1 Bathed in the Black Sea

Danke's elder brothers always said that it was impossible to wake up dead because the dead don't wake up at all. Danke never quite understood that reasoning. Ghosts could certainly wake up right? And what about the afterlife?

Now as Danke awoke in this unfamiliar place a numbed part of his mind took grim satisfaction in having proven his brother's wrong once and for all.

The last thing he could remember seeing before falling asleep was his servant Charles pressing an odd smelling rag to his face.

The last thing he could remember feeling was a sense of weightlessness as his horseless carriage ran off the side of the bridge careening towards the bottom of a ravine.

Assuming that some inexplicable miracle hadn't happened, Danke was fairly certain that he was dead.

The mark where serious injury was relatively certain was a fall beyond twenty feet. The particular ravine they'd been passing over before Charles' betrayal was known to be two miles deep.

Ergo, Danke was 'living' proof that one could wake up dead.

"Suck it, Julius." sneered the youth.

The boy's good humor quickly faded as the numbness wore off and he was struck with the sobering realization that his life was over.

Danke Sonam Koray was the fifth born son of the Koray family. The Korays had once been a powerful military family in their home country. The country declined. The family made a single poor political choice and several bad business choices. Now decades later they were barely better than the average household.

Scarcity of resources and bad family dynamics bred an atmosphere of vicious competition.

Danke's mother was Danke's father, Martin's, lover Catherine. The one concubine he'd been allowed to bring into the marriage. She died giving birth to the boy and though Markoff Koray had never said anything on the man, it was clear to everyone that the man quietly blamed the boy for the woman's death.

This wouldn't have mattered if the boy's adoptive mother Silvia, the head of the clan and household, was around more. The reason she'd allowed Martin to keep a lover was because she had loved Catherine like a sister and that same love made her favor the woman's only son.

Alas, being the head of a falling family meant one was forever roaming the world in search of a means to save said family. Making deals. Looking for business. Trying to set up opportunities for the clan to regain its former glory.

Martin was Silvia's head husband and thus had nearly as much as authority over the family. Especially when Silvia was away. He never left home because his very duty as first spouse was to look after the household.

As a result, despite being one of the elder scions of the family Danke ended up being a disfavored son. Martin's resentment and various associated passive aggressive acts became a cue to the rest of the family that the boy was disfavored and thus could be treated trash.

Fortunately, the family's rules were strict and the Koray elders enforced them to the letter. Thus the boy's rights and inheritance as one of family's future heads couldn't just be taken away.

Unfortunately, men died for treasure just like birds died for food. It was only a matter of time before someone did something drastic to get their hands on the boy's status as one of the first heads of the family.

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Danke pushed thoughts of his family out of his mind. His mother was a good woman but her belief in her clan had blinded her. It didn't help that he had possessed a certain power that erased all evidence of the abuses and grievances perpetrated against him.

He wouldn't miss his family for the most part because they were the ones who'd caused him the most grief and when they weren't causing 'him' grief they were fighting with each other and giving his mother headaches.

He didn't hold a grudge against Charles because he suspected that they, (whichever of his family members was responsible for his death), had probably pulled him into their schemes using a mixture of force and bribery.

Offering sweet rewards while also hinting that needless loyalty would be punished if they were forced to use other means to bring their plans to fruition.

Even if Danke was holding a small grudge against the man he'd treated like a brother, it was quickly extinguished when he reasoned that his deceitful clansmen would likely dispose of their lower-class accomplice. Killing Charles off to silence him as well as to neatly avoid honoring their agreement.

All in All, the boy held neither gratitude nor grudges concerning his old life. His only regrets and concerns had to do with letting his mother down and adding to his worries. Though he wasn't her blood she'd loved him like she was the son of her womb.

He also regretted leaving behind his adorable little sister, Jacklyn. The two of them had been close and now the girl would have to deal with the family's fierce competitions since she'd been next in line to be a family scion should Danke or one of his elder siblings lose their qualification.

