Chapter 60

Chapter 60: Chapter 60

Chapter 60

It was a vast space.

It was shadowed by the darkness of many lost souls.

Maybe I could really hear their wails, or it was merely a hallucination, but wherever this was, it sucked. The sound sat at the edge of hearing and never quite became words.

Feeble, rounded ambient lights floated in the air. They were all around me, everywhere I looked, yet they seemed blurred, as though they were far away from me. When I tried to look at one too long, it slipped sideways.

Flowers stood out from the earth, yet this otherworldly setting was unnerving. Color without warmth. Beauty without comfort.

There were no moon, stars, or whatever signaled nightfall in the world I knew. Time did not sit here the way it sat everywhere else.

"Is it... shit, the afterlife? Are you kidding me?" I muttered to myself, disbelief etched into my voice.

"Hello!" I cried out.

My voice simply echoed back to me. It came back thinner than I had sent it.

I expected to walk, but instead I hovered. Looking down, I seemed to have no legs. I wanted to freak out, but the sensation was not even there.

I was simply numb to feelings and to my senses. Fear tried to rise and then had nowhere to go.

Was I really dead? I forced myself to think of whatever happened last before I came here, but it was a dead end. I just couldn’t think either. The last hour of my life sat behind a wall I could not put a hand through.

This reality was all I knew of, and all I was allowed to experience. Even at that, not fully.

"Please, someone!"

My voice, again, echoed back.

Then, a subtle voice came.

"Alex? Is that you?"

To my left, I turned. I approached, or rather floated toward it. The air did not resist me. Nothing did.

A woman was there. Her black hair streamed down her back, her face hidden behind fallen strands, and next to her stood a man, his dark blond hair neat and his height a few inches taller than hers. They held hands, both with such smooth skin that I was mesmerized by how nourished and radiant they looked. They looked finished. Settled. Whole in a way living people rarely were.

As I neared them and the light did justice to my sight, my brows knitted darkly.

"Sorry, do you know me?"

"Alex, it is you..." Followed by a scoff of recognition, the man spoke.

Then gravity shifted and light came. It was morning, and the sun was blinding. I raised a hand to shield my sight, and when I scanned my surroundings, my brows lifted.

We were at the top of a mountain, and I was seated before those two people. Except this time, I recognized them. Wind moved through grass that did not quite touch me.

My stomach dropped and my face paled like someone seeing a ghost, except mine was real and I was indeed seeing ghosts.

"How’s this possible?" I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and blinked again. "Dad? Mom? How’s... how are you...? Wait, am I dead?"

Mom’s lips spread into a warm smile. On the table separating us, she carried a teapot and poured me tea. The steam rose as if it belonged to a real morning.

Surely my throat was dry, but I couldn’t feel it, and drinking tea was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

"What’s going on? Someone tell me! Am I dead? How are you here?"

I couldn’t even tell myself how to feel. Happy? Scared? I just had no idea. Both tried to arrive at once and cancelled each other out.

"You’re in the spirit realm," Father explained.

"Pick up the tea, son."

I hesitated but eventually listened to them. As I leaned for it, I imagined this was not how I expected us to meet. While I’d always believed we’d someday see each other again, this was nowhere close to what I had imagined. I had pictured arms. Warmth. A kitchen. Not this thin, bright height.

My thoughts shattered when my fingers slid through the teacup.

"I... I can’t..."

"Yes, you can’t. That’s your answer, son. You’re not dead," Mom was the one to explain.

"Then I can’t..." I leaned forward even more and tried to touch her shoulder, but my fingers simply passed through the air.

Mom and Dad could touch each other, but they couldn’t touch me, and neither could I touch them.

My stomach dropped even harder. I wanted to hug them so badly. Before I knew it, my vision blurred, tears threatening to spill. The tears were the first thing that almost felt real.

"Is this a punishment of some sort?" I asked as I gulped.

