2 Wait. What?

I waited but there was nothing. It was just the familiar darkness that I had been accustomed to.

'So this is death.' I thought to myself. 'It sure is lackluster compared to what I thought. I was waiting for a sea of fire or if I'm lucky a beautiful paradise.'

Then, there was the shocking ray of light that pierced through my vision. Just like lightning, the ray seemed to create a loud boom as it completely blinded me. I was paralyzed. It enveloped my whole being and carried me into a stream where the lights seemed to converge and travel. It passed through various shining and distorting spheres.

After about an hour of perusing, I started noticing patterns. Most of the spheres shone with radiant light while others grew dull and grey. The ones that shined attracted more bodies of light. The lights also tend to avoid the grey spheres, but these spheres would shoot out tendrils to drag an unfortunate 'light' to it. These two spheres should be a type of passageway of sorts.

My journey seemed to be one of the longer ones as the number of my compadre lights could now be counted with my hands. "Ten. I'm in the last ten. There should be a prize for coming this far. Right?" I joked, trying to use humor to lessen my anxiety about all this.

"Heh. If you can call that a prize then sure. It will be one hell of a prize." A voice emerged inside my mind. The voice tugged on my mind and pulled my attention towards something on the horizon. It was a shape, a sphere. No, it was two spheres joined together. The figure was emanating an ominous aura. Various dark tendrils also grabbed neighboring spheres. The merged figures pulsated with different colors, but this shadow-like aura seemed to restrict its movements. It was a curious yet frightening sight.

"..."

" Cat got your tongue kid? " The voice laughed. "Don't worry. I'm not one of those voices. I'm the light on your left. The name's Krynn by the way."

Hearing that he was like me, I let loose the bombardment of questions in my mind. "How do you know I hear voices? Do you know what's happening? Where? What is this? Can you get me out of here? "

"Woah, woah, easy with the questions kid. Breathe. It's not the time to have a panic attack." Krynn said in a soothing tone.

"I- uh. Thanks. I'm Solomon Lee, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. And to answer your questions, I'll have to disappoint you. Sadly, I also don't know what's happening here and as for why I know you had a voice in your head." Krynn said dejectedly and paused. "I guess it was more of a hunch, a gut feel. It takes one to know one. It takes one to kn.." He sighed, letting his voice fade out.

After Krynn's explanation, only silenced reigned. I only managed to talk when our rides stopped. "We're here," I announced.

"Yeah. Thanks, for the heads up. I really can't tell that we're here." Krynn replied, his voice now filled with sarcasm, fear, and unease. "See you soon."

After Krynn bid his farewell, the light that encapsulated us intensified once more. With the same crackle and boom, my surroundings turned white and the deafening recoil of thunder rang in my ears. First, I lost my hearing. Then, my sight and touch followed. An eerie calm overtook my lack of senses. After a few moments, my hearing came back. I heard the crashing waves of the sea as it hit the shore. I heard what seemed to me like birds. Then my touch returned, the numbness was washed away from my body as the cool sea breeze hit my skin. I felt the warm caress of the afternoon sun and the subtle sting of hot sand. Yep. I'm stark naked.

Unlike my other senses, my vision had a hard time reappearing. So, I stood there unmoving and contemplated what happened. 'Okay, okay, calm down Sol. Calm down. Think of everything that you know? Well, I died. Then, everything went pitch black. After that, some alien light abducted me and sent me on an LSD trip. On the trip, I found a lot of spheres and I stopped on the most welcoming one. Then the light dropped me on an island?' Maybe it was the panic or the adrenaline, but my vision returned soon after.

What welcomed me was wreckage. Ship wreckage to be exact. Not the metal ships that I was familiar with on Earth. It was the old wooden ones. The bow of the ship was displayed on the large rocks near the shore. A couple of corpses also rested on the same shore as me. Strangely enough, the sight didn't shock me as much as I expected. Probably because I was also DEAD just a few hours ago and now I came back ALIVE. I calmed myself once more and tried to think more clearly.

I paid my respects to the dead and started searching their bodies. There were three on the shore and there were probably more drifting near me. The first two looked like deckhands. They had poor clothing and even poorer wallets. They had money pouches that contained five silver coins in total. The last one, on the other hand, didn't disappoint, it was a fine-looking gentleman maybe a noble by birth. He had a finely crafted black cloak and a white vest. Unfortunately, his pants were abysmally baggy and the only thing that held its place was a series of belts. Seeing as this was the best choice I had. I borrowed his clothing and took my new friend, Kyle sending him adrift. He also had a healthier amount of coins with him, amounting to four gold coins. I took it and said my last thanks to Kyle as I went on my way.

I traced the shore to find some sort of civilization, but the night was approaching fast. I lucked and found a chipped dagger along the shore. I quickly collected the blade and ran. The sun was setting abnormally fast and another source of light emerged in the sky. It was three moons, three full moons. They gave a dim moonlight. Although it helped me run, the moonlight also gave heaviness to my body. I was exhausted, but I finally found a city of sorts. Out on the horizon, I saw the faint bits of fire and signs of civilization.

'I can't run anymore, but I should be able to reach this city in an hour or so. It wasn't as bad as I thought. The moons provided great light. I also don't know how to make a fire so I was scared beasts would attack me.'

My habit of talking to myself manifested more as fatigue took over. My consciousness started fading as the weariness of my body became more prominent. I managed to hold on for a while but my body was at its limit. I collapsed.