Chapter 2 : Things Have Changed, Family Situation

Number fifty-seven did the trick it seemed.

Go ahead, he thought, unable to form the words anymore. At least... something good... can come from this...

The bird hopped closer, beak aimed at his eye. Then, inexplicably, it spread its wings and took flight, abandoning him there in the sand.

What... not good enough for you either?

Something shifted beside him. Not a shadow - there was no shadow to be seen - but a presence, as real as the sand beneath his cheek. The smell of incense cut through the salt and rot. Filling Adom's nose.

And there were red flowers suddenly growing all around him. Chrysanthemum, by the look of it. Was that magic? Hallucination? He could not feel any mana though, but then again, he could not feel anything.

Hallucination it is then.

"Good evening," said a calm, almost cheerful feminine voice. "Beautiful sunset today, isn't it? The clouds are particularly lovely - all those shades of purple and gold. You don't often see them mix quite like that."

Huh?

"Though I must say," she continued, "the monster birds are being rather picky today. Usually they're not so discriminating about their dinner choices."

A strange calm washed over Adom, despite the situation. Despite his stillness. Despite everything.

The voice intrigued him - melodious, warm like honey in summer. She must be beautiful, he thought. An elf, perhaps? No, that sweet tone, and here by the sea... a mermaid? Were those still around these days? He hadn't heard of one being spotted since the wars began.

To his surprise, when he tried to speak, words actually formed. His voice was weak, barely above a whisper, but it was there - though he couldn't feel his lips moving anymore. How strange.

"Who... are you?"

He still couldn't see her, couldn't turn his head. Just the sand, the darkening sky, and that lingering scent of incense mixing with the salt air.

Adom heard her sigh - not an exasperated sound, but something almost fond.

"Oh, Adom. I'm a bit disappointed you don't recognize me," she said, "but I understand. It's always different, face to face."

"Do I... know you?"

A soft chuckle, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "Well, I know you. We've met many times before." A pause. "56 times, to be exact. This would be our 57th encounter."

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant waves. Understanding dawned slowly, like the last rays of the setting sun.

Ah.

"You seem shocked." She said, amusement coloring her voice. "Why? You quite literally invited this encounter."

"It's not every day we get to talk to you."

He felt more than heard her settling beside him in the sand, a movement without substance.

After a moment of comfortable silence, she spoke again. "Rise, Adom Sylla."

Suddenly, he was light - impossibly, wonderfully light. Like a dandelion seed caught in a summer breeze. And there, just below, lay... himself. Blue eyes stared unseeing at the darkening sky, mouth slightly parted, skin already taking on that peculiar waxy quality that belonged exclusively to the dead.

One hand still reached toward the sea, fingers half-curled as if trying to grasp something just out of reach.

What a strange thing, to see your own corpse. Like stumbling across a wax figure of yourself in an abandoned museum - familiar yet fundamentally wrong.

He'd always wondered how others saw him. Mirrors showed you what you expected to see, photographs captured moments rather than truth. But this... this was different. This was real.

The old man on the sand looked smaller than he'd imagined. Thinner. Years of illness had carved deep lines around his eyes and mouth, but there was something else there too - a stubborn set to his jaw that even death couldn't quite erase.

His white hair, still thick despite everything, was matted with sand and blood and troll drool. The mechanical chair lay broken several yards back, its pieces scattered like fallen autumn leaves.

His first reaction was shock - surely that couldn't be him? But then... a sigh escaped him, followed by something that might have been a smile. The tension he'd carried for sixty-seven years finally began to ease from his shoulders.

He turned to look at her properly for the first time, and... oh.

She looked human, and yet clearly wasn't. Like a painting of a person that somehow stepped out of its frame, too perfect to be real. Her skin was Sun-kissed bronze hue, seeming to absorb the dying sunlight rather than reflect it.

Hair white as the whitest of moons flowed around her face as if underwater, defying gravity in gentle waves. A midnight blue robe draped her form like liquid shadow, moving with impossible grace even in the stillness.

Her features were regal, elegant - high cheekbones, full lips curved in a gentle smile, a straight nose that would have made ancient sculptors weep.

"I... didn't expect you to look like this."

Who would have?

She turned to him then, and Adom found himself staring into eyes that contained entire universes - deep green pools filled with spinning galaxies and dying stars. Her smile widened slightly.

"Everyone sees me differently," she said. "Some see an old man with a beard. Others, a young boy or young girl. A grim reaper with a scythe. A wolf. A bright light." She chuckled, the sound like distant wind chimes. "Some people even saw me as a truck."

Even her laugh was elegant, Adom noticed.

"I'm not unhappy with this form, I must say," she added, running a hand through her cosmic hair. "It suits the evening, don't you think?"

"It does," he agreed, watching the sun sink lower.

It was strange - he had no lungs to breathe with, yet he could feel the air. No skin to feel with, yet the breeze touched him. No nose to smell with, yet the incense scent lingered. But apparently, even as a soul, his legs still didn't work.

Seriously?

As the sun dipped closer to the horizon, he asked, "When do we go?"

"What do you mean?"

"You came here to take me, didn't you?"

"Hmm." She traced patterns in the sand with a finger that left no marks. "Did I?"

"What do you mean?"

Adom then drew in what felt like a breath - funny how those habits lingered even without a body. He wanted to say something.

'I'm ready.'

The words were difficult to push out, weighted with all his regrets and unfinished business. He wasn't ready. Not really. But at least... well, at least this confirmed something, didn't it? An afterlife. The possibility of seeing them all again, make amends - Mother, Father, Sam, everyone...

Wait.

The realization hit him like a bucket of ice water. Adom had never believed in any of the old gods or the new ones. Had actively rejected them all, in fact. If there was an afterlife, then there was probably... everything else too. Paradise. And its rather uncomfortable alternative.

Oh.

Oh no.

He looked at the woman beside him, suddenly very aware that he might have seriously miscalculated his entire philosophical stance on existence.

Adom gulped audibly, the daunting question lodged somewhere in his non-existent throat.

She smiled at him then. "Do you really want to go?"

Confusion washed over Adom. He turned back to look at his body lying in the sand, then at her, then back at the body again. There was no ambiguity there - no rise and fall of the chest, no flutter of pulse at the throat, not even the smallest twitch of muscle. That was, without question, a corpse. His corpse. Dead as dead could be.

"Do I... have a choice?" he asked slowly, the words coming out uncertain and slightly baffled.