Viktor | 1

Complete darkness. Viktor felt as if he was a ball of pure consciousness floating in dark, empty space. No senses, no emotions either. Just....existance.

The one by one, pieces of himself slowly turned on. It felt like an old lightbulb slowly coming to life, blinking, buzzing in protest, but inevitably working as intended.

First came his sense of smell. It smelled very medical. Not 'war medical' which just smelled like sickness, rot and a disgusting sweetness. This smelled like a hospital that was actually not over capacity and troubled by national-level threats. It smelled....sterile and professional. 

Then came his sense of cognition. Dormant emotions and thoughts slowly started bubbling up, into his awareness. 'I'm...alive.' It honestly surprised him less than he would have thought. Less weird things seemed more dramatic in the movies he had watched. Maybe it was all the cinematography and background music that made it seem even more dramatic than it really was. 

'My name is Spiros. I died trying to take down a wild boar. I wanted to die. Hmm.'

This Spiros kid's memories slowly started playing in Viktor's-Spiros's brain.

Then, he was blessed with his sight slowly returning. He realized that he could see dull red. Almost brownish. It was what you would see when you closed your eyes in a dark day.

Then he felt himself anchor to his new body. He could feel himself lying down. The stuffy heat of the blanket. The cold, cold air and his chapped lips. The inside of his mouth felt mushy and terrible. He must have been like this for a couple of weeks at least.

Then came his sense of hearing. Silence. Just the sound of silence. Then a 'beep'.

Silence..... then a beep again. It was at that moment, it dawned on Viktor-Spiros-whatever that the world he was in right now, seemed to be very similar to his own planet. Machines, hospitals, even similar smelling medicines. He was in an alt-reality Tellus/Earth. Well, Earth wasn't a commonly used term for his planet. But it was still popular enough to warrant living in his head. 

Spiros....Viktor...ugh... slowly opened his eyes. he expected to feel like shit, but instead, he felt rejuvinated. Like he just woke up after an incredible nap. He was lying down on a bed positioned in the middle of the room, with the frame against the back wall. There was a TV latched on to the front wall, and a window to his left, past the table, which showed a distant hill and the ground being covered by shrubbery, blanketed by a grey sky. That explained why his room was kinda dark. 

The outside looked like a picturesque rural area. Like the kind of place where neighbours would all know each other and bring each other food and go together for barbequeing.

Spiros was suddenly hit with a wave of homesickness. The home he knew when he was Konstatin was cold, icy and flat. The rural green landscape outside and the cozy, comforting greyness felt alien to him. This felt way too peaceful and...homely. 

He closed his eyes and sighed as the reality of the sitation dawned on him. He felt trapped and....terrified. He was in a new world, foreign and weird. What if-

He heard multiple footsteps approaching his room, to which he reacted by closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep. He did not want to talk to anybody right now.

The door opened and it sounded like more than two people had entered his room.

"By the way, did you check his time of death?" A female. "Poor kid." The language she spoke wasn't something Konstatin knew, but thankfully it was decoded by Spiros' brain.

"No, ma'am." Another female. Speaking the same funny language. It sounded like she said, oh-hee kyria. "Uhh...how about..umm...13:37?"

"No, I don't like sevens." The first lady replied. "13:38 sounds better, I think."

"Ew." The voice of a male. "I feel like 3 is the yellow of the numbers world. It's anxiety-inducing, and makes me feel icky. I think 12:28 sounds much more comfortable."

'There's no way we're changing his time of death by more than an hour!!' The second lady shrieked. She had an annoying, high pitched, yell-y voice. "We'll get in big trouble!!" Then she gave Spiros' ears a disservice by laughing like a Kiwi bird.

This made the other two laugh for a solid 5 seconds. "St-stop!!" The first woman giggled and struggled to get the words out between her laughs. "If you laugh like that, you'll wake the dead guy!" she joked.

Okay, there was no way Viktor was going to let this opportunity slide.