"No, son. Your consciousness found us and brought you to us."

"So, where is this?"

Father was the one to explain, while Mom looked at me with such precious eyes. I had entirely forgotten how it felt to be looked at as though you were your parents’ greatest treasure. The look sat on me heavier than the mountain air.

"The blood of Aetherblood is constantly renewed, hence creating a cycle of precise rebirth. When one Aetherblood dies, their blood simply flows into the next. During the existence of an Aetherblood, it is stronger than the former, and eventually, once an Aetherblood dies, they are brought here to provide knowledge to the next Aetherblood. We are all one person, existing in different bodies, yet carrying the same power."

Father’s words came with many questions, but I held back. I needed to focus on the main thing. The rest could wait. It had to.

"So, you and the other Aetherbloods are here, and I’d join you here too when I die?"

"Each of us experiences a different life, and that comes with different experiences. What we see isn’t what another sees. My utopia is different from yours. Mine is with your mother, and your mother is with me," Father explained.

I remembered these two loved the mountains. They adored the freedom that came with being high above the clouds and the nothingness that accompanied it. No need to worry. No reason to bother.

Total escape.

I continued to listen. "But we all experience the same realm as one."

"That dark space with the blurry lights?"

"The spirit realm in its true form, not what we’ve made of it," Mother said this time.

I shook my head, wanting to place my elbow on the table, but nearly toppled over. There was nothing solid under the gesture. Only the idea of a table.

"But this just doesn’t make sense.

"I just don’t understand. Why am I even here? I can’t touch you, hug you... I imagined a different way of us meeting. Being happy together and catching up on things, but instead I’m here with questions about Aetherblood that I don’t even care about." I breathed heavily. "I don’t care about any of that. I just want you both back. I need to know, who did this to you? Who attacked us in that car accident?"

As soon as I asked that question, my vision blurred and my senses snapped back all at once.

Clawface and I were in the car. I wanted to meet Kai. So badly. Then we were attacked. The car tumbled, but we were alive. I was hurt and Clawface helped. Until the men attacked. The arrow weakened Clawface. The fire burned him. I tried to help and I was struck. The memory arrived whole and then sat there, ugly and unfinished.

"Clawface. Kai. No, I’m..." My voice trailed off.

"There’s not much you can know yet, son. We can only beg you to live your life and be free. There’s so much left for you to face in the world. You cannot enter ours yet."

I had never understood a statement as deeply as I did this one. It clawed at my heart.

"Please, don’t make me choose."

"You must, my baby boy," Mom cooed, her voice like ice soothing a bruise.

Father leaned forward.

"You’ve connected with us once. You can always do it again."

"But the One Tree..."

He continued, "The One Tree is yours to wield. It is not an entity of its own. It’s you. You cannot separate from yourself. It’s not a body, but simply the power that resides within you."

"I don’t want to leave, and if I have to, I want to avenge your deaths."

Mom and Dad laughed, and it echoed into the sky.

"Oh, baby. Do we look dead?"

They were right. They were free from worldly stress and everything that came with having a body. Their souls were at peace, and if I was truly being selfless, I’d want nothing more than for them to remain here.

Where they did not have to worry about anything at all.

The truth was clear, and they didn’t need to say it to my face. All this time, I’d been overthinking the entire situation. They never wanted me to hate myself or make myself an outcast.

The punishment I placed upon myself was merely my conscience, something both my conscious and subconscious mind were against.

I’d been my own tormentor.

And I supposed it was time to stop intentionally feeling inferior.

I deserved what I deserved.

Reality warped around itself, and darkness followed. I had no idea what happened. One minute I was there, and the next I’d merely thought about wanting to be back with Kai and worrying about how I’d achieve that. And then this happened.

The truth that followed was lethal.

The space was insanely confined. I was locked inside something...

My eyes widened as a thought spiraled into my head.

Wait... it couldn’t be.

Is this... Am I in a fucking coffin?