The world was white, nothing else present as I walked aimlessly.
It could have been minutes, it could have been years. Regardless I walked on, on set in front of the other in a repetition I knew to the very depth of my bones. I don't know when it started, I don't know when it will end.
I kept walking, one foot in front of the other.
An endless white space the only thing greeting me as each step echoed without sound. As each breath was taken without air.
Only it all ended suddenly.
The white burned away revealing a large rectangular room, with a high vaulted ceiling and huge towering windows that absolutely dwarfed me. Soft beams of moonlight cutting through the gaping abyss of darkness.
The floor was wood with a stone circle in the center, with seven concentric circles layed out inside of it. Each circle being a step down and covered in indecipherable black writing, that seemed to almost trip from one tribal letter to another.
In the center was a chair, so very familiar, with countless straps made of durable leather and brass buckles glimmering in moonlight. It was a sturdy construct made of tough wood, each of it's legs made of thick almost log-like chunks of wood. The stained a shiny red, that almost could have hid the small bloodstains that decorated it.
Suddenly the chair ignited, burning in a pillar of pale flame that cut away the dark blanket covering the room. The sudden light should have hurt my eyes, but there was no sting even as I closed them reflexively.
When I opened them, I was faced with an ugly man who I was all too familiar with.
His hair was done in sweep meant to look fetching, but only looked greasy in combination with his pearly white smile. The simple facial expression was unable to hold the malice of the action, as his hands, far too large for his short stubby arms, reaching out for me.
A single large palm heading for my head, to encircle my skull as he had done so many times before. When he reached inside my skull with hands made of greasy black smoke, and tore my memories away. When he tried to rip me from my own brain and replace me with a puppet of his own making.
Terror sparked my veins with a fiery ice that froze me in place as I waited for pain to come. It never did, His hand stuck still only inches away from me.
No, not stuck. Chained.
Chains of pale flame danced around the Big Handed man, flickering over his decadent clothes and greasy skin. Slithering like snakes as they bound my tormentor in place.
A sense washed over me, and impulsive thought I knew to be true from the very depths of my being, engraved deep into every facet of myself.
He was mine.
He had died by my hand, I had taken his life and made it mine in the process. This thing couldn't hurt me any more, this thing was mine to do with as I pleased.
I had Idea of what to do with him as well, my eyes drawn to the chair still burning happily behind the man, chains of flames stretching out from it and wrapping him like a child's gift.
All It took was a push, as I raised my hand and shoved him backwards. He went easily, the chains pulling him into place as he slammed into the chair's wooden seat. Leather straps snapping into place, as buckles clinked together as they fastened themselves tight.
Words poured from my mouth without thought. They were foreign, and strange on my tongue but I spoke them with a fervor I had never felt before. My voice sounded like I was singing as my tongue twisted around words never meant to be heard. The twitter of a star's dying breath, the last twinkle of a broken heart, and whispers of the deep ocean left my lips in a rhythm like fine wine.
Each verse brought an intensity I couldn't understand, and as I Finished the last trilling musical word.
The man with the Big Hands burst into true flame, and nothing was left, not even so much as a puff of inky black smoke.
When I woke up, it was to my own bedroom ceiling, made of expensive hard wood carved into a tableau with a wondrous skill I could see written into it's surface.
A place I hadn't seen in almost six months.
I stared at it absorbing the elegant detail and story made on the ceiling. Something I had never bothered to do before, something I had taken for given.
I cried, for what I didn't really know, Maybe my last life? The Innocence I had just lost in this one? Regardless when I was done all I had left was an empty feeling in my chest, and a throbbing headache for my trouble.
The room was a vibrant green, with white accents spread out over a rather large room. I could probably fit the entirety of my apartment in just this one room.
When I stood up I found myself looking for my Doodles out of instinct, and almost fell into a panic attack before I managed to remember I wasn't in my cell anymore.
Coming back to myself I found I was on the floor, the richly dyed carpet soft on my skin and was honestly one of the most comfortable things I had laid on to my memory.
Didn't matter in the end. I found it a struggle to stand back up, and it took all of my will just to bring myself to a sitting. After that all I could bring myself to do was run my hand through the soft fibers, reminding myself where I was.
In My last life, I was to be honest not much.
I was just an average guy trying to make it through his life, pay the rent, make sure there was food on my table.
The only real thing in my life had been my younger sister, our parents had died almost four years beforehand. She was the last thing I had to cling onto really, and it was the same for her.
Sadly she had always had a bit of a weak constitution, and four months before I died she'd caught something.
It had been a blur of constant hospital visits, ending with a single heartbreaking smile as she went softly into the hereafter. The shity thing was that what she had was completely curable, rarely lethal at all. I couldn't remember the name but one of the Doctors said it was essentially a slightly stronger form of the Common Cold.
If she hadn't been sent home the first visit by an asshole who was sure she was just faking it, She would have been fine.
She had died two days before I did, I had just been wandering aimlessly when I stumbled into the mall. I just hadn't had a clue on what to do, and had only spotted an advertisement for a game, one my sister had loved to play.
I couldn't even count the number of Times I had heard her curse as she tried to seduce a black hearted Knight? Prince maybe? Regardless she had loved the game and all I could think about as I stared at the sign was that She was never going to that ever again.
Then hell went into a hand basket, and I was on the ground with a pool of blood growing beneath me.
Hopefully she's received a second chance at life, same as me. Even if I hope she didn't have a similarly trying experience.
Earl Dan Ascart felt his heart break all over again as he looked through the thin crack of the door at his daughter.
When he first found her, she had been sitting a ritual room setup to perform something he could only tacitly recognize as Dark magic from his many years as the prime minister. Seemingly completely oblivious to what exactly she was sitting on, another resting her head on his daughters lap.
Barring the Ritual chamber the scene was almost idyllic, the moon shining down upon the two young girls, and for a second he hoped they had made it before anything truly horrible could be enacted. (A mute hope, his daughter had been gone for almost six months.)
The fragile bruning hope was quickly doused in icy water as he ran up to them. His daughter was covered in blood, small drops of crimson splattered all over her face and hair.
At some point she looked up, her hand still coming through blond curls as she met his eyes. Her deep red eyes had been empty of anything flared with something like recognition before she had crumpled into herself, unconscious.
He'd felt so helpless in that moment he thought he could never feel worse.
He was wrong, staring at his sweet lovely Sophia nearly catatonic, lying on her carpeted floor with red eyes empty as the abyss.
He wasn't able to quantify the empty tearing sensation that ripped through him as he stared at one of his treasured children.