The Land of the Dead – 01

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

-5-

Stephen opened his eyes and thought that he had gone mad. The majority of Leek's crazy menagerie has come open him, a host of gnashing teeth and slashing claws and he... well, actually, he wasn't sure that he had been able to experience anything before he died. He did die, however, and he had died in Leek's crazy hide-out, not here, in a rather spacious and airy room that... didn't look like anything he had ever encountered.

Feeling confused, mystified, Stephen stood up and looked around. Nothing has changed. He was still located in a large, airy room with windows that were made not out glass, but out of bladder; the walls, though, seemed to be made from wood and stone... for some reason that had shocked Stephen the most.

"I'm dead," he muttered to himself, "I'm dead, and I've crossed into the world of the bizarre..." with these words he got up and abruptly left the room that he found himself in.

Sadly, this wasn't to be the end of the weirdness, as Stephen had privately hoped. Instead, he found himself in a circular corridor that led to other rooms and also had a spiralling staircase that led to an upper floor. "Hmm," Stephen said thoughtfully. "I think I have a thought." He took a deep breath and went outside through the front door that he saw just a short while earlier.

"Well, that was expected," Stephen said slowly as he emerged from the tower into the sunlit weather outside and looked up, seeing that the house he found himself in was no house, but rather a lighthouse-like tower composed of two or three floors, though only the first two of them seemed to be inhabited... or rather, designed to be inhabited, the topmost floor – not so much.

"I died saving the world and for my pains I inherited a lighthouse?" Stephen spoke incredulously. "That just doesn't make sense!" With these words, he turned around and found himself facing two worlds.

On Stephen's right side stretched a great plain, where creatures of various size and appearance browsed or stalked those who did. Some were mammals – but no mammals that Stephen had ever seen – others were clearly dinosaurs, while the third were neither but reptiles of some different sort altogether. This plain stretched as far as Stephen could see in both directions and away from him, though there, at the edge of the horizon, it appeared to be replaced with something darker – a mountain range, perhaps, or a forest.

Meanwhile, on Stephen's left side a great blue ocean was stretching just as far as the plain on his right did. Even as Stephen looked, a great fanged head that belonged to neither a fish nor a sperm whale burst briefly from the water, took a greedy breath of air and submerged once again with hardly a ripple.

"Well, that settles it," Stephen said flatly. "I died and I ended up in a paradise made for Nick. Clearly, there had been some mix-up, so to speak... So, I think I will just go and live here for now, and then we'll see what'll happen."

Stephen's forebodings didn't lie; this was a paradise made for Nick. However, it would be a while until Nick himself arrived here...

To be continued...