Chapter One : a Life Fairly Well Lived

Hey, my name is Trevor Williams. I'm an editor who works in a publishing company. I'm 35 years in age, single. Apart from the still single part, my life is fairly well I guess. I have a fairly well- paying job at a publishing company. Apart from the heavy workload and crazy deadlines to meet up with, I guess it's okay. I own a small apartment. I'm writing my own book, but thanks to the crazy deadlines from work lately, I haven't been paying attention to it for a while now. Luckily, I managed to get most of my work done and finally decided to head home. I've pulled five all-nighters at work, with nothing but coffee, energy drinks and cup noodles to keep me going the past few days. Since I've got most of my work done, I decided to head home and rest.

I haven't had much sleep for the past few days now and my eyes hurt from staring at the screen for days. My fingers fell numb. I can barely feel them right from all the key crunching I've been doing. Basically, what I'm trying to say is my body has seen a lot more-better days.

It's quite late right now but, there's a fair amount of people on the streets. Watching the amount of people flod by, my head bagan to spin followed by a striking pain like a bolt of lightning.

My unsteady noodle like feet began to waver under my weight. I stop for a second and leaned against a building by my side. But even with that, the pain in my head didn't let up.

My legs trembled as I took a step. My vision blurred in and out as my consciousness flickered. The voices and sounds around me turned to muffles and slowly began to sink away into the background.

I raised my head and looked up at the night moon. For some strange reason it looked awfully brighter. Too bright. Like staring directly into the sun. My forehead throbbed and I was compelled to lower my eyes. Even with that, I could still see the light before them.

Ha...haha.

What is this...?

My knees bucckled under me and my body comes crashing down to the ground with a thud.

"H-hey sir, are you okay? Sir-!!"

Those on the sidewalk around me went into a fray as they watched my slumped body against the ground.

"Sir, Sir! Can you hear me? Hey, somebody call the ambulance…!"

The voices soon begin to fade further into the distance. My consciousness faltered and my body refused to move.

I couldn't help but have various thoughts run rampant in my head. Thoughts like,

'this was how I was going to end.'

Thoughts filled with the regrets and sorrows of the life I had lived. A life with nothing to show for it.

A little part of me felt like I had been over exaggerating what was happening.

'I just fell that's all'

'i'm only a little tired...I should get up. There's still work I had to do. A deadline I had to meet and a book I had to write...'

They were thoughts of false hope. Denial. I knew what was going on but refused to accept it.

Something like this isn't a rare event. A full week without rest and constant work. A week fueked by nothing but unbalanced convenience meals and accumulated stress if all kind. It wouldn't be exactly strange if I died right now.

My thoughts soon began to fade and disperse. I tried desperately to hold on to them, but the harder I tried, the more it felt like my consciousness was sinking into the depths of something. Like I was drowning.

Soon the muffled noises was sucked away along with my dispersing thoughts. All that remained was the sound of my slowing heartbeat.

Aah, I see. So that's what it is. I guess that's it for me then. I'm not too long from this world now, am I?

But man, who would've thought I'd end up this way—I'd go out like this? It was frankly quite obvious though. How pathetic.

After a while, everything went quiet. My vision completely disappeared and I was submerged into a world of total darkness...the world beyond life..

Tstchu, tstchutstchu.

Then suddenly, a strange sound like pages of a book flipping open resounded. There was a bright light accompanied by the strange sound.

Various images began to flash before me like pages. I'm not sure what it was, but I figured maybe, this is what they meant by when your life flashes before you? But something was off about this images.

These weren't events of my life.

The various images continued to flash through like picture films of a projector. Accompanied by the films, my mind was raided with a variety of voices and all sorts of boiling emotions began to well up and rage inside of me.

The images contained the glimpse of another world. The glimpse of kingdoms and countries razed to the ground by flames that ascended from below. Corrupted creatures flew in from the realm between and with darkened breath, flattened the surface of the earth.

The voices contained cries and screams of anger, sorrow, sadness and regrets. Those of mothers who watched the hearts of the children getting gnawed at by demonic beasts.

"Keugh-!!"

what was all this? I had never seen th see before, but yet my mind found them so familiar.

-'I've seen these before'

-'No, I haven't....'

"Keugh-!!"

It was painful. The images and voices hurt to watch and listen to.

Among the images, I caught the glimpse of a silhouette, the figure of a lone man against his knees. He alone stood in a vast plane of a dead waste land corroded and scorched by flames. There was the body of a young girl lying limply and unmoving in his hands. Streams of blood flowed down his eyes.

"Aaaaarrrrgghhh-!!!!" He cursed out to the heavens dyed in a deep crimson hue. The tips of his hair all the way to the top took on a pale white.

The image then changed again. A mountain of corpses, a mountain of piled corpses climbing all it's way up into the blood red sky. From the top, pitch black eyes with red crescent arcs cursed the earth. On a throne of bones, the devil glared below.

...And then the images and glimpses stopped. There was however one last voice I heard.

-'Sull...'

A cool breeze brushed over my face and the smell of trees and a vast plain wafted into my nose. I could also feel a warm light descend against my whole face which was strange because I was supposed to be dead.

I opened my eyes to the sight of the broad blue sky. The sun shining behind the drifting clouds.

I was alive and breathing.

A most welcome sense of relief washed over me.

I wasn't dead. I wasn't dead and was still alive. I was nearly moved to brink of tears. Though my hear still raced from all that had happened.

I tried to get up to have a look at my surrounding. I passed out at nighttime, but now it's obviously early noon. What's more is, why am I outside? If I passed out on the road, you'd think I'd be moved to a hospital.

I tried to get up but my body remained unable to move as this time, it was binded by something. A soft, fluffy texture wrapped tightly around me.

*Creeaak*

The familiar sound of a door opening reached my ears. And in two seconds, the figure and face if a woman hovered over me. She looked at me with trembling wide eyes and clasped shot mouth.

Her face and whole body looked twice or five times the size of my own. The woman slowly reached out for me with large arms and lifted me up with ease.

...

I was left dumbstruck by this and stared quietly at her. Imanaged to break free of what wrapped around and my arm slipped out.

...

...huh?

My hand.... it's a freaking baby's!!