The Death Gods (1)

Haalfrin's never had any lucid dreams before, so when he becomes "aware", he looks around with blurry vision, only feeling confusion, as well as a nagging sense of loss and regret at the back of his heart. "Am I unconscious… or dead?"

As Haalfrin's senses come back to him, he feels the cool sensation of floating freely in water. "Did I… fall off the ship? Wait… why is this water sticky?"

He suddenly snaps to attention. "No... this isn't water... It's blood!"

Haalfrin sees the blood he's floating in, and to his credit, he doesn't immediately lose his mind and flail uselessly about.

Instead, the old man only loses it when he looks to his side and sees the rest of his clansmen drifting along beside him.

"NO! They can't end like this!" he screams out in agony. Just to be sure, Haalfrin counts the bodies, and there aren't any corpses missing.

Haalfrin only realizes he might not be where he thinks he is once he looks up and sees the azure sky, and the familiar thick clouds of black. "When did the sky turn red? Why are the clouds black?"

"Am I dead after all? Is this hell really what Freyya's basement looks like?" As his distress and despair take him, Haalfrin starts to sink further down, as if a force is pulling on him.

Within moments, Haalfrin is completely submerged in the red, blood-like liquid.

The moment he realizes he's not suffocating down here, a thought Haalfrin. "Am I actually dreaming… Not drowning underwater is unrealistic. No, maybe I'm just dead like I thought? Well, freaking out won't help. I'd better find out what's going on."

Really, though, on the off chance his clan members are alive, wallowing in fear would just be stupid.

So, as Haalfrin floats further and further down, he hits a strange barrier that feels warm to the touch. He uses one of the other bodies floating downwards to twist his position in the "water", and he presses his face against the barrier, hoping to see something.

The barrier is translucent like glass, and the sight he beholds is… actually stranger than seeing Death gods show up all the time.

Far below him, he sees what looks like a giant bird with shimmering white feathers and glowing copper colored eyes. On its back are 6 glistening white wings and a really long tail that fans out to make what resembles a 7th wing.

The old man watches as things fall into the barrier - blood, body parts, and even transparent people – most likely souls. "I mean, I've never really gotten a good look at a soul because all those Death Reapers are too fast picking them out of the body."

Haalfrin studies the giant white "bird" as swirling white power spins around it in a vortex, pulling all the debris along.

He sees as the blood in the water breaks apart into water and iron, then the water dissolves into some kind of gas. Then, as the air bubbles and iron float even closer to the white bird, they all transform into some kind of white fire emitting a rainbow colored reflection in the water.

Despite his strenuous circumstances, Haalfrin feels peaceful as he looked at the white bird.

Sure, all around him is blood, gore, and moaning souls crying out in fear and confusion… but everything the white bird touches returned to their base particles. The blood is replaced by clean water, and the debris becomes something like a beautiful painting.

As Haalfrin is floating above the white barrier, the white bird… actually looks up at him. The moment its burning copper eyes meet his, he feels some powerful voice echo in his mind, like a voice echoes in a large stone room. "*************" comes an unintelligible voice

Even though the bird is speaking in a strange tongue, Haalfrin instinctually knows what it meant to say – just the same way a mother can read their babies expressions.

"Why don't you come to me?" it seemed to say to him.

Haalfrin stares long and hard at the creature – seeming to be lost in thought. "That's right... I think I know what this bird is..." he thinks to himself.

In his mind are images of himself killing a rabbit when he was younger, then eating it. What happened to the meat? It was broken down by his stomach. The energy his body managed to capture sustained him, while the rest was thrown out. The rabbit came in, and... it was destroyed completely so that it could become something else.

In fact... isn't this what death is? Where one thing dies, another is made. Beneath the despair, fear, and blood, there is beauty hidden beneath a thing's end… for in endings, there are beginnings also.

"You're... Death..." He thinks for a moment and mutters mindlessly, "Fel...Ka...Wyn..."

Just he utters this word, an enormous white power burst forth from the bird. Everything seemed to change after that. It's like a veil was lifted off his eyes, and he was able to see what was really going on.

The white bird – apparently named "Felkawyn" was completely decomposing all the incoming spirits and souls… He knows that much.

What becomes clear to him now, however, was that all that energy collected from the souls and bodies are reforming into… other things.

Haalfrin personally witnessed an old man's sloul fall into the barrier, decompose, then reform into a stronger, younger version of himself. The man's reformed soul falls even further down and disappeared into a portal at the bottom of the barrier.

"Felkawyn..." the bird mutters to Haalfrin; this time, Haalfrin was able to understand it's speech. "It's been too long since anyone has said my Name. Do you know what Felkawyn is?"

"Death is Transformation, Transformation is Fel Wyn," Haalfrin replies, "and Fel Ka Wyn means the All Transformations, and the ."

Haalfrin has no idea how he knows this. Digging the meaning of "Felkawyn" out of his brain feels more like remembering than it does figuring out a riddle.

"Good," Felkawyn beckons with outstretched wings. "Come and meet your fate. You're human; it's your destiny."

"…Destiny…," Haalfrin smiles, "Am I going to meet my brothers on the other side?"

"You are," Felkawyn assures him. "Spirits are naturally drawn to things they know… You'll meet them again."

"Is the Death Realm below you?" Haalfrin asks.

"No," the white phoenix replies, "Living spirits and dead spirits are built different. I change the spirits, but I don't lord over the death realm. After you've been changed, you'll no longer be able to be resurrected, and the Death gods will know you're ready to be picked up."

Hearing this, Haalfrin finally lets go of the weight in his heart, and he closes his eyes. "I'm ready."

Just as Haalfrin is about to dive through the barrier, he felt a force grab him by the belt and yank him back – far away from the barrier.

As Haalfrin is dragged back to the surface, he looks up and is blinded by a white light...