Arc 1. Chapter 13. Death at the price of life.

He flew between time and space, space and reality, reality and time.

Darkness enveloped him and once again, he saw the distant light that felt so far away, yet quickly approached and surrounded him, bathing him in its clear lightness.

He was flying, floating, and laying at the same time, going back through all the interactions he had had in this strange world.

The faces of familiar people passed him and he could feel nothing anymore.

Once again, he had stood at death's door, and once again it had opened for him, only to reject him once more.

He now returned to the person that was sleeping on the cold gray floor back in the gray rooms, once again repeating his death, his life, and all of the interactions in between those.

All the good moments he cherished were not his own.

All the bad moments he hated were not what he had experienced.

All the things he had done, all the people he had met, everything he stood for, was a mere minute in a thousand years of pain.

"Wah-!"

He practically flew up from the gray floor, his head spinning as the second of the immense and extreme pain he had felt before his death, came back to him.

He screamed, he howled, for pain that wasn't visible in this version of him.

Only his mind knew, only the emotions he had felt then were real.

He embraced his own body, hugging his knees, touching the parts of him he had lost and missed so much.

His once-hurt shoulder was the least of his worries as he rolled around on the floor, trying to realize that he was now the person who existed within this body.

The pain of feeling his whole body like it was asleep, was exhausting.

He felt like a beanbag, with small peas rolling around inside his skin.

He knew he was, he saw he was, and yet, he felt everything and nothing of it, like he was only a curtain fluttering over the windowsill, sometimes passionately caressing the body with his soul.

It took him a good while.

The first minute had been spent getting over the previous pain, the next to realize that he was in his previous body once more, and now, he had to calm down and realize where he was.

The answer was rather simple though.

Han had reappeared in the gray rooms, the rooms from which he was born.

He slowly got up, feeling his head still processing the fact that he was himself.

He touched a hand to his skull, the skull that had been crushed a moment before, and used his other hand to feel the wall on his left, slowly making his way out into the next gray room.

He had noticed the sketchbook filled with creepy drawings before, but he had never cared about them enough to bring them with him.

But something within him begged to be let loose, and he felt like the only possible way for him to be freed from these emotions he was feeling, was to draw them, all of them.

He fell onto the chair, taking the four colorful crayons as well as the black one, and started to draw away.

Before he knew it, he had aggressively drawn all over one of the pages.

The colors were red, green, blue, yellow, and black, and as he continued drawing, the colors started to form an image.

His mind was blank, following the commands of someone else than him.

Or maybe this was him?

He wanted to express these feelings using the crayons at hand.

And what he drew with those crayons was…

"M- e…?"

He had barely realized it, but he had heard a loud piping noise up until now.

All of his confusion was gone, and drawn was a self-portrait.

The picture he had drawn resembled him, and the crayons had given his face color.

His hand went over the colors on the paper, colors that belonged to him.

He felt nothing but pity for the drawing, who would never be him.

The sound of steps echoed through the space of a room.

Inside this space existed but a single staircase following the colors of the rainbow, shining brightly as the figure continued his walk up those stairs.

He had not realized it but…

"What… is my purpose?"

"Your power is death, your strength is your humanity, your purpose, you decide."

His power was death. His strength his humanity. His purpose, he could decide himself.

He could die, he could fight, he could do anything, and yet the only thing he wished for was to go back to his world.

He didn't want to die, he had no strength, and he had forgotten his purpose, because why else would he have asked?

He had never sworn to use this ability to do good.

He stopped walking upstairs.

"W-with this power… I can do anything…"

He had a power only a god could have, a power that made him unable to die.

The question was, was this power an ability, or a curse?

What would he do with it?

What could he do with it?

What could he achieve?

What would he achieve?

In his eyes, he had only died, for nothing.

His death had meant nothing.

It was only a way for him to give it another try. To give life another try.

But in reality, death was the end of life.

So was life the beginning of death?

Why was death the beginning of life for him?

When others died, they wouldn't come back, be reborn.

But every time he died, his freedom was taken from him and his fate changed so that he would be given another chance in life.

He looked at the knife in the bundle he had at his side.

