Chapter 1: That blissfull moment
Twice, Samuel Cromwell's life had been changed within the blink of an eye.
The first time, an accident robbed him of his family and his friends.
His father and siblings had died and his mother had managed to carry him to safety before she ultimately succumbed to her wounds as well.
His friends, Misa and Ken also died inside their families' cars.
Only Misa's little sister Zoe, who managed to crawl out of the car through the back, survived as well.
The second time, in an impulsive moment of weakness a few years later, he took one step towards the wrong path.
A path that found its end 12 floors down.
For the last two years, his life had been colored in various shades of black, white, and grey.
Even the most blissful moments in that period just seemed to be a slightly more vibrant variation of those.
However whenever he was standing on that rooftop to watch that sunrise, for just one moment all the colors seemed to have returned, vibrant and full of life.
Yet he knew that soon, they would be gone again.
In the end, Samuel Cromwell died full of sorrow and regrets.
He did not want to commit suicide. Even after everything that had happened, he wanted to enjoy his life.
He still had a friend in Zoe, who felt the same pain he did.
He still had family members who also lost a lot in that accident.
His grandparents in particular were hardly able to come to terms with their daughter's passing, their love for Samuel seemed to have deepened even more.
His Uncle, whom he had always looked up to, was there for him, now more than ever as well as his cousins.
However, a moment of weakness was all it took to give all of that up.
And horrifying pain and death were his reward.
This story was not destined to end that way though as death had different plans for Samuel Cromwell.
Yet it seems that even death had failed to execute his plans perfectly before his demise.
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Complete darkness, an extreme cold, a splitting headache, confusion, a tingling numbness all over his body, and the feeling of being lost were what Sam woke up to.
He tried to recall where he was but when he tried to focus his thoughts the headache got worse.
He yelled out in pain, only to notice that he seemed to be lying in a confined space.
"Where Am I?" Samuel thought out loud.
He tried to stretch out his arms and legs, only to feel a cold surface.
It felt like metal, but even colder than he remembered.
"It is icy in here... what happened to me?"
Samuel tried to recall any events that might have resulted in the situation he found himself in, but every time he tried he got a splitting headache.
Until he heard a scream.
No, he didn't hear one - he remembered it.
And then it all came back to him.
He had jumped off of the building he was living in.
The roof was 12 floors high, he couldn't have possibly survived that.
Was that a dream? Was all of this still a dream? Samuel started questioning his sanity.
Why would he kill himself? He had his uncle, cousins, and grandparent but Zoe was alone, she needed him.
He would never forgive himself if he left her on her own.
When the accident happened, he was 18 years old. However, she was only 15 back then.
With no relatives she knew of, they moved in together.
Normally things wouldn't have been that easy but his uncle helped the two of them out, taking care of the paperwork.
With both of them as sole heirs to their parents, they didn't have to worry about money at least but Samuel didn't want to rely on that. He had decided to pick up a part-time job for starters and eventually, things started working out.
However, he knew that she needed him just as much as he needed her.
It wasn't a rare occurrence for her to snuggle up to him in tears until he managed to calm her down.
She had changed a lot he knew that.
She used to be an energetic and quirky girl who would always be happy to exercise and watch comedy movies.
When she laughed, everyone would instantly know it was genuine.
She wasn't the kind of person who would try to hide her mouth behind her hands when she laughed or try to be as quiet as possible.
When she saw something funny and couldn't stop herself, the entire neighborhood would wake up from her laughs.
However, that person had died on the day of the accident.
He could hardly see her smile anymore, much less laugh. And if she caught herself smiling she would instantly scold herself internally.
"How dare you laugh when your family died?"
At least that is what it felt like to Samuel.
To him, it felt like she had a severe case of the so-called "survivor's guilt" his counselor had warned him about.
And he made it his mission to help her deal with that.
In time, she started improving. She dared to smile again and allow herself to have some fun, even when it all came crashing down at her again from time to time. He would be there for her when it happened.
But what now? He had killed himself and she was the person that screamed when he hit the ground.
Was this hell? Was this his punishment for selfishly ending his life when his friends and family had not had the same luxury of making that decision themselves? Was it the punishment for leaving Zoe alone?
He wished it was a dream.
And he tried to wake up.
Like a mantra, he repeated it to himself "Wake up, wake up" all the whilst the cold kept pervading into his body.
And all of a sudden he felt the cold disappear.
Not only that but his sense of touch and smell disappeared as well.
He tried to look around and realized that he could see something.
He didn't feel anything anymore but he could see something now at least.
And he saw a pale body.
He saw a really small space in which this body was lying only to realize that it was his body.
The moment he realized that his vision turned black again, he regained all of his senses.
" FUCK FUCK FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!? "
He started screaming as he hit the walls around him with his feet and hands.
" LET ME FUCKING OUT!"
