Chapter 2

  Nothingness haunts being.

  -Sartre

  Nothing surrounded me, embraced me, enfolded me in its arms and cradled me. It resonated with the emptiness I felt inside and blent into me. I had no anchor, no reference point, and no sense of time, only I existed here.

  Only me, alone with my thoughts. Thoughts of bright headlights and a bumper covered in childish Truck-Kun meme stickers.

  I circled through memories of pain and loss on an endless loop. I relived the moment detective Rios walked into my office and delivered the news. The initial disbelief, then the feeling of the world and my body folding in on themselves, and then the unbearable pain. Pain so bad I thought I would die, pain that stole my breath and robbed me of reason.

  I knew only impotent rage. The man who’d taken so much from me was beyond punishment. I swore to the universe, vowed to find him in the next life and take my revenge. Futile, empty threats, an anger strong enough to derail my well-organized life for months before friends and family came together and made sure I knew they were there for me.

  The surrounding nothing shifted, and the endless pain drifted away. My mind moved back to my earliest memories. Ginger, my dog, as a puppy on my fifth birthday. The unlimited love she had for me cradled my broken heart and held the pieces close. The lesser pain of losing a fellow soldier in the line of duty, still sharp, but bearable with context and time. The unabashed joy of my parents when I won my first judo competition, I felt them both through the void, felt their love wrap around me. The pride and companionship of others when we not only performed our shared duty, but also excelled in its execution. Friends from school, fellow athletes and nerds, some fleeting relationships, some that lasted long into adult life. I felt the hands of my comrades in arms, friends, and family grab me and pull me to my feet, felt the shared brotherhood of those lost and still living.

  I sat under a tree with the girl I loved, held her hand, and finally dug up enough courage to ask her for a kiss. The same girl walked down the aisle towards me. I thought I would pass out from fear and anxiety, then our eyes met, and I knew this was the way. Her love filled in the other half of my soul, and I knew we’d be together until the end of time, though a million lives, until the universe no longer had a use for us.

  I held my daughter for the first time. I thought, until that moment, my heart was full. She shattered that notion with her first smile. Her love stole my breath and robbed me of all reason. I held my grandson the day he was born, and it brought me the same feeling again, the same sense of rightness and all-encompassing love.

  The nothing moved again, and I saw a small spark of light. My skill, my insight, clicked inside my head. It showed me the similarity between my grief and my love. They ran alongside and around one another, two sides of a coin, both from the same source, one the price for the other. For the first time in months, I felt my mind calm, my anger dim, and I saw a way through.

  My insight finally found a way to process this grief. I continued to drift in nothing and pushed inward. I grabbed the pain and grief and when I had it firmly grasped, the other side of it came into sharp focus. I felt love for my family and the love they returned, and slowly that love grew. It expanded and pushed the pain over to the side. It didn’t push it all the way out, but it was no longer the only thing I felt. Losing them was not the same thing as losing their love.

  The nothing, now almost a comfortable bed, twisted again, and I moved. Something pulled me. I had no reference for a direction or goal, just the sense of movement.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been in the nothing. It could have been seconds or centuries, if time was even a thing in that place, or if it was even a place. The sense of movement accelerated, and I heard a voice. The voice resonated through the nothing, feminine and warm, powerful and strong. With the voice, all sense of movement came to a stop.

  “Dean Kuroi, you are an interesting case.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I didn’t have any sense of my body, but the voice demanded respect with nothing more than its quiet tone. I attempted to face towards the voice and stand straight. I didn’t snap to attention, but I felt the nothing respond to my intent. I tried next to form words, but nothing happened.

  “More interesting yet,” the voice said.

  I didn’t know if I had eyes, but a shape slowly coalesced in front of me. A tall woman’s shadow limed in thin threads of golden light; her face shrouded in a dark hood. She stood behind a sword longer than she was tall, black steel writ on the nothing with the same golden light.

  Her eyes snapped open with another flash of golden light and I felt that light carve my body out of the nothing. I looked down to see myself built from the same shadow and golden threads, flexed the fingers of my right hand, and looked back up.

