It was cold.

  …I suppose it made sense death would be cold.

  Not that she’d had any experience in the matter before now.

  This white, empty space stretched on forever in every direction, featureless and barren, without a single ndmark to denote anything ever changed.

  “…so, hell then, I guess. S’pose I could’ve guessed that, yeah.”

  She turned and her body obeyed, her unclear form immaterial and fluid, spiraling in pce as she took in the afterlife.

  “Surely a little fire and brimstone would’ve made the pce look a bit better. I’ve gotta look at this for the rest of eternity, and they couldn’t even manage a guy in a red suit with a pitchfork.”

  It was hard to understand why she was just… so readily accepting of her own death like this. She’d felt her brain being impaled, she’d felt most of her bones breaking, she’d felt all of her blood leaking out into the wrong pces inside of her. And after all that, she couldn’t really bring herself to mourn herself much.

  Not like anyone else would, anyways.

  “Well, you’ll have to excuse me for the decor. I wasn’t pnning on having a guest, you see. At least not so soon.”

  She leapt in shock at the sudden voice… or would have at least, if she had a physical form that could jump.

  Frantically looking about the empty space eventually found the voice’s owner. Another equally shapeless entity hovered before her, like a spot of stubborn TV static hanging in the air, splotchy and discolored.

  “Fuck, you scared me… does hell do roommates, or are you supposed to be the devil or something?”

  “You seem… oddly fixated on this pce being hell.”

  “Well, I died yeah? And I wasn’t exactly, like, devout or anything. Or all that good of a person at all, really. So that means this would be hell, yeah?”

  “You did die, yes. As for your religious acceptance by whatever deity you believe would be responsible for you, however, I cannot say. Such things lie well beyond my purview, you see.”

  “So if this isn’t the afterlife, and you’re not any kind of devil, then… what exactly am I doing here…?”

  The spot of static froze, giving the impression of trying to gather their thoughts.

  “I… am wholly unsure.”

  “…you don’t even know?”

  “I assure you that had no intention to bring you consciousness here. I had no direct hand in even creating this space to begin with, as far as I can recall.”

  “…did you die too?”

  There was what sounded like a scoff.

  “I am without mortal form. I cannot just die. The idea alone is ridiculous.”

  “So then do you remember what brought you here, then?”

  “Of course I do. I’m not so helpless as to merely be dragged about between pocket realms like this against my will.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “…so…?”

  “So, what?”

  “Uh, so if you remember, what was it…?”

  “…”

  “…”

  “…hmm. Perhaps my memory is less… ironcd than I believed.”

  “You don’t remember!”

  “O-Of course I… hmmmm… there was… I heard a voice, I must have. Yes… yes I recall a voice. Something pulling me, something… in need.”

  “You’re a bit te on responding to cries for help. I’m already dead here, asshole.”

  “I did not hear you. The voice I heard was another’s, and it was not asking for personal salvation or deliverance from death. Such a thing is too banal to echo in my ears from such a distance.”

  There was a long pause, the other figure once more trying to compose themselves in complete silence.

  “I heard… a plea for help, I believe.”

  “Ain’t that the same thing?”

  “Not even remotely, I’m afraid. There is a stark contrast between one’s own st minute pleas for divine intervention, and the voice of two close others praying for one’s safety and wellbeing against impossible odds.”

  “Two voices…? You got the wrong girl then, nobody would give a shit about me dying, much less tw-”

  Her frayed thoughts coalesced somewhat finally, recalling her st moments.

  That useless magical girl and that whiny kid, both of them peering back at her as they ran for safety at her own screaming insistence.

  “…idiots shouldn’t have been thinking about me…”

  “You know the source of the voices, then? They seemed particurly ardent in their faith in you, so they must’ve been close-”

  “They’re no one important. Or, I guess I’d be the unimportant one, actually.”

  “They seemed to have believed you important.”

  “Yeah and I believe them being in the way is why I’m here right now. So I’m not exactly feeling thankful for them nding me in purgatory.”

  “Ah… I see.”

