The end?

The boy's malnourished body was lying on the floor, yet the boy's mind hadn't stopped, his spirit was still working fine.

The boy didn't note this at first for he had something more important on his mind.

'One day. Someday. Maybe not tomorrow or next year, but one bright day I will kill you! I shall have my revenge!' the boy roared in his mind, cursing his cellmate like he had done uncountable times before.

Following that roaring, it didn't take long for him to notice the eerie situation he was in. A situation which at first scared the boy greatly, and made him instinctively shake his feet.

Nothing happened, his legs didn't move, he didn't even know if they had moved!

'Well this is new,' the boy thought to himself, as he supposedly lays on some floor, helpless. Still, not too faced by this, he tried to move his eyes.

Nothing happened, again.

'What the hell?' the boy perplexed by this began to think for any solution that could explain this, coming up with one. 'I'm I dead?' It was the perfect explanation for this out of body experience; however, he didn't like the sound of that at all, and so he began to scream.

'It can't be!' He didn't want to die 'Not by his hand!' There was a pause before another internal scream 'At least not that!' And most importantly, not before he could have his revenge on the man. While he was thinking so, he tried anything that could make him feel alive in a physical form, yet nothing, nothing made any difference.

This went on for a while.

When settling down with the notion that all effort was useless, he calmed down enough to wonder. 'I die a weakling's death?' His spirit shivered from the thought. There were other important things to do! Not only did he need to kill the man, he had another promise, a promise that wasn't to himself, which in his mind was worse, far worse! For the boy believed that if one didn't make good on his promises, would it lead to an unhonourable death.

'But I guess that doesn't matter if I'm dead...but I can't be dead. I don't want to.' Life wasn't always so bad, and to get back to the good times, he thought the past.

There had been brighter days, even in the prison cell, and to achieve that one single thing needed to be changed which was the cellmate since his old cellmate couldn't have been more opposite to his current one. The two couldn't have been more opposite that the gap between them couldn't be described.

'Old man,' he thought of the name.

Realistically he hadn't been that old, but he was old enough to earn that nickname thanks to his unfathomable intellect, 'Sure, sure, this place doesn't gather the brightest of men, but if he was led out from the prions...no one could compare.' He concluded. 'I Myself would have been a red paste on the walls without his teaching me.' He also owed his life to the old man.

It was so since merely getting a grip of the old man's intellect had made the boy feel and realise things which he alone would have never felt nor knew existed. Furthermore, as mentioned before, his current body had been created with the teachings of the old man.

What was so special in his body? It had a meagre frame, not too tall, and on top of these malnourished, 'Who could think that with a single chop of my hand could I cut through these prison bars?' He humoured for a moment. 'Anyone with a decent level of cultivation WOULD!' He, in his rage, wanted to throw a punch. 'Anyone with the slightest grasp of cultivation can see that I'm no match for anyone' He was angry because even if he was so strong, he wasn't much.

'So much power yet so WEAK!' he raved. Anytime he would think of his cultivation could he only feel frustrated. 'If you can chop the bars, why don't you make a run for it?' He knew that it was possible because he was so strong, yet. 'For what? So you can run around in the halls for a while before you get jumped on by tens of people?' The problem in that plan lied in this.

His power was massive if pitted against people who weren't cultivator, but when pitted against one of his own, he felt like he was the lowest of the lowest. 'Damit! I should be stronger by now! I shouldn't be losing to the man...if it can be even called a duel.' He knew that the man and the old could both win against him in a duel by looking, just by looking!

'I shouldn't be so angry. It is my own fault for not cultivating hard.' Also being something called a cultivator was nice because without being one, he would already be decorating the walls with the red paint inside of him, and worse, the painter would be the man.

Unfair, yet as the man had for once said wisely, 'tough luck.'

There was also the case that both of them were here, 'the man with all his powers couldn't dodge the sentence. The old man in his infinite wisdom had been locked here.' Reminiscing about this made him feel down since it made him remember how the old man was away.

Again, when remembering the old man, he couldn't but remember the promise he wanted to uphold, after all, it was between the two of them, 'If I'm dying...how can I make him be proud of my achievements? I have zero accomplishments to my name! nothing to show him if I meet him on the other side!'

