. Eyes watering, he shivered as cool air brushed across the skin of his chest and stomach, raising goose bumps.
A pure blue sky greeted him, without a single trace of cloud. It was beautiful in a comforting, gentle sort of way. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear people shouting, but right now, he simply focused on the sky. Had the sky ever been this clear, this peaceful?
He couldn't ever remember it being so. Either there were jets streaking trails across it, or there was smog or smoke of some kind. There was nothing in this sky.
"Over here!" A woman's voice shouted. "There's something - oh, my god." Footsteps crunched in grass as they ran in his direction. In the distance, a male voice called, but Desmond didn't hear what was said because someone dropped to their knees beside him. A face leaned over him, blocking his view of the sky.
"Can you hear me? Are you all right?" Hands touched him lightly, carefully checking him over. Desmond flinched at their touch, his skin tingling with hypersensitivity. Gray eyes looked him over, brows knitting in concern. "Hello? Can you understand me?"
Desmond looked up into her face. It wasn't a very pretty face, bearing signs of age and hardship, but it was kind and motherly. He opened his mouth to respond. Nothing came out; words had left him. He blinked, confused.
More people came. They called out to one another and more hands touched him, prodded him. He tried to focus, but any thoughts faded away just as the words had. Instead, a gray shape loomed behind the woman kneeling at his side. Desmond looked; it was a man in familiar robes, a beaked hood covering his head.
The man lifted his chin, allowing the daylight to temporarily chase away the shadows from his face. Tawny eyes stared into Desmond's. For a second, Desmond forgot to breathe beneath the intensity of that gaze, the knowing that was present within them. It was like those eyes were actually seeing him, focusing on him, rather than through him as if he weren't even there.
Then Ratonhnhaké:ton, or more simply known as Connor, turned away as if satisfied with what he saw. People crowded in, blocking off his view, but Desmond shuddered.
He closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the quiet solitude of darkness.
Even in death, ghosts still haunted him.
This wasn't quite what he expected death to be like.
After he had placed his hand upon the orb, there had been agonizing pain, burning his fingers, tearing through nerves and muscles and tendons as it shot up his arm. There hadn't been time to scream before it stabbed through his chest and head and killed him.
He remembered that much, although he wished he didn't. As far as last moments went, that really sucked. After that, there had been an actual white light at the end of the tunnel. He remembered kind of drifting towards it, remembered touching a blue, wavering light, and that was it. Everything just vanished.
That was stuff he expected to happen. But this? This just took craziness to a whole new level.
He lay on a cool surface and stared up at an incredibly bright lights. Something hummed gently nearby; some kind of machinery. Voices murmured distantly, too far away for him to make any sense of. He lifted his head; or tried to, for it apparently weighed a hundred pounds. Instead, he settled for tilting it sideways.
The room was small, with an entire wall made of what appeared to be glass. Through the glass, he saw that there was another room, with a huge open doorway that led to the outdoors. He saw a glimpse of weird looking buildings reaching into a pale blue sky before a ... thing walked through the doorway.
It was tall, with long legs that bent the wrong way and a head that was long and thin. Two horns topped its skull, a slightly darker shade of greenish-gray than the rest of its skin. Huge, oval eyes stared unblinkingly about the room, before noticing him staring.
He watched in growing apprehension as the creature headed right for him. It moved a little awkwardly, taking quick hurried steps as if it had some place it needed to be hours ago. A section of the glass slipped to the side, creating a doorway that allowed the creature into his little room.
It came to his bed, peered at him for a moment. He first tensed, then tried to move away. His limbs felt like they'd encased in concrete, so any attempt to get away failed miserably. The only thing he was capable of was lying there helplessly.
A hum came from the creature's throat, and then it lifted an arm. He flinched, eyes widening at the sudden movement. An orange, translucent shape appeared around its entire forearm. Weird symbols and shapes scrolled across a barely there screen, all of which the creature glanced at briefly before it tapped at the orange thing. It hummed again, before the orange thing disappeared and it lowered its arm.
He stared at it with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. It wasn't like he hadn't seen weird things in his own lifetime - the Apples and the freaky First Civilization folk came to the forefront of his mind - but he was still having trouble of matching whatever this place was with the afterlife. Or whatever it was that happened after death.
Was this some kind of hell? Was this creature to be his torturer, his punisher for all the lives he had taken? Even after the sacrifice he'd made to protect Earth, was this really where he'd end up? Just another hell?
"Odd," the creature muttered. The voice sounded weird, pitched so that it was in the range one would assume was male, but with an odd little twang to it. "Human conscious. Too soon. Expected to awaken much later. Remarkable recovery. Perhaps initial examination flawed? No. No, no. Was very thorough the first time. Everything accounted for. Hmm."
As the creature spoke to itself in rapid-fire English, he could only listen in growing confusion. Not only did this creature speak perfect English - odd phrasing excluded, it appeared to be a doctor of sorts. A demon doctor? Was this some sort of twisted game where things started off with psychological torture? Then once his mind was sufficiently broken, maybe it'd proceed to the hellfire and brimstone sort of atmosphere. Or perhaps it was already broken, and he'd gone insane a long time ago.
