There she was, suspended in an empty void. Ayela. Was she Ayela? At this point, she couldn’t tell. Her body seemed normal, but her hair was brown. Her skin was a little more sun-kissed. She gently placed her hands on her legs, her stomach, her chest, and then her ears. She paused at her ears.

  Round tips.

  Abnormal.

  Smaller.

  She was smaller than her elvish form that she was so familiar with. Around her was total darkness, like the expanse of space but without any stars. She looked around, her hair and clothes flowing as if she were suspended in water, but she could breath.

  Her heart pounded faster and faster, as if there was a predator coming for her, but she saw no one. It didn’t matter. She could feel their presence nearby. She frantically looked everywhere until her eyes rested on a ghastly spectral that forced the blood to drain from her face.

  Fear.

  She felt fear and terror, and tried to run, but she was on no surface to propel herself from. So she floated, frantically trying to jump, run, swim – anything to get away from the terrible image she saw before her.

  Slender, skeletal fingers and limbs.

  Covered head-to-toe in a thin veil.

  Floating as she was.

  She wasn’t familiar with the darker gods of R?k’s creation as some like the Towl?lites were, but she knew enough to recognized Death when she saw it. And Death it was. The god of lifelessness. Aethril of void, emptiness, and nothingness. A dark servant of R?k that had only one purpose it craved; to cause the living to die. To ferry spirits. And what a perfectly easy job it had with the reman species; bodies without spirits. Or were they truly? Where was she now? This felt different than a dream. Here, she wore an astral form different than her elvish body, and yet similar.

  “What do you want with me, Death?” She called out. Her voice sounded as though she were speaking across a great chasm.

  “What do you want with me?” It asked in return, with a voice as ghastly and unnatural as its form. “Why do you pester my twisted shape, why do you seek to avert me from those of your kind?”

  “Their lives are the only ones they get!” She retorted. Suddenly, her feet landed on solid ground, and her hair and clothes rested on her as though gravity were suddenly returned. And then it answered her with a single question that would stay in her waking memories…

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  “…Are you certain?”

  She woke from her dream with a gasp in the dead of night, dripping with sweat. Kamille had taken one room, while Asher had taken the other. She laid on her pullout mattress in the couch in her living room. They’d been in the empire for three weeks now, letting things settle after their excitement in the sewers. The news reported the bodies of the creatures after maintenance had to repair the broken ladder, and that they found the empty shells of their rifles. There were hunts going around for any who were suspected to have been carrying high-powered automatic rifles.

  No one suspected them, though. Asher had saved up enough sigil to hand her what she needed to afford an apartment, and Kamille crafted the perfect alibi to explain why their transit records weren’t showing up. Everything went off without an issue, and she was able to take a job with a dance school where she served as an instructor. They settled nicely into the city and into its way of life.

  Things were moving along as they all expected it to… Well, except for two things; her dreams, and the guy she was about to send a text to. His name was Kieran, and they met a week after moving into the city at a bar not too far from her apartment. Her chest was warm with excitement, and her mind was buzzing, despite her nightmare.

  She thought he was cute, and though he hid his emotions, he was kind to her. She fantasized about him, envisioning his broad shoulders and blonde hair. He was toned, definitely easy on the eyes, but there was another important factor that kept drawing her attention to him – he was almost identical to the man in her dreams so many years ago.

  Sure, his name wasn’t Jack, he wasn’t from some place called ‘San Francisco,’ nor did he have a friend named Elizabeth. But he looked so eerily similar, there had to be a connection. She kept the dreams about Jack to herself, though, and Kamille didn’t trust him - and not just because he was an ivory elf. There was something about the aura around him that she didn’t trust. Ayela herself was apprehensive as well, but she let him have his chance.

  Hey. She wrote. His response was quick.

  Hey, Ayela. I’m surprised you’re awake right now. Everything okay?

  Yea. I just had a nightmare, that’s all. It was really vivid and weird.

  Yea? What about?

  She didn’t know how to respond without sounding crazy.

  It was weird, you’ll probably think I’m weird.

  Try me.

  …It was about the afterlife. I saw Death, the korist god of nothingness…And it told me there was an afterlife for remans.

  His response took longer than normal. She started to worry that she scared him off. Then he calmed her nerves.

  That’s pretty deep. How do we know, after all, that there’s nothing after this? Has anyone come back from the dead?

  Rhaja was the only one. She remembered that day like it was yesterday.

  You’re right. No one really knows.

  Want to talk more about it over coffee tomorrow morning?

  She paused, unsure of the right response. As she dwelt on it, though, she figured that she would be in the city for a long time, longer than Kamille. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to open up romantically? Their mission wasn’t for another week, anyways, so she had plenty of time to go on a date or two.

  Sure! She wrote back.

  It’s a date, then. I’ll pick you up at 8 so you have time to get to the school. You don’t start until 9, right?

  9:30, but I try to get there by 9.

  I’ll see you at 8, then.

  See you then!

  She sighed and set her phone down beside her, and with her fears and anxieties quelled, she drifted into more pleasant dreams…

  …Dreams of a peace, romance, and happiness.