  More long moments of awkward silence.

  “Can… can you still hear them both?”

  “Only just vaguely. This pce dulls the senses so terribly.”

  “…do you know if they’re both okay?”

  “Did you not say they were unimportant to you just a moment prior?”

  “Just answer the damn question!”

  “You needn’t raise your voice like that, I’m already listening in for them again. I retain a small link upon hearing them before, so I’ll need just a moment.”

  “Ok… okay, take your time.”

  She sat and waited… or rather, she tried to sit, only to recall her ck of a body, instead idly shifting in pce in the shared, empty realm.

  “It would seem they remain alive and only lightly injured at this time.”

  As soon as she’d sat down, she jolted up again, still achieving no kind of actual, meaningful motion in the white space.

  “Injured? Weren’t they supposed to be getting to safety?!”

  “You may have a look for yourself, if you are so inclined.”

  A portion of her senses tingled for a moment, before a fuzzy image like a damaged security camera came into view for her.

  Sure enough, the two from before were featured prominently, the child’s leg bearing numerous scrapes and scratches, the magical girl carrying them in both arms as she seemed to be fairing no better herself, clearly unable to fight while holding them.

  Opposite of them was a familiar construct. Still dragging the remains of her truck around a mostly-broken leg, the glistening, robotic praying mantis had them pinned back against a wall, nowhere to escape to as it slowly closed in.

  “Dammit, all she had to do was run…!”

  “And run she did. For quite some time now, I might add.”

  Her attention left the projection, returning to the other entity here with her.

  “Help them.”

  “Help them?”

  “Help. Them. You’re a fucking angel or something, yeah? You can hear people asking for help, yeah? Then listen to me and help them.”

  “’Angel’ is a wholly inaccurate term to define what I am, and I cannot just-”

  “Fucking hell, then let me help them!”

  “What good is a corpse going to do them, exactly?”

  “Then bring me back or something, I don’t know! Do something… magical, I don’t know! Whatever it is you actually do!”

  “I am not some common parlor magician to be ordered around-”

  “You’re not much better than this fucking corpse screaming at you right now!”

  “You are being quite difficult, you know.”

  “I’ll beat some fucking difficult into you if they die, you holy little-”

  “However.”

  Their voice thundered over hers in a sudden, echoing boom, demanding silence.

  “You were brought here, on wishes of others, through sacrifice of yourself, and through sheer, almost divine luck, to be given a choice.”

  “…a choice?”

  “You may accept your death, and pass peacefully onto the other side. What kind of afterlife awaits you is beyond my understanding, as I am not one to speak with the souls of the dead… normally, at least.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you would be accepting the other option I have been tasking with granting you in this realm within your own fading consciousness.”

  There was a brilliant light from behind their form, bright and burning and impossible to look at, shining like the rising of the sun from behind them, the light clearing to reveal the form of a massive tome opened behind them, pages fluttering with an unseen wind, passages written in nguages she’d never seen, whose letters alone filled her head with a dull, throbbing ache.

  “Alice Decaras. I have been tasked with offering unto you a pact.”

  Light burned at her senses, her entire form feeling as if it was thrust into an oven, the figures on the page behind the voice shifting and shimmering like oil on water.

  “This pact shall deliver unto you strength enough to protect. To save. To live, and ensure that others too may live.”

  The unreadable letters swirled around her, wrapping her into their searing light, burning themselves into her very soul, becoming part of her that she could already intrinsically comprehend.

  “Do you accept this pact, bearing all the strength and pain it shall bestow in equal parts? Will you die alone in the dirt, or will you stand on broken legs?”

  She didn’t even have to think about her answer. She’d already made it before they’d even asked.

  The two shapeless forms were pulled tightly together, weaving around one another until no seam could be found between them, blended into a singur existence, bathed in the fme and wind and light of life.

  It was 1:12 PM on a Wednesday. Words burned into her like a cacophony of screams, and the pain of death seemed so much less excruciating than the agony of denying it.

  Alice Decaras, age 28, stood up.