'But now, but now...what can I do!' Then there was a very long pause between this and the next sentence. 'A total failure. I'm a total failure,' the boy mumbled to himself, after which he decided to give up while laughing.

But before he could do so, a voice spoke to him.

'Death has finally found me?' The voice he heard reaching out to him wasn't something that should exist on the mortal plane, 'Too chaotic, too changing, and very much so annoying.' Were the initial feelings he got from hearing it. 'However, I can hear it...so it must be something, right?'

'I should respond, nothing better to do.' His shock soon turned towards gratefulness as this was maybe a good thing, he just needed to think this voice as an accent or something, 'Don't think of it too much,' he concluded before thinking of the words he had been asked.

"Do you know how to use qi?" the voice had asked him.

The boy responded in his mind, 'I was taught by an old man to feel qi. But I haven't felt it, let alone use it. How do you you know I have tried?'

"How I know you have tried to use it?" the voice spoke.

When the voice asked questions, they seemed to come at him from every direction, surrounding the boy, yet with this singular voice, 'So weird, but this might be my only shot at surviving this. I need to seize it!'

"I would like to know that." While he was speaking, he didn't notice, but his brain wasn't considering the voice annoying anymore as if it no longer sounded annoying to the boy. All the annoying tones that had been annoying him within the voice were gone, and so the boy didn't feel any amount of irritation when it spoke.

Used to this happening the being spoke back to the boy, who was nearing the door to the underworld, "It's pretty easy for me actually. You want to know how?"

'Please tell me,' the boy was interested and so affirmed his want. He felt that he was dying, but he wanted to know the secrets that were about to be told him, it was the one thing that was above his own life, knowledge.

However, the being's answer didn't really quench his thirst for knowledge as, "I can feel it." Was the answer.

'How can you feel it?' the boy reached out with his mind. 'What do you mean when you say feel?'

¨Easy, you have an aura that surrounds you, and I can feel it in that aura.¨ the being spoke more truthfully.

It was a better answer for sure, but it didn't help him at all, 'Tough luck, I guess.' He wasn't too sad.

¨By the way, do you know where you are right now?¨ the voice changed the topic.

However, at this point, another thought also popped up to the boy's head, 'Why can I speak to someone? Truly where I'm I?' The former being his own thought and the latter a response to the question asked from him.

"It's not you. It's me who is making this possible-" His own questioned was answered. "-and where are you? Nowhere good I tell you." The voice's tone was grave in the latter sentence.

Shaking the boy to his core.

Hearing him being somewhere not good, he hastily asked, 'So where I'm I? If you know, can you tell me?

"You wholeheartedly wish to know?" the voice spoke.

'Could you tell me, please?' the boy asked in his mind, without thinking for a second.

"Well, you are a few meters from a giant gate."

'In front of a gate? Why would I be in front of a gate?'

"You are dead. You are lying in front of the Gate of Death," the voice stated calmly even if the place's name sounded a little scary.

'HOLD ME!' the boy screamed in his mind when hearing the name. He was rightfully terrified.

"I'm already holding you," the voice spoke back with no care in the world.

"The real question is, do you want to see what happens if I let you go halfway into the gate and pull you back?"

'No, I don't want to try what happens if you do that!' the boy refuses with a frantic tone.

"No one seems to be wanting to try it" The voice sounded slightly disappointed.

'Can you get me out of here?' the boy asked the question anyone would ask at this point.

"Of course, I can, but it will cost you."

'If I live, anything would be worth it. Let's barter!' the boy proposed.

The voice snickered for a moment before replying, "You want to barter. Do you know your situation boy?"

'I'm supposedly dying. But, if you don't want to barter, you can then let go off me,' he spoke with a voice that tried to sound confident as possible.

The being easily seeing this bluff called it and let the boy go, leaving the boy to float towards the gate of death.

First, it was the head and following it the rest of the boy slowly faded into the gate, yet he didn't call out for mercy.

"He really isn't going to scream for mercy?" the voice spoke to himself.

When seeing the boy just about to disappear into the gate of death, the human hand that had let go of him grabbed the ankle of the boy.

Pulling him out of the gate voice spoke again, "Okay boy, what you want?"

It would seem the being didn't want for the boy to die at all.