Chapter 114: Where the lost finds the boat.
"I’ve been here for twenty days now..."
My mind has cleared up. I do not feel any distinct pain anymore. Even though I’ve not had anything to drink or eat, I am fine so that means this isn’t actually the real world.
But whatever this place is, I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.
"Just how long will you keep me here?"
There was water all around me. I wasn’t inside water, but on water.
The sky above me did not have any stars, the atmosphere around me did not seem to have any air either. I do not know how I am alive, but if I had to guess, I’d say this ’thing’ besides me is the reason.
"..."
It was white, it was strange, it was like a ball of energy, but at the same time, I think it is alive.
It’s something complicated. I do not understand what this thing is, but I know one thing: it is the only one here besides me.
Or, I should say I am the only one present ’here’ besides it.
"I have to go out. Please understand. This is not where I am supposed to be."
The world around me was just water. I walked on the surface of this endlessly stretched water.
I have been here ever since I fell unconscious.
There were wounds on my body before but there’s nothing there anymore. I am healed, or, I guess I should say my actual body got healed.
But then again, I don’t think this is anything different from my actual body even though it isn’t actually it.
I want to think that this is a separate reality created by a powerful entity, but if that were the case, I should at least have been able to communicate with them.
Or maybe I have been communicating with them all this time, I don’t really know the answer to that either.
What I do know, however, is the fact that I need to get out of here. I have to go back to the world where I belong.
I left Felix alone. I don’t even know how she is doing right now.
But anything I do ends up in a futile effort. This white blob of light isn’t talking to me, and this world does not have an end of its own.
"What do I do...?"
I have tried everything I could. But, not only does the golden energy that I have works here, not doing anything else results in anything.
I cannot use spells here, I cannot use any taming techniques here, I cannot do anything at all. This world seems like an empty hell that I have been banished into.
"This reminds me of a story I once heard in the faraway lands of the upper continent."
I don’t know how or when I will get out of this place but since all the ideas for today were used up I just sat down on the surface of the water.
I didn’t even get wet in this place. It was a strange thing.
I feel the wetness but it does not affect my body as if the world around me exists but I do not, that I am not actually here even though I am.
"Hmm..."
It’s something different. I should think back to that in a while. But for now, I looked at the blob of white energy and recited the tale of the First River.
"It is said that when someone dies, they must cross over to one of the three sides of ’afterlife’."
I don’t know how I can describe it, but I knew this white energy thing was always listening to me, observing me, or at least present there.
It follows me everywhere I go, it vanishes sometimes and then comes back, it’s strange but it has its unique characteristics. It is a unique being.
Telling it something didn’t really seem futile.
"The dead must cross the First river to get back to the cycle of life and death. It is the first river that brings them back to the world where they finish a new cycle before returning to the flow of the world once again."
Of the three rivers that divide the three aspects of the afterlife, the first river is the most famous because it represents how life does not end just because someone dies.
"The Second River brings you to the realm of the dead." People also call that place heaven.
A place that’s pretty different from the actual descriptions of heaven that are famous among the common masses.
’This story comes from one of the oldest origins. Some even compare it to the song of ice and rain. It is different from the old song that describes the end of the world, but if we see it from the viewpoint of the three river tale, then it’s something similar as well.’
The world does not end simply because it has come to an end. It renews and it is born once again. The end, at the end, is not the end.
It is fascinating folklore so I was pretty interested in it back when I learned of it from the old tribes of that region.
"The Third River is the river of Salvation." This, now, is the actual ’hell’ that people see as a damned realm, which, according to the native tribesmen, isn’t as bad as what people have always believed.
It is called the river of salvation because it brings one to a place that exists beyond life and death or rebirth.
Heaven, on the other hand, is an eternal torture that a soul should not endure.
’I personally thought of it as something funny. Those concepts were different from everything I have known, but then again, now that I’m seeing this place, I am reminded of that story.’
The First River looks exactly like this place: A serene, endless plain where a boat arrives to bring you to a new Chapter of a new life.
"I don’t want to live a new life though."
There’s so much we have to do. So much that we have to change.
I know I haven’t died so having these strange thoughts is simply bad. If anything, I should be thinking about getting out of this place.
But how do they do that?
How do I get out of here when I don’t even know what I am doing here.
"..."
The white light seemed a little confused, well, it didn’t. It was just a strange white light that I still don’t understand, but for some reason, it did seem confused.
But why was it confused?
What was there to be confused about?
’This was just a story anyways.’
Did the story actually seem that confusing to it? I don’t think that’s it.
Then...
"Was it me?"
Was I...
-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!
...the confusing one?