Brow furrowed, he shifted his attention and stared at the bright lights above. It hurt his eyes, so he had to squint. "I'm supposed to be dead," he told the lights. His voice sounded raspy and unfamiliar to his ears, though he paid it little mind. "Is insanity supposed to be part of death?"
"Interesting question," the creature said. It had returned to his bed, and was running it's orange thing over him in some kind of scan. "Breakdown in mental faculties would prove extremely tedious. Has been prelude to death on many occasions. Most common case now is gunshot to head. Not far behind is jumpers. Personally prefer gunshot to jumping. Not as messy."
Was this creature seriously talking to him about suicide? He closed his eyes and groaned. What was the point? He already was dead. He lay in silence for about a minute, before the creature decided to start talking once more.
"Scan finished," the creature said.
Opening his eyes, he saw the orange thing disappear once more from the creature's arm. Just what the heck was that thing, anyway?
"Condition is much improved," it informed him. "Repaired major tissue and nerve damage to hand and arm. Good as new. Still unable to identify, however. No records of you anywhere. Not a problem, but would have thought odd DNA markers would be recorded in previous medical documents. Also, still signs of unusual brain activity." It tsked at him, it's freaky face adopting an expression that was clearly disapproving.
He hoped it was finished. His head was starting to hurt from all the chatter and confusion. But it wasn't. It was just getting started, unfortunately.
"Must ask questions, now." It went to a nearby table and came back with something that resembled an ipad. It tapped on the screen, before looking down at him. "Name, please."
He sighed. He couldn't believe it. Now he had to register for hell? Actually, that kind of made sense. Tedious procedures like that would only serve to make him miserable. And that fit right in with the theme. Well, there was nothing else to do. Might as well go with the flow.
"My name is Desmond Miles," he said.
"Date of birth?"
"March 13, 1987."
A pause. Then, "Date of birth, please."
"I just said it - March 13, 1987."
"If true, you would be nearly 200 years old. Highly improbable. Scan shows you are 25 years old."
Desmond blinked. Then he snorted out a laugh. "Right. 200 years? What, did I go to the future when I died?"
"Not dead," the creature immediately said. He typed on his pad with surprising deftness, considering he only had like two fingers and one thumb. "Quite healthy, actually."
"Not dead," Desmond repeated. He arched a brow incredulously. "If I'm not dead, then I've got be insane. Because I know I died." He paused, considering. "Or maybe I am insane. Dead and insane. That would explain all of this."
The creature looked at him. Then it sighed a little and shook its head. It tapped on its ipad rip-off. "Perhaps better to finish questions later. First, assigning medication."
The medication turned out to be a bag full of magic happy juice that was iv dripped directly into his bloodstream. Whatever it was made him feel like he was floating on warm cuddles, giving him the sense that everything was awesome with the world. Never in his life had he felt like this, and he was honestly starting to rethink his earlier assessment.
He hadn't died and gone to hell.
No, he must have gone in the other direction instead. If he had known it would have turned out like this, maybe he wouldn't have hesitated that one last second before touching that orb and sacrificing everything for the world. He would have done it instantly.
Desmond grinned lazily. He was propped up in bed, playing around with a handy little datapad that was connected to the extranet. The demon creature - who had been some equivalent of a doctor - had tried to question him some more, but eventually given up when it became apparent that Desmond didn't have any answers. It had eventually given him the datapad and showed him how to use the search function. It was the equivalent of Google, so he'd started looking up random things to try and make sense of this wacky afterlife.
He sat on the flat roof of one of the living units, feet dangling over the edge. One of them swung back and forth, drumming a rhythmic tempo against the side. Leaning back onto his elbows, Desmond gazed upwards at the sky. Something about it calmed him, helped him focus on the here. On the now.
A bitter sound of amusement broke free from his throat. His life sucked. His death sucked. When he'd touched that orb in the temple, he fully expected to die saving the world. Only ... he didn't die. He still wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but one thing was certain: he was alive.
In the future, to boot. How that was even possible, he couldn't even begin to fathom. Or maybe he could. Desmond lifted his right arm and eyed it warily. Golden lines snaked through the flesh in odd patterns, drawing what appeared to be a broken grid from palm to shoulder. Sometimes the lines would pulse with an eerily familiar power - the same power that he'd felt when wielding one of the Apples. Why it was there, he didn't know. And he wasn't sure if he cared enough to find out why.
He was tired. Of everything. Hadn't he gone through enough?
"Requiescat in pace."
Desmond lowered his gaze to see a man in robes crouching beside a transparent corpse. The hooded assassin looked solid and real in comparison to the corpse, his robes a vivid white and red costume that stood out amongst the drab gray and blues of the surrounding buildings. The assassin reached out, gently closed the eyes of the dead man. Then he rose smoothly, head bent as he held a brief, yet respectful silence for the man he'd just killed.
Silently, Desmond watched, an echo of regret pulling at him. He knew what Ezio Auditore was feeling. He knew why the assassin had killed this man, and remembered it as clearly as if it had been his own hands that had slain him. And in a way, it had been.
Ezio turned away from the fallen, walked to the edge of the roof, and without the slightest hesitation, dove into a perfect leap of faith. He vanished in midair.
Desmond glanced back at where the corpse had lain. Nothing but the roof's smooth surface remained. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
Even in the future, ghosts haunted him.
