In Medias Res (3)

It was hot, very, very hot. When people die, isn't it supposed to be cold? Like life was drained away, siphoned. For me it was hot, a cruel burning, an incineration of my body and soul. I read a lot. Probably because of my brother. Julian loves to recite stories. Well, I shouldn't say Julian, I should clarify that my whole family loves stories. Our living room windows have long since been covered by our shelves, filled with movies, books, school art projects. Even our kitchen had a little bookshelf, though it was filled with old recipes and letters forever unsent. I would think that with all those stories I would be ready for whatever was next after life. But there wasn't anything. It was hot though. 'How did I die again?' Right, I was about to take a bite out of that cake, then I died. 'How though?' I remember the flavor of the icing hitting the top of my mouth, strawberry, the flavor significantly depleted from yesterday, still palatable though. Then I burned. I was with my friends, then everything went- no, I saw them, they weren't burning, one was trying to scream, eyes glazed over, another was crying, but no burning. I was burning though. I hope they're okay. 'So, what made me burn?' I know that there wasn't any fighting, right? My memories are getting foggy. I can still taste that strawberry icing. I would think that all my bodily functions would cease with death. I can still taste though. I can still smell though. 'What am I smelling? Iron? No. Blood. Mine? Probably.' I let out a sigh, well, as much of a sigh as a spirit can. No air left my lungs, but something else did, something maybe just a bit more important.

A jolt hits me, the stimulation from some outward source gives me something to focus on. I try to sense from where. Nothing. Not that I couldn't find where its origin was, but that there was nothing else anymore. I couldn't sense me, just this jolt now, a sort of deathly sense of sadness and weakness followed. Like something you dreaded for the longest time finally staring you down at your weakest moment. And then I was back, back alive, back in that room, in the store, with the slice of cake Infront of me on the table, just like the flavor of the strawberries, it was as if I never left. My brother rushed to me and hugged me, crying into my arms. "What is going on?" I mumbled under the arms of my brother, refusing to let me go.

We stayed like that for a while.

After twenty minutes my brother finally let go. I see the blood on his ears and ask again "Wh-What the hell is going on?" "I'm not quite sure either." He lets out, his throat horse from crying. "Alright!" An unfamiliar voice from the door calls out. "Now that everyone is alive and accounted for, let me apologize for my subordinate's actions and explain what happened." I turn to see a man, lithe and old but wearing a pseudo-military uniform, gray scale color palette with an accent of dull light blue. The man's eyes were deep set in his face, like a corpse reanimated. "I am Captain Midas of the Noctambulists." He introduced himself, clearly tired of being asked. "That fool there-" gesturing to a kid I hadn't even noticed, "-is Private Nezha. He was tasked with collecting an artifact which had slipped into this store. He found it and activated it." "Not on purpose!" "Either way. It did trigger. And these innocent people were harmed. So, you'll repent in due time. Anyway, we Noctambulists are a mercenary group from many different universes. We are normally much. Better. Then. This." with each word, punching Nezha's shoulder. "-but Nezha here clearly needs some reminding on how to properly handle a higher planar artifact." I sit in silence, still trying to comprehend what he's saying. "The artifact in question was this dagger." He said, holding a clear container that looked like the single most reinforced lunchbox ever. Inside was a blade, about the size of a steak knife, the design looked ancient, like something from the fissuring war hundreds of years ago. The blade was a trapezoid, the guard was chipped and cracked, and the hilt was wrapped in bandages which had yellowed from age. "This is known as an eighth sin dagger, a weapon which takes the trauma of a person and amplifies it, originally used in torture of war prisoner for information. This one is an early prototype and as such only takes a single of your five senses and inflicts trauma from that. As a result, the luckier of you-" pointing at Erica and Kendal, "-only had to deal with smell or taste, while those of you who rolled touch had it far worse." Midas pointed at me and Argo. Argo, who I hadn't even noticed until now was tending to his old scars, which were a bright red, presumably recently reopened then healed. They were larger now. I looked at him and wondered what he had experienced, if I had relived that moment when I had been trapped in the burning house, then what about him? He still hasn't told me how he got those scars. Only Julian knows. "Now, with the general explanation out of the way." The captain glared at Nezha. "It's time for how we're going to make it up to you for literally killing one of you and making the others suffer."

Midas lifted the clear box with the dagger inside, tilted it forward, and let it fall. As soon as it left his hand a soft warping occurred in the air and the box disappeared. "That will be properly disposed of. Now then Nezha!" Nezha, who had been slinking towards the exit stopped, turned, and sighed a defeated sigh. "Yes, sir?" he meekly uttered. "I have the perfect punishment for you!" Midas looked like a little kid about to run through a pile of neatly collected leaves. "You'll act as these unfortunate souls' personal cooperator!" "Wait. Isn't that a promotion?" Midas lets out a chuckle. "You wish. You'll have all the same work with none of the perks." The last bit of hope in Nezha's face drained away. "That's not fair! I can't even manipulate more than two Crown-Joules freely, not anywhere close enough to the seventy-two required to be even eligible for the cooperator position!" Argo interrupts, "Crown-Joule? The hell is that?" Both Noctambulists purse their lips, thinking about how to explain this. Midas responds, "Best not to worry about that, it won't matter as long as your entire universe remains within the scope of basic physics." Everyone in the room pauses. The silence lasted an uncomfortable amount of time. Harrison was the first to recover. "That can happen? Physics can just... stop working?" "Unfortunately," Nezha responded, "That's how I became a Noctambulist, my whole reality-" He makes a crushing motion with his hand. "But you don't need to worry about that. It won't happen to your universe so long as we at the Astral Rig have our hand on your shoulder." "Astral rig?" "Our base of operations. It exists in a dimension a few stratums higher than this one." Harrison, trying to comprehend what he was hearing, stood up and went to the bathroom, I could hear him splashing his face with water.

Midas walked to the back wall of the room; he stuck his hand against the beige wallpaper and pushed. The wall swung open to reveal a massive atrium. Our jaws collectively dropped. "What the fuck!" Erica sputtered. The room was huge, as long and wide as an airplane hangar and the ceiling was high enough that I couldn't see it. Midas grinned and explained, "This will be Nezha's quarters for the remaining time he has here." Nezha walked inside. The walls and floor were blank, a simple light gray without any lighting in sight, but nonetheless the room was bleached in a soft glow. Nezha stopped in the middle of the room, barely within shouting distance. He reached down to the floor and put his hand on the blank surface, suddenly the whole room shifted, the walls shimmering and warping, the floor suddenly had grass, trees the likes of which I had never seen sprouted from nowhere and gravel paths laced themselves through the suddenly arriving forest. The walls began to settle on form, bricks, like an old apartment building, with windows placed across the surface and doors every few meters. Within a moment, that blank room had become the largest courtyard I would ever see. The light had changed to an overhead spotlight, with a slight pinkish hue, making the refraction of the leaves onto the forest floor create a beautiful display. Midas turned to us, "I'll help Nezha prepare for his stay, feel free to talk amongst yourselves." He strolled into the forest, closing the door behind him.