Heaven Can Wait.
"I-I almost can't believe it! It's you! I finally found you!" says the overjoyed light as her shell returns to its center.
The reborn man moves his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as the miraculous energy of his resurrection turns to mist and dissipates around him.
Moving into the man's view, the architect of his revival exuberantly says, "So I… I guess an introduction is in order!"
The man moves his hand from his face and replies with a simple question, "W-what?"
As she moves in closer, the small glowing machine explains, "I understand this is all very confusing, so for now I'm going to need you to take what I say on faith. Also we really shouldn't linger here too long, so I'll try to be quick."
With some effort, the man gets on his feet and looks around at the disheveled room around him. Desks are tipped over and the skeletal remains of others long dead occupy much of the space.
Taken aback by the sight, the man takes a step back and trips on to the ground again with a significant thud. This impact causes light tremors through the room, notable by the sound of creaking throughout much of the space.
"Careful," the little machine says softly. "This place isn't exactly stable." Floating down to once again try to converse with her new acquaintance, the small spark speaks in a comforting manner. "I'm sure this is all very strange, so just try to relax as best you can, and listen to what I have to say."
The man, still quite lost in his current predicament, adjusts his attention to the small floating robot to see if she can help him make sense of what's going on.
"Like I said, we really shouldn't linger here, so I'll try to keep this brief. Basically you… you died a long time ago. And I've been looking for you for almost as long."
The man's eyes widen slightly as his confusion grows.
"It was my job to find you and bring you back from death so you can wield the Light against the enemies of humanity!"
More confused than before he listened to this explanation, the man tries getting up again.
"Ok, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself. What I mean to say is, we are a team now. You see, I'm a Ghost, actually now I'm your Ghost. My job is to help you however I can."
"You're a ghost?" asks the man, trying desperately to make any of this make sense.
"Yes I'm a Ghost! Oh not the 'haunting kind' I guess I'm the 'helping kind!'" the Ghost clarifies.
"So you're a friendly ghost, huh?" the man says almost sarcastically.
"I'm YOUR friendly Ghost. The easiest way I can explain it is that I'm a spark of something MUCH greater sent to help you become much greater. It's all really… great!"
"So you're here to help me?" the man asks in a half sure fashion then pauses for a moment. "I don't even know who 'me' is. I can't seem to remember anything."
"That's normal," the Ghost says reassuringly. "Risen like you don't hold on to their memories… I don't know why it is, but if we get out of this city all right, I'm sure we can make many new ones."
The Risen checks his person for any indication of who he once was. Quickly he finds what remains of a wallet in one of his pockets and picks through its contents. A few loose coins and some all but disintegrated papers make up all of the content aside from a strange black card that has stayed mostly intact over the numerous years in the pocket of a dead man.
White markings decorate the face of the card, most notably a circled white hand that appears under a tall arch.
The Ghost moves in to observe the card. "I don't recognize the markings, but I'm not exactly an expert on Pre-Collapse symbols." Light emits from the machine's eye and scans over the card. "It seems to be an access card of some kind. Definitely worth holding on to," she says, doing what she can to help the man's brief investigation.
The Risen slips the card into his pocket as his Ghost chimes in once again.
"I'm not trying to sound like a broken record, but we really should not stick around here. We are not exactly alone in the city and this place is far from safe."
"Not alone?" the man asks with some concern.
"I mentioned the 'enemies of humanity,' well this bog of a city is a hotbed for them, so it's important for us to get going while the sun is still up, if we want to leave undetected. They prefer the dark."
Somewhat startled by this revelation, the man's eyes dart around the corpse-ridden room for a safe way out.
"Don't worry! I actually have something of a plan!" the Ghost moves to the breach in the wall near where the man's bones had laid dormant for so long.
Following his Ghost over to the large hole in the wall, the man feels the ground shift ever so slightly below his feet.
"See that down there?" the Ghost says looking toward the rundown air vehicle below.
"You want us to get away in that wreck?" the man asks, unsure of the Ghost's vision.
"Not THAT wreck in particular," the Ghost returns with some snark. "But I think I know where we can find one in better shape."
"Alright, so how do we get down from this building so we can put your escape plan in action?" the man asks while still looking at the light dance on the water of the vast swaps in the city's streets.
"Well, the stairs should be mostly intact, and as long as we're careful we should be-"
As he listens to his Ghost, the man takes a step back, failing to notice the unstable ground slowly shifting before suddenly collapsing underneath his feet.
His body tumbles down the side of the building as his hands claw desperately at his quickly changing surroundings, madly panicking in his attempt to grab hold of something that could break his fall. With great force, his body collides with a large section of the building's steel structure, jutting out downward from some other structural collapse that must have happened some time ago. The feeling of his ribs cracking from the impact would be very alarming to the man if it wasn't for the fact that he was now rapidly plummeting toward the wreckage of the helicopter below. One of the still intact blades snaps under the weight of the falling man as he smashes head first into it and the chassis of the vehicle below it. Rolling off the top of the evacuation helicopter and into the water below, the man feels his breathing stop and life quickly leaves his body.