Fortunately, Danke didn't have to worry about Jacklyn's safety. She was favored by the clan. Her promising talents and the fact that her father was second in rank only to Danke's father assuring that she was generally always well treated.

With those last concerns resolved in his mind, Danke resigned himself to death. On the bright side of things, it looked like he was heading towards the good place. His shapeless form floating towards the golden lights of paradisio.

That was a relief. He hadn't really subscribed to any of his world's major religions but maybe that was for the best considering the pantheons of his old world were governed by a large number of so-called dark gods.

Instead his soul would be judged based on the deeds of his life, and he would gain a chance to either enter the afterlife one of the bright gods, or gain a chance to reincarnate in one of the better worlds. Hopefully this time he'd end up with a better, saner, family. The one he'd left behind had been just a little too toxic.

Danke closed his eyes again. The act of maintaining consciousness without a body having exhausted him. His ponderings weren't without value. After mentally freeing himself of the burdens of his former life his soul now flew even faster. The strange energy that had always dwelt within him, acting like a booster.

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Later, Danke would open his eyes. He looked up and saw a familiar figure. A robust woman dressed in snake skins. Her hair made of dark clouds and crackling lightning. Her face like cracked porcelain. Beautiful but broken to the extent that all who gazed upon her were broken.

She was Belinda, chief goddess of his home world, Novem. Danke felt a spike of fear within himself. On a better world, seeing a being like Belinda would be akin to running into one of the devils.

In fact, Belinda was indeed something like a devil. She was one of the handful of dark entities that managed to somehow to ascend out of the outer-dark and become the goddess of some unfortunate world, namely Danke's world.

All the faithful of Danke's homeworld felt more than a little relief when they learned their souls were too be committed into the hands of the angels and the dark monsters that claimed godhood had no right to decide where they went they died.

Beside Belinda stood an unfamiliar figure. His face was hidden behind a simple dark cowl. His body was covered in armor plate and golden robes. Belinda held out her hand and the figure placed something into.

Danke had the disturbing feeling that he was seeing a transaction take place.

"Come along, little one. I will take you to your final destination." said the figure. His voice warm and fatherly resounding with the might of a million collapsing stars.

"I...Yes, sir." said Danke. Willing his shapeless-self to trail after the figure.

They flew along a long road paved in shimmering light. They flew for hours. For days. For years. Along the way, the figure stopped by a number of other figures. Receiving more souls from various unfamiliar devils and corrupted gods.

Eventually they stopped and the boy worked up the nerve to ask,

"Is...Is this paradisio, sir?"

The figure laughed.

"A foolish question, boy. Does this place look anything like paradisio to you?"

Danke looked around and gasped as he found himself floating above a roiling sea of humming black tar. Above and within the sea was a massive clockwork heart. Pulsing and whirring as it pumped the black tar to places unknown using great golden pipes.

"N-, No, sir." said Danke. Suddenly feeling very confused and very afraid.

"Ah, don't be like that. No need to be afraid. You little souls have been granted a great opportunity. You will become denizens of the great unwinding world, Abwickeln."

Danke felt a coldness in his stomach. Finding denizens was the cheapest way to maintain a reality. That was part of why devils tried to steal souls for their hells and the dark gods waged war with the bright gods for a portion of the output from the great well of souls.

"You will have eternal life(possibly), and endless power (potentially). Assuming you survive being baptised by the sea of chaos."

"And...And if we don't survive?"

"Then your spirit will be stripped apart and become sustenance for the unwinding world's firmament and the cosmos will eventually recover your soul for reincarnation in one of the countless lesser worlds."

"Ah…"

Danke eyed the figure and then he eyed the roiled black sea. Ultimately he decided to leap into the sea. It wasn't because he was brave. It was because he had a feeling that the figure was nothing good and that they hadn't noticed the secret the boy held within his soul.

If it was a choice between possible ego death and endless torment being stuffed into one of the many rings on the dark entities hands, Danke would rather risk dying once and for all.