  I found my voice. “I have so many questions,” I said.

  “I’m sure you do,” she said. “You’ll get your answers in time. Answer my question first. When you walked out of that alley after midnight and took a seat at the bus stop, what thoughts occupied your mind?”

  “I-,” my brain stuttered for a second and then caught up, “I wanted to go home and hold my wife, call my daughter, laugh with my grandson, and make sure they knew I was present in their lives. But they’re gone.”

  I couldn’t see her face behind the hood and burning golden eyes, but I felt her smile. “Not gone, Dean Kuroi. Gone from your Earth, but not gone in the final sense you meant.”

  Both of my hands clenched into fists and a flash of anger surged through me. It lasted only a second, then my thoughts caught up. If I still had some form, some sense of myself, maybe she was right.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, “but if this is some kind of joke…” I trailed off, no threat I made here would be credible, and I doubted she would be concerned or impressed by impotent bluster.

  “You will eventually understand. You’ll need to expand your experience and horizons a bit first. I also would not make light of your pain, or make cruel jokes, Dean Kuroi. The idea offends me. I will forgive you for thinking it, though.

  “Now, on to why I’m here. I have an offer for you.”

  In ordinary circumstances I have a perfect poker face, but her words brought my brows together and down. I didn’t know if I had brows. It felt like I did, though.

  “Suspicion is an excellent survival trait, Dean Kuroi. You’ll want to hear this offer, though.”

  I schooled my face back to what I hoped was a neutral expression. “Fine, let me hear your offer.”

  “You are already on your way to find your soulmate. I will do two things to assist you. I’ll speed your journey and when you arrive, you will keep your memories.”

  “I return for?” I asked.

  She laughed, the sound rippled through the nothing, and I felt her amusement intensify. “The world you are heading for is in turmoil. You will be my champion.”

  “My wife is there?”

  “When people pass on and move to a new world, they lose the memories of their previous lives. Only their essence, their soul, continues. Souls come to this place, this nothing as you’ve named it, and their lived experience and memory are processed, incorporated into their whole. The specifics are pulled apart and broken down into their pure essence. That’s how a soul grows and learns. Each life lived shapes the soul, leaves a mark. The two of you have been together through many lives. That’s the reason you can follow her.

  “The answer to your question is yes. She’ll be there, but she won’t be the same person you knew.”

  My mind spun with possibility and doubt. My fear and my desire to agree instantly battled. I felt my insight kick into overdrive. It brushed away the branching paths I saw before me and locked onto my goal, being reunited with my family. I’d trusted this intuition my entire life, and it had never steered me wrong. In the nothing gold threads sprang from my hand, and I felt them pull me towards a decision.

  “I don’t know who, or what, you are. I’m lost in this nothing. The last real memory I have is of my death, and all this seems like it might just be my brain shutting down and dying from lack of oxygen. I have a sense of great and terrible power when I look at you, and I don’t trust any of this.”

  She waved a hand towards me and golden letters took shape over her head. “I am Nythera. As for what I am, well, Dean Kuroi, I’m the same thing you are, just older and more powerful.”

  “You’re a guy who got run over by a truck and is hallucinating a conversation while he waits for his brain to finish dying, but older and more powerful?”

  Her gentle laugh rippled through the nothing. She held up her right hand and clenched it into a fist. Thousands of golden threads spun out and around her hand. She pointed to my hand with one finger.

  I raised my hand and saw golden threads twisting around it. Three or four compared to the large number visible on her hand.

  “Make your choice. Follow your soulmate and keep your memories, or drift through the nothing, lose your memories, and hope for the best.” She did not seem annoyed or angry. I still thought I felt her smile behind the shadows and shroud. “The deal is good for ninety seconds.”

  I laughed at hearing my high-pressure pitch used on me and counted out eighty seconds in my mind. “I accept.”

  She grasped the hilt of the absurdly large sword she stood behind and brought the flat of the blade gently down on my head. A flash of golden light sent hundreds of her golden light threads dancing around and through me.

  “Welcome to Aurelium, my champion.”

  Her golden light faded along with my consciousness, and I knew no more.