I closed my eyes; I was hearing my very heartbeat echo around the gloomy clearing, the branches rattling restlessly above as blood flees from the empty cavern where my heart had been. Thunder crackles ominously above and it seems to take ages for life to leave me. I feel myself letting go, my spirit leaving my body. What happens now? I wonder, my lackluster grey blob of a soul reaching forwards in a desperate attempt to stay with my body. I stop, still feeling the freezing wind, though now it blows through me, leaving an abysmal emptiness. I see a light coming towards me; I wonder if this is the light the Church speaks of, the way to heaven. I get closer; a loud thumping fills the air, like a tail wagging back and forth. Suddenly I’m yanked out of the way by a large cloud of vibrant rainbow blobs. I look at what passed, it’s strange. It looks like it is made of steel, some sort of giant fish. In front of its huge, sharp jaws is a huge white light suspended by a thin strand of flesh. Memories from my life come flooding back to me. I was a marine biologist, and that resembled a lantern fish. I try to gasp but it ends up echoing through the air from my mind. I had come extremely close to being eaten. Thoughts not my own wander into my head, ‘Are you alright?’, ‘He’s a New-Dead stupid; he doesn’t know how to talk.’ The other voice sounded, ‘Think whatever you want to do…’ I think about moving to a nearby tree, and it happens, slowly at first and then a moment later I’m floating there. A diffused grey light had washed over everything, ‘Good…now visualize yourself…’ An image of my living body filled my mind. I had long rust red hair that covered my eyes and my skin was pale as snow. My arms and legs were boney and thin, and little to no muscle covered my body. My eyes were a dusty brown and a miserable frown was plastered onto my face. I wore a shirt matching my hair and black sweatpants, a golden necklace with a crucifix graced my neck. My body began to mold into the picture and the color rushed in like a waterfall, from top to bottom. The haze covering my vision fades and the other people start taking form. A girl, she wears an effervescent teal dress with pink beads hanging from the sleeves and a few crimson spots dot the center, and a man who wears all black clothing and Goth make-up. ‘They call me Allusion…my real name is Alice but we don’t use those here.’ The female’s voice echoes softly into my ears and then the Goth boy speaks, ‘I am Remark…in life I was mark, but they call me that because I’m usually the first to speak.’ Remark turns and glares at Allusion, turning back to me he starts speaking, ‘What is your name…?’ I began to think, the memory is just within my grasp… ‘I am Dylan.’

The girl is speaking now, ‘That’ll never do…we’ll have to see what your like ‘afore naming ya. ‘Grab onto me.’ I blink, reaching forward to touch her arm. Soon as I do the scene around us changes. We’re in a basement, the walls are dusty and pipes that are rusted shut grace the walls. Many other people are talking to each other in the room, and it is about now I realize we have no pupils anymore. They gossip among themselves for a while and I stand there alone and idle. A misty purple body appears behind me and pushes me down; invisible knives seem to shoot from it, a few penetrating my spectral flesh, a strange smoky substance runs from the wounds and I mentally scream. The Goth Boy turns to me and shouts, ‘Ordo ab chao!’ The words sound English to me; I recognize them as ‘Out of chaos, comes order.’ As if by those words the specter howls in rage, suddenly contained by a glass sphere. More words echo into the air, ‘Aeternum vale.’ They say, ‘Farewell Forever.’ The glass shatters, burning away in black fire. ‘Don’t just sit there!’ Remark shouts at me, ‘Another could show up any minute!’ And another does. Just as I scramble away from the entrance large bone-like hands claw out of the ground, a few skeletal soldiers rising from the Earth. ‘Memento Sancta Somnia!’ My voice rings about above the others, a strange force had compelled me to speak. A bright golden light explodes from my spectral body, starting from my neck and then from the rest of me; a choir of angelic voices began to sing. My eyelids begin to droop, and I look up to see a lump of bones, it writhes for a few moments on the floor before becoming still. I drift into sleep, slowly but surely. I wait for dreams but they never come.