He kept kicking and punching until his screams turned intelligible and he got exhausted.
He would catch his breath think about random things and try to count the hours that passed in that passion.
Would he spend eternity in this confined area?
He did not want that.
Again, he felt rage rise inside of him
He started screaming and kicking again, he realized that he sounded like a lunatic but he felt like losing his mind anyway so it was probably accurate.
All of a sudden he heard dimmed voices of someone crying further behind the wall in front of his feet.
Not wanting to miss his chance he started kicking at that wall while yelling "LET ME OUT OF HERE!"
However, that only resulted in the crying noises intensifying.
Apparently, he was scaring the hell out of someone.
Sighing, Samuel started trying to calm down.
He wasn't gonna get out of here anytime soon, he was starting to come to terms with that.
However, right at that moment, he started hearing screams and noises of struggle.
"NOOOOO!" he heard a voice that he identified as the same one that had cried a while ago, before hearing banging noises.
Things started getting more chaotic from that point onward. He heard noises he could not identify to anything he knew of and his imagination ran wild, giving him the creeps.
"Come on Sam, you have to wake up. What is wrong with you?"
He tried to wake up again, only to realize that some of his senses disappeared again while he was able to see to a certain degree.
This time, he tried to make sense of the situation.
"Okay, so let's assume I am not dreaming. Where am I?"
Sam started to try to come up with a theory and he only found one that made any sense.
" There is no point in randomly asking myself where I am, I should start with the things that I do know...
It appears that I am not in a coffin yet and it doesn't sound like I was buried in a grave either.
It is freezing in here while the walls feel like they are made of some kind of metal... is this a morgue?"
Once Samuel got to that conclusion it all started to make sense to him.
"But then what happened? I don't look like someone that jumped off a building, my body looks intact."
While he said that he looked at his own body and couldn't help but frown. He saw some kind of blanket next to his body which he must have kicked away while he was freaking out and he also found a name tag on his toe. "So, my guess was spot on. This is actually a morgue. Great! Just goddamn great!"
After deciding to accept that as the truth for now, Sam started thinking again
" How come no one is opening this drawer when they hear me screaming and ki... oh, yeah. Actually makes sense, I would not open it either. God damn it"
Sam sighed when he realized how scared the person who heard him scream must have been and tried to come up with a way to get out of this Area when he realized something.
"Wait, what were those noises before? They did not sound peaceful at all.. and what the FUCK !? HOW CAN I SEE MYSELF? Am I A FREAKING GHOST RIGHT NOW!?"
He felt stupid for only realizing it then, but when he did he felt like his heart skipped a beat and the shock hit him like a solid punch from Vitali Klitschko to the Solar plexus.
Once again, he started panicking and all of a sudden he found himself within his body again.
After trying to calm down for a few minutes he had an idea that might lead to his escape.
He tried to remember the feeling he had when he was ejected out of his body the two times before in hopes of doing it again and it worked like a charm.
He found himself staring at his face once more.
This time he took some time to look at his body and analyze the damage.
His auburn hair was still intact, that was a plus.
His eyes were still intact as well... well the right one anyway. The left eye was damaged, but he knew that already. It had happened during the accident so nothing new here either.
He had some scars on his body, but he remembered all of them from after the accident.
Overall he was still the same fit young man he remembered, although he felt a bit weird, looking at his own naked body.
"that... it's cold." he decided to not comment on that any further.
"Now, back to the problem at hand" Sam had already looked around yet he found nothing but a white blanket and the name tag inside his confined space.
However, if he was a ghost or a soul, he should be able to pass through the walls right?
"here goes nothing." Sam thought while he tried to close his eyes, only to realize that he failed to do so before sighing and "zooming" straight into the wall in front of his feet, which he figured would be the place where the exit was.
And that was it.
He was outside and couldn't help but celebrate for a few seconds.
"Oh thank god, finally!"
As he was trying to come up with a plan on how to open the drawer, he looked around the room.
Which left him horrified.
"oh what the ..."
The room he found himself in was a complete bloody mess.
Blood was everywhere and now he realized what he had heard before.
It was the sound of people getting murdered.
The sight around him was like straight out of a horror movie and he figured that he would probably be throwing up if he still had a body right now.
Body parts, blood, and organs were lying everywhere and he felt sick just looking around.
However, in the corner of his eye, he spotted something odd.
A small motionless creature with its throat being squeezed by the hands of a human.
At least that must have happened at some point because those dismembered hands were still stuck to the creature's neck while it lay on the ground motionless.
"What is that thing?"
He started freaking out a little when he saw something so alien to him.
It had pointy ears and dark red skin, and its body height must have been a bit longer than half a meter.
It had small horns as well.
Overall, it looked a lot like an imp to him.
A dead one that is.
"Is this for real? Am I actually in hell or is this hell on earth?"