Outside

He pitied the souls, since he knew their upcoming fate. If he could help him he would. Yet for those that had already entered the tunnel, he could do little, since at both parties (him and the souls moving towards him) current velocity, he would only tear them apart.

And so without being bothered by the souls in the tunnel, he let himself continue, even if slower then before, having been hampered by colliding with the approaching stuffs, be it souls, strings, fragments or dust. Harm him however, they did not. Instead they flowed of his perfect form like droplets of water down a Lotus petal, not even leaving a trace.

Finally he noticed the pushing force weakening. His speed was already a lot slower then before, so when he got to the wall of souls flooding the entrance he was forcefully stopped.Breaking through the torrents of souls was incredibly difficult, as every time he would make progress by climbing over them with his tentacles, his gripping spot would be sucked into the debts. Also every time he came in contact with a soul that was still mostly intact, they screamed at him in an intelligible mix of screams and confusion. While he initially wanted to avoid having to throw another strand for movement, because he wanted to try other means of movement for once, in the end he had to relent.

Like the previous times he pulled out a 'blank' memory, he decided to call them since they contained no information except the sensory information he had taken in from the void, which as the name of the void suggested usually none except the constant pull, and threw it behind him for additional speed.

As soon as he commenced his throw, it was like a bomb had hit the wall of souls. Countless souls surrounding him simply disintegrated form the huge force applied to them. Maybe this was better for them anyway, since this way hey would probably not even have felt any pain. Souls further away from him were a bit more unlucky and were painfully ripped apart instead of being instantly killed. Those even further away were pushed out of the tunnel.

~May you enjoy a few more moments of peace~

He thought hoping these few moments may help them escape the clutches of the void somehow.

And then finally after countless years, he got away from his prison and left it for a whole new world, whether it be an actual new world or his old one shaped by the passing of time.

Bursting through the vortex, and flying away from his reach, to where its pull could be ignored for the moment, he expected to see meadows of flowers in their bloom, children playing on the grass, the sun shining brightly and a clear blue sky and all the other things he wanted to see once more when he left the void.

What he had gotten instead was complete darkness again.

For a moment He believed, he had never left the void in the first place. Yet when he looked more closely, he saw countless souls of different shapes and sizes all around him. Some made up only of one to two strands. Those mostly all located to a single plane, moving by means unknown to him on that very plane. Some were close to one another some spread around and lonely. Those lone ones oftentimes seemed to have more strands then the rest of the very small souls. There were also slightly bigger souls, made op of hundreds to thousands of strands. Those moved around mostly erratically, not on the plane, though some of them did move around on it, ether not being capable of leaving it, or simply choosing not to.

If what he had guessed was correct, then what he was perceiving was the souls of all sorts of creatures going about there business. Those on the ground were probably ants and bugs, maybe some small spiders and worms even. The bigger souls in the air and on the ground could only be birds, lizards and mice, or whatever creatures this place may harbor. It was simply that he was unable to see anything but the souls themselves, since he lacked the required senses to see anything but souls and their remains.

After watching for a while longer he saw two souls approaching another. One he judged to be of a bird or similar flying creature, the other he deduced to be a bug or something similar. He knew what was going to happen now. But he barley could not bare watching. But just barely.

~Oh my... Nature sure can be cruel sometimes~

and then after the smaller soul struggled, it suddenly lost shape. slowly floating towards the direction of the vortex. But even before it could reach there, it disintegrated into stuff even finer than dust and seemingly dissipated.

~As I had guessed when going through the funnel and seeing all these big souls. The smaller ones do not even make it into the void and the once even smaller can't even survive without a bod for a short period of time. Makes sense actually otherwise the funnel would have constantly been flooded with the souls of small critters ad bugs. Since a souls size directly correlates to the intelligence and age of a creature , like I had found out back when I was still human, and a souls durability correlates with its size and density, animals and very small children should only rarely find themselves in the vortex.~ He thought feeling a bit bitter.

~It seems that humans pay for their intellect with a painful death.A bit ironic considering it is what granted them a comfortable life in the mortal world. Well except for me of course, since I seem to have escaped even a true death thanks to my genius.~

Slowly drifting back towards the vortex that was still quite a ways behind him, he saw a human soul drifting past him. Since he knew what was awaiting it, he had the intention to warn it, in the hopes of giving it a chance of survival.

From his experience in the tunnel he knew that souls could somehow communicate with one another.

~Since my strings are literally pure information carriers, maybe I should try talking to this soul by touching them.~ He thought filled with the hope of finally having a conversation with someone other than himself once again, as he was reaching out and finally touched the soul.

******

Kevin Smith had lived a good life. He had had a quiet school life and was not bullied. He got into a relatively good collage. He married a nice woman and had three children. His job was very stable and at a good age he went into retirement, where all he did was visit places around the world together with his wife or play with his grandchildren. Finally he passed away at the ripe old age of 86 while he was in the hospital. His family had visited him and stayed with him until the very end. Many tears were shed on both sides. But till the end, it had been a good and quiet life.

Until now that is.

~Hey how are you doing pal. Do you people of the future still say pal? Well anyway, how was dying? Not so great I am sure. Well personally I fell down the stairs, quite painful if you ask me but all in all there are worse deaths really. Ay? ~

Kevin was stunned. What was that voice that he had just heard, why was it talking to him? And why was it talking to him like one of those rappers? Also all those questions, was it not a bit rude to ask so much without even an introduction?

All those questions however were summarized in one simple word by Kevin.

-Eh????-