"Yeah. Could you please keep your laugh down?" Spiros opened his eyes and mumbled in a hoarse voice. "I'm trying to stay dead in peace here." He spoke in that strange language while looking at them and giving them a friendly grin.

He thought it was a pretty good joke, which was the reason he got really surprised when the three people didn't laugh, but instead stared at him in horror. 

It stayed that way for an uncomfortably long time, until the woman in the middle, the nurse muttered "wha-?!" in horror. 

Whoops. Did Viktor just fuck up, really bad?

"Chryseis." The other woman, who looked a doctor, said quietly, while still staring at Spiros. "Did you see traces of Death?"

"Yes." She replied. "Of course I did. I'm a billion percent sure."

Silence.

"Son....did you happen to meet any God?"

Viktor mumbled, "Uhmm..." and racked Spiros' brain. Spiros' knowledge seemed to suggest that Death -or Thanatos- would be responsible for 'killing' you. Then either him - or another god, Hermes - would take your soul to Charon, the ferryman, who would take you across the Styx...yikes.. to get judged and thrown into Heaven, Hell or the place in between. Or rebirth.

No useful information here. Viktor didn't think it'd be a good idea to tell them that Spiros was no more, and that he has inherited the dead boy's body. 

Idea. "Uhm...I saw His Supreme Highness, Zeus. And he asked me to do something for him. I- I'm afraid I can't share what he asked of me, though."

The three looked at him, concerned. Silent. 

Then, finally, the male decided to speak up. He looked terrified. "This is clearly out of our scope. If people come back from the dead....you know what it means, right?" He looked at his colleagues. "Best to stay far away from...it." he gulped.

"No, this is unnatural. This boy isn't speical enough to talk to The Ruler." The doctor replied. "Nobody comes back from the dead. Our eyes don't lie. Hers' is level 3, for crying out loud!" She pointed at the bird-sounding nurse's face. "Bring the Priest." she said to the male while keeping an eye on Spiros. He obliged, practically running out of the room.

Levels. Yes.....Spiros's brain helped him decipher what that meant.

"Don't move, boy." She held her arms out, as if he was trying to calm down a wild animal. 

"Not moving." Spiros put his arms up in submission, wincing lightly as the needle inside his hand poked around as a result of his abrupt motion.

It didn't take long since the nurse burst into the door with a priest. The priest - a tall, bald, heavily muscular man wearing all white clothes froze while staring at Spiros.

Then, almost instantly, he turned around and looked at the others and said, "I...have no idea what's going on..but this boy has got way more powerful Gods involved than I have the qualifications to see."

He then sighed, put his hands on his hips and motioned the medical staff to come closer to him. Then, as if he was terrified of risking others listening through the door, he almost whispered to them, "Okay....we're all just going to forget that this ever happened. Let's just pretend like he never died."

"What?! What about the rules?" the lady who didn't even bother to note down Spiros' time of death suddenly seemed to be concerned about the right way of doing things, which Spiros thought was a little funny.

"Lady, he's backed by Divine Rule. Do you really want to put some silly paperwork against the Olympian Gods themselves??" That shut her up. "Nothing happened. Spiros just kinda woke up from a coma. You called me for no reason whatsoever, and you should feel silly about yourself." He pointed at the male nurse. 

The four of them looked at each other, and hesitantly nodded. 

The priest then loudly laughed and yelled, "You're wasting my time, Nikos!" And smacked the male nurse on the back, which made thim wince and glare at the priest angrily.

Then the nurse opened the door and yelled again, "Second false alarm this week, man! You called me for nothing!! You need to get enough sleep, Nikos!!" and walked away from the room, laughing loudly and muttering something unintelligible. 

As the door slowly started closing, the 3 hospital staff members turned to Viktor slowly, and looked at him with a mix of curiosity and fear.

Then, the doctor finally cracked a forced smile and said, "Welcome back to the Land of the Living, Spiros."

Viktor forced a smile back and gave them a thumbs up.