Yeah, it's short, sorry, but I'm trying to keep chapters in reserve and the one I just finished was pretty long.
Darkness. It wasn't as absolute as most people believe. It can be chased away by light, after all, and morphed into shadows.
Of course, I'm not fully certain that this is darkness Alex mused, looking down at his hand. Rather than the healthy flesh color it should have been, it was gray. This wasn't a result of being dead because everything was gray: his hair, his clothes, his blood… Then again, the blood was vanishing into the void and his pain was fading.
Huh. Maybe I am dead. Pretty boring if I am.
Alex looked around again, letting his hand drop. There was nothing. No people, no sound, nothing to touch. He felt like he was floating in water, but there was no weight to it, no wetness, there wasn't even the vague pull of a current. Actually, it reminded him of zero gravity.
Hearing what he thought was a soft cry of fear and pain, he turned as best as he could. He was able to bite back his own cry, but couldn't stop the gasp.
It was like looking in a mirror, if he focused only on the face, and seeing the wide brown eyes set in such a pale face unsettled him. Looking passed that though, what he saw was a thin boy, with less muscle than he had, draped in a uniform remarkably like the fatigues he had worn at Brecon Beacons, but these were decidedly better fitting. There were even dog tags hanging around his neck. From what he could see, they read as "Cub 489-32-7961 AB."
Alex met the eyes of his double. He had glimpsed horror and pity when sharp needles of pain stabbed into the backs of his eyes. Doubling over, he cried out in pain. It echoed in the darkness, but did nothing to cover the sound of breaking glass.
He felt a jolt in the pit of his stomach and then…
He fell.