1 Death and rebirth

My name is Oliver Greene and my life usually consists of the same routine. Wake up, workout, go to work, return to an empty home and drink my troubles away. 5 years ago on my 60th birthday my wife, Emily, of 30 plus years died and nothing has been the same since. She was a childhood crush and we got together when she was 12 and I was 13. We didn't have kids but we wanted to.

Now I'm 65 and have been depressed and lonely since she passed I no longer have a goal or dream to work for and nothing matters anymore. I woke up to my alarm and was getting ready to start my jog but as soon as I stepped out of the front door I felt a sharp and intense pain in the center of my chest. I tried to stabilize myself as I started to fall over when my vision started going dark I knew it was a heart attack. The last thing I saw was the picture I kept in my necklace of Emily while muttering, "I'm coming honey. We can be together again." in a hoarse voice before losing consciousness.

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When I woke up instead of seeing the afterlife or a hospital I was in a black and grey void. I looked around to spot something anything but nothing was in sight but the black and grey void which seemed to be made of a smokey substance. after waiting for a while with nothing happening I assumed either I didn't make it to the afterlife or I'm in a coma. Either way I wasn't just gonna wait around for something so I decided to run through all the basic techniques of the martial art I created in my younger years when I was around my mid 30s. I spent a lot of my time on martial arts ever since I was 7 and saw my first bruce lee movie. After years of practicing and learning martial arts of all kinds and making some changes I decided to try to make my own. I started a dojo when I turned 34 and taught many different people and encountered new kinds of fighting styles and martial arts. I never gave the style a name but I became famous for it and with that fame my dojo got a lot of student which is more income. While I never taught the full style to anyone but my wife I did teach a good bit of it at the dojo. After thinking back on the old days and feeling young again within this void I decided to run through every fight, spar, and battle I have ever been in within my memories to clearly see each move and while doing that I went through each movement of my style and looked for any errors or openings within my stances and movements to cover them and fix the style.

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30 years later

After practicing and meditating over every move repeatedly for an unknown but long time I changed it up to explore the void a little in between meditation and practice so I could try to find out where I am.

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300 years later

After a very long time of wandering, practicing, and meditating I finally found something. I just don't know what to do with it. It's the only thing I've been able to find within the void but it's just a white orb. I'm not sure wether to touch it or not but after deciding that there's nothing to lose I grabbed it and......nothing happened. I picked it up and looked at it but as soon as I got it close to my chest it shot out of my hand and merged into me. I felt intense pain all over, which was strange since all this time in the void I haven't felt anything like tiredness or pain, but still the pain was there. It kept increasing with every second until a wave of exhaustion hit me and I passed out.