If- if he killed himself, he would only be reborn in his body all over again.

There was no point.

Would anyone care if he died?

He would come back, so it was all okay, right?

No, he didn't want to die.

Death hurt, and he hated to hurt.

He remembered hurting, he was familiar with it.

He looked up toward the top of the staircase, toward the door that gently welcomed him and his presence.

It knew Cloud knew.

She was waiting.

Cloud, Meno, Cloudia, Phil, Finn, Sayora, Hank, and Ava were waiting for him.

There were people in this world that he sought to someday love.

People that if they needed him to die for them, he would do it. Or would he?

When would he love someone to the point where he would offer to die for their sake?

Overthinking right now was pointless.

He made his way up the last stairs as melancholy floated over him.

Arriving at his destination, he tiredly fell to his knees in front of the blonde librarian.

"Did you succeed?"

"I achieved nothing."

His voice was hoarse, almost like he had cried.

He felt the dried tears he hadn't realized were running down his cheeks, become wet once more.

He was sitting on his knees, defeated by death and the pressure it had on him.

He could die once, he was able to die twice, but he couldn't stay whole after the third time of death.

"Are you sure?"

"I gained nothing, I found nothing, I lost myself."

"When are you going to achieve anything?"

Han couldn't take it anymore, he was too weak, too human to survive death.

His eyes teared up as he bawled.

"How can I achieve anything-?! I'm only human! No matter what power I have, I will never use it right! I will never achieve anything with it!"

Death was pain, life was pain, and being human was pain.

Suffering was the only thing he had done so far, and for what?

He couldn't just keep dying, he didn't want to keep dying.

"You surely have no idea of what you can and can't do."

"What-?!" He screeched, his voice so hoarse the words could barely be heard.

"The fact that you have died thrice shows me how strong you are, how human you are."

"–"

"The fact that you made your way here, just to tell me that you were giving up shows how strong and determined you are. You can achieve things if you want to, you are truly incredible."

"–"

"Tell me, Han. Isn't there something that you want to do?"

"What I- want to do..?"

He was on his knees in front of her.

Death has messed with his mind but her words bring a form of clarity.

A goal, something he wanted, something to do.

Death was an obstacle to his happiness, but life was his way to get past that obstacle.

And the reason for him to get past that obstacle was something he ought to do.

The gray children lived in The Castle of Motions. The castle contained the information necessary for him to escape that world and be free.

But why should only he escape?

There must be a reason for Phil wanting to help him too. Phil…

Phil disliked that world, Phil wanted to get away from there, Phil wanted to flee, and Han knew that Phil loved his fellow gray children.

Phil would save them, Phil would try to free them from that world, but why?

What could scare him so much that he wanted to flee that world?

And then it came back to him.

The giant monster that had killed Han.

He hadn't seen it, he hadn't even heard it, but he had felt it. Its gluttony was so strong it felt like a presence, its power so strong that it had easily broken the walls of the castle and trampled over an entire tree.

Where was that monster now?

What did that monster want?

Had it hurt the gray children?!

Had it hurt Phil? Had it hurt Finn? Had it hurt Sayora? Had it hurt Ava? Had it hurt Hank?

He needed to know. He didn't know why, but he needed to know if something bad had happened to them, because if it had, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself, not ever!

"-!"

Seeing the glimpse in his eyes, Cloud asked again.

"Now tell me, Han. Isn't there something that you have to do?"

"-!!"

"Something you have to do, will do, could do, should do, want to do?"

Han got up.

He couldn't give up.

He wasn't happy in that world and neither was Phil. He had to save Phil, and the gray children too. He had to! That was his purpose!

He started walking toward the rainbow door in Cloud's library, leading back to the gray lands.

Faces watched him, the faces of familiar people, Meno, Cloudia, and faces of other Clouds that remained people.

He could save the gray children. From that monster, from something else, from someone else!

He could save them all, he could if he used his life properly, if he died at the right time, and if he got back on his feet even after all of his pain and suffering.

Only if he exchanged his death for their life.

"Death at the price of life, huh?" Han said as he opened the rainbow door and walked through it, leaving people who were safe behind, so he could save those who weren't.

All because of trust.